Object data
oak with polychromy and traces of gilding
height 36.5 cm × width 13 cm × depth 6 cm
anonymous
Female Saint
Southern Netherlands, Northern France, c. 1350 - c. 1400
Technical notes
Carved, polychromed and partly gilded. There is a workbench hole in the head and a hole in the underside. There are mortises in the arms where the forearms, carved separately, would have been attached. The flat reverse has been slightly worked.
Scientific examination and reports
- X-ray stereography: J. Lodewijk, Centraal Laboratorium, Amsterdam, 1970
- condition report: A. Lorne, RMA, December 1995
Condition
The figure has suffered woodworm damage, particularly the fold of the cloak below the left elbow and the edge of the cloak where it is draped across the breast. The lower arms and the points of the crown are missing. A later polychrome layer has been almost entirely removed save for a few remnants (date unknown). The other polychromy is largely original and there are remnants of original gilding on the hair and the hem of the cloak. Some metal nails and plugs have been tapped into the figure during an old restoration (date unknown).
Provenance
...; from Galerie Ilias Neufert, Munich, DM 26,000, to the museum, 1968
Object number: BK-1968-20
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
Given its modest dimensions and flat back this Female Saint was probably once part of a carved retable altarpiece. From the twelfth to the early fifteenth century the central section of such an altar was usually flanked by figures of saints like this one.1 The identity of the crowned female figure is unclear. The polychromy on the statuette, including the brocade pattern of graceful vines and a double C-scroll in yellowish-brown paint on the bodice of the robe, is partly original.
With her sweet, rather pensive expression, fitted bodice and draped cloak gathered in folds falling to the left and right, the Amsterdam saint was clearly influenced by French examples,2 but the wood used (oak) makes it more likely that she comes from the Southern Netherlands or the region bordering on Northern France. As Oellers has observed, a larger (h. 48.2 cm), polychromed oak Female Saint in the former Goldschmidt Collection, Eindhoven, is remarkably similar in almost every respect.3 The way the cloak is draped across the body of the two figures like a short apron was customary in the second half of the fourteenth century. Van Vlierden associated the Amsterdam Female Saint with a slightly larger oak apostle (h. 44.5 cm) in Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht, which stands in a mirror-image S-shaped pose, wearing a garment with similar folds.4
Bieke van der Mark, 2024
Literature
J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 5, with earlier literature; A.C. Oellers in A.C. Oellers et al., In gotischer Gesellschaft. Spätmittelalterliche Skulpturen aus einer niederländischen Privatsammlung, exh. cat. Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 1998, p. 124; M. van Vlierden et al., Hout- en steensculptuur van Museum Catharijneconvent ca. 1200-1600, coll. cat. Utrecht 2004, p. 69
Citation
B. van der Mark, 2024, 'anonymous, Female Saint, Southern Netherlands, c. 1350 - c. 1400', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.24233
(accessed 15 November 2024 04:08:15).