Object data
alabaster with traces of red bole, gilding and silvering
height 80.5 cm × width 40 cm × depth 10 cm
weight 49 kg
Guglielmus Paludanus (circle of)
The Resurrection
Antwerp, 1565 - 1665
Technical notes
Carved in relief. Red bolus and gilding have been applied to the low-relief carving of the armour, shields, angels (wings and hair). Silver has been applied to the halberds and the helmet crests.
Provenance
…; Aartsbisschoppelijk Museum, Utrecht, ? first recorded in 1883;1 transferred to the Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, 1976;2 on loan to the Rijksmuseum, since 1979
Object number: BK-BR-946-J
Credit line: On loan from Museum Catharijneconvent
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Guglielmus Paludanus (Mechelen 1530 - Antwerp 1580)
Born Willem van den Broecke in Mechelen in 1530, Guglielmus Paludanus came from an artistic family. Both his grandfather and father were sculptors, while three of his brothers were painters. Paludanus probably received his first artistic training in Mechelen, though it remains unclear with whom. His elder brothers, in any case, are known to have studied under the renowned Floris brothers (Frans I and Cornelis II) in nearby Antwerp.
While no known documentation confirms he ever visited Italy, Paludanus’s oeuvre reflects a first-hand knowledge of classical and contemporaneous Italian sculpture, thus strongly suggesting an educational sojourn in the south. After enrolling as a member of the Guild of St Luke in Antwerp in 1557, a trip to Italy most likely took place in the period 1555-57, possibly in the company of his brother Hendrick (c. 1530-1597), who is documented as residing in Italy from 1557 onwards under the name Arrigo Fiammingo. Paludanus is likely to have seen Michelangelo’s sculptures in the Medici Chapel first-hand, as well as visiting the workshop of his fellow countryman Giambologna (1529-1608). Upon returning north, in or shortly before 1557, he settled in Antwerp, where he established his workshop. He married Sybilla Roesmaer, with whom he begot six children. In 1567, Paludanus purchased a piece of land in today’s Rubensstraat and built a house called De Liefde with a shop for selling his works.
While little is known of Paludanus’s life and career, he seems to have been well-educated, with close ties to an intellectual circle of Roman Catholic humanists in Antwerp. Despite doing his best to avoid the political and religious troubles of his day, he was accused of Protestant sympathies in 1567. He was likely discharged of all allegations, however, as in 1571 he was commissioned to carve the allegorical reliefs for the pedestal of the controversial bronze statue of the Duke of Alba, erected in the citadel of Antwerp. As confirmed by his contemporaries, Paludanus was a renowned figure in his own lifetime. Lodovico Guicciardini called him a grande scultore and also Giorgio Vasari spoke highly of him in his Vita of 1568.
Paludanus was a versatile sculptor working in various mediums. His oeuvre includes standing figures, portrait busts, all’antica cabinet sculptures, reliefs depicting religious and mythological themes, and medals. He was also active as an architect and perhaps even as a painter. Although Paludanus’s oeuvre was undoubtedly substantial, much is now lost and known only from contemporary sources. In 1558, he made two alabaster reliefs for the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp Cathedral; several years later he produced three large figures for the same church. In 1559, he carved one of his few signed works, a small alabaster group of Venus and Amor.3 Due to the stylistic affinity with the Sleeping Nymph in the Rijksmuseum (BK-1979-7) could be firmly attributed to his name. Another surviving signed work is a terracotta Écorché dated 1565 in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.4 A painting preserved in the same museum, considered to be a self-portrait, shows Paludanus working as a wax-modeller.5 Several surviving alabaster reliefs in Germany were clearly produced for the export market, including the reliefs in the chapel of Schwerin Castle and on a pulpit in Lübeck. In 1571, and again in 1579, Paludanus was commissioned to make ornamental rejas (chapel gates) for the monastery of San Leonardo at Alba de Tormes (ancestral seat of the Dukes of Alba), and the chapel of Capilla Santiago de Apóstol in Segovia Cathedral respectively. Neither of the two apparently survives, though it is recorded that the latter was shipped to Spain in September 1580.6 It had probably been finished by assistants, as Paludanus had died in Antwerp on 2 March 1580. He was buried in the Sint-Jacobskerk.7
Marie Mundigler, 2024
References
J. Duverger and M.J. Onghena, ‘Beeldhouwer Willem van den Broecke alias Guilielmus Paludanus (1530 tot 1579 of 1580)’, Gentse Bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschiedenis 5 (1938), pp. 75-140; J. Duverger and M.J. Onghena, ‘Enkele nieuwe gegevens betreffende beeldhouwer Willem van den Broecke alias Paludanus (1530-1580)’, Gentse Bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschiedenis 8 (1942), pp. 173-204; H. Nieuwdorp, ‘”Het Aards Paradijs” of “De Liefde: een verloren gewaand schoorsteenreliëf van Willem van den Broecke, alias Paludanus (1530-1580), Bulletin Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België 21 (1972), pp. 83-94; H. Nieuwdorp and L. van Remoortere, ‘Willem van den Broecke alias Paludanus: beeldhouwer en medailleur’, Handelingen van de Koninklijke Kring van Oudheidkunde, Letteren en Kunst van Mechelen 86 (1982), pp. 45-57; U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, vol. 5, Leipzig 1911, p. 45; T. de Haseth Möller and F. Scholten, ‘Paludanus, a Humanist Sculptor Working for Spain’, in C. Weissert, S. Poeschel and N, Büttner (eds.), Zwischen Lust und Frust: Die Kunst in den Niederlanden und am Hof Philipps II. von Spanien (1527-1598), Cologne/Weimar/Vienna 2013, pp. 149-72; A. Lipinska, Moving Sculptures: Southern Netherlandish Alabasters from the 16th to 17th Centuries in Central and Northern Europe (Studies in Netherlandish Art and Cultural History 11), Leiden/Boston 2015, pp. 81-90; G. Fiorenza, ‘Paludanus, Alabaster, and the Erotic Appeal of Art in Antwerp’, in E.M. Kavaler, F. Scholten and J. Woodall (eds.), Netherlandish Sculpture of the 16th Century (Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art/Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 67), Leiden/Boston 2017, pp. 286-309
Entry
Remarkably, the theme of the Resurrection – with Christ’s triumph over death embodying the essence of Christianity – enters Western art at a relatively late date. Medieval representations of the Resurrection most commonly appear within a series of multiple narrative scenes depicting Christ’s life. Prior to the sixteenth century, monumental scenes of the Resurrection are exceedingly rare.8 In the art of north-western Europe, the risen Christ was most often depicted stepping out of his sarcophagus, as if approaching the beholder. The other, essentially Italian tradition instead favoured a more metaphysical rendering of the Resurrection, with Christ elevated above the closed tomb framed by a luminous cloud, negating, as it were, the forty days separating Easter and Ascension Day. In the north, this Italian Resurrection/Ascension iconography was chiefly disseminated through prints, most notably Dürer’s woodcut of the ‘Large Passion’ of 1511. It became tremendously popular, particularly in association with funeral art.9 An important factor contributing to the iconography’s success was its close, though by no means exclusive, association with the Reformation. Together with the Crucifixion and the Entombment, the Resurrection/Ascension belonged to the Christological series of the Passion, thus forming an essential element of the Christian myth. Because of its doctrinal neutrality, it was viewed as being equally important to both the Roman Catholic and Lutheran worlds.
This compact relief, which in its original state likely formed the central scene of an altar or funeral monument, is an excellent example of this new Resurrection iconography. In the upper half, two angels and three cherubs escort the risen Christ to heaven. Below him are five Roman soldiers, depicted in various poses: two recumbent figures in the foreground begin to awaken, with three others standing behind them. Raising his shield, the soldier on the far left protects his face from the intense light that emanates from the ascending Christ. All of the soldiers are clad in all’antica armour, which has been carved in astounding detail. As such, they recall the two auxiliary figures on the alabaster tomb of Count Engelbrecht II of Nassau in Breda.10
The present relief typically exemplifies the alabaster production of the Mechelen and Antwerp cleynsteker workshops of the mid-sixteenth century and later. The vast majority of this production consists of small standardized reliefs cut by numerous anonymous specialists.11 In the case of this large alabaster relief, however, a link can be established with a sculptor who adopted the idiom of the Italian Renaissance at an early point in his career as one of the few leading artists in his field.
Since its first publication in 1942, the present relief has consistently been attributed to an artist in the circle of the sculptor Guglielmus Paludanus (born Willem van den Broecke).12 A close stylistic connection can indeed be observed in three of Paludanus’s documented reliefs in Augsburg (1560-1562, Maximilian Museum), Schwerin (1562, Schlosskirche), and to a lesser extent, in Lübeck (1568, the cathedral pulpit).13 Compositionally, the Amsterdam relief – elongated and narrower in width – is more compact than the Augsburg and Schwerin alabasters. Nevertheless, several notable points of agreement can be discerned. The soldier with the raised shield on the Amsterdam relief is a variation of the figure on the left side of the Schwerin relief, and on the Augsburg Resurrection, a variation of the figure on the right, albeit in reverse. The recumbent soldier in the foreground of the Amsterdam relief is a variation of the two almost identical figures lying in the front of the tomb in the Schwerin and Augsburg works. Noteworthy is the striking resemblance between the Christ figures of the Amsterdam and Augsburg reliefs, which are virtually identical in pose, corporeal treatment and facial type. All three reliefs bear notable similarities in detail, such as the shield straps. Marked differences, however, are also to be observed. As Duverger and Onghena rightly pointed out, the Amsterdam soldiers lack the elegance of the figures in Paludanus’s documented reliefs. The figures’ poses are also less varied and dynamic. Additionally, the facial types and drapery style in Paludanus’s autograph works are more angular. In spite of these differences, the Amsterdam relief shows an agreement that strongly suggests its author was in some way associated with Paludanus’s workshop, perhaps working as a leading assistant in the master’s studio or as an independent artist from his direct circle. In the latter case, the Amsterdam alabaster would have been carved by a sculptor trained by Paludanus and who had fully adopted his master’s style.
Frits Scholten, 2024
This is a slightly altered version of the entry by F. Scholten published in J. Kriegseisen and A. Lipinska (eds.), Matter of Light and Flesh: Alabaster in the Netherlandish Sculpture of the 16th and 17th Centuries, exh. cat. Gdansk (National Museum) 2011, no. 1.7
Literature
J. Duverger and M.J. Onghena, ‘Enkele nieuwe gegevens betreffende beeldhouwer Willem van den Broecke alias Paludanus (1530-1580)’, Gentse Bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschiedenis 8 (1942), pp. 173-204, esp. pp. 190-92; D.P.R.A. Bouvy, Beeldhouwkunst van de Middeleeuwen tot heden: Uit het Aartsbisschoppelijk Museum te Utrecht, coll. cat. Utrecht 1962, no. 358; De eeuw van Bruegel: De schilderkunst in België in de 16de eeuw, exh. cat. Brussels (Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium) 1963, p. 243, no. 436, fig. 306; H. van Haaren, Kunst uit kerkelijke musea in Nederland, exh. cat. The Hague (Haags Gemeentemuseum) 1963, no. 154; T. Müller, ‘Buchbesprechung: D. Bouvy, Beeldhouwkunst Aartsbischoppelijk Museum Utrecht, Utrecht 1962’, Pantheon 21 (1963), pp. 246-47, esp. p. 247; H.L.M. Defoer and J.J.M. Timmers, Banden met het zuiden, exh. cat. Utrecht (Aartsbisschoppelijk Museum) 1971, no. 63; M. van Vlierden et al., Hout- en steensculptuur van Museum Catharijneconvent, ca. 1200-1600, coll. cat. Utrecht 2004, pp. 424-25; A. Lipińska, Wewnętrzne światło: Południowoniderlandzka rzeźba alabastrowa w Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej, Wroclaw 2007, pp. 72-76, fig. 40 (mirror-reversed image); F. Scholten, ‘Adriaen de Vries’s Resurrection Group at Stadthagen: The Iconography and Meaning of the Monumental, Freestanding Risen Christ’, in Neue Beiträge zu Adriaen de Vries. Vorträge des Adriaen de Vries Symposiums vom 16. bis 18. April 2008 in Stadthagen und Bückeburg (Kulturlandschaft Schaumburg 14), Bielefeld 2008, pp. 71-87, esp. p. 73 and fig. 52; Scholten in J. Kriegseisen, A. Lipińska et al., Matter of Light and Flesh: Alabaster in the Netherlandish Sculpture of the 16th and 17th Centuries, exh. cat. Gdańsk (National Museum) 2011, no. 1.7; A. Lipińska, Moving Sculptures: Southern Netherlandish Alabasters from the 16th to 17th Centuries in Central and Northern Europe (Studies in Netherlandish Art and Cultural History 11), Leiden/Boston 2015, p. 89 and fig. 69
Citation
F. Scholten, 2024, 'circle of Willem van den Broecke, The Resurrection, Antwerp, 1565 - 1665', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.353305
(accessed 27 December 2024 23:45:41).