A Masterly Hand / Scientia Artis 9

Policy’s funding of a two-year research project (2010-2011) entitled The works of the late-medieval sculptor the ‘Master of Elsloo’ in Belgian ownership: art-historical and technical research in an international perspective . This allowed an art histo- rian, Famke Peters, and a conservator-restorer, Vincent Cattersel, to be engaged. With Christina Ceulemans as supervisor, an interdisciplinary team set to work to make a detailed record of the sculptures from every conceivable point of view. In Germany, too, colleagues were ready to carry out a comprehensive exam- ination of a number of sculptures in their country. Thus the original idea gradually evolved into a trilateral project in which specialists in diverse disci- plines from all three countries set about documenting and studying the works in their areas with the aim of gaining a better understanding of the techniques and materials used, the various aspects of style, the organization of the work- shops and the geographic and chronological context in which the sculptures were made. It was also greatly hoped that more would be learned about the identity of the wood carvers grouped under the name of the Master of Elsloo. One of the sculptures in the Netherlands that has been extensively studied by Peter te Poel and Arnold Truyen is the statue of St Anne with the Virgin and Child in St Augustine’s Church in Elsloo, the key work from which the Master of Elsloo derives his name. It was conveyed to the SRAL for examination, as was the St Anne with the Virgin and Child from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Pietà from Hunsel which is now in the Bonnefanten­ museum. They examined other sculptures in the Netherlands in situ , as well as several works in Germany, in Gaesdonck and Rindern for instance, and were also involved in the material, technical and stylistic analysis of a number of the statues in Belgium. Te Poel made a particular study of the Master of Elsloo’s ‘career’ as recounted in the art-historical literature and the composition of his oeuvre based on stylistic evidence. He also tested earlier attributions against new observations on style. Truyen focused on how the statues were made, from tree trunk to finished product. He used the same method of ­ identifying and measuring workbench marks that had been tried and tested during the research on Jan van Steffeswert. Archivist Gerard Venner of the Regionaal Historisch Centrum Limburg in Maastricht broadened the study of the Roermond archives he had begun in the late 1970s and also investigated contemporary archives in Venlo. He searched for the history of the reference work in Elsloo and the identity of the eponymous master, as well as the ­ activities of other ­artists in Roermond and Venlo. In Germany, conservator-restorer Marc Peez of the LVR-Amt für Denkmal­ pflege im Rheinland examined a number of works including the important sculptures in the Church of St John the Baptist in Siersdorf, a part of the study in which the partners in Belgium and the Netherlands were also involved. The statues were photographed by the German institution and the kik-irpa. In preparation for the Renaissance am Rhein exhibition (Bonn, 2010-2011) the carved rood screen with its three statues from St John’s underwent conser- vation treatment in the restoration workshop of the LVR-Landesmuseum Bonn under the supervision of Katharina Liebetrau. The researchers from all