Head of St John the Baptist

Carved in the round, though the finishing of the hair on the reverse is less refined. The head would have rested on a separate platter of alabaster or wood, perhaps forming a unity. Nevertheless, there are no traces of a securing element. Isotope analysis of the alabaster provides no match with a quarry or artwork analysed at this point by W. Kloppmann et al.

The separate platter on which the head originally rested is non-extant. The right curl of the beard has broken off. Crack formation can be observed along the edge of the beard along with imperfections in the vicinity of the right cheek, stemming from the structure of the alabaster.

…; collection Leopold Blumka (1898-1973), New York, date unknown:¹¹Written communication Anthony Blumka, New York, 21 May 1998. his wife, Ruth Blumka (1920-1994), New York, 1973; sale, collection Blumka, New York (Sotheby’s), 9-10 January 1996, no. 82, $118,000, to the dealer Daniel Katz, London; from whom, on loan to the museum, 1997-March 1998;²²Note RMA. from whom, £120,000 (fl. 392,760), to the museum, with the support of the Rijksmuseum Fonds, March 1998

ObjectNumber: BK-1998-1

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Rijksmuseum Fonds

Heads of St John the Baptist carved in wood or stone and even cast in metal appeared with great frequency from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century.³³For this iconography, see B. Baert, Caput Joannis in Disco: Essay on a Man’s Head (Visualising the Middle Ages 8), Leiden 2012; B. Baert, A. Traninger and C. Santing (eds.), Disembodied Heads in Medieval and Early Modern Culture, Leiden 2013; B. Baert and S. Rochmes (eds.), Decapitation and Sacrifice: Saint John’s Head in Interdisciplinary Perspectives: Text, Object, Medium (Art & Religion 6), Leuven 2017. Sculptures such as the present piece, carved in white alabaster, were three-dimensional depictions of the scene of St John’s beheading as described in the Gospel of St Matthew (14:1-12). The gospel relates how Salome performed her dance before King Herod, who in exchange for her seductive moves, promised her in return anything she desired. Encouraged by her mother, Salome requested the head of John the Baptist, served on a charger.

Following the discovery of what was said to be the saint’s skull in Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade and its subsequent bestowal upon Amiens Cathedral in the early thirteenth century, the veneration of John’s martyrdom and the production of so-called Johannesschüsseln took flight in north-western Europe and the German-speaking regions.⁴⁴The relic’s discovery belongs to a series of earlier citations of relics associated with John’s head starting in the 12th century, along with other such discoveries subsequently transported to Northern Europe and Venice, see H. Arndt and R. Kroos, ‘Zur Ikonographie der Johannesschüssel’, Aachener Kunstblätter 38 (1969), pp. 243-328, esp. pp. 244-45. Although the original reliquary made to display this relic was lost during the French Revolution, two different sources provide us with an idea of its nature. First, a written description from the year 1419 states that the reliquary was not in the usual form of a bust. Instead, the skull was mounted in a gold face mask and presented on a silver (and later gold) charger, therefore reflecting a literal interpretation of Matthew’s text. Second, a drawing from 1502 shows the reliquary consisted of a gothic metal stand/base, with the head resting on a charger.⁵⁵H. Arndt and R. Kroos, ‘Zur Ikonographie der Johannesschüssel’, Aachener Kunstblätter 38 (1969), pp. 243-328, esp. pp. 246-47. A more narrative depiction of this scene is provided by a 16th-century Flemish relief in the Rijksmuseum (inv. no. BK-1978-162).

Pilgrim badges cast in the form of the reliquary of Amiens were dispersed across Europe, with the many relics in circulation housed in similar constructions. With these objects viewed as a professed miracle cure for headaches and other head-related ailments, the veneration of John the Baptist reached its peak in the fifteenth century.⁶⁶T. Belyea, ‘Johannes Ex Disco: Remark on a Late Gothic Alabaster Head of St John the Baptist’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 47 (1999), pp. 100-17, esp. pp. 101-04. Devotional images, many of them in the form of a life-size decapitated head resting on a plate, were placed on church altars, used as Andachtsbilder for private and collective devotion, and carried in liturgical processions. Regularly accompanied by a separate plate or charger made of stone, wood, silver, and on occasion even ceramic, this type of sculpture was referred to as a Johannesschüssel or Johannes in disco. In architecture, carved images of this kind appeared on the roof bosses of vaults.⁷⁷T. Belyea, ‘Johannes Ex Disco: Remark on a Late Gothic Alabaster Head of St John the Baptist’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 47 (1999), pp. 100-17, esp. pp. 101-02; H. Arndt and R. Kroos, ‘Zur Ikonographie der Johannesschüssel’, Aachener Kunstblätter 38 (1969), pp. 243-328; G. Geml, Frühe Johannesschüsseln, 2009 (unpublished thesis, University of Vienna), chapters III and IV. The present head of St John the Baptist, carved in alabaster, is firmly rooted in this late-medieval visual tradition. There is no doubt it also rested on a separate charger, as suggested by the crude finishing of the reverse.

The St John’s head reveals just how readily alabaster, a relatively soft stone sort, lends itself to sculpting (or rather: carving) precise details and subtle gradations one normally expects with works executed in wood or ivory. The head’s sunken cheeks, the fallen chin and the half-shut eyes are all rendered with a tremendous sense of deathly nuance, further enhanced by the striking, but natural contrast achieved through the startled raising of the eyebrows and the limp tongue emerging from the half-open mouth. The pale, fleshy tonal quality of the stone, combined with the soft modelling of its surface, creates a penetrating and almost eerily realistic rendition of the human head. Also noteworthy is the manner in which the sculptor fully utilized the natural structure of the original alabaster block. The diagonal axis of the decapitated head is in fact determined by the veins of the stone. The head has been primarily worked in the front, with the hair and beard framing the face finished down to the tips of the curls. On the reverse, by contrast, the treatment of the hair remains summary. Here one can readily assess the kind of implement used to carve the stone, with the fairly crude, broad furrows made by a toothed gouge clearly discernible.

The art historical origin and dating of the St John’s head remain highly problematic. Stylistically, the sculpture echoes the work of an anonymous sculptor, dubbed the Master of Rimini. Active in the Southern Netherlands (Bruges?),⁸⁸K.W. Woods, ‘The Master of Rimini and the Tradition of Alabaster Carving in the Early 15th Netherlands’, Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art/Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 62 (2012), pp. 56-83, esp. pp. 73-77. the master’s Notname stems from an alabaster Crucifixion altar, dated circa 1430, which though now preserved in the Museum Liebieghaus in Frankfurt am Main previously stood for centuries in a church in Rimini.⁹⁹T. Belyea, ‘Johannes Ex Disco: Remark on a Late Gothic Alabaster Head of St John the Baptist’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 47 (1999), pp. 100-17, esp. pp. 105ff. The master’s characteristic style, chiefly recognizable in the cascading tubular folds of the garments and the sharply defined, naturally detailed rendering of the figures’ faces, is believed to have substantially influenced the style of alabaster sculpture produced in the Low Countries and Central Germany. The stylized finishing of the hair and beard, and the penetrating, sunken countenance suggest that the maker of the present St John’s head must be described as a late follower of the Rimini Master. His style is less graphic, softer and more natural than that of the master and his immediate followers.¹⁰¹⁰Cf. K.W. Woods, ‘The Master of Rimini and the Tradition of Alabaster Carving in the Early 15th Netherlands’, Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art/Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 62 (2012), pp. 56-83, esp. fig. 6 (St John’s Head in the Sint-Willibrorduskerk in Utrecht, as (‘Rimini Master, c. 1420-30’).

Precisely this enhanced naturalism links the Amsterdam head to two other Johannesschüsseln, with which it shares evident parallels: a marble (h. 18 cm) and its presumed brown-painted terracotta modello (h. 21 cm), both virtually identical and very likely produced in the Southern Netherlands at the close of the sixteenth, or even the onset of the seventeenth century by the one and the same hand.¹¹¹¹With thanks to Soetkin Vanhauwaert, Leuven, who drew our attention to the existence of both pieces (written communication to Bieke van der Mark, 29 November 2019). Vanhauwaert is currently writing her PhD dissertation on the motif of the St John’s Head on a Platter, as part of a research project under the supervision of Professor Dr Barbara Baert (KU Leuven) and Dr Cyriel Stroo (KIK-IRPA) funded by the KU Leuven: S. Vanhauwaert, The Head of St John the Baptist in the Southern Netherlands (1370-1800): Context, Motif, Sculpture, KU Leuven (in preparation). For alabaster St John’s heads in a broader context, see S. Vanhauwaert, ‘The Sculpted Saint John’s Head in the Low Countries 1370-1800: The Influence of the Council of Trent on Religious Cult Imagery’, in W. François and V. Soen (eds.), The Council of Trent: Reform and Controversy in Europe and Beyond (1545-1700), vol. 3, Between Artists and Adventurers, Göttingen 2018, pp. 69-92. From at least 1673 on, the marble can be traced to the collection of the Danish kings. Attributed to Bernini in the eighteenth century, the head is today thought to be a French or Southern Netherlandish work from the late sixteenth century (fig. a).¹²¹²Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst, inv. no. 5512, see H. Olsen, Ældre Udenlandsk Skulptur, 2 vols., coll. cat. Copenhagen (Statens Museum for Kunst) 1980, vol. 1, pp. 54, 55 and vol. 2, fig. 114. The terracotta was formerly preserved at the Sint-Janskerk in Mechelen.¹³¹³Said to have been stolen from that church in the 1990s (written communication Soetkin Vanhauwaert, 12 December 2019). The terracotta resurfaced at the sale (Sotheby’s), 9 July 2009, no. 99 (with ill.), but the present whereabouts are unknown. The Amsterdam St John’s head shares a number of details with both versions, such as the frowning brow, the peapod-shaped eyes, the spaghetti-like treatment of the hair and beard, and the open mouth with tongue and teeth. The most important aspect distinguishing the alabaster from the other two pieces is the forward-tilted angle of the head, as if resting on the point of the chin aligned with the bottom edge. The marble and terracotta heads, by contrast, rested perfectly horizontal on their respective platters. The marble head appears to consist of two pieces – a freestanding head resting on a separate platter with its own row of integrally carved locks of hair – and perhaps offers an impression of the Amsterdam head in its original state: likewise resting on a separately carved alabaster platter on which the locks of hair extended. This might explain why the termination of the hair appears rather abrupt and incomplete: when in their proper place, the curls of the head would have ‘fit’ the integrally carved locks on the underlying platter.

Also noteworthy is the stylistic similarity of the Amsterdam St John’s head to a very small, boxwood version described as Franco-Flemish, today preserved in the Kunstkammer of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (fig. b).¹⁴¹⁴Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. no. KK 3955, see W. Seipel, Meisterwerke des Kopenhagener Statens Museum for Kunst, exh. cat. Vienna (Kunsthistorisches Museum) 1997-98, under no. 17. The resemblance in facial type is striking, manifest in the strongly frowning eyebrows, the large, closed eyes, the sharply defined nose, the horizontal, scarcely parted lips and the treatment of the hair. When compared to the Amsterdam alabaster and the two versions in marble and terracotta, however, the carving on the Viennese head is freer, with greater variation especially in the locks of hair. This difference supports a probable dating in the first half of the seventeenth century, but by no means excludes an origin in Antwerp or Mechelen, where small-scale devotional works carved in boxwood were produced with fairly great frequency at that time, by sculptors such as Andries de Nole (1598-1638), Maria Faydherbe (1587-1643), Jan van Doorne III (1616-1663) and his stepfather Frans van Loo (1581-1658).¹⁵¹⁵G. van Doorselaer, ‘Sculptures en buis executées à Malines au XVIIe siècle’, Revue Belge d’Archéologie et d’Histoire de l’Art 9 (1939), pp. 317-31; T. Müller, ‘Eine Gruppe Vlämischer Kleinskulpturen des 17. Jahrhunderts und ihre Konsonanzen', Festschrift Herbert von Einem, Berlin 1965, pp. 173-78. The boxwood head displays an agreement with the faces on a number of De Nole’s monumental saintly statues, specifically the treatment of the facial features and hair on his statues of St Jacob and St Matthew made for the cathedral in Mechelen (1635-1637).¹⁶¹⁶M. Casteels, De beeldhouwers De Nole te Kamerijk, te Utrecht en te Antwerpen, Brussels 1961, figs. 87, 88; ; F. Scholten, ‘Die Welt des Jan van Delen: Erwägungen zur flämischen Elfenbeinschnitzerei des 17. Jahrhunderts’, in C. Ruhmann and P. Koch-Lütke Westhues (eds.), Museum als Resonanzraum: Kunst – Wissenschaft – Inszenierung: Festschrift für Christoph Stiegemann, Petersberg 2020, pp. 342-53, esp. p. 344 and fig. 5. Perhaps the woodcarver had access to the terracotta St John’s head from the Sint-Janskerk in that same city, in which case all four of the more or less stylistically similar St John’s heads would share the same Flemish origin. The Amsterdam alabaster would then be the earliest piece, forming a stylistic bridge between late medieval works by the Master of Rimini and the early-baroque sculptures in Copenhagen, Flanders and Vienna.

Nevertheless, the foregoing scenario remains as yet unsubstantiated by a technical analysis of the alabaster of the Amsterdam St John’s Head, as the material fails to match alabaster types commonly found in either north-western or central Europe. Spanish alabaster has been postulated, but petrographic data to assess this possibility is lacking at this time. The situation is further complicated by the recent discovery of a terracotta St John’s Head of similar dimensions and sharing many of the Amsterdam head’s facial features, with the exception of the eyes – open versus closed – and the presence of clearly defined eyebrows.¹⁷¹⁷With the dealers Riccardo Bacarelli and Botticelli Antichità, Florence (Tefaf, Maastricht 2017). This work is attributed to Andrea Ferrucci (c. 1465-1526), a Florentine sculptor also active in Rome and Naples for a period of time. If indeed a direct link exists between the terracotta and the alabaster, the sculptor of the Amsterdam St John’s Head must therefore possibly be sought in Italy.

Frits Scholten, 2024
This entry is partly based on unpublished research by Lisa Wiersma, 2012

[F. Scholten], ‘Hoofd van Johannes de Doper laatste kwart 15e eeuw’ in Jaarverslag, Amsterdam 1997 (annual report Rijksmuseum), pp. 30-31; T. Belyea, ‘Johannes Ex Disco: Remark on a Late Gothic Alabaster Head of St John the Baptist’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 47 (1999), pp. 100-17; ‘Recent Acquisitions at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam’, The Burlington Magazine 142 (2000), pp. 729-36, esp. p. 730 and fig. IV; Belyea in H. van Os et al., Netherlandish Art in the Rijksmuseum 1400-1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2000, no. 11; S. Richard, Daniel Katz 45 Years of European Sculpture, London 2013, no. 43; A. Lipińska, Moving Sculptures: Southern Netherlandish Alabasters from the 16th to 17th Centuries in Central and Northern Europe (Studies in Netherlandish Art and Cultural History 11), Leiden/Boston 2015, p. 27 and fig 8; F. Scholten (ed.), 1100-1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2015, no. 40; A. Lipińska, ‘Alabasterskulptur zwischen sprezzatura und Verwandlung’, in M. Bushart and H. Haug (eds.), Spur der Arbeit: Oberfläche und Werkprozess, Cologne/Weimar/Vienna 2018, pp. 111-26, esp. p. 119 and figs. 29 and 33; S. Vanhauwaert and F. Scholten in M. Debaene (ed.), Alabaster Sculpture in Europe 1300-1650, exh. cat. Leuven (Museum M) 2022-23, no. 114

F. Scholten, 2024, 'anonymous, Head of St John the Baptist, Southern Netherlands, c. 1500 - c. 1560', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.351494