Virgin Mary, from a Calvary

Carved and originally polychromed. The now missing hands and manchettes were probably carved separately. The rest has been carved from a single woodblock. Carved and originally polychromed. The now missing hands and manchettes were probably carved separately. The rest has been carved from a single woodblock. Dendrochronological analysis resulted in the dating of the outermost ring in the year 1490.. Given that sapwood is absent, the felling of the tree has been estimated to have occurred after 1498. The wood likely originates from the Lower Rhine region in the northwest of Germany.

Verslag van de Hoofddirecteur over het jaar 1988, p. 17

Minimal woodworm infestation. The socle has sustained moisture damage. The hands and manchettes are missing. The tip of the hanging cloak has broken off below the left arm. A narrow crack traverses the face. The polychromy has largely been removed, though traces of the original chalk ground can still be discerned.

…; sale, Amsterdam (J. Schulman), 2 October 1907, no. 761; …; ? collection Antoon van Welie, Utrecht, date unknown;¹¹Sale Amsterdam (Sotheby’s), 2 December 1987, no. 169. Possibly in reference to the painter of the same name, Antoon van Welie (1866-1956), though this person is not known to have lived in Utrecht. …; collection Köhler, Maarssen, c. 1950;²²Note RMA. private collection, Maarssen;³³Note RMA. …; sale, Amsterdam (Sotheby’s), 2 December 1987, no. 169, fl. 21,850, to the museum; on loan to the Museum Kurhaus, Cleves, 2004-09

ObjectNumber: BK-1987-21

This large sculpture of the Virgin Mary once belonged to a Calvary group of which both the crucified figure of Christ and the cross itself are no longer extant. Mary stood below the cross on the left side, i.e. on Christ’s right. The original pendant, a sculpture of St John, has been in the Rijksmuseum’s collection since 1898 (BK-NM-11155). According to the art dealer from whom the latter sculpture was acquired, it originated from the area of Tiel.⁴⁴J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 120.

The fact that both sculptures surfaced on the Amsterdam art market within a period of ten years, respectively in 1898 and 1907, may perhaps indicate that the Calvary group had remained complete up until the late nineteenth century. Its probable location was standing on a beam separating the chancel and nave of a church or chapel. Unfortunately, a more exact provenance is unknown.

In 1980, De Werd convincingly attributed the two statues to Arnt van Tricht,⁵⁵G. de Werd, ‘De pendant van Arnt van Trichts Johannes-beeld’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 28 (1980), pp. 118-24. a Lower Rhenish sculptor active in Kalkar from as early as circa 1533 up until his death in 1570.⁶⁶B. Rommé, ‘Die Bildschnitzkunst in Kalkar in der ersten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts’, in B. Rommé et al., Gegen den Strom: Meisterwerke niederrheinischer Skulptur in Zeiten der Reformation 1500-1550, exh. cat. Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 1996, pp. 15-37, esp. pp. 28-29. A bill of sales exists for a coffin purchased by Arnt van Tricht’s wife on behalf of the almshouse in Kalkar in 1533/34. While Van Tricht’s early works as yet exuded the spirit of his predecessor in Kalkar, Henrik Douverman (c. 1490-1543/44), by the late 1530s he had begun to develop a highly expressive and personal style. As such, Van Tricht was responsible for introducing the formal idiom of the early Renaissance in the region, while at the same time distancing himself from the late-gothic formulas that continued to dominate Lower Rhenish sculpture well into the sixteenth century. This suggests he obtained his training elsewhere other than the region of the Lower Rhine: perhaps in Utrecht, but possibly in Antwerp, where the presence of a sculptor bearing the name ‘Aerdt van Tricht’ was indeed documented in the year 1522.⁷⁷G. de Werd, ‘De Kalkarse beeldhouwer Arnt van Tricht’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 21 (1973), pp. 63-90, esp. pp. 84, 86 (notes 62, 66). See also B. Rommé, ‘Die Bildschnitzkunst in Kalkar in der ersten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts’, in B. Rommé et al., Gegen den Strom: Meisterwerke niederrheinischer Skulptur in Zeiten der Reformation 1500-1550, exh. cat. Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 1996, pp. 15-37, esp. pp. 27-28, who on unclear grounds surmises an origin from the area and an apprenticeship under Douverman. The influence of Van Tricht’s workshop extended as far as the eastern regions of the Low Countries, as affirmed by the roof bosses at the Duivelshuis in Arnhem,⁸⁸G. de Werd, ‘Een handdoekrek door de Kalkarse beeldhouwer Arnt van Tricht (ca. 1540)’, Antiek 16 (1981-82), pp. 33-56, esp. fig. 25. his sculpted chimneypiece in Huis ter Horst (Loenen, near Apeldoorn)⁹⁹G. de Werd, ‘De Kalkarse beeldhouwer Arnt van Tricht’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 21 (1973), pp. 63-90, esp. fig. 34. and an epitaph for the Ros family from the Grote Kerk in Wageningen preserved in the Rijksmuseum (BK-NM-3099). In light of such considerations, the Calvary group’s purported provenance in the surroundings of Tiel is highly tenable.

When taken into account the style, that marks the beginning of a new phase in Van Tricht’s development, as well as the dendrochronology analysis of the wood,¹⁰¹⁰The felling date of the tree from which the St John sculpture is carved is estimated to have occurred after 1543, see the report by M. Domínguez Delmás (DendroResearch), RMA, DR_R2023151. the sculptures can be dated around 1545. Accordingly, they were likely produced shortly after his earliest documented independent work: the Altar of St John for the Sankt-Nicolaikirche in Kalkar of 1541-43. Mary in fact closely resembles the much smaller Virgin from the Coronation group located higher up in the altarpiece, while John bears a notable similarity to the standing evangelists Luke and Matthew from this same altar.¹¹¹¹G. de Werd, ‘De Kalkarse beeldhouwer Arnt van Tricht’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 21 (1973), pp. 63-90, esp. fig. 17. These statues share not only the same style of drapery folds and physiognomic features observed in the Amsterdam Mary and John, but also the characteristic disc-shaped socles. Mary’s pose is reserved, displaying an unusual but subtle contrapposto. In her original state, she held her hands before her breast, folded in prayer. Her cloak rises up and wraps around both arms as a consequence of this gesture, from there falling gracefully and voluminously around her body. Such characteristics mark a clear break in style and form with the conventional late-medieval iconography of Calvary scenes. In the case of John, an even more pronounced deviation from stylistic tradition is to be observed in the severe twisting of the his head in the direction of the cross. Both figures possess the sharply defined eyes, mouth and jawline – all characteristics of Van Tricht – whereas Mary’s domed forehead is likewise found, for instance, in the figure of Mary Magdalene in the Holy Trinity Altar in Kalkar (Sankt-Nicolaikirche).¹²¹²B. Rommé et al., Gegen den Strom: Meisterwerke niederrheinischer Skulptur in Zeiten der Reformation 1500-1550, exh. cat. Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 1996, no. 2.

Two other surviving and complete Calvary groups in the vicinity of Kalkar – both considered simplified, artistically inferior copies of the Amsterdam statues – are preserved in the Sankt-Hermeskirche in Warbeyen and the Sankt-Antonius Abbaskirche in Hanselaer.¹³¹³G. de Werd, ‘De pendant van Arnt van Trichts Johannes-beeld’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 28 (1980), pp. 118-24, esp. figs. 4-7. These works provide not only an impression of the original layout of Van Tricht’s Calvary group, but also of the missing crucified Christ. In respect to the present group, however, an example more suitable for comparison is the Christ in Van Tricht’s Pietà in Münster (LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur), which also dates from around 1540.¹⁴¹⁴G. de Werd, ‘De pendant van Arnt van Trichts Johannes-beeld’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 28 (1980), pp. 118-24, esp. pp. 122-24 and fig. 8; B. Rommé et al., Gegen den Strom: Meisterwerke niederrheinischer Skulptur in Zeiten der Reformation 1500-1550, exh. cat. Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 1996, no. 65.

Frits Scholten, 2024

G. de Werd, ‘De pendant van Arnt van Trichts Johannes-beeld’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 28 (1980), pp. 118-24; Jaarverslag Nederlandse Rijksmusea 1987, p. 18; [W. Halsema-Kubes], ‘Keuze uit de aanwinsten’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 36 (1988), p. 343; [W. Halsema-Kubes], ‘Recent acquisitions at the Department of Sculpture and Decorative Arts, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam’, The Burlington Magazine 132 (1990), p. 443, no. 2; De Werd in F. Scholten and G. de Werd, Een hogere werkelijkheid: Duitse en Franse beeldhouwkunst 1200-1600 uit het Rijksmuseum Amsterdam/Eine höhere Wirklichkeit, Deutsche und Französische Skulptur 1200-1600 aus dem Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, exh. cat. Cleves (Museum Kurhaus Kleve) 2004-06, no. 15

F. Scholten, 2024, 'Arnt van Tricht, Virgin Mary, from a Calvary, Kalkar, c. 1540 - c. 1545', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.197404