Agony in the Garden

Brussels, c. 1445 - c. 1455

Object data

oak with traces of polychromy

height 45 cm × width 29 cm × depth 6.5 cm (depth 8 cm incl. added components)

Technical notes

Carved and originally polychromed. The relief was attached to a background with nails and several wooden dowels. The latter elements penetrate directly into the carving, including one dowel at the centre of the scene with a diameter of approximately 1 cm. The palisade extended onto a now lost section attached to the left side of the sculpture with a dowel. The inferior quality of the carving on the two oak slats visible on the reverse indicates these pieces may not be original. On the left piece, a section of the palisade’s interweaving has been carved; on the right piece, a fold of Christ’s cloak. Dendrochronological analysis showed that the latest measured annual ring of the wood from which the relief was cut corresponds to the year 1409, with the earliest felling date of the oak tree, most likely originating from northern Poland, established as 1439.

Scientific examination and reports

dendrochronology: M. Domínguez Delmás, University of Santiago de Compostela, 23 November 2015

Condition

Damage from insect infestation and the removal of polychromy with a caustic is evident. Christ’s hands (including wrists), nose and the top of his head have been filled with a putty-like substance, just as several areas of the base on the lower left.

Provenance

…; from the collection A.P. Hermans-Smits (1822-1897), Eindhoven, with numerous other objects (BK-NM-2001 to -2800), fl. 14,000 for all, to the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague, 1875; transferred to the museum, 1885

Object number: BK-NM-2482

The artist

Master of Hakendover (active in Brussels c. 1395-1430)

This anonymous master was named after his most important work, the main altarpiece in the Goddelijke Zaligmakerkerk in Hakendover. Dedicated to the church’s miraculous founding – according to the legend the Lord himself had helped in the construction of the building – this altar retable dates from circa 1405. In 1978, many of its carved groups were stolen. The Master of Hakendover’s skill as a carver of narrative scenes is nevertheless well-documented in photographs.

Unfortunately, nothing is known about the Master of Hakendover’s identity. From circa 1400 onward, he is thought to have worked in Brussels, where the master is likely to have established a large and versatile workshop. As a sculptor, his origins have been subject to some debate. On the basis of stylistic similarities between the Hakendover sculptures and the Coronation group from the church of Saint-Jacques in Liège, Steyaert has proposed the Meuse region as his place of training, most likely in Liège. This theory, however, has received minimal support.¹

From 1399 to 1409, the Master of Hakendover was involved in the decoration of the Sint-Martinuskerk at Halle (Belgium), producing the stone wall tabernacle and a series of large stone statues of the apostles for the choir. Around 1415, he carved an altarpiece for the Sankt-Reinoldikirche in Dortmund. Likewise attributed to the master are a number of small apostle figures adorning a nineteenth-century pulpit in Dorking (England)² and five retable groups which are considered to be early works.³

The Master of Hakendover is a seminal figure, not only because he stands out as one of the leading sculptors active in the Duchy of Brabant in the early fifteenth century. His work also testifies to the development of sculpture in its transition from the elegant and courtly International Gothic style – i.e. in the tradition of the Franco-French sculptor André Beauneveu (active 1363-1403) from Valenciennes – to the more naturalistic idiom of the Brabantine Late Gothic style, with its greater eye for expressive narrative scenes and details such as broken drapery folds. This transition manifests itself most eloquently in two late works by the Master of Hakendover, the Amsterdam Repentance of St Peter (BK-2011-3) and the Praying Apostles in New York.⁴

Marie Mundigler, 2024

References
R. Marijnissen and H. Van Liefferinge, ‘Les retables de Rheinberg et de Hakendover’, Jahrbuch der Rheinischen Denkmalpflege 27 (1967), pp. 75-92; D. Roggen, ‘Het retabel van Hakendover’, Gentse bijdragen tot de kunstgeschiedenis 1 (1934), pp. 108-21; J.W. Steyaert et al., Late Gothic Sculpture: The Burgundian Netherlands, exh. cat. Ghent (Museum of Fine Arts) 1994, pp. 67-70 and pp. 142-48; M. van Vlierden, ‘Enkele retabelfragmenten uit het atelier van de Meester van het retabel van Hakendover’, in C. van de Velde et al., Constructing Wooden Images: Proceedings of the Symposium on the Organization of Labour and Working Practices of Late Gothic Carved Altarpieces in the Low Countries, Brussels 25-26 October 2002, Brussels 2005, pp. 181-205; M. van Vlierden et al., Hout- en steensculptuur van Museum Catharijneconvent, ca. 1200-1600, coll. cat. Utrecht 2004, pp. 86-89; K.W. Woods, ‘Newly Discovered work in England by the Master of Hakendover’, Oud Holland 113 (1999), pp. 93-106

Entry

The surface of this oak retable group has suffered greatly due to insect infestation and the removal of polychromy with a caustic. Christ’s hands, the top of his head and his nose have been filled with a putty-like substance. The relief was previously seen as an early sixteenth-century work from the Northern Netherlands.⁵ Despite the sculpture’s deplorable condition, however, in 1994 Steyaert convincingly situated this work in fifteenth-century Brussels.⁶ The basis for this argument was the compositional agreement with the stone-relief Agony in the Garden that forms part of the wall tabernacle in the Sint-Martinuskerk in Halle (fig. a), a work by the Master of Hakendover (active c. 1395-1430), dating from the period 1399-1409.⁷ This anonymous Brussels sculptor derives his name of convenience from the renowned Three Virgins Retable in the Goddelijke Zaligmakerkerk in Hakendover (Belgium) from circa 1405.⁸ Both scenes show Christ kneeling behind a grid-work of interwoven tree branches. Behind this palisade, John, James and Peter lie sleeping, despite Christ asking them three times to stay awake and pray with him (Matthew 26:36-46; Mark 14:32-42; Luke 22:39-46).⁹ The composition of the Halle relief is more spacious in width, however, allowing a greater distance especially between Christ and the apostles. In the more compact composition of the Amsterdam group, by contrast, the bodies of the apostles have been eliminated. Consequently, the heads of these figures appear piled on top of each other unnaturally. In the present relief, an opening in the fencing has even been introduced, allowing the bare foot of the foremost disciple to appear. Dowel holes for purposes of attachment to a background can be seen on either side of the fragment. This is a strong indication that, as with the relief in Halle, the Amsterdam relief in all probability originally also included a group of soldiers approaching from the left and a section with the foot of the Mount of Olives with the golden chalice at the right.

For Steyaert, the stylistic agreement with the Master of Hakendover’s later work, specifically in terms of the ‘semi-circular composition’ and the style of the figures, was significant enough to justify the Amsterdam group’s attribution to a workshop assistant or direct follower.¹⁰ Due to the ‘scarcely refined interpretation of the details (faces of the apostles)’, this piece, which he dated circa 1430, could not be ascribed to the master himself. The monumental folds of Christ’s robes, consisting of long verticals that break when they hit the ground, are indeed highly similar to those encountered in works produced in the final stylistic phase of the Master of Hakendover, such as the Repentance of St Peter in the Rijksmuseum (BK-2011-3), the Praying Apostles (fig. b) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and an Entombment preserved in The McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas, with all three groups dated circa 1425-30.¹¹ Contrary to earlier pieces carved in walnut, these works are carved from oak, as is the group in question. Furthermore, the face and hair of the ‘repentant’ Peter in Amsterdam, the Peter at the front right of the New York group with the praying apostles, and the Peter in the present retable group are virtually identical.¹² One important deviation can nevertheless be observed when it comes to the physiognomy of the latter figure. Like the other apostles in this relief, it lacks the refinement, definition and nuance (skin folds, wrinkles) typically encountered in works by the Master of Hakendover. Other indications that a sculptor of lesser skill was involved in this work are areas of the carving that display a weak and less detailed execution, e.g. the crude treatment of Christ’s sleeves and the clumsily stylized vegetation on the lower right of the base.

Recent dendrochronological analysis shows the Agony in the Garden was carved using wood from a tree trunk that could only have been felled after 1439. When accounting for an additional average transport and storage period of five years, this retable group dates no earlier than circa 1445.¹³ As this implies a deviation of at least fifteen years from the art historical dating of circa 1430, one may conclude this work was produced by a follower rather than a workshop assistant of the Master of Hakendover. When acknowledging the deceptive similarity to the master’s later work, this follower is likely to have based this piece quite faithfully on a pre-existing model of the Master of Hakendover.

Bieke van der Mark, 2024

Literature

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 83, with earlier literature; Steyaert in J.W. Steyaert et al., Late Gothic Sculpture: The Burgundian Netherlands, exh. cat. Ghent (Museum of Fine Arts) 1994, pp. 70-71; M. van Vlierden et al., Hout- en steensculptuur van Museum Catharijneconvent, ca. 1200-1600, coll. cat. Utrecht 2004, p. 87; M. van Vlierden, ‘Enkele retabelfragmenten uit het atelier van de Meester van het retabel van Hakendover: Een eerste verkenning’, in C. van de Velde et al., Constructing Wooden Images: Proceedings of the Symposium on the Organization of Labour and Working Practices of Late Gothic Carved Altarpieces in the Low Countries, Brussels 25-26 October 2002, Brussels 2005, pp. 195, 197

Citation

B. van der Mark, 2024, 'possibly copy after Meester van Hakendover, Agony in the Garden, Brussels, c. 1445 - c. 1455', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.24358

(accessed 14 November 2024 17:17:14).

Figures

fig. a Master of Hakendover, *Agony in the Garden*, 1399-1409. Stone with polychromy. Halle, Sint-Martinusbasiliek, part of the wall tabernacle. Photo: KIK-IRPA, Brussels, cliché Z000197

fig. b Master of Hakendover, *Praying Apostles*, c. 1425-30. Oak, h. 49 cm. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 16.32.214