Christ as Salvator Mundi

Entry

In the late Middle Ages, representations of Christ as Salvator Mundi were very much in demand in the Lower Rhine region. In 1464, the miraculous powers of a statue of the Salvator are said to have come to light during a procession in Duisburg, Germany, subsequently sparking the growing veneration of such figures. In most cases, Christ is depicted standing with his right hand raised in a sign of benediction and holding an open book or celestial globe in his left hand. On occasion, the latter attribute rests instead at his feet. The depiction of Christ enthroned and engaged in the act of blessing, as in the present work, is less common. In another, even more exceptional variant of this scene, Christ blesses the kneeling figure of his mother Mary following her coronation.

This small bronze high relief of Christ as Salvator Mundi was acquired in 1898 from Heinrich Haas, a woodcarver, plaster-maker, antique dealer and restorer from Cleves. In practicing his profession, Haas maintained close ties with the parish churches along the Lower Rhine. While no tangible proof exists, there is little doubt he purchased or received this work from one of these parishes. Stylistically, the Amsterdam Salvator is indeed typical of sculpture produced in this region. In 1970, Gorissen even professed to see the hand of Master Arnt of Kalkar (active c. 1460-d. 1492) in the physiognomic type of the Christ figure.¹ He believed that Master Arnt, the most important Lower Rhenish sculptor of the late fifteenth century, was responsible for the casting model of this work. The two small projections on the reverse side indicate that the relief was originally affixed to some kind of base, most likely a book cover or reliquary.

The attribution of this casting model to Master Arnt is based on its stylistic similarity to his larger wooden sculptures. Van Arnt’s Christ figures in particular show numerous points of agreement. Strikingly similar are a God the Father from a surviving, though fragmentary group of the Coronation of Mary in the Augustine abbey in Marienthal (near Hamminkeln), produced in the sculptor’s workshop circa 1490,² and the Christ as the Man of Sorrows in a church in Oostrum (near Venray).³ Also comparable are the so-called Himmelfahrtschristus of 1476 from Xanten Cathedral, today preserved in the Museum Kurhaus (Cleves),⁴ with a half-length figure of Christ as Salvator Mundi, and the figure of Christ in The Lamentation of Christ from the chapel in Boekoel (near Roermond), today preserved in the Rijksmuseum (BK-1956-31).

Nothing is known about the cast’s origin. Eligible for consideration are various founders cited in the archival documents of Kalkar, Cleves, Xanten and Wesel of the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.⁵ One cannot rule out the possibility that Master Arnt subcontracted this work to a fellow artisan in the region. After it was cast, the statuette was carefully chased. One example of this is the texture added to the interior of Christ’s cloak, with circular punch marks applied to enhance the contrast between the soft inner lining and the smooth outer fabric.

Only a few examples of small-scale Lower Rhenish sculpture executed in silver or bronze display a clear relation to monumental works of the same period. Cases in point include: a reliquary bearing a depiction of the Virgin and Child from Emmerich; the cover of an epistolary in the collegiate church in Cleves, ornamented with a scene of the Crucifixion with the four evangelists executed in silver repousse; two statuettes of Mary and St John preserved in the Bayerische Nationalmuseum in Munich; and a small sculpture of Mary in the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Cologne, together with its pendant, a St John in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.⁶ In stylistic terms, these images can invariably be traced back to wooden sculptures produced in Master Arnt’s workshop, which continued under his apprentice Dries Holthuys (active c. 1480-c. 1510). Together with the bronze Salvator statuette, these works affirm the existence of ties between this workshop and the founders and goldsmiths along the Lower Rhine.

Guido de Werd, 2004 (updated by Bieke van der Mark, 2024)
An earlier version of this entry was published in F. Scholten and G. de Werd, Een hogere werkelijkheid: Duitse en Franse beeldhouwkunst 1200-1600 uit het Rijksmuseum Amsterdam/Eine höhere Wirklichkeit, Deutsche und Französische Skulptur 1200-1600 aus dem Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, exh. cat. Cleves (Museum Kurhaus Kleve) 2004-06, no. 4