Object data
oak
height 115 cm × width 36 cm × depth 26 cm
Henrik Douverman (circle of)
Bishop
Kalkar, c. 1520
Technical notes
Carved in the round and originally polychromed. The underside has been worked with a chisel. One hole (Ø 0.7 cm) behind the bishop’s right hand functioned to secure the separately carved crosier, while a second hole (Ø 0.8 cm) in the band conjoining the two sides of the cope was used for securing the separate wood-carved or metal morse; both objects are now missing. Ornamental punch marks applied with the original polychromy can be observed along the cope’s hem and on the cope itself. Four holes (Ø 0.8 cm) can be seen on the sculpture’s front at the bottom. The sculpture was secured to a socle, now lost, via a small hole (Ø 0.6 cm) in the left shoe and two larger holes (Ø 2 cm) in the reverse side, with all penetrating to the underside. A modern eye for securing can also be seen on the sculpture’s reverse, along with five holes in the back of the mitre, perhaps also serving this purpose.
Literature scientific examination and reports
A. Truyen in B. Rommé et al., Gegen den Strom: Meisterwerke niederrheinischer Skulptur in Zeiten der Reformation 1500-1550, exh. cat. Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 1996, pp. 340-41
Condition
The crosier, morse, sections of the book and the socle are missing. A section of the mitre’s edge has been replaced. A single fold on the lower left of the cope has been attached with two old nails; a small piece of the same fold has been attached with modern nails. Most of the dehydration cracks have been filled with wooden wedges, perhaps even prior to or at the time of the sculpture’s carving. The rectangular piece of wood in the bishop’s right shoulder was possibly also added at this time. The polychromy has been removed; traces of the chalk ground are still present in the more deeply recessed areas.
Provenance
…; from Firma Cuypers & Co, Roermond, fl. 150, to the museum, 1900
Object number: BK-NM-11537
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Henrik Douverman (? Dinslaken c. 1490 - Kalkar 1543/44)
In the nineteenth century, the maker of the well-known Retable of the Seven Sorrows of Mary in the Sankt-Nicolaikirche at Kalkar was identified by Wolff as Henrik Douverman (or He(i)nrick/h Douwermann), whose name he discovered in the city’s archives. Today he is considered to be the leading woodcarver of his day in the Lower Rhine region, with an ever-growing number of works attributed to his oeuvre.
Not much is known about Douverman’s early life, though some have traced his origin to Dinslaken (Germany), where a canon by the name of Johann Douverman resided, who was possibly his brother.1 Henrik was trained in Cleves in the workshop of the sculptor Dries Holthuys (active c. 1480-1510), alongside Henrick van Holt (c. 1480/90-1545/46), who would later become his competition. Douverman completed his apprenticeship around 1506. He is believed to have spent part of his Wanderjahre as a journeyman in Ulm, as a degree of stylistic influence from sculpture produced in that South-German city has been detected in his works.2 Certain, however, is that by 1510 he had returned to Cleves as affirmed by the frequent appearance of his name in local archival documents from that time onward. In subsequent years, he established a workshop and married. Douverman’s presence in Cleves is documented in debt records up until 1515. In 1517, he registered as a new citizen in Kalkar.
From 1518 to 1521, Douverman worked on his magnum opus, the Retable of the Seven Sorrows of Mary for the Nicolaikirche in Kalkar. In 1528, he was paid to repair and modify the massive Marianum in the same church.3 Another documented work is the Marian Altar for the former collegiate church of Cleves from 1513, though it appears Douverman abandoned this work due to a conflict of interest with his patrons, leaving the completion of the altar to the workshop of his former master, Dries Holthuys.4 In the end, it appears that Douverman was responsible only for the conception of the altar’s design and several of the earliest carvings.
Outside these specific commissions, Douverman’s name is documented nowhere up until his death in 1543/44, prompting speculation with respect to his social position. Other sculptors, including Arnt van Tricht (active c. 1530-d. 1570) – a pupil of Douverman – and Henrick van Holt, are known to have received numerous commissions from churches in the prosperous city of Xanten. Douverman appears to have experienced difficulty in securing work and may have abandoned his métier altogether as a woodcarver.5 Whatever the reason for his absence in the archives, a vast number of works have been attributed to Douverman, including works datable to the final years of his life, e.g. a Virgin Enthroned in Paris from circa 1540.6 While a Bishop (BK-NM-11537) preserved in the Rijksmuseum is clearly an example of Douverman’s workshop production, two other groups in the museum’s collection are unquestionably autograph works: a Virgin and Child (BK-BR-534) of circa 1510-15 and a St Ursula (BK-1975-70) of circa 1520, with the latter closely resembling a number of the female figures in the Retable of the Seven Sorrows of Mary.
Marie Mundigler, 2024
References
H.L.M. Defoer, ‘Einige sculpturen in het Museum Catharijneconvent nader bekeken’, in B. Rommé (ed.), Der Niederrhein und die alten Niederlande: Kunst und Kultur im späten Mittelalter: Referate des Kolloquiums zur Ausstellung ‘Gegen den Strom: Meisterwerke niederrheinischer Bildschnitzkunst in Zeiten der Reformation (1500-1550)’, Bielefeld 1999, pp. 135-45; W. Halsema-Kubes, ‘Een Ursula-beeld door Henrik Douvermann’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 23 (1975), pp. 63-66; B. Rommé, Henrick Douwerman und die niederrheinische Bildschnitzkunst an der Wende zur Neuzeit, Bielefeld 1997, pp. 20-28; B. Rommé, Gegen den Strom: Meisterwerke niederrheinischer Skulptur in Zeiten der Reformation 1500-1550, exh. cat. Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 1996, pp. 15-37; B. Rommé, ‘Der Marienleuchter in St. Nickolai’, in B. Rommé (ed.), Der Niederrhein und die alten Niederlande: Kunst und Kultur im späten Mittelalter, Bielefeld 1999, pp. 68-97; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexicon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, vol. 9, Leipzig 1913, pp. 520-22; M. van Vlierden et al., Hout- en steensculptuur van Museum Catharijneconvent, ca. 1200-1600, coll. cat. Utrecht 2004, pp. 300-05; G. de Werd, Die St. Nicolaikirche in Kalkar, Munich/Berlin 2002, pp. 93-99, 110-13; De Werd in F. Scholten and G. de Werd, Een hogere werkelijkheid: Duitse en Franse beeldhouwkunst 1200-1600 uit het Rijksmuseum Amsterdam/Eine höhere Wirklichkeit, Deutsche und Französische Skulptur 1200-1600 aus dem Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, exh. cat. Cleves (Museum Kurhaus Kleve) 2004-06, nos. 12-14
Entry
This Bishop, in its current state bearing no attributes from which a specific identification can be made, stands with his left foot positioned slightly forward. He supports an open book displayed at chest-level with his left hand, with the fingers concealed beneath the lower folds of his hoisted cope. The fingers of the bishop’s right hand are inserted between the pages of the book, as if denoting certain passages. His vestments include a dalmatic and cope, worn over a long alb with amice. The mitre on his head is richly ornamented with embroidery and precious stones; the two singulae (lappets, i.e. ornamental flaps) attached at the back drape down over the front of the shoulders. In 1900, the Rijksmuseum acquired the sculpture from the renowned Dutch architect Pierre Cuypers (1827-1921). A plaster copy made by his workshop from the original piece was transferred to the Stedelijk Museum Roermond (present-day Cuypershuis) following his death.7
The present Bishop bears a remarkable similarity to a St Augustine from the former Ursuline abbey in Venray,8 and a sculpture of a similar saint from the Langenberg Collection in the municipal museum of Goch, a work said to have come from the North Brabantine town of Boxmeer. The two saints are characterized by their heavy, fleshy faces and rather thick-set physical proportions. The lower parts of the figures’ robes fall in straight folds that fan out around the socle. Both statues are also highly reminiscent of the numerous male figures appearing in the Retable of the Seven Sorrows of Mary in Kalkar by Henrik Douverman (c. 1490-1543/44), e.g. the scribes in the scene of the Twelve-Year-Old Jesus in the Temple.9
The agreement is so marked that the Amsterdam sculpture may rightly be interpreted as a work produced either in Douverman’s workshop or by a woodcarver from his immediate circle.10 A number of the small bishop statuettes positioned in the margins of the altar likewise offer further substantiation. These figures possess both the same thick-set body proportions, albeit in reduced form, and the same fleshy faces, which almost look clay-modelled.
Rommé attributes both the Augustine from Venray and the present work to the same maker, as well as two Bishops Enthroned preserved in the Rijksmuseum. In her estimation, these two images were produced circa 1520-30.11 However, these statues were carved some twenty to forty years earlier, before Douverman was even active (for the argumentation, see the entry on BK-NM-27 or -28).
Guido de Werd, 2004 (updated by Bieke van der Mark, 2024)
This entry was originally published in F. Scholten and G. de Werd, Een hogere werkelijkheid: Duitse en Franse beeldhouwkunst 1200-1600 uit het Rijksmuseum Amsterdam/Eine höhere Wirklichkeit, Deutsche und Französische Skulptur 1200-1600 aus dem Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, exh. cat. Cleves (Museum Kurhaus Kleve) 2004-06, no. 14
Literature
J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 115 (and addendum, p. 515), with earlier literature; G. de Werd, ‘De Kalkarse beeldhouwer Arnt van Tricht’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 21 (1973), pp. 73-90, esp. p. 67; W. Halsema-Kubes, ‘Een Ursula-beeld door Henrik Douvermann’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 23 (1975) 2, pp. 63-66, esp. p. 66; B. Rommé et al., Gegen den Strom: Meisterwerke niederrheinischer Skulptur in Zeiten der Reformation 1500-1550, exh. cat. Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 1996, pp. 113-15 and no. 66; B. Rommé, Henrick Douwerman und die niederrheinische Bildschnitzkunst an der Wende zur Neuzeit, Bielefeld 1997, p. 218, note 10 and no. 27; A.M.P.P. Janssen, P. te Poel and U. Schäfer, Spätmittelalterliche Holzskulptur zwischen Maas, Rur und Wurm/Laatmiddeleeuwse houten beelden tussen Maas, Roer en Worm (Museumsschriften des Kreises Heinsberg, 16), Heinsberg 2001, no. 137; De Werd in F. Scholten and G. de Werd, Een hogere werkelijkheid: Duitse en Franse beeldhouwkunst 1200-1600 uit het Rijksmuseum Amsterdam/Eine höhere Wirklichkeit, Deutsche und Französische Skulptur 1200-1600 aus dem Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, exh. cat. Cleves (Museum Kurhaus Kleve) 2004-06, no. 14
Citation
G. de Werd/ B. van der Mark, 2024, 'circle of Hendrik Douverman, Bishop, Kalkar, c. 1520', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.24390
(accessed 14 November 2024 22:52:51).