Carved and polychromed. The reverse is flat.

Some damage due to woodworm infestation can be observed on the underside. Christ’s left hand and the fingers of his right hand are missing, as are the toes of his right foot, a toe on the left foot and the front part of the crown of thorns. He was perhaps originally holding a reed cane in his right hand. Several small, narrow cracks can be discerned at the bottom of the base, with a major crack in the wood on the left side. All of the original polychromy has likely been removed. The current, modern layer of oil-based polychromy was applied directly to the bare wood and coated with a layer of dark varnish.

…; 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

Object number: BK-NM-2483

Matthew (27:28-31) describes how Pontius Pilate’s soldiers mocked Christ after his sentencing and subsequent flagellation. Wrapping a purple robe around his shoulders and placing a woven crown of thorns upon his head, the soldiers crowned him ‘King of the Jews’. Here portrayed as an Andachtsbild with the soldiers omitted, Christ sits in solitude on a profiled bench. His knotted robe, bound wrists and crown of thorns are the only references to the Bible narrative.

In the fifteenth and early sixteenth century, the iconographic type of The Repose of the Lord was fairly popular in Germany, where it is known as the Herrgottsruh. It is also encountered in the Low Countries, albeit rarely. This iconography is not to be confused with similar themes such as Christ on the Cold Stone, in which Christ awaits his crucifixion wearing only a loincloth (cf. BK-1955-83), or the Man of Sorrows, in which the resurrected Christ displays his stigmata (cf. BK-KOG-11272-M).¹¹The Amsterdam sculpture was previously interpreted as a scene of Christ as the Man of Sorrows, see for example J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, p. 107. Schiller was the first to correctly identify this work, see G. Schiller, Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, vol. 2, Gütersloh 1968, fig. 258.

Other sculptural Herrgottsruhbilder are preserved in the Mittelrhein Museum in Koblenz and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.²²G. Fabian, Die Skulpturen vom 12. bis 18. Jahrhundert, coll. cat. Koblenz (Mittelrhein-Museum) 1993, no. 45; P. Williamson, Netherlandish Sculpture 1450-1550, coll. cat. London (Victoria and Albert Museum) 2002, no. 5. Stylistically, however, these late-gothic examples are entirely unrelated to the early-renaissance Amsterdam piece. They are also significantly larger in scale. Accordingly, they could very well have functioned as independent Andachtsbilder,³³P. Williamson, Netherlandish Sculpture 1450-1550, coll. cat. London (Victoria and Albert Museum) 2002, p. 46. whereas the present sculpture is certain to have been made for a (Passion) altar. This conclusion is also supported by the steep upward slope of the base, which suggests a low point of view. The base’s unusual design, with two indentations in the front, is also encountered in a more elaborate form on Jesse and a Prophet, fragment of a Tree of Jesse (c. 1515-20) preserved in the Louvre,⁴⁴S. Guillot de Suduiraut, Sculptures brabançonnes du Musée du Louvre: Bruxelles, Malines, Anvers, XVe-XVIe siècles, coll. cat. Paris (Musée du Louvre) 2001, no. 18. and a retable group of the Flagellation (c. 1530) held in the Rijksmuseum (BK-15608). These woodcarvings, however, are highly typical of Antwerp sculpture production. By contrast, a more specific origin in the Low Countries cannot be determined for the present Repose of the Lord. An oak Horseman in the Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht, perhaps also originally produced for an altar, bears some stylistic similarity.⁵⁵Utrecht, Museum Catharijneconvent, inv. no. ABM bh411, see M. van Vlierden et al., Hout- en steensculptuur van Museum Catharijneconvent, ca. 1200-1600, coll. cat. Utrecht 2004, p. 376 as ‘Netherlandish, c. 1530’. The horseman displays virtually the same oblong physiognomic type and shares the Amsterdam Christ’s corporeal broadness. The former work is similarly dressed in renaissance attire with a comparable lively arrangement of the garment folds, though rendered with less depth.

Bieke van der Mark, 2024

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 101, with earlier literature; P. Williamson, Netherlandish Sculpture 1450-1550, coll. cat. London (Victoria and Albert Museum) 2002, p. 46

B. van der Mark, 2024, 'anonymous, The Repose of the Lord, Low Countries, c. 1530', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035583