Reliquary Bust of Saint Margaret of Antioch

c. 1470

Niclaus Gerhaert (Netherlandish, active in Germany, 1462–1473)
Workshop of Niclaus Gerhaert (Netherlandish, active in Germany, 1462–1473)

The now empty space in the chest of this bust of Saint Margaret of Antioch once displayed a relic—an object associated with a saint or martyr. Margaret’s hands rest on a book, a symbol of her piety, and a dragon, an allusion to her struggle with Satan disguised as a beast. According to legend, a dragon swallowed her whole after her conversion to Christianity, but after making the sign of the cross, she burst forth from the dragon’s belly. She later became the patron saint of women in childbirth. Niclaus Gerhaert, whose female depictions are often characterized by an oval face ending in a round, dimpled chin, introduced an unconventional naturalism into his sculptures, thereby bringing sacred figures closer to the realm of the fifteenth-century viewer.

In its original setting—the Abbey Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Wissembourg, France—this bust was likely accompanied by three others of early martyred women: saints Barbara and Catherine (now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and Agnes (Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire, UK). Both Margaret and Agnes are carved in walnut and lean forward with inclined heads, suggesting that they were originally installed next to each other and intended to be seen from below.

Status: On View, Gallery 237
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Nicolaus Gerhaert
Title: Reliquary Bust of Saint Margaret of Antioch
Place: Netherlands (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1465–1475
Medium: Wood with traces of 19th-century polychromy
Dimensions: 50.8 × 45.5 × 29.6 cm (20 × 18 × 11 5/8 in.)
Credit Line: Kate S. Buckingham Endowment
Reference Number: 1943.1001
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/48715/manifest.json

Émile Molinier, Collection Émile Gavet (Paris, 1894), p. 27, no. 71.
“Revue des Ventes: Collection de M. Doistau,” Gazette de l’hôtel Drouot, 18, 125 (November 27, 1909).
Wilhelm Vöge, “Über Nicolaus Gerhaert und Nicolaus von Hagenau (?)” Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst 24 (1913), pp. 98–101.
Stefan Roller, “Niclaus Gerhaert: Neue Impulse für die spätgotische Skulptur,” Niclaus Gerhaert der Bildhauer des Späten Mittelalters, Exh. cat. (Liehieghaus, 2012), p. 57, (ill.), p. 250, ill. 252, p. 253, (ill.).
Theodor Demmler, “Beiträge zur Kenntnis des Bildhauers Nicolaus Gerhaert von Leiden,” Jahrbuch der Preuszischen Kunstsammlungen 24 (1921), p. 29.
Otto Schmidt, Oberrheinische Plastik im ausgehenden Mittelalter (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1924), pp. 19–20, pl. 18.
Wilhelm Pinder, Die Deutsche Plastik vom ausgehenden mittelalter bis zum ende der Renaissance 2 (Wildpark-Potsdam, 1929), pp. 357, 360.
Otto Wertheimer, Nicolaus Gerhaert, seine Kunst und seine Wirkung (Berlin, 1929), pp. 75–76, 99, figs. 60, 62.
L. Fischel, “Nouvelles attributions au maître de la vierge de Dangolsheim,” Archives Alsaciennes d’historie de l’art 15 (1936), pp. 68–69.
Martin Weinberger, “A Rediscovered Gothic Bust,” The Compleat Collector 3, 10 (August 1943), p. 2 ff, pls. 1, 5.
“An Expert Eye Rescues a Rare Treasure of Art,” Chicago Daily Tribune (December 2, 1943).
“Remodeled Bust of St. Margaret at Art Institute,” Chicago Sun (January 31, 1944).
Oswald Goetz and Meyeric Rogers, “A Medieval Masterpiece Rediscovered,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 38, 4 (April – May 1944), p. 54 ff.
Helen Comstock, “Discovery of a Sculpture by Nikolaus Gerhaert of Leyden,” Connoisseur 113, 492 (June 1944), p. 113.
Art Institute of Chicago, An Illustrated Guide to the Collections of the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, 1945), p. 19 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, “Great Medieval Art for Chicago,” The Art Institute of Chicago: The Year 1944 (1945), p. 3.
Meyeric Rogers and Oswald Goetz, Handbook to the Lucy Maud Buckingham Medieval Collection (Chicago, 1945), p. 63, no. 12, pls. 17,18, 19.
American Correspondent, “Medieval Sculpture in the Buckingham Collection,” Connoisseur 120, 505 (September 1947), pp. 50–51, figs. 3, 4.
Richard S. Davis, “Masterpieces of Sculpture,” Bulletin of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts 38, 29 (November 1949), p. 156, no. 23.
Walter Paatz, Süddeutsche Schnitzaltäre der Spätgotik (Heidelberg, 1963), pp. 95–96.
Harald Keller, “Der Flügelaltar als Reliquienschrein,” Studien zur Geschichte der europäischen Plastik, Festschrift Theodor Müller zum 19 April 1965, edited by Theodor Müller (Munich, 1965), pp. 135–36.
Theodor Müller, Sculpture in the Netherlands, Germany, France, and Spain, 1400 to 1500 (Baltimore, 1966), p. 107.
Ernst Petrasch, “Spätgotik am Oberrhein: Meisterwerk der Plastik und des Kunsthandwerks 1450–1530,” Jahrbuch der Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen in Baden-Württemberg 9 (1972), pp. 100–02.
Roland Recht, “Une sculpture Alsacienne du XVe siècle au Musée de Boston,” Cahiers Alsaciens d’archéologie d’art et d’histoire 17 (1973), p. 98, fig. 4.
Alfred Schädler, “Studien zu Nicolaus Gerhaert von Leiden. Die Nördlinger Hochaltarfiguren und die Dangolsheimer Muttergottes in Berlin,” Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 16 (1974), pp. 77-79, fig. 31.
Jörg Rosenfeld, Die Weissenburger Büsten von Niclaus von Leiden und seiner Strassburger Werkstatt, master’s thesis (University of Hamburg, 1986), pp. 46–48, 64–70 ff, pls. 1-6.
Roland Recht, Nicolas de Leyde et la sculpture à Strasbourg, 1460-1525 (Strasbourg, 1987), p. 344, no. I.09, pls. 32, 34.
Jörg Rosenfeld, “Niclaus Gerhaert von Leiden in Straßburg: Bemerkungen zum Bürger, Künstler, und Werk unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Weißenburger Büsten,” Jahrbuch der Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Baden-Württemberg, 32 (1995), pp. 14-17, 19, fig. 1.
Dorothy Gillerman, ed., Gothic Sculpture in America, vol. 2: The Museums of the Midwest (Turnhout, Belgium, 2001), pp. 28-30, no. 21.
Christina M. Nielsen, ed. Devotion and Splendor: Medieval Art at the Art Institute of Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 30, 2 (2004), p. 16, 81-82.
William D. Wixom, “Late Medieval Sculpture in the Metropolitan: 1400-1530,” Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, 64 (2007), pp. 24-25, fig. 10.
Stefan Roller, “Niclaus Gerhaert. Neue Impulse für die spätgotische Skulptur” in Niclaus Gerhaert, der Bildhauer des späten Mittelalters, exh. cat., Frankfurt, Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung, 2011, p. 57, fig. 34.
Harald Thiess, “Die Holzbildwerke Niclaus Gerhaerts und seines Künstlerischen Umfeldes. Technologiische Beobachtungen zum Bildträgeraufbau und zur Fassung” in Niclaus Gerhaert, der Bildhauer des späten Mittelalters, exh. cat., Frankfurt, Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung, 2011, pp. 167-70/
James Rondeau, ed., Highlights of the Art Institute of Chicago (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2026), 53, 257, no. 32, (ill.).

Minneapolis Institute of Arts, “Masterpieces of Sculpture,” 2 November – 11 December 1949, cat. 23.
Karlsruhe, Badisches Landesmuseum, “Spätgotik am Oberrhein,” 4 July – 5 October 1970, cat. 25.
Moscow, State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, “Decorative-Applied Art from Late Antiquity to the Late Gothic Style,” 14 May - 14 July 1990, and the Hermitage Museum, Leningrad, 14 August - 14 October 1990, cat. 68.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Devotion and Splendor: Medieval Art at the Art Institute of Chicago, September 25, 2004-January 3, 2005, cat. 56.
Frankfurt, Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung, Niclaus Gerhaert, der Bildhauer des späten Mittelalters, October 27, 2011-March 4, 2012, no. 9c; travelled to Strasbourg, Musée de l’Oeuvre Notre-Dame, March 30-July 7, 2012, cat. 5

Benedictine church of Saints Peter and Paul, Weißenburg (Wissembourg, Bas-Rhin), 1465-70, possibly as part of a retable [based on a plaster cast of this and three other busts in the Musée de l’Oeuvre de Notre Dame, Strasbourg catalogued in 1868 as being from Saints Peter and Paul, Wissembourg; see Weinberger 1943, Goetz and Rogers 1944, and Rosenfeld 1995]. Émile Gavet, Paris, by 1894 [see Molinier 1894]. Félix Doistau, Paris, by 1909; sold, his estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, November 20–21, 1909, lot 414, as “Buste-applique,” to M. (Paul?) Drey for 4,600 francs [see Gazette de l’hôtel Drouot, November 27, 1909]. William Randolph Hearst, New York and San Simeon, by 1910 [see Weinberger 1943, Goetz and Rogers, 1944, Rosenfeld 1986, Recht 1987, and Gillerman 2001]. Gimbel Brothers (agent for Armand Hammer Galleries), New York, by 1943 [see invoice, 23 September 1943, and letter from Meyric Rogers to Oswald Goetz, 9 August 1943, in curatorial file]. Sold by Gimbel Brothers to the Art Institute, 1943.

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