Rijksmuseum

Object data

oak with traces of polychromy

height 95.5 cm × width 26 cm × depth 19.5 cm

Technical notes

Carved and originally polychromed. The (missing) hand was possibly attached to the left forearm by means of a tenon inserted into the mortise below the sleeve. The reverse side of the sculpture has been slightly worked and consists of separate (broken?) components held together with large nails. It also has a wrought-iron eye for securing purposes.

Condition

Both hands are missing, as are the toes of the left foot. The surface of the sculpture has discoloured due to the removal of the polychromy with a caustic.

Provenance

…; from an anonymous owner, The Hague, with a ship model (NG-NM-8532), fl. 12 for both, to the museum, 1888

Object number: BK-NM-8533

Entry

Considerations of style offer little insight into the origin of this sculpture of an apostle. Several similarities can be observed in the way in which the folds of the cloak drape over the arm and body and in the figure’s slender proportions, when comparing this work to another apostle preserved in the Rijksmuseum, attributed to a follower of the northern Brabantine Master of Koudewater (active c. 1460-c. 1480) and dating from the late fifteenth century (BK-NM-1198). The raw physiognomic type, encircled by hair that fans out with long, spiralling curls and the angular, double-pointed beard, nevertheless recalls characteristics of the early sixteenth-century sculptures of male saints associated with the Master(s) of Elsloo, active in Upper Guelders in the Meuse-Rhine area.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. 87

Citation

B. van der Mark, 2024, 'anonymous or , Apostle or , Upper Guelders, c. 1500', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.24362

(accessed 27 December 2024 19:19:40).

Apostle