CIRCLE OF HANS BRÜGGEMANN (1480-CA. 1540), NORTHERN GERMAN, LOWER RHINE, CIRCA 1530 | FIGURE OF A HENCHMAN

With Reinhold Hofstätter, Vienna

The present figure, which was probably part of a flagellation group, shows a henchman of Pilate binding together the strands for a whip to be used on Christ. In the flagellation relief of the Bordesholmer Altar by Brüggemann, a figure in a similar act can be observed. Other figures on the same altarpiece share the distorted and slightly grotesque faces of the present lot. Lower Rhenish sculpture of this era, on the edge of the Reformation, started paying more attention to the secular side of sculpture: the grimaces and twisted faces can also be seen in work by Henrick Douwerman. Both sculptors started using a simple lacquer, rather than full polychromy, on their sculptures, in order to enhance the plasticity of their objects. 

RELATED LITERATURE

F. Haye Hamkens, Der Bordesholmer Altar Meister Brüggemanns : 48 Bildtafeln, Frankfurt, 1969, no. 26; Gegen den Strom: Meisterwerke niederrheinischer Skulptur in Zeiten der Reformation, 1500-1550, exh. cat. Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen, 1996, nos. 13, 26