Object data
oak with traces of polychromy and gilding
height 82 cm × width 28.1 cm × depth 3.2 cm
anonymous
St John the Baptist
Utrecht, c. 1500
Technical notes
Carved and originally polychromed. The back is slightly worked and there is a round hole in the back, possibly for a relic.
Condition
Badly worm-eaten and decayed. A large part of the face, the right hand, the left hand and the attribute (a book?) are missing.
Conservation
- E.H. Baaij, 1905: impregnated with animal glue.
- conservator unknown, 1961: animal glue residue from earlier restoration removed; cleaned; impregnated.
Provenance
...; found in the Oude Kerk, Soest, with several other objects (BK-NM-12006-1 to -19), 1905;1 donated by the municipality of Soest to the museum, 1907; on loan to the Centraal Museum, Utrecht, since 1909
Object number: BK-NM-12006-4
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
Restoration work in the tower of the Oude Kerk in Soest in 1905 uncovered in a bricked-up area an important treasure trove of statues, albeit in a deplorable condition.2 It is assumed that the figures were hidden there either in 1566 at the outbreak of the Iconoclasm or in December 1580, when Calvinists in the Eemland region endeavoured to destroy every last remnant of religious art.3
Among the statues was this badly damaged figure of St John the Baptist. The saint is dressed in a camel hide, with one of its legs dangling between John’s knees and its head lying on the ground between his feet. To his left is a lamb scratching behind one ear: an original motif observed from life.
Klinckaert rightly noted that the figure is very similar to the pendant pair of St Paul and St Peter, the church’s two patron saints, also found in Soest (BK-NM-12006-6 and BK-NM-12006-9).4 From what remains of the right side of his severely damaged face it can be seen that he had the same stylised curls, thin-lipped mouth with slightly downturned corners, narrow eyes with wrinkles in the corners and pronounced cheeks as Peter and Paul. Klinckaert considered this enough to attribute the three figures to a single hand. Although the significantly slimmer proportions of John’s body do not directly support a shared authorship, the works – all around 83 centimetres high – undoubtedly come from the same workshop, which may have used standardised dimensions.5
The statues have a great deal in common with the late-medieval woodcarving style of Utrecht, the centre of sculpture not far from Soest. The features of figures in this style are reminiscent of those of the St Peter, St Paul and St John the Baptist described above and the treatment of their hair and beards is comparable to the work of the Utrecht woodcarver Jan van Schayck (c. 1470 - in or before 1527) (cf. BK-KOG-669-A). The poses and the folds of the draperies, however, are more casual and more voluminous respectively and have more in common with the work of the Master of the Utrecht Stone Female Head (active c. 1490-c. 1530), if a little less true to life and skilfully finished (cf. BK-1964-1).6 The statues must have come from a Utrecht workshop that supplied rather more simple work influenced by these eminent masters.
Bieke van der Mark, 2024
Literature
J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 25, with earlier literature; A. de Rijk, ‘Laat-middeleeuwse heiligenbeelden uit het Gooi’, Bulletin Stichting Oude Hollandse Kerken 39 (1994), pp. 15-24, p. 22; B. Nederveen, Soest, tussen Amersfoort en Utrecht. Een studie naar de herkomst van de laatgotische sculptuur uit de Hervormde Kerk te Soest, Amsterdam 1999 (unpub. thesis University of Amsterdam), pp. 21, 98-100; J. Klinckaert, De verzamelingen van het Centraal Museum Utrecht, vol. 3, Beeldhouwkunst tot 1850, coll. cat. Utrecht 1997, no. 105
Citation
B. van der Mark, 2024, 'anonymous, St John the Baptist, Utrecht, c. 1500', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.24290
(accessed 10 November 2024 03:34:54).