Carved and originally polychromed. On the reverse, a horizontal, tapering groove can be seen that was used to conjoin this group to the separately carved Virgin (today preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum) with a slat.

The lower part of Christ’s right arm is missing. A replacement was added in the 19th century and again removed during the most recent restoration in 1978. At this time, a 19th-century filler was also removed from the cavity in the chest, originally inlaid with a glass or rock crystal cabochon. The corners have broken off on both sides of the bench, as have the train of the cloak at the level of the left arm and the fleurons of the crown. The original polychromy is missing; traces of a white chalk ground can be discerned on every surface of the image.

…; collection G. Francotte, Liège, in or before 1905;¹¹M.G. Terme, L’art ancien au pays de Liège: Album de l’Exposition universelle de Liège 1905, exh. cat. Liège [1907], no. 1346, pl. 18. …; sale, Dutch private collection, Dordrecht (Mak), 13-16 June 1978, no. 1518, fl. 5,648 (incl. the commission of the mediating dealer C.J.J. Weegenaar, The Hague), to the museum

Object number: BK-1978-40

This Christ originally belonged to a Coronation of the Virgin, a sculptural group once forming the middle section of an altarpiece. When exhibited at the 1905 World Exhibition in Liège, the group was still complete.⁵⁵Although only the present figure is illustrated in the exhibition album (M.G. Terme, L’art ancien au pays de Liège: Album de l’Exposition universelle de Lie`ge 1905, exh. cat. Liège 1907, no. 1346, pl. 18), the text also mentions the presence of the Virgin at the exhibition. Both are listed as being part of the collection of G. Francotte, Liège. The present figure is nevertheless certain to have been separated from the group long before 1929, the year in which the sculpture the Virgin (fig. a) was given to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Previous to this time, the latter work had entered the collection of F. Leverton Harris in London via the British art dealer Durlacher.⁶⁶London, Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. no. A.4-1929; h. 57 cm. The polychromy and gilding on the Christ figure were likely removed after this separation, as much of the Virgin’s original polychromy remains intact, along with inset glass cabochons.

That the two figures once belonged to the same group is evident not only in their shared provenance as part of the Francotte collection in Liège, but also in the marked formal and stylistic similarities and the approximately equivalent dimensions (respectively 57.5 and 57.0 cm). Both possess identical hexagonal plinths and are seated on identical benches. Most telling is the horizontal, tapering groove on the reverse of both pieces, used to conjoin the two figures by means of a slat. Carved in the breast of both figures is a concave hemisphere large enough to accommodate a sizeable glass or rock crystal roundel, perhaps once covering a relic. Shared stylistic characteristics include the treatment of the hair, the angular drapery folds (e.g. the diagonally descending mantle covering the knees of both figures), the sharply defined limbs perceptible beneath the clothing and the pointed shoes emerging from under the folds.

On stylistic grounds, the two figures can be linked to a Peter and Paul in Münster,⁷⁷Münster, LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur, inv. nos. E-81 LM and E-82 LM. as well as to two female saints and a John the Baptist in London.⁸⁸London, Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. nos. 132-1869, 133-1869 and 134-1869, see P. Williamson, Northern Gothic Sculpture 1200-1450, coll. cat. London (Victoria and Albert Museum) 1988, nos. 25-27. In 1972, Pieper was the first to observe a relation between these works, though at this time he was as yet unaware of the Amsterdam Christ.⁹⁹P. Pieper, ‘Zwei Apostelfiguren des 14. Jahrhunderts (aus Lüttich?)’, -Pantheon 30 (1972), pp. 283-91. In 1974, Halsema-Kubes informed Pieper of the Christ figure’s existence, which at the time was only published in the album of the 1905 World Exhibition in Liège (written communication, 14 February 1974). In his estimation, all of these pieces once belonged to the very same retable, a so-called ‘apostle altar’, featuring a central scene of the Coronation of the Virgin flanked on either side by six apostles and an additional twelve saints appearing below. Each of the figures was displayed in its own compartment. The presence of hemispherical cavities in the chests of the surviving works suggests the retable might have been a reliquary altarpiece, with each image containing relics. One concrete example, produced in Cologne and comparable to this hypothetical altarpiece, is a triptych in the Cistercian monastery Marienstatt.¹⁰¹⁰E.F.A. Mu¨nzenberger and S. Beissel, Zur Kenntniss und Wu¨rdigung der mittelalterlichen Alta¨re Deutschlands: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der vaterla¨ndischen Kunst, 2 vols., Frankfurt am Main 1885-1905, vol. 1, p. 53, pl. 6; J. Braun, Der christliche Altar in seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung, 2 vols., Munich 1924, vol. 1, pp. 477, 569-70, fig. 338. Williamson, however, is somewhat less convinced of the shared origin of these works and the notion that they once belonged to the one and the same altar. A key argument is his factual observation that many such multi-figured altarpieces are certain to have been produced in the region of the Meuse River and the Lower Rhine area around the mid-fourteenth century.¹¹¹¹P. Williamson, Northern Gothic Sculpture 1200-1450, coll. cat. London (Victoria and Albert Museum) 1988, p. 102. Williamson’s observation regarding an affinity between the Amsterdam figure and a Christ from a Coronation originating from Cologne, preserved in the Suermondt-Ludwig Museum in Aachen, is unconvincing. See E.G. Grimme with the assistance of R. Puvogel, Europäische Bildwerke vom Mittelalter zum Barock, coll. cat. Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 1977, no. 16, fig. 13. If Pieper’s surmise is true, however, then the altarpiece is certain to have been dispersed prior to 1869, the year in which the Victoria and Albert Museum acquired the two female saints and the John the Baptist.¹²¹²P. Williamson, Northern Gothic Sculpture 1200-1450, coll. cat. London (Victoria and Albert Museum) 1988, p. 102.

In 1977, Didier attributed the entire group, including the Amsterdam Christ, to an anonymous master assigned the Notname ‘Master of the Madonna von La Gleize’. Didier believed the same master was responsible for the grieving Mary and crucified Christ in the Église Nôtre-Dame de l’Assomption in La Gleize, a town located southeast of Liège, and a Hubert in the Église Saint-Hubert in Lavoir, a city to the southwest of Liège, displaying a stylistic affinity.¹³¹³R. Didier, ‘Skulpturen des Maasgebiets aus den Jahren 1330-1360: Vom Meister der Maria von La Gleize bis zu Gilles von Lüttich’, Westfalen 55 (1977), pp. 8-29, figs. 9-10, 17-19. His conclusion is based on elements such as the drapery folds that cling tightly to the body and similarities to be observed in the physiognomy and hands. The attribution of these works to the same master or workshop is convincing only to a point: the facial types of the Amsterdam Christ and the Christ in the Crucifixion scene in La Gleize are indeed related, yet this argument holds far less true when comparing the La Gleize Madonna with its London counterpart. Didier dated the groups circa 1330-40, though a somewhat broader period seems advisable, especially in light of the scant number of documented works, as Williamson rightly observed.¹⁴¹⁴P. Williamson, Northern Gothic Sculpture 1200-1450, coll. cat. London (Victoria and Albert Museum) 1988, p. 99.

Frits Scholten, 2024

M.G. Terme, L’art ancien au pays de Liège: Album de l’Exposition universelle de Liège 1905, exh. cat. Liège [1907], no. 1346, pl. 18; J. Baum, ‘Die Lütticher Bildnerkunst im 14. Jahrhundert’, in P. Clemen (ed.), Belgische Kunstdenkmäler, vol. 1, Vom neunten bis zum Ende des fünfzehnten Jahrhunderts, Munich 1923, pp. 163-78, esp. p. 177; R. Didier, ‘Skulpturen des Maasgebiets aus den Jahren 1330-1360: Vom Meister der Maria von La Gleize bis zu Gilles von Lüttich’, Westfalen 55 (1977), pp. 8-29, esp. p. 19, fig. 19; Jaarverslag Nederlandse Rijksmusea 1978, pp. 23, 24, fig. 8; P. Williamson, Northern Gothic Sculpture 1200-1450, coll. cat. London (Victoria and Albert Museum) 1988, no. 24, pp. 96-101; C. Ceulemans et al., Laat-gotische beeldsnijkunst uit Limburg en grensland, exh. cat. Sint-Truiden (Provinciaal Museum voor Religieuze Kunst) 1990, under no. 2

F. Scholten, 2024, 'possibly Meester van de Madonna van La Gleize, Christ, from a Coronation of the Virgin, Liège, c. 1360', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200253550