A Girl Kissing a Satyr Boy, Allegory of Love

Entry

In the second half of the seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth, figures of children (kinderkens or putti) in all manner of allegorical forms were highly popular subjects for garden sculpture. They usually formed ensembles of four or five figures, together representing the Seasons, the Elements or the Senses, for example. The present two pieces make up a set of two groups depicting Hate (shown here) and Love (BK-16988-B). In one group a human girl and a boy satyr are fighting with each other, whereas in the other a human boy and a girl satyr are locked in a loving embrace, while trampling a Medusa head, here a symbol for hate or envy.

In 1973 Leeuwenberg ascribed the figures to Jacob Vennekool (also Vennecool).⁷ This was based solely on the resemblance to two groups of children in sandstone on the pillars of the front gateposts, erected in 1712, at the former Schermerpoort, a citygate, of Alkmaar, which for no clear reason was attributed to Jacob Vennekool. That obscure stonemason, who worked in Alkmaar from 1709 until his death in 1711, was thought to belong to the Amsterdam family of architects and builders merchants of the same name.⁸ However, there is absolutely no concrete evidence that he created the figures on the Schermerspoort, and in the absence of any other documented work, or sculpture signed by Vennekool, the piece cannot be ascribed to him on stylistic grounds either. It is highly debatable whether Vennekool actually worked as a sculptor. His registration in the guild of St Luke sheds no light on that, and the few records in which he appears, mention him only as the maker of applied works such as urns and pedestals.⁹

Upon further consideration, the Alkmaar groups would appear to originate from the Antwerp Baurscheit workshop. The repertoire of Jan Pieter van Baurscheit I (1669-1728) and his son of the same name, Jan Pieter van Baurscheit II (1699-1768) contains the same romanticized children, with compact, loosely modelled bodies and expressive countenances (cf. BK-1967-19).¹⁰ An additional argument supporting this alternative attribution is formed by two old drawings of the Schermerpoort, which suggest that the groups were only placed on the front gateposts at a later date, between 1727 and 1735.¹¹ While the Baurscheit workshop was still producing such sandstone ensembles in considerable numbers, Vennekool had been dead for decades.

As Fischer had already argued, the Amsterdam figures could also be ascribed to the Baurscheit workshop.¹² However, unlike the more classicist Alkmaar groups of figures, these correspond to the more baroque type of garden statuary from the repertoire of the said workshop, set apart by their greater expressivity. They can be compared with a marble group of putti dating from 1721 and signed by Jan Pieter van Baurscheit I (whereabouts unknown).¹³ The putti have similar toddler-like bodies, with fairly muscular abdomens, plump hands and feet, somewhat uniform faces, chubby cheeks, mischievous expressions, stylishly pinned-up hair (for the girls) and dynamic poses with raised arms. In addition, a similar trampled head of Medusa also occurs in the PVB IF monogrammed marble group of children portraying Fame (Art and History Museum, Brussels),¹⁴ and the countenance of Medusa with wide open mouth, deeply grooved corners of the mouth and sharp jaw-line greatly resembles that of Cacus in the PVB monogrammed group with Hercules in the Rijksmuseum collection (BK-NM-13215-C). However, the rather squat and plumper type of putto in the Amsterdam group is most related in appearance to two unsigned sandstone sets featuring children, depicting the senses of Smell (a girl with a rose) and Touch (a boy with a parrot biting the putto’s ear), which are also attributed to the Baurscheit workshop.¹⁵ Lastly, there is a comparable piece, but of lesser quality, that is difficult to interpret iconographically. It too is in sandstone and unsigned. It consists of a group of two children with a dove and a salamander, and, on the ground an owl and two putti heads which have already been associated with the present groups.¹⁶ The fact that Baurscheit was by no means unfamiliar with the iconography used in the Amsterdam groups is evidenced by the two groups of children representing Love and Hate on the terrace of Harewood House in England on which he had inscribed PVBaurscheit I.F.A. 1725.¹⁷

The Amsterdam pieces were excavated round 1900, together with their concomitant pedestals (lost meanwhile, early in the twentieth century).¹⁸ in the grounds of the erstwhile House Schakenbosch (or Schaakenbos) in Veur (Leidschendam, as it is today). When the mansion was converted into a boarding school for boys (Instituut Noorthey) around 1825, they were probably discarded and ended up in the ground. Before that, the estate had been owned by two related families, Paets and Noorthey, from Rotterdam.¹⁹

Based on the particular shape and style of the original pedestals, the garden figures can be dated quite accurately to circa 1720-30.²⁰ Consequently, Jacob Noorthey (b. 1707) is the most likely patron. Like his father-in-law Adriaen Paets (1657-1712) from whom he inherited Schakenbosch,²¹ this former Rotterdam sheriff and administrator of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), had previously had dealings with Jan Pieter van Baurscheit I.²² This is confirmed by two sandstone statues of Ceres and Flora, monogrammed PVB and dated 1712 which topped the entrance to the merchant’s house at 46 Haringvliet (‘The House with the Statues’) in Rotterdam, which were designed for him by the famous painter Adriaen van der Werff (1659-1722).²³

Bieke van der Mark, 2025