The Rijksmuseum has launched the first part of its online collection catalogue of European Sculpture. The new catalogue will present a comprehensive overview of the latest scholarly insights into the Rijksmuseum’s vast and highly diverse collection of European sculpture, ranging from the Middle Ages to the present day.

Compiled by Jaap Leeuwenberg, the former curator of sculpture, the most recent published catalogue of sculpture dates from 1973. The ever-growing body of art-historical research and the long list of acquisitions made in recent decades has prompted a thorough update of Leeuwenberg’s valuable, but by now outdated reference work. Since 2009 a small team of art historians and conservation researchers have worked on the new catalogue. This research has resulted in numerous new and surprising insights that are published in this catalogue for the first time. This first part contains more than 200 medieval sculptures made in the Northern Netherlands.

In the coming months and years, systematic catalogue entries for every work in the collection will appear on the museum’s website, often accompanied by multiple views in high resolution. Netherlandish sculpture, from the Middle Ages to successive periods, forms the starting point. Sculpture from other European countries will follow thereafter.

In its final form, the catalogue will comprise over eleven hundred comprehensive entries, reflecting the in-depth and up-to-date knowledge and insights on all the objects in the collection European sculpture of the Rijksmuseum.

The catalogue is available on the Rijksmuseum website. The editors of this online catalogue are Scientific Researcher Bieke van der Mark and Head of Department of Sculpture dr. Frits Scholten.