Citizens’ help welcome for sculpture Lady of Voerendaal
Author: Harry Lindelauf
Photography: Harry Lindelauf/De Limburger
Today’s citizens are invited to help with the realisation of a contemporary sculpture of the ancient Roman “Lady of Voerendaal”. Anyone who accepts the invitation can have their name engraved in a block of Kunrader stone. Designer Tei van Neerven will place the engraved stones in the openworked silhouette of 3.30 metres high and approximately 5 metres long. The artwork will stand in a small park in front of Voerendaal station.
Alderman Peter Thomas (Heritage, CDA) and NS station manager Ron Lenssen were the first to engrave their initials on Friday, 12 June. The visible layer of stones may be engraved. Ultimately, the frame will be filled with about seven cubic metres of limestone from the quarry on the Bergerweg in Kunrade. “Based on our archaeological past, we want to place artworks in the municipality that refer to the Roman past and to the Land of Chalk,” said the alderman.
The new artwork is a twin of the artwork in Ubachsberg, where the word “chalk” has been laid out in the grass using Corten steel and Kunrader stone. The new sculpture in front of the station refers to a stone head of a woman found in Voerendaal in 1917. The 50-centimetre-high sculpture is made of Nivelstein sandstone from the Worm valley. The hairstyle of the “Lady of Voerendaal” is a copy of the coiffure seen on portraits of Vibia Sabina, the wife of Emperor Hadrian (117–138). The Voerendaal sculpture was probably part of the monument on the grave of the “Lady of Voerendaal”. That monument must have stood along the Via Belgica. The exact location is not known.
