Carved and originally polychromed. The main working block consists of one piece of wood taken from a slightly arched tree trunk. St Anne’s right hand, both of the Christ’s child’s arms and a section of his side were carved and attached separately. The same applies to several areas of Mary and St Anne’s robes and six or seven sections of the base. Discernible on the underside are a number of nail holes and stubs of nails used to attach a newly carved section to the original base, which was sawn off at an angle. Dendrochronological analysis indicates the sculpture’s wood originates from the Meuse-Rhine area. Considering the presence of three sapwood rings in the working block, with the most recent ring dating from 1491, the tree’s felling is estimated to have occurred between 1492 and 1523.

A. Truyen 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, pp. 225-27

The polychromy has been removed. St Anne’s left hand with attribute (a bunch of grapes or a book) is missing, as are the point of her right shoe, parts of Mary’s four fingers and the entire thumb on the right hand, and the top section of her crown. The Christ Child’s entire right arm, a section of his left arm and part of his left leg are also lost. Minor fractures can be discerned around the base, with one long fracture traversing the length of the Virgin’s cloak. The reverse and most of the underside of the base, as well as St Anna’s left elbow, have previously sustained mould damage and wormwood infestation. The sculpture presumably became unstable as a result of this damage to the original underside, which was therefore sawn off at an angle. This explains why, in its present state, the underside looks freshly planed and why the sculpture leans to the rear right. During a later restoration, a piece of wood sloping upward and to the right was added to correct this problem (fig. a). At some unknown point in time (between 1949 and 1973), this replacement was later removed.

…; collection Gérard Charles Hubert Guillon (1811-1873), Musée Guillon, Roermond; his sale, Roermond (Max. Cornelis), 30 November - 14 December 1874, no. 19, purchased by the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague; transferred to the museum, 1885; on loan to the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, 2004-11

Object number: BK-NM-1278

In the late Middle Ages, representations of the Virgin and Child with St Anne (St Anne Trinity) were exceptionally popular in the Low Countries, where the iconography is known as St. Anna-te-Drieën. Known as the Terrestrial Trinity (Trinitas Terrestris), i.e. the earthly antithesis of the Celestial Trinity (Trinitas Caelestis), the scene’s iconography depicts Christ’s lineage on his mother’s side.¹¹After the Council of Trent (1545-1563), however, this term is typically applied to the Holy Family (Jesus, Mary and Joseph). For the iconography of the Virgin and Child with St Anne in the Low Countries, see T. Brandenburg, Heilig familieleven: Verspreiding en waardering van de historie van Sint-Anna in de stedelijke cultuur in de Nederlanden en het Rijnland aan het begin van de moderne tijd (15de/16de eeuw), Nijmegen 1990 and T. Brandenburg et al., Heilige Anna, grote moeder: De cultus van de Heilige Moeder Anna en haar familie in de Nederlanden en aangrenzende streken, exh. cat. Uden (Museum voor Religieuze Kunst) 1992. It also implicitly expresses the theology of Mary’s Immaculate Conception. The present group is exceptional in quality and belongs to those later examples in which the three figures are portrayed in the sphere of everyday life, where associations with family life also play a role. Once holding a bunch of grapes or a book in her now missing left hand, St Anne drew the attention of her recumbent grandson, who leans forward extending his left arm. In his enthusiasm to take the object his grandmother offers him, the Christ Child almost escapes his mother’s cradling grasp.

The sculpture’s earliest known owner was Charles Guillon (1811-1873), a nineteenth-century notary and a council member of the Dutch city Roermond. Guillon was a fervent collector of paintings, engravings, furniture, sculpture and manuscripts, primarily those originating from Limburg. He exhibited his collection in his home on the Swalmerstraat in Roermond, better known as the ‘Musée Guillon’. In 1874, one year following Guillon’s death, a number of medieval pieces from his collection were acquired by the state on behalf of the Nederlandsch Museum van Geschiedenis en Kunst (a precursor of the Rijksmuseum), at the urging of national advisors Victor de Stuers and Pierre Cuypers. Among these acquired works was the present Virgin and Child with St Anne.²²B. Kruijsen, Verzamelen van middeleeuwse kunst in Nederland 1830-1903, Nijmegen 2002, pp. 109-10.

The Amsterdam group is one of the best-known images associated with the enigmatic Master of Elsloo.³³For an extensive historiography of scholarly research on the Master of Elsloo, see P. te Poel, ‘De wordingsgeschiedenis van een ‘meester’’, 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, pp. 18-47. See also L. Hendrikman, ‘Van eenling tot verzameling: De Meester van Elsloo van professor Timmers’, in L. Hendrikman et al., De Meester van Elsloo: Van eenling tot verzameling, exh. cat. Maastricht, (Bonnefantenmuseum) 2019, pp. 19-43. Timmers devised this name of convenience in 1940 for the anonymous maker of another late-gothic St Anne Trinity, today preserved in the Sint-Augustinuskerk in Elsloo (fig. b).⁴⁴For an extensive historiography of scholarly research on the Master of Elsloo, see P. te Poel, ‘De wordingsgeschiedenis van een ‘meester’’, 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, pp. 18-47. See also L. Hendrikman, ‘Van eenling tot verzameling: De Meester van Elsloo van professor Timmers’, in L. Hendrikman et al., De Meester van Elsloo: Van eenling tot verzameling, exh. cat. Maastricht, (Bonnefantenmuseum) 2019, pp. 19-43. Transferred to Elsloo in the nineteenth century, presumably from the minster church of Roermond,⁵⁵G. Venner, ‘De herkomst van de St. Anna-te-Drieën in de parochiekerk te Elsloo: een reconstructie van de geschiedenis van een referentiebeeld’, 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, pp. 49-63. Recently Hendrikman has questioned the Elsloo-provenance, see L. Hendrikman et al., De Meester van Elsloo: Van eenling tot verzameling, exh. cat. Maastricht, (Bonnefantenmuseum) 2019, pp. 105-07. this sculpture has served as the core piece for a large number of works bearing similar characteristics. The female figures linked to this group typically possess stern facial expressions with angular features, a furrowed brow, upturned corners of the mouth and a dimple in the chin. The style of the hair consists of waving, interweaving locks that flow horizontally at the temples. All convey a marked serenity in spite of the often sweeping, dynamic drapery folds and the ‘active’ pose, with one leg positioned forward just enough to reveal the point of one shoe beneath the figure’s gown.

Timmers’s introduction of the appellation ‘Master of Elsloo’ soon sparked a veritable explosion of attributions to the sculptor, resulting in an oeuvre of more than two hundred works of sculpture (cf. BK-NM-1278). On the basis of the earliest known provenance accorded to each of these sculptures, Roermond emerged as the centre of this activity, the principal city of what was once Upper Guelders in the Meuse-Rhine area.⁶⁶J.J.M. Timmers, Houten beelden: De houtsculptuur in de Noordelijke Nederlanden tijdens de late Middeleeuwen, Amsterdam/Antwerp 1949, p. 35; F. Gorissen, ‘Die Antoniusfigur von Rheindahlen’, Der Niederrhein: Zeitschrift für Heimatpflege und Wandern 33 (1966), pp. 158-65, esp. p. 165. In 1980, Venner discovered a suitable candidate in the Roermond city archives: the prominent bildesnijder Johan van Oel, with whom the sculptor may reasonably be identified.⁷⁷G. Venner, ‘Op het spoor van de “Meester van Elsloo”?’, De Maasgouw 99 (1980), cols. 3-9; G. Venner, ‘Nogmaals: Op het spoor van de “Meester van Elsloo”?’, De Maasgouw 105 (1986), col. 96; G. Venner, ‘Beeldsnijders en andere kunstenaars in Roermondse en Venlose bronnen’, 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, pp. 64-91, esp. pp. 79-87. Such an identification remains purely speculative, however, as not a single piece of documentation citing Johan’s name, or that of his son (?), the woodcarver Goert van Oel, has ever been linked to any of the works attributed to the Master of Elsloo.

Considering the nature and scale of production attributed to the Master of Elsloo, he is certain to have laid the groundwork for one of the largest and most important woodcarving centres in the region bound by the Meuse and Rhine rivers, which was active for several generations from the early to mid-sixteenth century.⁸⁸H. Meurer (ed.), Herbst des Mittelalters: Spätgotik in Köln und am Niederrhein, exh. cat. Cologne (Kunsthalle) 1970, p. 28; W.T.M. Hendriks et al., De Meester van Elsloo, Oppergelders beeldsnijder XVIe eeuw, exh. cat. Horst (Gemeentekantoor) 1974, p. 12. Nevertheless, the duration of the Elsloo workshop’s period of activity and the dating of individual sculptures associated with this centre of production remain problematic. Only the Virgin and Child in Liège and an apostle beam with a Calvary in Barmen bear inscribed dates, respectively 1523 and 1545.⁹⁹P. te Poel, ‘De wordingsgeschiedenis van een ‘meester’, 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, pp. 18-47, esp. pp. 38-40 and figs. 1.4, 1.30, 1.31 and 1.32. Because the year 1542 has been inscribed on the stone console supporting the apostle beam rather than on the apostle figures or the beam itself, Te Poel points out that the inscription is by no means necessarily applicable to the woodcarvings. For the rest, dates established by art historians on the basis of style often prove contradictory. Some consensus does seem to have emerged when it comes to the dating of the Amsterdam group, circa 1520, which recent dendrochronological analysis further substantiates.¹⁰¹⁰M. Dominguez (Universidade de Santiago de Compostela), RMA, 13 October 2016, see the ‘Technical Data’. When applied to the aforementioned core piece in Elsloo, the same research method unfortunately provided no results.¹¹¹¹A. Truyen, ‘Technical Study of the St Anne with the Virgin and Child in Elsloo and Some Other Sculptures Associated with the Master of Elsloo’, in F. Peters (ed.) 2013, 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, pp. 218-29, esp. p. 223.

Despite the many overarching parallels shared by works assigned to the Master of Elsloo’s oeuvre, closer observation revealed that clear disparities in quality, facture and style are markedly substantial, even allowing a classification into various subgroups on the basis of these characteristics.¹²¹²At the exhibition organized by Lemmens and De Werd in 1974, the various works attributed at this time to the Master of Elsloo were divided into four ‘variants’: a main group centring on the core piece in Elsloo and three additional subgroups, each named after the respective provenance of the three most characteristic works: Maaseik, Beek and Siersdorf-Neeroeteren. Observable differences were to be understood in terms of the organizers’ hypothesis that the Elsloo workshop ‘was a large and well-organized company, with “specialized” sub-departments for frequently requested commissions’, see W.T.M. Hendriks et al., De Meester van Elsloo, Oppergelders beeldsnijder XVIe eeuw, exh. cat. Horst (Gemeentekantoor) 1974, pp. 13-18. The question then arose whether the name of convenience ‘Master of Elsloo’ might rather be applied as a collective term used to describe works of sculpture bearing similar stylistic traits but carved during the same period by various masters active in what was once Upper Guelders. This premise is further supported by the results of archival research on the size and scale of woodcarving workshops in Antwerp, at this time the most productive woodcarving centre in the Low Countries. Surprisingly, the scale of production in Antwerp workshops proved to be limited, making it highly unlikely that one workshop with such a high productivity might have been based in a much smaller city like Roermond.¹³¹³N. Peeters and M.P.J. Martens, ‘A Cutting Edge? Wood Carvers and Their Workshops in Antwerp 1453-1579’, in C. Van de Velde et al. (ed.), Constructing Wooden Images. Proceedings of the Symposium on the Organization of Labour and Working Practices of Late Gothic Carved Altarpieces in the Low Countries. Brussels 25-26 October 2002, Brussels 2005, pp. 75-92. Additionally, a major multidisciplinary study of the ‘Elsloo group’ has since been conducted that further substantiates the veracity of the hypothesis regarding the coexistence of multiple woodcarvers and/or workshops working in the same style.¹⁴¹⁴F. Peters, ‘Introduction to the KIK-IRPA’s Interdisciplinary Research on the Sculptures from the Elsloo Group in Belgium, and in Particular the Methodology of the Art-Historical Research’, 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, pp. 92-107; F. Peters and C. Ceulemans, ‘Conclusion’, 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, pp. 320-25, esp. pp. 323-24. The findings of the study failed to provide the data necessary for categorising these works into clearly defined subgroups, i.e. with attributions established in terms of a specific hand or workshop.¹⁵¹⁵F. Peters and V. Cattersel, ‘In Search of the Elsloo DNA: Stylistic Study of Sculptures from the Elsloo Group’, 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, pp. 108-21, esp. p. 120. In many cases, dendrochronological analysis and dendroprovenancing served to facilitate a determination of the approximate felling date and origin of the wood used for the sculptures. For the twenty-nine works that could be dated through dendrochronology, the last-measured annual rings varied from 1484 to 1513, therefore offering insight into the earliest conceivable year in which these sculptures could have been carved.¹⁶¹⁶See P. Fraiture, ‘Dendrochronological Research on Sculptures from the Elsloo Group’, in F. Peters (ed.) 2013, 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, pp. 162-83. The wood was found to originate primarily from the Meuse region, and, in more specific terms, possibly from the vicinity of Roermond.¹⁷¹⁷See A. Truyen, ‘Technical Study of the St Anne with the Virgin and Child in Elsloo and Some Other Sculptures Associated with the Master of Elsloo’, in F. Peters (ed.) 2013, 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, pp. 218-29, esp. pp. 225-26. Technical analyses of the four St Anne Trinity groups in Amsterdam, Elsloo, Montfort and Rinderen revealed these works indeed display similarities. All four are carved from single blocks of oak from the local Meuse region, with the first three having comparable dimensions ranging from 81.5 to 84.5 cm in height.¹⁸¹⁸The group in Rindern, measuring 129.5 cm in height, is significantly larger. Another common characteristic is the close adherence of each sculpture’s composition to the form of the tree trunk from which it was carved. The groups preserved in Elsloo, Montfort and Rinderen all come from a forked tree trunk, with the upper torsos of St Anne and Mary following one direction of tree growth. The tree trunk of the Amsterdam version, by contrast was lightly arched, resulting in a pose with Anne and Mary both leaning to the right.¹⁹¹⁹This effect was unintentionally additionally heightened by the fact that at some later point the underside was sawn off at an angle, presumably because the sculpture had become unstable as a result of previously sustained mould damage and wormwood infestation in this area. Consequently, St Anne leans backwards at a very unnatural angle. To rectify this situation, a piece of wood sloping upward and to the right was nailed to the underside of the base in the nineteenth century (see fig. a in the Condition section). This replacement was later removed (between 1949 and 1973). None of these four works displays workbench holes.²⁰²⁰Truyen maintained that these were indeed discernible on the underside of the Amsterdam sculpture. In fact, these are modern nail holes where the new, corrective wooden piece was attached to the diagonally sawn-off bottom edge, cf. A. Truyen, ‘Technical Study of the St Anne with the Virgin and Child in Elsloo and Some Other Sculptures Associated with the Master of Elsloo’, 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, pp. 218-29, esp. pp. 226-27).

Among the many groups of St Anne Trinity associated with the Master of Elsloo, of which the best-known examples have been cited above, the core piece preserved in Elsloo is viewed as the artistic high point and prototype. A number of formal and stylistic similarities can be observed when comparing the version in Amsterdam to this seminal work. The drapery folds, the faces with broad, high foreheads, the small press-lipped mouths, the heavy upper eyelids, the style of the Virgin’s hair and the elegant S-curve in her pose are found in both works. The same applies to the Christ Child’s recumbent pose, leaning forward and playfully reaching out to take the object offered him by his grandmother, and in doing so virtually freeing himself from his mother’s grasp. Clear differences are nevertheless also to be observed: in the Amsterdam group, St Anne holds her attribute with only one hand while taking Christ’s left arm with the other, thus creating a greater interaction between grandmother and grandchild when compared to the Elsloo group. Second, St Anne’s standing pose – versus seated, as at Elsloo – presents the two women almost as mirror images of one another, consequently magnifying the intimacy shared between mother and daughter and portraying them as equals. On the basis of such considerations, it becomes all too tempting to classify the Amsterdam sculpture as a more evolved variant of the Elsloo prototype. Lefftz’s comprehensive style analysis indeed supports such a chronology. He divides the works into four successive periods, with the group in Elsloo belonging to the second period and the Amsterdam group to the third.²¹²¹H. Lefftz, ‘Réflexions méthodologiques et contribution à la caractérisation morphologique des sculptures du groupe d’Elsloo’, 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, pp. 122-47, esp. pp. 136-37. For an overview of the four stylistic periods, together with their respective characteristics, see ibid., p. 145. While Lefftz provides no dates for these periods, the dendrochronological analysis of a number of the statues supports a dating of circa 1500-10 for the second stylistic period. The art historical dating of around 1520 for the present sculpture, which belongs to the third period, agrees well with these findings. See P. Fraiture, ‘Dendrochronological Research on Sculptures from the Elsloo Group’, 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, pp. 162-83. In his estimation, the drapery folds of the present sculpture, when compared to those of the Elsloo group, already display an element of calm in certain areas. With this subtle shift, the physical form becomes more visible beneath St Anne and Mary’s robes, a detail particularly noticeable in the placement of one leg towards the front.

Contrary to most of the other works grouped around the Master of Elsloo, currently under the heading ‘Elsloo Group’, the Amsterdam Virgin and Child with St Anne can be directly linked to the core piece in Elsloo, based not only on its clearly similar style but also on its earliest known provenance (Roermond). In light of the carving’s high quality and the artistically original interpretation of this specific theme – indeed a later variant of the Elsloo prototype – two possible scenarios come to mind: both works were produced either by the very same master (if indeed based in Roermond, possibly Johan van Oel), who experienced an artistic progression in his work in the intervening period, or by a sculptor from his direct circle, such as a son (Goert van Oel?) or a former apprentice.

Maria Gordusenko and Bieke van der Mark, 2024

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 122, with earlier literature; W.T.M. Hendriks et al., De Meester van Elsloo, Oppergelders beeldsnijder XVIe eeuw, exh. cat. Horst (Gemeentekantoor) 1974, no. 21; C. Ceulemans et al., Laat-gotische beeldsnijkunst uit Limburg en grensland, exh. cat. Sint-Truiden (Provinciaal Museum voor Religieuze Kunst) 1990, no. 55; T. Brandenburg et al., Heilige Anna, grote moeder: De cultus van de Heilige Moeder Anna en haar familie in de Nederlanden en aangrenzende streken, exh. cat. Uden (Museum voor Religieuze Kunst) 1992, fig. 29; L. De Ren and B. Simon (eds.), Laat-gotische beeldsnijkunst uit Limburg en grensland: Handelingen van het symposium, Sint Truiden 12-13 November 1990, Sint-Truiden 1992, pp. 133, 138, 156, 159; Scholten in H. van Os et al., Netherlandish art in the Rijksmuseum 1400-1600, coll. cat Amsterdam 2000, no. 29; B. Kruijsen, Verzamelen van middeleeuwse kunst in Nederland 1830-1903, Nijmegen 2002, p. 110; 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, pp. 136-37, 145, 225-27; L. Hendrikman et al., De Meester van Elsloo: Van eenling tot verzameling, exh. cat. Maastricht (Bonnefantenmuseum) 2019, pp. 23, 30, 47 and no. 7

M. Gordusenko and B. van der Mark, 2024, 'attributed to Meester van Elsloo, The Virgin and Child with St Anne, Upper Guelders, c. 1520', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035594