Object data
pipeclay
height 4.6 cm × width 2.3 cm × depth 2.1 cm
anonymous
Crib with Christ Child
Northern Netherlands, ? Utrecht, ? Leiden, c. 1475 - c. 1525
Inscriptions
- inscription, front right, in ink or black paint: WM. 90.
Technical notes
Formed (solid) in a mould and fired. The underside has been rounded off, allowing the cradle to be rocked.Formed (solid) in a mould and fired. The underside has been rounded off, allowing the cradle to be rocked.
Condition
Abraded.
Provenance
...; found in Voorhout;1 …; collection Professor Willem Moll (1812-79), Amsterdam;2...; from the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden, transferred to the museum, 1898
Object number: BK-NM-11289
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
In the late Middle Ages, simple pipeclay (white-firing clay) sculptures such as this were serially produced in the Low Countries using moulds.3 Utrecht was unquestionably an important centre for the production of pipeclay devotional objects, as the large number of moulds and misfires unearthed there attest. However, archaeological research shows that this production also occurred in cities such as Amsterdam, Leiden, Deventer, Kampen, Antwerp, Liège and Cologne.4
Depicted is the Christ Child lying in a crib. Sculptures of this kind were used for so-called ‘baby-cradling’, a religious ritual practiced both in the family context and in monastic life as a way to contemplate Mary in her role as Mother of God.5 The underside of these objects is often rounded off, enabling the worshiper to physically rock the child back and forth. Miniature sculptures of this kind have been unearthed in virtually every corner of the Netherlands, thus conveying their tremendous popularity and wide dissemination (cf. BK-NM-11290 and BK-NM-4). Far more common, however, are the fully independent pipeclay sculptures of the Christ Child, which, thanks to an integrated socle, were able to stand freely (cf. BK-NM-11283). These figurines were also probably used for the same cradling ritual, but instead placed in separate wooden cradles. An opulent example of such a cradle is preserved in the collection of the Rijksmuseum (BK-2013-14-1).
Bieke van der Mark, 2024
Literature
J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 891; I. Ippel, ‘A Christmas Crib as a Meek Heart of the Late Mediaeval Christian’, The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 62 (2014), pp. 330-47, esp. p. 341 and fig. 12
Citation
B. van der Mark, 2024, ' or anonymous, Crib with Christ Child, Northern Netherlands, c. 1475 - c. 1525', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.25654
(accessed 21 September 2024 15:28:32).