This beautifully carved, wooden statue represents Saint Ursula. The legend of Ursula tells us that she is the daughter of a 4th century Christian king, who presses her to marry the son of a pagan ruler. Ursula, however, firstly wants to undertake a pilgrimage to Rome before marrying, in the companion of no less than 11,000 female virgins. In the Eternal City, everything goes as desired, but when they travel on to Cologne, they fall into the hands of the pagan Huns. All maidens get massacred and Ursula is shot to death by arrows.
The saint is depicted here while reading from a so-called satchel book. She originally held an arrow in her right hand, as a symbol of her martyrdom. The female figures at her feet represent only seven of Ursula’s thousands of companions. A touching detail is that some of the women seem to wrap themselves in the folds of Ursula’s dress, as if hiding from the cruel outside world.
The statue was created around 1520 by the relatively unknown Hendrick Douwermann, a woodcarver active in the region around Kalkar (in utmost western Germany). This late medieval masterpiece was acquired by the Rijksmuseum in 1975, from the private art collection of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the stories about the, almost equally legendary, Sherlock Holmes.
The statue was created around 1520 by the relatively unknown Hendrick Douwermann, a woodcarver active in the region around Kalkar (in utmost western Germany). This late medieval masterpiece was acquired by the Rijksmuseum in 1975, from the private art collection of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the stories about the, almost equally legendary, Sherlock Holmes.
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