Object data
oak
height 74 cm × width 21 cm × depth 66 cm
Master of Koudewater (follower of)
St Francis
Northern Brabant, c. 1480 - c. 1500
Technical notes
Carved and originally polychromed. The reverse is partly worked. There is a wrought-iron plate with an attachment hole on the reverse.
Condition
The hand, on the side of the little finger, has been damaged by insects. There are several vertical cracks in the face and body. The little finger of the left hand is missing. The polychromy has been removed.
Provenance
? Commissioned by the Bridgettine abbey Mariënwater, Koudewater, near Rosmalen, c. 1480-1500;1 transferred to the Bridgettine convent Maria Refugie, Uden, 1713-24;2 from where, with numerous other sculptures (BK-NM-1195 to -1243), fl. 2,000 for all, to the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague, 1875; transferred to the museum, 1885; on loan to the Museum Krona (formerly known as the Museum voor Religieuze Kunst), Uden, inv. no. 0019, since 1973
Object number: BK-NM-1207
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Master of Koudewater (active in northern Brabant c. 1460-c. 1480)
The name of convenience ‘Master of Koudewater’ was introduced by Leeuwenberg in 1958 to define the production of a sculptor active in the period 1460-80, whose oeuvre chiefly comprises carved wooden statues of saints formerly originating from two Bridgettine abbeys. The first one, Mariënwater, was located in the northern Brabantine village of Koudewater. In 1460, this ‘mother abbey’ founded a second abbey in the vicinity of Cleves, called Marienbaum. When evicted from their abbey in 1713, the Bridgettine nuns at Mariënwater moved to a convent in the vicinity of Uden, together with all of their possessions. In 1802, when the abbey at Marienbaum was dissolved, a portion of its inventory was likewise transferred to Uden. Facing financial difficulty, the Bridgettine nuns at Uden were ultimately forced to sell off the bulk of their art holdings. In 1875, a large number of saintly statues carved by the Master of Koudewater and followers of his style were subsequently acquired en bloc by the Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, a forerunner of the Rijksmuseum.
There are strong indications that the Master of Koudewater produced statues for both Mariënwater and Marienbaum. Collectively, these works – together with other similar figures produced in the northern part of the Duchy of Brabant – are today known as the ‘Koudewater Group’. The Rijksmuseum holds sixteen of the Koudewater statues in its collection. Based on the shared static but elegant poses, calm facial expressions, and matching drapery schemes characterised by deeply cut folds, however, only six of these works can be securely attributed to the master himself. The remaining ten are likely to have been produced by workshop assistants, pupils or followers of the master’s style.
The centre of the Master of Koudewater’s activity was initially thought to be in the Lower Rhine region. When acknowledging the documented provenance of the works and the stylistic similarity to Brabantine sculpture, however, the northern part of the Duchy of Brabant emerges as the most likely area of production. Attempts have been made to link the master’s carving to the flourishing artistic climate in Den Bosch and even to a documented woodcarver active there, Jan Jansz van Gheervliet.3 Nevertheless, nothing in the Master of Koudewater’s oeuvre suggests a knowledge of the artistic innovation occurring in this northern Brabantine city. On the contrary, it appears he led a rather solitary life. His artistic origin must therefore be sought in monastic surroundings in or near Mariënwater.
Marie Mundigler, 2024
References
G.C.M. van Dijck, ‘De meester van Coudewater opgespoord? Een interessante theorie’, Bossche bladen 3 (2001), pp. 75-77; J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, pp. 86-94; L.C.B.M. van Liebergen, Beelden in de abdij: Middeleeuwse kunst uit het noordelijk deel van het hertogdom Brabant, exh. cat. Uden (Museum voor Religieuze Kunst) 1999, pp. 61-64; J. Leeuwenberg in R. van Luttervelt et al., Middeleeuwse kunst der Noordelijke Nederlanden, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1958, pp. 192-93; G. Lemmens and G. de Werd, Beelden uit Brabant: Laatgotische kunst uit het oude hertogdom 1400-1520, exh. cat. Den Bosch (Noordbrabants Museum) 1971, pp. 17-26; J.W. Steyaert et al., Late Gothic Sculpture: The Burgundian Netherlands, exh. cat. Ghent (Museum of Fine Arts) 1994, n. 84; W. Vogelsang, De oude kerkelijke kunst in Nederland: Gedenkboek van de Nationale Tentoonstelling te ’s-Hertogenbosch in 1913, Den Bosch 1914, p. 98
Entry
De Werd connected this St Francis to the statues of saints by the Master of Koudewater.4 This master owes his name of convenience to the fact that most of his statues of saints presumably came from the Bridgettine abbey of Mariënwater in Koudewater, which was dissolved in 1713.5 In 1875 the museum acquired three core pieces by the master (BK-NM-1195, -1196 and -1197) – together with a large number of stylistically related statues of saints, including this St Francis – from the immediate successor to this institution, the monastery of Maria Refugie in Uden.
Even though the St Francis is in fact connected – as regards facial type, pose and general atmosphere – to the work of the Master of Koudewater, it is somewhat weaker in terms of the serene character, elegance and refinement typical of his figures (cf. BK-NM-1197). Moreover, the simple drapery of the habit is not at all in the Koudewater style, which is a strong indication that the maker did not have the Master’s models at his disposal and the statue must therefore have originated – contrary to what De Werd and Van Liebergen maintain – outside the Master’s workshop.6 While Francis’s face displays the same features as that of St Lawrence (BK-NM-1212), pronounced grooved folds, similar to those seen in Francis’s habit, also occur in the statues of the Virgin and Child with St Anne (BK-NM-1211), St Elizabeth of Hungary (BK-NM-1204) and the Archangel Gabriel (BK-NM-1209). The drapery of Gabriel even seems to be based on the same scheme, which strongly suggests that it was made in the same workshop. The master who ran this workshop must have been well acquainted with the saints carved by the Master of Koudewater and was possibly even trained by him.
Representations of St Francis with the stigmata, dissociated from a narrative context, became rather popular at the end of the fifteenth century in the regions where Dutch and Low German were spoken.7 Prints probably played a role in their dissemination. For example, Hartmann Schedel’s influential Weltchronik (World Chronicle), published in Nürnberg in 1490, contained a woodcut of this pictorial type; it is the title page of the very popular post-incunable Den Wijngaert van Sinte Franciscus (The Vineyard of St Francis, Antwerp 1518), which had a similar illustration.8 A St Francis similar in type, which was made in the workshop of Master Arnt, came from the former abbey of Bethlehem in the North Brabant town of Haren.9
Bieke van der Mark, 2024
Literature
J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 65, with earlier literature; L.C.B.M. van Liebergen, Modeste Barok: Beeldwerk in Brabant in de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw, exh. cat. Uden (Museum voor Religieuze Kunst) 1977, no. 1; L.C.B.M. van Liebergen, Birgitta van Zweden 1303-1373. 600 jaar kunst en cultuur van haar kloosterorde, Uden (Museum voor Religieuze Kunst) 1986, no. 76; L.C.B.M. van Liebergen and W. Prins, Clara in de Nederlanden, exh. cat. Uden (Museum voor Religieuze Kunst) 1994, no. 11; L.C.B.M. van Liebergen, Beelden in de abdij. Middeleeuwse kunst uit het noordelijk deel van het hertogdom Brabant, exh. cat. Uden (Museum voor Religieuze Kunst) 1999, no. 20
Citation
B. van der Mark, 2024, 'follower of Meester van Koudewater, St Francis, Northern Brabant, c. 1480 - 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.24338
(accessed 30 December 2024 20:37:17).