Object data
oak with remnants of polychromy and gilding
height 136 cm
anonymous
Virgin and Child, from a Marianum
Utrecht, c. 1500 - c. 1520
Technical notes
Carved and originally polychromed. The reverse is flat.
Condition
Badly worm-eaten and decayed. Parts of the faces, Christ’s hands, right forearm and part of his left leg as well as the Virgin’s right hand are missing.
Conservation
- E.H. Baaij, 1905: impregnated with animal glue.
Provenance
...; found in the Oude Kerk, Soest, with several other objects (BK-NM-12006-1 to -19), 1905;1 donated by the municipality of Soest to the museum, 1907; on loan to the Museum Flehite, Amersfoort, since 1909
Object number: BK-NM-12006-17
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
Restoration work in the tower of the Oude Kerk in Soest in 1905 uncovered in a bricked-up area an important treasure trove of statues, albeit in a deplorable condition.2 It is assumed that the figures were hidden there either in 1566 at the outbreak of the Iconoclasm or in December 1580, when Calvinists in the Eemland region endeavoured to destroy every last remnant of religious art.3
Among the items found were two virtually identical statues of a _Virgin and Child from a Marianum one of which is shown here (for the other, better-preserved figure, see BK-NM-12006-16). A Marianum usually consists of two statues of the Virgin placed back to back, standing on a crescent moon, surrounded by sunbeams and ringed by a rosary.4 The whole thing was suspended high in the ceiling of the nave, so that the faithful had a good view of one of the Virgins whether they were at the front or the back of the church.
In both sculptures the Virgin stands on the crescent moon. Her hair falls in long tresses over her shoulders. Under a bodice with a square neckline, she wears a chemise trimmed with braid at the neck. The infant Christ holds an open book and has a rosary with a crucifix attached to it around his neck. The way the Virgin holds the Christ child and clasps his left foot with her free hand may be an adaptation of the widespread Utrecht Virgin type made of pipeclay (see for example BK-NM-11299).
Nederveen attributed the figures to the same Utrecht workshop as St Cunera (BK-NM-12006-8) and the female saint who can probably be identified as St Agatha (BK-NM-12006-3), all figures that come from the Soest find.5 Bouvy had already recognised the latter object as being by the same hand.6 The similarities between these statues, particularly in the faces, are indeed convincing enough for an attribution to the same workshop. The shoes with round toes and the busy folds of the garments indicate that they were made between around 1500 and 1520.
Bieke van der Mark, 2024
Literature
J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 28b, with earlier literature; A. de Rijk, ‘Laat-middeleeuwse heiligenbeelden uit het Gooi’, Bulletin Stichting Oude Hollandse Kerken 39 (1994), pp. 15-24, esp. p. 22; M. Smeyers, ‘Het Marianum of Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-in-de-zon, getuige van een laat-middeleeuwse devotie in de Nederlanden en in Duitsland’, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 45 (1994), pp. 271-99, esp. p. 272; B. Nederveen, Soest, tussen Amersfoort en Utrecht. Een studie naar de herkomst van de laatgotische sculptuur uit de Hervormde Kerk te Soest, Amsterdam 1999 (unpub. thesis University of Amsterdam), pp. 22-23, 100-01
Citation
B. van der Mark, 2024, 'anonymous, Virgin and Child, from a Marianum, Utrecht, c. 1500 - c. 1520', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.24294
(accessed 27 December 2024 19:43:47).