Anyone visiting for the first time the medieval parish church of All Saints at Pocklington, East Yorkshire, is in for a surprise. The most dominant (and distinguished) of its contents is the large oak altarpiece carved with the Crucifixion, flanked by the Carrying of the Cross and the Pietà and with further scenes on the predella below. The narratives are presented as a series of dramatic tableaux garnished by filigree-like frames and canopies. It is not of English origin, nor did it find its way to Pocklington until around the middle of the nineteenth century; however, it represents a kind of altarpiece which, together with numerous devotional images, was either imported into England from the Netherlands or made here by immigrant craftsmen from this region before the Reformation. Sadly, these have left few traces other than in documentary sources, but there is compensation for this dearth in the large quantity of wooden religious sculptures that came to England during the nineteenth century. These are the principal subject of this book, which has its origin in the author’s 1988 doctoral thesis. That it has not been rushed into print, and the author has had time to reflect and benefit both from new discoveries and recent work in the field, is unusual given today’s pressure to publish dissertations immediately. Its size and presentation – indeed its very publication – are testament yet again to the debt owed by medievalists of all hues to Shaun Tyas.

The book consists of a catalogue prefaced by three chapters. The first of these surveys the materials, techniques, organization of workshops, quality-control systems (where known) and principal centres of production in what is loosely the Low Countries. As the author points out, how this area is defined presents a host of problems. Not only are the modern political configurations very different from those of the fifteenth and first half of the sixteenth centuries, even in the latter period they were frequently changing. Woods’s spread is geographically wide and extends into the Lower Rhine and Picardy. The major centres were the Brabant cities of Brussels, Antwerp and Mechelen, particularly for carved altarpieces like that at Pocklington. The author is, however, careful to point out that the picture may be distorted by accident of survival and loss both of works of art and of documentation, and she is at pains to cite cities such as Bruges, Leuven and Tournai. The written sources for the organization and regulation of the craft have largely come down to us only from the late fifteenth century onwards and we should be wary about assuming that the same structures were in place earlier. The author is au fait with the most recent researches in this field and the chapter is a very useful and succinct account of late Gothic sculpture in the region.

Some discussion of the rationale behind the chronological span of the study might have been enlightening, although the terminus ante of c 1550 is covered obliquely in the Preface. A map showing the main centres of carving activity would have been even more helpful. If the first chapter is largely a work of synthesis (and none the worse for that), the other two are the products of the author’s own researches. The second is concerned with the evidence for Netherlandish sculpture in late medieval England, a field that hitherto has attracted less attention than those of tapestries, stained glass and manuscript illumination. Sadly, this is almost entirely restricted to documentary records, notably from shipping manifests. Notwithstanding the chapter title, its scope extends beyond imported works to include the output of Netherlandish craftsmen resident in England. Again, this is largely predicated on written sources, which are very thoroughly surveyed. One difficulty with the documentation is the looseness of the label ‘Dutch’ or ‘Deutsch’: it does not necessarily denote someone of Netherlandish origin, but rather of the Holy Roman Empire in general. Woods also considers the much-debated question of the possible involvement of Netherlandish carvers in stone sculpture in the Oxford Divinity School and Henry VII’s Chapel, Westminster Abbey. She is rightly wary of being too definite: ‘it is almost impossible to say where the work is by English carvers influenced by the Netherlands or by Netherlandish carvers adapting their style to the tastes of English clients’.

Surprisingly, the Virgin and Child and other stone figurative sculptures at Winchester and a fine prelate-saint at Westminster Abbey are omitted from the discussion. Even more surprising is the relegation to a few lines in this chapter of the magnificent stone figure of the Dead Christ belonging to the Mercers’ Company, the most unequivocally extant Netherlandish sculpture executed in England. There is a much fuller account in the catalogue (no. 74), where it is out of place. Chapter 3 is an excellent preface to the catalogue and is an important contribution to knowledge of English taste and collecting in the nineteenth century; it also sheds light on the role of art in religion in this period. Woods traces how the market in Netherlandish ecclesiastical art was initially created by the closure of religious houses following the annexation of Belgium by the French revolutionary army in 1795. Some English collectors acquired works in person, but for the most part they were purchased from London auction houses and dealers. Prominent among the collectors were A W N Pugin and the Lancashire Catholic, Charles Scarisbrick. The former’s motivation is considered in some depth. The author considers that it was a combination of his belief in Gothic architecture and ecclesiastical artefacts as manifestations of true (ie Roman Catholic) Christianity, his desire to provide models for contemporary church furnishings and the wish to make available to the English Catholic community what they (and he) perceived to be the kinds of devotional aids valorized by the medieval Church. The major collections at Oscott College and Birmingham Roman Catholic Cathedral are monuments to Pugin’s taste.

Arguably of greater importance in the acquisition of Netherlandish carving by English collectors were the Catholic Relief Act (1791) and the Catholic Emancipation Act (1829). As a result of these, many leading Catholic families acquired late medieval sculpture for their chapels; notable examples were the Bedingfields (Oxburgh Hall) and their Norfolk neighbours, the Jerninghams of Costessey Hall; many of the works included in the catalogue still belong, or formerly belonged, to Catholic families. Mary Shepard has argued that the arrangement of the extensive collection of medieval French and German glass formerly in the Costessey chapel was determined partly by liturgical considerations and was partly an assertion of Roman Catholic continuity with a medieval past and a visual landmark in the struggle for Catholic emancipation; the late Gothic continental sculpture here expressed the same ideology (Shepard Reference Shepard1995). The acquisition and use of Netherlandish sculpture were by no means the exclusive preserve of the recusant community. Woods shows how it appealed to the Camden Society and its contribution to High Church worship. Two new churches in the Tractarian stronghold of Brighton possessed Netherlandish carved altarpieces, one of which is still in place.

The catalogue is the heart of the book and by far the longest section. There are 109 fully illustrated entries, each consisting of description, dimensions, present location, provenance (in almost every case nothing is known of the original location) and discussion of date, origin and (where possible) attribution. The theft of the Passion panels at Stowlangtoft (Suffolk) in 1977 accounts for the concealment of some works under deliberately vague labels such as ‘Collection in the north west’; fortunately the Stowlangtoft carvings were returned in 1990. The author demonstrates her formidable knowledge of the material, which is no mean achievement. Late Gothic Netherlandish sculpture is a difficult field: there are very few works which can be attributed to carvers on grounds other than style, and problems are exacerbated when comparisons have to be made between statues which have been stripped of their original polychrome and those which retain it. Dating is almost wholly dependent on stylistic comparison, which can be problematic when the object of comparison itself is not securely dated. It would therefore have been helpful to have some indication as to the temporal parameters of a dating such as c 1490 (cat. no. 16). Present emplacement within places of worship can be indicative of function and reception in the nineteenth century; sometimes this information is provided, but not always – the arrangement of the Stowlangtoft series in the chancel is a case in point. Although the date-range for the catalogued items is c 1400–c 1550, most are assigned to the last quarter of the fifteenth century onwards, with the largest concentration falling between c 1500 and c 1525; less than a dozen are considered to date from the first half of the fifteenth century. A few Mannerist works from the end of the period creep in under the ‘Gothic’ label.

Wood is overwhelmingly the most common material. As the title leads the reader to suppose, Netherlandish centres and carvers account for the vast majority of the catalogue entries. At the core are a dozen elaborate altarpieces, including that at Pocklington, half of them still in Catholic hands. With one exception (no. 66), they bear the marks of either Brussels or Antwerp. A number of other entries consist of membra disiecta from altarpieces. If these are relatively formulaic in design, the quality of their carving is often high, and where the original gilding and polychromy are preserved, they are impressive works of art. There are few items which connoisseurs would rank as outstanding. Pride of place perhaps goes to the only signed work: the exquisite miniature boxwood Mary Magdalene at Oscott College by Jan van Steffeswert of Maastricht. Other works of distinction include two other Oscott pieces: the Virgin and Child on a Crescent Moon, and the characterful St Ursula, attributed in the catalogue to the Master of Oostham from the Limbourg area. I was also taken by two more works in Birmingham, both in the possession of the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St Chad: a re-polychromed Virgin and Child from the north Netherlands and the pulpit from St Gertrude’s Abbey, Leuven, one of the very few items whose original provenance seems secure. The four Apostles at Dorking are distinguished examples of the International Gothic style; they are assigned to the Master of Hakendover from Brabant and dated c 1415–20. Works like these rub shoulders with some oddballs which are hard to place: the strange stone St Anne and the Virgin in York Minster is one example. The author raises doubts over the authenticity of some items, such as the Crucified Christ in St Chad’s Cathedral, Birmingham, and the Virgin and Child with St Anne at Exeter.

Conceptually the catalogue is not entirely problem-free. Firstly, the geographical boundaries of what is included and what is excluded appear to be somewhat elastic. There are a number of items that are assigned to carvers and/or regions which fall outside the ‘historical’ Netherlands, even leaving aside Picardy and the Lower Rhine, to which I have already referred. Cat. no. 72 is attributed to a carver from either Lübeck or Schleswig-Holstein, no. 65 possibly to north-west Germany and no. 95 to south Germany. Then there is the Mercers’ Christ, which has been shoehorned into the catalogue. Other criteria for inclusion are also uncertain. If the miniature boxwood Virgin and Child by Jan van Steffeswert comes within the terms of reference, why not the considerable numbers of exquisite southern Netherlandish boxwood rosary beads and miniature altarpieces which are to be found in private collections and museums in England (see Henry Moore Institute 1999)? The mention of museums raises a related question. In the preface, the reader is told that the catalogue includes works in English churches ‘or collections accessible to the general public’. Items in public collections, such as the Bowes Museum, Towneley Hall at Burnley and Moyses Hall at Bury St Edmunds, are indeed present, but not the important holdings of the Victoria and Albert Museum. The author notes that Paul Williamson has already published a catalogue of some of the V&A’s Netherlandish sculpture, but it is not all-inclusive. Quite apart from the intrinsic interest of the objects themselves, the history of their acquisition by the V&A presumably is of relevance to this study.

It would be very misleading, however, to end this review on a critical note. Imported Images is a tour de force: it is inconceivable that it will ever be surpassed. Anyone interested in the diverse fields of north European late Gothic art, English collecting and taste and the histories of both the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church in the nineteenth century will be indebted to the author – and to her publisher.