Carved in relief.

A large section in the middle and the entire right-hand section of the chimney-piece frieze are missing. The profiled edge below is damaged.

…; excavated at the site of the Arminiaanse Plaats, Nijmegen, date unknown;¹¹J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, p. 109. …; from the dealer W. Giovanini, Nijmegen, fl. 100, to the museum, 1914; on loan to the Museum Commanderie van St. Jan, Nijmegen, since 1974; on loan to the Museum Het Valkhof, Nijmegen, since 1999

Object number: BK-NM-12366

This fragment of a sandstone chimney-piece frieze was excavated at the Arminiaanse Plaats in Nijmegen. In all likelihood, it originally comprised three reliefs bearing Old Testament scenes, each separated by a corbel. Only the left-hand relief and a section of the middle relief have survived: depicted on the left, a scene of The Drunkenness of Noah, with the ark visible in the background; depicted to the right of the first corbel, a scene of Lot’s Flight out of Sodom. The missing right-hand relief (to the right of the second console) likely featured a scene of The Drunkenness of Lot.²²With thanks to Dr P.J.G. van der Coelen, written communication, 21 June 2000. Together, these three representations conveyed a lightly moralising message on the pitfalls of excess.³³With thanks to Professor Dr I.M. Veldman, written communication, 20 January 2011. The left-hand composition is based on a woodcut by Jost Amman (1539-1591) from a German illustrated bible of 1564 (fig. a).⁴⁴With thanks to Dr P.J.G. van der Coelen, written communication, 21 June 2000. The corbels’ renaissance ornamentation is similar to designs conceived by Hans Vredeman de Vries (1527-c. 1607) and Cornelis Bos (c. 1506/10-1555), while the overall style is closely related to that of the sixteenth-century alabaster carvers (cf. BK-NM-2918) and the reliefs adorning Colijn de Nole’s sandstone chimney-piece in the Kampen Town Hall (1543-45). All considered, the frieze was probably carved not long after the appearance of Jost Amman’s print.

A comparable synthesis of (profane) narrative scenes alternating with renaissance ornamentation is encountered in an oak frieze from a wainscoting of circa 1570 preserved in the Rijksmuseum (BK-KOG-593). Here scenes from the mythological story of Paris and the history of Lot serve, respectively, as a tribute to feminine beauty and an admonition to lead a pure and virtuous life.⁵⁵W.T. Kloek, W. Halsema-Kubes and R.J. Baarsen, Art before the Iconoclasm: Northern Netherlandish Art 1525-1580, 2 vols., exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1986, no. 272. These scenes alternate with corbels and herm atlantes.

Similar in type as well as style is a stone chimney-piece frieze excavated on the Grotestraat in Eibergen.⁶⁶See Erfgoed Centrum Zutphen, object no. 0250-Br 00012. Nowadays, one part of this relief is preserved in Museum de Scheper (Eibergen), albeit in a bad condition. The other part is missing. Written communication Frans Bomer, 15 June 2020. In this case, two Old Testament stories – Susanna and the Elders and Bathsheba and David – are combined to form a message cautioning against lust. Adorning the middle of the frieze is a cartouche with scrollwork in the style of Cornelis Floris (1514-1575).⁷⁷For Floris’s style, see R. Hedicke, Cornelis Floris und die Florisdekoration: Studien zur niederländischen und deutschen Kunst im XVI. Jahrhundert, Berlin 1913. Since the late Middle Ages, Utrecht was known for its production of richly ornamented sandstone friezes bearing figurative reliefs (cf. BK-NM-11962). Numerous examples dating from the 1550s and 1560s are today preserved in the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, including friezes carved in the workshop of the city’s municipal architect, Willem van Noort (active c. 1524-d. 1556).⁸⁸Cf. J. Klinckaert, De verzamelingen van het Centraal Museum Utrecht, vol. 3, Beeldhouwkunst tot 1850, coll. cat. Utrecht 1997, nos. 273, 275, 279, 282. The inhabitants of Nijmegen were well aware of the prolific activity of the Utrecht sculptors. In 1544, the task of overseeing the sculptural decoration for the facade of Nijmegen’s new Town Hall was entrusted to another native of Utrecht, the sculptor Cornelis Sass. Also involved in the project was Peter van Utrecht, a sculptor who, as his name implies, originated from the same city.⁹⁹A.G. Schulte, ‘De Nijmeegse schepenbank’, in G.T.M. Lemmens et al, Het Stadhuis van Nijmegen, exh. cat. Nijmegen (Nijmeegs Museum ‘Commanderie van Sint-Jan’) 1982, pp. 109-29, esp. p. 114.

Bieke van der Mark, 2024

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 105, with earlier literature

B. van der Mark, 2024, 'anonymous and , The Drunkenness of Noah and the History of Lot and his Daughters, Fragment of a Frieze from a Chimney-Piece, Northern Netherlands, c. 1564 - c. 1570', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20019599