Carved in relief and polychromed. The grass has been worked with Tremolierung. The bottom edge has been integrally carved and the background partly pierced. Several holes for securing purposes can be discerned on the reverse. Dendrochronological analysis provided a tree-ring series with 100 rings, but cross-dating with reference chronologies from Central, Eastern and Northern Europe did not produce a reliable dating result.

Original polychromy and gilding with remnants of several later overpaintings, specifically, on the grass, the faces and other areas. In areas where the chalk ground is exposed, retouching is sometimes evident. A crack in the foreground has been filled and retouched.

…; from the dealer M.J. Schretlen, Amsterdam, with BK-16120, fl. 5,000 for both, to the museum, 1949

Object number: BK-16384

Five horsemen, including a monk, ride down a cliff in a rocky landscape that connects an upper mountain meadow with grazing sheep to a second meadow below. In all probability, the figures form the retinue of the Three Magi, who would have appeared in a separate altar group, originally positioned either below or adjacent to the present one. The Meeting of the Magi is a scene commonly encountered in late-medieval carved altarpieces, placed above the scene of the Nativity or the Adoration of Christ in the centre of the inverted ‘T’-shaped retable caisse. This arrangement can be seen in the Marian altarpiece at Ham-sur-Heure, an example of Brussels production from circa 1470.¹¹See B. D’Hainaut-Zveny (ed.), Miroirs du sacré: Les retables sculptés à Bruxelles XVe-XVIe siècles, Brussels 2005, no. A16; M. Buyle and C. Vanthillo, Vlaamse en Brabantse retabels in Belgische monumenten, Brussels 2000, pp. 180-81. The renowned Marian altarpiece the Utrecht sculptor Adriaen van Wesel (c. 1417-in or after 1490) made for the Sint-Janskathedraal in Den Bosch also included a scene of the Meeting of the Magi (BK-1977-134-A), originally situated above the Nativity. The present group clearly belonged to a fairly large altarpiece and, as confirmed by the oddly angled perspective, was likewise positioned higher up with its lower edge concealed behind a scene of the Meeting of the Magi, Nativity or Adoration.

Leeuwenberg localized the present relief in Antwerp, albeit with some reservation, on the basis of ‘the overall style and the rock formation’.²²J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 139. He dated the relief around 1500. The elongated, slightly arching rock formations, however, are by no means an element strictly limited to retables produced in Antwerp, as affirmed by various slightly earlier Brussels altarpieces having the same feature.³³Cf. J.W. Steyaert et al., Late Gothic Sculpture: The Burgundian Netherlands, exh. cat. Ghent (Museum of Fine Arts) 1994, no. 22; B. D’Hainaut-Zveny (ed.), Miroirs du sacré: Les retables sculptés à Bruxelles XVe-XVIe siècles, Brussels 2005, no. B24.

The style bears little similarity to Antwerp woodcarving circa 1500 but instead points to a Brussels origin around 1470. Supporting this attribution is the agreement with the aforementioned retable of circa 1470 from Ham-sur-Heure, but also a relief of the Nativity today preserved at the Museum Vleeshuis (Antwerp) derived from a Brussels retable, dated by Steyaert to 1450-70 (fig. a).⁴⁴Antwerp, Museum Vleeshuis, inv. no. AV 853 B, see J.W. Steyaert et al., Late Gothic Sculpture: The Burgundian Netherlands, exh. cat. Ghent (Museum of Fine Arts) 1994, no. 25-B. Also comparable is the scene of the Meeting of the Three Magi in the upper section of the Brussels Nativity altarpiece of Rouen from c. 1470-80, see B. D’Hainaut-Zveny (ed.), Miroirs du sacré: Les retables sculptés à Bruxelles XVe-XVIe siècles, Brussels 2005, no. B19. In these two works, one observes horsemen with faces that greatly resemble those in the Amsterdam relief, albeit with slightly sharper features, riding in a landscape with virtually interchangeable rock formations and mountain meadows and also featuring the occasional, grazing sheep.

Bieke van der Mark, 2024

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 139, with earlier literature

B. van der Mark, 2024, 'anonymous, Landscape with the Retinue of the Three Magi, Brussels, c. 1470', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20014993