Object data
oak with leather, brass and traces of polychromy
height 61.5 cm × width 22 cm × depth 7.5 cm
Master of the Utrecht Stone Female Head (attributed to workshop of)
Pair of Bellows with the Flight into Egypt
Utrecht, c. 1510
Technical notes
The relief on the decorative face is carved and was originally polychromed. The pair of bellows consists of a front and back board, leather sides, a brass nozzle and mouthpiece and a wooden valve on the reverse.
Scientific examination and reports
- conservation report: A. Kummer, RMA, 2006
Condition
Part of the reins and the donkey’s tail are missing. The leather is dried out, torn in places or lost. The polychromy has been removed with a caustic; traces remain in a few areas.
Conservation
- A. Kummer, 2006: cleaned.
Provenance
...; collection David van der Kellen Jr (1804-1879), Amsterdam;1 by whom sent to Paris (Drouot) for auction with the entire collection but purchased en bloc before the sale by the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, 1873;2 transferred to The Hague, 1875; transferred to the museum, 1885
Object number: BK-NM-66
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Master of the Utrecht Stone Female Head (active in Utrecht c. 1490-1530)
The Master of the Utrecht Stone Female Head gets his name from his principal work, a remarkable female stone head in the Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht.3 The head likely belongs to a statue of the Virgin from an Annunciation group, with a second possibility being a mourning woman from a monumental Entombment group.4 The sculpture was first published in 1942 by Leeuwenberg, who then set out to define the master’s oeuvre on stylistic grounds, ultimately resulting in numerous attributions.
By comparing the shape of the head and the treatment of the hair, drapery of her head scarf and facial expression, Leeuwenberg also discerned the anonymous master’s hand in a number of wooden statues, including a St Ursula,5 Mary Magdalene,6 Salvator Mundi (BK-1964-1) and St Dorothy.7 Based on the provenance and chronology of these works, a period of activity in Utrecht from circa 1490 to 1530 was established. The master’s oeuvre was evidently eclectic in nature. In addition to statues of saints, he and his workshop produced altarpieces, epitaphs, chimney friezes (cf. BK-NM-11304) and fireplace bellows (BK-NM-66).
Leeuwenberg also discovered five altarpieces in Norway that were highly reminiscent of the master’s style, resulting in his conclusion that the workshop was large-scale, including the production of artworks destined for the export market.8 No tangible evidence exists to support this theory, however, though trading contacts between the Low Countries and Scandinavia via the Hansa make this quite tenable, with carved altarpieces even perhaps ordered in exchange for precious copper. These altarpieces are preserved in churches along the west coast (Hadsel, Röst, Leka, Grip and Örsta).
These export works are often of inferior quality, likely a consequence of the many workshop hands involved in their production along with the various kinds of wood employed in avoiding damage sustained in transit. The practice of carving in different kinds of woods was highly unusual for Utrecht. For this reason, it has been suggested that the Master of the Utrecht Stone Female Head obtained his training in Mechelen, i.e. in the vicinity of a major port such as Antwerp, where an export trade would readily have been facilitated.
Marie Mundigler, 2024
References
J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, pp. 68-70; M. van Vlierden et al., Hout- en steensculptuur van Museum Catharijneconvent ca. 1200-1600, coll. cat. Utrecht 2004, pp. 188-89; M. Leeflang et al., Middeleeuwse beelden uit Utrecht 1430-1530/Mittelalterliche Bildwerke aus Utrecht, exh. cat. Utrecht (Museum Catharijneconvent)/Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 2012-13, pp. 76-77, 78-87 and nos. 53-60; M. Leeflang and A. Lorne, ‘Het Stenen Vrouwenkopje, Identiteit gezocht voor vijfhonderd jaar oud Utrechts beeld’, Kunst en Wetenschap 18/3 (2009), pp. 33-4; J. Leeuwenberg in R. van Luttervelt et al., Middeleeuwse kunst der Noordelijke Nederlanden, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1958, pp. 210-15; W. Halsema-Kubes, ‘Een gebeeldhouwde blaasbalg in het Rijksmuseum’, Antiek 3 (1968), pp. 253-57 J. Leeuwenberg, ‘Een nieuw facet aan een Utrechtse beeldhouwkunst’, Oud Holland 70 (1955), pp. 82-95; J. Leeuwenberg, ‘Een nieuw facet aan een Utrechtse beeldhouwkunst 2’, Oud Holland 72 (1957), pp. 56-58; J. Leeuwenberg, ‘Een nieuw facet aan een Utrechtse beeldhouwkunst 3. Vijf Utrechtse altaarkasten in Noorwegen’, Oud Holland 74 (1959), pp. 79-102; J. Leeuwenberg, ‘Die heilige Dorothea und der Meister des Utrechter steinernen Frauenkopfs’, Aachener Kunstblätter 34 (1967), pp. 175-93; J. Leeuwenberg, ‘Vier onbekende Noordnederlandse beeldhouwwerken’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 15 (1967), pp. 54-63
Entry
This pair of bellows consists of two heart-shaped oak boards with handles, a leather windbag and a simply turned brass nozzle. The reverse is flat and has a round opening with gothic tracery that acts as a valve. The front board, or decorative face, has a delicately carved Flight into Egypt which was originally fully polychromed. The composition of the Virgin and Child on the donkey is loosely based on a print by Martin Schongauer (1430/50-1491) (see RP-P-OB-998),9 but the figure of Joseph is different. The central scene is flanked by two miracles that took place, according to apocryphal stories, during the journey to Egypt.10 In the hilly landscape upper left, on a tall plinth, is one of the many images of heathen gods which, according to legend, toppled of their own accord as the travellers passed by. The farmer reaping upper right is an allusion to the miracle of the grain.
Leeuwenberg’s attribution of the relief on bellows to the workshop of the Master of the Utrecht Stone Female Head (active c. 1490-1530) is generally accepted.11 It was prompted by the parallels with the Maria Lactans on the Crescent Moon Surrounded by an Aureole from his workshop in the collection of Museum Catharijneconvent.12 The Virgin’s face, with the high, protuberant forehead and tip-tilted nose, and the shape of the infant Christ’s head are very similar. The front board of a second pair of bellows attributed to the same woodcarver is held in the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg.13 By around 1500 decorated sandstone chimney-piece friezes had become a speciality in Utrecht (cf. BK-NM-11962). The Master of the Utrecht Stone Female Head also won his spurs in this category. For instance, there is a chimney-piece frieze in the Centraal Museum in Utrecht attributed to his workshop.14 It is quite conceivable that when a costly frieze of this kind was ordered, his workshop would also supply a pair of carved bellows as a fitting accessory for the hearth.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds a bellows with the same image as the Rijksmuseum’s (fig. a).15 In this example, which was in the Figdor and Mannheimer collections in the past, the polychromy is still largely intact. Compared with the Amsterdam piece, however, the carving of the decorative face is of markedly inferior quality, and certain elements of the scene have been simplified. The omission of the falling statue of a heathen god above the column upper left moreover betrays ignorance of this legend, which was well-known in the Middle Ages.
It were these aspects that led Leeuwenberg to rightfully dismiss the New York bellows as a nineteenth-century copy.16 The coats of arms painted on the escutcheons below – the double-headed eagle (possibly to be interpreted as the Reichsadler of the Holy Roman Empire) and the arms of the City of Amsterdam – were probably added by the copyist to increase the historical cachet.
Bieke van der Mark, 2024
This entry is an updated version of Van der Mark in M. Leeflang et al. (eds.), Middeleeuwse beelden uit Utrecht 1430-1530, exh. cat. Utrecht (Museum Catharijneconvent)/Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 2012-13, no. 55
Literature
J.J.M. Timmers, ‘Achtenveertig eeuwen beeldhouwkunst in hout’, in W. Boerhave Beekman, Hout in alle tijden, vol. 2, Deventer 1949, pp. 597-772, esp. p. 684; J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 37, with earlier literature; A.M. Janssens, Het leven in de late middeleeuwen, exh. cat. Utrecht (Centraal Museum) 1974, no. 25; F. Scholten in H. van Os et al., Netherlandish Art in the Rijksmuseum 1400-1600, Amsterdam/Zwolle 2000, no. 25; B. Kruijsen, Verzamelen van middeleeuwse kunst in Nederland 1830-1903, Nijmegen 2002, p. 106; M. van Vlierden et al., Hout- en steensculptuur van Museum Catharijneconvent ca. 1200-1600, coll. cat. Utrecht 2004, p. 191; M. Leeflang et al., Middeleeuwse beelden uit Utrecht: 1430-1530/Mittelalterliche Bildwerke aus Utrecht: 1430-1530, exh. cat. Utrecht (Museum Catharijneconvent)/Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 2012-13, no. 55
Citation
B. van der Mark, 2024, 'attributed to workshop of Meester van de Utrechtse Stenen Vrouwenkop, Pair of Bellows with the Flight into Egypt, Utrecht, c. 1510', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.246921
(accessed 20 September 2024 00:21:17).