Carved and polychromed. The arms were carved separately and attached with dowels. The reverse is partly finished. Holes for large nails in the hands and feet were used to attach the figure to a wooden cross. Discernible in the figure’s back are various (smaller) nail holes, serving the same function.

Both the index and middle finger of the right hand are missing. The ring and little fingers of the same hand, as well as the little finger of the left hand, are damaged. The crown of thorns has also incurred damaged. Much of the original polychromy has been preserved, along with the gilding on the loincloth.

…; from the dealer Jaap Wiegersma, Utrecht, fl. 1,250, to the museum, 1945; on loan to the Museum Kurhaus, Cleves, 2004-2009

Object number: BK-15609

The most common images in late medieval art centre on Christ’s suffering and above all his death on the cross. In sculpture, this encompasses both multi-figured scenes, such as Crucifixion or Calvary groups with Christ, Mary and St John, but also solitary crucifixes, such as chancel and altar crosses. Diversity is also encountered in terms of the scale of these images, ranging from monumental triumphal crosses, hanging high up above the faithful in the chancel of a church, to crosses of minimal dimensions for personal devotion. This medium-sized Crucified Christ might originally have belonged to a small church or chapel, but it could also have been used in someone’s private chamber. At the time of its acquisition, it was affixed to a modern cross and had clearly been repainted (fig. a). Both the wooden cross and the repainting were removed, thus allowing the largely preserved, original polychromy and gilding to re-emerge.

On his head, Christ wears a thick crown of thorns. He is crucified with his arms widely extended and one foot placed over the other. He is broadfaced, with his moustache and beard finished in ornamental detail. At the time of its acquisition, Leeuwenberg had already established a connection between this corpus and several other examples in the eastern Netherlands, e.g. on the crucifixes in Haarle (Overijssel) and Keienburg (Gelderland).¹¹Verslagen omtrent ’s Rijks verzamelingen van geschiedenis en kunst 1944-45, p. 49. On the basis of these related works, the present sculpture was long described as ‘eastern Nederlandish’.²²D.P.R.A. Bouvy, Middeleeuwsche beeldhouwkunst in de Noordelijke Nederlanden, Amsterdam 1947, p. 125; J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, p. 114. Currently, however, it is seen as belonging to a large, widely dispersed group of crucifixes produced around 1500 in the Lower Rhine region in the sphere of Master Arnt of Kalkar (active c. 1460-d. 1492). The prototype for the present work is Arnt’s monumental crucifix in the Sankt-Nicolaikirche in Kalkar (fig. b).³³G. de Werd and M. Woelk (eds.), Arnt der Bildenschneider: Meister der beseelten Skulpturen, exh. cat. Cologne (Museum Schnütgen) 2020, p. 23, fig. 10 and no. WV 14. Attributed to that same master are a smaller version in the Museum het Valkhof in Nijmegen, known to have come from the cemetery chapel of Oud-Zevenaar and a similar sized crucifix in the Sankt-Pankratius in Dingden.⁴⁴G. de Werd and M. Woelk (eds.), Arnt der Bildenschneider: Meister der beseelten Skulpturen, exh. cat. Cologne (Museum Schnütgen) 2020, figs. 109-10 and nos. WV 15 and WV 16. Among the copies of these works is a chancel cross preserved in the aforementioned Sankt-Nicolaikirche, which can be attributed to the same hand as the present corpus.⁵⁵G. de Werd and M. Woelk (eds.), Arnt der Bildenschneider: Meister der beseelten Skulpturen, exh. cat. Cologne (Museum Schnütgen) 2020, no. WV 20. Another copy can be found in the Sankt-Clemens in Wissel.⁶⁶H.P. Hilger, Die Denkmäler des Rheinlandes: Kreis Kleve, vol. 5, Kleve, Düsseldorf 1970, fig. 427. The provenance of the sculptures belonging to this group strongly indicates that the Amsterdam Christ was also produced in the area of Cleves in the Lower Rhine region.

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. 8

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 112, with earlier literature; De Werd 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. 8

G. de Werd/ B. van der Mark, 2024, 'anonymous, Crucified Christ, Lower Rhine region, c. 1500', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035587