A Masterly Hand / Scientia Artis 9

47 Peter te Poel 1 46 Summary – Genesis of a ‘Master’ In 1940 the art historian J.J.M Timmers introduced the name ‘Master of Elsloo’ for the anonymous sculptor of a wooden statue of St Anne with the Virgin and Child in St Augustine’s Church in Elsloo, a town near Maastricht. Around this St Anne, Timmers grouped a number of sculptures on the basis of stylistic similarities. In the following decades that small group of works grew into an impressive oeuvre of more than two hundred sculptures as stylistically related works were discovered in churches in Dutch and Belgian Limburg and the German borderland and in major museums in Paris, London, Berlin and elsewhere. All these sculptures were said to have been produced by a workshop founded by the Master of Elsloo, possibly in Roermond, in which numerous carvers were employed for several generations. Archival research in 1980 and 1986 brought to light the name of Johan van Oel, who worked as a carver in Roermond in 1490 and who was also referred to in 1515 and 1530. It has been suggested that the Master of Elsloo and Johan van Oel were one and the same, but as yet there is nothing to support this identification as no work of the latter is known. Over the years the art - historical concept of the Master of Elsloo evolved into a complex phenomenon. In fact the Master of Elsloo has been brought into being simply because of the existence of an extensive oeuvre that has been composed by art - historians on purely stylistic grounds. And traditional stylis- tic analysis – until recently the only approach taken – has weak points, as it is a subjective hypothetical approach lacking concrete objective criteria. Never- theless, over the decades the notion of the Master of Elsloo has become so familiar that what began as a working name has gradually metamorphosed into a flesh and blood human being. There are numerous questions orbiting the entity called the Master of Elsloo; questions about his identity, about the different sculptors or even ­ workshops covered by this name, their place(s) of activity, and the supposed reference dates – 1523/1525 and 1545 – for the Elsloo oeuvre. The recent inter­ disciplinary research project was intended to break the deadlocked discussion of these issues. Confronting past hypotheses with the new information ­ produced by the technical and art-historical studies will hopefully lead to a more adequate definition of the confusing terms ‘Master of Elsloo’ and ‘ Elsloo workshop’.