Throne for the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament

Entry

Exposition thrones of this type served to display the monstrance with the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist. The plateau intended for that purpose is held aloft by three small cherubs. In the foreground, the Lamb of God lies on a pyre. The plateau is flanked by two large broken volutes, which evolve into an outward-orientated horn of plenty brimming with ears of corn and fruits. Angels kneel in adoration on each volute, with above them on either side, two ascending angels and two more hovering angels, all joined together by festoons of grapes and ears of corn referring to the Eucharist. The one on the top left holds aloft a burning heart, the one on the other side blows a trumpet. The canopy is topped by two cherubs with, between them on a cloud, a half-length figure of God the Father with the terrestrial globe. The dove of the Holy Ghost flies beneath Him, with rays of sun shooting downwards.

The exposition throne originates from the chapel of the former seminary in Amersfoort. Until 1957 the building, dating from 1696, was used by the Old Catholic Church. When the piece was purchased from the auctioned inventory of the Old Catholic Seminary in 1957 it was still complete with later overpainting and gilding, and God the Father was holding a banderole with the text HIC EST FILEUS MEUS DILECTUS (This is my beloved son).¹ The banderole had been added later.

In view of the Amersfoort provenance, the throne was once thought to be a mid-eighteenth century work from the Northern Netherlands, ‘reminiscent of the style of Jacob de Wit, but not entirely without influence from Antwerp’.² However, the exuberant, yet still strictly symmetrical decorative elements suggest the piece came about earlier, in the last decades of the seventeenth or the first of the eighteenth century, before the Rococo arrived in the Netherlands round the middle of the 1730s. Moreover, the carving in terms of style and design was not merely influenced by late-baroque sculpture from Antwerp, but is entirely consistent with it, as comparison with the oeuvres of prominent Antwerp sculptors like Artus Quellinus II (1625-1700), Willem Kerricx I (1652-1719) and Pieter Scheemaeckers I (1652-1714) illustrates.³ This, combined with the high quality of the carving, makes it far more likely that the present work actually came about in Antwerp, which was then the dominant art centre. At that time, a great deal of sculpture was exported from Antwerp to the Northern Netherlands.

An almost identical exposition throne can be found in the neo-classicist Lodewijkskerk at Steenschuur in Leiden.⁴ The object undoubtedly originates from the same workshop, where there was clearly some degree of serial production. This could have been the workshop of the Antwerp sculptor Pieter Verbruggen II (1648-1691). A drawing by him of an exposition throne exists with a very similar canopy with, on either side, three hovering angels among foliage (fig. a). In addition, compositional parallels can also be noted with a drawing of 1713 in the Van Herck collection ascribed to Willem Kerricx I. This design made for an exposition throne for the church in Lede, is however rendered more freely and already heralds the Rococo.⁵

Bieke van der Mark, 2025