Carved, polychromed and partly gilded. There is a workbench hole in the head and a hole in the underside. There are mortises in the arms where the forearms, carved separately, would have been attached. The flat reverse has been slightly worked.

The figure has suffered woodworm damage, particularly the fold of the cloak below the left elbow and the edge of the cloak where it is draped across the breast. The lower arms and the points of the crown are missing. A later polychrome layer has been almost entirely removed save for a few remnants (date unknown). The other polychromy is largely original and there are remnants of original gilding on the hair and the hem of the cloak. Some metal nails and plugs have been tapped into the figure during an old restoration (date unknown).

…; from Galerie Ilias Neufert, Munich, DM 26,000, to the museum, 1968

Object number: BK-1968-20

Given its modest dimensions and flat back this Female Saint was probably once part of a carved retable altarpiece. From the twelfth to the early fifteenth century the central section of such an altar was usually flanked by figures of saints like this one.¹¹L.F. Jacobs, Early Netherlandish Carved Altarpieces 1380-1550, Cambridge 1998, p. 14, figs. 8, 10-12, 28, 31; P.-Y. Le Pogam with the assistance of C. Vivet-Peclet, Les Premiers Retables (XIIe-début du XVe siècle): Une mise en scène du sacré, exh. cat. Paris (Musée du Louvre) 2009, nos. 57, 84, 89, 91, 96. The identity of the crowned female figure is unclear. The polychromy on the statuette, including the brocade pattern of graceful vines and a double C-scroll in yellowish-brown paint on the bodice of the robe, is partly original.

With her sweet, rather pensive expression, fitted bodice and draped cloak gathered in folds falling to the left and right, the Amsterdam saint was clearly influenced by French examples,²²P.-Y. Le Pogam with the assistance of C. Vivet-Peclet, Les premiers retables (XIIe-début du XVe siècle): Une mise en scène du sacré, exh. cat. Paris (Musée du Louvre) 2009, nos. 50, 52. but the wood used (oak) makes it more likely that she comes from the Southern Netherlands or the region bordering on Northern France. As Oellers has observed, a larger (h. 48.2 cm), polychromed oak Female Saint in the former Goldschmidt Collection, Eindhoven, is remarkably similar in almost every respect.³³A.C. Oellers et al., In gotischer Gesellschaft. Spätmittelalterliche Skulpturen aus einer niederländischen Privatsammlung, exh. cat. Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 1998, no. 54, as ‘Southern Netherlands/Northern France, second half of the 14th century’. The way the cloak is draped across the body of the two figures like a short apron was customary in the second half of the fourteenth century. Van Vlierden associated the Amsterdam Female Saint with a slightly larger oak apostle (h. 44.5 cm) in Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht, which stands in a mirror-image S-shaped pose, wearing a garment with similar folds.⁴⁴Utrecht, Museum Catharijneconvent, inv. no. ABM bh594, see M. van Vlierden et al., Hout- en steensculptuur van Museum Catharijneconvent ca. 1200-1600, coll. cat. Utrecht 2004, p. 69, as ‘Southern Netherlands (?), c. 1375-1400’.

Bieke van der Mark, 2024

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 5, with earlier literature; A.C. Oellers in A.C. Oellers et al., In gotischer Gesellschaft. Spätmittelalterliche Skulpturen aus einer niederländischen Privatsammlung, exh. cat. Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 1998, p. 124; M. van Vlierden et al., Hout- en steensculptuur van Museum Catharijneconvent ca. 1200-1600, coll. cat. Utrecht 2004, p. 69

B. van der Mark, 2024, 'anonymous, Female Saint, Southern Netherlands, c. 1350 - c. 1400', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035533