The main aim of the project is to carry out, for the first time, a study of the frame of medieval monumental sculpture. Concentrated from its origin on the portals of buildings, Gothic sculpture is dependent on the architectural wall. First a column statue before becoming ronde-bosse, it is always designed in relation to the wall of the building in front of which it is placed. And it is always inserted into a frame; but the latter has never been studied. Each statue has a support (a pedestal) and an overhead covering (a canopy). The pedestal can take several forms, the most impressive being that of the marmoset, a small crouching figure directly supporting the statue or nestled under a console. The canopy takes the form of micro-architectures with extremely varied typologies. Sometimes each statue of the same jamb is isolated, with a base, a canopy and a concavity (or niche) of its own. In other cases, the sculpted frame has a unifying function with a frieze canopy or decorative motifs creating a continuous link between each statue. The forms and the functions of these peripheral sculpted elements vary according to the period and the geographical area, but also according to the intentions of the commissioner and the power of communication sought with the beholder. To carry out a large-scale research by gathering together the corpus of the Gothic sculpted monumental frame over two centuries has huge implications for the history of sculpture and techniques and enables a refined artistic geography to be put forward by focusing the study on cultural transfers. Moreover, this project is strongly anchored in the research currently being carried out on the function of the frame, on the display of the objects, on agency and on the notion of artistic margins.