Bishop Enthroned

Entry

This Bishop Enthroned, in its current state bearing no attributes from which a specific identification can be made, sits on a throne ornamented with gothic tracery. He is dressed in full raiment, with a long alb and amice, a dalmatic, and a cope lined with orphrey bands rendered to imitate gold embroidery. The mitre on his head is also ‘embroidered’; from the back hang two singulae (lappets, i.e. ornamental flaps) draped over the shoulders. In his left hand, the bishop holds a cloth called a pannisellus, with which he once grasped the now missing crosier; his right hand is raised in a sign of benediction. Also missing is the morse that clasped the two sides of the cope at the level of the breast. Just below this, the oval opening of a cavity made in the figure’s chest can be seen, where relics, concealed behind a layer of wax, were discovered. Accompanying one of these relics was a parchment bearing the inscription ‘Antonius’. The cavity was probably adorned with a rock crystal cabochon. Below the right knee, the wood is scorched, likely the result of burning votive candles in front of the sculpture.

Adorning the length of the cope’s ‘gold-embroidered’ orphrey bands (aurifrisia) are ten apostle figures, each depicted standing beneath a baldachin. This much-loved motif often ornamented episcopal vestments, conveying the role of bishops as successors to the apostles. On this bishop, the following figures appear on the orphrey bands (starting at the bottom): on the left band, the apostle Andrew, an unidentified apostle, Simon, another unknown apostle, and Peter; on the right band, an unknown apostle with a staff and book, James the Great and three other unknown apostles. Two additional figures on the front of the bishop’s mitre complete the total of twelve apostles, one unknown and the other James the Less.

Together with a second Bishop Enthroned in the Rijksmuseum’s collection (BK-NM-27), the present work belongs to a small group of extant wooden statues of sitting or standing popes and bishops produced in the regions bordering the Netherlands and the Lower Rhine region, distinguishable by their copes with relief-carved orphrey bands. The figures incorporated in these ornamental bands can sometimes be useful in pinpointing the identity of the sculptor. The apostle Peter on the orphrey of the Bishop Enthroned in Venray by Henrik Douverman (c. 1490-1543/44), for example, is rendered in the very same manner as the monumental statues of saints attributed to his name.² On Henrick van Holt’s (c. 1480/90-1545/46) reliquary bust of Pope Sylvester, one of several busts integrated in the high altar of Xanten Cathedral, the John the Evangelist on the bust’s cope is attired in a wide-sleeved robe and a cloak draped diagonally across the body. These same motifs recur in absolutely identical form in other works by Van Holt, e.g. in a reliquary bust depicting St John himself, also integrated in the high altar of Xanten, and a sculpture of St John in Griethausen.³

There is no debate regarding the present figure’s Lower Rhenish origin. Nevertheless, Rommé’s proposed attribution of this work and the other enthroned bishop in the Rijksmuseum to a follower of Henrik Douverman, with both consequently dated circa 1520-30, appear stylistically and chronologically unfounded.⁴ On the contrary, the severely angular drapery folds and the pointed shoes of these Amsterdam bishops – not to mention the socle’s outmoded concave-polygonal form – strongly indicate a date of origin some twenty to forty years earlier, before Douverman was even active.

Guido de Werd, 2004 (updated by Bieke van der Mark, 2024)
This entry was originally published 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. 10