The Notre-Dame-de-la-Gorge chapel is located on the territory of the commune of Contamines-Montjoie (Haute-Savoie) at the bottom of Val Montjoie, at 1,210 meters above sea level, on the edge of Bon-Nant. Present since at least the 11th century, this former parish church was built in a Baroque style between 1699 and 1707. It has been classified as a historical monument since 2015.
It is located on the path which, coming from the Arve valley via Saint-Gervais, leads to the Col du Bonhomme then towards Italy. An old hermitage is attached to it, upstream from the river.
The building has a single nave and is flanked to the north by a square bell tower surmounted by a bulb. On the facade, a niche above the door contains a polychrome Madonna and Child. The upper pediment, pierced with an oculus, bears the motto EGO MATER PVLCHÆ BONITATIS (“I am the mother of beautiful love”). Two cartouches on either side of the door contain mottos: QVI MARIAM INVENERIT INVENIET VITAM (“Who finds Mary finds life”) on the left and FVNDAMENTA EJVS IN MONTIBVS SANCTIS (“She is founded on the holy mountains”, excerpt of psalm 87) on the right.
The interior is decorated with stuccowork and three gilded altarpieces in the Baroque style above the altars. The one in the center3 shows the Virgin of the Assumption honored by two angels and at the very top, God the Father with the Virgin on her left and Christ on her right (the places of the Virgin and of God were reversed in the 18th or 19th century ). This altarpiece would be the work of Jacques Clairant, a Chambéry artist. The two side statues (Saint Bernard of Clairvaux and Saint Anthony) are not original. On the left altarpiece are openwork columns as well as the frieze representing the guardian angels consoling the souls in purgatory.
The pillars are decorated with crosses of consecration using the Savoy arms. A statue of Saint Francis de Sales is installed in one of the pillars. Finally, a beam of glory (the only one from Faucigny) completes the choir.