Mount Calvary, Fragment of a Crucifixion

Entry

This pipeclay fragment forms the centre and right section of Mount Calvary. The (removable) cross was inserted into a slot at the top of the mountain above the skull. A separate pipeclay figurine of St John was placed on the flat plateau on the right. An identical flat base, now broken off, originally extended to the left of the cross, on which the separate figure of Mary stood. As such, this Mount Calvary served as a base for an ensemble of freestanding figurines. The fabrication of these pieces as separate, individual components was undoubtedly aimed to facilitate the manufacturing process.

At least two other pipeclay Crucifixion groups have survived to the present day with the Mount Calvary, the cross, Mary and St John made as separate elements.² When compared to the present piece, however, these variants are smaller in size and less sharply defined. In the case of the first group, now preserved in the collection of the Van Beuningen family, the individual figurines were firmly affixed to the foundation plate (the Mount Calvary) prior to firing.³ The second group, unearthed on the Snipperlingsdijk near Deventer, contains figures that were added to the socle only after the piece was fired. In one of the cesspits (‘beerkelders’) of the Sint Agnesconvent in Kampen, a mourning figure of St John was discovered that once belonged to such a Crucifixion group comprising separately formed pipeclay figures.⁴ The size (h. 28 cm) of this piece closely corresponds to the relatively large dimensions of the present Calvary group and perhaps therefore conveys a more complete picture of what the entire Crucifixion scene originally looked like. Ensembles of this kind were possibly displayed in small house altarpieces, as was probably the case with a pipeclay Pietà in the museum’s collection (BK-2011-22).

The fragment discussed here was excavated in 1931 on the Spuistraat in the Amsterdam city centre. The aforementioned Crucifixion group in the Van Beuningen Collection was also excavated in the Dutch capital.⁵ Both pieces could very well have been manufactured by a local beeldendrucker (statue-squeezer) or heyligenbacker (saint-firer), as the makers of pipeclay figurines were called at this time. The pieces may also have come from Utrecht, however, where in the late Middle Ages the production of pipeclay sculpture is known to have occurred on a large scale, with mass-produced devotional objects widely disseminated throughout the Low Countries and elswhere.⁶

Bieke van der Mark, 2024