A Masterly Hand / Scientia Artis 9

267 Emmanuelle Mercier and Delphine Steyaert 14 266 The sumptuousness of the Liège Virgin’s polychromy has already been the subject of scholarly attention. In the Sint-Truiden exhibition catalogue of 1990 it is suggested that the particularly high quality of execution may be related to the building of the new St James’s Abbey church in Li ège. 11 Th e author proposed that the sculpture was commissioned by Abbot Jean de Coronmeuse ( or de Cromois; d. 1525). But apart from its splendour, in the context of ­ contemporary production both the typology and the techniques used for this statue raise a number of questions. Does it attest to regional skill and decorative formulas? Is it characteristic of Mosan production in the period of the so-called Master of Elsloo’s activity? Or does it testify to external ­ influences or collaborations? To answer these questions we will first look at how the Virgin relates to a series of well-known sculptures – primarily large figures of female saints – produced in the same period, 1500 to 1530, in Brabant and the Meuse region. Comparisons with Large Statues As remarked earlier, within the production of the ‘Master of Elsloo’, we only have very few elements of comparison. Nevertheless, certain painted decorative motifs on the Liège Virgin are also found carved in the wood in other statues of the group. For example, the collars of the figures of the Virgin and Child from both Gerdingen (fig. 5.30) a nd Neeroeteren (figs. 5 .1, 5.15) are decorated with triangular motifs in relief, while on the Liège Virgin these motifs are rendered in the polychromy with the sgraffito technique. On yet other­ sculptures in the group the letter-borders on garments are carved into the wood, as can be seen on the attire of the St Lucy and St Agnes, and the Emperor Maxentius at St Catherine’s foot in Siersdorf (fig. 12.1), the St John of the Calvary of Gangelt (fig. 6.16) and the St Christopher of Heinsberg ( fig. 1.16). A Blessing Christ from a private collection still contains significant traces of original polychromy. His mantle is embellished with a sgraffito design of large gold pomegranates and rapidly executed small gold circles on a blue azurite ground (fig. 14.9). Its wide gilded border is decorated with punched rosettes framed by a punched stippled line and a row of dots. These fragments can be compared to the polychromy of the Liège Virgin, both for the combination of sgraffito and punched motifs and the presence of sgraffito decoration on the whole surface of a garment. On the other hand, the polychromy of the Blessing Christ differs from known and well-preserved Mosan statues of male figures such as the St Remaclus from Spa (Church of Our Lady and St Remaclus) and the St Marcoul (?) from Liège (Church of St Remaclus, fig. 16. 24). 12 T he gar- ments of these two figures are embellished with applied brocade rather than patterns in sgraff ito . 13 Th e observations of the traces of polychromy on the ­ Gerdingen St Quirin us, 14 an other sculpture from the Elsloo group, made it possible to propose a hypothetical reconstruction: Quirinus probably wore a red chasuble with a blue lining that was also adorned with local applied brocades. Looking at contemporary examples in Limburg and Brabant it can be seen that two main schemes of composition were used for the polychromy of the 14.9 Fig. 14.9 Blessing Christ, private collection, detail of the mantle’s gilded pomegranate pattern in sgraffito on a blue azurite background dotted with small gold circles