Object data
oak
height 63 cm × width 21.5 cm × depth 15 cm
anonymous, anonymous
The Virgin and Child with St Anne
Brabant, ? Mechelen, c. 1500 - c. 1510
Technical notes
Carved and originally polychromed. Remnants of a chalk ground layer are visible on the reverse. There is a mortise-and-tenon joint in both hands of the Christ Child (the tenons, or pegs, are still present). There is a round hole in the underside and an old iron nail in the top of Anne’s head.
Condition
Parts of the Christ Child’s arms are missing. A fold on the right-hand side of Anne’s garment has been renewed or newly attached. When the statue was stripped of its polychromy, the surface was severely damaged and much of the detailing was lost.
Provenance
…; collection Charles Hubert Gérard Guillon (1811-1873), Roermond; his sale, Roermond, 30 November to 14 December 1874, p. 12, no. 22, to the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague; transferred to the museum, 1885
Object number: BK-NM-1280
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
Standing groups of the Virgin and Child with St Anne (St Anne Trinity, or in Dutch St. Anna-te-Drieën) such as this one nearly always come from Brabant. In the surrounding regions, Anne is usually portrayed sitting, with her daughter and grandson in her lap or seated on a bench in front of or next to her. Here she holds her miniature progeny in her hands, like an attribute. This scheme, which was frequently followed in Mechelen, as well as in Leuven and Brussels, is clearly derived from the widely known pictorial type of the standing Virgin and Child.
In the nineteenth century, this sculpture belonged to the Roermond notary and politician Charles Guillon, whose large collection was exhibited in his home in the Swalmerstraat, also known as the ‘Museé Guillon’. After Guillon’s death, his entire collection was sold at auction in two parts. In 1874, the books, charters and art objects were put up for sale. The Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst bought six statues, including this Virgin and Child with St Anne and a somewhat related Pietà (BK-NM-1279). The women in both groups display a similar facial type characterized by a long, straight nose and crescent-shaped eyes with slightly bulging eyeballs. The small size of the Pietà suggests that it was a fragment of an altarpiece containing multiple carved groups or the central image of a house altar, but the more robust group with St Anne would have worked better as an independent statue.
Stylistically, this St Anne Trinity can be connected with the late-Gothic devotional statues produced on a large scale in Mechelen. For instance, the Victoria and Albert Museum has in its collection an example dating from around 1500-10 of a similar poupée de Malines (Mechelen doll), representing a Virgin and Child. Compared to the present St Anne, the Virgin of this sculpture displays a closely related facial type, leans subtly to the left in a comparable pose, and wears a garment that falls in similar, V-shaped folds.1
Bieke van der Mark, 2024
Literature
J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 70; T. Brandenburg et al., Heilige Anna, grote moeder. De cultus van de Heilige Moeder Anna en haar familie in de Nederlanden en aangrenzende streken, exh. cat. Uden (Museum voor Religieuze Kunst) 1992, no. 108
Citation
B. van der Mark, 2024, 'anonymous or anonymous, The Virgin and Child with St Anne, Brabant or , Mechelen, c. 1500 - c. 1510', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.24343
(accessed 15 November 2024 10:55:26).