Attributed to the workshop of Nicolas Palardin II (d. 1580) and Martin Fiacre (d. 1601) | Southern Netherlandish, Liège, late 16th century | Relief with the Crucifixion

Private collection, Belgium

Carved on a thin slab of black stone, this remarkable Crucifixion finds a close parallel in a relief of Mount Calvary in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. no. N.M. 7495). The Rijksmuseum relief is traditionally considered to be the work of Nicolas Palardin II, whose Italian father of the same name founded a workshop in Liège around 1518. Specialising in reliefs carved in the unyielding black 'marble' quarried in local Theux, the workshop's activity was continued in the later 16th century by Nicolas II in collaboration his brother-in-law, Martin Fiacre. The lunette form and carving of the present relief are closely analogous to the Rijksmuseum Calvary, indicating their origin in the same workshop.

Characterised by stylised swirls of drapery, the figurative style of both reliefs is strikingly similar to a bronze relief of the Deposition attributed to Guglielmo della Porta (1515-1577), of which versions also exist in other materials (see Coppel, op. cit., p. 119, figs. 68 and 69). It is likely therefore that the stone sculptors in Liège adapted designs by Della Porta and his Roman Mannerist circle. Two further related black stone reliefs depicting the Crucifixion are housed in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. nos. A.14-1956 and A.13:1-1956).

RELATED LITERATURE
J. Leeuwenberg and W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, cat. The Hague, 1973, pp. 162-63, no. 193; R. Coppel et al., Guglielmo della Porta: A Counter-Reformation Sculptor, Madrid, 2012