This majestic sculpture of the Virgin and Child Standing on a Crescent Moon is an exceptional example of wood carving from the late Gothic period. It was most probably created by Hans Kamensetzer, a leading sculptor from the workshop of Niclaus Gerhaert von Leyden (c.1420 - 1473), who was considered to be the most influential northern European sculptor of the 15th century. The art of both Veit Stoss and Tilman Riemenschneider, the leading wood sculptors of the German-speaking states of the Northern Renaissance, would be unthinkable without the influence of Gerhaert. Like Gerhaert, Kamensetzer spent most of his working life in the Germanic regions, most notably Straßburg, Konstanz, and Vienna, and his work is characterized by elaborate and vivid drapery. Swathed in a deeply carved mantel, resplendent with gilding, the present Virgin is posed with her right knee advanced, and her right hand raised slightly in a gesture of blessing or greeting.
The Virgin’s body is elongated, and she sways and turns her torso gently, accentuating her aura of heavenly grace. With her left hand she holds the Christ Child, who with his right hand makes a sign of benediction, and with his left hand proffers a small apple. His pose is active, his body is lithe and naturalistic, and his face bears a tender expression of compassion.
The facial features seen here in Kamensetzer’s Virgin are distinctly delicate and akin to the fine faces of the Virgins in the paintings of the master Hans Memling (c. 1430-1494), each with a long, thin nose, thin eyebrows, diminutive lips, large eyes and a narrow, smallish, chin (fig. 1). The Christ Child has similarly refined features and serves as a visual counterpoint to its painted comparables which feature smooth, almost porcelain-like skin. Memling was active during the same period as Kamensetzer. Born in Germany, Memling apprenticed in Mainz or Cologne and later worked in the Low Countries under Rogier van der Weyden (c. 1455–1460) in Brussels and became one of the leading artists in Flanders, running a large workshop in Bruges.
Under the feet of the Virgin is the crescent moon; the ends of the moon point upward to either side, and the face of the man in the moon turns downward, exposing his left profile to the viewer. He wears a white turban, visible beneath the Virgin's right foot, and has his mouth open, as if grimacing. The reddish face still bears traces of silver, now oxidized black, and must originally have been entirely covered with silvering. At either side of the Virgin’s legs can be seen the hands of two angels who evidently were originally shown holding the Virgin and Child aloft.
Made principally from a single piece of lindenwood (limewood), the group is exceptional for the depth and dynamism of the carving. Deep channels of drapery highlight the motion of the Virgin’s hand as she holds the Christ Child aloft, and also create a marked S-shaped line that runs from the center of the collar of her cloak to her right hand, and then to her right knee, and down to her right foot. The energetic forms of the drapery combine with the movements of the figures’ bodies to create a strong sense of immediacy and drama.
Stylistically, the present Virgin and Child Standing on a Crescent Moon is related to the widely influential production of Niclaus Gerhaert von Leyden. Born around 1430 Gerhaert was active in Straßburg by 1462, and transferred to Vienna at the behest of Emperor Frederick III in 1467, working there until his death in 1473.1 Gerhaert possessed a new sensitivity to physiognomy, expression and the dramatic potential of complex draperies, and his work precipitated a revitalization of sculptural production in northern Europe in the second half of the fifteenth-century.
Kamensetzer was perhaps Nicolaus Gerhaert’s most important assistant and follower. Likely already a member of Gerhaert’s workshop in Straßburg, Kamensetzer also moved to Vienna in 1471, probably at Gerhaert’s impetus, and worked there until his own death in 1487.2 Kamensetzer’s works are characterized by similar attentiveness to emotion and expressive drapery and extreme physical realism, but tend towards a highly elegant stylization of forms.
A close analogy for the poses in the present group is found in a small boxwood sculpture of the Virgin and Child attributed to Gerhaert’s Viennese period, now in the Cloisters (fig. 2)3, but the elongated canon of proportions and the distinctly oblong face and pointed chin of the present carving find closer stylistic analogies in works connected to Kamensetzer’s Viennese period. Many of the closest parallels were produced by Kamensetzer and his circle for locations to the east of Vienna in modern-day Slovakia (formerly the kingdom of Hungary). The high altarpiece for Saint Elizabeth’s church in Košice, (1474-7) attributed to Kamensetzer, provides a compelling comparison (fig. 3). Significantly, the Virgin and Child on the altarpiece also draws on the poses of the Cloisters statuette.4
Three more sculptures from this group share the delicate features and expression of the Virgin and Child Standing on a Crescent Moon: the Hlohovec Nativity, c. 1485 (fig. 4) and the Annunciate Virgin, c. 1485 (fig. 5), both originally from Saint Martin’s Cathedral, Bratislava, and now in the National Gallery, Bratislava5, and an alluring sculpture of the Nativity attributed to Kamensetzer, circa 1470, in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Finally, two works of Moravian provenance (also formerly part of the kingdom of Hungary) connected to Viennese production post-Gerhaert bear comparison with the present work: a Virgin and Child on a Crescent, c. 1480-90 and an Annunciate Virgin, c. 1480-1500, both now in the Olomouc Museum of Art.6
Though all these related works show the influence of Kamensetzer, whether they were produced in imperial Vienna or the kingdom of Hungary remains under discussion. During this period works by artists operating in Vienna were in demand by the Hungarian court. King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary (1458-90), commissioned the high altar at Saint Elizabeth’s, Košice and the high altar at Saint Martin’s Cathedral, Bratislava. These artistic exchanges were given further impetus during Hungarian control of Vienna between 1485-90.7 Thus, although the present work bears a strong relation to Kamensetzer’s Viennese production as well as that of his famous master, an exact localization is difficult to determine.
Beginning in the second half of the fifteenth century, the subject of the Virgin and Child Standing on a Crescent Moon was especially popular as a central group for altarpieces in southern Germany and Austria—from Straßburg in the West to Vienna in the East. The back of the present sculpture, partially hollowed out, is consistent with such a function, as is the original positioning of angels to either side, holding the group aloft.8
The iconography ultimately derives from St. John the Evangelist’s account of his vision of the Apocalyptic Woman in the Book of Revelations (12:1-6) which describes a woman “clothed with the sun”, with a moon at her feet and crown of twelve stars on her head, preparing to give birth. The Apocalyptic Woman’s escape from the dragon that attempts to devour her newborn child was connected to the Virgin’s purity and the absence of sin.9 Though the emphasis on the Virgin’s purity and elevation above humankind is common to images of this type, more precise iconographical associations are less certain. Possibly our work was meant to depict the Virgin as Queen of Heaven.10 As already noted, two fragmentary hands at the base and knee of the Virgin suggest the present work was originally flanked by angels who held the Virgin and Child aloft. It is possible an additional pair of angels suspended a crown above the Virgin’s head, as in the high altarpiece at the Church of the Coronation of the Virgin, at Lautenbach im Renchtal, 1483.11
The subject of the Virgin and Child Standing on a Crescent Moon was also frequently associated with the Immaculate Conception in the late fifteenth-century.12 Pope Sixtus IV officially instated the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in 1477, although the doctrine was not made official church dogma until 1854. Additionally, the iconography is found in a number of smaller devotional panels that contain references to the cult of the Rosary, also promoted by Sixtus IV, as for example in a beautiful diptych by Geertgen Tot Sint-Jans of 1480 now in Rotterdam and Edinburgh.13 The common thread among these images is the glorification of the Virgin, whose cult came to a crescendo in the North during the late fifteenth-century.14
The subject matter may also be a response to contemporary concerns surrounding the proper use of devotional images. The derivation of the subject from the biblically sanctioned vision of St. John may have been a reminder to viewers of the superiority of spiritual vision over corporeal images.15 As such, the present work is an important document of the function of images in the late Middle Ages in the decades leading up to the Reformation.
We are grateful to Dr. Anna Majeski for her assistance in the preparation of this entry
RELATED LITERATURE
Louis Réau, Iconographie de l’art chrétien. Vol., II Part 2, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1955;
Mirella Levi D’ Ancona, The Iconography of the Immaculate Conception in the Middle Ages and the Early Renaissance, New York, Published by the College Art Association of America in conjunction with the Art bulletin, 1957;
Sixten Ringbom, “Maria in Sole and the Virgin of the Rosary,” in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 25, 1962, pp. 326-330;
Michael Baxandall, The Limewood Sculptors of Renaissance Germany New Haven, Yale University Press, 1980;
Craig Harbison, “Visions and Meditations in Early Flemish Painting,” in Simiolus 15, 1985, 87-118;
H.W. van Os, et al., The Art of Devotion in the late Middle Ages in Europe, 1300-1500, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1994;
Harmut Scholz, “Hans Wild und Hans Kamensetzer. Hypotheken der Ulmer und Strassburger Kunstgeschichte des Spätmittelalters,” in Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 36. Bd., 1994, pp. 93-140;
Kaliopi Chamonikolasova, “Nicolaus Gerhaert of Leyden in the Moravian Context,” in Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 48(1), 1995, pp. 61-84;
Bonnie J.Blackburn, “The Virgin in the sun: music and image for a prayer attributed to Sixtus IV,” in Journal of the Royal Musical Association 124(2), 1999, 157-95;
Julien Chapuis with Michael Baxandall, Tilman Riemenschneider: master sculptor of the late Middle Ages, Washington, National Gallery of Art; New Haven, Distributed by Yale University Press, 1999;
Ivo Hlobil, et al., The Last Flowers of the Middle Ages: from the Gothic to the Renaissance in Moravia and Silesia, Olomouc, Olomouc Museum of Art, 2000;
Rainer Kahsnitz, Carved Splendor: Late Gothic Altarpieces in Southern Germany, Austria and South Tirol, Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 2006;
Larry Silver, “Full of Grace: ‘Mariolatry’ in Post-Reformation Germany” in The Idol in the Age of Art, Edited by Michael W. Cole and Rebecca Zorach, Burlington, VT, Ashgate, 2009, 289-316;
Stefan Roller, Niclaus Gerhaert: der Bildhauer des Spaten Mittelalters, Petersberg, Imhof, 2011;
Roland Recht, Nicolas de Leyde, sculpteur du XVe siècle: un regard moderne, Straßburg, Musées de la ville de Straßburg, 2012;
Thomas Grenon, et. al., D’or et de feu: l’art en Slovaquie à la fin du Moyen Âge, Paris, Réunion des musées nationaux, 2010;
Sophie Guillot de Suduiraut, Dévotion et séduction: sculptures souabes des musées de France: vers 1460-1530, Paris, Louvre, Somogy, 2015
1. Recht 2012; Roller 2011
2. Recht 2012, 121-48
3. Chapuis 1999, cat. 6
4. Recht 2012, 125; Chamonikoslasova 1995, 80
5. Recht 2012, cat. no. 59
6. Chamonikolasova 1995, 83-4; Hlobil 2000, cat nos. 10, 12
7. Recht 2012, 125; Chamonikoslasova 1995, 74-81
8. Guillot 2015, cat. no. 15
9. Réau 1955, 74-85
10. Ancona 1957, 27
11. Recht 2012, fig. 3, pg. 122
12. Réau 74-85; Ancona 1957, 26-8; Blackburn 1999
13. van Os 1994, 151-56
14 Silver 2009
15 Ringbom 1962, 328; Harbison 1985, 87-118