St Ursula and her Virgins

Carved in the round and polychromed. There is a large, conical hole (Ø 3.1 x d. 12.5 cm) in Ursula’s head, probably originally used to hold a relic. The statue is largely carved out of a single block of wood, to which at least five pieces have been attached; nails and other fixings have been used. Underneath the figure there are some triangular marks caused by the workbench clamps and three large, conical holes (from left to right Ø 5.5 x d. 22 cm; Ø 4.9 x d. not measurable; Ø 4.8 x d. 28 cm) that served to attach the statue to a base. Under the modern polychromy on the hem of Ursula’s gown it is possible to make out a punched pattern of dots that was part of the original decoration.
Dendrochronological analysis has pointed out that the outermost growth ring in the wood block dates to the year 1511. Given that two sapwood rings are present, the felling of the tree can be estimated to have occurred between 1517 and 1547. The timber originates from the northwest of Germany.

Ursula’s attribute (an arrow), the tips of the fingers of her left hand, upstanding elements of her crown, the right arm of the Virgin at the back of the group on the left and the left forearm of the virgin at the front of the group on the right, parts of some of the headdresses and the base are missing. The original polychromy was scraped off almost completely before the statue was repainted, and the secondary layers were applied without preliminary layers of chalk. The earliest secondary layer – both of the two that are present are oil paint – was then applied directly on to the wooden support. This gives the paint layers a special texture. A former woodworm infestation can be seen on one of the virgins on the right. Fragments of the original polychrome layer are preserved on the reverse only: there is some chalk ground and paint.

...; acquired by the Koninklijk Oudheidkundig Genootschap, Amsterdam, fl. 30, 1861;¹¹Note KOG. on loan to the museum since 1885

ObjectNumber: BK-KOG-659

Credit line: On loan from the Koninklijk Oudheidkundig Genootschap

Legend has it that the Christian king’s daughter Ursula and her retinue of 11,000 virginal handmaidens were murdered by the Huns near Cologne. This figure, whose original, probably much more magnificent polychromy has regrettably been removed, shows St Ursula as a lively, well-to-do lady, dressed in what was the height of fashion around 1525. Some of her equally opulently dressed followers seek protection under her cloak, a motif derived from the so-called Schützmantelmadonna. In her left hand St Ursula originally held an arrow, an allusion to her death, and there is a deep hole in the back of her head, in all probability to hold a relic, now lost. Since the discovery of a Roman graveyard in the twelfth century – which was identified as the ager Ursulanus – the spot where, according to the Golden Legend, Ursula and her virgins met their deaths, there was a remarkably large number of relics of them in circulation. The veneration of St Ursula was concentrated primarily in Cologne, but in the late Middle Ages spread throughout Western Europe, including the Lower Rhine region, the Southern Netherlands and to a lesser extent the Northern Netherlands.²²For St Ursula see E. Kirschbaum (ed.), Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie, vol. 8, Freiburg 1976, cols. 521-27. For her veneration in the Northern Netherlands see R. van Luttervelt, ‘De provenance van de Meester van de Virgo Inter Virgines’, Bulletin Museum Boymans Rotterdam 3 (1952), pp. 57-71, esp. p. 59. The purpose of the figure and the place for which it was made are unknown. She may have come from a convent. The notion that the saint died protecting her virginity made her a highly suitable role model for nuns.

Originally Pit and Vogelsang, with no explanation, located the figure in the Rhineland and the Lower Rhine region in Germany, respectively.³³A. Pit, Catalogus van de beeldhouwwerken in het Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst te Amsterdam, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1904, no. 96; W. Vogelsang, ‘De Nederlandsche beeldhouwkunst’, Elsevier’s geïllustreerd maandschrift 31 (1906), pp. 366-80, no. 73. Leeuwenberg, on the other hand, placed it in the Northern Netherlands – more precisely in Utrecht or Amsterdam – and suggested an artist who ‘may have been influenced by Brussels carving’.⁴⁴‘wellicht door de Brusselse beeldhouwkunst is beïnvloed’, J. Leeuwenberg, ‘Een nieuw facet aan een Utrechtse beeldhouwkunst’, Oud Holland 70 (1955), pp. 82-95, esp. p. 89; J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, p. 70. He also referred to a ‘great affinity’ with some figures by the Amsterdam painter Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen,⁵⁵‘grote verwantschap’, J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, p. 71. such as the St Catherine on the right wing of his Adoration of the Magi of 1517 (SK-A-4706). He believed that the relationship with works by the Master of the Utrecht Stone Female Head (active in Utrecht c. 1490-1530), an anonymous Utrecht artist whom Leeuwenberg named after an Avesnes stone fragment of a female saint in Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht, pointed to that city (fig. a, for this artist see Christ as Salvator Mundi BK-1964-1).⁶⁶J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, p. 71.

This last association, in particular, gained a lot of support in art-historical literature, recently even leading to the erroneous assertion that the figure was among the works that Leeuwenberg had attributed to the Master or his workshop.⁷⁷Leeflang in M. Leeflang et al., Middeleeuwse beelden uit Utrecht: 1430-1530/Mittelalterliche Bildwerke aus Utrecht: 1430-1530, exh. cat. Utrecht (Museum Catharijneconvent)/Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 2012-13, p. 278. In fact, though, Leeuwenberg had only compared the figure with another Ursula group in Museum Catharijneconvent, which in his view was closer to the oeuvre of the Master of the Utrecht Stone Female Head. However, he did not attribute that figure, either, to the Master himself, but to a woodcarver from his workshop or immediate circle.⁸⁸Utrecht, Museum Catharijneconvent, inv. no. ABM bh252, see M. van Vlierden et al., Hout- en steensculptuur van Museum Catharijneconvent ca. 1200-1600, coll. cat. Utrecht 2004, pp. 192-93. In his view, the connection between the Amsterdam Ursula and the Utrecht sculptor’s oeuvre was ‘very superficial’.⁹⁹J. Leeuwenberg, ‘Een nieuw facet aan een Utrechtse beeldhouwkunst’, Oud Holland 70 (1955), pp. 82-95, esp. p. 89. He saw similarities in the faces with the high, domed foreheads, narrow mouths and small, pointed chins.¹⁰¹⁰J. Leeuwenberg, ‘Die heilige Dorothea und der Meister des Utrechter steinernen Frauenkopfs’, Aachener Kunstblätter 34 (1967), pp. 175-93, esp. pp. 189-90. The Avesnes stone head from which the Master derives his name, which is obviously the best starting point for attributions (fig. a), however, has quite a wide, sensual mouth and not such a pronounced chin as the Amsterdam saint. Ursula’s nose is much narrower and she has a rather mannered smile on her lips. This gives her a jaunty air that is completely foreign to both the core group and the export works associated with the Utrecht Master.

The style of the figure reflects the extravagant taste of Antwerp Mannerism. The characteristics of this style – such as the oval heads, the fantastical headgear and the elaborately decorated gowns worn by the women, tight in the bodice and at the waist with wide skirts – which had spread throughout the rest of Brabant, the Meuse area, the Rhine region and the Lower Rhine region as far as Utrecht and Amsterdam provide insufficient clues to permit a more precise location in the Low Countries. As well as in the work of the Master of the Utrecht Stone Female Head, they are also found, for instance, in a Brussels altar exported to Sweden, that is in Vadstena in Östergötland,¹¹¹¹J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, p. 71. several Southern Netherlandish (Antwerp?) figures, such as a St Agnes,¹²¹²Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, inv. no. BEK 1772 (OK), see M. van Vlierden and J. Giltaij, Uit het goede hout gesneden: Middeleeuwse beelden uit de collectie Schoufour-Martin, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen) 2008, no. 42. a St Elizabeth,¹³¹³See W. Beeh et al.,_ Bildwerke des Mittelalters. 1200-1530: Aus einer Privatsammlung_, exh. cat. Darmstadt (Hessisches Landesmuseum) 1968, no. 62. a St Cecilia,¹⁴¹⁴Senger Bamberg Kunsthandel (2021), see A. Mehringer et al., Plastik, Gemälde, Kunsthandwerk des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, exh. cat. Munich (Weinmüller) 1966, no. 43. and a Female Saint in the Rijksmuseum (BK-KOG-653), and the work of the Maastricht woodcarver Jan van Steffeswert (c. 1470-after 1525).¹⁵¹⁵Cf. for example P. te Poel et al., Op de drempel van een nieuw tijd. De Maastrichtse beeldsnijder Jan van Steffeswert (voor 1470-na 1525), exh. cat. Maastricht (Bonnefantenmuseum) 2000-01, nos. 3, 23, 38-40.

Finally, there is an indirect indication that points towards a Southern Netherlandish origin for the Amsterdam St Ursula group. This is the existence of a faithful early sixteenth-century Hispano-Flemish copy, with the women’s garments adorned with estofado decoration (fig. b).¹⁶¹⁶Sale, New York (Sotheby’s), 8 June 2007, no. 28. One result of the close political and trading relations between Spain and, in particular, the Southern Netherlands in this period was Flemish influence on Spanish sculpture.¹⁷¹⁷See R.H. Randall Jr, ‘Flemish Influences on Sculpture in Spain’, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 14 (1956), pp. 257-64. An earlier copy exported from the (Southern?) Netherlands to Spain may have served as the model for the – much smaller – replica.

Bieke van der Mark, 2024

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 39, with earlier literature; M. van Vlierden et al., Hout- en steensculptuur van Museum Catharijneconvent ca. 1200-1600, coll. cat. Utrecht 2004, p. 189; 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, p. 10; G. van der Ham, Held, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum/Nieuwe Kerk) 2007, pp. 126, 130; M. Leeflang et al., Middeleeuwse beelden uit Utrecht: 1430-1530/Mittelalterliche Bildwerke aus Utrecht: 1430-1530, exh. cat. Utrecht (Museum Catharijneconvent)/Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 2012-13, p. 278; N. van den Berg et al., Bewaard voor Nederland in het Rijksmuseum. Ruim 300 voorwerpen van het Koninklijk Oudheidkundig Genootschap in de vaste opstelling van het Rijksmuseum te Amsterdam, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2013, p. 24

B. van der Mark, 2024, 'anonymous, St Ursula and her Virgins, Low Countries, c. 1525 - c. 1530', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.24304