Object data
oak and polychromy
height 69.7 cm × width 20.7 cm × depth 15.5 cm
Borman workshop
Virgin and Child, Standing on the Crescent Moon
Brussels, c. 1490 - c. 1500
Technical notes
Carved and polychromed. The missing points of the crescent moon were carved separately. The sculpture is hollow, with an oblong opening on the reverse that was perhaps originally covered with a wooden plank. The back of Mary’s head has been crudely finished with a chisel. On top of the head, in the middle towards the back, is a small elevated area known as a Krönlein, on which indentations can be discerned arising from the clamp that was used to brace the woodblock in the workbench.
Condition
Old (but non-original) polychromy with at least two overpaintings.1 A possible remnant of the original polychromy was found beneath the crescent moon (azure blue on a white chalk ground). The separately carved points of the crescent moon have broken off. Christ’s right arm is missing.2
Provenance
…; collection Professor Dr H.O. Goldschmidt (1920-2009), Eindhoven, date unknown; donated to the museum by his heirs, Mr H. Goldschmidt, Tilburg and Mrs M.A.B. Goldschmidt, Wassenaar, in lieu of inheritance tax, 2011
Object number: BK-2011-2
Credit line: Gift in lieu of inheritance tax of the heirs of H.O. Goldschmidt
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Jan Borman II (? Neerlinter c. 1460 - Brussels c. 1520) and the Borman workshop
The prominent Brussels sculptor Jan Borman II - or Borreman(s) - was rediscovered by the Leuven city archivist Van Even in 1876. The sculptor, described in a Brussels’ document drawn up in 1513 as the beste meester beeldsnijdere (best master sculptor) is part of an influential sculptors-dynasty, two members of which (his father and son) confusingly are likewise named ‘Jan’. In the 1930’s and 80’s the biographical and archival knowledge on the Borman-dynasty was greatly enhanced through efforts by De Borchgrave d’Altena and D’Hainaut-Zveny, and again updated in 2019 by Debaene and Dumortier.3
In 1479, the name of Jan Borman II – also referred to as ‘the Great’ in distinguishing him from his father, Jan I (c. 1440-1502/3) – appears for the first time in the city register of Brussels in connection with his citizenship and entry into the sculptor’s guild. He therefore originated from elsewhere, with some strong indications pointing to Leuven, where his father – who lived in the nearby town of Neerlinter – is considered to have been active from about 1460 until his death.
While few details are known about his life, certain is that Jan II had a brother, Willem I, who might also have worked as a sculptor, and at least two sons, Pasquier (c. 1470-1537?) and Jan III (c. 1480-?), who both assisted in their father’s workshop and later entered the same guild, respectively in the years 1492 and 1499. Other Borman-family members who were probably active in the workshop are Maria Borman (d. 1545, Jan III’s wife or sister?) and Willem II (c. 1518?-before 1599, Pasquier’s son). Jan II was highly active in the cultural and social life of Brussels, serving as an administrator of the rhetorical chamber, a member of the Seven Sorrows Confraternity.4 Jan II was active until around 1516 and is likely to have died in or around 1520, as his name no longer appears in archival documents after this time.
Jan Borman II’s most important work is the St George Altar, completed in 1493 for the Great Guild of the Crossbow for their chapel of Onze-Lieve-Vrouw van Ginderbuiten in Leuven. Although he produced at least two other altarpieces for the cities of Leuven and Turnhout, only the St George Altar has survived, since 1813 preserved at the Art and History Museum in Brussels.5 Remarkably, the altar has been signed, thus clearly conveying a self-awareness of his ability and status as an artist. In fact, the Borman family placed their signature on a number of their carved altarpieces – also those in Herentals (signed by Pasquier) and in Güstrow (signed by Jan III) – a practice that was highly exceptional for Netherlandish sculptors at this time. The Borman workshop created several altarpieces for the German, Scandinavian and Spanish export markets and at least one altarpiece is known to have found its way to Italy (Mondovi).6
In 1511, Jan Borman II was asked to provide the wooden models for life-size bronze statues, to be cast by Renier I van Thienen (active c. 1465-d. 1498), that were destined for the balustrade enclosing the forecourt (Baliënhof) of the Coudenberg Ducal Palace in Brussels after designs by the court painter Jan van Roome (active 1498-1521). Jan II had previously collaborated with Van Thienen on the tomb of Mary of Burgundy in Bruges in circa 1490-98. On stylistic grounds, Borman likely also carved the wooden models for Isabella of Burgundy’s tomb in Antwerp, of which ten surviving bronze weepers are today preserved in the Rijksmuseum (BK-AM-33). The Borman style was highly influential in the first decades of the sixteenth century and the family workshop was continued until the late 1540’s.
In 2019, the Museum M in Leuven organized an exhibition on the Borman dynasty. In the accompanying catalogue, Lefftz and Debaene attempted to define the creative identity and artistic development of individual family members, resulting in a fundamental reordering and major expansion of the oeuvre.7 In many cases based on presumption and stylistic arguments, their findings led to substantial shifts. Sculptures previously linked to the most renowned member of the Borman family, Jan II, as well as other anonymous Leuven masters, including the Master of the Arenberg Lamentation, the Master of Piétrebais and the Master of Christ on the Cold Stone, were now reassigned to an oeuvre of approximately sixty pieces ascribed to father Jan I, a sculptor to whom in fact no surviving sculptures can be attributed unequivocally. In Lefftz and Debaene’s vision, the Borman style originated in Jan I’s workshop in Leuven, where Jan II first acquired his skills before moving on to Brussels. Grandson Pasquier was linked to works such as the alabaster statuettes on the tomb monuments of Margaret of Bourbon, her husband and mother-in-law in the Monastère royale de Brou at Bourg-en-Bresse, while Jan III and Maria were chiefly typecast as conservative and inferior sculptors, merely capable of repeating previously devised formulas. In light of the stylistic cohesion of a majority of the works, however, attributions to individual artistic personalities within the Borman workshop prove perilous when founded solely on stylistic criteria. Moreover, a close collaboration between family members, apprentices and assistants undoubtedly existed in the workshop, with larger commissions even involving working associations with other studios, as was common practice at this time. On the other hand, a number of the attributed sculptures display only a minimal stylistic agreement with the Borman family’s core works, suggesting little more than an origin in the same artistic circle.
Marie Mundigler and Bieke van der Mark, 2024
References
J. de Borchgrave d’Altena, Le retable de Saint Georges de Jan Borman, Brussels 1947; M. Debaene (ed.), Borman: A Family of Northern Renaissance Sculptors, exh. cat. Leuven (Museum M) 2019; E. van Even, ‘L’auteur du retable de 1493 du Musée de la Porte de Hal à Bruxelles’, Bulletin des Commissions Royales d’Art et d’Archéologie 16 (1877), pp. 581-98; E. van Even, ‘Maître Jean Borman, le grand sculpteur belge de la fin du XVe siècle’, Bulletin des Commissions Royales d’Art et d’Archéologie 23 (1884), pp. 397-426; B. D’Hainault-Zveny, ‘La dynastie Borreman (XVe-XVIe s.). Crayon généalogique et analyse comparative des personnalités artistiques’, Annales d’histoire de l’art et d’archeologie V (1983), pp. 47-66; J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, pp. 40-45; H. Nieuwdorp, ‘Einige Bemerkungen zu den Bormanns, ihren Werkstätten und der Zusammenarbeit’, in C. Périer-D’Ieteren et al., Der Passions-Altar der Pfarrkirche St. Marien zu Güstrow. Historische und Technologische Studie, Brussels 2014, pp. 169-73; E. Pegues, ‘Jan Borreman’s Wooden Models for Bronze Sculpture: A Documentary Reconstruction’, Artibus et Historiae 76 (2017), pp. 181-204; F. Scholten, Isabella’s Weepers: Ten Statues from a Burgundian Tomb, Amsterdam 2007, pp. 46-48; U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, vol. 4, Leipzig 1910, pp. 364-65
Entry
Standing on a crescent moon and holding the Christ Child on her arm, the Virgin appears here as Maria Apocalyptica from St John’s Book of Revelations, who personifies the Christian Church. She is Ecclesia, while the crescent moon beneath her feet symbolizes the old Jewish church, Synagoga, beneath her feet. Christ is holding an apple, a reference to the Fall of Man and a symbol of man’s redemption made possible through his sacrifice on the cross. The iconography also identifies the Virgin and her son as the ‘new Eve’ and the ‘new Adam’.
The Virgin appears as an extraordinarily elegant lady, in a dignified style, on sound argumentation associated with woodcarving in Brussels of the late fifteenth century. Certainly in the case of depictions of Mary and female saints, this style is characterized by a degree of courtly elegance, by the characteristic face with sharply defined, sickle-shaped eyes, the high bulbous forehead, the long slender neck, the fine contours of the mouth and the long, straight strands of hair. As such, the present oak figure embodies an ideal of feminine beauty also encountered in painting of the late fifteenth century.8 It likewise reflects the great influence of this ideal on Brabantine sculpture of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. The style’s popularity was especially stimulated by the serial production of statuettes of the Virgin and of saints in Mechelen, commonly referred to as poupées de Malines.
Despite the absence of the Brussels quality mark – a small struck mallet – the statuette’s pronounced style leaves little doubt it was made in that city. An observable agreement with the various physiognomic types and drapery folds on a number of sculptures bearing the Brussels mallet – Madonnas and female saints – confirms this attribution beyond doubt. These stylistic traits are especially found with a number of Madonnas from the vast corpus of works associated with the prominent workshop of the Borman family in Brussels.9
A recent review and reordering of this corpus has sparked efforts to establish a clearer picture of the artistic contours of Jan I (c. 1440-1502/3) and Jan III (c. 1480-?), respectively the father and probable son of the best-known member of the Borman dynasty – Jan II (c. 1460-c. 1520) and to more sharply define the sculptors’ respective oeuvres.10 This was done on the basis of various surmises: Jan I’s hand was said to have been ‘recognized’ in the work of the so-called Arenberg Master,11 with Jan III, for example, to be above all understood as a conservative perpetuator of the formulas developed by his father.12 In the end, the newly defined oeuvres for both Bormans, constructed along these lines and primarily on stylistic grounds, prove stylistically rather heterogenous and convince only to a point.
In this context, the Amsterdam Virgin and Child was attributed to Jan Borman III, without further argumentation.13 Noteworthy, however, is that both the Madonna and her child display a close similarity in facial type and drapery scheme to a number of other works, linked not to the purported oeuvre of Jan Borman III but instead to that of Jan I and Jan II. Similar core stylistic traits can be observed with two figures of Mary Magdalene – in the Musée Cluny and in the Art and History Museum in Brussels – traditionally ascribed to Jan Borman II14 but which now – on unapparent grounds – are attributed to the father.15 The same fate now also befalls the bronze weepers on the monumental tomb of Isabella of Bourbon in the Rijksmuseum (BK-AM-33),16 a number of which show some kind of agreement with the face of the Amsterdam Virgin and Child.
Far greater stylistic parallels can be observed between the Rijksmuseum Madonna and four statuettes of the enthroned Virgin and Child,17 several somewhat larger, standing figures of the Virgin Mary,18 two St Ursulas,19 a St Barbara,20 a Virgin from an Annunciation in the Louvre,21 a group of three angels22 and various female statuettes from the large Brussels-marked Mary and Joseph retable from Saluzzo.23 Similarities to figures in the St George Altar (1493) – indisputably the work of Jan Borman II – have previously been noted by Guillot de Suduiraut on the basis of two of the aforementioned enthroned Madonnas.24
Similarly, the Amsterdam Christ Child’s resemblance to the many children’s figures on the Altar of the Holy Kinship (‘Auderghem Altar’)25 – attributed to Jan Borman II – but also to various other Jesus figures found in sculptural groups attributed to him or his workshop are also notably substantial: one observes the same almond-shaped eyes, plump faces and the wig-like rendering of the hair.
In summary, the shared stylistic cohesion of all these works is so great that they could only have been produced in one large workshop operating for an extended period of time – in all probability that of Jan Borman II – as opposed to different workshops (including those of Jan II, Pasquier and Jan III Borman), as asserted by Lefftz’s recent construction of Borman works. It is evident that the Amsterdam Virgin and Child also belongs to this stylistic group and must therefore be attributed to this same workshop.
In her discussion of the aforementioned Annunciation in the Louvre, Guillot de Suduiraut not only discerned stylistic similarities with a number of Brussels retables in Sweden, in which she found a similar touche de douceur un peu suave.26 This could very well suggest a common origin, though not necessarily emanating from the one and the same workshop. Guillot de Suduiraut rightly stated the risks of attributing such a large group to single workshop, especially in the case of Jan Borman III. One explanation for both the stylistic homogeneity within this group, along with the numerous, albeit minor disparities, is that this latter Borman workshop (or a workshop heavily influenced by the Borman style) experienced a gradual stylistic development in the approximate period 1490 to 1510. Initially, this production continued in the same stately, courtly style observed in the female figures of the St George Altar and the two Mary Magdalens. Eventually, however, this style made way for a somewhat more saccharine idiom, witness the Paris Annunciation and the retables in Brussels and Sweden. To what extent this transformation from ‘courtly’ to ‘saccharine’ coincides with the transition from Jan II to Jan III Borman cannot be determined. Certain is that the influence of the Borman idiom weighed quite heavily on sculpture produced in Brussels around the year 1500. The present Virgin and Child convincingly demonstrates this influence.
Frits Scholten, 2024
Literature
A.C. Oellers, D. Preising, U. Schneider et al., In gotischer Gesellschaft: Spätmittelalterliche Skulpturen aus einer niederländischen Privatsammlung, exh. cat. Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 1998, no. 6; F. Scholten, ‘Acquisitions: Medieval Sculpture from the Goldschmidt-Pol Collection and from Other Donors’, The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 59 (2011), pp. 414-35, esp. no. 3; M. Debaene (ed.), Borman: A Family of Northern Renaissance Sculptors, exh. cat. Leuven (Museum M) 2019, p. 95 and no. 204
Citation
F. Scholten, 2024, 'Borman werkplaats, Virgin and Child, Standing on the Crescent Moon, Brussels, c. 1490 - c. 1500', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.497800
(accessed 22 November 2024 16:57:19).