St Anne, from an Education of the Virgin

Entry

The woman, holding an open book, depicts St Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary. With her extended right arm she makes a gesture towards her young daughter, who originally stood beside her. This iconography, known as the Education of the Virgin, came into fashion in the sixteenth century and is based on the Legenda Aurea, which describes Mary’s education. Despite objections from the church during the Council of Trent (1545-1563), this apocryphal story – and the veneration of Anne in general – was popular in counter-reformist circles until far into the eighteenth century. Another late-baroque Education of the Virgin (BK-1954-39) was acquired in 1954 at the same time as the present piece from the art dealer Bless.

In 1971 Theuerkauff was able to convincingly attribute the work, which had already correctly been localized in Brabant on stylistic grounds, to the Antwerp sculptor Pieter Scheemaeckers I (1652-1714).¹ Scheemaeckers trained with his uncle Pieter Verbruggen I (1615-1686) and started his own workshop in 1674.² The Rijksmuseum possesses two drawings by Scheemaeckers, one for a funerary monument, the other for an altar (RP-T-1987-29 and -30).³ Scheemaeckers specialized in monumental assignments of like these, executed in wood as well as marble. His images of saints are characterized by their loose poses, expressive gestures and somewhat affected facial expressions: the same characteristics as evidenced in St Anne.

Theuerkauff compared the Amsterdam Anne figure with an Education of the Virgin in Herselt⁴ and with the St Anne on Scheemaeckers’ altar in Aarschot (1684).⁵ In addition, in the statue of St Bridget (1699) in the St Antonius and St Bridget altar in Diest attributed to the same sculptor, he saw a good parallel with the somewhat softer pleating of St Anne’s robe.⁶ However, the most striking similarities can be found in Scheemaeckers’ St John the Baptist altar dating from 1699/1700 in Averbode.⁷ The elderly Elisabeth in the Visitation group crowning this altar (fig. a) has the same striking facial features as St Anne, with large eyes, a pointed nose and a broad chin, as well as a similar, swelling abdomen which is outlined against the robe. Moreover, the women are positioned in a comparable contrapposto, with the right knee bent and arm outstretched to the right. The Amsterdam piece will have been made in the same period as the St John the Baptist altar, so about the turn of the century.

The wooden altar figures mentioned above have almost all been given a monochrome layer recalling marble, sometimes combined with gold. Traces of paint indicate that the irregular surface of the present work caused by various cracks and knots was originally also concealed beneath a layer of white paint. In view of its size, the group of the Education of the Virgin the figure once belonged to, may have been part of an altar ensemble, but could also have formed an independent piece set against a wall or a column.

Bieke van der Mark, 2025