The Virgin and Child with St. Anne (Dutch: ) by Jan van Steffeswert refers to two wooden sculptures in the Bonnefantenmuseum in

Maastricht Maastricht ( , , ; li, Mestreech ; french: Maestricht ; es, Mastrique ) is a city and a municipality in the southeastern Netherlands. It is the capital and largest city of the province of Limburg. Maastricht is located on both sides of the ...

, the Netherlands. One is unsigned and dated 1500, the other one is signed and dated but difficult to decipher (1511?). Jan van Steffeswert (ca. 1460–1530) was a woodcarver from the Netherlands who worked in Maastricht in the late 15th and early 16th century.

Unsigned sculpture

Depictions of Christ Child with his mother and grandmother were popular in the late Middle Ages. The scene frequently shows Mary and Christ reading. In the unsigned sculpture in the Bonnefantenmuseum, the child is shown grasping a bowl of

porridge Porridge is a food made by heating or boiling ground, crushed or chopped starchy plants, typically grain, in milk or water. It is often cooked or served with added flavourings such as sugar, honey, (dried) fruit or syrup to make a sweet cereal, ...

. Due to the relatively small size and the emphasis on domesticity, it has been suggested that the sculpture had been commissioned for a home rather than a church. The Bonnefantenmuseum acquired it in 1993 from the parish church of Saint Martin in

Eijsden Eijsden (; li, Èèsjde ) is a village situated in the very south of the European country the Netherlands. It is located in the southwestern part of the province of Limburg. Until 1 January 2011, Eijsden was the main village in a municipality ...

, close to Maastricht. The sculpture is dated 1500 but unsigned. According to Van Steffeswert expert Peter te Poel it bears all the characteristics of the Maastricht master sculptor. In 2016, the sculpture was selected as one of the ten most influential artworks from the Netherlands in the project ''

Europeana Europeana is a web portal created by the European Union containing digitised cultural heritage collections of more than 3,000 institutions across Europe. It includes records of over 50 million cultural and scientific artefacts, brought togethe ...

280''.

Signed sculpture

Van Steffesweert was one of the first woodcarvers in the Meuse region to sign his work, although not all his work is signed and the signatures vary ("IAN", "IAN VAN STEFFESWERT", "IAN VAN WEERD", "IAN BIELDESNIDER", etc). There are to date (2020) fourteen works signed by him, of which there are five in the Bonnefantemuseum. The signed sculpture of the Virgin and Child with St. Anne was acquired in 2005 from the parish church of Our Lady in Pey-

Echt Echt may refer to: * Echt, Aberdeenshire, a village in Scotland * Echt-Susteren, a municipality in the Netherlands ** Echt, Netherlands Echt (; ) is a city in the Dutch municipality of Echt-Susteren in the province of Limburg, Netherlands. ...

. It bears the name ''IAN'' and the date 151 ?(last digit illegible). It is almost double the size (86.2 cm) of the unsigned version. In this sculpture, Mary's lower right arm is missing, so it is unclear what she was holding. In a very similar version of the sculpture in the church of Saint Gertrude in Tüddern, Germany (signed and dated 1513), she is holding a flower.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Virgin and Child with St. Anne Early Netherlandish sculpture 1510s sculptures Wooden sculptures in the Netherlands Statues of the Madonna and Child