The Death of the Virgin

Utrecht, c. 1475 - c. 1477

Object data

oak with traces of polychromy

height 76.5 cm × width 59 cm × depth 23.5 cm

Technical notes

Carved and originally polychromed, composed of a number of parts, including two horizontal and two narrow vertical elements. The reverse has been hollowed out. Dendrochronological analysis has not provided a conclusive dating, but the wood does appear to have come from the same oak tree as Adriaen van Wesel’s Joseph with Three Musician Angels (BK-NM-11647). It was also possible to establish that the wood has very similar growth characteristics to that in other parts of the Marian altar that Van Wesel made for the Illustrious Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady in Den Bosch between 1475 and 1477.

Scientific examination and reports

dendrochronology: P. Klein, University of Hamburg, 1980

Literature scientific examination and reports

P. Klein, ‘Hout en kunst. Houtanalytisch onderzoek van beeldhouwwerken’, in W. Halsema-Kubes et al., Adriaen van Wesel. Een Utrechtse beeldhouwer uit de late middeleeuwen (ca. 1417/ ca. 1490), exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1980-81, pp. 45-53, esp. pp. 47-48 and figs. 7a-b

Condition

Part of the right foot of the seated apostle in the foreground and some of the fingers of the apostle holding the candle are missing. The top part of the candle, St Peter’s hand raised in blessing, almost the whole of the chain of the censer, the hands of the apostle holding it, parts of the ground, the blanket hanging at the foot of the bed and St John’s elbow were replaced in the nineteenth century. The polychromy has been removed with a caustic.

Provenance

? Commissioned by the Illustrious Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady [Illustre Lieve Vrouwe Broederschap], Den Bosch, 1475;¹ installed in the Sint-Janskathedraal, Den Bosch, 1477;² ? dismantled during the iconoclastic revolt, transferred to a safer, unknown location, 1566;³ ? reinstalled in the Sint-Janskathedraal, Den Bosch, 1567;⁴ ? transferred to the Confraternity House, Hinthamerstraat, Den Bosch, 1629;⁵ ...; ? the butcher J.F.C. van Weert, Hinthamerstraat, Den Bosch, first recorded in 1881;⁶ ...; from the collection of an unknown pastor, Leeuwen, near Tiel, fl. 572, to the museum, 1904

Object number: BK-NM-11859

The artist

Adriaen van Wesel (Utrecht c. 1417 - Utrecht in or after 1490)

Adriaen van Wesel was the leading sculptor of the Northern Netherlands during the second half of the fifteenth century. The majority of his surviving oeuvre is held in the collection of the Rijksmuseum. Van Wesel’s name and city of origin were discovered by Swillens in 1948 in the city archives of Den Bosch while researching two pieces from an altarpiece by Van Wesel formerly in the chapel of the Illustrious Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady in the Sint-Janskathedraal of that city.⁷ Before his identification he was known as the ‘Master of the Singing Angels’ and the ‘Master of the Death of Mary’, names of convenience derived from two altar groups in the Rijksmuseum.

Van Wesel is certain to have been born in Utrecht, as his name appears nowhere in the listings of new citizens after 1400. He is first mentioned in 1447, when elected alderman of the saddler’s guild, to which painters and sculptors also belonged. Since this important position could only be attained by men of at least thirty years of age, he was probably born in or slightly prior to 1417. Van Wesel was elected to this post nine times: four times serving as a member of the city council while holding several other public offices, thus affirming his status as an influential and highly respected figure.

A document from 1468 involving a life annuity indicates that Adriaen van Wesel had a wife named Margriet and a daughter named Belyen. Both probably died before 1491, as their names no longer appear in the life annuity records from this year. Adriaen himself must have died in or shortly after 1490, as this is the last time he appears in any documents. The year of Van Wesel’s death has been subject to some confusion stemming from the existence of a second ‘Adriaen van Wesel’ residing in Utrecht whose death is documented in 1500. This individual, though perhaps a family member, was a butter merchant not known to have held any public position.

Van Wesel’s first documented work is the aforementioned altarpiece for the Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady in Den Bosch commissioned in 1475. By this time, however, he was already a sculptor of renown. Unfortunately, this altarpiece was dismantled and dispersed in the nineteenth century. Only two groups from this altarpiece have remained in Den Bosch, together with their original caisses. Another five groups from this altarpiece are today preserved in the Rijksmuseum.⁸ An additional seven have tenably been linked to these works, including a seated Virgin from an Annunciation in Bruges.⁹ On a final note, several hypothetical reconstructions of the original retable have also been devised (for the most recent, see fig. c in the entry BK-NM-11647).¹⁰

Adriaen van Wesel produced two other Marian altars: the first in 1470 for the Mariakerk in Utrecht, a work that fell victim to one of the city’s iconoclastic outbreaks in 1584; the second for the high altar of the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft, probably destroyed in a fire in 1528 (with BK-1979-94 possibly a fragment). Another altar, commissioned in 1487 for the monastery Sint-Agnietenberg in Zwolle, is likewise lost. Several surviving sculptures may originate from these altarpieces, e.g. a Descent from the Cross in Berlin, and a Holy Family in Utrecht.¹¹

Van Wesel’s last documented works were made for churches in his hometown of Utrecht: three sculptures for the high altar of the Buurkerk in 1487 and seven groups for the predella of the high altar of Utrecht Cathedral in 1489.¹²

Marie Mundigler, 2024

References
W. Halsema-Kubes, G. Lemmens and G. de Werd, Adriaen van Wesel: Een Utrechtse beeldhouwer uit de late middeleeuwen, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1980-81; M. Leeflang et al., Middeleeuwse beelden uit Utrecht 1430-1530/Mittelalterliche Bildwerke aus Utrecht, exh. cat. Utrecht (Museum Catharijneconvent)/Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 2012-13, pp. 227-31; J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, pp. 48-54; Scholten and Van der Mark in F. Scholten (ed.), 1100-1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2015, no. 30 (and fig. 30a); P.T.A. Swillens, ‘De Utrechtse beeldhouwer Adriaen van Wesel, ca. 1420-(na) 1489’, Oud Holland 63 (1948), pp. 149-64; P.T.A. Swillens, ‘De Utrechtse beeldhouwer Adriaen van Wesel. Enige aanvullende mededelingen’, Oud Holland 66 (1951), pp. 228-33; W. Vogelsang in F.W.S. van Thienen (ed.), Algemene Kunstgeschiedenis, vol. 4, Utrecht/Antwerp 1949, p. 28

Entry

The death of the Virgin is not mentioned in the Bible, but there is a detailed account of this apocryphal story in the Golden Legend (CXVII). It recounts how an angel miraculously conveys the apostles, who are scattered to the four winds, through the clouds to the Virgin. Arrived at the house, the apostles gather around her deathbed. Adriaen van Wesel pictured the moment when Mary takes her last breath. Despite the modest depth of the altar fragment, the carver suggested a great sense of space by ingeniously distributing the twelve apostles around the bed. In the foreground, on the dais on which the Virgin’s bed stands, an apostle sits silently reading a book. The beardless St John, who stands at the head of the bed, is visibly affected: he holds his hand to his face in a gesture of despair. The apostle to his right supports the Virgin’s pillow. St Peter stands at the centre of the long side of the bed. He is dressed as a priest, clasps an open prayer book to his chest and leads the service. With his right hand, which has been replaced, he now makes a gesture of blessing, but he probably originally held a aspergillum in this hand; this is a more customary element in the rite of the last sacrament.¹³ The apostle on Peter’s left places the candle of the dying in the Virgin’s hands, its light symbolising the Christian faith. In the right foreground, in front of the foot of the bed, St Andrew (?) swings a censer. The aspergillum, the candle, the censer and the sorrowing or reading apostles are familiar motifs in the iconography of the death of the Virgin.¹⁴ They are also found, for instance, on a contemporaneous painted panel by an anonymous Amsterdam or Utrecht master (SK-A-3467) and an ivory pax from the Northern Netherlands (BK-2003-6).

The museum bought The Death of the Virgin at the sale of the estate of the pastor of the village of Leeuwen, near Tiel, in 1904. According to tradition it had come from Den Bosch.¹⁵ This is an important piece of information, since it makes it likely that the group was a fragment that had originally been part of the large Marian altar that Adriaen van Wesel made between 1475 and 1477 for the Illustrious Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady in Den Bosch. In that case the scene was probably placed in one of the compartments to the far right (fig. a). This origin is supported by the fact that The Death of the Virgin was carved from the same tree trunk as the fragment with Joseph with Three Musician Angels (BK-NM-11647),¹⁶ which surfaced shortly before in the vicinity of Den Bosch and is likewise regarded as a fragment of the Marian altar.¹⁷

The figures in the group have a great variety of facial types, expressions and gestures. Peter’s wrinkled face is reminiscent of Joseph’s in the fragment with the angel musicians (BK-NM-11647). John’s youthful face with its mop of curly hair is akin to the angel in the St John on Patmos group which, along with Emperor Augustus and the Tiburtine Sibyl, is still in the possession of the Brotherhood in Den Bosch (fig. b). The way that the Virgin is depicted with a cap and chin-band is also found in the figure of St Elizabeth in The Visitation (BK-NM-11394). The overall arrangement of the restless little group is very reminiscent of the altar group with The Last Supper that is attributed to Van Wesel.¹⁸

There is a virtually identical, albeit more crudely finished version of The Death of the Virgin (fig. c) in Louvain-la-Neuve Museum in Belgium. It comes from the estate of Adolphe Mignot (1903-2001), who during his lifetime had placed it in the Sint-Annakapel in Oudergem near Brussels, where he was the pastor.¹⁹ Recent research has revealed that it is a modern copy, carved from a block of old wood after a plaster cast of The Death of the Virgin in the Art and History Museum in Brussels.²⁰ This cast shows the condition of the Amsterdam altar fragment prior to an undocumented restoration in which some missing elements, such as part of the ground, the chain of the censer and the hand of the apostle holding it, have been replaced. These replacements were already present when the museum purchased the piece, which means that the restoration (and hence the cast, too) must date from before 1904. Recently, another modern copy surfaced the art market.²¹

Bieke van der Mark, 2024

Literature

C.M.A.A. Lindeman, ‘Sint Agnes door Jacob van der Borch’, Jaarverslag K.O.G. 81 (1938-39), pp. 52-54, esp. p. 52; P.T.A. Swillens, ‘De Utrechtse beeldhouwer Adriaen van Wesel, ca. 1420-(na) 1489’, Oud Holland 63 (1948), pp. 149-64, esp. p. 160; J. Leeuwenberg, ‘Het werk van den Meester der Muscieerende Engelen en het vraagstuk van Jacob van der Borch opnieuw beschouwd’, Oud Holland 63 (1948), pp. 164-79, esp. p. 169; J.J.M. Timmers, ‘Achtenveertig eeuwen beeldhouwkunst in hout’, in W. Boerhave Beekman, Hout in alle Tijden, vol. 2, Deventer 1949, pp. 597-772, pp. 678-80; W. Vogelsang in F.W.S. van Thienen (ed.), Algemene Kunstgeschiedenis, vol. 4, Utrecht/Antwerp 1949, p. 28; P.T.A. Swillens, ‘Beeldhouwers en beeldhouwkunst’, in J. Romijn (ed.), Hart van Nederland, Utrecht 1950, pp. 209-37, esp. pp. 217-18; J. Leeuwenberg, ‘Beeldhouwkunst I’, Facetten der Verzameling 8 (1967; 1st ed. 1957), pp. 1-2; D.P.R.A. Bouvy, ‘Nederlandse beeldhouwkunst’, in T.H. Lunsingh Scheurleer, Sprekend verleden. Wegwijzer voor de verzamelaar van oude kunst en antiek, Amsterdam 1959, p. 55; D.P.R.A. Bouvy, Kerkelijke Kunst, vol. 2, Bussum 1966, p. 48; J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 16b, with earlier literature; W. Halsema-Kubes et al., Adriaen van Wesel. Een Utrechtse beeldhouwer uit de late middeleeuwen (ca. 1417/ ca. 1490), exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1980-81, no. 8; W. Halsema-Kubes, ‘Twee onbekende retabelfragmenten van Adriaen van Wesel’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 28 (1980), pp. 155-66, esp. pp. 155-57; W. Halsema-Kubes, ‘Ontmoeting der drie koningen 1475-1477’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 37 (1989), pp. 163-65; A.M. Koldeweij (ed.), In Buscoducis 1450-1629. Kunst uit de Bourgondische tijd te ’s-Hertogenbosch. De cultuur van de late middeleeuwen en renaissance, exh. cat. Den Bosch (Noordbrabants Museum) 1990, p. 223, no. 135; W. Halsema-Kubes, ‘Der Altar Adriaen van Wesels aus ’s-Hertogenbosch’, in H. Krohm and E. Oellermann (eds.), Flügelaltäre des späten Mittelalters, Berlin 1992, pp. 144-56, esp. pp. 149-50; H.L.M. Defoer, ‘Een laat-middeleeuws schoorsteenfries uit Utrecht met de bekoring van Antonius’, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 45 (1994), pp. 300-23, esp. p. 311; Scholten in H. van Os (ed.), Netherlandish Art in the Rijksmuseum 1400-1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2000, p. 60; Scholten in F. Houben et al., Deftige Devotie, exh. cat. Uden (Museum voor Religieuze Kunst) 2003, pp. 109-11; M. van Vlierden et al., Hout- en steensculptuur van Museum Catharijneconvent, ca. 1200-1600, coll. cat. Utrecht 2004, pp. 130, 195; F. Scholten, ‘Een Nederlandse ivoren pax uit de Late Middeleeuwen’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 52 (2004), pp. 2-23, p. 7; E. den Hartog, ‘Van ons slag zijn er nog veel in de wereld gebleven’, in P.C. van der Eerden and M.A. van der Eerden-Vonk (eds.), De Wijkse toren. Geschiedenis van de toren van de Grote Kerk in Wijk bij Duurstede (1486-2008), Hilversum 2008, p. 113; M. Leeflang et al., Middeleeuwse beelden uit Utrecht 1430-1530/Mittelalterliche Bildwerke aus Utrecht, exh. cat. Utrecht (Museum Catharijneconvent)/Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 2012-13, pp. 236-37; F. Scholten and B. van der Mark in F. Scholten (ed.), 1100-1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2015, no. 30c

Citation

B. van der Mark, 2024, 'Adriaen van Wesel, The Death of the Virgin, Utrecht, c. 1475 - c. 1477', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.24258

(accessed 6 June 2024 23:18:03).

Figures

fig. a Reconstruction of Adriaen van Wesel’s Marian altar with the probable position of the five pieces in the Rijksmuseum – *The Nativity, Joseph with Three Musician Angels, The Meeting of the Magi, The Visitation* and *The Death of the Virgin* – and the two small compartments that are still with the Illustrious Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady in Den Bosch containing *Emperor Augsutus and the Tiburtine Sibyl* and *St John on Patmos*. Visualisation by Ineke de Graaff

fig. b Adriaen van Wesel, *St John on Patmos*, 1475-77. Oak with polychromy, 47.4 x 33.9 x c. 17 cm (without *caisse*). Den Bosch, Illustrious Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady, Museum Het Zwanenbroederhuis

fig. c *The Death of the Virgin*, 19th century copy. Louvain-la-Neuve, Musée L