Circle of the Master of Rimini (active circa 1420-1440) | Southern Netherlandish, circa 1430-1450 | Apostle

Grimbergen Abbey, Brabant, Belgium;
sold by the above, probably in the 1960s;
private collection, Belgium;
thence by descent to the present owners

‘The Master of Rimini’ denotes the anonymous sculptor responsible for an impressive early 15th-century alabaster Crucifixion altarpiece formerly in the Church of Santa Maria delle Graze in Rimini, and now in the Liebieghaus, Frankfurt. The Rimini altar’s central Crucifixion scene is surrounded by figures of the Twelve Apostles, which bear a close stylistic affinity with this sensitively carved statuette. Like the present Apostle, who is unidentified due to the loss of his attribute, the Apostles in Frankfurt are characterised by densely arranged and abundantly cascading folds of drapery, and strongly incised, thick strands of hair.

A lack of documentary evidence, and the dispersal of numerous alabaster statuettes associated with the Rimini Altar throughout Europe, have given rise to various theories regarding the Rimini Master’s geographical location and identity. There is now a general consensus that the Master’s workshop was situated in the Burgundian Netherlands, and recently Kim Woods (op. cit. 2012 and 2018) tentatively proposed an identification of its leader with Gilles de Backere, an alabaster carver recorded in Bruges in the 1430s. The variations in style between the figures in the Rimini Altar and those attributed to its ambit indicate that the Master employed numerous assistants in his workshop, some of whom may have carried his style elsewhere. As Woods has noted, ‘it is difficult to know where the Rimini workshop itself ends and other related alabaster practitioners begin’ (Woods, op. cit. 2018, p. 99).

Although closely related to the Apostles of the Rimini Altar, the present figure exhibits some stylistic differences which seem to place it among the Rimini Master’s circle or immediate following. In contrast to the over-large heads of the Frankfurt Apostles, the present figure’s head is of more naturalistic size in relation to its body, while the heavy drapery shows a more angular and less stylised scheme of folds than in the Rimini figures. An alabaster Apostle in the Bode-Museum, Berlin (inv. no. M 292) shows a similar facial type as the present figure, with a smaller and more slender head than in most other figures attributed to the Rimini Master. Further comparison can be made with an alabaster figure of Christ in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (inv. no. 1975.1.1484), whose facial type and hair, as well as its calm, introspective expression, mirror those of the present figure. Dated to circa 1450-1470 (see Scholten, op. cit.) the Met Christ is thought to have originated among the generation after the Rimini Master, influenced by the naturalism of painters such as Jan van Eyck. With its still more stylised drapery scheme, the present Apostle may represent an intermediate stage in the development of alabaster sculpture of this type, under the direct influence of the elusive Master.

RELATED LITERATURE
F. Scholten, European sculpture and Metalwork: The Lehman Collection, cat. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Princeton, 2011, pp. 70-71, no. 35; K. Woods, 'The Master of Rimini and the tradition of alabaster carving in the early fifteenth-century Netherlands', in Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, vol. 62, 2012, pp. 56-83; K. Woods, Cut in Alabaster: A Material of Sculpture and its European Traditions, 1330-1530, London and Turnhout, 2018, pp. 93-122