The Entombment

Carved in relief and polychromed. The reverse is hollowed out. Dendrochronological research provided a tree-ring series with 132 rings, but crossdating with reference chronologies from central, eastern and northern Europe did not produce a reliable dating result.

The wood is in good condition, although there are some shrinkage cracks. There are some visible cracks in the wood in the figure of Joseph of Arimathea. His veil and possibly his head were replaced on his body with animal glue during an earlier conservation. Part of the woman on the right’s turban is missing. Some original polychromy survives on the faces and hands; the rest is modern.

...; collection A.P. Hermans-Smits (1822-1897), Eindhoven, in or before 1870;¹¹Note RMA....; from Jonkheer Jan Pieter Six (1824-1899), Amsterdam, fl. 100, at the instigation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, to the museum, 1891

ObjectNumber: BK-NM-9383

This Entombment was originally part of an altar, most likely one dedicated to the Passion of Christ. There are no fewer than ten figures in the group. Behind Christ, Mary, hands clasped, bends over her son’s lifeless body. She is supported by St John the Evangelist. To their right are two rather distracted women, probably Mary Cleophas and Mary Salome. The figure to John’s left is probably Simon of Cyrene, with the anonymous woman wearing a turban obliquely behind him. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, at Christ’s head and feet respectively, both – as is usual in scenes of the Entombment – wear elaborately decorated Jewish hats with turned-back peaks and a kerchief hanging down behind, and a dalmatic-style robe over a long-sleeved garment. Over this Joseph of Arimathea also wears a cape, and he has a purse hanging from his belt. Mary Magdalene kneels in the foreground, anointing the body with ointment from the jars beside her.

In the past the Entombment has been variously located in the Lower Rhine region and in the Northern Netherlands.²²A. Pit, Catalogus van de beeldhouwwerken in het Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst te Amsterdam, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1904, no. 78 (Utrecht); A. Pit, Catalogus van de beeldhouwwerken in het Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst te Amsterdam, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1915, no. 144 (Lower Rhine region); W. Vogelsang, ‘De Nederlandsche beeldhouwkunst’, Elsevier’s geïllustreerd maandschrift 31 (1906), pp. 366-80, no. 35 (Lower Rhine region or Northern Netherlands, possibly Utrecht); J.J.M. Timmers, Houten beelden. De houtsculptuur in de Noordelijke Nederlanden tijdens de late middeleeuwen, Amsterdam/Antwerp 1949, p. 57 (Holland); J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 46 (Holland?); C. Périer-D’Ieteren and A. Born (eds.), Retables en terre cuite des Pays-Bas (XVe-XVIe siècles). Étude stylistique et technologique, Brussels 1992, p. 69 (Holland). Woelk pointed out the likeness to the famous Molsheim reliefs that came from the Charterhouse in Strasbourg.³³M. Woelk, Die Bildwerke vom 9. bis zum 16. Jahrhundert aus Stein, Holz und Ton im Hessischen Landesmuseum Darmstadt, coll. cat. Darmstadt 1999, pp. 254-55. For the reliefs, see O. Schmitt, Oberrheinische Plastik im ausgehenden Mittelalter, Freiburg im Breisgau 1924, figs. 24-26. According to the latest insights these limewood reliefs were made in Strasbourg around 1480 to a Dutch model, likely a print.⁴⁴M. 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. 225-26. An Adoration of the Magi in Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht (fig. a) has a virtually identical composition to one of the Molsheim reliefs.⁵⁵Utrecht, Museum Catharijneconvent, inv. no. BMH bh144, see M. van Vlierden et al., Hout- en steensculptuur van Museum Catharijneconvent ca. 1200-1600, coll. cat. Utrecht 2004, pp. 199-201. In terms of the type of wood (oak) and the folds, the Amsterdam altar fragment can better be compared to this group. The distinctly busy and complex folds of the garments that characterize the Molsheim Adoration are considerably more subdued and slightly angular in this Utrecht version, and thus more in accord with those in the present sculpture. The Utrecht Adoration is dated to around 1460 and attributed to a predecessor of the prominent Utrecht master Adriaen van Wesel.⁶⁶M. 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, no. 26. The similarities between the poses and facial types of the figures in the Amsterdam relief and those of some pipeclay altar fragments, most probably made in Utrecht, such as an Entombment in Museum Catharijneconvent and a Swoon of the Virgin in the Rijksmuseum (BK-1972-156),⁷⁷M. 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, nos. 22, 24. provide additional grounds for attributing the altarpiece group to a Utrecht workshop.⁸⁸A. De Jaeger, ‘Les retables en terre-cuite moulée: style, origine, mode de production. Quelques hypothèses de travail’, in C. Périer-D’Ieteren and A. Born (eds.), Retables en terre cuite des Pays-Bas (XVe-XVIe siècles). Étude stylistique et technologique, Brussels 1992, pp. 62-79, esp. p. 69.

Bieke van der Mark, 2024

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 46, with earlier literature; C. Périer-D’Ieteren and A. Born (eds.), Retables en terre cuite des Pays-Bas (XVe-XVIe siècles). Étude stylistique et technologique, Brussels 1992, p. 69; M. Woelk, Die Bildwerke vom 9. bis zum 16. Jahrhundert aus Stein, Holz und Ton im Hessischen Landesmuseum Darmstadt, coll. cat. Darmstadt 1999, pp. 254-55

B. van der Mark, 2024, 'anonymous, The Entombment, Northern Netherlands, c. 1460 - c. 1480', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.24314