Pietà

Entry

Seated with her son’s lifeless body lying across her lap, the Virgin stares serenely into space.¹ She uses both arms to prevent Christ’s body, its weakness convincingly portrayed, from sliding off her legs. Mary has a remarkably youthful face, despite the veil and wimple she wears in accordance with her actual age. Scenes of the Pietà appear in altars dedicated to the Passion of Christ and the Sorrows of Mary. As an Andachtsbild, the image was also often chosen as the main scene in smaller retables.²

In the nineteenth century, the sculpture belonged to the Roermond notary and politician Charles Guillon (1811-1873), whose large collection was exhibited in his home in the Swalmerstraat, also known as the Museé Guillon. After Guillon’s death, his entire collection was sold at auction in two parts. In 1874, the books, charters and art objects were put up for sale. The Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst bought six sculptures, including this Pietà and a somewhat related Virgin and Child with St Anne (BK-NM-1280). The women in both groups display a similar facial type characterized by a long, straight nose and crescent-shaped eyes with slightly bulging eyeballs, reminiscent of the physiognomic types of the poupées de Malines produced in the Brabantine city of Mechelen on a major scale during the late Middle Ages. A further indication of the Pietà’s Brabantine origin is its similarity to an early sixteenth-century Christ on the Cold Stone, likely produced in Leuven, which appeared on the Antwerp art market in 2011.³ The anatomy of this Christ figure is strikingly similar to that of the Amsterdam Christ, and the rendering of the eyes is comparable to that of Mary’s.

Bieke van der Mark, 2024