Originally composed of two hollow halves formed in a front mould and a back mould, fired and polychromed.

Only two fragments of the figurine, the head and part of the back, have survived. The front of the body, including the arms and legs, and part of the back are missing. The polychromy and gilding have largely been lost; all that remain are traces of gilding on the hair and red on the lips.

…; found in the Oude Kerk, Soest, with several other objects (BK-NM-12006-1 to -19), 1905;¹¹J. Kalf, ‘Een belangrijke vondst’, Het huis, oud en nieuw. Maandelijks prentenboek gewijd aan huis, inrichting, bouw- en sierkunst 3 (1905), pp. 289-301. donated by the municipality of Soest to the museum, 1907

Object number: BK-NM-12006-19

Restoration work in the tower of the Oude Kerk in Soest in 1905 uncovered in a bricked-up area an important treasure trove of statues, albeit in a deplorable condition.²²These objects have been donated to the Rijksmuseum in 1907, see inv. nos. BK-NM-12006-1 to -19. It is assumed that the sculptures were hidden there either in 1566 at the outbreak of the Iconoclasm or in December 1580, when Calvinists in the Eemland region endeavoured to destroy every last remnant of religious art.³³K. Broekhuijsen-Kruijer, ‘Het Passieretabel uit Soest’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 32 (1984), pp. 3-16, esp. p. 3. Alongside wooden carvings there were a great many pieces of pipeclay figurines, including this head and back of a relatively large figure of a saint, in all likelihood a standing Virgin and Child.⁴⁴There is a plaster cast of the head, made in 2009, in the Oude Kerk in Soest. Remnants of red paint were found on the lips and there are traces of gilding on the hair, indicating that the figure was originally polychromed.

Pipeclay figures were mass-produced in moulds. This efficient production method, together with the cheapness of the material, made these small figurines of saints popular objects for private devotions by lay people, nuns and monks. Larger works, such as the present figure, were also placed in churches as an alternative to costly one-off statues in wood or stone. In the Centraal Museum in Utrecht there is a still complete standing Virgin and Child (fig. a). The statue, more than half a metre tall, is made of polychromed terracotta (red-firing clay). It has an identical face and the same pleated gown across the breast, with a round neck and narrow collar.⁵⁵Reesing in M. Leeflang et al., Middeleeuwse beelden uit Utrecht 1430-1530/Mittelalterliche Bildwerke aus Utrecht, exh. cat. Utrecht (Museum Catharijneconvent)/Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 2012-13, p. 343, no. 39. On the basis of the style reminiscent of Adriaen van Wesel (c. 1417-in or after 1490), the folds, the sweet face with the high forehead and the long, waving tresses, the prototype underlying both works is placed in Utrecht, around 1470-80.⁶⁶J. Klinckaert, De verzamelingen van het Centraal Museum Utrecht, vol. 3, Beeldhouwkunst tot 1850, coll. cat. Utrecht 1997, pp. 76-79, 454, no. 242; Reesing in M. Leeflang et al., Middeleeuwse beelden uit Utrecht 1430-1530/Mittelalterliche Bildwerke aus Utrecht, exh. cat. Utrecht (Museum Catharijneconvent)/Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 2012-13, p. 252. The head type and the treatment of the hair in these works are at the same time akin to those of a figure of the Virgin on a sandstone roof boss in Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht,⁷⁷M. Leeflang et al., Middeleeuwse beelden uit Utrecht 1430-1530/Mittelalterliche Bildwerke aus Utrecht, exh. cat. Utrecht (Museum Catharijneconvent)/Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 2012-13, no. 38. and a head of a woman dredged up from the river Vecht near the district of Lauwerecht in Utrecht.⁸⁸T.J. Hoekstra and A.F.E. Kipp (eds.), ‘Archeologische en bouwhistorische kroniek van de Gemeente Utrecht over 1981’, Maandblad Oud-Utrecht 55 (1982), pp. 15-86, esp. pp. 50-52; M. Leeflang et al., Middeleeuwse beelden uit Utrecht 1430-1530/Mittelalterliche Bildwerke aus Utrecht, exh. cat. Utrecht (Museum Catharijneconvent)/Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 2012-13, no. 91.

The pipeclay figure of which the present fragments were part was probably made by a specialist beeldendrucker (statue-squeezer) or heyligenbacker (saint-firer) in Utrecht, which is not far from Soest. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries this cathedral city was an important centre of sculpture and one of the leading sites for the production of pipeclay. The possibility that the figure was made elsewhere with moulds taken from a model made in Utrecht cannot, however, be ruled out. Finds excavated in Amersfoort, which is even closer to Soest, indicate that pipeclay figurines were ‘pressed’ there as well.⁹⁹For an overview of places where signs of pipeclay production have been found see S. Ostkamp, ‘Gebed in eenvoud. Gebruik en productie van pijpaarden beelden in Gorcum’, in H. van den Berge et al., In Gorcum gebakken. Aardewerk, kleipijpen, wandtegels, Gorcum (Gorcums Museum) 2003, pp. 56-63, esp. p. 58.

Bieke van der Mark, 2024

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 14, with earlier literature; Reesing in M. Leeflang et al., Middeleeuwse beelden uit Utrecht 1430-1530/Mittelalterliche Bildwerke aus Utrecht, exh. cat. Utrecht (Museum Catharijneconvent)/Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 2012-13, pp. 341-42, no. 92

B. van der Mark, 2024, 'anonymous, Head and Back of a Female Saint (Virgin and Child?), Utrecht, c. 1470 - c. 1480', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200115784