Boy with Beehive and Dog, Allegory of Loyalty and Diligence

Entry

Little is known about the youth of Michiel Emanuel Shee (c. 1695-1739). Contrary to what was thought for a long time,¹ we now know that this eighteenth-century sculptor was not from Germany, but from Antwerp.² There he had trained with Willem Schobbens, a sculptor of ecclesiastical work.³ In or before 1721 Shee must have moved to the Northern Netherlands, because in that year he married Maria Teppel in the small town of Drunen in North Brabant. She came from the neighbouring Heusden. The couple originally lived in The Hague, but moved to Amsterdam in 1727 where Shee (‘sculptor from Antwerp’) became a burgher on 16 September. Shortly after the birth of their fifth child in 1739, Maria died, to be followed later that year by Shee himself. The four youngest children were cared for in Amsterdam’s Burgerweeshuis (city orphanage), where the accounts book kept by their father from May 1726 to 1737 also ended up.⁴ This extraordinary document gives a good idea of Shee’s sculptural output and clientele.⁵

It transpires that the sculptor concentrated mainly on allegorical and charming figures and groups of children for in the garden. This terracotta piece also served as a model for a garden sculpture. The ultimate, larger sandstone version turned up in London in 1991 where it was sold with three companion pieces.⁶ The terracotta models of those other pieces have probably been lost. The sandstone figure is a faithful copy of the terracotta model dealt with here, the only appreciable difference being that the little dog in the final version is licking the boy’s chin, making the scene all the more whimsical and endearing.

As is customary, the figure is part of a series of an even number of sculptures, which, in this case, consists of two boys and two girls. Three are dated 1726, but the boy corresponding to the present terracotta is marked 1725, as is the model. Evidently Shee completed this version first.

The iconography of the series is fairly complicated, but thanks to the representation of the allegories in the guise of playful children, the group retains a light-hearted appeal. Each of the four children depicts two virtues. The boy with the beehive, the dog and the dove (in the terracotta version all that remains of the bird is its feet on the roots of the tree behind the child) stands for diligence and loyalty. The other figures represent gratitude and piety, abundance and concord, and winsomeness and mildness. The light, carefree way these complex allegorical concepts are portrayed is typical of the developing taste that was to be termed Rococo. It is not known for which garden the set was made. Shee’s accounts book gives no indications – he started it in 1726, just after the ensemble was finished.

Arjan de Koomen (updated by Bieke van der Mark in 2025)
An earlier version of this entry was published in R. Baarsen et al., Rococo in Nederland, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2001-02, no. 2