Object data
oak
height 34.6 cm × width 33.5 cm × depth 12 cm
Master of Hakendover
The Repentant St Peter
Brussels, c. 1425
Technical notes
The wood comes from a tree that grew very quickly, thus preventing dendrochronological analysis due to an insufficient number of year rings. What could be established is that the tree originates from another region than the Agony in the Garden by a follower of the Master of Hakendover (BK-NM-2482), which was carved from the wood of a slowly growing tree, likely from northern Poland.1
Condition
The original polychromy was removed with a caustic; the statuette is otherwise in excellent condition.
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-2011-3
Credit line: Gift in lieu of inheritance tax of the heirs of H.O. Goldschmidt
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Master of Hakendover (active in Brussels c. 1395-1430)
This anonymous master was named after his most important work, the main altarpiece in the Goddelijke Zaligmakerkerk in Hakendover. Dedicated to the church’s miraculous founding – according to the legend the Lord himself had helped in the construction of the building – this altar retable dates from circa 1405. In 1978, many of its carved groups were stolen. The Master of Hakendover’s skill as a carver of narrative scenes is nevertheless well-documented in photographs.
Unfortunately, nothing is known about the Master of Hakendover’s identity. From circa 1400 onward, he is thought to have worked in Brussels, where the master is likely to have established a large and versatile workshop. As a sculptor, his origins have been subject to some debate. On the basis of stylistic similarities between the Hakendover sculptures and the Coronation group from the church of Saint-Jacques in Liège, Steyaert has proposed the Meuse region as his place of training, most likely in Liège. This theory, however, has received minimal support.2
From 1399 to 1409, the Master of Hakendover was involved in the decoration of the Sint-Martinuskerk at Halle (Belgium), producing the stone wall tabernacle and a series of large stone statues of the apostles for the choir. Around 1415, he carved an altarpiece for the Sankt-Reinoldikirche in Dortmund. Likewise attributed to the master are a number of small apostle figures adorning a nineteenth-century pulpit in Dorking (England)3 and five retable groups which are considered to be early works.4
The Master of Hakendover is a seminal figure, not only because he stands out as one of the leading sculptors active in the Duchy of Brabant in the early fifteenth century. His work also testifies to the development of sculpture in its transition from the elegant and courtly International Gothic style – i.e. in the tradition of the Franco-French sculptor André Beauneveu (active 1363-1403) from Valenciennes – to the more naturalistic idiom of the Brabantine Late Gothic style, with its greater eye for expressive narrative scenes and details such as broken drapery folds. This transition manifests itself most eloquently in two late works by the Master of Hakendover, the Amsterdam Repentance of St Peter (BK-2011-3) and the Praying Apostles in New York.5
Marie Mundigler, 2023
References
R. Marijnissen and H. Van Liefferinge, ‘Les retables de Rheinberg et de Hakendover’, Jahrbuch der Rheinischen Denkmalpflege 27 (1967), pp. 75-92; D. Roggen, ‘Het retabel van Hakendover’, Gentse bijdragen tot de kunstgeschiedenis 1 (1934), pp. 108-21; J.W. Steyaert et al., Late Gothic Sculpture: The Burgundian Netherlands, exh. cat. Ghent (Museum of Fine Arts) 1994, pp. 67-70 and pp. 142-48; M. van Vlierden, ‘Enkele retabelfragmenten uit het atelier van de Meester van het retabel van Hakendover’, in C. van de Velde et al., Constructing Wooden Images: Proceedings of the Symposium on the Organization of Labour and Working Practices of Late Gothic Carved Altarpieces in the Low Countries, Brussels 25-26 October 2002, Brussels 2005, pp. 181-205; M. van Vlierden et al., Hout- en steensculptuur van Museum Catharijneconvent, ca. 1200-1600, coll. cat. Utrecht 2004, pp. 86-89; K.W. Woods, ‘Newly Discovered work in England by the Master of Hakendover’, Oud Holland 113 (1999), pp. 93-106
Entry
At the time of its discovery and publication in 1994, this oak relief of The Repentant St Peter was described as ‘a miniature masterpiece of Netherlandish sculpture’. The relief has lived up to its reputation ever since, with Steyaert’s attribution to the Master of Hakendover, a sculptor active in Brussels from around 1395 to circa 1430, immediately garnering unanimous acceptance.6 This anonymous master’s name of convenience is derived from his most important surviving work, an altarpiece from the Goddelijke Zaligmakerkerk in Hakendover (Belgium) of circa 1405.7 Produced in the same period (1399-1409) is the master’s stone sculpture for the choir and sacrament house of the Sint-Martinuskerk in Halle (Belgium). The retable of the Sankt-Reinoldikirche in Dortmund is generally viewed as a work from the middle of his career, circa 1415.8 More recently, a number of individual sculptures once belonging to large retables have come to light, which can also be attributed to the Master of Hakendover or his workshop.9 Consequently, no doubt remains that the Master of Hakendover is certain to have been one of the leading and most influential woodcarvers in Brabant in the early fifteenth century, and that his workshop was responsible for the large-scale sculptural production, primarily centring on retables, that lasted for a period of several decades. Woods rightly characterized him as a pioneer in the development of commercial retable sculptural production in Brussels, which by around the mid-fifteenth century had become an established branch of industry.10
The Master of Hakendover’s work marks the transition from the International Gothic, in the Franco-Flemish tradition of the French court sculptor André Beauneveu (active 1363-1403), to the Brabantine late-gothic style, characterized by a greater attention to narrative, long slender figures and a more erratic treatment of the drapery folds. This transition can be readily traced within the master’s oeuvre, with The Repentant St Peter, together with a sculptural group of praying apostles in New York (fig. a), representing the final phase of his style, as Steyaert has demonstrated.11 Notably, this ultima maniera was accompanied by a shift in the carving material: oak, a harder wood sort, was introduced to replace the walnut used for the earlier works.12
In the penetrating and modern appearance of The Repentant St Peter, one observes a more angular style with erratic forms, displacing the elegant and disproportionately elongated figures and drapery folds that prevailed in the Master of Hakendover’s earlier work. The kneeling apostle is entirely ‘encased’ in an almost abstract cave of monumental rocks. The figure of St Peter himself is comprised of diagonal and angular surfaces that further extend into the linear play of the piled rocks. This compact and elementary composition draws the viewer’s gaze directly to the scene’s heart: the apostle’s starkly tilted head and his folded hands. His inner struggle is portrayed so dramatically that one almost forgets this group was originally part of a large, polychromed ensemble, such as a monumental Passion retable with a scene of the Agony in the Garden.13 In sculpture prior to the Counterreformation, however, the theme of the repentant St Peter was very rare. This raises the possibility that the sculpture is a fragment from an altar devoted to the life of St Peter.
The same kind of emotional expressiveness is also observable in the composition of the New York group of apostles. Due to the extreme verticality of the drapery folds and the juxtaposed heads, the gathered figures seemingly merge together in prayer as one. Here too, the viewer’s gaze is drawn to the heart of composition, with John’s folded hands forming the visual fulcrum. Woods believed that Rogier van der Weyden (c. 1400-1464) might also have been influenced by the expressive, unnatural poses and the emotional intensity of this late and radical work by the Master of Hakendover. She observed this agreement especially in the figure of the present St Peter, comparing it to the famously spasmodic pose of the repentant Mary Magdalene in Van der Weyden’s Descent from the Cross in the Prado.14 More recently, she also noted the similarity of the positioning of Peter’s head and hands to that of another contorted figure of the saint found in a small alabaster relief of the Agony in the Garden (c. 1430-40) attributed to the Master of Rimini (active c. 1425-50).15
Frits Scholten, 2024
Literature
J.W. Steyaert et al., Late Gothic Sculpture: The Burgundian Netherlands, exh. cat. Ghent (Museum of Fine Arts) 1994, pp. 68-71, no. 23 and cover ill.; Preising in 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. 1; K.W. Woods, ‘Newly Discovered Work in England by the Master of Hakendover’, Oud Holland 113 (1999), pp. 93-106, esp. pp. 100, 102; H.O. Goldschmidt, Hemelse beelden: Het verzamelen van kunst (Rijksmuseum Twenthe cahier), Enschede 2001, p. 4; M. van Vlierden, ‘Enkele retabelfragmenten uit het atelier van de Meester van het retabel van Hakendover: Een eerste verkenning’, in C. Van de Velde et al., Constructing Wooden Images: Proceedings of the Symposium on the Organization of Labour and Working Practices of Late Gothic Carved Altarpieces in the Low Countries, Brussels 25-26 October 2002, Brussels 2005, pp. 181-205, esp. p. 195 and fig. 10; K.W. Woods, Imported Images: Netherlandish Late Gothic Sculpture in England c. 1400-c. 1550, Donington 2007, p. 372; F. Scholten, ‘Acquisitions: Medieval Sculpture from the Goldschmidt-Pol Collection and from Other Donors’, The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 59 (2011), pp. 414-35, esp. no. 1; F. Scholten (ed.), 1100-1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2015, no. 16; K.W. Woods, Cut in Alabaster: A Material of Sculpture and its European Traditions 1330-1530, London 2018, p. 152
Citation
F. Scholten, 2024, 'Meester van Hakendover, The Repentant St Peter, Brussels, c. 1425', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.497801
(accessed 14 November 2024 17:00:21).