The Virgin and Child with Sts Catherine, Cecilia, Barbara and Ursula

Entry

Seated in a fenced-off area of a courtyard are the Virgin and Child surrounded by four sumptuously attired female saints: Catherine, Cecilia, Barbara and Ursula.⁵ They can be identified from their attributes, which take the form of jewellery. In the left foreground is St Catherine with the wheel and sword, which are pinned to her dress as a brooch. The other three saints have their attributes on necklaces. In the right foreground is Ursula with a heart pierced by an arrow, in the left background Cecilia with an organ, and beside her Barbara with her tower. According to Winkler, the Virgo Master was inspired to depict the attributes in this unusual way by a lost work by Hugo van der Goes that is known from a copy by the Bruges Master of 1499 (fig. a). Winkler hypothesised that the Virgo Master had visited the southern Netherlands, where he saw the Van der Goes.⁶ With their lowered heads and half-closed eyes, the women around the Virgin appear to be sunk in contemplation. St Catherine is the exception, for she has fixed her gaze on the Child, who is reaching out to her, perhaps in allusion to her mystic marriage to Christ. Standing outside the fence on the left are two men, possibly St John the Evangelist and Joseph, and on the right two women, who also have symbolic pieces of jewellery hanging from a necklace. The one worn by the woman on the left is probably a dragon, which would identify her as St Margaret, while that of the other woman may be a basket or basket of flowers, which belong to St Elizabeth of Hungary and St Dorothy respectively. The scene is closed off with large buildings at the sides, while in the background a low wall and a gateway with an open door provides a view through to a mountainous landscape.

The subject of the Virgin among the virgins was mainly depicted in the southern Netherlands in works by artists like Hans Memling, Gerard David, the Master of the Legend of St Lucy and the Bruges Master of 1499.⁷ Although there are parallels between some of those scenes and the one in the Rijksmuseum, there is no direct model.

Despite the fact that the fenced-off area with the Virgin Mary and the holy virgins is paved, the manner of depiction is very reminiscent of the enclosed garden or ‘hortus conclusus’, a motif that refers to Mary’s virginity (cf. SK-A-3141, SK-A-3901 and SK-A-2312).⁸ A scene with richly clad virgin saints could have been painted for a convent. Van Luttervelt believed that the Koningsveld Convent in Delft was a possible candidate, partly because of the prominence of St Ursula, who was particularly venerated in the town. However, it is difficult to say for certain whether the painting was commissioned by ‘Sister Katarina van der Does, Diericxdr’ known from the archives, as suggested by Van Luttervelt,⁹ for the presence of St Catherine in a scene of this kind is not at all exceptional.¹⁰ Nor is there any firm evidence to support the theory that the background architecture is that of the Koningsveld Convent. The size of the painting suggests that it would have served as an altarpiece in a convent rather than as a work for private devotion.¹¹

Although the painting was catalogued as a work by the Van Eyck brothers in 1809,¹² it was thereafter regarded as anonymous until Friedländer took it as the denominative work for the oeuvre of the Master of the Virgo inter Virgines.¹³ Since then it has occupied a permanent position within the artist’s oeuvre.¹⁴

Although one would expect a painting from which an anonymous artist derived his name to epitomise his key characteristics, that is not entirely true of ‘The Virgin and Child with Sts Catherine, Cecilia, Barbara and Ursula’.¹⁵ Instead of the impassioned emotions and heightened expressiveness that are typical of the Virgo Master, this scene is restrained and peaceful. This could be due to the subject, which leaves little room for emotion, in contrast to what is displayed in a Crucifixion or Lamentation by the artist.¹⁶ It could also have had something to do with the wishes of the patron.¹⁷ According to De Vrij, there is an evolution in the work of the Virgo Master from more complex compositions and grotesque facial expressions to a more static style. That is why he believes that ‘The Virgin and Child with Sts Catherine, Cecilia, Barbara and Ursula’ is from the artist’s later period, after 1495.¹⁸ In 1927, by contrast, Friedländer had placed the painting in the artist’s middle period.¹⁹ The dendrochronology now shows that the work was very probably not made before 1495, and Unger dates it to around 1500.²⁰

Despite the absence of the artist’s usual fervid emotions, the facial types fit within his formal vocabulary in every respect, and the complex drapery folds also display parallels with other works of his.²¹ Similarities between the underdrawing in this painting and that in several other works attributed to the master also confirm that they are the work of the same hand. The shaded effects in the foreground figures of the Rijksmuseum panel were prepared with a wide range of hatchings. Some of them are built up like networks to define the drapery folds. There are also fairly thick contour lines, and some of the lines for the folds were drawn several times (fig. b, fig. c). Parts of the shaded areas of the flesh passages were prepared with densely packed hatchings that almost resemble washes (fig. d). These and other features are comparable to the underdrawing in other works by the Virgo Master, such as ‘The Annunciation’ in Rotterdam.²²

It can be seen from the underdrawing of the steps leading up to the entrance of the building of the left that the artist constructed the perspective by eye, and that he continued making corrections to it during the creative process (fig. e). That he had trouble with the perspective is also apparent from the rest of the architecture, which looks distorted.²³ There is no underdrawing beneath the landscape. The X-radiograph shows that at one stage there were rocks in the right background where now there are trees.²⁴ The semicircular tower in the left background also appears in several other works by the Virgo Master.²⁵
MW