Female Saint

Technical notes

Carved and originally polychromed. The reverse is almost completely unworked.

Condition

Woodworm damage. The crown or wreath on the head, the attribute in the right hand, the left hand, part of the lower right arm and hand, and the right foot are missing. The base is worm-eaten and pieces have broken off. The polychromy has been removed.

Provenance

? Commissioned by the Bridgettine abbey Mariënwater, Koudewater, near Rosmalen, c. 1460;¹For 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;²Ibid. ? 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; first recorded in the museum in 1904;³A. Pit, Catalogus van de beeldhouwwerken in het Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst te Amsterdam, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1904. on loan to the Museum Krona (formerly known as the Museum voor Religieuze Kunst), Uden, inv. no. 2094, since 1999

ObjectNumber: BK-18068

The artist

Biography

Master of Koudewater (active in northern Brabant c. 1460-80)

The name of convenience ‘Master of Koudewater’ was introduced by Leeuwenberg in 1958 to define the production of a sculptor active in the period 1460-80, whose oeuvre chiefly comprises carved wooden statues of saints formerly originating from two Bridgettine abbeys. The first one, Mariënwater, was located in the northern Brabantine village of Koudewater. In 1460, this ‘mother abbey’ founded a second abbey in the vicinity of Cleves, called Marienbaum. When evicted from their abbey in 1713, the Bridgettine nuns at Mariënwater moved to a convent in the vicinity of Uden, together with all of their possessions. In 1802, when the abbey at Marienbaum was dissolved, a portion of its inventory was likewise transferred to Uden. Facing financial difficulty, the Bridgettine nuns at Uden were ultimately forced to sell off the bulk of their art holdings. In 1875, a large number of saintly statues carved by the Master of Koudewater and followers of his style were subsequently acquired en bloc by the Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, a forerunner of the Rijksmuseum.

There are strong indications that the Master of Koudewater produced statues for both Mariënwater and Marienbaum. Collectively, these works – together with other similar figures produced in the northern part of the Duchy of Brabant – are today known as the ‘Koudewater Group’. The Rijksmuseum holds sixteen of the Koudewater statues in its collection. Based on the shared static but elegant poses, calm facial expressions, and matching drapery schemes characterised by deeply cut folds, however, only six of these works can be securely attributed to the master himself. The remaining ten are likely to have been produced by workshop assistants, pupils or followers of the master’s style.

The centre of the Master of Koudewater’s activity was initially thought to be in the Lower Rhine region. When acknowledging the documented provenance of the works and the stylistic similarity to Brabantine sculpture, however, the northern part of the Duchy of Brabant emerges as the most likely area of production. Attempts have been made to link the master’s carving to the flourishing artistic climate in Den Bosch and even to a documented woodcarver active there, Jan Jansz van Gheervliet.⁴G.C.M. van Dijck, ‘De meester van Coudewater opgespoord? Een interessante theorie’, Bossche bladen 3 (2001), pp. 75-77. Nevertheless, nothing in the Master of Koudewater’s oeuvre suggests a knowledge of the artistic innovation occurring in this northern Brabantine city. On the contrary, it appears he led a rather solitary life. His artistic origin must therefore be sought in monastic surroundings in or near Mariënwater.

Marie Mundigler, 2024

References
G.C.M. van Dijck, ‘De meester van Coudewater opgespoord? Een interessante theorie’, Bossche bladen 3 (2001), pp. 75-77; J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, pp. 86-94; 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. 61-64; J. Leeuwenberg in R. van Luttervelt et al., Middeleeuwse kunst der Noordelijke Nederlanden, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1958, pp. 192-93; G. Lemmens and G. de Werd, Beelden uit Brabant: Laatgotische kunst uit het oude hertogdom 1400-1520, exh. cat. Den Bosch (Noordbrabants Museum) 1971, pp. 17-26; J.W. Steyaert et al., Late Gothic Sculpture: The Burgundian Netherlands, exh. cat. Ghent (Museum of Fine Arts) 1994, n. 84; W. Vogelsang, De oude kerkelijke kunst in Nederland: Gedenkboek van de Nationale Tentoonstelling te ’s-Hertogenbosch in 1913, Den Bosch 1914, p. 98

Entry

This Female Saint is thought to be one of the earliest works to originate in the workshop of the Master of Koudewater, an anonymous master who owes his name of convenience to the fact that most of his statues of saints come from the abbey of Mariënwater in Koudewater, which was dissolved in 1713.⁵J. Leeuwenberg in R. van Luttervelt et al., Middeleeuwse kunst der Noordelijke Nederlanden, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1958, pp. 192-93. In 1875 the museum acquired the master’s three core pieces, statues of St Barbara (BK-NM-1195), St Catherine of Alexandria (BK-NM-1196) and St John the Evangelist (BK-NM-1197), from the immediate successor to this abbey, the convent of Maria Refugie in Uden, together with a large number of stylistically related statues of saints, including, in all likelihood, this female saint.⁶Most of the statues made by the so-called Master of the Pipe Folds, an anonymous sculptor from the Meuse area who was active in Liège, display similar drapery. Cf. C. Ceulemans et al., Laat-gotische beeldsnijkunst uit Limburg en grensland, vol. 2, exh. cat. Sint-Truiden (Museum voor Religieuze Kunst) 1990, nos. 15-18.

The present statue resembles in almost every detail two female saints in the collection of the Museum Krona, Uden.⁷Uden, Museum Krona, inv. nos. 0933 and 576, 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, nos. 2-3. One of the women, however, wears a necklace with a pendant that is round instead of diamond-shaped. The diamond-shaped pendant recurs in two female saints of later vintange in the Rijksmuseum (inv. nos. BK-18069 and BK-NM-1213). Together with three other statues, they belong to a certain type that is characterized by stocky, highly stylized forms and a standardized drapery scheme that features three vertical folds with indentations at breast height.⁸The other statues are a Female Saint and a Virgin and Child in the Museum Krona in Uden, inv. nos. 0106 and 0209, respectively; 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, nos. 4, 6. See also a Virgin Mary in the Sint-Petrus’-Bandenkerk in Oisterwijk (see ibid., no. 5.) and another Virgin Mary in a private collection in Riele; see G. Lemmens and G. de Werd, Beelden uit Brabant. Laatgotische kunst uit het oude hertogdom 1400-1520, exh. cat. Den Bosch (Noordbrabants Museum) 1971, no. 18. At first the statues with these characteristics were dated by Leeuwenberg, as well as Lemmens and De Werd, to around 1470.⁹J. Leeuwenberg in R. van Luttervelt et al., Middeleeuwse kunst der Noordelijke Nederlanden, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1958, no. 272. But whereas Leeuwenberg thought this type to be the precursor of the more elegant saints that the Master of Koudewater produced in the following decades (cf. BK-NM-1195, BK-NM-1197 and BK-NM-1196), De Werd and Lemmens considered them somewhat squat workshop pieces that originated at the same time as the more gracious, autograph statues belonging to the core group. After the evaluation of the exhibition Beelden uit Brabant, held in 1971 in the Noordbrabants Museum in Den Bosch, at which many of the statues in question were shown, Leeuwenberg’s hypothesis gained general acceptance.¹⁰L.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, p. 96. A dating of circa 1470 was retained for the elegant core group, whereas the dating of the statues with indented folds was adjusted to around 1460.¹¹J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 54; 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, nos. 1-6. Since then, these squat statues have been regarded as the precursor of the core group and therefore as the earliest examples of work produced in the workshop of the Master of Koudewater. Whether these are early works by this anonymous Master or the work of a studio assistant or a predecessor cannot be said for certain, owing to our lack of knowledge about the organization of the workshop.

Bieke van der Mark, 2024

Literature

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 54, with earlier literature; 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. 1

Citation

B. van der Mark, 2024, 'Meester van Koudewater and , Female Saint, Northern BrabantKoudewater, c. 1460', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.24327

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