Virgin and Child

Entry

The historical provenance of this ivory Virgin and Child can be traced back directly to 27 September 1823. It was on this day that Walthérus du Chateau (Duchateau), then a former burgomaster of the village of Sint Pieter in the Dutch province of Limburg, presented the ivory to a young priest-in-training, Jean Maielle, presumably his grandnephew.³ As recorded in a written document that survives to the present day, the gift also included two additional ivory carvings, specifically, a crucifix and a statuette of St John the Evangelist, with the latter erroneously identified as St Joseph.⁴ Jean Maielle, who indeed went on to become a priest, later sold the ensemble for the total amount of 880 guilders and 1 stuiver to Gustave Maielle, the son of his brother Nicolas.⁵ Via Jean and his descendants, the ivories ultimately came into the possession of Baroness Van Voorst tot Voorst-Bosch, from whom the Rijksmuseum acquired the Virgin and Child in 2002. The remaining two ivories from this ensemble were subsequently sold.⁶

The three ivories listed in the deed of gift were never conceived as an original artistic and iconographic unity, a conclusion not only confirmed by obvious stylistic differences among the works but also by the fact that Mary is accompanied by the Christ Child. This iconographic anomaly was apparently accepted in 1823, possibly explaining why St John was mistakenly thought to be a St Joseph. Of the three works, only the Virgin and Child statuette bears the signature of Rombout Verhulst (1624-1698), a Flemish sculptor active in the Dutch Republic from 1646 up until his death in 1698.

Verhulst’s standing as one of the leading sculptors in the Dutch Republic after 1650 is reflected by his inclusion in Jan Vos’s Zeege der schilderkunst (Triumph of Painting), published in 1654.⁷ By this time, the sculptor had already been working in the Northern Netherlands for several years. Shortly after 1650, Verhulst entered the Amsterdam workshop of his fellow countryman Artus Quellinus I (1609-1668), who himself had moved to the city to oversee the sculptural decoration of the new town hall (the present-day Royal Palace on the Dam Square). To this project carried out on the grandest scale, Verhulst contributed a number of essential works. The presence of his signature on several marble reliefs made for the galleries conveys Verhulst’s relative independence within the Quellinus atelier, but also his renown as an artist in the Northern Netherlands acquired already by this time.

Archival sources from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries occasionally make mention of cabinet sculpture by Rombout Verhulst. Prior to the discovery of the present signed ivory Virgin and Child,⁸ however, only one surviving documented work of Kleinplastik by the sculptor was known: the wood-carved mantelpiece frieze in the Oranjezaal at Huis Ten Bosch Palace (The Hague) – since 1805 mounted above a doorway – depicting a procession of triumphant putti.⁹ Furthermore, there exists the rather enigmatic listing of a gilded bedstead carved by Verhulst in inventory of Rembrandt’s insolvent possessions from 1656,¹⁰ as well as entries concerning painting frames also of his making.¹¹ In the eighteenth century, the sculptor’s name also occasionally appears in connection with statuettes carved in ivory and wood cited in Northern Netherlandish collections and sales.¹² With respect to the few cabinet sculptures attributed to Verhulst, the present ivory Virgin and Child proves a valuable touchstone.¹³ Highly similar to this carving, both in style and technique, are two ivory reliefs in the former Winkler collection: a scene of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife and a scene of Isaac Blessing Jacob.¹⁴ Besides the characteristic treatment of the faces and hair, one discerns here the same sensitivity in the handling of the carved surface and an equal eye for detail, interchanged with broad surfaces and drapery folds as encountered on the present figure of Mary.

In conceiving the present group, Verhulst undoubtedly based Mary’s pose and facial type on one of the best-known contemporaneous statues in Rome, François du Quesnoy’s Santa Susanna in the Santa Maria di Loreto (fig. a). Yet the question remains whether he ever saw this work with his own eyes: despite the mere mention of a trip to Rome in Terwesten’s manuscript on artists from The Hague, there exists no known documentation confirming he actually spent time in Italy.¹⁵ Du Quesnoy’s Susanna also enjoyed great notoriety north of the Alps. Verhulst could very well have based his Virgin on one of the plaster reproductions in circulation.¹⁶ Artus Quellinus, who during his years in Italy (before 1639) worked as an assistant in Du Quesnoy’s atelier and was undoubtedly in direct contact with the master’s most famous works in Rome, also likely played a role in the dissemination of the statue’s model in the Low Countries.

Even if Verhulst’s statuette could be traced back to its model in Rome, Quellinus’s direct influence on his younger assistant must not be underestimated. Despite differences in scale and material, a striking similarity can be observed between the ivory-carved Virgin and several carved works made by the master and his workshop for the new Amsterdam town hall. Numerous points of agreement emerge, for example, when comparing the present figure to Quellinus’s terracotta models of Prudentia (BK-AM-51-6) and Justitia (BK-AM-51-5). Justitia’s pose – albeit with the lower half in rendered in mirror image – is very similar to that of Verhulst’s Mary. Facial type, hair and details in the clothing also bear a surprising correspondence. A slight disparity can indeed be discerned when comparing the Virgin’s face to that of Lady Justice, the latter having softer and more girlish features. This is more than compensated, however, by Mary’s greater facial resemblance to Prudentia.

Also noteworthy are commonalities between the ivory Virgin and Child and two signed sculptures by Verhulst in the Amsterdam town hall. The marked resemblance to the classical female figures depicted in the carved reliefs of Stilswigentheid (Silence) and Venus with her Children Cupid and Anteros (fig. b), it almost appears Verhulst used the same model for three different works: thrice we see the same face, the same slightly plump arms and the characteristic ‘dough-like’ strands of hair, whether falling over the shoulder in the form of braided ponytails or pulled back behind the head. The close stylistic similarity suggests, though with some reserve, that the ivory Virgin and Child was carved between 1650 and 1658, i.e. in Verhulst’s years working as a (semi-)independent sculptor in Amsterdam.

The buyer or patron who commissioned the present ivory could therefore be sought among the art-loving regents or merchants of Amsterdam. In the seventeenth century, images of the Virgin regularly appear in the estate inventories of city burghers, often forming a natural part of art collections no less important than, for example, painted scenes of classical gods and heroes.¹⁷ Examples include the trompe-l’oeil niches and cartouches framing statuettes in painted floral still lifes by Daniel Seghers. One such painting, presented to Stadholder Frederick Henry as a gift in 1645, was later integrated in a decoration scheme for one of Amalia van Solms’s art cabinets at Huis Ten Bosch palace, from where it ultimately entered the Mauritshuis collection.¹⁸ Verhulst’s ivory Virgin and Child was quite possibly originally intended for a small niche in a collector’s cabinet, with the Christ Child’s extended right arm thus enhancing the effect of spatial depth. The fact that Verhulst signed the present work serves moreover as an indication that the work’s function was by no means solely devotional, and that his main desire was to underscore the work’s artistic quality.

Another possibility is that Verhulst carved the statuette for a patron in Mechelen, as he is known to have maintained contacts in his native city even after settling in the Dutch Republic.¹⁹ Given that the St John figure can also be attributed to a sculptor from Mechelen – Nicolaas van der Veken – it is conceivable that all three ivories mentioned in the 1823 deed of gift were carved as autonomous works in Mechelen but then later unified as a collector’s ensemble in the eighteenth century, before ultimately finding their way to Maastricht.

Frits Scholten, 2024