The article describes the historical and critical background, style and state of conservation of the 157 cm. high polychrome wood statue of the Madonna with child, seated on a throne, dated about 1240, from Cercina (Italy). It is a typical piece of popular Tuscan art stylistically evoking the art of bust-reliquiaries, but iconographically going back to the Byzantine Nikopoie. The restoration report, by B. Schleicher, follows in the same volume. The complex restoration brought out traces of the ancient polychrome in which the yellow of gold (in reality meccato silver), was prevalent. The right hand, redone in the 18th century, when the whole group underwent considerable restoration, was replaced in its original position.