Carved and polychromed. The reverse has been hollowed out.

There is a crack in the pedestal and the lower right corner at the front is replaced. The right forearm, the iron sword and parts of the crown, cap, nose, beard and cloak are missing. The cross on the orb has been replaced.

Commissioned by or for the Mariakerk and installed above the west entrance, 1569;¹¹HUA, St.-Marie, no. 347, Rekeningen der Fabriekskamer 1569. removed from the facade and probably transferred to the interior of the church, in or before 1712;²²In that year the west facade and the most westerly nave aisle were removed, see H.M. Haverkate and C.J. van der Peet, Een kerk van papier. De geschiedenis van de voormalige Mariakerk te Utrecht, Zutphen 1985, p. 71. transferred to the Chapter House of the Pieterskerk, Utrecht, in or before 1835;³³First recorded in N. van der Monde (ed.), ‘De St. MariaKerk’, Tijdschrift voor geschiedenis, oudheden en statistiek van Utrecht 1 (1835), p. 314. sent by the archivist of the Province of Utrecht to the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague, 1874;⁴⁴Letter acknowledging receipt from Victor de Stuers, The Hague, 28 November 1874. transferred to the museum, 1885

Object number: BK-NM-127

This figure came from the former Mariakerk in Utrecht. The subject, Henry IV (1050-1106), was Holy Roman Emperor, and in that capacity made repeated visits to the cathedral city of Utrecht.⁶⁶Among other events, he celebrated Easter there in 1062, 1066, 1072 and 1076. With Conrad (d. 1099), the bishop of Utrecht he appointed, he was the founder of the Mariakerk.⁷⁷For this church, see H.M. Haverkate and C.J. van der Peet, Een kerk van papier. De geschiedenis van de voormalige Mariakerk te Utrecht, Zutphen 1985. The chapter of the church kept the memory of the emperor alive for centuries in both word and image. For instance, the legend of its foundation by Emperor Henry IV was commemorated with Latin verses chiselled in two of the crossing pillars in the Mariakerk.⁸⁸S.J. Weide, ‘Keizer Hendrik IV in Utrecht. Enkele beelden en schilderijen’, Jaarboek Oud-Utrecht 1985, pp. 62-84, esp. pp. 63-64. The sculpture portrays Henry IV in all his glory, with arched crown, orb and imperial dress: ceremonial armour with a double imperial eagle, a cloak with an ermine cape and an ermine tunic. He wears leg protection with spiral decoration and lion masks on his knees. He originally held an iron sword in his right hand, now broken off.⁹⁹This sword was mentioned in a letter written by Victor de Stuers on 28 November 1874. His name is spelled out in high relief on the front of the marbled pedestal and the date ‘1569’ has been added in gold paint. The sides are decorated with renaissance scrollwork.

Archive sources enable us to attribute the figure to Rijck(aert) Hendricksz van Beest.¹⁰¹⁰The following biographical details are based on P.T.A. Swillens, ‘Rijck Hendricksz. van Beest. Beeldhouwer te Utrecht’, Jaarboekje van Oud-Utrecht 1950, pp. 72-76 and S.J. Weide, ‘Keizer Hendrik IV in Utrecht. Enkele beelden en schilderijen’, Jaarboek Oud-Utrecht 1985, pp. 62-84, esp. pp. 65-66. This woodcarver is recorded as a member of the Utrecht Saddlers’ Guild in 1569. He had his workshop in Abraham Dolesteegje near Lange Nieuwstraat in that city. In 1544 and 1545 Van Beest supplied a carved panel for the organ of the Buurkerk in Utrecht and eight statues for the east doors of the cathedral. In 1546 he designed a number of figures for the cathedral tower passage. Unfortunately none of these works has survived.

The account books reveal that Rijck van Beest also made two statues of Emperor Henry IV for the Mariakerk.¹¹¹¹HUA, St.-Marie, no. 347, Rekeningen der Fabriekskamer 1563 and 1569. The first dates from 1563 and the second from 1569. This has caused considerable confusion in the past.¹²¹²For instance, the date on the present statue was not noticed by Swillens (see ‘Rijck Hendricksz. van Beest. Beeldhouwer te Utrecht’, Jaarboekje van Oud-Utrecht 1950, pp. 72-76, esp. pp. 75-76), Galland (see Geschichte der holländischen Baukunst und Bildnerei im Zeitalter der Renaissance. Der nationalen Blüte und des Klassicismus, Frankfurt am Main 1890, p. 97) and others. Galland went on to assume that this was the 1563 figure. Vogelsang (with M. van Notten, see Die Holzskulptur in den Niederlanden, vol. 2, Berlin/Utrecht 1912, p. 31) mistook the nine for a four. The first statue was carved from a block of wood measuring 3.60 by 0.75 metres and would certainly have been larger than life-size. It was placed on the roof of the choir of the Mariakerk, replacing an earlier statue of the same emperor by an unknown woodcarver that dated from around 1545.¹³¹³S.J. Weide, ‘Keizer Hendrik IV in Utrecht. Enkele beelden en schilderijen’, Jaarboek Oud-Utrecht 1985, pp. 62-84, esp. p. 65. Leeuwenberg suggested that the statue dating from 1563 was destroyed during the Iconoclasm in 1566, and that Van Beest made the present figure, which stands just 158 cm high including the pedestal, as a replacement.¹⁴¹⁴J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, p. 72. However, it is clear from various seventeenth- and eighteenth-century paintings and drawings that are regarded as accurate (cf. fig. a) that the statue on the choir of the Mariakerk must have been at least twice the size and that it was supported by a tie rod on the reverse, just above the hips.¹⁵¹⁵See S.J. Weide, ‘Keizer Hendrik IV in Utrecht. Enkele beelden en schilderijen’, Jaarboek Oud-Utrecht 1985, pp. 62-84, figs. 4-6. There are no traces of fixings at this point on the reverse of the present version and the reverse is flat and hollowed out, which would not work for a statue with this function. Although it has not been ruled out, there is no reason to assume that the version from 1563 did not survive the Iconoclasm. In any event, in 1781 the town council commissioned the woodcarver and draughtsman W.N. Koopman (1758-1808) to make a new roof statue of Emperor Henry IV because the old one ‘was almost completely decayed’.¹⁶¹⁶‘bijna geheel was vergaan’, S.J. Weide, ‘Keizer Hendrik IV in Utrecht. Enkele beelden en schilderijen’, Jaarboek Oud-Utrecht 1985, pp. 62-84, esp. pp. 68-69. All that remain of the 1781 figure are the crown, orb and sword. They are in the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, see S.J. Weide, ‘Keizer Hendrik IV in Utrecht. Enkele beelden en schilderijen’, Jaarboek Oud-Utrecht 1985, pp. 62-84, figs. 7-9. Around 1844 that statue was moved to the facade of the nearby house on the corner of Mariastraat and Mariaplaats in Utrecht. In 1850 it was replaced by a smaller example in pine, which has been in the Centraal Museum since 1965; see J. Klinckaert, De verzamelingen van het Centraal Museum Utrecht, vol. 3, Beeldhouwkunst tot 1850, coll. cat. Utrecht 1997, no. 453. There has been a replica on the corner house since 1978, see S.J. Weide, ‘Keizer Hendrik IV in Utrecht. Enkele beelden en schilderijen’, Jaarboek Oud-Utrecht 1985, pp. 62-84, esp. pp. 72-77, 80-82. As far as we know, nothing remains of the 1563 roof statue.

Weide convincingly identified the present work as one of the tres statuas which, according to a bill dating from 1569, Van Beest had made for the Mariakerk and which is referred to in a second payment made that year for installing three statues in latticed niches in the west front above the entrance.¹⁷¹⁷HUA, St.-Marie, no. 347, Rekeningen der Fabriekskamer 1563; S.J. Weide, ‘Keizer Hendrik IV in Utrecht. Enkele beelden en schilderijen’, Jaarboek Oud-Utrecht 1985, pp. 62-84, esp. p. 71. For a transcript of the documents see ibid., notes 27-28. The fact that one of the statues was of Emperor Henry IV is confirmed by a third payment in 1569 for ‘the iron sword placed in the hand of the statue of Emperor Henry’.¹⁸¹⁸‘het ijzeren zwaard gegeven in de hand van het beeld van keizer Hendrik’, S.J. Weide, ‘Keizer Hendrik IV in Utrecht. Enkele beelden en schilderijen’, Jaarboek Oud-Utrecht 1985, pp. 62-84, esp. p. 71. For a transcript of the document see ibid., note 28. Logically, the other two figures would have been Henry’s fellow founder, Conrad, and the Virgin Mary, the patron saint of the Chapter.¹⁹¹⁹It is possible that these statues had predecessors that were lost during the Iconoclasm. There are accounts in the records of three statues ‘standing above the paradise’ (‘staende boven het paradijs’) being destroyed by iconoclasts; see J.C.J. Kleintjes and J.W.C. van Campen, ‘Bescheiden betreffende den Beeldenstorm van 1566 in den stad Utrecht’, Bijdragen en mededelingen van het Historisch Genootschap 53 (1932), p. 165. Usually, however, paradise refers to the door to the south transept of the Mariakerk (see H.M. Haverkate and C.J. van der Peet, Een kerk van papier. De geschiedenis van de voormalige Mariakerk te Utrecht, Zutphen 1985, p. 62), whereas the bill states that the three statues Van Beest made in 1569 were intended for the west front. The same trio can be seen on a fifteenth-century embroidered cushion cover from the Mariakerk in the Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht (fig. b).²⁰²⁰Utrecht, Museum Catharijneconvent, inv. no. ABM t2191, see H.M. Haverkate and C.J. van der Peet, Een kerk van papier. De geschiedenis van de voormalige Mariakerk te Utrecht, Zutphen 1985, fig. 1. The facade figure did not resurface in the literature until 1835, when it is described as standing in the chapter house of the Pieterskerk in Urecht.²¹²¹N. van der Monde (ed.), ‘De St. MariaKerk’, Tijdschrift voor geschiedenis, oudheden en statistiek van Utrecht 1 (1835), p. 314. He noted, erroneously, that this was the statue that had stood on the choir roof in the Mariakerk. The statue must already have been removed from there in or before 1712, for in that year the whole west front, including the most westerly nave aisle was demolished because it was crumbling.²²²²See H.M. Haverkate and C.J. van der Peet, Een kerk van papier. De geschiedenis van de voormalige Mariakerk te Utrecht, Zutphen 1985, p. 71. In 1874 the archivist of the Province of Utrecht transferred stewardship of the statue to the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst in The Hague,²³²³Letter acknowledging receipt, written communication, Victor de Stuers, The Hague, 28 November 1874. whose collection later went to the Rijksmuseum.

Swillens also attributed a polychromed sandstone figure of Emperor Charles V (1500-1558) in the Centraal Museum to Van Beest (fig. c).²⁴²⁴P.T.A. Swillens, ‘Rijck Hendricksz. van Beest. Beeldhouwer te Utrecht’, Jaarboekje van Oud-Utrecht 1950, pp. 72-76, esp. pp. 74-75. For this statue, see also J. Klinckaert, De verzamelingen van het Centraal Museum Utrecht, vol. 3, Beeldhouwkunst tot 1850, coll. cat. Utrecht 1997, no. 281. The statue came from the facade of the house called ‘Keizer Karel’ at 120 Oudegracht in Utrecht, which dates from between 1550 and 1560 and was probably designed by Willem van Noort (d. 1556).²⁵²⁵For this house, see W. Kuyper, The Triumphant Entry of Renaissance Architecture into the Netherlands: The Joyeuse Entrée of Philip of Spain into Antwerp in 1549, Renaissance and Mannerist Architecture in the Low Countries from 1530 to 1630, Alphen aan den Rijn 1994, pp. 189-90 and fig. 216. Charles V adopts a pose similar to Henry IV’s, and both rulers are depicted with the same imperial attributes and wear similar ceremonial armour with the double eagle on the breast. These similarities are purely formal, however, and may also be the result of following the same pictorial tradition. It seems unlikely that the stone statue of Charles really was made by Van Beest, since he is always described in the records as a beeltsnyder (woodcarver).²⁶²⁶Jan Klinckaert is not entirely convinced by Swillens’s attribution either, see written communication, 3 September 2009.

Bieke van der Mark, 2024

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 41, with earlier literature; S.J. Weide, ‘Keizer Hendrik IV in Utrecht. Enkele beelden en schilderijen’, Jaarboek Oud-Utrecht 1985, pp. 62-84, esp. pp. 69-72

B. van der Mark, 2024, 'attributed to Rijck Hendricksz. van Beest, Henry IV (1050-1106), Holy Roman Emperor, Utrecht, 1569', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035548