St Anthony Abbot

Entry

The bearded old man wears an undergarment and a scapular, cloak and hooded cape. His gaze is directed to an open book which he is holding in front of him. Depicted here, is St Anthony Abbot, the popular Christian saint, known as the father of monasticism. His physiognomy, hairstyle and dress correspond with the traditional way in which this saint is portrayed. Although the pig which often accompanies St Anthony is absent, the man presumably had held the tau- or cross-staff in his right hand which, together with the book, are customary attributes of the holy hermit.

Stylistically the figure is still firmly rooted in the tradition of the Southern Netherlandish late-baroque. That explains why, when it was acquired in 1972, the statue was attributed to the Southern Netherlands and dated c. 1700.¹ However, aspects such as the degree of realism in the hands and head section, combined with the restrained folds of the clothing, suggest a much later origin. The piece presents such close parallels with the work of Petrus Verhoeven (1729-1816) that it can be attributed unequivocally to that nothern Brabantine sculptor. It is in fact one of the best works in his qualitatively somewhat erratic oeuvre.

Little is known about the life of Petrus Verhoeven.² In view of his style, which shows a strong affinity with Southern Netherlandish examples, he is thought to have been trained in Antwerp which was the leading sculpture centre in Flanders at that time. However, no concrete confirmation has been found. From 1760 onwards he was working as an independent sculptor in his birthplace Uden. His patrons were the regional clandestine Catholic churches, and towards the end of his life, the ‘regular’ Catholic churches, which had meanwhile been rehabilitated. On the basis of seventeen signed works, a sizeable oeuvre, comprising some sixty religious figures, as well as church furniture, including altars, tabernacles, organ cases, reliquaries and two wooden monstrances, has been attributed to Petrus Verhoeven. His son Jan (1766-1818) was also a sculptor and worked until his father’s death in the workshop, after which he worked independently for some time.³

St Anthony Abbot was one of the saints most frequently portrayed by Petrus Verhoeven. Besides the present figure, nine other sculptures, a half-figure on a reliquary and a small relief are known to exist with his likeness.⁴ They all have more or less the same composition. A fine version, closely akin to the present figure, can be found in Reek. The abbot is identifiable thanks to the tau-staff in his hand. That piece is also carved from oak, rather than lime wood, which was more customary for Verhoeven. That figure is thought to date from 1803, the year in which the new church in Reek was consecrated.⁵ The facial type, combined with a flowing beard and a tuft of hair on the forehead of both works, as well as the sculptures subtle, almost painterly muted rendering are very similar. In addition, the pig is absent in both pieces. The similarity with the figure in Reek, who is still holding his tau-staff, bears out the assumption that the present saint is indeed identifiable as St Anthony Abbot.

The affinity between Verhoeven’s portrayals of St Anthony Abbot and a terracotta study of the same saint by the Antwerp sculptor, Walter Pompe (1713-1777) in the Van Herck collection, has already been remarked.⁶ The terracotta was probably the model for an almost identical, monumental version in polychromed wood which Pompe made for the church of St Anthony in the village of Mook in Dutch Limburg.⁷ It is quite possible that, when designing the present statuette, Verhoeven was inspired by Pompe’s renderings. The face with its serene, unassuming expression greatly resembles that of the present piece, as are the sequence of folds in Anthony’s garments, and his contrapposto, with one foot projecting a little over the base. A monstrance Verhoeven made in 1782 for the church in Ewijk (now in the Museum Krona, Uden) is another example of the fact that the sculptor at times derived inspiration from examples from the past: it is a free interpretation of the monstrance made in 1715 or 1739 for the church of Uden by Jacob Smits, a silversmith from Den Bosch.⁸

Judging from the size, the sides and the flat reverse, the Amsterdam piece was probably originally a sculptural element in church furniture, such as a figure on the outside of a confessional.⁹ In the hollowed back, three compartments have been added – probably at a later date – using a casing. The compartments could be closed with hinged panels (of which only the middle panel remains). Their purpose is not known, they are too large to have been repositories for holy relics.

Bieke van der Mark, 2025