Calvary

Entry

This finely rendered stone relief of the Crucifixion comprises no less than twenty-one figures. Mounted high up on his cross, the figure of Christ forms the central axis of the scene. His dignified pose contrasts starkly with the writhing bodies of the two thieves who flank him, crucified on their own crosses made from truncated tree trunks. Populating the relief’s middle ground are numerous soldiers, some on horses, and several other bystanders, all dressed in pseudo-Roman attire. One horseman left of the cross holds a long spear extending upward, with its point about to pierce the Saviour’s right flank: this is the blind centurion, Longinus, who is assisted in his aim by the horseman behind him. Left bottom, the focus centres on the figure of Mary. Overwhelmed with sadness, she collapses dramatically in a swoon, with St John the Evangelist and two other women hastening to support her. The group opposite right consists of four soldiers fighting over Christ’s robes, with one wielding a dagger. Set in a mountainous landscape, the grim scene is witnessed from above by God, who gestures angrily from a cloud. Far in the distance, behind the wheel-gallows on the left, the city of Jerusalem can be seen, replete with a variety of structures, a domed classical temple and an obelisk. The composition displays some similarity to an engraving by Julius Goltzius (1550-c.1595) from 1586.¹ Nevertheless, the scene bears a greater likeness to various versions of the painter Maarten van Heemskerck’s (1498-1574) treatment of the subject, including his Crucifixion (1543) in Ghent.² A general agreement with this work is evident in the distribution of the various figural groups, the cityscape in the background and the exquisitely executed rear view of the horse middle right. The sculptor was possibly familiar with Heemskerck’s composition, though then likely via sketches, as the painting was never officially circulated as an engraving (as far as can be ascertained). Even so, the similarity is too summary to classify this piece as a direct copy.

The relief is carved in a pure black marble found only in certain parts of Belgian Wallonia. While the best-known quarries were at Mazy, Dinant and Basècles, quarrying on a modest scale also occurred at Theux, a small village south of Verviers in the Ardennes Mountains. Commonly known as marbre noir de Theux, the stone’s hardness, fine structure and uniform colour made it highly suitable for sculpture. Under Érard van der Marck, Prince-Bishop of Liège from 1506 to 1538, the demand for works carved in this material flourished.

The present Calvary belongs to a stylistically coherent group of black Theux marble reliefs, gravestones and sculpted architectural elements produced in Liège. The group was for the most part already defined by Brassinne at the onset of the twentieth century.³ Dupont presumed an origin in a Liège workshop with Italian roots. This was based on the Italian character of the scenes, manifest in an idealized high-renaissance formal idiom, the ambitious compositions employing a high degree of perspective effect, the introduction of figures with backs turned to the viewer, the draped robes in all’antica style (as yet furnished with late-gothic detail in the rendering of the attire) and the presence of classical ornamentation and architecture.⁴ Hereafter, Yernaux came across an Italian-Liège sculptor’s atelier, documented in the Liège city archives as being active for approximately 150 years.⁵ This workshop of the Palardin-Fiacre family, founded in 1518 by one Nicolas Palardin (d. 1522), emerges as a highly plausible candidate as the supplier of these works. On the basis of the ornamentation adorning the reliefs, it has been determined that this ‘Nicolas d’Italie’ or ‘Nicolas l’Italien’ likely originated from Lombardy.⁶ In addition to the internationally renowned marbre noir de Theux, Palardin would have been drawn by the favourable artistic climate in Liège, then thriving under the authority of the art-loving Prince-Bishop Everhardt van der Marck. It was for this same reason that the Ulm woodcarver Daniel Mauch (1477-1540) also settled in the city around 1530.

As far as can be ascertained, no works by the workshop’s founder have survived to the present day. The name commonly associated with works in the above-cited group is his son and successor, Nicolas Palardin II (d. c. 1580), entailheur de pierres. Around the middle of the century, Martin Fiacre (d. 1601) entered the service of Palardin fils, marrying his sister in 1552 and eventually becoming his artistic partner. Fiacre is the author of the first work attributed with certainty to this shop, based on his signature on a bishop’s gravestone produced around the turn of the sixteenth century, today held in the Art and History Museum, Brussels.⁷ Overseen by Fiacre’s son and grandson, respectively Elias (d. after 1636) and Gilles Fiacre (d. 1664), the atelier operated well into the seventeenth century.

In addition to the Amsterdam Calvary, five other versions carved in black Theux marble are known, varying widely in quality and composition: two preserved in the Museum Grand Curtius (Liège), two in the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), and the fifth in the Bruges. The first in this series is likely the Memorial Stone with the Calvary in Liège (fig. a).⁸ Unlike the other reliefs, which given their shape and smaller scale probably functioned as house altars, a tomb with recumbent figure appears below the scene of the Crucifixion, thus indicating the relief’s purpose as a gravestone. The effigy’s marked resemblance to the gisant on another gravestone in the same museum – in this case dated ‘1537’⁹ – supports an origin more or less in the same period. It also provides some verification of the group’s dating as a whole. Together with a Corbel with the Deposition held in the same collection,¹⁰ the two gravestones are without question attributable to the same hand, most likely that of Nicolas II Palardin. The remaining, smaller versions are more evolved in style. These works would have been produced in the following decades, by which time Palardin’s brother-in-law, the local sculptor Martin Fiacre, had entered the atelier. Of the five reliefs, the Amsterdam piece displays the highest level of finishing. The achieved spatial depth, the figures’ poses, facial expressions and drapery folds are rendered more naturally and with greater nuance when compared to the second version in the Museum Grand Curtius (fig. b),¹¹ one of the two reliefs in the Victoria and Albert Museum (fig. c)¹² and the Calvary in Bruges (fig. d).¹³ This last relief is heightened with gilding: a decorative aspect once again confirming the workshop’s Italian roots. The possibility that the other reliefs were also originally partly gilded must not be ruled out.

Leeuwenberg dated the present version circa 1560-70.¹⁴ In light of Christ’s elongated proportions, however, as yet reminiscent of late-gothic style, a dating of 1550-60 is more plausible. Even if less ambitious and detailed in execution, the second work in the Museum Grand Curtius (fig. b) – on which the body of the right-hand thief and the knife-wielding soldier in the foreground are absent – appears to be by the same hand. The rather poorly executed Calvary in the Victoria and Albert Museum (fig. c) together with the stiffer variant in Bruges (fig. d) – judging by the more heavily executed musculature of the figures of both pieces – may be described as later works produced by two less-skilled shop assistants. Rounding off this series is the second Calvary at the Victoria and Albert Museum (fig. e).¹⁵ Here the Italian influence has devolved significantly, as manifest in the Flemish facial types of the Marys in the foreground. This aspect, in combination with a more compact corporeality, points to a later phase in production, datable to around 1600, by which time the Liège workshop had been operating under the Fiacre family already for several decades. During this period, old formulas were apparently repeated, void of any fantasy or original adaptation.

Bieke van der Mark, 2024