Inkwell or Salt-Cellar with Arion on the Dolphin

Entry

This elegant Arion sitting on a dolphin holds an open oyster-like shell instead of a lyre, so the statuette can be used as an inkwell or a salt-sellar. The curled edges of the shell serve as a pen rest. Nevertheless it is debatable whether this bronze was originally conceived as such. The subject is not unknown for this type of artefact, Theuerkauff referred to sixteenth-century examples from Italy and Germany,¹ but the bronze is much more convincing as the design for a fountain figure. It would therefore seem likely that the sculptor has refashioned a scale model for a large fountain statue and turned it into an inkwell or salt cellar.

Leeuwenberg attributed the bronze to an unknown sculptor from the circle of Gabriel Grupello (1644-1730), a view that was not shared by Kultermann in his monograph on the sculptor.² In 1971 Theuerkauff also went no further than a general indication as ‘Netherlands, before 1690’.³ These unsatisfactory attributions have not been revised since then. And yet it is by no means impossible that Grupello himself actually was the maker of this attractive artefact cum fountain design. There is much common ground with his documented sculpture. The somewhat staring and ‘empty’ faces of his figures, which seem to have been conceived more for their decorative, elegant qualities than their specific expression, are typical of his style. The bronze also displays this characteristic – a legacy from Grupello’s years in Paris. The handling of the folds, the modelling of the body and the female facial type with pointed chin are very like Grupello’s Narcissus in Brussels, while the elaborate convolutions of the shell and the dolphin echo the curling fishtails, the fluttering manes, the nostrils and the undulating fins of the hippocampi on the baroque wall fountain that he made for the Brussels fishmongers’ guild around 1675.⁴ The crest on the head of the dolphin also recurs exactly in the tresses of Grupello’s figures on this wall fountain. We can also identify a resemblance to the allegorical bronzes the sculptor made for Kassel around 1697.⁵ The likelihood that the Rijksmuseum bronze was derived from a design for a large fountain statue is demonstrated by comparing it with Grupello’s little terracotta modello for the marble Narcissus, which is only three centimetres smaller.⁶ The two figures are so redolent of the same atmosphere and style that it justifies the question as to whether the design for the Amsterdam Arion was not originally intended for the same ensemble. The Narcissus was made around 1680-85, probably for the Thurn und Taxis family in Brussels from whose collection it comes.

During his apprenticeship with the fountain maker and lead statue caster Johan Larson (active c. 1659-d. 1664) in The Hague,⁷ Grupello must have become familiar with making fountain sculpture, a specialism that was almost unknown in the Netherlands. This not only explains his involvement in the Brussels wall fountain, but also the large Venus fountain for Het Loo Palace commissioned by King William III, and his penchant for mythological themes that have to do with water. The Amsterdam bronze also testifies to this aspect of his oeuvre.

Frits Scholten, 2025
This entry was originally published in F. Scholten, M. Verber et al., From Vulcan’s Forge: Bronzes from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 1450-1800, exh. cat. London (Daniel Katz Ltd.)/Vienna (Liechtenstein Museum) 2005-06, no. 45