Pietà

Entry

The present Pietà belongs to a large group of alabaster sculptures that, on stylistic and compositional grounds, are associated with one of the most influential and original sculptors active in the first half of the fifteenth century: the so-called Rimini Master. This anonymous sculptor derives his name of convenience from an impressive alabaster Crucifixion altarpiece (c. 1430) formerly in the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Covignano near Rimini and today preserved at the Liebieghaus Museum in Frankfurt am Main.⁷ The wide dissemination of the Rimini Master’s works across Europe – particularly the Netherlands, France, Germany and Italy – suggests this production was expressly oriented toward the export market. A precise localization of the master’s workshop remains elusive, owing both to paucity of information about the origins of the surviving pieces and to the stylistic ambiguity of his oeuvre, which reveals affinities with Southern Netherlandish as well as German, especially Middle Rhinish, traditions. Arguments situating the Rimini Master in the Burgundian Netherlands appear most convincing, supported by direct compositional parallels with works by leading Flemish painters, such as the Master of Flémalle, Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden.⁸

Woods proposed a plausible, hypothetical identification of the Rimini Master as the leading alabaster specialist Gilles de Backere (also Le Blackere, d. c. 1443) from Bruges.⁹ In 1436, Duke Phillip the Good commissioned De Backere for the funerary monument of Michelle of Valois (completed by Tydeman Maes, now demolished) in the former Sint-Baafsabdij in Ghent. At this time, Bruges was a prominent artistic centre with an exceptionally extensive trading network. The city could therefore easily have imported sufficient quantities of alabaster and subsequently exported sculpted works across Europe. Recent material-technical analysis has shown that the alabaster of the Amsterdam Pietà, like that of other sculptures in the ‘Rimini’ stylistic group analysed up to the present time, originates from the Steigerwald Mountains south-east of Würzburg.¹⁰ Whether a trade route supplying this alabaster to Bruges existed in the first half of the fifteenth century, however, still remains to be confirmed.

A Pietà preserved at the church of San Francesco in Rimini, known as the Madonna dell’Acqua, was likely exported to that city at the same time as the Crucifixion altarpiece now in the Liebieghaus.¹¹ An even more finely executed Pietà in the Victoria and Albert Museum (London) is also regarded as an autograph work by the Rimini Master.¹² These two pieces serve as key reference points for determining numerous comparable alabaster Pietàs, which display considerable variation in style and quality. In combination with some of his other compositions, they appear to have been reproduced in large quantities outside the master’s own workshop by contemporaries and later followers.¹³ The dissemination of all these works throughout Europe, as well as the repetitive nature of this production, recalls the even larger-scale export of English ‘Nottingham’ alabaster workshops in the second half of the fourteenth century. The evident similarity of these alabasters does not necessarily imply that a work was produced in the Rimini Master’s immediate geographical circle. On stylistic grounds, for example, an alabaster Calvary in Halberstadt Cathedral is believed to have been carved around 1440-50 in central Germany (Erfurt or Magdeburg?) after a (now lost) exported example produced either by the Master of Rimini¹⁴ or by a sculptor trained in his workshop.¹⁵

With the Pietàs directly associated with the workshop of the Rimini Master, the Virgin is shown seated on a bench, with her son’s dead body lying nearly horizontal across her lap (Horizontaltyp). She supports either his head or shoulder with her right hand, while leaning either backwards or slightly towards him. As with alabaster-carved scenes of the crucified Christ and the Two Thieves, Christ’s body is invariably strikingly ‘flat’ (broad, but extremely slender), while his legs form an almost perfect ninety-degree angle at the knees in relation to the ground. The Virgin’s robes are voluminous, multi-layered, with rich drapery folds in the Weicher Stil, the central-European variant of the International Gothic, a style which by the 1430s was on its decline. Mary wears a belt around her waist. Noteworthy is that the Rimini Master’s Pietà type ultimately originates, not from the Southern Netherlands or France, but instead from the Bohemian and central European artistic tradition.¹⁶

In general, the Amsterdam Pietà follows the models from Rimini and London. Unlike the latter, however, where Christ’s right arm lies directly next to his body while Mary elevates the other by the forearm, Christ’s arms on the present work instead lie across each other, resting on his lap.¹⁷ Another difference is the positioning of Mary ’s veil: on most of the Pietàs in the Rimini group, the veil drapes across the front of the neck. On the present work, the veil simply drapes down over the shoulders. Based on the small hole at the level of where the mantle closes, one may conclude that it was originally adorned with an agrafe (perhaps an encrusted semi-precious gem), slightly enhancing the sculpture’s allure. The hem of Christ’s loincloth bears the customary decorative incisions; the borders of Mary’s robes, though lacking this detail, would originally have been gilded.

When compared to the exquisitely refined carvings produced in the Rimini Master’s workshop, the artistic level of the present piece is considerably lower. While its currently weathered state obscures much of its original quality, the overall composition is undeniably simpler and the attention to detail notably reduced. Moreover, the rather impassive faces of both Mary and Christ lack the striking expressiveness that so strongly characterizes the Rimini Master’s figures.

The overall style of the present Pietà, and especially the remarkably small heads of Christ and the Virgin, their serene facial expression and the softer, less complicated fall of the drapery folds, are akin to a group of alabasters dating from circa 1430-50, belonging to the transitional phase between the International Gothic and Late Gothic styles. Steyaert views these as works foreshadowing of a group of alabasters with strong ‘Eyckian’ traits (specifically the heavy, erratic drapery folds) dating from 1450-70. The origin of this latter group in the Southern Netherlands or northern France is virtually certain.¹⁸

Alabaster Pietàs stylistically comparable to the present work are now held in the Wyvern Collection,¹⁹ the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg,²⁰ and formerly in Hildesheim Cathedral.²¹ The similarity of a fourth Pietà in Frankfurt is so marked that it could possibly have been produced in the same workshop.²² Its carefully polished surface would also have characterized the now dull Amsterdam Pietà in its original state. The shared facial type (proportionally small faces with round, closed or downcast eyes) and drapery treatment of these two works, can also be observed on works such as a Standing Apostle formerly preserved at the Premonstratensian abbey in Grimberg,²³ and a Madonna on the Crescent Moon at the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent, both executed in alabaster.²⁴ It is evident that these works were produced under the direct influence of the Rimini Master’s (exported?) models. Nevertheless, their precise origin remains uncertain.

Bieke van der Mark, 2025