Roman Soldier, from a Christ Carrying the Cross

Entry

This figure comes from the scene with Christ Carrying the Cross of a Passion altarpiece. Depicted is the foremost soldier who pulls Christ forward in the direction of Golgotha. He has just turned around to mock and kick the Saviour. Especially in Antwerp, retable groups were often composed of a number of separately carved pieces in the first half of the sixteenth century. It was a method that reduced the cost price and boosted the rate of production. On the sloping ground on which this figure stands, a branded mark of a hand with fingers spread wide can be discerned. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, this quality mark was applied to woodcarvings by the inspectors of the St Luke’s Guild in Antwerp, as verification of the wood’s fine quality.

The soldier’s supple, dynamic pose, the caricatural features of his ruthless, toothless face, and the sculpture’s flowing, finished surface find their equivalent in Antwerp woodcarving of circa 1530, a time when retable production was already on the decline. Most similar to the present work are various retables attributed (most likely erroneously)¹ to Robert Moreau (documented 1532-37), an Antwerp sculptor known only from archival sources: the altarpieces of Oplinter,² Opitter,³ Enghien,⁴ Ricey-Bas,⁵ Herbais-sous-Piétrain,⁶ and Pagny.⁷

Bieke van der Mark, 2024