The Virgin as Mater Dolorosa (Our Lady of Sorrows)

Entry

At the time this compelling and moving bust of Mary was sold at auction in Madrid as part of the collection of the Russian ambassador Dmitri Schevitch (1839-1906),¹⁸ it was said to be a work of sculpture made by the painter El Greco (1541-1614).¹⁹ In the foreword of the sale catalogue, the French art historian Émile Molinier formulated his attribution as follows: ‘[…] but surely this polychrome Virgin, this Mater Dolorosa, which, in its original state, was to accompany a Christ, is without fail a work of the first order that deserves to be given a primary place in the history of Spanish sculpture. The attribution to El Greco, I repeat, is based not only on the proportions of the entire figure, but also on the physiognomic expression, an expression complemented by the polychromy. It is an attribution that is as certain as it can be in the absence of any written document. Until proven otherwise, one can view this piece as a highly intriguing example of El Greco, transformed into a sculptor’.²⁰

It is not known where or from whom Schevitch acquired the bust. A reconstruction likewise proves infeasible, stemming from the ambassador’s numerous peregrinations spanning his diplomatic career. The old attribution to El Greco, an artist rediscovered by art historians in the nineteenth century, nevertheless suggests the bust was acquired in Spain, possibly via one of the so-called revendadoras who mediated in the sale of artworks formerly owned by the destitute families of the Spanish aristocracy.²¹ A Spanish provenance would also explain the earlier polychromy on Mary’s mantle, embellished with a pattern of small stars or flowers. This (eighteenth- or nineteenth-century?) overpainting, as yet visible in a photo appearing in the auction catalogue of 1906, was later removed.²² Remarkably, the entry in the same catalogue failed to adopt Molinier’s characterization of the Mater Dolorosa as a Spanish work, as stated in the preface. Instead, the bust is described as a fifteenth-century Flemish work – a far more credible attribution.

In the Southern Netherlands, the iconographic type of the half-length portrait of the Virgin in mourning was developed as a painted Andachtsbild by Rogier van der Weyden (c. 1400-1464) and his direct followers in the second half of the fifteenth century.²³ The Virgin appears as the standard pendant of the Man of Sorrows in painted diptychs and as Christ’s counterpart in close-up depictions of the Lamentation (e.g. SK-A-856).²⁴ Examples of this type of devotional portrait are found in the oeuvres of painters such as Hans Memling, Dieric and Aelbert Bouts, and Simon Marmion.²⁵ The emergence of this iconographic type coincides with the growing popularity of Marian devotion, particularly in the context of her Seven Sorrows as propagated by various confraternities in the Low Countries.

The veneration and contemplation of the Virgin’s life in sorrow first arose in the thirteenth century. Netherlandish expressions of this specific compassio Mariae date from the fifteenth century onward.²⁶ Towards the end of that century, this devotion assumed a standard form centring on seven more explicitly formulated sorrows.²⁷ A key figure in its dissemination in the Low Countries was Jan van Coudenberghe, a cleric who served as secretary to Philip the Good, Charles V and Margaret of Austria.²⁸ In his role as dean of Reimerswaal (Zeeland), Van Coudenberghe commissioned a painting that depicted the theme of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin, to be hung in his own church around 1491-92. It was the first in a series of three, with two other paintings hung respectively in the Sint-Salvatorkerk in Bruges and the Sint-Aegidiuskerk Abbenbroek (South Holland) in 1492-94. All three paintings were copies modelled after a renowned and venerated eleventh-century icon in the Santa Maria in Aracoeli in Rome. The Latin inscriptions emblazoned on these works encouraged worshippers to contemplate The Virgin’s sorrow with the words Disce, salutator, nostros meminisse dolores septenos (Learn, my caller, to contemplate my sorrows, seven in number). In 1492, Van Coudenberghe also founded a confraternity for the devotion of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin in Bruges, which also drew followers elsewhere in the Netherlands. Three years later, this brotherhood received the pope’s approval.²⁹ Among the members’ tasks was to pray for peace in Europe as well as for the Burgundian noble house in the turbulent days following Mary of Burgundy’s death in 1482. Van Coudenberghe brought greater notoriety to this new devotion via a number of written texts. In this endeavour, he was greatly motivated by his financial supporters Charles V and Archduke Philip the Good,³⁰ with the latter having made considerable donations to the Bruges brotherhood.³¹ Yet it was above all the confraternity’s seat in Brussels, founded in 1499 in the local Sint-Gorikskerk, that held extraordinary importance for the Burgundian-Habsburg court. In addition to Philip the Good, Maximilian of Austria and Margaret of Austria, its formal members included many prominent individuals of the court and other high nobles.³² In addition, the confraternity’s chapel was recognized by the court as a princely chapel. As well through the founding of various places of pilgrimage, the devotion of the Virgin’s Sorrows rapidly gained a solid footing in the Low Countries. After Reimerswaale, Bruges and Abbenbroek followed Delft, Geertruidenberg and other smaller localities.³³ It is in the context of this newly established form of Marian devotion – still in its early stages around the year 1500 – that the Rijksmuseum Mater Dolorosa must be examined.

The Amsterdam bust can be viewed as a sculptural version of a painted Flemish ‘primitive’. This is evident, for example, in its striking similarity to the mourning Virgin in a diptych from the circle of Simon Marmion (c. 1420/25-1489, fig. a).³⁴ In utter contrast to Spanish dolorosas, where the emphasis lies on the external display of emotion, here the expression of sorrow in the face is repressed, with the mouth slightly ajar. Also identical is the form of the veil and wimple. Contrary to most painted versions of the Virgin in mourning, the sculptor of the Rijksmuseum Mater Dolorosa chose to eliminate the hands and arms in favour of a bust. As Molinier proffered in 1906, there is little doubt it was originally accompanied by its pendant, a bust of Christ, in accordance with the iconographic tradition of the Virgin and the Man of Sorrows.

Aforementioned similarities to the fifteenth-century pictorial Mater Dolorosa tradition of the Southern Netherlands firmly place the present bust in this region. Prior to the 1500s, however, late medieval sculpture in the Low Countries bears no trace of this iconographic type. Formal similarities abound, however, in the tradition of Italian sculpture. South of the Alps, but especially in Florence, the static gothic bust type typically reserved for reliquaries was eventually replaced by a more lively and realistic variant in the fifteenth century, as well applied to portraits. The same variant ultimately led to the all’antica bust a century later.³⁵ Early examples of this development can be observed in Donatello’s oeuvre, including his bronze reliquary bust of St Rossore (c. 1425) and his bronze bust of a youth.³⁶ Prior to 1500, such modern, lifelike portraits were as yet uncommon north of the Alps, though local sculptors – for example, those working in the circles of the sculptor Nikolaus Gerhaert van Leyden (c. 1430-1473) and his German followers – were already experimenting with varied poses of half-length saints, prophets, sibyls, and other figures of this sort as early as the second half of the fifteenth century.³⁷ After being introduced at the Saxon court by Adriano Fiorentino in 1498, the Florentine portrait type made its first appearance in the Netherlands in the early decades of the sixteenth century.³⁸ The earliest known examples arose at Mechelen in the innovative artistic sphere fostered by Margaret of Austria, the governess of the Low Countries, especially in the oeuvres of the sculptors Conrat Meit (1485-1550/51) and an otherwise unknown figure named Claude de Chartres.³⁹ The Rijksmuseum Mater Dolorosa exemplifies this new ‘Florentine’ portrait type.

Also in terms of technique, the Mater Dolorosa is an entirely isolated case in the context of Netherlandish sculpture. In his discussion of this work, Maek-Gérard suggested a connection to Netherlandish white pipeclay sculpture produced in Utrecht and other centres in the Low Countries in the fifteenth and early sixteenth century. He also noted that no pipeclay figurines of a quality and scale comparable to that of the Mater Dolorosa have survived.⁴⁰ This is by no means surprising when considering that the technique involved in the production of pipeclay figures was of an entirely different order. These were chiefly small to very small, relatively low-cost objects of private devotion serially produced in moulds and intended for ‘mass consumption’.⁴¹ Even the larger, less common pieces – often reliefs to be incorporated in altarpieces – were formed in moulds. Accordingly, they lack the refinement of unique works of sculpture freely modelled in terracotta.⁴² These larger pieces were chiefly made for export to various destinations across Europe, with examples still found today in Segovia, Regensburg, Normandy and Denmark. Furthermore, pipeclay is a fine and dissoluble material that scarcely lends itself to applications on a grander scale.⁴³ Additionally. the quality of clay-modelled sculptural works produced in other centres north of the Alps remains far inferior to that of the Mater Dolorosa .⁴⁴ Maek-Gérard therefore rightly concluded: ‘The Mourning Virgin seems to be a unique relic of the large-format clay sculpture of Flanders in the last quarter of the fifteenth century’.⁴⁵

The bust’s unique status can virtually only be interpreted in terms of some kind of direct influence from Italy, where, especially in Florence and Lombardy, terracotta sculpture evolved very quickly in the fifteenth century. All of the major Florentine sculptors of the quattrocento were working in clay, as a medium for modelling both preliminary studies as well as works of autonomous sculpture. Along with Ghiberti’s largely incidental use of the medium – as was also the case with his immediate successors including Donatello, Michelozzo and Verrocchio – a degree of specialization also emerged: Michele da Firenze (documented 1403-57), the Della Robbias with their glazed, ceramic works of sculpture,⁴⁶ and a number of anonymous masters, such as the Master of the Unruly Children and the Master of the David and St John Statuettes, focused almost exclusively on the manufacture of religious terracotta sculpture.⁴⁷ Others, including Benedetto da Maiano, Antonio de Benintendi and Pietro Torrigiani, proceeded to develop their own genres: portrait busts and busts of saints in polychromed or non-polychromed terracotta.⁴⁸ Especially Verrocchio’s bust of Christ would go on to become one of the most imitated iconographic types in Tuscany during the final decades of the fifteenth century, due to the penetrating realism of painted terracotta and as exemplified by the approximately one hundred copies still surviving to the present day.⁴⁹ In more north-lying regions such as Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna, where suitable stone was unobtainable, a regional ‘terracotta school’ arose, with Niccolò dell’Arca (c. 1435-1494), Guido Mazzoni (c. 1450-1518) and Antonio Begarelli (1499-1565) emerging as key players.⁵⁰

In terms of sculptural technique, the Rijksmuseum Mater Dolorosa is born of this Italian tradition. The sculpture is modelled entirely in the round in a beige-coloured clay, with an arched, portal-shaped opening on the reverse. The sculpture’s lower edge has been trimmed at an angle around its perimeter – a characteristic found only on several Florentine portrait busts, including Mino da Fiesole’s busts of Piero di Cosimo de’ Medici and Niccolò di Leonardo Strozzi, both from 1454, and Benedetto da Maiano’s portrait of Filippo Strozzi from 1475 and his bust of John the Baptist (c. 1480).⁵¹

Because the bust’s format suggests ties to developments in Florentine sculpture of the Quattrocento, one may reasonably conclude the Mater Dolorosa is the work of a sculptor schooled in Italy but whose inspiration was directly drawn from Flemish painting of circa 1500. It could have been made in Italy, where Flemish paintings were present in abundance.⁵² A sculptor of Italian origin seems improbable, however, as this would imply a marked deviation from his own pictorial tradition. More likely is that the bust’s maker was an Italian sculptor, trained in the Tuscan tradition, active in the Netherlands, and employed by a local patron with a Flemish panel painting as his model.

One individual who fits this artist’s profile is Pietro Torrigiani (1472-1528), a Florentine sculptor who spent some time, perhaps even a period of several years, working for Margaret of Austria at Mechelen prior to entering the service of the English king Henry VII in 1511. Torrigiani was born in Signa, a village on the outskirts of Florence, known today and at the time for the production of terracotta.⁵³ The sculptor’s renown in Florence experienced a major setback when, in the midst of a scuffle, he broke Michelangelo’s nose, inevitably forcing him to flee the city around 1490-92.⁵⁴ A figure virtually forgotten by art historians, this incident and Torrigiani’s numerous wanderings have shaped his fortuna critica to the present day. After fleeing Florence, he worked in Bologna (in 1492) – having been commissioned to make a terracotta portrait bust of the physician Stefano della Torre – and in Rome, where he collaborated with Pinturicchio on the stucco decorations on the Torre Borgia for Pope Alexander VI. Two other busts in painted marble, depicting Santa Fina and San Gregorio (Ospedale, San Gimignano), have also been linked to this phase in Torrigiani’s career.⁵⁵ In 1498, Torrigiani drew up his will, possibly based on his decision to enter the army: in the next five years, he served in the armies of Cesare Borgia, the condottiere Paolo Vitelli and Piero de’Medici as a mercenary soldier. In 1504, his presence is documented in Avignon and Florence, and in 1505 or 1506, again in Rome.⁵⁶ Torrigiani was in the Low Countries in April 1510, but had moved on to London only one year later, where he was employed at the English royal court, specifically to work on the first renaissance monumental tomb in Great Britain, built for King Henry VII.⁵⁷ In addition, he modelled the king’s portrait and perhaps those of several other members of the court.⁵⁸ Torrigiani spent the latter years of his life in Seville, where he died in prison in 1528.

Unfortunately, no documentation exists regarding the precise duration of Torrigiani’s employment under Margaret.⁵⁹ On 26 April 1510, her comptroller Diego Fores was ordered to pay Maistre Pierre Tourrissan tailleur et composeur de figures et ymaiges the sum of 30 Philips guilders, in what appears to be the sculptor’s final remuneration just prior to his departure for London. The payment concerns a variety of activities: the making of a freestanding statue of Hercules; the repair of the broken neck on a terracotta bust of Mary Rose Tudor, King Henry VII’s daughter; and advice rendered concerning the mausoleum at Brou, which Margaret had begun planning shortly after the death of her husband, Philibert, Duke of Savoy, in 1504, to be built for herself, her husband and her mother-in-law.⁶⁰

These last-cited plans were probably the reason for Torrigiani’s stay in the Netherlands.⁶¹ Work on the mausoleum was first undertaken in March 1505 with the renovation of the old monastery church at Brou. ⁶² Between 1505 and 1510, Margaret sought after sculptors capable of designing and executing the mausoleum’s monumental tombs. She initially hired the French court sculptor Michel Colombe (1511), followed by the Flemings Lodewijk van Boghem (1512) and Jan van Roome (1513-14), and finally the German sculptor Conrat Meit (1526). Furthermore, Margaret’s acquisition of the alabaster quarry at Saint-Lothain in 1510 indicates that it was not until this time that the actual execution of the tombs’ sculpture was first undertaken.⁶³ Pietro Torrigiani’s presence in Flanders in 1510 (and probably earlier) coincides perfectly with the governess’s efforts to find a sculptor suitable for the work to be done at Brou. His qualities as a portraitist would certainly have played a role in Margaret’s choice: after all, Torrigiani possessed the skill to produce both modern portraits carved in the round as well as models for the planned tomb effigies. Quite possibly, it was also at this time that he made the now lost portrait bust of Jean Carondelet (1469-1545), mentioned in Philip of Burgundy’s inventory in 1529.⁶⁴ Carondelet became a member of the conseil privé in Mechelen in 1508. He is also known to have commissioned a portrait by Jan Gossaert (1478-1532) around this time.⁶⁵

Also important in this context is the matter of when and where Torrigiani made the terracotta portrait of Mary Rose Tudor, which he was later asked to repair, and whether this piece was ‘after life’.⁶⁶ Up to now, various authors have surmised that he modelled this portrait in London during a previous (undocumented) stay at the English royal court.⁶⁷ A more plausible scenario, however, is that Torrigiani produced this bust while in the Netherlands, relying on a painted portrait of Mary Tudor as his model.⁶⁸ Another indirect indication of his presence in the Low Countries prior to 1510 is the fact that in April 1504 he was commissioned to produce a crucifix while in Avignon for Francesco and Giovanni Baroncelli, scions of a Florentine banking family also active in Bruges.⁶⁹ Both were related to Pierantonio di Guasparre Bandini-Baroncelli, who represented the Pazzi bank in Bruges, while the Bruges representative of the Medici bank, Tommaso Portinari, was married to Maria Baroncelli, in turn a relative of Pierantonio.⁷⁰ This family network, operating in Florence, Avignon and Bruges, may have enabled Torrigiani to make his way to Flanders, in which case he is likely to have arrived no earlier than 1505.⁷¹ The idea that Torrigiani’s career evolved around a network of Florentine bankers and merchants is further supported by the succession of cities in which he was active: Florence, Rome, Avignon, Bruges, London and Seville. In all of these places – among the most important financial centres of Europe in the fifteenth century – Florentine bankers and merchants were solidly established.⁷²

Evident stylistic and technical similarities can be discerned when comparing the Mater Dolorosa to Torrigiani’s documented works, thus supporting the Amsterdam bust’s addition to the sculptor’s oeuvre. The Virgin’s drapery folds are exceptionally distinctive, with Mary’s blue mantle appearing as if made of a heavy but supple fabric. The mantle descends in broad, decorative folds and long, waving lines framing the face, ending delicately in a slightly arched horizontal line at the breast, accentuated by an elegant, comma-shaped loop on the right. Around this, sweeping loops and V-forms enshroud the shoulders and upper arms. In this flowing, calligraphic play of line, the bust differs markedly from the generally more angular, ‘wrinkly’ pattern of its painted Flemish counterparts. Parallels emerge only when turning to Italian quattrocento sculpture and works such as Verrocchio’s bronze Christ and St Thomas.⁷³ The same distinct signature can also be discerned in Torrigiani’s work, which clearly displays Verrocchio’s influence.⁷⁴ Thick folds with the same comma-shaped loops, similar to those seen on the Rijksmuseum bust, can also be observed on the arms of his bust of a clergyman (John Fisher?) in New York (The Metropolitan Museum of Art), and to a lesser degree on the portrait of King Henry VII in London (Victoria and Albert Museum).⁷⁵ Because these portraits – just as the majority of Florentine portrait busts of the quattrocento – were meant to be displayed as freestanding sculptures, the reverse sides are also closed and finished. This is not the case with the bust of the Virgin, which, with an opening on its reverse, was apparently intended for display against a wall, as part of an altarpiece or in a wall niche. The drapery folds of Torrigiani’s two gilt-bronze tomb effigies on the monumental tomb of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York (Westminster Abbey, London) bear the same characteristics: thick loops at the foot-end, with long, decorative folds adorning the robes of the king and his consort.⁷⁶

Details in the finishing of Mary’s face – such as the deeply incised eyelids: so deep that in the corner of the left eye a small incision can be seen through the wall of the sculpture – also occur in three of Torrigiani’s male portraits in London and New York, the recently rediscovered bust of Mary Tudor in Harvard,⁷⁷ and the bust of Christ in the Santa Trinità in Florence, also attributed to Torrigiani.⁷⁸ Here too, we observe the mouth slightly opened, just enough for the teeth to be seen. The Mater Dolorosa also shares one striking technical detail with the bust of Henry VII, specifically, two seams or incised lines along the inside of the shoulders.

Thematically, the Mater Dolorosa bust complies exceedingly well with the Marian devotion practiced at Margaret’s court, and specifically, the veneration of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin.⁷⁹ The governess possessed many images of the Virgin in various forms. Her bond with some of these works was also highly personal: on one occasion, she even referred to an Andachtsbild painted by Michael Sittow as ma mignonne. ⁸⁰ Margaret also commissioned numerous artworks on the theme of the Virgin that were destined for places outside the confines of her court at Mechelen. Among these are the large stone altar of the Seven Joys of the Virgin at Brou, and a wooden Nostre Dame de pitié (Pietà) by Conrat Meit, made for the convent of the Order of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which she founded at Bruges in 1517. The monastery church was dedicated to the Seven Sorrows of Mary, a devotional theme particularly relevant to Margaret’s status as a widow.⁸¹ As mentioned above, Jan van Coudenberghe, the court secretary of the Habsburgs in the Netherlands, expended great effort in promoting this unique Marian devotion in the Low Countries. That the Mater Dolorosa had become a religious role model for the governess is explicitly conveyed in a miniature that shows Margaret mourning the loss of her recently deceased husband, Philibert. Here she appears in a pose directly reminiscent of the Virgin in mourning: kneeling in prayer with the hands folded before her breast.⁸² The fact that there are no good Northern examples for comparison with this bust of Mary – in terms of style, quality and technique – underscores the great rarity of this piece and suggests it is certain to have been a special work, possibly commissioned by or for the Habsburg court.⁸³

The specific, naturalistic characteristics of the Mater Dolorosa oblige us to consider the Rijksmuseum bust in the context of the portrait historié. Various inventories confirm such portraits – at least in painted format – were known in Margaret’s circles. Philip of Burgundy, the bishop of Utrecht, possessed two such portraits histories: a painted portrait of Barber of Montfoort as the Virgin Mary, and a Mary Magdalene modelled after a vrouwken van Mechelen (maiden from Mechelen). The first work was presented as a gift to Margaret of Austria, who furnished it with a protective shutter.⁸⁴

Frits Scholten, 2024