Flying buttresses Eusebiuskerk: Another ark with Noah

Rowing Boat

In the series of flying buttress statuettes out of St. Eusebius's Church in Arnhem I had the upper one of Flying Buttres no. 6 under my hands recently. This series was designed at the time by Theo van Reijn, who designed his sculptures on the theme of Noah's Ark. The top of each flying buttress was always the ark. In this statuette (they are about 90 cms tall) you can see Noah kneeling and praying that the rains now will finally subside. Or maybe he prays in gratitude that it is finally dry. It is unfortunate that I have no information about the thoughts behind the figurines. He's rather large at, in a tiny rowboat, but fortunately the pigeon behind his head keeps him company. That dove had something in his mouth, but it was not clear what it was. It looked most like a dead mouse, but I made an olive branch out of it anyway, as the story mentions.

Planks

I have given the boat some planks like in the two previous arks, and carved everything a bit more crisp, so it should all be a bit cleare now. Plus then that I carved an extra little fish to swim between the waves to the left. Because all fingertips had broken off, I made the hands a bit longer.

To the next flying buttress statue.