Object data
oak with polychromy and gilding
height 56.5 cm × width 62 cm × depth 14 cm
anonymous
Landscape with the Retinue of the Three Magi
Brussels, c. 1470
Technical notes
Carved in relief and polychromed. The grass has been worked with Tremolierung. The bottom edge has been integrally carved and the background partly pierced. Several holes for securing purposes can be discerned on the reverse. Dendrochronological analysis provided a tree-ring series with 100 rings, but cross-dating with reference chronologies from Central, Eastern and Northern Europe did not produce a reliable dating result.
Scientific examination and reports
- condition report: A. Lorne (The Hague), RMA, December 1995
- dendrochronology: M. Domínguez Delmás (DendroResearch), RMA, DR_R2023121, 13 November 2023
Condition
Original polychromy and gilding with remnants of several later overpaintings, specifically, on the grass, the faces and other areas. In areas where the chalk ground is exposed, retouching is sometimes evident. A crack in the foreground has been filled and retouched.
Provenance
…; from the dealer M.J. Schretlen, Amsterdam, with BK-16120, fl. 5,000 for both, to the museum, 1949
Object number: BK-16384
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
Five horsemen, including a monk, ride down a cliff in a rocky landscape that connects an upper mountain meadow with grazing sheep to a second meadow below. In all probability, the figures form the retinue of the Three Magi, who would have appeared in a separate altar group, originally positioned either below or adjacent to the present one. The Meeting of the Magi is a scene commonly encountered in late-medieval carved altarpieces, placed above the scene of the Nativity or the Adoration of Christ in the centre of the inverted ‘T’-shaped retable caisse. This arrangement can be seen in the Marian altarpiece at Ham-sur-Heure, an example of Brussels production from circa 1470.1 The renowned Marian altarpiece the Utrecht sculptor Adriaen van Wesel (c. 1417-in or after 1490) made for the Sint-Janskathedraal in Den Bosch also included a scene of the Meeting of the Magi (BK-1977-134-A), originally situated above the Nativity. The present group clearly belonged to a fairly large altarpiece and, as confirmed by the oddly angled perspective, was likewise positioned higher up with its lower edge concealed behind a scene of the Meeting of the Magi, Nativity or Adoration.
Leeuwenberg localized the present relief in Antwerp, albeit with some reservation, on the basis of ‘the overall style and the rock formation’.2 He dated the relief around 1500. The elongated, slightly arching rock formations, however, are by no means an element strictly limited to retables produced in Antwerp, as affirmed by various slightly earlier Brussels altarpieces having the same feature.3
The style bears little similarity to Antwerp woodcarving circa 1500 but instead points to a Brussels origin around 1470. Supporting this attribution is the agreement with the aforementioned retable of circa 1470 from Ham-sur-Heure, but also a relief of the Nativity today preserved at the Museum Vleeshuis (Antwerp) derived from a Brussels retable, dated by Steyaert to 1450-70 (fig. a).4 In these two works, one observes horsemen with faces that greatly resemble those in the Amsterdam relief, albeit with slightly sharper features, riding in a landscape with virtually interchangeable rock formations and mountain meadows and also featuring the occasional, grazing sheep.
Bieke van der Mark, 2024
Literature
J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 139, with earlier literature
Citation
B. van der Mark, 2024, 'anonymous, Landscape with the Retinue of the Three Magi, Brussels, c. 1470', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.24416
(accessed 23 September 2024 20:36:16).