Carved from a single block of wood which was likely part of a wainscot and polychromed. On the reverse are various round holes and a mortise for securing purposes. Dendrochronological analysis has pointed out that the outermost growth ring in the wood block dates to the year 1481. Due to the absence of sapwood it is not possible to give a more specific estimate felling date of the tree than ‘after 1487’. The timber originates from the eastern Baltic region (likely from the northwest of current Lithuania).

The objects once held in the figures’ hands are missing. Damage to the rock wall has caused perforations in several places. The wooden slat attached to the reverse on the lower left with a screw is not original. The polychromy is modern.

…; 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-2522

To what scene this retable fragment once belonged is a matter that has long remained unclear. Two men stand before a high wall of rock, surmounted by a landscape featuring rolling grasslands dotted by several trees, houses and towers. On the basis of his helmet and elbow plates, the figure on the left can be identified as a soldier. The objects once held in the hands of these figures have been lost. These could have been a spear, staffs and/or a rope. When acquired by the Rijksmuseum in 1875 this piece was described as a fragment from a scene of St Peter’s Liberation from Prison.¹¹Note RMA. Pit later identified the scene as The Spies Outside the City of Jericho.²²Note RMA. His interpretation was likely derived from the rocky background’s resemblance to a city rampart: a key element in this Old Testament narrative (Joshua 2:15). This background should probably be accorded little significance, however, as cityscapes surmounting walls of rock were quite commonly utilized as background elements in scenes of the Passion staged just outside the city gates of Jerusalem, especially in retables of Antwerp manufacture. Accordingly, this fragment might very well have formed part of a Crucifixion scene. These two male figures would have been positioned higher up in the scene, with the abrupt ending of their lower legs concealed behind the central scene of the retable below (cf. BK-NM-2480). The scene would have been extended with additional figures likely appearing on one or more separately carved retable fragments on the left. In light of the composition, with a relatively large proportion of the figures’ bodies clearly in view, there is little doubt this fragment depicted a group of soldiers positioned on the right behind the three crosses of Christ and the two thieves at the second or third level of a Calvary.³³Cf. H. Nieuwdorp (ed.), Antwerp Altarpieces 15th-16th centuries, 2 vols., exh. cat. Antwerp (Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal) 1993, vol. 1, no. 10. Soldiers like these are consistently featured in the large, central caisses of Passion altars. While Leeuwenberg argued in favour of a Northern Netherlandish origin, this piece can be categorized far more readily as an example of Antwerp retable production circa 1520-30, as Bouvy has observed.⁴⁴D.P.R.A. Bouvy, ‘Review of J. Leeuwenberg, Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1973’, Simiolus 7 (1974), pp. 103-06, esp. p. 103. Figures with similar sharply carved faces and comparable garments are encountered in the Antwerp Passion retable in the Sint-Mattheuskerk in Hulshout.⁵⁵H. Nieuwdorp (ed.), Antwerp Altarpieces 15th-16th centuries, 2 vols., exh. cat. Antwerp (Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal) 1993, vol. 1, no. 2. Four of the scenes in this retable are depicted in front of a wall of rock surmounted by a comparable cityscape.

Bieke van der Mark, 2024

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 93, with earlier literature; D.P.R.A. Bouvy, ‘Review of J. Leeuwenberg, Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1973’, Simiolus 7 (1974), pp. 103-06, esp. p. 103

B. van der Mark, 2024, 'anonymous, Two Soldiers from a Calvary, from a Passion Altar, Antwerp, c. 1520 - c. 1530', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035580