The Lamentation

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