A Masterly Hand / Scientia Artis 9

Germany) show significant synchronisations seems to argue for the use of oaks felled in the region of Maastricht. This is consistent with the findings of the archival research carried out by Gerard Venner showing the contemporary exploitation of forests close to Roermond, a town also on the River Meuse, located less than fifty kilometres from Maastri cht. 41 Th ese results could mean that this group was sculpted in wood coming from the area in the vicinity of the workshop(s), wherever these precisely were. The group composed of sculptures from many different places provides more complex results to interpret (fig. 8.15b). Significant rates are given by chronologies from many different regions, with the best correlation rates obtained by chronologies from the southern part of the modern Netherlands ( North Brabant, Gelderland), the Meuse upstream from Maastricht (in ­ modern Belgium and France), and along the River Ems along the border between the modern Netherlands and Germany (Lower Saxony up to North Rhine-Westphalia). Here again however, the chronologies from the southern part of the modern Netherlands include ring series from wood imported from the Rhine-Meuse ba sin. 42 C onsidering the fact that, unlike the previous group, no high correlations were given with site chronologies from the region of ­ Maastricht, the oaks used for these Elsloo sculptures might have been imported. Examination of the map tend to show that these oaks were imported either from the Meuse basin upstream from Maastricht, further south, or from Lower ­ Saxony or North Rhine-Westphalia, further north, without being more prec ise. 43 The smallest group, which includes some of the Neeroeteren apostles and the Siersdorf John the Baptist, does not allow precision of the provenance because the synchronisation rates are not high or contrasting enough to specify one region rather than another (fig. 8.15c). This is also the case for most of the dated sculptures that were not included in one of these groups, such as the St Anthony of Neeroeteren or the Apostles James the Less and Peter in Ellikom. Nonetheless, the trees used for the third group also seem to come either from the Meuse or the Moselle basins upstream from Maastricht or from North Rhine-Westphalia. Difficulties in determining the provenance of the oaks used in these sculptures result from the same factors that complicated the process of dating: the complacency of most of the ring series weakens the climatic signal – or dendrochronological signal – of the series on which the dendro- provenance research is based. Given the observation that material selection was made according to the shape and size of the trunk, it is possible that the sculptors made their choice directly in the forest, as craftsmen did for very special pieces for building and shipbuild ing 44 an d as some artists still do today. It is known that craftsmen could find several kinds of timbers of different sizes, shapes and species in the wood markets, as is shown by the use of different terms in archival docu- me nts. 45 It remains difficult, however, to find out what kind of timbers some of these terms actually refer to and thus to know precisely which products would have been available to sculptors on the market. It would be interesting to know whether bifurcated trunks, for example, were amongst the products transported on the Meuse in the late Middle A ges. 46 If not, was the sculptor obliged to prospect by himself in the forest?