Carved and originally polychromed. The base is crudely chiselled. In the right-hand side of the base is a hole (Ø 0.5 cm) for a peg to attach an adjoining part (now missing). On the reverse and underside are a number of holes, one of which extends to the upper side of the base. Workbench (?) holes are present on the heads of Joseph and Mary. Joseph’s knapsack hangs from a forked branch on a length of rope, secured to his knapsack by means of two metal nails. The ass’s reins are also of rope. The reverse of the sculpture is flat.

The polychromy has been removed with a caustic. The hem of Mary’s mantle is damaged. The Christ Child’s right thumb is missing, as is part of Joseph’s left boot. Part of Mary’s veil, the ass’s right ear, left foreleg and right hind leg have been renewed, as have Joseph’s left hand and the forked branch holding his knapsack. Furthermore, the middle section and the left tip of the base have been renewed, as has the rope on which Joseph’s knapsack hangs and the rope serving as the ass’s reins.

…; sale, collection Baron Jean Germain Léon Cassel (1882-1953, Brussels), Paris (Hôtel Drouot), 9 April 1954, no. 70;…; from the dealer Brimo de Laroussilhe, Paris, fl. 7,335, to the museum, 1955

Object number: BK-1955-18

Its size and flat back suggest that this charming group was originally part of a carved altar piece. It represents Joseph, Mary and the Christ Child on their flight into Egypt (Matthew 2:3). Joseph, walking in front, is depicted as a contemporary traveller with his kit. Although renewed, the rope on which Joseph’s knapsack hangs and that used for the ass’s reins is actually a real (braided) cord. Other striking characteristics include the rocky base, worked with a gouge, on which several boulders lie, the corkscrew curls in Joseph’s hair and beard, Mary’s decorative drapery and the figures’ delicate faces, with half-closed eyes and mouths drooping at the corners.

The Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht has in its collection a Christ Carrying the Cross that is so closely related in every respect to the present group that there can be little doubt that these two works originated in the same workshop (fig. a). Their similar measurements and related iconography even suggest the distinct possibility that the two groups once belonged to the same retable, the subject of which must have been the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin.¹¹For many examples of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin in both paintings and prints, see C.M. Schuler, ‘The Seven Sorrows of the Virgin: Popular Culture and Cultic Imagery in Pre-Reformation Europe’, Simiolus 21 (1992), pp. 5-28. For example, the figure of Mary, with her head-covering, pointed nose and swollen eyelids, is identical in both groups, and the other, above-mentioned stylistic characteristics of the Flight into Egypt also recur in Christ Carrying the Cross, including the technical oddity of using materials other than wood. In fact, most of the thorns in Christ’s crown consist of metal. On the basis of the richly decorated Renaissance costume with slashed sleeves, the Christ Carrying the Cross and, by association, the Flight into Egypt, are dated to around 1520-30.

The two groups, which have not previously been connected with one another, are both difficult to localize within the Low Countries. Preising assigns the Christ Carrying the Cross in the Museum Catharijneconvent to a group of late-medieval carved wooden images that display characteristics of both Utrecht and Brussels, although their place of production cannot be pinpointed.²²D. Preising, ‘Utrecht und Brabant. Künstlerische Wechselbeziehungen 1430-1530’, Aachener Kunstblätter 65 (2014), pp. 56-71, esp. p. 62. Leeuwenberg situates the Amsterdam retable fragment in the city of Utrecht or the county of Holland and dates it to around 1510-15 on the basis of its ‘lively folk types’ (pittige volkstypen), ‘poignant expression’ (kernachtige uitdrukking) and the similarity to the 1511 woodcut of the Flight by the Amsterdam engraver Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen (RP-P-BI-6257).³³J. Leeuwenberg, ‘De vlucht naar Egypte’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 4 (1956), pp. 16-21, esp. pp. 9, 20; J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, p. 81. There is, moreover, some degree of relationship to a Nativity of Christ, attributed to an Utrecht master and dated to around 1470, which is to be found in the Museum de Fundatie.⁴⁴See Scholten in R. Baarsen et al., Favorieten van Museum de Fundatie, coll. cat. Heino/Zwolle 2005, p. 14. On the other hand, the general atmosphere sooner recalls several figurative woodcarvings by Joes Beyaert (1405-1483), who was active in Leuven.⁵⁵Cf. the Moses on one of Beyaert’s bosses in the vaulted ceiling of Leuven’s town hall (1468-70) and the cross-carrying Christ on a baluster socle of around 1470 attributed to him, now in the Bode Museum in Berlin; see F.M. Kammel, ‘Joes Beyaert (1405-1483). Een onbekend werk van deze Leuvense beeldhouwer’, Antiek 29 (1994), no. 3, pp. 16-19, ills. on pp. 16, 18. An oak retable group of around 1500, representing Christ in the House of Simon the Pharisee (Museum de Fundatie), recorded on stylistic grounds as Southern Netherlandish or possibly Lower Rhenish, is closest in style to the two retable fragments discussed here, although it, too, offers no clues as to its place of origin.⁶⁶D. Hannema, Beschrijvende catalogus van de schilderijen, beeldhouwwerken, aquarellen en tekeningen, exh. cat. Heino (Museum de Fundatie - Kasteel ’t Nijenhuis) 1967, no. 552; D. Waasdorp and A. Vos in H. Tummers (ed.), Bekende en minder bekende laatmiddeleeuwse houten beelden, Nijmegen 1996, pp. 141-44. For now, Van Vlierden’s general localization of the Utrecht Christ Carrying the Cross in the Southern or Northern Netherlands must suffice for both pieces.⁷⁷Utrecht, Museum Catherijneconvent, inv. no. BMH bh3358, see M. van Vlierden et al., Hout- en steensculptuur van Museum Catharijneconvent ca. 1200-1600, coll. cat. Utrecht 2004, pp. 256-57.

A largely polychromed, alabaster Flight into Egypt that appeared on the French art market in 1994 corresponds to the Amsterdam specimen in almost every detail (fig. b).⁸⁸Art dealer Leslie John Klinker, Frespech, see Scholten in H. van Os et al., Netherlandish Art in the Rijksmuseum 1400-1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2000, no. 28. This statuette, meanwhile stripped of its polychromy, was sold at auction in 2017.⁹⁹Sale Paris (Hôtel Drouot), 14 June 2017, no. 242, € 28,072, to a private collection, Belgium. Its odd appearance and considerably lower quality strongly suggest that it is a modern copy. For example, the figures’ proportions are unconvincing, their poses are relatively stiff, and the buttonholes on Joseph’s sleeve – visible in the present piece – are missing. Remarkably, the alabaster group has a background that is lacking in the Amsterdam fragment. It cannot be ruled out that this hilly landscape is a more or less faithful rendering of the original background of the Amsterdam Flight, which is now lost. It is more likely, however, that the background was invented by the copyist to obtain a more complete whole. Given the pictorial tradition, the tree that presumably belonged to the retable fragment would have stood on the missing piece of the base behind the ass. In this regard compare, for example, the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin Retable of 1500-30 in the Sint-Leonarduskerk in Zoutleeuw, which includes, at the very top, a similar composition (though in reverse) (fig. c). The same pictorial motif is also present in an eighteenth-century rendition of the theme in terracotta in the Van Herck collection in Antwerp.¹⁰¹⁰Antwerp, Van Herck collection, inv. no. 76, see C. Baisier et al., Tekeningen uit de 17de en 18de eeuw. De verzameling Van Herck, coll. cat. Antwerp (Koning Boudewijn Stichting) 2000, p. 167 (ill.), as ‘anonymous, 18th century’. The alabaster statuette presumably originated in the same workshop as an alabaster copy, recently sold at auction in Brussels, produced after another late-medieval retable fragment of a woman holding a lantern (midwife or Persian Sibyl), which is, probably coincidentally, also part of the Rijksmuseum’s collection (BK-NM-9253).¹¹¹¹Sale, Brussels (Vanderkindere), 14 June 2017, no. 330, to a private collection, Belgium.

Bieke van der Mark, 2024

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 51, with earlier literature; Scholten in H. van Os et al., Netherlandish Art in the Rijksmuseum 1400-1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2000, no. 28

B. van der Mark, 2024, 'anonymous, Flight into Egypt, Northern or Southern Netherlands, c. 1520 - c. 1530', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035555