The Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar is celebrating its 150th anniversary today. The jubilee is being given extra festive character thanks to a special new acquisition: two early-sixteenth-century panels by the Master of Alkmaar depicting four female saints. The Master of Alkmaar’s oeuvre comprises roughly twelve paintings, of which only six are held in Dutch public collections. This acquisition fulfills the museum’s long-cherished wish to add a work by this artist to its collection and return the Master of Alkmaar to the city.

The two panels, recently acquired at auction, are among the most striking and strongest-quality works by the Master of Alkmaar. On the panels are female saints in a cloister garden with exotic birds and a hilly landscape. Each saint is recognizable by an attribute: Cecilia is shown by an organ (she kept singing for God), Margaretha confronted a dragon, Lucia holds fire in her hand and gave away her wealth, and Agatha was heavily tortured — on the painting her severed breast is visible in a pair of tongs.

These panels convey a tremendous narrative power. This gives the museum the opportunity to explore the relationship between humans and faith in the late Middle Ages, and specifically to highlight the role of women in that context. The panels are now on display in the museum’s permanent collection presentation All Alkmaar.