The early history of the statue of Our Lady of Aberdeen consists of fact, speculation and legend. The mediaeval statue of Our Lady of Aberdeen is approximately three feet high, probably carved in linden wood, and painted. It was also decorated with silver and gold. Our Lady carries the Christ Child in her arms and holds a sceptre. She wears an open crown and the Child has the closed imperial crown. The crowns and sceptre are silver and may not be the original ones. It is commonly described as being carved in the Flemish tradition and even to have come from Flanders. There is no reason to suppose that there were no capable sculptors in the North East of Scotland, though all the evidence of their work disappeared at the time of the Reformation.
The original medieval statue is said to have stood in either the Cathedral of Saint Machar or the Mother Kirk of Saint Nicholas in Aberdeen in the time of Bishop Gavin Dunbar. It was credited with miraculously directing him to the spot where the new bridge over the River Dee should be built. Whatever its history up to that point, it is fairly certain that a finer silver Madonna replaced it in its favoured position and it was given as a gift by Bishop Dunbar to the new chapel, which stood by the new Bridge of Dee (1527). Here travellers to the city could pause after their dangerous journey and give thanks to the Virgin for their safe arrival.
The chapel was given into the care of the Magistrates of Aberdeen in 1529 and so it remained until 1559, when the first of the so called “reformers” reached the city from the South. There is a legend that the “reformers”, in their zeal, threw the Madonna into the Dee, where it was caught by the tide and floated down to the harbour. Here it was said to have been rescued by the crew of a ship bound for Ostend. This may have happened but it is more probable that it was carefully preserved beforehand.
Both the City Fathers and Bishop William Gordon had made arrangements to hide all Church property of value with various families, such as the Gordons of Huntly. What became of most of these intrinsically valuable items is not known but the wooden Madonna's history continues. Whether by design or by accident it was saved and eventually arrived in the Netherlands, where it was installed with great ceremony in the Church of Notre Dame du Bon Succčs, Brussels. The Statue, now known as "Our Lady of Good Success" (the title "Our Lady of Aberdeen" came later) was eventually moved, by order of Napoleon, to the Church of Notre Dame de Finistčre, where it remains to this day.
In 1860, when the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption was dedicated in Aberdeen, a petition for the statue's return to the city was made to Pope Pius IX. The appeal was unsuccessful so the statue remains in Brussels, where the people hold it in great affection.
There are fine copies of it in the North East of Scotland, in St. Mary's Cathedral, St. Peter's, Justice Street, at the Former Convent of the Sacred Heart, Queen's Cross (now the Bishop's House) and in St. Peter's, Buckie.
