Object data
oak with polychromy
height c. 112 cm × width 33 cm × depth 29 cm
Master of Koudewater (follower of)
Virgin and Child
Northern Brabant, c. 1510
Technical notes
Carved and polychromed. The are mortise-and-tenon joints at the neck and left wrist of the Christ Child served to attach his head and left hand. The rest of the statue is carved from a solid block of wood. The reverse is flat with schematically hewn drapery and hair.
Condition
There is a crack at bottom front. The head of the Christ Child, his left hand and several fingers of his right hand are missing. The folds of Mary’s garment at bust height have been damaged and slightly reworked. Mary’s right hand holding grapes has been reattached. There are remnants of old blue polychromy on the wreath and the collar of the garment, as well as on the face and the original gilding on the hair; otherwise it has been largely overpainted.
Provenance
…; from the collection A.P. Hermans-Smits (1822-1897), Eindhoven, with numerous other objects (BK-NM-2001 to -2800), fl. 14,000 for all, to the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague, 1875; transferred to the museum, 1885
Object number: BK-NM-2537
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Master of Koudewater (active in northern Brabant c. 1460-80)
The name of convenience ‘Master of Koudewater’ was introduced by Leeuwenberg in 1958 to define the production of a sculptor active in the period 1460-80, whose oeuvre chiefly comprises carved wooden statues of saints formerly originating from two Bridgettine abbeys. The first one, Mariënwater, was located in the northern Brabantine village of Koudewater. In 1460, this ‘mother abbey’ founded a second abbey in the vicinity of Cleves, called Marienbaum. When evicted from their abbey in 1713, the Bridgettine nuns at Mariënwater moved to a convent in the vicinity of Uden, together with all of their possessions. In 1802, when the abbey at Marienbaum was dissolved, a portion of its inventory was likewise transferred to Uden. Facing financial difficulty, the Bridgettine nuns at Uden were ultimately forced to sell off the bulk of their art holdings. In 1875, a large number of saintly statues carved by the Master of Koudewater and followers of his style were subsequently acquired en bloc by the Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, a forerunner of the Rijksmuseum.
There are strong indications that the Master of Koudewater produced statues for both Mariënwater and Marienbaum. Collectively, these works – together with other similar figures produced in the northern part of the Duchy of Brabant – are today known as the ‘Koudewater Group’. The Rijksmuseum holds sixteen of the Koudewater statues in its collection. Based on the shared static but elegant poses, calm facial expressions, and matching drapery schemes characterised by deeply cut folds, however, only six of these works can be securely attributed to the master himself. The remaining ten are likely to have been produced by workshop assistants, pupils or followers of the master’s style.
The centre of the Master of Koudewater’s activity was initially thought to be in the Lower Rhine region. When acknowledging the documented provenance of the works and the stylistic similarity to Brabantine sculpture, however, the northern part of the Duchy of Brabant emerges as the most likely area of production. Attempts have been made to link the master’s carving to the flourishing artistic climate in Den Bosch and even to a documented woodcarver active there, Jan Jansz van Gheervliet.1 Nevertheless, nothing in the Master of Koudewater’s oeuvre suggests a knowledge of the artistic innovation occurring in this northern Brabantine city. On the contrary, it appears he led a rather solitary life. His artistic origin must therefore be sought in monastic surroundings in or near Mariënwater.
Marie Mundigler, 2024
References
G.C.M. van Dijck, ‘De meester van Coudewater opgespoord? Een interessante theorie’, Bossche bladen 3 (2001), pp. 75-77; J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, pp. 86-94; L.C.B.M. van Liebergen, Beelden in de abdij: Middeleeuwse kunst uit het noordelijk deel van het hertogdom Brabant, exh. cat. Uden (Museum voor Religieuze Kunst) 1999, pp. 61-64; J. Leeuwenberg in R. van Luttervelt et al., Middeleeuwse kunst der Noordelijke Nederlanden, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1958, pp. 192-93; G. Lemmens and G. de Werd, Beelden uit Brabant: Laatgotische kunst uit het oude hertogdom 1400-1520, exh. cat. Den Bosch (Noordbrabants Museum) 1971, pp. 17-26; J.W. Steyaert et al., Late Gothic Sculpture: The Burgundian Netherlands, exh. cat. Ghent (Museum of Fine Arts) 1994, n. 84; W. Vogelsang, De oude kerkelijke kunst in Nederland: Gedenkboek van de Nationale Tentoonstelling te ’s-Hertogenbosch in 1913, Den Bosch 1914, p. 98
Entry
The Virgin Mary holds not only the Christ Child but also a bunch of grapes, a reference to the wine used in the celebration of the Eucharist and a symbol of Christ’s blood. Her face and the clothes of the Christ Child stand out favourably from the rather inexpressive execution of Mary’s drapery, which has been ineptly reworked at bust height. Leeuwenberg situated the statue in the circle of the Master of Koudewater. This master owes his name of convenience to the fact that most of his statues of saints presumably came from the Bridgettine abbey of Mariënwater in Koudewater, which was dissolved in 1713.2 In 1875 the museum acquired three core pieces by the master (BK-NM-1195, -1196 and -1197), together with a large number of stylistically related statues of saints, from the immediate successor to this institution, the convent of Maria Refugie in Uden. Although concrete proof is lacking, it is not inconceivable that the present Virgin and Child also originally belonged to the old holdings of this nunnery. After all, it was acquired in 1875 from A.P. Hermans-Smits, a collector from Eindhoven, who might have purchased the statue from the impoverished sisters in the nearby convent in Uden.3
Van Liebergen connected the statue, which he dated to around 1510, with a slightly older St Barbara in the Museum Krona in Uden (fig. a).4 The decoration of the collars of these two women is somewhat similar, as is the position of their arms. The influence of the Master of Koudewater reveals itself in particular in the women’s facial type, downward gaze and rigid, frontal pose (cf. BK-NM-1196). The present statue’s simple drapery, which hangs straight down and is disturbed only by Mary’s bent left knee, differs however from the standardized schemes of the carved saints belonging to the ‘Koudewater group’. These are characterized by the gathering up of the garment under one arm, as also seen in the above-mentioned St Barbara. It is likely that the statue was made in the northern part of the Duchy of Brabant by a sculptor of the generation after the Master of Koudewater.
Bieke van der Mark, 2024
Literature
J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 69, with earlier literature; L.C.B.M. van Liebergen, Birgitta van Zweden 1303-1373. 600 jaar kunst en cultuur van haar kloosterorde, Uden (Museum voor Religieuze Kunst) 1986, no. 81; L.C.B.M. van Liebergen, Beelden in de abdij. Middeleeuwse kunst uit het noordelijk deel van het hertogdom Brabant, exh. cat. Uden (Museum voor Religieuze Kunst) 1999, p. 125; B. Kruijsen, Verzamelen van middeleeuwse kunst in Nederland 1830-1903, Nijmegen 2002, no. 123
Citation
B. van der Mark, 2024, 'follower of Meester van Koudewater, Virgin and Child, Northern Brabant, 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.24342
(accessed 26 November 2024 09:40:20).