Object data
oak with polychromy
height 48.5 cm × width 41 cm × depth 12.5 cm
anonymous
The Swoon of the Virgin
Antwerp, c. 1500 - c. 1510
Technical notes
Carved and polychromed. Composed of six separate wood pieces joined with nails.
Condition
The figure of John, formerly standing on the left, has largely been lost. Also missing are the Virgin’s fingers and the right hand of Mary Magdalene (?). The polychromy has been overpainted.
Provenance
? Commissioned by or for the Bridgettine abbey Mariënwater, Koudewater, near Rosmalen, c. 1500-10;1 ? transferred to the Bridgettine convent Maria Refugie, Uden, 1713-24;2 from where, with numerous other objects (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. 013, since 1973
Object number: BK-NM-1231
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
In accordance with iconographic tradition, Mary, overcome with emotion, is supported by St John the Evangelist – here indicated by nothing more than his surviving left arm – and a holy woman, possibly St Mary Magdalene. Given the group’s fragmentary state, it remains unclear whether other holy women were also present, as was sometimes the case. In altarpiece scenes of the Calvary, the Swoon of the Virgin typically appears left below the crucified figure of Christ.
The Rijksmuseum acquired this retable group, together with a large number of other sculptures, from the convent of Maria Refugie in Uden in 1875. This convent directly succeeded the double abbey of Mariënwater in Koudewater, a Bridgettine community founded in 1434 and dissolved in 1713. Two devotional themes central to the Bridgettine Order of the Most Holy Saviour were the study of the life of the Virgin and the contemplation of Christ’s suffering. A retable dedicated to the Virgin’s life or Christ’s Passion was therefore very likely in the abbey’s possession, one that perhaps sustained damage at the hands of iconoclasts who plundered the community in 1566.
Still in Uden among the Bridgettine nuns’ possessions is a retable group of Christ Carrying the Cross (fig. a). Given the corresponding dimensions and similar style, as Lemmens and De Werd rightly observed, this group may very well originate from the same Antwerp Passion altarpiece as the present swooning Virgin.3 Noteworthy in this case is that Christ carries his cross in a leftward direction, whereas the standard orientation of the Carrying of the Cross depicts him moving to the right.
The Antwerp Passion retables of Hulshout and Coligny both feature a Swoon of the Virgin and a Christ Carrying the Cross that display notable similarities to the present and aforementioned groups in terms of composition, figural type and the style of the drapery folds.4 On these two retables, however, Christ carries his cross in a rightward orientation. Both altarpieces are guild-marked with the Antwerp hand. The dating of circa 1500-10 also corresponds well both to the overall style of the Amsterdam Swoon of the Virgin and the fantastical turban worn on the head of the accompanying holy woman.
Bieke van der Mark, 2024
Literature
J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 144, with earlier literature; G. Lemmens and G. de Werd, Beelden uit Brabant: Laatgotische kunst uit het oude hertogdom 1400-1520, exh. cat. Den Bosch (Noordbrabants Museum) 1971, no. 79; 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. 80
Citation
B. van der Mark, 2024, 'anonymous, The Swoon of the Virgin, Antwerp, c. 1500 - c. 1510', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.24421
(accessed 20 September 2024 02:11:57).