The chapel stands on the plateau of Auron, in the Alpes-Maritimes Department, in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, a short distance from the town of Saint-Etienne-de-Tinée. Built in the 13th century or in the first half of the 14th, it consists of a wide nave with an exposed framework, prolonged by two uneven apses vaulted with semi-domes and flanked on the south side by a bell tower with a stone spire and a perpendicular building added in the mid-16th century, used as a presbytery. The ceiling has an exposed wooden structure and a wooden balcony runs along the sides of the nave.
The date 1451, shown in an inscription, indicates the date of completion of the beautiful pictorial decoration covering the two apses, the central niche and the two walls of the nave. Attributed to an anonymous Piedmontese artist who has been given the conventional name of Master of Lusernetta, the cycle is dedicated to the lives and deeds of Saints Denis, Bishop of Paris, and Erige, Bishop of Gap. In the niche between the two apses, surmounted by a masonry work canopy, two angels support Saint Mary Magdalene portrayed full-length, completely wrapped in long golden hair. Active on both sides of the Alps around the middle of the 15th century, the artist reveals links with the late Gothic language and his work is characterised by the creation of over-abundant drapery and the use of stencil decorations, in particular for the robes, as well as eccentric character notations and attempts at monumental rendering of the figures.
From the late Middle Ages, the chapel of Saint-Erige was not only a place of pilgrimage to invoke the intercession of the saint in favour of weak children, particularly those suffering from rickets or with speech problems, but was also linked to the cult of the temporary resurrection (“le répit”), of stillborn children for the time necessary to have them baptised, a belief that was widespread in Europe, from Flanders and Brabant to Provence, from Savoy to Franche-Comté, Switzerland and the Southern Tyrol, and which, in French-speaking territories, dates back to at least the beginning of the 15th century, in Savoy perhaps even to the middle of the 14th century.