Mould of a Baptism of Christ in the River Jordan (Patacon?)

Formed around a positive model and fired.

The greyish-brown terracotta has black discolouration in places, caused by a lengthy period in the ground. A shard has been glued on the outside of the mould.

…; found, with BK-2010-9-2, BK-2010-10-1 and -2, during excavation works in Galgenveld in Leiden, c. 1980;¹¹This was soil from Galgenveld on the north side of Leiden’s old city centre, opposite Galgenwater, which was dumped on the outskirts of the present city around 1980. A quantity of waste earthenware from a pottery was found, including these intact moulds and impressions. Another part of the find was sold to the collector H.J.E. van Beuningen and transferred to the Stichting Het Nederlands Gebruiksvoorwerp in Langbroek. These were the following moulds and reliefs: Flight into Egypt (5 complete moulds and 1 fragment; 2 complete reliefs) and _The World Upside Down _(4 moulds, 3 fragments; 2 complete reliefs and 2 bags of shards). Provenance information supplied by J.P. van Halderen of Delft, Christine Vaandrager-Van Beuningen (Huize Rodensteyn in Langbroek) and the dealer who sold the pieces to the Rijksmuseum, G. Verhoeven of Delft (written communication June 2010). Van Someren Collection, Leiden, c. 1980-before 2004;²²Van Someren is the dragline operator who made the find. …; Plomp Collection, Delft, 2005; …; Jan Pieter van Halderen Collection, Delft, 2005; from whom to the dealer G. Verhoeven, Amsterdam (Sanctus Religious Art and Antiques), 2010; from whom, with BK-2010-9-2, BK-2010-10-1 and -2, €1,200 for all four, to the museum, May 2010

ObjectNumber: BK-2010-9-1

The subject of this concave, negative mould and its corresponding contemporaneous convex, positive impression (BK-2010-9-2) is the Baptism of Christ in the River Jordan. Christ, dressed in a loincloth, hands folded in prayer, stands in the water. St John, wearing garments made of camel’s hair, pours water from a bowl over Christ’s head. He holds a staff in his left hand. The two figures stand beneath a double-arched gothic structure, supported left and right by a slender column with a nodus in the middle. In the centre of the double arch is a pendant keystone crowned with a pinnacle, and acanthus leaves sprout from the arches. Above it there is brickwork. The background to the scene is finely hatched. The detailing, particularly the finely hatched background, suggests that the composition is based on a print example such as an etching or engraving. There is, moreover, a stylistic affinity with late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century ivory reliefs attributed to the Low Countries. Two ivory paxes, in the Rijksmuseum (BK-2013-6) and in the British Museum in London, are actually identical to this mould and its impression down to the smallest detail; ³³London, British Museum, inv. no. 1878,1101.34 (former Francis Douce collection, in or before 1834), the ivory measures 13 x 8 cm, see I. Reesing, ‘From ivory to pipeclay. The reproduction of late medieval sculpture in the Low Countries’, in E.M. Kavaler, F. Scholten and J. Woodall (eds.), Netherlandish Sculpture of the 16th Century (Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art/Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 67), Leiden/Boston 2017, pp. 256-85, esp. pp. 258-64, fig. 4. See also R. Koechlin, Les ivoires gothiques français, Paris 1924, no. 914. the only difference is the presence of an escutcheon with an unidentified family coat of arms on the ivory. The connection between the ivories, particularly the one in London, and this mould with its impression is of considerable art historical significance: not only does it illustrate the fact that elite art in expensive materials like ivory was copied directly in cheap reproductive art, it is also a further indication that the group of ivories to which this pax belongs originates in the Low Countries.⁴⁴F. Scholten, ‘Een Nederlandse ivoren pax uit de late middeleeuwen’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 52 (2004), pp. 2-23; F. Scholten, ‘A Late Medieval Ivory of the Immaculate Conception from the Low Countries’, in A. von Hülsen-Esch and D. Taube (eds.), “Luft unter die Flügel ...” Beiträge zur mittelalterlichen Kunst. Festschrift für Hiltrud Westermann-Angerhausen, Hildesheim and elsewhere 2010, pp. 186-92. I. Reesing, ‘From ivory to pipeclay. The reproduction of late medieval sculpture in the Low Countries’, in E.M. Kavaler, F. Scholten and J. Woodall (eds.), Netherlandish Sculpture of the 16th Century (Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art/Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 67), Leiden/Boston 2017, pp. 256-85, passim. The characteristics of these ivories include a hatched background, the depressed gothic arch that spans the scene and the brickwork above.⁵⁵R.H. Randall Jr, ‘Dutch Ivories of the Fifteenth Century’, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 45 (1994), pp. 127-39, esp. figs. 1-7.

The emergence in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries of an industry mass-producing popular devotional works that could be reproduced easily and relatively cheaply, of which this relief is one, is a north-western European phenomenon.⁶⁶M. Hermann, Augsburger Bilderbäcker. Tonfigürchen des späten Mittelalters und der Renaissance, Augsburg 1995 (Augsburger Museumsschriften 6); A. Böing, G. Inhester and T. Sodmann (ed.), Judocus Vredis: Kunst aus der Stille: eine Klosterwerkstatt der Dürerzeit/Judocus Vredis: Kunst uit de stilte: Een kloosterwerkplaats uit de tijd van Dürer, exh. Münster (Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte)/Vreden (Hamaland-Museum)/Borken (Kreismuseum)/Deventer (Historisch Museum de Waag) 2001; F.M. Kammel et al., Spiegel der Seligkeit. Privates Bild und Frömmigkeit im Spätmittelalter, exh. cat. Nuremberg (Germanisches Nationalmuseum) 2000, pp. 350-96; G.V. Grimm et al., Kleine Meisterwerke des Bilddrucks. Ungeliebte Kinder der Kunstgeschichte, Büchenbach 2011. In the urbanized Low Countries the demand for cheap, mass-produced religious manufactures like this was particularly high among the laity in the towns and cities, pilgrims and members of religious orders. As well as simple woodcuts and engravings, lead pilgrim badges and pipeclay figurines and reliefs, devotional objects were also made of pewter, wax, stucco, papier-mâché and even edible materials.⁷⁷F.M. Kammel et al., Spiegel der Seligkeit. Privates Bild und Frömmigkeit im Spätmittelalter, exh. cat. Nuremberg (Germanisches Nationalmuseum) 2000, pp. 350-96. For the Netherlands see H.L.M. Defoer et al., Vroomheid per dozijn, exh. cat. Utrecht (Rijksmuseum Het Catharijneconvent) 1982; H.J.E. van Beuningen and A.M. Koldeweij, Heilig en Profaan. 1000 laatmiddeleeuwse insignes uit de collectie H.J.E. van Beuningen, Cothen 1993 (Rotterdam Papers 8: A Contribution to Medieval Archeology); H.J.E. van Beuningen et al., Heilig en Profaan 2. 1200 Laatmiddeleeuwse insignes uit openbare en particuliere collecties, Cothen 2001 (Rotterdam Papers 12: A Contribution to Medieval Archeology). The designs are usually fairly schematic and were often derived from woodcuts.⁸⁸I. Reesing, ‘From ivory to pipeclay. The reproduction of late medieval sculpture in the Low Countries’, in E.M. Kavaler, F. Scholten and J. Woodall (eds.), Netherlandish Sculpture of the 16th Century (Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art/Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 67), Leiden/Boston 2017, pp. 256-85, esp. pp. 272-79. In the case of the Baptism of Christ in the River Jordan the double gothic arch calls to mind the design of prints in the Biblia Pauperum and similar illustrations. One striking feature, for instance, is the schematic rendition of St John’s camel-hair garment with separate strands of hair. In the same way, in other reliefs the low vegetation in a landscape is indicated with individual tufts of grass.⁹⁹F.M. Kammel et al., Spiegel der Seligkeit. Privates Bild und Frömmigkeit im Spätmittelalter, exh. cat. Nuremberg (Germanisches Nationalmuseum) 2000, nos. 181-82, 184.

Their fragility, the intensive use to which they were subjected and the coming of the Reformation mean that very few intact examples of this wide-ranging industrial output have survived, most of them in Germany. Some tondi, moulds and impressions from the Middle Rhine region that are similar in size and material are held in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg.¹⁰¹⁰F.M. Kammel et al., Spiegel der Seligkeit. Privates Bild und Frömmigkeit im Spätmittelalter, exh. cat. Nuremberg (Germanisches Nationalmuseum) 2000, nos. 181-83; G.V. Grimm et al., Kleine Meisterwerke des Bilddrucks. Ungeliebte Kinder der Kunstgeschichte, Büchenbach 2011, p. 51, fig. 19. The combination of an intact mould and corresponding contemporaneous impression dating from the sixteenth century is therefore quite exceptional.

Although the design of this mould and impression is entirely late gothic, these pieces probably have to be dated to well into the sixteenth century. This is indicated by the fact that pieces were found in the same Leiden excavation with obviously later decoration, probably from the same pottery, such as a star-shaped mould and impression of the Flight into Egypt (BK-2010-10-1 and -2). The occurrence of these styles side by side suggests a latest date of around 1540-50. This Leiden pottery on Galgenveld may even have been in business for as long as a hundred to a hundred and fifty years, because among other pieces in the same find were a mould and impression dated 1645 with an image of the World Turned Upside Down (titled Lustig Ordt).¹¹¹¹Langbroek, Collection Stichting Het Nederlands Gebruiksvoorwerp. To what extent this pottery was a continuation of an earlier Leiden pottery that produced devotional figurines in pipeclay in the fifteenth and probably early sixteenth centuries in the nearby Varkenmarkt cannot yet be established.¹²¹²For the find at Oude Varkenmarkt 13 see H.J.E. van Beuningen, ‘Een 16de-eeuwse pijpaarden pelgrimsfles uit Leiden’, Bodemonderzoek in Leiden. Archeologisch jaarverslag 10 (1987), pp. 25-36; M.E. Kleiterp, ‘Een verzameling pijpaarden mallen en beeldjes uit Leiden in het Rijksmuseum van Oudheden’, Bodemonderzoek in Leiden. Archeologisch jaarverslag 11-12 (1988-89), pp. 77-88. In 1986 the firing waste from this medieval production – a great many fragments of statuettes, reliefs and moulds – was found opposite Oude Varkenmarkt 13 in Leiden.¹³¹³Housed in the National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden. See also The Memory Database and search for ‘Varkenmarkt’. With thanks to Ingmar Reesing. These fragments, which are similar in terms of subjects to pipeclay finds in other towns and cities, bear no clear iconographic or physical resemblance to the material found in Galgenveld.¹⁴¹⁴An exception may be a fragment of a round relief of the Massacre of the Innocents, which has wooden figures and tufts of grass similar to the Baptism of Christ in the River Jordan, see E.V. Henry-Buitenhuis, ‘Pijpaarden beeldjes uit Leidse bodem’, Bodemonderzoek in Leiden. Archeologisch Jaarverslag 11-12 (1988-89), pp. 63-76, esp. no. 43 (fig. on p. 65).

Aside from the diversity in style and shape, another noteworthy aspect of the Galgenveld find is the fact that religious and secular subjects occur in the same place. This raises the question as to the function of the reliefs that were found. The different shapes – here a slightly curved model, elsewhere a round or star-shaped flat relief – make their use as decorative wall reliefs, for example by a fireplace, unlikely, although the technical and stylistic likeness to sixteenth-century hearthstones is considerable.¹⁵¹⁵For a German hearthstone dating from c. 1562 decorated with the Baptism of Christ in the River Jordan see G.V. Grimm et al., Kleine Meisterwerke des Bilddrucks. Ungeliebte Kinder der Kunstgeschichte, Büchenbach 2011, pp. 103-04 and figs. 59-60. Their use for private devotions at home, for instance standing on a shelf, in a small niche or on a simple house altar, is conceivable, but there are no other known Netherlandish examples. There is, though, a record in Nuremberg, dated 4 May 1563, of the patrician Paulus Behaim’s purchasing 13 posierte mendle und frayle, auch pferdle von schwarz laimen gemacht, auf die gesimbs zu setzen… (13 modelled men and women, also horses, made of black clay to put on the shelf...).¹⁶¹⁶M. Hermann, Augsburger Bilderbäcker. Tonfigürchen des späten Mittelalters und der Renaissance, Augsburg 1995 (Augsburger Museumsschriften 6), p. 23. The fact that the Baptism of Christ in the River Jordan was not a common devotional subject argues against this use.

The most plausible explanation is that reliefs like this were used as what are known as patacons.¹⁷¹⁷A. Delcart, Winterfeesten en gebak. Mythen, folklore en tradities, Antwerp/Apeldoorn 2007, pp. 133-35. I. Reesing, ‘From ivory to pipeclay. The reproduction of late medieval sculpture in the Low Countries’ in E.M. Kavaler, F. Scholten and J. Woodall (eds.), Netherlandish Sculpture of the 16th Century (Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art/Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 67), Leiden/Boston 2017, pp. 256-85, esp. pp. 264-66. These small clay tablets were made for use as decorations on festive loaves and cakes at the end of the year. The designs in the clay were usually painted. Their use was most common in the Southern Netherlands from the sixteenth century onwards. The patacons were often made in pipeclay, although there were also cheaper variants in local types of clay.¹⁸¹⁸A. Delcart, Winterfeesten en gebak. Mythen, folklore en tradities, Antwerp/Apeldoorn 2007, p. 134. For a fragment of a patacon (17th century?) unearthed in Ghent (Schepenhuisstraat) see R. van de Walle, ‘Voorwerpen in pijpaarde uit de afvalput aan de Schepenhuisstraat’, Stadsarcheologie 15 (1991), pp. 20-28 and fig. 19. Most of them are relatively small, but larger examples similar to the relief of the Baptism of Christ in the River Jordan also occur. Larger patacons of this kind are often curved, as is the case here, so that they fitted the shape of the loaf.¹⁹¹⁹A. Delcart, Winterfeesten en gebak. Mythen, folklore en tradities, Antwerp/Apeldoorn 2007, p. 135. Although patacons were chiefly used in Christmas and New Year loaves, it is not impossible that they were also used on the bread for other religious and secular feast days in the last months of the year.

Frits Scholten, 2024

Jaarverslag, Amsterdam 2010 (annual report Rijksmuseum), p. 33; I. Reesing, ‘From ivory to pipeclay. The reproduction of late medieval sculpture in the Low Countries’, in E.M. Kavaler, F. Scholten and J. Woodall (eds.), Netherlandish Sculpture of the 16th Century (Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art/Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 67), Leiden/Boston 2017, pp. 256-85, esp. pp. 258-66 and figs. 2, 3, 6, 7; F. Scholten, ‘Acquisitions: Medieval Sculpture from the Goldschmidt-Pol Collection and from Other Donors’, The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 59 (2011), pp. 414-35, esp. p. 434; F. Scholten, ‘A European Panorama’, in F. Scholten (ed.), 1100-1600, Amsterdam 2015, pp. 6-35, esp. p. 13, fig. 7

F. Scholten, 2024, 'anonymous, Mould of a Baptism of Christ in the River Jordan (Patacon?), Leiden, c. 1540', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.486991