The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 13, 2025

Two alabaster cream-white figurines positioned turned in slightly towards each other and draped in robes with flowing folds. The figurine to our left has its left hand broken off and hair that curls around the ears and a beard. The right figurine has short hair wound in tight curls around the scalp.

Two Standing Apostles (probably Saint John the Evangelist and St. Paul)

c. 1430

Master of the Saint-Omer Apostles

(Southern Netherlandish, active Bruges?)
Southern Netherlands or Northern France
Alabaster
Overall: 23.7 x 9.3 x 5.8 cm (9 5/16 x 3 11/16 x 2 5/16 in.); Overall: 23.7 x 10.2 x 5.9 cm (9 5/16 x 4 x 2 5/16 in.)
Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund 2022.41
Location: 109 Gothic Painting and Sculpture

Did You Know?

Alabaster is very soft; after 20 minutes of treatment with water the surface will dissolve.

Description

The two sculptures come from an altarpiece in the cathedral of Saint Omer in northern France. Four other figures have been preserved there, and possibly one at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The workshop was probably located in Bruges, in what is now Belgium. Sculpture was the leading art genre at that time. The specialized workshops obtained the stone alabaster from distant quarries, in this case from the area of Würzburg in Bavaria (Germany), to form it intricately and deliver it to customers in almost all of Europe.
  • Saint-Omer Cathedral, France
    1864-
    Collection of Augustin Ozenfant (1834-1894), Lille, France, by descent to Chanoine Paul Bernard
    -1962
    Chanoine Paul Bernard, Lille, France
    -1971
    Dr. Albert Habart, Calais, France
    -1973
    Julius Böhler, Munich
    1973-
    David and Louise Carter, New Haven, CN
    -2022
    Sam Fogg, London, England, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    2022-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Van Drival, Eugène. Catalogue de l'exposition d'objets d'art religieux: ouverte à Lille en 1874. Bishops Stortford, Herts: Chadwyck-Healey, 1874. nos. 554 and 555
    Kunsthalle Köln, Schnütgen-Museum, Belgium, and Musées royaux d'art et d'histoire (Belgium). Rhein Und Maas: Kunst Und Kultur, 800-1400. 1972.
    Steyaert, John William, and Monique Tahon-Vanroose. Late Gothic Sculpture: The Burgundian Netherlands. Ghent: Ludion Press, 1994. p. 327
    Lutz, Gerhard. “Two Standing Apostles.“ In Riemenschneider and Late Medieval Alabaster, edited by Aumaine Rose Smith, 128-135. Cleveland, Lewes: The Cleveland Museum of Art; D Giles Limited, 2023. Mentioned: p. 128, 134-135; Reproduced: p. 129-133, nos. 8-9
  • Riemenschneider and Late Medieval Alabaster. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 26-July 23, 2023).
    The Medieval Body, Sam Fogg, Luhring Augustine, New York, NY (January 21-March 12, 2022).
    Exposition D’objets D'art Religieux, Lille, l'Hôtel de l'ancienne Préfecture du Nord (14 June – 13 July 1874).
  • {{cite web|title=Two Standing Apostles (probably Saint John the Evangelist and St. Paul)|url=false|author=Master of the Saint-Omer Apostles|year=c. 1430|access-date=13 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2022.41