Master of Alkmaar: Saints Agatha and Lucia and Saints Cecilia and Margaret
Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar is celebrating its 150th anniversary, making it one of the oldest urban museums in the Netherlands. The anniversary will have an extra festive character thanks to a special new acquisition: two early sixteenth-century panels by the Master of Alkmaar with four female saints. This acquisition fulfills a long-cherished wish of the museum: to add a work by this artist to the collection. The panels can be seen from today in the exhibition Allemaal Alkmaar.
| Meet the Master of Alkmaar |
Works by the mysterious Master of Alkmaar are extremely rare and rarely appear on the market. His oeuvre comprises about twelve paintings, only six of which are present in Dutch public collections. He takes his name from The Seven Works of Mercy in the Rijksmuseum collection, which hung for a long time in the Grote of Sint-Laurenskerk and is considered one of the most iconic works in Alkmaar history. With the purchase of the two panels featuring four female saints, it feels as if the Master of Alkmaar is returning to the city.
The two panels, recently acquired at auction, are among the most appealing and highest quality works by the Master of Alkmaar. The panels depict female saints in a monastery garden with exotic birds and a hilly landscape. Each saint is identified by an attribute: Cecilia continued to sing to God and is depicted at an organ, Margaret defied a dragon, Lucia has fire in her hand and gave away her wealth, and Agatha was severely tortured - the painting shows her severed breast in tongs.
The two panels by the Master of Alkmaar are now on display in the permanent exhibition ‘All Alkmaar’!
| Courtesy of This purchase was made possible thanks to the support of the Rembrandt Association (thanks in part to its Medieval and Renaissance Theme Fund and its Friends Lottery Acquisition Fund), the Mondrian Fund (the public fund for visual art and cultural heritage in the Netherlands and the Caribbean part of the Kingdom) and the Friends of Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar. |
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