Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie (30.1989)

fts well as the Pieta kept at one time in the collection in Bonn (the present place of preservation
is unknown) to the artist whom he identifierl with a German goldsmith in Cologne — Master
Gusmin. This artist is known most oft.cn as the Master of the Crucifixion of Rimini) (the na me
resulting from the identification of two separately claborated groups making up the big scenę
of the Crucifixion — with the Thieves and other personages from Calvary — coming from a little
church near Rimini (now, in Liebighaus in Frankfort on the Main).

However, the identification of the Master of the Crucifixion of Rimini with Master Gusmin is
no longer accepted. Verdier writes: „Tnstead of supposing a German wandering in Italy and
carving alabaster groups there, one must now admit the existence of an active export trade of
German alabasters. These were carved in the Middle Rhine region, as is the case for our group
of Pieta alabasters, but also other statuettes, groups and reliefs, were carved in Westphalia and
Swabia, and sold in Eastern Germany, Ttaly, Northern and North-Eastern France. Ali this is
abundantly proved by doeuments"11.

Verdier notes the similarity between the facial ehareteristies of Christ and of the Virgin Mary
of the Louvre Pieta12, which could also have been a German export to Northern Italy, and
the Baltimore Pieta. Still a new addition to the group of Pietas is one acąuired by the Victoria
and Albert Museum in 1960 and exhibited in Vienna in 1962 at the exhibition Europaische
Kunst urn 140013. According to Verdier, the origin of thesc important alabaster carvings seems
to have been connected with Rimini because in that town there was at time of the tyrant Sigis-
mondo Malatesta (1417—1468) a colony of German tradesmen who commissioned images of
devotion in their native land. The German alabasters, which appeared first around 1380, became
rapidly produced in series, like the English alabaster of Nottingham. Like them, they are to be
considered the agents of diffusion of certain stock formulae which reinforced unity of design in
the International Style after 1400. The Baltimore Pieta disseussed by Verdier seems to be a good
example of this process14.

A different opinion about the Rimini Master was expressed by Carmen Gómez-Moreno in
a catalogue Mediaeml Art from Prwate Collections. A Special Exhibition at the Cloisters15: „The
origin of this highly influential artist seems to be uncertain although most probably, he came
from the Netherlands".

Speaking of the alabaster figures of Christ-Pantocrator with the Apostles, Gómez-Moreno
defines them as „Lower Rhenish or Netherlandish, middle of the 15th century". These small-
scale works of remarkable artistic value with the characteristic plinth must have been related
to the workshop of the Rimini Master, although their sculptural style points to a later date10.
In this sense, also the Warsaw Resurrection, however belónging to a different artistic world,
mirrors the style of the Rimini Master. Peter Meyer wrote: „In the 80s of the 14th century the
mirror surface of this idealistic world becomes disturbed by the first chill of cold realism. Figures
are now equipped with the ugly noses and rude gestures as well as other detailed realistic features,
however, without a larger detriment to the generał impression"17. In the Resurrection group
in the National Museum in Warsaw these two tendencies, the idealistic and the realistic one,
mutually compete. The former appears in the refined convention of sorrowful Mary and the
gesture of St. John holding the drapery of the shroud. The latter one manifests itself by the
instillation of pedestrian elements as well as the „Apostolic" rather than „Christ-like" type
of Jesus.

11. Ph. Verdier, op. ch., p. 98

12. Ibid.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid.

15. C. Gómez-Moreno, op. cit. No 47.

16. Ibid.

17. P. Meyer, Europaische Kunslgelćhlchte, I. Zurich (after Tolish ediLion, Warszawa, 1973, p. 216)

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