Carved in relief. The (missing) handle was carved separately.

There is a crack at the bottom on the left and in the left side of the arch. The handle is missing. The relief is glued on to a wooden support, covered with velour.

…; collection Frederik Christiaan (Frits) and Josephina Catharina Gabriella (Phine) Verhaaff-Hofslag (1919-2011), Amsterdam, before 2011; bequeathed to the museum by the latter, 2012

Object number: BK-2012-22

Credit line: J.C.G. Verhaaff-Hofslag Bequest, Amsterdam

St Peter stands in a portal of two twisted columns on which rests an arch in the shape of a double accolade. His head is turned to the left and in his hands are a book and a large key with a heart-shaped handle. The apostle is placed against a hatched background. Given the shape of the arch, the hatching and the fairly simple style, this relief, which was originally a pax – the handle on the back is missing – can be identified as an ivory from the Low Countries or Paris. Paxes like this were an important part of the limited repertoire of types produced by the ivory carvers in the Southern Netherlands or Northern France. Most of them are in the same quite primitive style and there is a prevalence of varied gothic or renaissance arches composed of accolades.¹¹F. Scholten, ‘Een Nederlandse ivoren pax uit de late middeleeuwen’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 52 (2004), no. 1, pp. 3-24, esp. figs. 1, 12, 15-16; I. Reesing, ‘From ivory to pipeclay. The reproduction of late medieval sculpture in the Low Countries’, in E.M. Kavaler, F. Scholten and J. Woodall (eds.), Netherlandish Sculpture of the 16th Century (Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art/Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 67), Leiden/Boston 2017, pp. 256-85, esp. pp. 266-79.

The Pax with St Peter is very closely akin to a Pax with St James in Museum Catharijneconvent,²²Utrecht, Museum Catharijneconvent, inv. no. RMCC b169a. Defoer erroneously described the piece as ‘possibly Spanish’, see H. Defoer in Catharijnebrief 49 (1995), p. 8. See also F. Scholten, ‘Een Nederlandse ivoren pax uit de late middeleeuwen’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 52 (2004), pp. 3-23, esp. p. 14 and fig. 15. and to two examples in private hands in the Netherlands, with the Virgin and Child on the Crescent Moon, and the Lamentation respectively.³³Goes, collection Adriaan van de Velde (written communication, 18 June 2014, note RMA); Gouda, collection Maurice Reneerkens (written communication, March 2015, note RMA). All four paxes have the same design in common: a similar or even identical accolade-shaped arch and a rather carelessly hatched background. The graphic style of the folds in the garments, built up from wide planes, is also very similar. It is highly likely that they were all made in the same workshop, which had specialized in this type of pax with a standing Virgin, apostle or saint as desired. The pattern of the standing figure in an arched niche may have been derived from printed Bible illustrations, such as one in Deventer dating from 1525.⁴⁴F. Scholten, ‘Een Nederlandse ivoren pax uit de late middeleeuwen’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 52 (2004), pp. 3-23, esp. fig. 20. The ivory paxes probably date from the same period.

A precursor of this pax type, bearing the depiction of a solitary standing saint or apostle, appears in a painting of the Mass of St Gregory dated 1486 and attributed to the Master of the Holy Kinship, an artist active in Cologne.⁵⁵Utrecht, Museum Catharijneconvent, inv. no. ABM s33. On the altar far right stands a small gilded pax with the figure of St Andrew (fig. a). This apostle was the patron saint of the painting’s donor, the Cistercian friar kneeling at the same end of the altar, to whom the pax would undoubtedly have belonged.

Finally, there is a stylistically similar (but not identically shaped) pax in Niort.⁶⁶Niort, Musée Bernard d’Agesci, inv. no. 914.1.160 (h. 11.4 cm). With thanks to Ingmar Reesing for this information (written communication, 24 September 2013). I. Reesing, ‘From Ivory to Pipeclay: The Reproduction of Late Medieval Sculpture in the Low Countries’, in E.M. Kavaler, F. Scholten and J. Woodall (eds.), Netherlandish Sculpture of the 16th Century (Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art/Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 67), Leiden/Boston 2017, pp. 256-85, esp. pp. 269-72 and fig. 15. It shows a nobleman kneeling in worship before a crucified Christ in a landscape; the image is flanked by twisting columns supporting a faint, trefoil arch. The Dutch salutation O HEERE GHEDINCK MIJN (O Lord think on me) appears on the banderol the man holds.

Frits Scholten, 2024

Unpublished

F. Scholten, 2024, 'anonymous, Pax with St Peter, Low Countries, c. 1525', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20078568