Virgin and Child

Carved and originally polychromed. The reverse is flat. On the reverse, an iron fitting has been placed at the level of a knot or crack in the wood.

The entire surface has sustained woodworm damage. The Virgin’s crown and the points of her shoes are missing, as are the right foot of the Christ Child, a segment of the rosary and a corner of the base. The socle, separately carved, has also been lost. A crack runs across the Christ Child’s face. The polychromy has been removed with a caustic.

…; 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; on loan to the Noordbrabants Museum, Den Bosch, 1974-2017

ObjectNumber: BK-NM-2498

In the late Middle Ages, a local ‘industry’ centring on the production of simple saintly statuettes, available in a uniform number of iconographic types, flourished in the city of Mechelen. Given the many examples surviving today, this production is certain to have occurred on a massive scale.¹¹For an extensive overview, see W. Godenne, ‘Préliminaires à l’inventaire général des statuettes d’origine malinoise, présumées des XVe et XVIe siècles’, ten articles published in Bulletin du Cercle Archéologique, Littéraire et Artistique de Malines: 61 (1957), pp. 47-127; 62 (1958), pp. 51-80; 63 (1959), pp. 30-54; 64 (1960), pp. 108-29; 66 (1962), pp. 67-156; 73 (1969), pp. 43-87; 76 (1972), pp. 1-80; 77 (1973), pp. 87-155; 78 (1974), pp. 93-104; 80 (1976), pp. 71-105, and issued as separate volumes in 1958-76. Referred to as poupées de Malines (Mechelen dolls), these figures derive their name from their full-round faces and doll-like features. After the Virgin and Child, by far the most predominant themes were small groups of the Virgin and Child with St Anne (also known as St Anne Trinity, or in Dutch Anna-te-Drieeën) and statuettes of St Catherine and St Barbara. As established by the St Luke’s Guild of Mechelen, the wood and the polychromy were subjected to very strict quality standards. If meeting this standard, appraisers applied the city’s quality mark to the figure’s reverse – three vertical pales (from the city’s coat of arms) – thus conveying the inspection and approval of both the wood and the carving itself. The presence of the letter ‘M’ (for Mechelen), stamped or branded in front, signified the same for the polychromy. As freestanding works, the completed ‘dolls’ chiefly functioned as objects of saintly veneration. In rare cases, these figurines were displayed in special retables conceived as Enclosed Gardens (Besloten Hofjes), filled with hand-made silk flowers and a wide variety of miniature objects, devoltionalia and decorations in different media, such as saintly relics, metal pilgrim badges, wax medallions, glass-blown grapes, parchment, alabaster, pipeclay, pearls, amber and coral.²²Cf. C. Ceulemans et al., Mechels houtsnijwerk in de eeuw van keizer Karel, exh. cat. Mechelen (Museum Schepenhuis) 2000, nos. 3-9; L. Watteeuw and H. Itterbeke, Enclosed Gardens of Mechelen: Late Medieval Paradise Gardens Revealed, Amsterdam 2018.

On the present statuette, which bears the Mechelen wood quality mark, the Virgin supports the seated Christ Child with both hands. His emphatically crossed legs may possibly be interpreted as a reference to the cross on which he was eventually to meet his death. Encircling his body is a rosary, from which a prayer nut hangs. The attribute of the rosary is encountered in a similar way on a figure of the Virgin and Child on the Crescent Moon preserved in Brussels.³³Brussels, Art and History Museum, inv. no. 920, see A. Huysmans et al., Beeldhouwkunst van de Zuidelijke Nederlanden en het Prinsbisdom Luik, coll. cat. Brussels (Royal Museums for Art and History) 1999, no. 68. Unlike the present figure, that statuette still has its original polychromy. Together with two accompanying angels, its probable origin was in the upper area of an Enclosed Garden.

Bieke van der Mark, 2024

W. Godenne,’Prélimiaires à l’inventaire général des statuettes d’origine malinoise, présumées des XVe et XVIe siècles’, Bulletin du Cercle Archéologique, Littéraire et Artistique de Malines 66 (1962), pp. 67-156, esp. p. 147; J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 171; L. Hendrikman (ed.), Collectie Neutelings: Vier eeuwen middeleeuwse sculptuur, coll. cat. Maastricht (Bonnefantenmuseum) 2016, pp. 148-49

B. van der Mark, 2024, 'anonymous, Virgin and Child, Mechelen, c. 1515 - c. 1520', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.24452