Netherlandish sculpture of the sixteenth century, as Kavaler notes, has taken a back seat to studies of Netherlandish painting – and to sixteenth-century German sculpture as well. This book forms a welcome addition to the rising body of scholarship in this field, joining the recently published monographs on major sculptors and studies of Netherlandish wooden altarpieces, alabasters, sculpted portraits, metalwork, and boxwood carvings. Kavaler’s book does not survey the material but examines key genres in sculpture with special attention to the rise of Renaissance style and the migration of Netherlandish sculptors across Europe. Although the title might suggest otherwise, Kavaler is not particularly interested in independent statues. His long-term interest in ornament and architecture gives this book a focus on sculptures that integrate figures into complex structures, and on examining the impact of these structures on the beholder. This book builds on Kavaler’s previous publications, and its spectacular photographs, all taken by the author, together with the author’s insightful analyses, greatly advance our understanding and appreciation of these important works.

Chapter One treats carved altarpieces, which by the late fifteenth century had become the paradigmatic form of church furnishing in the Lowlands, as well as a major export product. Although these works resisted Renaissance trends and retained Gothic ornament and compartmentalized rather than unified space, Kavaler exposes the reasons for their appeal: their miniaturized scale allows viewers to immerse themselves in the scenes; the intricate details of the carving created a vividness that stirs viewers’ emotions; and their exquisite architectural ornament and craftsmanship elevates the scenes depicted into a higher, mystical realm. In addition, these altarpieces were sites for the depictions of narratives in which the viewer was invited to participate emotionally and to witness the unfolding of time as God does, in the single vision of an eternal present. Kavaler’s photographs in this chapter are particularly effective in showing the works’ lavish detail as well as some beautiful, well-preserved examples of original polychromy.

Chapter Two focuses on the introduction of antique (Renaissance) style into Netherlandish sixteenth-century sculpture, one of the central stylistic developments of this period. But Kavaler does not address this just as a formal issue; instead, he emphasizes the multiple meanings antique style could play beyond an intellectual and aesthetic connection with the ancient past. In the first part of the chapter, which considers noble tombs with Italianate design (including works by Jean Mone and Conrat Meit), Kavaler examines how antique style can be used to evoke military and political power. Later, Kavaler focuses on antique style within alabasters, including the masterful reliefs of Jacques Du Broecq for the choir screen of Saint Waudru at Mons, which exploit contrasts of two-dimensionality and three-dimensionality to convey religious power and triumph.

Chapter Three treats the role of Netherlandish sculptors in producing tombs for rulers in central Europe in the second half of the century. At this time rulers – including both the Lutherans of Germany, Denmark, and Sweden, and the Catholics in Germany – vied with one another to create tomb monuments, some free-standing, some wall tombs, that would assert their power, lineage, and religious values. One important sculptor producing classicizing tombs for Baltic rulers was Cornelis II Floris of Antwerp, who made caryatids a mainstay of his tomb designs. Kavaler argues that these feminine forms in tombs carried implications of female subjugation, which – along with the presence of masculine Roman warriors in works such as Floris’s Tomb of Christian II of Denmark – created gendered content in central European tomb design exactly when the power of women rulers was generating tension among their male rivals. Particularly compelling here is Kavaler’s interpretation of the sexualized imagery of virtues in the Tomb of Philipp the Magnanimous in Kassel as projecting the concept of male sexual dominance as a sign of effective rule.

Chapter Four turns from altarpieces and tombs to an examination of other forms of church furnishings, particularly sacrament houses, pulpits, choir screens, and choir stalls, important features of church decoration that have survived in limited numbers. Among key works considered here is Cornelis II Floris’s sacrament house at Zoutleeuw, the earliest surviving sacrament house to incorporate the antique manner. Cornelis II Floris was also responsible for one of the most important sixteenth-century choir screens, in the Cathedral at Tournai, which has triple vaults and roundels similar to the Arch of Constantine, which Kavaler reads as making the screen a triumphant celebration of the true (Catholic) religion as well as an assertion of the importance of Tournai in the face of its diminished political and religious authority. The choir stalls at Saint Gertrude at Leuven have connections to carved altarpieces, which would have been interesting to explore here.

Chapter Five considers the topic of civic sculpture, opening with a study of the mantelpiece to Charles V in the Bruges Liberty designed by Lancelot Blondeel. This mantelpiece demonstrates how sculpture functions in relation to theater and the pageantry of triumphal entries of rulers; it also exemplifies how ornament and material contribute to the communication of political meaning. Other civic genres treated in this chapter include benches for civic leaders, portals, as well as individual statues, most notably the controversial bronze statue of the Duke of Alva, Spanish ruler over the Southern Netherlands, by Jacques Jonghelinck. As Kavaler shows, this work, criticized by both Protestants and Catholics alike and eventually destroyed, has a powerful political iconography, showing the Duke holding the baton of command above a two-headed figure, symbolizing the people and nobles of the Netherlands, which carries a broken hammer, axe, and torch, referencing their iconoclastic destruction of churches and images along with the burning of churches – all acts  which the Duke of Alva had forcefully suppressed on behalf of the Spanish monarchy.

The book’s final chapter addresses the migration of Netherlandish sculptors out of the Low Countries in the second half of the century. The reasons they spread throughout Europe and even farther afield included iconoclastic rioting at home, the need for very well-capitalized patrons, the decline of the market for sculpture in the antique style in the Netherlands, and the appreciation of their skills, especially in tomb design, abroad. Given the inclusion of sculptures produced abroad in previous chapters, this chapter sits a bit awkwardly within the book’s structure. But the closing section on Netherlandish artists working in Italy, especially Adriaen de Vries, brings the author’s concerns with the role of the antique in Netherlandish sculpture to a nice conclusion.

Kavaler is one of the premier scholars on Netherlandish sixteenth-century sculpture, and this book brings together his insights over many years of working on these materials, providing a very useful overview of a wide body of works in a broad variety of sculptural genres and materials. More in-depth studies of some of the monuments and artists treated in this book are found in Kavaler’s earlier articles, cited in the bibliography, such as: his article on the Bruges Mantelpiece in the Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art (2017); his  “Jan Borman the Storyteller,” in the 2019 Borman exhibition catalogue; and his “Mapping Time” The Carved Netherlandish Altarpiece in the Sixteenth Century” (2017).

Lynn F. Jacobs
University of Arkansas