Carved and originally polychromed. There is a workbench hole in the top of the head. Visible in the lower right arm is a tenon-and-mortise joint that served to attach the lower left arm.

The lower left arm and right hand are missing. The nose and right cheek have been renewed. The left underside has been levelled and partly renewed. The polychromy has been removed.

…; from the dealer J.J. Boas Berg, Amsterdam, with BK-NM-10448 and -10449, fl. 800 for all three, to the museum, 1896

Object number: BK-NM-10447

In all likelihood this saintly woman represents Anne; she was probably once part of a so-called St Anne Trinity (in Dutch St. Anna-te-Drieën). This is indicated by the chin cloth with which she is usually portrayed, the pose of her right arm, and the levelled and partly renewed left side of the base, where the part with her daughter Mary and the Christ Child might originally have been attached (cf., for example, BK-NM-1278 with a composition in reverse). In that case, Anne would probably have held up to the Child a bunch of grapes in her (missing) left hand. The overall style of the statue and certain fashionable details, such as the trapeziform neckline and the scalloped bodice with tassels, suggest a dating to around 1510-20.

The statue probably originated in the northern part of the Duchy of Brabant.¹¹For the sculpture of this region, 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. Anne’s oval face – with bulging, slightly misaligned eyes – and the shape of her chin cloth, which is turned back at the sides, are related, in fact, to those of two carved saints made by a late follower of the Master of Soeterbeeck (active c. 1470-c. 1480): a St Bridget of Sweden in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,²²New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 16.32.197, see G. Lemmens, ‘De heilige Elisabeth van Teuringen, Meester van Soeterbeeck, ca. 1470-1480’, Jaarverslag Vereniging Rembrandt 1980, pp. 69-70; 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. 66, 128, fig. 24. and a sitting group of the Virgin and Child with St Anne in the Rijksmuseum (BK-NM-1201), which originated around 1500-15. In comparison with those statues, the nose of the present saint is rather broad, but it is not actually original. In contrast to the face, which is finely and unerringly executed, Anne’s pose is rather stiff and the extremely simple folds of her clothing are not very convincing either, particularly where the right knee makes a dent in the garment. The differences in quality between the various parts of the statue may well be the result of collaboration between a master who only carved the face and an apprentice or journeyman who was responsible for the rest of the statue.

Bieke van der Mark, 2024

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 71

B. van der Mark, 2024, 'anonymous, St Anne from of a Virgin and Child with St Anne, Northern Brabant, c. 1510 - c. 1520', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035563