Carved and polychromed. The (now lost) hands were separately carved and attached with a mortise-and-tenon joint. The statue’s reverse is somewhat flat in the area of the shoulders.

The hands with the book and possibly a cross staff or lily branch are missing, as is the frontmost part of both St Dominic’s feet. Much of the polychromy has flaked off.

…; 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/-2800) for a total of fl. 14.000, 1875; transferred to the museum, 1885

Object number: BK-NM-2538

The present statue of St Dominicus Guzmán (1170-1221), founder of the Dominican order, shows the saint as he is traditionally depicted, dressed in a habit with cowl and scapular, and with a tonsured head. In his (now missing) hands, he would have held a book and possibly a cross staff or lily branch. With respect to the walnut sculpture’s origin, opinions are divided. Pit, who initially situated it in the Northern Netherlands, later changed his conclusion on the suggestion of Vogelsang, who instead favoured the Lower Rhine region. This latter view was presumably based on comparisons with several saintly male statues from circa 1480 by the sculptor Master Arnt, a woodcarver active in Zwolle and Kalkar.¹¹Cf. E. Dhanens (ed.), De beeldhouwkunst in de eeuw van Rubens in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden en het prinsbisdom Luik, exh. cat. Brussels (Museum voor Oude Kunst) 1977, no. 35. Nevertheless, Lower Rhine sculpture is characterized by a harder, more complex arrangement of the drapery folds than encountered with the Amsterdam statue. Furthermore, sculpture from this region was typically carved in oak. In 1973, Leeuwenberg situated the present statue in southern Germany with a dating of circa 1510.²²J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 799. This region, however, must be deemed equally improbable: the placid, minimally stylized drapery folds are atypical for this region, while south-German sculptures of this size were predominantly executed in limewood. Ultimately, northern France or the Southern Netherlands emerges as a far more likely provenance for the present work, though even in these regions, relevant examples for comparison are virtually non-existent. The static frontality and the oval, smiling facial type are somewhat reminiscent of sculptures produced in the late fifteenth century in the circle of the Master of Koudewater, a woodcarver active in the northern region of the Duchy of Brabant (cf. BK-NM-1204 and -1207). Yet the freer pose with the right knee bent, and the suppler treatment of the drapery folds point to a dating at the onset of the sixteenth century.

Bieke van der Mark, 2025

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 799, with earlier literature