Bishop Enthroned

Entry

This Bishop Enthroned, in its current state bearing no attributes from which a specific identification can be made, is dressed in full raiment, wearing an amice over a long alb, a dalmatic, and a cope with ornamental orphrey bands. In his gloved right hand, the bishop was holding a now missing crosier; his left hand was probably raised in a sign of benediction. The morse (a clasp) that previously joined the two sides of the cope at the breast is also missing, though the holes used to secure it to the chest can still be seen.

Adorning the length of the cope’s ‘gold-embroidered’ orphrey bands (aurifrisia) are eight apostle figures, each depicted standing beneath a baldachin. This much-loved motif often ornamented episcopal vestments, conveying the role of bishops as successors to the apostles. On this bishop, the following figures appear on the orphrey bands (starting at the bottom): on the left band, the apostle Peter, an unidentified figure hidden in the fold, the apostle John, and a figure at the top only semi-visible; on the right band, the apostle Andrew, James the Less, a figure partly hidden under the arm and at the top another semi-visible figure. Undoubtedly, four additional figures adorned the front (and back?) of the bishop’s now missing mitre, thus completing the total number of twelve apostles.

Together with a second example in the Rijksmuseum’s collection (BK-NM-28), the present work belongs to a small group of extant wooden statues of sitting or standing popes and bishops produced in the regions bordering the Netherlands as well as the Lower Rhine region, distinguishable by their copes with relief-carved orphrey bands. The figures incorporated in these ornamental bands can sometimes be useful in pinpointing the identity of the sculptor. The apostle Peter on the orphrey of the Bishop Enthroned in Venray by Henrik Douverman (c. 1490-1543/44), for example, is rendered in the very same manner as his large, autonomous statues.² On Henrick van Holt’s (c. 1480/90-1545/46) reliquary bust of Pope Sylvester, one of several busts integrated in the high altar of Xanten Cathedral, the John the Evangelist on the bust’s cope is attired in a wide-sleeved robe and a cloak draped diagonally across the body. These same motifs recur in absolutely identical form in other works by Van Holt, e.g. in a reliquary bust depicting St John himself, also integrated in the high altar of Xanten, and a sculpture of St John in Griethausen.³

There is no debate regarding the present sculpture’s Lower Rhenish origin. Nevertheless, Rommé’s proposed attribution of this work and the other Bishop Enthroned in the Rijksmuseum to a follower of Henrik Douverman, with both consequently dated circa 1520-30, appears unfounded.⁴ On the contrary, the severely angular drapery folds and the pointed shoes of these Amsterdam bishops – not to mention the socle’s by then outmoded concave-polygonal form – strongly indicate a date of origin some twenty to forty years earlier, before Douverman was even active.

Guido de Werd, 2004 (updated by Bieke van der Mark, 2024)
This entry was originally 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. 11