page_title: Willem van den Broecke
section_title: Work
hierarchical_section_title: Willem van den Broecke / Work
context_page_description: Willem van den Broecke, Willem van den Broeck or Guillelmus Paludanus was a Flemish sculptor, painter, draughtsman and architect. He was a scion of a family of artists, which had its origins in Mechelen and some members of which later moved to Antwerp. Willem was active in Antwerp and also worked and likely trained in Italy for a long period. He was known for his small scale works, many of which were executed in alabaster. He was, along with Cornelis Floris, the leading sculptor in Antwerp in the second half of the 16th century. He was also one of the designers of the Antwerp City Hall. He enjoyed the patronage of an elite international clientele of church institutions, Spanish nobility, princes of Protestant territories as well as patricians from Augsburg.
context_section_description: Willem van den Broecke was a prolific artist who was active as a sculptor, painter, draughtsman and architect.  Van den Broecke was a varied sculptor who worked in many materials including alabaster, marble, sandstone, wax and terracotta. His subject matter ranged from religious to mythological representations and portraits.  He created large-scale works such as retables, partitions and fireplaces.  He was particularly known in Antwerp for his small images, jewelry for cabinets of curiosities and the sculpted decorations of facades.
  Van den Broecke's surviving works in his home country are relatively few. There are busts of Jan van Eyck and Albrecht Dürer that he made for the portal of Jan Adriaenssen's house in the Lange Nieuwstraat in Antwerp (now in the collection of the Museum aan de Stroom, Antwerp). He is further known as one of the designers of the Antwerp City Hall.  The majority of his output was produced for the export market such as various religious reliefs that were made for Augsburg, Schwerin and Lübeck. His most important lost work was exported to the monastery church in Alba de Tormes in Spain.
  He was particularly known for his small-scale works, often executed in alabaster for which his native town Mechelen was famous. His earliest known work is the Cypris and Eros (1561, private collection).  This small-scale marble statue was made not long after his return from Italy and shows the influence of Michelangelo's allegorical statues on tombs in Florence as well as Titian's Danaë. At the same time the nude figure prefigures the voluptuous beauties of the Flemish painters Rubens and Jordaens. Ten years later van den Broecke made the terracotta Anatomical study (Kunsthistorisches Museum), an écorché of a standing man.  He is leaning against a tree trunk from which hangs the man's skin.  In his right hand he holds the instrument with which he was skinned, a knife without a blade.  In his left hand he holds part of his skin. The figure represents possibly Saint Bartholomew. An écorché such as this work was unprecedented in Flemish sculpture of the 16th century. A similar figure executed in bronze has been attributed to van den Broecke (Christie's New York auction of 29 January 2014).
  Alabaster was one of his favorite materials in which he executed small-scale statuettes as well as larger religious reliefs. Characteristic of these reliefs is that the three-dimensional figures in the foreground are almost completely set off from the pronounced bas-relief of the background. His relief technique was likely gained mostly from his contact with the work of Andrea Sansovino and his pupil Jacopo Sansovino. In his reliefs he quoted antique and Italian motifs he would have seen in Italy. In his view of Jerusalem in the background of the Crucifixion of 1562 (Maximilian Museum in Augsburg) he depicted buildings of a specific city, Florence.
  He made various reliefs of Calvaries (depictions of the Crucifixion of Christ) in alabaster. These were likely destined for private devotion in residential homes (Maximilian Museum, Augsburg and Louvre Museum, Paris). His oldest alabaster relief is the Crucifixion of Christ, dated 1560 (Maximilian Museum in Augsburg). It was part of a retable of van den Broecke that was originally commissioned in 1560 by Bartholomeus May and his wife Sibilla Rembold for the Dominican church in Augsburg. The other parts of the retable include the Last Supper, the Sacrifice of Abraham, the Sacrifice of Melchizedek and the Resurrection of Christ (all in the Maximilian Museum in Augsburg). The Maximilian Museum holds another alabaster relief of the Crucifixion of Christ, signed and dated 1562, which was likely made for a private residence. It has its counterpart in a Crucifixion in the Louvre.
  Van den Broecke made a second set of reliefs for the German market.  This set was made for the chapel of the Schwerin Palace that was rebuilt by John Albert I, Duke of Mecklenburg in the period from 1560 to 1563.  Of the six reliefs only one, representing The Elevation of the Brazen Serpent, is signed by van den Broecke
caption: The Resurrection of Christ
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