As soon as I saw this porcelain sculpture, I thought of the Veiled Lady at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Same idea, but this one doesn't work nearly as well.
As the link notes, with the Veiled Lady, the marble has two different finishes: matte where the veil falls across the face, smooth for the rest of the head. This creates a trompe-l'oeil effect which isn't possible with porcelain. (I suppose one could have roughened up some of the finish on the porcelain in the same way as the marble, but one didn't.)
Later at this same museum I saw a painting I wanted to take a picture of, but didn't because it was forbidden. It showed Jesus and St. Francis side by side, connected by what looked like strings of goo; St. Francis appeared to be manipulating Jesus as if He were a marionette. I thought, "Huh?"
When I got back to my laptop and did a little research, I came upon a similar image by Titian, and this one by Giotto, and the mystery was solved. This motif is apparently common in Christian art. It's called "St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata"; the strings of goo connect the places on Jesus' body where He suffered His wounds to the places where the wounds appeared on St. Francis' body. (Maybe "strings of goo" isn't the best way to describe them...)
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