Carved. The reverse is partly unworked and coarsely flattened.

A substantial section of the statuette’s reverse is missing. The right index finger has sustained damage.

…; Paulina (‘Pan’) de Bruijn-van Lede (1874-1969), Oosterbeek and Rotterdam;¹¹Handwritten note by her nephew, the dealer C. Castendijk, Rotterdam, next to a description of the sculpture in ‘Keuze uit de aanwinsten’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 23 (1975), p. 179, copy RMA: Van tante Pan (‘owned by aunt Pan’). She may have inherited the sculpture from her father, C.A.E. van Lede, a wealthy owner of a Jenever factory in Schiedam, who had acquired a large collection of antiques to decorate his interior in the period 1880-1900. With thanks for this information to Marius van Dam, Zeist (written correspondence, 11 May 2026.; …; sale collection De Monchy, Rotterdam (N.V. Vendu Notarishuis), 29/31 October 1969, no. 331, to the dealer A. Vecht, Amsterdam; from whom, acquired by Dr A.F.E. van Schendel, Amsterdam, 1970; by whom, donated to the museum, 1975, on the occasion of his farewell as director to the Rijksmuseum on 3 June 1975

Object number: BK-1975-69

Credit line: Gift of A.F.E. van Schendel jr.

This saintly figure of an elderly bearded male stands with his gaze directed downwards over his right shoulder. He clasps his mantle to the breast with his right hand, while the left hand rests on his upper left leg holding what resembles a piece of a branch – the remains of a sprouting staff or a lily branch, both traditional attributes of St Joseph of Nazareth. The apocryphal Gospel of St James (8:3-16:3) tells of how a spouse is found for the twelve-year-old Virgin Mary. He whose staff blossoms in the temple is to be chosen by the high priest from among the unwedded men and widowers of Nazareth as Mary’s future husband, and in turn, Jesus’s adoptive father. In the end, the only staff to blossom belongs to the old man Joseph the carpenter. In part arising from the popularity of the Gospel of St James, which reached its peak especially in the late Middle Ages, the blossoming staff became the standard attribute of St Joseph. When in later centuries Joseph assumes a more active role as Christ’s stepfather and is more commonly integrated in narrative depictions of Jesus’s nativity and youth, the staff eventually evolves into a blossoming lily branch.²²J.J.M. Timmers, Symboliek en iconographie der Christelijke kunst, Roermond and Maaseik 1947, pp. 946-47. On the present statuette, this is likely the object Joseph holds in his left hand, with the flower broken off, leaving only a small, somewhat reworked remnant of the stem.

The accuracy of the present figure’s identification as Joseph is confirmed by the agreement with other depictions of the saint incontrovertibly originating from the Southern Netherlands. The type invariably consists of a bearded, middle-aged man wearing a cloak or mantle, with a somewhat introverted, often downward-looking gaze. One example for comparison, though carved approximately fifty years later than the Rijksmuseum piece, is a life-size marble statue of Joseph and the Christ Child by the sculptor Lucas Faydherbe from 1655.³³H. De Nijn, H. Vlieghe and H. Devisscher (eds.), Lucas Faydherbe 1617-1697: Mechels beeldhouwer and architect, exh. cat. Mechelen (Stedelijk Museum Hof van Busleyden) 1997, no. 37. The pose and the positioning of the head of the Amsterdam Joseph suggest it may also have been originally accompanied by a (separately carved?) Christ Child. This assertion remains tentative, however, due to the now missing base and the loss of Joseph’s feet.

Stylistically, the statuette can be linked to Southern Netherlandish sculpture of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, and more specifically to the city of Mechelen where the production of alabaster sculpture flourished at this time. A parallel is to be observed in the style of the sculptures and reliefs adorning the rood loft of 1610-13 from the Sint-Janskathedraal in Den Bosch (today preserved at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London).⁴⁴C. Avery, ‘The Rood-Loft from Hertogenbosch’, in idem., Studies in European Sculpture, vol. 1, London 1981, pp. 148-74, esp. figs. 10, 12, 16. The Amsterdam Joseph is similar to the Christ figure in the relief of the Arrest of Christ, characterized by a similar, somewhat erratic treatment of the drapery folds. Largely derived from graphic models, the maker of these sculptures is not known. An attribution to Coenraed van Norenberch (‘Coenraet IV van Neurenberg’) of Namur, whose name appears in the contract documents, proves unfounded, as he was the marble supplier and contractor overseeing the project.⁵⁵G. van Tussenbroek, The Architectural Network of the Van Neurenberg Family in the Low Countries (1480-1640) (Architectura Moderna 4), Turnhout 2006, pp. 189-95. In actuality, Coenraad contracted out work to various sculptors in his network. To personally oversee the rood loft’s construction, Van Norenberch took up temporary residence in Den Bosch and from there likely approached one or more workshops in Antwerp or Mechelen.

A greater parallel can be found – especially in the facial features – in a statue of St James the Greater originating from Mechelen, today preserved at the Schepenhuis in the same city (fig. a). Likewise carved in alabaster, this figure measures 66 centimetres in height and has been dated to the second half of the sixteenth century.⁶⁶Mechelen, Stedelijke Musea Mechelen, inv. no. B0119. Both this figure and the rood loft in the Victoria and Albert firmly situate the maker of the Rijksmuseum Joseph in one of the larger sculptural centres of Brabant active circa 1600. The statuette’s small size and uncarved reverse suggest a placement in the niche of a mid-sized altarpiece or tabernacle tower. Joseph could also have figured as the patron saint adorning an epitaph.⁷⁷Cf. P. Philippot, D. Coekelberghs, P. Loze and D. Vautier, L’Architecture religieuse et la sculpture baroques dans les Pays-Bas méridionaux et la principauté de Liège: 1600-1770, Sprimont 2003, p. 163 (ill.), 165 (fig. 2), 166 (fig. 2), 168 (fig. 1), 199 (fig. 2) and 200 (fig. 1).

Frits Scholten, 2025

‘Keuze uit de aanwinsten’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 23 (1975), p. 179 and fig. 2; Jaarverslag Nederlandse Rijksmusea 1975, pp. 22-24, fig. 12; Scholten in C. Stiegemann (ed.), Peter Paul Rubens und der Barock im Norden, exh. cat. Paderborn (Erzbischöfliches Diözesanmuseum) 2020, no. 91

F. Scholten, 2025, 'anonymous, St Joseph, Mechelen, c. 1600 - c. 1625', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20036364