Carved and originally polychromed. Tremolierung has been applied to the upward-sloping base. The reverse is flat. The sculpture was either originally carved as a freestanding figure belonging to a scene of the Adoration of the Magi or it formed an integral part of such a group and was sawn out at a later date. Dendrochronological research resulted in the dating of the outermost ring in the year 1468. Given that sapwood is absent, the felling of the tree has been estimated to have occurred ‘after 1474’. The wood originates from the eastern Baltic, likely from the northwest of current Lithuania.

The left forearm and the two feet of the Christ Child are missing. The polychromy has been removed.

…; 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

Object number: BK-NM-2492

This Virgin and Child was part of a large collection of objects acquired by the Rijksmuseum from Antonius Petrus (‘Antoon’) Hermans (Eindhoven) in 1875.¹¹Antoon Hermans was a goldsmith, church warden, art dealer and collector, active in Eindhoven and was married to Joanna Maria Smits (1815-1879), see J.P. van Rijen, ‘Antonius Petrus Hermans (1822-1897), een ambivalent lid van het Sint-Bernulphusgilde’, Ex Tempore 12 (1993), pp. 57-64; P. Thoben, ‘Zilver van edelsmid Antonius Petrus Hermans’, Museum Kempenland Eindhoven Nieuws 7 (2001), p. 4; P. Thoben and R. Erven, Trotse burgers, Cuypers en de Sint-Catharinakerk: Speciale uitgave ter gelegenheid van het 150-jarig jubileum van de Sint-Catharinakerk Eindhoven, Eindhoven 2018, pp. 5, 18, 19, 24. It originally formed part of a retable group depicting the Adoration of the Magi. Two of the three accompanying kings (BK-NM-1281-A and -B) had already been acquired by the museum one year before at the auction sale of the Guillon Collection (Roermond). The stylistic agreement between these figures, their comparably proportionate scale, and the upward-sloping bases, all identically accentuated with Tremolierung (wiggle-work), indicate an origin from the same ensemble. Moreover, the sculpture of the bearded king (Melchior?) and that of the Virgin and Child have both been furnished with an old label inscribed in the same handwriting and denoting almost consecutive inventory numbers (respectively nos. 455 and 457), thus providing additional confirmation of their shared provenance. Guillon may very well have purchased the two kings from Hermans-Smits, an art dealer by trade.²²B. Kruijsen, Verzamelen van middeleeuwse kunst in Nederland 1830-1903, Nijmegen 2002, p. 111. In accordance with conventional iconography, the missing third king (Balthasar?) would have been kneeling at Mary’s feet in presenting his gift to the Christ Child.

Pit and Vogelsang localized the group in the Southern Netherlands. As rightfully pointed out by Leeuwenberg, however, the compact design is more typical of Northern Netherlandish production.³³J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, p. 104. Mary’s domed forehead, her full-round face with squinted eyes, and the hood of her cloak folded back betray characteristics of woodcarving produced in Utrecht. The sculptures are similar to a group of Utrecht sculptures dated circa 1500, as established by Defoer based on their rather conservative appearance.⁴⁴M. Leeflang et al., Middeleeuwse beelden uit Utrecht 1430-1530/Mittelalterliche Bildwerke aus Utrecht, exh. cat. Utrecht (Museum Catharijneconvent)/Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 2012-13, p. 75. For these sculptures, see ibid., nos. 43-46 and p. 263 (ill.). The Virgin's face, hair and cloak are, for instance, almost identical to those of the figure of Mary in the Rijksmuseum’s Flight to Egypt (BK-NM-11769), which also belongs to this Utrecht style group.

Bieke van der Mark, 2024

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 92a, with earlier literature

B. van der Mark, 2024, 'anonymous, Virgin and Child, from an Adoration of the Magi, Utrecht, c. 1500', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035578