Carved and originally polychromed. The reverse has been hollowed out.

The dove on Bridget’s shoulder, her hands and the attributes she holds (probably an abbess’s staff and the book of her revelations) are missing. The polychromy has been removed.

? Commissioned by the Bridgettine abbey Mariënwater, Koudewater, near Rosmalen, c. 1510-20;¹¹For the history of this abbey and the transitional period and transfer of the art patrimony, see L.C.B.M. van Liebergen, Beelden in de abdij: Middeleeuwse kunst uit het noordelijk deel van het hertogdom Brabant, exh. cat. Uden (Museum voor Religieuze Kunst) 1999, pp. 39-57, 62-64, 97. transferred to the Bridgettine convent Maria Refugie, Uden, 1713-24;²²Ibid. from where, with numerous other sculptures (BK-NM-1195 to -1243), fl. 2,000 for all, to the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague, 1875; transferred to the museum, 1885; on loan to the Museum Krona (formerly known as the Museum voor Religieuze Kunst), Uden, inv. no. 0017, since 1973

Object number: BK-NM-1203

St Bridget of Sweden wears the dress of the sisters of the order she founded – the Order of the Most Holy Saviour, better known as the Bridgettines – complete with the Bridgettine ‘crown’, whose five discs refer to the wounds of Christ. Next to her right foot lie two tiaras, one on top of the other, which refer to Bridget’s noble descent and her mystic marriage to Christ. On her shoulder are the feet of the dove of the Holy Spirit. This bird, which broke off of the statue at some point and is missing, is an allusion to the divine inspiration with which Bridget wrote her Revelations.

In 1875 the museum purchased this statue – together with three core pieces by the Master of Koudewater (BK-NM-1195, -1196 and -1197) – and a large number of more or less related statues of saints – from the convent of Maria Refugie in Uden. Presumably on the grounds of this provenance, Leeuwenberg catalogued the statue in 1973 as ‘northern Brabant, circle of the Master of Koudewater, first quarter of the 16th century’.³³J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 66. However, as Gorissen rightly observed in 1972, St Bridget displays a closer stylistic relationship to certain sculptures from Upper Guelders (Meuse-Rhine region) associated with the Master(s) of Elsloo (for this master, see BK-NM-1278).⁴⁴F. Gorissen, ‘Der Crucifixus von Hinsbeck und seine Verwandten links und rechts der Roer. Ein Beitrag zur Lösung des Beek/Elsloo/Gaesdonck-Problems’, Heimatbuch des Landkreises Kempen-Krefeld 23 (1972), pp. 263-75, esp. pp. 274-75. Whereas Gorissen thought that it resembled most closely the St Anne Trinity in Rindern near Cleves, the sketchy execution of her face led Lemmens and De Werd to place Bridget closer to Montfort’s St Anne Trinity.⁵⁵G. Lemmens and G. de Werd in W.T.M. Hendriks et. al., De Meester van Elsloo: Oppergelders beeldsnijder XVIe eeuw, exh. cat. Horst (Gemeentekantoor) 1974, p. 25. The closest relationship, however, is between a walnut St Helen in the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum in Aachen (fig. a), which has now been assigned (albeit with reservations) to the ‘Elsloo group’.⁶⁶Aachen, Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, inv. no. SK 0239, see D. Preising in S. Böhmer (ed.), Von der Erde zum Himmel. Heiligendarstellung des Spätmittelalters aus dem Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum Aachen, Aachen (Krönungssaal des Aachener Rathauses) 1993, no. 72 (as ‘Niederrhein, 1480-1490’); D. Preising (ed.), Collectionieren, Restaurieren, Gotisieren. Der Bildschnitzer Richard Moest (1841-1906). Zum 100. Todesjahr, exh. cat. Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum)/Cologne (Kölnisches Stadtmuseum) 2006, no. 10 (as ‘Niederrhein/Niederlande?’); F. Peters (ed.), A Masterly Hand. Interdisciplinary Research on the Late-Medieval Sculptor(s) Master of Elsloo in an International Perspective: Proceedings of the Conference Held at the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage in Brussels, 20-21 October 2011, Brussels 2013, p. 333 (as ‘possibly belonging to the Elsloo group’). In terms of drapery scheme and facial type, the similarities between the two statues are so striking that, in spite of being made of different kinds of wood, they could have originated in the same workshop. The abbey from which the St Bridget came still has in its possession a Mary and a St John of oak, from a Calvary that is also connected with the Master of Elsloo.⁷⁷See L.C.B.M. van Liebergen, Beelden in de abdij. Middeleeuwse kunst uit het noordelijk deel van het hertogdom Brabant, exh. cat. Uden (Museum voor Religieuze Kunst) 1999, fig. 30. The Crucifixion they flank is not part of the group to which they originally belonged. This might mean that the master supplied a number of statues to this abbey.

Bieke van der Mark, 2024

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 66, with earlier literature; W.T.M. Hendriks et. al., De Meester van Elsloo: Oppergelders beeldsnijder XVIe eeuw, exh. cat. Horst (Gemeentekantoor) 1974, no. 2; L.C.B.M. van Liebergen, Birgitta van Zweden, 1303-1373: 600 jaar kunst en cultuur van haar kloosterorde, Uden (Museum voor Religieuze Kunst) 1986, no. 76; L.C.B.M. van Liebergen et al., “Waer een paradis”. Kloosterleven in Brabant na de Reformatie, exh. cat. Uden (Museum voor Religieuze Kunst) 1987, no. 125; L.C.B.M. van Liebergen, Beelden in de abdij. Middeleeuwse kunst uit het noordelijk deel van het hertogdom Brabant, exh. cat. Uden (Museum voor Religieuze Kunst) 1999, no. 79; P. te Poel in F. Peters (ed.), A Masterly Hand. Interdisciplinary Research on the Late-Medieval Sculptor(s) Master of Elsloo in an International Perspective: Proceedings of the Conference Held at the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage in Brussels, 20-21 October 2011, Brussels 2013, p. 42, note 34

B. van der Mark, 2024, 'circle of Meester van Elsloo, St Bridget, Meuse-Rhine area, c. 1510 - c. 1520', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200115847