Object data
oak with traces of polychromy
height 24 cm × width 32 cm × depth 10 cm
Meester Tilman (attributed to)
The Lamentation
Cologne, c. 1500
Technical notes
Carved in relief and originally polychromed. There is a modern fixing eye on the reverse. Dendrochronological research resulted in the dating of the outermost tree ring in the year 1459. Given that sapwood is absent, the felling of the tree has been estimated to have occurred after 1468 CE. The oak wood likely originates from Poland.
Scientific examination and reports
- dendrochronology: M. Domínguez Delmás (DendroResearch), RMA, DR_R2023129, 11 December 2023
Condition
The polychromy has been removed with a caustic. There are remnants of red paint on Mary Magdalene’s undergarment and robe.
Provenance
…; sale, collection Carl Roettgen (1837-1909, Bonn), Cologne (Lempertz), 11 December 1912, no. 135;…; collection A. Oosthoek, Utrecht, date unknown; from whom on loan to the museum, since 1915; donated to the museum by the Vrienden van het Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, 1916
Object number: BK-NM-12389
Credit line: Gift of the Vrienden van het Nederlandsch museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
The simple composition of this group presents the lifeless body of Christ, stretched out on a shroud. His head rests in the lap of a praying Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene kneels at his feet. She dries her tears with a corner of the veil that hangs from her bejewelled turban. She wears a close-fitting jacket with short puffed sleeves, edged with fringes, over wide, flowing sleeves. Her hair is plaited at the temples, the rest hangs loose. In the background is a small Calvary with sketchily indicated vegetation. This intimate little group was probably originally the central scene of a small Passion altar.1
Until recently this Lamentation was considered to be one of the finest examples of woodcarving from the Northern Netherlands or, more specifically, the County of Holland.2 For a long time it was even regarded as a work by the probably North Brabant Master of Joachim and Anne, who was believed at the time to be a woodcarver in Holland or Utrecht (see BK-NM-88).3 The affinity between the group and a panel of The Lamentation by the Haarlem painter Geertgen tot Sint Jans (c. 1455/65-c. 1485/95) in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna,4 was seen as further confirmation of the carver’s Northern Netherlandish origins.5
In 1973 Leeuwenberg was the first to cast doubt on the attribution to the Master of Joachim and Anne.6 Since 1977 the group has been unanimously placed in Cologne, but while one camp then linked it to Master Tilman (probably identifiable as Tilman Heysacker, nicknamed ‘Krayndunck’, active 1487-d. 1515),7 the other attributed it to the so-called Carben-Meister (possibly identifiable as Wilhelm von Arborch, documented in Cologne between 1506 and 1533),8 who was probably trained by Master Tilman. The work of the two woodcarvers is so closely interrelated that it is not always possible to make a clear distinction.9 In this case, however, an attribution to Master Tilman is possible on the basis of the profound psychological relationship between the figures, and the closed, compact composition: two important aspects in which his work differs from that of his follower. The difference becomes evident at a glance if this group is compared with three compositionally very similar Lamentation groups that are convincingly attributed to the Carben-Meister and his workshop.10
The carving of the Lamentation is so refined that it can be regarded as an autograph work by Master Tilman. Similar sophistication is found in a beech-wood St Dorothy in Cologne that is attributed to the master.11 The saint’s facial type, with its delicate features, moreover resembles those of the female figures in the Amsterdam group. Both must have been made around 1500, when the artist was at the height of his powers.
The existence of a neo-gothic copy of the Amsterdam group in boxwood by Nikolaus Elscheidt (1835-1874) says much about the composition’s popularity in the nineteenth century.12 This sculptor, active in Cologne, probably studied the original when it was in the collection of Carl Roettgen (1837-1909) in Bonn.13
Bieke van der Mark, 2024
Literature
W. Vogelsang, ‘Beeldhouwkunst’, in F.W.S. van Thienen (ed.), Algemene kunstgeschiedenis, vol. 4, Utrecht/Antwerp 1949, p. 27; W. Vogelsang, ‘De Noord-Nederlandsche beeldhouwkunst van de 12de tot de eerste helft der 16de eeuw’, in H.E. van Gelder (ed.), Kunstgeschiedenis der Nederlanden, vol. 1, Utrecht 1954, pp. 120-50, esp. p. 147; J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 45, with earlier literature; D.P.R.A. Bouvy, ‘Review of J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973’, Simiolus 7 (1974), pp. 103-06, esp. p. 105; R. Didier and H. Krohm, Duitse middeleeuwse beeldhouwwerken in Belgische verzamelingen, exh. cat. Brussels (Generale Bankmaatschappij) 1977, p. 102; C.E. von Nostitz, Late Gothic Sculpture of Cologne, New York 1978, pp. 320, 371, no. 12; R. Karrenbrock and H. Westermann-Angerhausen, ‘Neugotik und ihre Vorbilder. Eine unbekannte Beweinungsgruppe des Nikolaus Elscheidt’, Kölner Museums-Bulletin 2 (1996), pp. 17-31, p. 27; R. Karrenbrock in R. Karrenbrock et al., Die Holzskulpturen des Mittelalters II: 1400 bis 1540, vol. 1, coll. cat. Cologne (Museum Schnütgen) 2001, p. 312; De Werd in F. Scholten and G. de Werd, Een hogere werkelijkheid: Duitse en Franse beeldhouwkunst 1200-1600 uit het Rijksmuseum Amsterdam/Eine höhere Wirklichkeit, Deutsche und Französische Skulptur 1200-1600 aus dem Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, exh. cat. Cleves (Museum Kurhaus Kleve) 2004-06, no. 18
Citation
B. van der Mark, 2024, 'attributed to Meester Tilman, The Lamentation, Cologne, c. 1500', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035550
(accessed 7 December 2025 00:00:56).