Christ, from a Coronation of the Virgin

Entry

This Christ originally belonged to a Coronation of the Virgin, a sculptural group once forming the middle section of an altarpiece. When exhibited at the 1905 World Exhibition in Liège, the group was still complete.⁵ The present figure is nevertheless certain to have been separated from the group long before 1929, the year in which the sculpture the Virgin (fig. a) was given to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Previous to this time, the latter work had entered the collection of F. Leverton Harris in London via the British art dealer Durlacher.⁶ The polychromy and gilding on the Christ figure were likely removed after this separation, as much of the Virgin’s original polychromy remains intact, along with inset glass cabochons.

That the two figures once belonged to the same group is evident not only in their shared provenance as part of the Francotte collection in Liège, but also in the marked formal and stylistic similarities and the approximately equivalent dimensions (respectively 57.5 and 57.0 cm). Both possess identical hexagonal plinths and are seated on identical benches. Most telling is the horizontal, tapering groove on the reverse of both pieces, used to conjoin the two figures by means of a slat. Carved in the breast of both figures is a concave hemisphere large enough to accommodate a sizeable glass or rock crystal roundel, perhaps once covering a relic. Shared stylistic characteristics include the treatment of the hair, the angular drapery folds (e.g. the diagonally descending mantle covering the knees of both figures), the sharply defined limbs perceptible beneath the clothing and the pointed shoes emerging from under the folds.

On stylistic grounds, the two figures can be linked to a Peter and Paul in Münster,⁷ as well as to two female saints and a John the Baptist in London.⁸ In 1972, Pieper was the first to observe a relation between these works, though at this time he was as yet unaware of the Amsterdam Christ.⁹ In his estimation, all of these pieces once belonged to the very same retable, a so-called ‘apostle altar’, featuring a central scene of the Coronation of the Virgin flanked on either side by six apostles and an additional twelve saints appearing below. Each of the figures was displayed in its own compartment. The presence of hemispherical cavities in the chests of the surviving works suggests the retable might have been a reliquary altarpiece, with each image containing relics. One concrete example, produced in Cologne and comparable to this hypothetical altarpiece, is a triptych in the Cistercian monastery Marienstatt.¹⁰ Williamson, however, is somewhat less convinced of the shared origin of these works and the notion that they once belonged to the one and the same altar. A key argument is his factual observation that many such multi-figured altarpieces are certain to have been produced in the region of the Meuse River and the Lower Rhine area around the mid-fourteenth century.¹¹ If Pieper’s surmise is true, however, then the altarpiece is certain to have been dispersed prior to 1869, the year in which the Victoria and Albert Museum acquired the two female saints and the John the Baptist.¹²

In 1977, Didier attributed the entire group, including the Amsterdam Christ, to an anonymous master assigned the Notname ‘Master of the Madonna von La Gleize’. Didier believed the same master was responsible for the grieving Mary and crucified Christ in the Église Nôtre-Dame de l’Assomption in La Gleize, a town located southeast of Liège, and a Hubert in the Église Saint-Hubert in Lavoir, a city to the southwest of Liège, displaying a stylistic affinity.¹³ His conclusion is based on elements such as the drapery folds that cling tightly to the body and similarities to be observed in the physiognomy and hands. The attribution of these works to the same master or workshop is convincing only to a point: the facial types of the Amsterdam Christ and the Christ in the Crucifixion scene in La Gleize are indeed related, yet this argument holds far less true when comparing the La Gleize Madonna with its London counterpart. Didier dated the groups circa 1330-40, though a somewhat broader period seems advisable, especially in light of the scant number of documented works, as Williamson rightly observed.¹⁴

Frits Scholten, 2024