The Lamentation of Christ, from a Carthusian House Altar

Entry

In 1958, four works attributed to an unknown Lower Rhenish woodcarver were grouped together on the basis of their style.⁵ Dubbed the ‘Master of the Kalkar St George Altar’, the group derived its name of convenience from the principal work, an altarpiece preserved in the Sankt-Nicolaïkirche in the German city of Kalkar. Grouped around the St George Altar were the small Altarpiece of the Lamentation of Christ in the Musée de Cluny in Paris, the Entombment in the Museum Wasserburg Anholt in Germany, and the present Amsterdam Lamentation of Christ, from a Carthusian House Altar. All four works display evident similarities: deeply accentuated drapery folds, characteristic physiognomic expressions, demonstrative physical gestures and the almost graphic rendering of detail (e.g. in the clothing and vegetation). A number of the facial types are also highly similar.

Several years later, it proved possible to link these four sculptures to two other documented works in the church of Kalkar, specifically, components of the main altar in the Sankt-Nicolaïkirche and the life-size Body of the Entombed Christ.⁶ Archival documents confirmed these works were produced by the Beeldesnider Master Arnt (active c. 1460-d. 1492), whose earliest activity in Kalkar could therefore be established in the year 1460. Art historical scholarship has since determined that Master Arnt was one of the most important and original Lower Rhenish sculptors active prior to 1500, with an impressive oeuvre of more than twenty surviving works. In 1993, a magnificent, polychromed carved-relief depiction of the Adoration of the Magi was also added to the woodcarver’s production.⁷ Master Arnt worked in Kalkar from 1460 to 1484. He then subsequently moved to the city of Zwolle, where he remained active as sculptor up until his death in 1492. He continued his work on the main altar of the Sankt-Nicolaïkirche in Kalkar from his workshop in Zwolle. Following his death, however, the project was ultimately completed by other woodcarvers.⁸

In this small Lamentation group, seven figures are positioned around the deceased figure of Christ in the form of a mandorla. Mary, Christ’s mother, bends over the body of her son, immersed in grief. She is accompanied by three elegantly dressed women who apply ointments to his body: Mary Magdalene (far left), Mary Salome (centre) and Mary of Clopas (on the rear right). The latter figure is stylishly clad, wearing a bourellet, a turban-shaped piece of headgear held in place by a chin strap. A closely related figure also appears in one of Master Arnt’s seminal works, the choir stalls in the Minoritenkirche (1474) in Cleves, though in this case as Mary Magdalene. Apparently, he interchanged these luxuriously attired ladies at will.⁹ In addition to these three female figures, the Amsterdam Lamentation includes a figure of St John the Evangelist on the rear left, and at the far right of the scene, a Carthusian monk kneeling in adoration – the group’s unknown donor – accompanied by his unidentified patron saint.

Arnt of Kalkar exemplifies the master catering to a local market, working in his own personal style. He likely worked on a project basis, as opposed to the serial production of altarpieces encountered in the large sculptors’ workshops in Brussels and Antwerp. Nevertheless, a degree of standardisation can also be detected. This becomes apparent when comparing the Amsterdam Lamentation to a small altarpiece centring on the same theme in the Musée de Cluny in Paris (fig. a), with the shrine and painted wings still intact.¹⁰ Although the latter example is clearly rendered in greater detail, compositionally the similarities between these two groups outnumber the differences. Mary Magdalene – at the front left and holding a half-opened ointment jar – appears in the same pose wearing the same raiment, as does the female figure at the rear right.

The close agreement between the Amsterdam and Paris reliefs gives rise to the supposition that Master Arnt worked with three-dimensional models in his workshop. These allowed him to take an executed and completed work and to reproduce it with a minimum of deviation. Very little is known about the use of such models in the late Middle Ages. What we do know is that woodcarvers also used prints and drawings as their models. These two-dimensional images were subsequently converted into sculptural compositions as sculptors saw fit. For the central part of the Lamentation scene, the sculptor turned to the mirror-image of an engraving by Israhel van Meckenem (fig. b), a printmaker active both in Cleves and nearby Bocholt from circa 1440/45 to 1503.¹¹ The elegant linear execution so fundamental to Master Arnt’s style suggests a close familiarity with Rogier van der Weyden’s (c. 1400-1464) work. It may also very well imply that, prior to settling in the Lower Rhine region, he was initially schooled in Brabant (Brussels).¹²

By no means does the striking similarity between the two Lamentation scenes in Paris and Amsterdam necessarily indicate a lack of ambition on Master Arnt’s part. Both works were commissioned by Carthusian monks. The donors figure prominently in both of the compositions -in the right foreground – accompanied by their respective patron saint. In the Paris altarpiece, the X-formed cross facilitates an identification of this figure as the apostle Andrew. Despite shared facial characteristics and other similarities between both patron saints, the absence of an X-shaped cross (or any trace of its original presence) suggests that another apostle or saint is depicted in the Amsterdam Lamentation group.¹³ His identity would have been indicated by the inscription painted on the now partially missing banderole in his right hand. The shared environment in which these two works were commissioned suggests that Master Arnt repeated a pre-existing composition along general lines at the patron’s request. Because a cityscape of Kranenburg (as Jerusalem) appears on the outer panels of the wings of the Paris altarpiece, its patron is thought to have originated from this town near Nijmegen.¹⁴ Additionally, the group today preserved in the Rijksmuseum is known to have stood in a small field chapel in Boekoel, a village to the north of Roermond, since 1852. It is therefore quite plausible that it came from the prominent Carthusian abbey Bethlehem in Roermond, which was dissolved in 1783. The Paris group was perhaps produced for the order’s house of refuge on the Priemstraat in Nijmegen, which had been acquired by the Roermond Carthusians in 1483. If the provenance of the Amsterdam Lamentation from the Roermond charterhouse is correct, the date of its commission is likely before 1484, at which time Master Arnt left the Lower Rhine region and settled in Zwolle.

Frits Scholten, 2024