Object data
white Carrara marble
height 90 cm × width 45 cm × depth 26.5 cm
width 26.5 cm × depth 23.5 cm (plinth)
weight 73 kg
Artus Quellinus (II)
Summer, from a Series of the Four Seasons
Antwerp, c. 1680 - c. 1690
Inscriptions
- signature, on the base of the pedestal, incised: A· QVELINVS
Technical notes
Sculpted in the round. The figure and plinth are carved from a single block of marble, with the exception of the figure’s lower lip, which has been carved from a separate piece of marble and inserted into the main block. This is likely an old repair, as the level of abrasion equals that of the sculpture as a whole. Also conceivable is that the sculptor inserted a separate piece of marble upon encountering a flaw in the main marble block.
Scientific examination and reports
- condition report: I. Garachion, RMA, 24 June 1994
Condition
Missing are the left forearm, the three middle toes of the left foot, the two corners on the plinth’s reverse side, the tip of the nose, the big toe of the right foot, sections of drapery below the left arm and at the bottom, segments of the wheat stalks at the right arm and pedestal, and sections of the flowers and wheat stalks on the flower wreath. Based on the visibly remaining drill holes, the missing nose (where the drill hole has been filled) and toe were old repairs. The second toe on the right foot is damaged. The marble’s surface is abraded and displays several cracks, with those in the face perfunctorily restored. The left front corner of the plinth has broken off and been rejoined with glue.
Provenance
…; from the dealer Webb of Bond Street, London, £250, to Richard Grenville, 1st or 2nd Duke of Buckingham, Stowe House, date unknown;1 sale collection Richard Grenville, 2nd Duke of Buckingham (1797-1861), Stowe House (Christie and Manson), 3 October 1848, no. 86 (1st suppl. cat., p. 8), £89 s. 5, for all four sculptures, to Mark Philips, Esq.;2 unknown private collection, England; from Heim Gallery, London, with BK-1970-29-B and -C, fl. 35,000, for all three, to the museum, with support from the Commissie voor Fotoverkoop, 1970
Object number: BK-1970-29-A
Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Stichting tot Bevordering van de Belangen van het Rijksmuseum
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
Summer is personified by the figure of a young girl wearing a chemise that covers only the shoulders, upper torso and back, and a wreath of flowers and wheat stalks on her head. She leans slightly to the right on a hexagonal pedestal. Tall stalks of wheat lies against it. Resting on top of the pedestal are several fruits, additional wheat stalks and an olive branch that dangles downward, with the last leaf covering the pubic area. The young girl’s pose is relaxed, almost languid. Perhaps it was the sculptor’s intention to express the nature of the season, though the loss of the left arm may have diminished the sculpture’s original dynamic expression.
The statue belongs to a group of the Four Seasons, with Autumn (BK-1970-29-B) and Winter (BK-1970-29-C) also held in the museum collection. In the catalogue accompanying the Stowe House sale of 1848 (see Provenance), the series is described as ‘A set of four exquisite small marble figures of the Seasons, by A. Quelinus’.3 At this time, the group was therefore still complete and situated quite suitably in the garden of the orangery. The Spring figure is presumably no longer extant, as it has not been seen again since the sale. A terracotta Spring attributed to Artus Quellinus II (1625-1700) that surfaced on the art market in 2015, provides an impression of what the missing statue might have looked like.4
The natural abrasion of the marble indicates that in the past the sculpture stood outdoors for an extended period of time. Garden statues in the form of life-size, allegorical children’s figures were a common feature in baroque gardens in the Northern Netherlands. With the rise of the English landscape style garden at the end of the eighteenth century, however, these so-called kinderkens (little children) fell out of favour, with most eventually lost. The three statues of Summer, Autumn, and Winter in the Rijksmuseum are among the few surviving examples of this once highly popular genre.5
When acquired by the museum in 1970, the three Seasons were attributed to Artus Quellinus I (1609-1668). Stylistically, however, they display a greater affinity with the somewhat later children’s figures of the master’s younger cousin and apprentice, Artus Quellinus II. From 1652 to 1654, the younger Quellinus belonged to the team of sculptors working on the sculptural decoration of the Amsterdam city hall under the direction of his elder cousin, whose austere, classicist-baroque style he adopted. Upon returning to Antwerp, however, this sculptural style gradually gave way to a more theatrical, late-baroque idiom of form likewise evident in the three surviving garden statues in the Rijksmuseum. Characteristic are the elegant poses, sumptuous locks of hair and lavish draperies. Stylistically, numerous sculptures of children by Artus II display marked similarities to the three statues in the Rijksmuseum, such as those adorning the main altar (c. 1666) and communion bench (c. 1665?) in the Sint-Romboutskerk in Mechelen,6 the main altar (1685) of the Sint-Jacobskerk in Antwerp,7 and the former Kuipersaltaar (1678-1679) in the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal, also in Antwerp.8 A striking agreement between Autumn and the infant Christ – with his dancing step and upturned gaze – from the sculptural group St Joseph with Christ as a Child in the Église de Notre-Dame at Saint-Trond can also be observed.9
Autumn (BK-1970-29-B) has been linked to a drawing and several sculptures made by (or attributed to the circle of) François du Quesnoy, Peter Paul Rubens, Georg Petel and Artus Quellinus I. Even in the absence of known direct precursors, Summer and Winter are firmly rooted in the same tradition.
Titia de Haseth Möller, 2025
Literature
H.R. Forster, The Stowe Catalogue: Priced and Annotated, London 1848, p. 269, no. 86; Forty Paintings and Sculptures from the Gallery’s Collection, Autumn Exhibition, exh. cat. (Heim Gallery) London 1966, no. 39; ‘Keuze uit de Aanwinsten’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 19 (1971), pp. 189-94, esp. p. 189; E. Rümmler, C. Theuerkauff et al., Europäische Barockplastik am Niederrhein: Grupello und seine Zeit, exh. cat. Düsseldorf (Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf) 1971, p. 305 (under no. 249-50); J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 338a, with earlier literature; E.V. Buitenhuis, De tuinsieraadkunst in de Hollandse tuin, 1983 (unpublished thesis, Leiden University), App. I A, p. 13; F. Baudouin, ‘Twee Rubensiaanse tekeningen in de Albertina te Wenen en hun samenhang met beeldhouwkunst uit de zeventiende eeuw’, Bulletin van de Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis 57 (1986), pp. 59-79, esp. pp. 68-69; E. de Jong and C. Schellekens, Het beeld buiten: Vier eeuwen tuinsculptuur in Nederland, exh. cat. Heino/Wijhe (Kasteel ’t Nijenhuis) 1994, pp. 56-57 (ill.); S. Landuyt, De funeraire monumenten van Artus Quellinus de Jonge (1625-1700): Een kritische analyse van hun geschiedenis, iconografie en stijl, 4 vols., 1998 (unpublished thesis, KU Leuven), vol. 1, p. 96, 116, vol. 4, fig. 183; F. Scholten, Artus Quellinus: Sculptor of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2010, p. 36, fig. 44; S. Haag et al., Wintermärchen: Winter-Darstellungen in der euopäischen Kunst von Bruegel bis Beuys, exh. cat. Vienna (Kunsthistorisches Museum)/Zürich (Kunsthaus Zürich) 2011-12, pp. 252-53, no. 92
Citation
T. de Haseth Möller, 2025, 'Artus (II) Quellinus, Summer, from a Series of the Four Seasons, Antwerp, c. 1680 - c. 1690', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035780
(accessed 11 December 2025 17:24:12).