The Visitation

Utrecht, c. 1475 - c. 1477

Object data

oak with traces of polychromy

height 52 cm × width 67.8 cm × depth 16.5 cm

Technical notes

Carved and originally polychromed. The sides are attached and the reverse of this group, which is composed of a number of pieces, has been hollowed out. According to dendrochronological analysis by P. Klein in 1980 the outermost annual ring measured in the wood corresponds with the year 1444 and the earliest felling date for the oak tree would be the year 1459.¹ However, according to dendrochronological analysis carried out by M. Domínguez Delmás in 2023 the main two pieces of wood provided tree-ring series with 75 and 30 rings, but a comparison between these did not result in a good visual match, and crossdating with reference chronologies from central, eastern and northern Europe, did not produce a reliable dating result.

Scientific examination and reports

condition report: W.J. Mares, RMA, 1980
dendrochronology: P. Klein, University of Hamburg, 1980
dendrochronology: M. Domínguez Delmás (DendroResearch), RMA, R_R20231521, 15 December 2023

Literature scientific examination and reports

Jaarverslag Nederlandse Rijksmusea 1980, p. 19; P. Klein, ‘Hout en kunst. Houtanalytisch onderzoek van beeldhouwwerken’, in W. Halsema-Kubes et al., Adriaen van Wesel. Een Utrechtse beeldhouwer uit de late middeleeuwen (ca. 1417/ ca. 1490), exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1980-81, pp. 45-53, esp. p. 49 and figs. 8-9

Condition

Elizabeth’s arms, the tip of her nose and the left point of her veil have been replaced, as has the Virgin’s left hand. There is a split between the figures of the two women, a crack in the ground front right and several holes in the background; these have all been filled. The polychromy has been removed with a caustic.

Conservation

W.J. Mares, 1980: cleaned; the Virgin’s fingertips repaired; holes and cracks filled.

Provenance

? Commissioned by the Illustrious Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady [Illustre Lieve Vrouwe Broederschap], Den Bosch, 1475;² installed in the Sint-Janskathedraal, Den Bosch, 1477;³ ? dismantled during the iconoclastic revolt, transferred to a safer, unknown location, 1566;⁴ ? reinstalled in the Sint-Janskathedraal, Den Bosch, 1567;⁵ ? transferred to the Confraternity House, Hinthamerstraat, Den Bosch, 1629;⁶ ...; from the dealer J.P. van Hedel, Vught, near Den Bosch, fl. 625, to the museum, 1899

Object number: BK-NM-11394

The artist

Adriaen van Wesel (Utrecht c. 1417 - Utrecht in or after 1490)

Adriaen van Wesel was the leading sculptor of the Northern Netherlands during the second half of the fifteenth century. The majority of his surviving oeuvre is held in the collection of the Rijksmuseum. Van Wesel’s name and city of origin were discovered by Swillens in 1948 in the city archives of Den Bosch while researching two pieces from an altarpiece by Van Wesel formerly in the chapel of the Illustrious Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady in the Sint-Janskathedraal of that city.⁷ Before his identification he was known as the ‘Master of the Singing Angels’ and the ‘Master of the Death of Mary’, names of convenience derived from two altar groups in the Rijksmuseum.

Van Wesel is certain to have been born in Utrecht, as his name appears nowhere in the listings of new citizens after 1400. He is first mentioned in 1447, when elected alderman of the saddler’s guild, to which painters and sculptors also belonged. Since this important position could only be attained by men of at least thirty years of age, he was probably born in or slightly prior to 1417. Van Wesel was elected to this post nine times: four times serving as a member of the city council while holding several other public offices, thus affirming his status as an influential and highly respected figure.

A document from 1468 involving a life annuity indicates that Adriaen van Wesel had a wife named Margriet and a daughter named Belyen. Both probably died before 1491, as their names no longer appear in the life annuity records from this year. Adriaen himself must have died in or shortly after 1490, as this is the last time he appears in any documents. The year of Van Wesel’s death has been subject to some confusion stemming from the existence of a second ‘Adriaen van Wesel’ residing in Utrecht whose death is documented in 1500. This individual, though perhaps a family member, was a butter merchant not known to have held any public position.

Van Wesel’s first documented work is the aforementioned altarpiece for the Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady in Den Bosch commissioned in 1475. By this time, however, he was already a sculptor of renown. Unfortunately, this altarpiece was dismantled and dispersed in the nineteenth century. Only two groups from this altarpiece have remained in Den Bosch, together with their original caisses. Another five groups from this altarpiece are today preserved in the Rijksmuseum.⁸ An additional seven have tenably been linked to these works, including a seated Virgin from an Annunciation in Bruges.⁹ On a final note, several hypothetical reconstructions of the original retable have also been devised (for the most recent, see fig. c in the entry BK-NM-11647).¹⁰

Adriaen van Wesel produced two other Marian altars: the first in 1470 for the Mariakerk in Utrecht, a work that fell victim to one of the city’s iconoclastic outbreaks in 1584; the second for the high altar of the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft, probably destroyed in a fire in 1528 (with BK-1979-94 possibly a fragment). Another altar, commissioned in 1487 for the monastery Sint-Agnietenberg in Zwolle, is likewise lost. Several surviving sculptures may originate from these altarpieces, e.g. a Descent from the Cross in Berlin, and a Holy Family in Utrecht.¹¹

Van Wesel’s last documented works were made for churches in his hometown of Utrecht: three sculptures for the high altar of the Buurkerk in 1487 and seven groups for the predella of the high altar of Utrecht Cathedral in 1489.¹²

Marie Mundigler, 2024

References
W. Halsema-Kubes, G. Lemmens and G. de Werd, Adriaen van Wesel: Een Utrechtse beeldhouwer uit de late middeleeuwen, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1980-81; M. Leeflang et al., Middeleeuwse beelden uit Utrecht 1430-1530/Mittelalterliche Bildwerke aus Utrecht, exh. cat. Utrecht (Museum Catharijneconvent)/Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 2012-13, pp. 227-31; J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, pp. 48-54; Scholten and Van der Mark in F. Scholten (ed.), 1100-1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2015, no. 30 (and fig. 30a); P.T.A. Swillens, ‘De Utrechtse beeldhouwer Adriaen van Wesel, ca. 1420-(na) 1489’, Oud Holland 63 (1948), pp. 149-64; P.T.A. Swillens, ‘De Utrechtse beeldhouwer Adriaen van Wesel. Enige aanvullende mededelingen’, Oud Holland 66 (1951), pp. 228-33; W. Vogelsang in F.W.S. van Thienen (ed.), Algemene Kunstgeschiedenis, vol. 4, Utrecht/Antwerp 1949, p. 28

Entry

Luke’s gospel contains an account of how, immediately after the Annunciation, the Virgin went on foot to Judea to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who was also expecting a child (Luke 1:39-45). Adriaen van Wesel pictured the moment that Elizabeth meets Mary at the city gate.¹³ It seems as if Elizabeth has run out of the gate to welcome her kinswoman. In her haste she has lifted her skirts and her cap slips off her head. Joyfully, she reaches out to grasp the Virgin by the arms, but Mary appears to be surprized by this greeting: she checks her step and raises her hands as if to fend her cousin off. The difference in age between the two women is obvious. The Virgin Mary is portrayed as youthful, with loose, wavy hair and a girlish face, whereas Elizabeth, as became an elderly woman, wears a cap and a chin-band. She wears the same garments in Van Wesel’s group of The Death of the Virgin (BK-NM-11859). Elizabeth’s stocky figure, contrasted with the refined, delicate body of the future mother of God, is rendered almost as a caricature of an old countrywoman. The rumpled folds of Elizabeth’s robe strengthen the impression that she is moving, forming a strong contrast with the regular, almost vertical folds of the Virgin’s cloak, which emphasize her modesty. In the background there is a stylized rocky landscape with a winding road or stream and a high wattle fence. This expressive abstract landscape creates a great sense of space. There may have been a similar spatial element on the flat, unworked front of the group.¹⁴

The group was acquired in 1899 from a seller in Vught near Den Bosch. It was the first of four altar fragments that can be attributed to Adriaen van Wesel which were added to the museum’s collection around the turn of the century.¹⁵ All these works have Marian iconography and surfaced in or near Den Bosch. This is an important piece of information, since it makes it likely that they were originally part of the large Marian altar that Adriaen van Wesel made between 1475 and 1477 for the Illustrious Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady in Den Bosch (fig. a). The wood used is similar in many respects to that used in the two groups still in the possession of the Den Bosch Confraternity.¹⁶

A second version of The Visitation was sold at auction in London in 1998. It very closely resembles the original save for a few details, such as the absence of Elizabeth’s chin-band.¹⁷ The typical, mask-like faces and the floral patterns painted on the women’s garments suggest Spanish workmanship. As a result of the close political ties in the late Middle Ages between Spain and the Burgundian Netherlands, to which Den Bosch belonged and where the original Visitation group most probably was at that time, imported works of art and artists who emigrated had a significant influence on art in Spain.¹⁸ In view of the considerable similarities between this piece and the original, the copyist probably worked from an earlier replica of Van Wesel’s Visitation that had been exported to Spain.

Bieke van der Mark, 2024

Literature

C.M.A.A. Lindeman, ‘Sint Agnes door Jacob van der Borch’, Jaarverslag K.O.G. 81 (1938-39), pp. 52-54, p. 52; P.T.A. Swillens, ‘De Utrechtse beeldhouwer Adriaen van Wesel, ca. 1420-(na) 1489’, Oud Holland 63 (1948), pp. 149-64, esp. p. 160; J. Leeuwenberg, ‘Het werk van den Meester der Muscieerende Engelen en het vraagstuk van Jacob van der Borch opnieuw beschouwd’, Oud Holland 63 (1948), pp. 164-79, esp. p. 169; J.J.M. Timmers, ‘Achtenveertig eeuwen beeldhouwkunst in hout’, in W. Boerhave Beekman, Hout in alle Tijden, vol. 2, Deventer 1949, pp. 597-772, esp. p. 680; W. Vogelsang in F.W.S. van Thienen (ed.), Algemene Kunstgeschiedenis, vol. 4, Utrecht/Antwerp 1949, p. 28; P.T.A. Swillens, ‘Beeldhouwers en beeldhouwkunst’, in J. Romijn (ed.), Hart van Nederland, Utrecht 1950, pp. 209-37, esp. p. 218; J. Leeuwenberg, ‘Beeldhouwkunst I’, Facetten der Verzameling 8 (1967; 1st ed. 1957), pp. 1-2; D.P.R.A. Bouvy, ‘Nederlandse beeldhouwkunst’, in T.H. Lunsingh Scheurleer, Sprekend verleden. Wegwijzer voor de verzamelaar van oude kunst en antiek, Amsterdam 1959, p. 55; D.P.R.A. Bouvy, Kerkelijke Kunst, vol. 2, Bussum 1966, p. 48; J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 16c, with earlier literature; W. Halsema-Kubes et al., Adriaen van Wesel. Een Utrechtse beeldhouwer uit de late middeleeuwen (ca. 1417/ ca. 1490), exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1980-81, no. 7; W. Halsema-Kubes, ‘Twee onbekende retabelfragmenten van Adriaen van Wesel’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 28 (1980), pp. 155-66, esp. p. 155; W. Halsema-Kubes, ‘Ontmoeting der drie koningen 1475-1477’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 37 (1989), pp. 163-65, esp. p. 163; A.M. Koldeweij (ed.), In Buscoducis 1450-1629. Kunst uit de Bourgondische tijd te ’s-Hertogenbosch. De cultuur van de late middeleeuwen en renaissance, exh. cat. Den Bosch (Noordbrabants Museum) 1990, no. 134; W. Halsema-Kubes, ‘Der Altar Adriaen van Wesels aus ’s-Hertogenbosch’, in H. Krohm and E. Oellermann (eds.), Flügelaltäre des späten Mittelalters, Berlin 1992, pp. 144-56, esp. pp. 149, 155; H.L.M. Defoer, ‘Een laat-middeleeuws schoorsteenfries uit Utrecht met de bekoring van Antonius’, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 45 (1994), pp. 300-23, esp. pp. 311, 318; R. Karrenbrock, ‘Unbekannte Werke des Utrechter Bildhauers Adriaen van Wesel’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 57 (1994), no. 3, pp. 336-46, esp. p. 342; Scholten in H. van Os et al., Netherlandish Art in the Rijksmuseum 1400-1600, Amsterdam/Zwolle 2000, no. 6a; Scholten in F. Houben et al., Deftige Devotie, exh. cat. Uden (Museum voor Religieuze Kunst) 2003, no. 31; M. Leeflang et al., Middeleeuwse beelden uit Utrecht 1430-1530/Mittelalterliche Bildwerke aus Utrecht, exh. cat. Utrecht (Museum Catharijneconvent)/Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 2012-13, p. 233; Scholten and Van der Mark in F. Scholten (ed.), 1100-1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2015, no. 30b

Citation

B. van der Mark, 2024, 'Adriaen van Wesel, The Visitation, Utrecht, c. 1475 - c. 1477', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.24259

(accessed 8 November 2024 21:44:51).

Figures

fig. a Reconstruction of Adriaen van Wesel’s Marian altar with the probable position of the five pieces in the Rijksmuseum – *The Nativity, Joseph with Three Musician Angels, The Meeting of the Magi, The Visitation* and *The Death of the Virgin* – and the two small compartments that are still with the Illustrious Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady in Den Bosch containing *Emperor Augsutus and the Tiburtine Sibyl* and *St John on Patmos*. Visualisation by Ineke de Graaff