A Masterly Hand / Scientia Artis 9

Liège and at least four are in private collections. The rest are in the Netherlands in the province of Limburg, and in the German border area. The Master of Elsloo is also represented in major international museums, such as the Louvre, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Bode-Museum in Berlin and the ­ Cleveland Museum of Art. The region in which Elsloo works survive in situ extends from Rindern near Cleves in the north to Liège in the south with a concentration along the River Meuse forming the north-south axis, and from Eksel in the west to Rheindahlen in the east (fig. 4.1). 7 It largely corresponds with what is described today as the Meuse-Rhine Euregion. The Master of Elsloo can thus be seen as a regional phenomenon. However, it is rarely ­ possible to say with certainty that the current location is also the original one. In several Belgian churches more than one Elsloo sculpture survives. The churches of Bree and Gerdingen each have two and those of Beek and Bocholt have four, for example, and there are large concentrations of twenty-one and eighteen statues in Neeroeteren and Ellikom respectively, with a series of apostles in both places. Interestingly , in some churches, besides an Elsloo sculpture, a work attributed to the contemporary Maastricht sculptor Jan van Steffeswert, his workshop or a follower can also be fo und. 8 Th is is the case, for instance, in Neeroeteren (St Barbara), Bocholt (St Christopher), Bree ( a monumental Entombment group) and the Erpekom church now in the Openluchtmuseum Bokrijk (Conversion of Hubert, inv. 13 6E). 9 Bo th the Van Steffeswert and Elsloo styles must have been popular in the region. Developing a uniform working method was one of the KIK-IRPA project’s aims, so the documentation and examination of each sculpture was carried out in a very systematic way. As a rule, photography and technical examinations were done in situ , but the possible presence of original polychromy on three works – the Crucified Christ from the Ellikom church, St Quirinus from the 4.2 4.3 a 4.3 b Fig. 4.2 St Quirinus of Malmedy, Gerdingen, Church of Our Lady Fig. 4.3 St Monulphus (a) and St Gondulphus (b), Maasmechelen, Church of St Monulphus and St Gondulphus