A Masterly Hand / Scientia Artis 9

11 10 Introduction and Acknowledgements Famke Peters and Christina Ceulemans Interdisciplinary Research on the ‘Master of Elsloo’ in an International Perspective In 2009 Peter te Poel, then curator of sculpture and applied arts before 1850 at the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, began to develop the idea of organ- izing an exhibition that would focus on the so-called Master of Elsloo. It was the result of his long and enduring fascination with this late - Gothic wood sculptor whose identity is shrouded in uncertainty and whose oeuvre evokes more questions than answers. Some years earlier, in 2002, he had mounted a highly successful exhibition about the contemporary Maastricht carver Jan van Steffeswert. It had been preceded by an extensive study that examined the art-historical, material and technical aspects of that sculptor’s work. Together with conservator-restorer Arnold Truyen from the Stichting Restauratie Atelier Limburg (SRAL) in Maastricht, who had taken on the material and technical part of the study, he had scoured churches and museums, documenting the sculptures as fully as possible. Not a single detail escaped their attention and much new information about Van Steffeswert’s life and work was brought to light. Based on this experience and employing the same tried and trusted method, he now wanted to set up a similar study on the Master of Elsloo that would likewise culminate in an exhibition. As was the case with Jan van Steffeswert, Maastricht’s Bonnefantenmuseum is the ideal place for such an exhibition, given the presence of several sculptures attributed to this ‘Master’ in the museum’s own collection and in many churches in the immediate vicinity. Like his predecessor Alexander van Grevenstein, the director of the Bonnefantenmuseum, Stijn Huijts, has given this project his full support and is happy to accommodate the exhibition, which is planned for 2016. Most of the Master of Elsloo’s oeuvre is to be found in churches in Dutch and Belgian Limburg and the neighbouring part of Germany. So it was not long before the documentation on the works in Belgium held at the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (kik-irpa) in Brussels was being consulted. The kik- irpa photo library includes numerous images of sculptures attributed to this master. A fair number of these attributions and much of the photographic material connected with the works had been made in 1990 in the context of the Laatgotische beeldsnijkunst uit Limburg en Grensland exhibition held in Sint-Truiden and the related conference, in which Robert Didier and Christina Ceulemans, both art historians at the kik-irpa at that time, had played a prominent part. This wealth of available documentation, as well as the expertise in the field of medieval sculpture, which over the years was expanded and increased in the Conservation-Restoration department under the direction of Myriam Serck, made the kik-irpa the ideal partner for the study of the many sculptures in Belgium attributed to the Master of Elsloo. The actual carrying out of that Belgian part of the study was made possible by the Belgian Science