The Dutch-Burgundian sculptor Claus Sluter (ca. 1350-1405") was the most important northern European sculptor of his age. He restored figural sculpture to its former monumental scale. He is considered a pioneer of "northern realism."

Claus Sluter was born in Haarlem. Records indicate that by 1380 he was active in the stonecutters' guild in Brussels. The present state of our knowledge does not afford a satisfactory answer to the question of his training and the formative influences on his style. It is conjectured that in this early period he worked on a set of seated prophets for the Brussels Town Hall.

Sluter's first certain activity occurred in 1385, when Philip the Bold called him to the court at Dijon to assist Jean de Marville in the design and preparation of statues for the facade of the chapel at the Chartreuse de Champmol, a nearby Carthusian monastery founded as a place of...