Carved in relief and originally polychromed.

In two pieces. The bottom and left-hand parts are missing. The polychromy has been removed.

? commissioned for the chapter house of the canons of Utrecht cathedral, 14 Achter de Dom, c. 1500-10;¹¹With thanks to Maarten van Deventer for this information (written communication, 10 February 2021). found (with BK-NM-8371-A to -F) in the cellar of the post office, 14 Achter de Dom, Utrecht, in or before 1887;²²Note RMA. from the Ministry of Public Works, Trade and Industry, to the museum, 1887

Object number: BK-NM-8370

These fragments belong to a group of typical Utrecht carved (fragments of) stone chimney-piece friezes dating from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.³³The Rijksmuseum has fragments of another three chimney-piece friezes of this kind, see BK-NM-3290, BK-NM-8370 and BK-NM-11304. They are best represented in the collection of the Centraal Museum, Utrecht, see J. Klinckaert, De verzamelingen van het Centraal Museum Utrecht, vol. 3, Beeldhouwkunst tot 1850, coll. cat. Utrecht 1997, including nos. 65-66, 71, 76-80, 89-91, 93, 97, 107-09, 112-14, 127, 129. For a general overview see Defoer in M. Leeflang et al., Middeleeuwse beelden uit Utrecht: 1430-1530/Mittelalterliche Bildwerke aus Utrecht: 1430-1530, exh. cat. Utrecht (Museum Catharijneconvent)/Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 2012-13, pp. 88-91. In other towns these lintels were usually plain or very simply decorated, but in Utrecht they were often elaborately ornamented with figurative reliefs, which were then polychromed. The rise in their popularity was probably prompted by the construction work on Utrecht Cathedral, which was adorned with a great deal of decorative and figurative carving.⁴⁴D.P.R.A. Bouvy, Middeleeuwsche beeldhouwkunst in de Noordelijke Nederlanden, Amsterdam 1947, p. 78. The chimney-pieces in the larger rooms of mansions sometimes assumed huge proportions. The finest example came from Huis Zoudenbalch in Donkerstraat, Utrecht, but is now in Huize Hiëronymus on Maliesingel in the same city.⁵⁵See M. Leeflang et al., Middeleeuwse beelden uit Utrecht: 1430-1530/Mittelalterliche Bildwerke aus Utrecht: 1430-1530, exh. cat. Utrecht (Museum Catharijneconvent)/Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 2012-13, fig. 6.1. The Centraal Museum in Utrecht has a contemporaneous Utrecht chimney-piece that is likewise still complete.⁶⁶Utrecht, Centraal Museum, inv. no. 1766, see J. Klinckaert, De verzamelingen van het Centraal Museum Utrecht, vol. 3, Beeldhouwkunst tot 1850, coll. cat. Utrecht 1997, no. 113, fig. on p. 122; M. Leeflang et al., Middeleeuwse beelden uit Utrecht: 1430-1530/Mittelalterliche Bildwerke aus Utrecht: 1430-1530, exh. cat. Utrecht (Museum Catharijneconvent)/Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 2012-13, fig. 32. The frieze there is supported on either side by two jambs that go down to the floor.

Chimney-piece friezes usually contain three medallions with a saint or religious scene – in this case an Annunciation – in the centre, flanked by escutcheons that are sometimes held by supporters (shield-bearers). All that survives of the middle medallion is the section with the Angel Gabriel. In the right-hand medallion a supporter holds up a strap bearing an escutcheon from which the arms have been hacked off. He wears a broad-brimmed hat with feathers over a hood, a paltock over a shirt, and shoes with slashed toes. The carving is detailed and of quite a high standard. The pose and clothes are very like those of the supporter in the right-hand medallion of a fragment of a chimney-piece frieze in the Centraal Museum in Utrecht that is dated to around 1500-10.⁷⁷Utrecht, Centraal Museum, inv. no. 1760, see J. Klinckaert, De verzamelingen van het Centraal Museum Utrecht, vol. 3, Beeldhouwkunst tot 1850, coll. cat. Utrecht 1997, no. 112.

The fragments were found in the cellar of the Utrecht main post office, in or before 1887;⁸⁸Note RMA. This post office was located at 14 Achter de Dom. This partly medieval structure was used as a chapter house by the canons of Utrecht cathedral until the Reformation.⁹⁹With thanks to Maarten van Deventer for this information (written communication, 10 February 2021). The frieze was probably originally part of a chimney piece in this chapter house.

Bieke van der Mark, 2024

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 34

B. van der Mark, 2024, 'anonymous, The Annunciation and a Shield-Bearer, Two Fragments of a Frieze from a Chimney-Piece, Utrecht, c. 1500 - c. 1510', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035545