Netherlandish, late 15th century

Hans Anton Holemans, Uccle, 2001

There are areas of refreshed polychromy throughout. Some of the polychromy is unstable, resulting in large areas of flaking, particularly to the Donkey. There is stable splitting consistent material, including up the Virgin's proper left side, along her back and to the donkey's head and proper right ear. There is some naturally occurring worming to the surface including an area to the drapery covering the donkey's body on the reverse and some areas which have consequently been filled and restored, including one to the Child's body around his proper right arm. The group was carved in sections. Joints are visible at the hooves, neck of the donkey and the reverse of the Virgin.
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The Flight into Egypt is a scene taken from the Gospel of Matthew (2:13-23) which describes the journey of Mary, Joseph and the Christ Child after the Three Magi warn them of Herod’s intentions to murder the infants of Nazareth. The subject is often part of cycles of the Life of Christ and the Virgin or ends the story of the Nativity. Here the scene is reduced to the suffering of the Virgin as she protects the peaceful Child from the cold. The group is remarkable for its size and the deeply carved drapery. Its facture suggests that it may have been carried in processions, making it a rare survival.

Only a small number of independent Gothic wood carvings of the Flight into Egypt survive. Two examples were exhibited in Aachen in 1961 and 1963 (Aachener Kunstblätter, op.cit. 1961, no. 50 and 1963, no. 63), one is in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam (inv. no. BK-NM-11769), and another in the Waisenhaus in Emmerich (Witte, op.cit., fig. 40). The group exhibited in Aachen in 1963 and the Emmericher Flight into Egypt are both thought to be German as they are executed in limewood and clearly based on Dürer’s print of the same subject. The compositions of the other Aachen group and the Rijksmuseum carving relate more closely to the present group. The Virgin and Child are turned towards the viewer and the donkey is more placid. The carving shown in Aachen is attributed to Normandy because of its provenance and is decidedly stiffer. The group in the Rijksmuseum is likely to stem from Utrecht as it was found in the Northern Netherlands. It approaches some of the intimacy of the present Flight into Egypt but has a more irregular drapery scheme and is therefore probably later.

Of the above mentioned Flight into Egypt groups, the present is not only the largest but also the only one that it is not hollowed out but finished at the back. This and the sturdiness of both the carving and the base suggest that this example may have been in used in procession, much like the more famous Christian subject that involves a donkey, the Entry into Jerusalem or Palmesel. Palmesels represent Christ on the donkey during his entry into Jerusalem. Wood sculptures of this subject were certainly in use as early as 1200 and were carried or rolled on wheels in the Easter processions on Palm Sunday. Those used in major city parishes were often life-size whilst smaller Palmesels, such as one in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg (inv. no. Pl.O.154), are usually thought to have been used in monasteries (R. Brandl, op.cit., no. 4). The present group may have been used in this way on Epiphany.

RELATED LITERATURE
F. Witte, Tausend Jahre deutscher Kunst am Rhein, exh. cat. Messehallen Cologne-Deutz, Cologne, 1925, fig. 40; W. Beeh (ed.), ‘Bewahrte Schönheit.  Mittelalterliche Kunst der Sammlung Hermann Schwartz’, exh. cat. Suermondt-Museum, Aachen, Aachener Kunstblätter 21, 1961, p. 23, no. 50, pl. 27; E.G. Grimme (ed.), Aachener Kunstblätter 28, 1963, p. 118, no. 63; J. Leeuwenberg and W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, cat. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, The Hague, 1973, pp. 67-68, no. 36; R. Brandl, L. von Wilckens, et al., Veit Stoβ in Nürnberg. Werke des Meisters und seiner Schule in Nürnberg und Umgebung, Nuremberg, 1983, pp. 119-122, no. 4