A Masterly Hand / Scientia Artis 9

Lapse of Time between Felling and Use of the Wood The second unknown factor to take into account in the estimation of the sculpture’s production date is the lapse of time between the felling of the tree and the use of its wood. This point is important to discuss, in order to clear up some misconceptions about the seasoning of the wood before its use. For carving, particularly in oak, the wood needs to be green because once dried it becomes almost impossible to cut against the grain. This means that the sculptor had to work the wood before it had dried or seasoned. This is evidenced by the sculptures in which drying cracks appeared after they were finished (figs. 8.8b, 8 .9b) 30 an d by tool traces characteristic of working on fresh wo od. 31 This use of green wood implies that sculptures made from the same tree are contemporaneous. This is the case for the aforementioned apostles from Neeroeteren and Ellikom, which belong to ensembles, but also for sculptures which do not, such as the Virgin and Child with the Bunch of Grapes in Bocholt and the Virgin of the Calvary in Ellikom (fig. 8.9); the Christ the Saviour in Neeroeteren and John the Baptist from Siersdorf (fig. 8.8); and third of the large James the Great and the St Roch in Neeroeteren. Assuming that they were carved from the fresh wood, the Neeroeteren apostles could have been made from 1517 which is the terminus post quem for the felling of the trees used. This suggests a possible link between the production of these figures and works carried out in the Neeroeteren church mentioned in an archival text of 1 513. 32 Bearing all this information in mind and on the basis of the dendrochrono- logical dates for the sculptures dated with certainty, it can be concluded that all Elsloo sculptures can have been carved between the late fifteenth century (1488 at the earli est) 33 an d the mid-sixteenth century (see table in appendix). This range is the broadest possible. It is calculated: – on the basis of minimum sapwood for the terminus post quem of 1488 ( obtained for the St Anthony from Neeroeteren, the Virgin of the Calvary in Ellikom and the Virgin and Child with a Bunch of Grapes in Bocholt, the last two coming from the same tree) and maximal sapwood for the terminus ante quem of around 1550 (obtained for the Christ the Saviour in Neeroeteren and St John the Baptist in Siersdorf); – by considering that the amount of lost heartwood rings is minimal; – and taking into account a negligible lapse of time between felling and use. These variables account for the breadth of the given interval and they make it impossible to establish a relative chronology between the works based solely on dendrochronology. It can be noted, however, that the older results derive from individual statues while all the ensembles are later than 1507. Provenance Dendro-provenancing is a very relevant approach for the reconstruction of trade networks. It can help to better determine where and how craftsmen were supplied with raw material. In this study of the Elsloo oeuvre the first step was to compare the tree-ring series from the dated sculptures in order to determine possible groups from a dendrochronological viewpoint, assuming that these