The Virgin Mary, from a Calvary

Entry

TThese exquisitely carved figures of the Virgin Mary (shown here) and St John (see BK-2012-5-1), – both standing on identical round plinth-like bases – are from a Calvary that very likely functioned as a house altar in a private chapel or bedchamber. The two statuettes display an extraordinary liveliness and an almost theatrical sense of drama that could only have been heightened when viewed in combination with the (now lost) crucified image of Christ on the cross in the middle. On the left, the restrained mourning of the Virgin is betrayed only by the expression of sorrow on her face and her slightly arched pose, unquestionably partly determined by the form of the elephant’s tusk from which she was carved. Opposite Mary, right of the cross, stands the dynamic figure of St John, who appears to have taken a step back with his upper torso turning in the direction of the cross, thus allowing his upturned face to gaze directly upon the body of the crucified figure. The scene’s theatricality is strengthened by the movement of John’s arms, positioned as if to express his helplessness. Adding to this drama and expression is the rendering of the clothing on both figures. The folds of Mary’s mantle are decidedly fluid, descending calmly to the ground in fluid lines; John’s attire, on the other hand, is characterized by its erratic angularity. The same contrast continues on the reverse of both ivories, albeit diminished. Mary’s mantle flows down in several flatly rendered bands, while John’s robes are demarcated by deep grooves in back. In both cases, the ivory carver excelled in the depiction of utterly fine layers of fabric, which in some areas even appear as if made from overlapping sheets of paper.

The effective and expressive use of the attire on the present two ivories recalls Roman Baroque sculpture, and specifically, works by Bernini. In combination with an almost ecstatically mournful face, the Virgin’s drapery folds can indeed be readily traced back to Bernini’s Santa Teresa (Cornaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome, c. 1644-52), and to a lesser degree, to his monumental wall tombs made for Maria Raggi (Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome, c. 1643) and Ludovica Albertoni (San Francesco a Ripa, Rome, 1671-74).⁴ St John’s pose, by contrast, subtly echoes that of the son on the right of the famed marble Laocoön group of classical antiquity. On the ivory St John, the gesturing of the hands and the positioning of the legs have been modified from the classical youth, not to mention the addition of clothing. In the connoisseur’s eyes, however, the classical roots are certain to have been immediately recognizable. To what extent this quotation of the Laocoön group was meant to equate Christ’s suffering with that of the Trojan priest Laocoön – both men being icons of suffering in the tradition of Western art as well as the prime figure in their respective groups – is hard to determine. Also classically inspired are the low, plinth-like bases commonly encountered with Roman marble sculpture.⁵

Stylistically, the present statuettes of the Virgin Mary and St John can be attributed to the most important Flemish ivory-carver in the second half of the seventeenth century, Matthieu van Beveren (1630-1690).⁶ Unknown is whether Van Beveren ever looked upon the works of Bernini and his school with his own eyes. A trip to Italy is possible, especially when acknowledging that various aspects of his oeuvre betray a knowledge of Roman Baroque sculpture. If so, such a journey would have had to occur in the period 1646-1649/50, i.e. following the documented years of his apprenticeship with the Antwerp sculptor Pieter Verbruggen I (1615-1686) but prior to his registration as a master in the St Luke’s Guild of that same city.⁷ Also tenable, however, is that Van Beveren obtained his knowledge of Italian models by other means. Certain is that he conducted trade in plaster casts of antique statues, including the sale of a group of plaster statues to the German painter Johann Bockhorst during a visit to Antwerp.⁸

Notably, the observed ‘temperamental’ differences between the present ivory carvings of the Virgin Mary and St John are in fact a constant in Van Beveren’s oeuvre: some of his ivories display a manifestly classical idiom, others a much more dynamic and baroque approach to style. The most important representative of the sculptor’s classicism is his monumental ivory Virgin and Child in the Rijksmuseum (BK-1962-5), to be compared, for example, with an ivory Maria Immaculata in the Museum Krona in Uden, which illustrates precisely the sculptor’s baroque side.⁹ This dynamic aspect is most evident in Van Beveren’s tomb sculpture for Claude-François Lamoral II de la Tour et Tassis (St Ursula Chapel, Onze Lieve Vrouwe ten Zavel, Brussels, 1678).

An evident stylistic link exists between the present figures of Mary and John and the ivory Virgin and Child with respect to the treatment of the drapery folds, and the depiction of the feet, hands, hair and eyes. Mary’s sorrowful countenance reflects the Berninesque facial type found in a very similar form in Van Beveren’s Altarpiece of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin at Dendermonde, which dates from around 1668, and as encountered on an ivory Pietà in Brussels from a house altar (Art & History Museum),¹⁰ on his marble Virgin on the tomb monument for Jasper Boest (Antwerp, Sint-Jacobskerk) and on an ivory reduction of the same statue preserved at the Begijnhofkerk in Antwerp.¹¹ Also providing clear parallels to the Amsterdam ivories are the figures of Mary and John in Richmond, attributed to a direct follower of Van Beveren.¹² The face on the present figure of St John also bears a strong resemblance to that of Van Beveren’s wooden angel supporting the pulpit in the church of Dendermonde.¹³ Finally, an impression of the now missing figure of the crucified Christ can be obtained from several crucifixes in Antwerp, including the elegant and somewhat elongated ivory corpus in the Sint-Carolus Borromeuskerk, which Jansen and Theuerkauff have convincingly attributed to Van Beveren.¹⁴

Frits Scholten, 2025