Reclining River God with Hippocamp

Entry

The Antwerp sculptor Pieter Xaveri (1647-1673) is first documented in the Dutch Republic on 20 June 1670. Listed as twenty-three years of age, ‘Petrus Xaverinus Antwerpiensis’ officially enrolled as a student of mathematics at the Leidse Academie (university) in Leiden, where he likely entered the engineering programme under Petrus van Schooten, a highly esteemed mathematician in his day.³ Xaveri’s decision to study mathematics – a seemingly odd combination for a budding sculptor – may have been motivated by his desire to follow a career in engineering or architecture, two professions highly suited to his background as a sculptor. However, the possibility also exists he enrolled for no other reason than to obtain certain privileges reserved for students only, e.g. an exemption from paying taxes on alcohol. Regardless, Xaveri was undoubtedly capable of making a living from selling the small terracotta sculptures for which he would become renowned. Approximately six months following his enrolment at the college in Leiden, ‘Petrus Savoriex, sculptor from Antwerp’, residing on Hogewoerd in Leiden, filed his marriage to Geertruyt Jan Willemsdr Buyscher, of the Roman Catholic faith, on 11 November 1670.⁴ The last documented record of Xaveri’s life occurs only four years later, with the baptism of his daughter Petronella, on 22 June 1674, an event that followed the sculptor’s death in the autumn of 1673, having scarcely attained the age of twenty-six.⁵

Xaveri’s production as a sculptor during his years in Leiden is certain to have been substantial: in total, approximately thirty or more statuettes and groups are documented as autograph works, excluding a wide range of disputable attributions. A majority of these works are signed and dated terracottas, frequently genre tableaux centring on themes with a somewhat facetious or satirical tint or mythological scenes. The recumbent River God discussed here is among Xaveri’s most successful works. Contrary to most of his oeuvre, this piece has no inscribed date. The superb quality of the composition and the modelling, however, suggest a dating in the final years of his career, circa 1672-73.

Over the years, this semi-recumbent, bearded man with hippocamp has consistently been identified as the sea god Neptune. In fact, however, the figure depicted here is a river god, whose right arm rests on a cave-like opening from which water flows with fish. The god’s left arm – perhaps once clasping a ship’s rudder – rests on the wing (or fin) of the hippocamp behind him. Part of the scene is encircled by reeds. Upon closer inspection, the sculpture has little to do with Neptune, as the figure’s recumbent pose, the presence of the cave and the surrounding reeds and cattails (likewise adorning the figure’s crown) are all elements atypical for the sea god. Such motifs instead point to the personification of a river, such as the Scheldt running through Xaveri’s native city, Antwerp, or even more likely, the Rhine at Leiden. Given the composition’s ambitious inclusion of the hippocamp, it seems unlikely that the present terracotta was a finished model for a fountain or building façade, especially when comparing it to Xaveri’s less ambitious Neptune on the tympanum of the building ‘In den Vergulden Turk’, on the Breestraat in Leiden.⁶ Fountain designs conceived by the French designer and engraver Jean Le Pautre, which regularly feature river gods accompanied by hippocampi in various combinations, may possibly have formed a source of inspiration for Xaveri’s sculpture.⁷

Approximately a century after it was made, the terracotta River God was mounted on an elaborately carved wooden socle bearing decoration that erroneously identifies the figure as Neptune. In the middle of the socle’s front, two lions support a heraldic escutcheon bearing four heads – each referring to one of the Four Continents – and surmounted by a dolphin crown reserved for the French crown prince, the dauphin. Such heraldic inconsistencies underscore the fantastical nature of the coat of arms. The remainder of the socle features a seascape similar to the relief-carved scenes found on the seventeenth-century tombs of Dutch naval heroes. Two ships, appearing left and right, are fantasized variants of seventeenth-century European sailing vessels.⁸ In the foreground, trading goods in the form of crates and barrels can be discerned, with the coastline terminating on the left with a tree. The scene is framed by overhanging palm-leaf volutes adorning the corners of the socle left and right, and by a rococo wave border along the top horizontal edge. Depicted on the socle’s sides are the sun (left) and the moon (right). The fantastical nature of the socle’s ornamentation excludes the possibility of a thoughtfully conceived allegorical scene. Instead, its aim is to enhance the monumentality and modernise the appearance of Xaveri’s figure in the spirit of the French Rococo. Perhaps the person who commissioned the socle wished to give the sculpture a more personal allure, thus increasing the work’s appeal for sale on the art market. On the basis of the socle’s essentially symmetrical composition, it can be dated to the end of the Rococo period, most likely made in the Netherlands around 1760-70. The gilded carving recalls the French practice of furnishing bronze sculptures, lacquered pieces, exotic porcelain and other art objects with a gilt-bronze mounting fashionable in the eighteenth century.⁹ The brown slip applied to the terracotta surface, aimed to resemble bronze patina, similarly imitates the French style.

The demand for these works chiefly came from individuals living in a relatively small area in and around the city of Leiden, where Xaveri’s terracottas continued to surface on the art market well into the eighteenth century.¹⁰ François de le Boe Sylvius, a professor of medicine residing at 31 Rapenburg, was among the earliest collectors in Leiden, with a total of fifteen modelled sculptures in the upper backroom of his house. As described in the inventory of his estate, compiled on 6 April 1673, one may conclude that all were potentially autograph works by Pieter Xaveri.¹¹ This list makes no mention of a river god or Neptune. By no means, however, can one exclude the possibility that Xaveri made the terracotta for another Leiden collector with the same taste. In any event, the present terracotta can be tentatively identified as the Neptune accompanying a pendant figure of Aeolus held in the collection of Johan van der Marck, a former burgomaster and regent in Leiden, described in the catalogue accompanying the collection’s sale as follows: ‘Two pieces of sitting Sculptures, one of which is Neptune and the other Aeolus. Being masterfully and beautifully modelled and fired.’¹² Lastly, the estate sale of the painter Tibout Regters in 1768 lists a plaster cast of ‘A River God by Xavery’, possibly taken from the Rijksmuseum terracotta.¹³

Frits Scholten, 2025