Northern European Sculpture to 1600
- Comments
-
Glasgow Museums has a collection of approximately 165 northern European sculptures which date from between AD 1100 and 1600. This collection includes sculpted works from various northern European countries, mostly carved from ivory, stone and wood. The works vary in scale from tiny ivory items in low relief to fine polychrome wood carvings and almost three-dimensional life-sized stone sculptures, many of which were originally made as architectural ornamentation for religious buildings. Most items include figural decoration, but a few are limited to naturalistic details and/or lettering. The main countries represented within this collection group include France, Germany, Austria, Flanders, and the Southern Netherlands (incorporating modern-day Belgium). Because of the political situation in northern Europe during the medieval period, state boundaries were constantly changing, so firmly attributing artefacts to schools of artists or even specific areas is often difficult. Consequently, alternative attributions are currently on record for many sculptures in this group, and few are attributed to individual named masters. Despite this the collection is, both technically and stylistically, an extremely fine representative group of European medieval sculpture.
- Broader term
- Staff Contact