Claus de Werve

In 1396 he became the assistant to his uncle, Claus Sluter at the Burgundian court in Dijon, France. He helped his uncle carve the mourners on the tomb of Philip the Bold. Upon Sluter's death in 1406 he took over the position of Chief Sculptor at the court.

The recorded working language is Dutch. Places of work recorded in the authority are Dijon. Work by Claus de Werve is recorded in the collections of Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cleveland Museum of Art and Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon.

• Name — Claus de Werve • Born — c. 1380 • Birthplace — Haarlem • Died — 1439 • Place of death — Dijon • Other Names — Claux de Werve • Occupation — sculptor

Claus de Werve served at uncle Claus Sluter's workshop in Dijon as a sixteen-year-old sculptor's apprentice. There he worked on Sluter's most famous work, the Well of Moses. After Sluter's death in 1406, de Werve served Duke Jean the Good and his son Philip the Bold as "tailleur d'ymages et varlet de chambre". Between 1406 and 1410, he assisted with the completion of the tomb of Philip the Bold in Champmol (now the Musée Archéologique, Dijon), on which the sculptors Jean de Marville and Sluter had earlier worked. He is considered the author of the alabaster figures of Mourners of Dijon. Their conception is characterised by the individualisation of the monks and the expressive rendering of their draperies. De Werve travelled to Savoy in 1408 at the invitation of Duke Amadeus VIII and probably worked at Sainte-Chapelle in Chambéry. He lived in Paris between 1400 and 141. Claus de Werve died in 1439 and was succeeded as court sculptor by Jean de la Huerta (d. 1462).

• Saint Paul, c. 1420–30, Metropolitan Museum of Art

• Illustration — Saint Paul, c. 1420–30, Metropolitan Museum of Art • Illustration — Saint Barbara, mid-15th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art

• The Well of Moses (1396-1405), collaboration with Claus Sluter. De Werve particularly sculpted the weeping angels. • The Tomb of Philip the Bold (1406-1410), begun by Jean de Marville and Claus Sluter and completed by de Werve, who sculpted the angels and almost all of the mourners • Virgin and Child of Poligny, c. 1415–17, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

• Illustration — Annunciation, Saint-Seine-l'Abbaye, France • Illustration — Saint Peter, c. 1410-20, Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, Netherlands • Illustration — Virgin and Child, Musée Rolin, Burgundy, France. • Illustration — Virgin and Child of Poligny, c. 1415–17, Metropolitan Museum, NYC • Illustration — Saint Michel, from the funerary monument of Amé de Chalon, abbot of Baume-les-Messieurs