Carved in relief.

Several areas of damage, especially to the top and right edges. The polychromy has been overpainted.

…; 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-2534

The central scene of this wooden relief is the Flight into Egypt. At left is the pillar with the pagan idol that broke into pieces just as the Holy Family passed by, as told by a popular medieval legend.¹¹J. Leeuwenberg, ‘Een nieuw facet aan een Utrechtse beeldhouwkunst, 2’, Oud Holland 72 (1957), pp. 56-58, esp. p. 58, note 2. Joseph, according to the Bible a carpenter by profession, appears on the right, carrying a long tree saw with a basket over his left shoulder. This central scene is framed on either side by two scenes, each depicting a field of craftsmanship related to woodworking. Top left, a man works at a planer’s bench; behind him mounted on the wall are the tools required for precision carpentry. Below this, a man splits a tree trunk. Lying on the ground around him are various tools used in building construction, including a water level and a mitre square. Top right, a wheelwright works on a section of a wheel rim resting on a wheelwright’s bench, with an auger, harrow and plough hanging on the wall to his right. In the last scene bottom right, a cooper stands at his barrel-shaped bench, wielding a cooper’s hammer to make a bucket.

In view of the four depicted woodworking professions, this limewood relief would have belonged to a carpenters’ guild house or joiners’ workshop, where it would have served as a signboard. The overall style and the artisan’s attire suggest a Northern Netherlandish origin in the early seventeenth century.²²W. Vogelsang, Catalogus van de meubelen in het Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst te Amsterdam, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1913, p. XCIX. In Leiden, a sculpted image of Joseph adorned the former St Josephshuis, built in 1615, which housed the carpenters and masons’ guild.³³E. Pelinck, ‘Het huis van het timmermans- en metselaarsgilde’, Leids Jaarboekje 1949, pp. 97-100 (with ills). In this specific case, the facade’s decoration – which simultaneously functioned as a signboard – had the form of a frieze with a stone figure in high relief depicting the guild’s patron saints: St Joseph, flanked by the stonemasons and Christian martyrs Symphorianus, Castorius, Claudius and Nicostratus, all five standing in a niche dressed as Roman soldiers, while holding tools (cf. fig. a). Three of the five figures are today in the possession of the Koninklijk Oudheidkundig Genootschap, with the other two lost.⁴⁴Amsterdam, Koninklijk Oudheidkundig Genootschap, inv. nos. KOG-ALS-10-A to -C. The St Joseph altarpiece of the Gouda carpenters’ guild (c. 1560), originating from the city’s Sint-Janskerk, shows a very similar iconography to the present limewood panel. The main scene depicts the Flight into Egypt, while the predella features four separate scenes illustrating the four trades of the guild: shipwrights, carpenters, joiners and chair makers.⁵⁵Museum Gouda, inv. nos. 55106 and 55166.

Bieke van der Mark, 2025

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 268 (with incorrect inventory number)

B. van der Mark, 2025, 'anonymous, Flight into Egypt and Joseph as Carpenter, Builder, Cartwright and Cooper, Northern Netherlands, c. 1600 - c. 1625', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035674