Carved in relief. The working block consists of three joined vertical planks.

The projecting part of the knotted scarf tied around the jesters’ necks is missing, as is the bell on the cap of the left jester.

…; from the collection A.P. Hermans-Smits (1822-1897), Eindhoven, to the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague, together with numerous other objects (BK-NM-2001 to -2800) for a total of fl. 14.000, 1875; transferred to the museum, 1885

Object number: BK-NM-2735

Around the year 1400, court jesters made their debut in the sculpted decoration of both private and public buildings across Europe.¹¹P. Vandenbroeck, Beeld van de andere, vertoog over het zelf: Over wilden en narren, boeren en bedelaars, Antwerp 1987, p. 44. In churches, one most commonly encountered them as misericordia adorning the folding undersides of church choir seats, though they also appeared in more visible areas of the church, e.g. on walls and vaults. A mocking jester might be interpreted as a personification of immorality, or in many cases as ‘commentary in the margin’.²²Cf. M. Camille, Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art, London 1992, chapter 3, esp. pp. 93-94.

The present oak carved roof boss with two laughing jester’s heads – each with cap and bells, worn beneath a single overarching cap – is a visual representation of the medieval saying Twee zotten onder één kaproen ('Two jesters under one chaperon’). Essentially conveying the notion of ‘A fool is seldom alone’, the expression refers to those who wholeheartedly agree in all matters, typically in a faulty sense. The same iconography occurs on misericordia in the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam, the Martinikerk in Bolsward, and the Sint-Katharinakerk in Hoogstraten (Belgium), and on a keystone in Xanten Cathedral (Germany).³³J.A.J.M. Verspaandonk, ‘Het vreemde houten gezelschap’, Antiek 9 (1974-75) pp. 121-40, esp. p. 140. See idem fig. 40 for the Bolsward misericord. While nothing is known about the origin of the present ceiling boss, the jesters’ shared facial type is similar to the farcical figures of the sixteenth-century Antwerp painter Jan Massijs (1509-1575),⁴⁴Cf. Massijs’s Peasant Pair in Galerij Jan op de Beeck in Mechelen, see P. Vandenbroeck, Beeld van de andere, vertoog over het zelf: Over wilden en narren, boeren en bedelaars, Antwerp 1987, plate IV. making the Southern Netherlands most likely.

Bieke van der Mark, 2025

…; from the collection A.P. Hermans-Smits (1822-1897), Eindhoven, to the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague, together with numerous other objects (BK-NM-2001 to -2800) for a total of fl. 14.000, 1875; transferred to the museum, 1885

B. van der Mark, 2025, 'anonymous, Roof Boss with Two Jesters (‘Two Jesters under One Chaperon’), Southern Netherlands, c. 1600 - c. 1700', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20036337