Object data
walnut with polychromy
height 30 cm
anonymous
Mechelen, c. 1515 - c. 1530
walnut with polychromy
height 30 cm
Carved and polychromed. The reverse is flat. Punch marks have been applied to the gilding along the hem of Mary’s mantle.
The figure has sustained major woodworm damage, especially the Christ Child. Missing are his upper torso and left foot, as are Mary’s feet and sections of the base. The separately carved socle has also been lost.
…; 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-2493
Copyright: Public domain
In the late Middle Ages, a local ‘industry’ centring on the production of simple saintly statuettes, available in a uniform number of iconographic types, flourished in the city of Mechelen. Given the many examples surviving today, this production is certain to have occurred on a massive scale.1 Referred to as poupées de Malines (Mechelen dolls), these figures derive their name from their full-round faces and doll-like features. After the Virgin and Child, by far the most predominant themes were small groups of the Virgin and Child with St Anne (also known as St Anne Trinity, or in Dutch Anna-te-Drieeën) and statuettes of St Catherine and St Barbara. As established by the St Luke’s Guild of Mechelen, the wood and the polychromy were subjected to very strict quality standards. If meeting this standard, appraisers applied the city’s quality mark to the figure’s reverse – three vertical pales (from the city’s coat of arms) – thus conveying the inspection and approval of both the wood and the carving itself. The presence of the letter ‘M’ (for Mechelen), stamped or branded in front, signified the same for the polychromy. As freestanding works, the completed ‘dolls’ chiefly functioned as objects of saintly veneration. In rare cases, these figurines were displayed in special retables conceived as Enclosed Gardens (Besloten Hofjes), filled with hand-made silk flowers and a wide variety of miniature objects, devoltionalia and decorations in different media, such as saintly relics, metal pilgrim badges, wax medallions, glass-blown grapes, parchment, alabaster, pipeclay, pearls, amber and coral.2
This statuette of the Virgin and Christ Child has unfortunately sustained major woodworm damage. In her hair, Mary wears a coiled pearl headband. The Mechelen wood quality mark is branded on the sculpture’s flat reverse. Other examples of this specific sculptural type which entails a fairly large Christ Child wearing a long chemise, positioned semi-recumbent with the legs extending horizontally to the right, can be found in Moulins (France), Rotterdam and Maastricht.3 The Christ Child of these carvings typically holds a rosary or small bird. On the present statuette, much of the child’s upper torso has been lost, rendering the attribute he might have held indeterminable. The figure is dated circa 1515-30, based on the trapezoidal neckline and the shallow folds of Mary’s dress.
Bieke van der Mark, 2024
W. Godenne,’Prélimiaires à l’inventaire général des statuettes d’origine malinoise, présumées des XVe et XVIe siècles’, Bulletin du Cercle Archéologique, Littéraire et Artistique de Malines 66 (1962), pp. 67-156, esp. p. 147; J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 171; L. Hendrikman et al., Collectie Neutelings: Vier eeuwen middeleeuwse sculptuur, coll. cat. Maastricht (Bonnefantenmuseum) 2016, p. 149;F. Cayron and D. Steyaert, Made in Malines: Les Statuettes malinoises ou ‘poupées de Malines’ de 1500-1540. Etude matérielle et typologique (Scientia Artis 16), Brussels 2019, fig. 2.70b
B. van der Mark, 2024, 'anonymous, Virgin and Child, Mechelen, c. 1515 - c. 1530', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.24455
(accessed 13 November 2024 20:11:26).