Education of the Virgin

Entry

St Anne, portrayed here as a stern mother, is leading her daughter Mary by the arm; she is holding an open book in her left hand. 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. A St Anne (BK-1954-38), originally belonging to another late-baroque Education of the Virgin, was acquired in 1954 at the same time as the present piece from the art dealer Bless.

According to the art dealer, the present piece came from a church (which he did not further specify) in the eastern part of Northern Brabant. At the time of the purchase, there were two other figures from the same church, i.e. St Joseph with the Christ Child (fig. a) and a St Anthony (not wholly intact) the present whereabouts of which are unknown.² It is not known whether that was an Anthony the Great (St Anthony Abbot) or Anthony of Padua. Although, according to Leeuwenberg, the Anthony sculpture was of slightly lesser quality, he was of the opinion that all three pieces were by the same maker.³

Later, De Bodt and Koldeweij, who were probably unaware of the existence of the corresponding St Anthony figure, assumed that St Joseph with the Christ Child – acquired in 1984 by Het Noordbrabants Museum – formed the counterpart of the present piece.⁴ Although attribution of these pieces to the same workshop is indeed convincing, particularly in view of the very similar pointed faces of Anne and Joseph, it is unlikely that they were actually conceived as pendants. The principal figures in the two groups, Anne and Joseph, are both looking to the right which, in that case, would not be logical. Moreover, the width of the Education of the Virgin is incongruous, since St Anne and the Virgin are depicted standing beside each other, while Joseph holds the Child in his arms. It is more likely that these two statues, which are practically the same height and bear identical, original polychromy in shades of red, brown and ochre, once formed an ensemble together with the St Anthony described above, with the two standing male saints (Sts Anthony and Joseph) flanking the present group.

De Bodt and Koldeweij located the Joseph statue (in association with that of Anne) in ‘Brabant or Antwerp, circle of Gabriël Grupello (1644-1730), c. 1700’.⁵ There are indeed certain stylistic similarities with contemporaneous Brabantine sculpture. However, according to Van Liebergen, the tone of the works suggests they were more likely to come from the Rhine region, between Cologne and Münster, with Düsseldorf in between, where Grupello was working from approximately 1695 to 1716, and at all events influenced local sculpture which was geared to the late-baroque Brabantine sculpture.⁶

Yet we are of the opinion that the pieces have more in common with the oeuvre of the Antwerp sculptor Walter Pompe (1703-1777), who still sought, particularly in his monumental works, to tie in with the spirit and late-baroque syntax of the generation that preceded him. For instance, the markedly angular, almost rigid folds of St Anne’s mantle lining, which sweeps to the right, occur frequently in his work, As seen in the billowing garments of the angels in St Peter Freed by an Angel (1750) and the Guardian Angel (1756).⁷ By contrast, the flowing, softer fall of Joseph’s garment and the diagonal hem of his mantle are comparable with those of the terracotta Virgin with Child (1728) in the Rijksmuseum collection (BK-NM-10134).⁸ Also, the way in which the mantles worn by St Anne, the Virgin and Joseph fan out over and/or behind their legs, is found in this Pompe terracotta, as in many other of his works.⁹ In addition, there are striking parallels regarding the facial types in Pompe’s oeuvre. Joseph’s physiognomy, with the conspicuously short chin and long, pointed nose, is very akin to a the face of the Crucified Christ (1727) in the Louvre and that of Joseph in a Holy Family in the Sint-Martinuskerk in Beveren.¹⁰ St Anne’s severe, thin head is very similar to a drawing by Pompe for a statuette of St Anne (1747) in Museum Vleeshuis in Antwerp,¹¹ and the Virgin’s plump, youthful face and slightly open mouth bears a distinct resemblance to the faces of Pompe’s Hope (1766) and Mary Magdalene (1770) in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels.¹²

In spite of all these similarities, an attribution of the Education of the Virgin and St Joseph and the Christ Child to Pompe is problematic. The figures are stiffer and far less smoothly carved than is customary for this sculptor, and the faces lack his sensual carnality. The two groups are more likely to have originated in Pompe’s immediate circle. Perhaps by of one of his apprentices,¹³ like Jacobus Tobi, who was attached to him in 1751 and was registered as an independent master in the Antwerp guild of St Luke on 13 November 1756.¹⁴ As is apparent from a somewhat rigid Maria Immaculata of 1756, with his signature, in the Museum Krona in Uden, he adopted a very similar, but more severe style to his master.¹⁵ Another candidate is the North Brabant sculptor Petrus Verhoeven (1729-1816) who worked under Pompe’s influence (cf. BK-1972-66). He made several comparable sculptures representing the Education of the Virgin, although generally with a less stern expression on St Anne’s face. Especially Verhoeven’s group in the Sint-Servatiuskerk in Borkel en Schaft, dated 1785, shows a similar drapery style.¹⁶

Bieke van der Mark, 2025