Kneeling Virgin from a Nativity

Utrecht, c. 1475 - c. 1477

Object data

oak with traces of gilding and polychromy

height 37.7 cm × width 15.5 cm × depth 11 cm

Technical notes

Carved and originally polychromed and gilded. Originally part of an altar group and reworked later to create a free-standing figure.

Scientific examination and reports

conservation report: W.J. Mares, RMA, 1979

Literature scientific examination and reports

Jaarverslag Nederlandse Rijksmusea 1979, pp. 26-27

Condition

The polychromy has been removed with a caustic, which caused some cracks.

Conservation

W.J. Mares, 1979: cleaned; remnants of overpainting removed; old polychromy retained; putty hands removed; missing fingers carved in oak and added.

Provenance

? Commissioned by the Illustrious Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady [Illustre Lieve Vrouwe Broederschap], Den Bosch, 1475;¹ installed in the Sint-Janskathedraal, Den Bosch, 1477;² ? dismantled during the iconoclastic revolt and transferred to a safer, unknown location, 1566;³ ? reinstalled in the Sint-Janskathedraal, Den Bosch, 1567;⁴ ? transferred to the Confraternity House, Hinthamerstraat, Den Bosch, 1629;⁵...; sale, collection Jonkheer Donas Theodoric Albéric van den Bogaerde (1829-1895), Heeswijk Castle, sold on the premises (Frederik Muller), 24 September 1901, no. 134, fl. 110, to the museum, with support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

Object number: BK-NM-11713

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

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.⁶ 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.⁷ An additional seven have tenably been linked to these works, including a seated Virgin from an Annunciation in Bruges.⁸ 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).⁹

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.¹⁰

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 1489.¹¹

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

Hands folded, the Virgin kneels in worship before the infant Christ, now lost. The sweet face of the young mother with its high forehead is typical of the young female figures in the work of the Utrecht woodcarver Adriaen van Wesel. The head is very reminiscent of the Virgin’s in The Visitation in the Rijksmuseum collection (BK-NM-11394) and The Annunciation in the Gruuthusemuseum in Bruges.¹² The wavy hair parted in the centre often occurs in Van Wesel’s figures, as does the gown with a collar. The way Van Wesel has shaped the Virgin’s garment with just a few seemingly artlessly placed folds is remarkable. He appears to be more concerned with achieving a painterly effect than a naturalistic rendition of the fall of the garment. In consequence the figure of the Virgin is actually slightly deformed when viewed from the side. This would not have been apparent, however, in the original position of the fragment in an altar caisse.

The iconography and provenance of the figure and the wood used in it make it very likely that this fragment came from the Marian altar that was in the Sint-Janskathedraal in Den Bosch from 1477 until around 1629 (fig. a). Commissioned by the Illustrious Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady, Van Wesel worked on this large altar from 1475 to 1477.¹³ In this context the Kneeling Virgin was part of a Nativity scene, to which the group of Joseph with Three Musician Angels (BK-NM-11647) most probably belonged, which the museum acquired in 1901 at the same time as the Kneeling Virgin at the sale of Van den Bogaerde’s collection.¹⁴ In any event the praying Virgin must have been converted at some point into a small free-standing sculpture, possibly because of damage to the rest of the altar group, which would have included a group of shepherds as well as Joseph and the angels and the infant Christ. An earlier identification of an altar fragment with Peasant Men and Women in the collection of Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht as part of the shepherds group was convincingly rejected by Defoer.¹⁵

The motif of the kneeling Virgin derives from the revelations of St Bridget of Sweden (c. 1302-1373). Her vision of the Nativity had a great influence on the way the scene was subsequently depicted in art.¹⁶ Bridget’s Revelationes coelestes describe how shortly before the birth the Virgin had removed her veil so that her golden hair fell to her shoulders. When she then knelt to pray, the child was suddenly born, bathed in such a bright light that the gleam of Joseph’s candle became completely invisible. On the basis of this description the Virgin has since then usually been portrayed in art as kneeling, with her head bare and her hair hanging loose to her shoulders. The Christ child lies before her, sometimes on the hem of the Virgin’s cloak. Joseph stands or kneels by them, usually with a candle in his hands.

Assuming that Van Wesel’s fragment of Joseph with Three Musician Angels really did originally belong with this Kneeling Virgin, the woodcarver, despite his quite conventional depiction of Mary, added a fresh twist to the pictorial tradition. Joseph is not, as was customary, placed with his wife and child. He is shown as an onlooker kneeling behind the group of angel musicians. This tendency towards iconographic innovation is regarded as an important characteristic of Adriaen van Wesel’s art.¹⁷

Bieke van der Mark, 2024

Literature

P.T.A. Swillens, ‘De Utrechtse beeldhouwer Adriaen van Wesel, ca. 1420-(na) 1489’, Oud Holland 63 (1948), pp. 149-64, esp. p. 160; 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), fig. 5; 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. 16d, 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. 2; 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; Cleverens 1991, p. 143; 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; E. van der Weijden, ‘Behouden voor het land’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 53 (2005), pp. 300-15, esp. p. 305; P. Hecht, 125 jaar openbaar kunstbezit. Met steun van de Vereniging Rembrandt, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) 2008, pp. 45, 47; 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. 30a

Citation

B. van der Mark, 2024, 'Adriaen van Wesel, Kneeling Virgin from a Nativity, 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.24260

(accessed 22 November 2024 09:18:36).

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