Carved in relief and originally polychromed. The group and the plinth were carved separately. A nail hole can be discerned next to the high priest’s foot. The plinth was attached with two nails in the far corners.

The polychromy has been removed with a caustic. Traces of the chalk ground can be observed in the deeper-lying areas, along with remnants of gilding on the foliage ornamentation of the plinth.

…; 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; on loan to the Museum Krona (formerly known as the Museum voor Religieuze Kunst), Uden, inv. no. 4637, since 2005

Object number: BK-NM-2486

Positioned sitting on a table at the centre of this retable group, the Christ Child is being circumcised by the high priest. The child is supported both by Joseph, who stands directly behind the table, and Mary, seated right of the table. Behind the high priest on the scene’s far left is an acolyte, who stands ready holding a cloth in his hands. Two additional figures standing at the rear right partake in the ceremony as sympathetic spectators. The retable group stands on a separately carved plinth adorned with ornamental openwork foliage, on which several traces of original gilding can still be discerned. The relief was attached to the retable caisse’s interior with nails via the flat-finished sections of the plinth’s corners. The scene of the Circumcision – an event mentioned only in passing in the Bible by Luke (2:21) but extensively addressed in the Legenda Aurea – is often one of the groups featured in narrative sequences of Christ’s Childhood that appears in the bottom register of Marian and Passion altarpieces.¹¹Cf. H. Nieuwdorp (ed.), Antwerp Altarpieces 15th-16th centuries, 2 vols., exh. cat. Antwerp (Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal) 1993, vol. 1, nos. 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12.

The composition of the three figures in the foreground displays a general agreement to an alabaster relief carved in Mechelen around 1550-60.²²Brussels, Art and History Museum, inv. no. 9435, see A. Huysmans et al., Beeldhouwkunst van de Zuidelijke Nederlanden en het Prinsbisdom Luik, coll. cat. Brussels (Royal Museums for Art and History) 1999, no. 142. Cf. also two later alabasters with the same composition, respectively in the Hof van Busleyden in Mechelen and the Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht, M.K. Wustrack, Die Mechelner Alabaster-Manufaktur des 16. und frühen 17. Jahrhunderts (Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe 28, Kunstgeschichte 20), Frankfurt am Main 1982, nos. 148 and 249. This is especially discernible in the poses, and for example, the way in which Mary’s mantle wraps around her right arm. In most depictions of this scene, Mary is situated left of the table and the high priest on the right. In both the present work and the alabaster, however, they have switched places, probably due to a mirror-image print that served as their shared model.

In the past, the present retable group was linked to Antwerp retable production. A closer inspection, however, reveals that it lacks any pronounced stylistic traits characteristic of that city.³³J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, p. 142. Instead, it can possibly be attributed to the Breda master Jan van Velthoven (active c. 1520-d. 1557). Numerous parallels are discernible in the well-documented Retable of St Quirinus of Neuss in Loenhout, which Van Velthoven was commissioned to build in 1545 (fig. a),⁴⁴For this retable, see M. Buyle and C. Vanthillo, Vlaamse en Brabantse retabels in Belgische monumenten, Brussels 2000, pp. 226-27, with earlier literature. including the dynamic poses with bent knees, the deeply carved, bowl-shaped drapery folds, the facial types notable for the small chins, the affected facial expressions on a number of the figures, and the stiffly pointed beards on some of the men. The relief’s overall style is also highly similar, classifiable as a mild form of Antwerp Mannerism.

Another important similarity concerns the plinth beneath the group. Such groups are normally placed directly in the retable caisse, but the three groups in the bottom register of the Quirinus Retable all stand on separately carved plinths.⁵⁵The ‘plinths’ of the retable of Hulshout, produced in Antwerp and dated c. 1500-10, which Leeuwenberg introduced for comparison (J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, p. 142) are actually not plinths but rather openworked friezes from the individual compartments beneath the groups. These plinths are also rectangular in form and therefore dissimilar, cf. H. Nieuwdorp (ed.), Antwerp Altarpieces 15th-16th centuries, 2 vols., exh. cat. Antwerp (Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal) 1993, vol. 1, no. 2. Compared to the Amsterdam group, the decoration has been executed in greater detail, with renaissance motifs, a helmeted head and the patrons’ escutcheons. Nevertheless, one observes precisely the same distinctive plinth encountered on the front of the Amsterdam relief, with angled corners and the ornamental, openworked field above the uncarved wood slanting upwards and ultimately terminating in a point at either end.

Thanks to the presence of the court of Nassau and the building of the Grote Kerk, Breda was an important cultural centre in the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance. During this period, the local woodcarving industry is certain to have flourished to a degree – a situation, however, to which few surviving works can attest. Most of this local production was lost or damaged during the Iconoclasm, with the woodcarving on the church’s choir stalls but one example.⁶⁶G.W.C. van Wezel, De Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk en de grafkapel voor Oranje-Nassau te Breda, Zwolle 2003, pp. 86-171. Due to a lack of sufficient knowledge regarding the local style – if indeed Breda had a style unto its own – the origin of undocumented works or pieces lost or scattered can rarely be ascertained. A few rare exceptions nevertheless exist, including works attributed to the oeuvre of the Master of Joachim and Anne (cf. BK-2016-13) based on their provenance, and an angel corbel in the Rijksmuseum collection that bears the city’s coat of arms (BK-2011-21). If well founded, the attribution of the Amsterdam Circumcision to Jan van Velthoven enhances the sculptor’s oeuvre and forms an intriguing addition to our current, limited insight into sixteenth-century wood carving from Breda.

Bieke van der Mark, 2024

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 159, with earlier literature

B. van der Mark, 2024, 'attributed to Jan van Velthoven, The Circumcision, Breda, c. 1540 - c. 1550', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20015016