Day

Entry

From 1650 to 1665, the Flemish sculptor Artus Quellinus I (1609-1668) lived in Amsterdam, where he oversaw the sculptural decoration of the town hall under construction. During this time, he maintained his connections with his native city of Antwerp and also continued to do work for various patrons there.⁴ He also owned several houses in the city. In 1655, he purchased the house ‘Het schilt van Bourgoigne’ on the Cammerstraat in Antwerp.⁵ Two years later, he invested his capital in two country estates in Hoboken, one of which was a huysinge van plaisantie (country house, house of leasure) with a drawbridge, orchard, barns and horse stalls. In 1658, Quellinus had his will drawn up in Antwerp.⁶ It was around this time that he worked on sculptures such as the life-size, oak-carved carved Recumbent Greyhound in the Rijksmuseum (BK-2008-120), made in 1657 for a member of the Antwerp patrician family Roose. Shortly thereafter, in 1658 or 1659, he supplied a large marble statue of St Peter the Apostle for the tomb monument of the deceased Antwerp merchant Pieter Saboth (Sint-Andrieskerk, Antwerp).⁷

The present personification of Day dates from this same year, modelled after Michelangelo’s figure on Giuliano de’ Medici’s monumental tomb in the Medici Chapel in the Church of San Lorenzo (Florence). Because Quellinus was working, not in Italy, but in Flanders and the Dutch Republic at this time, it remains unclear for what purpose and for whom this terracotta was made. Amsterdam is the most likely place of manufacture, as suggested by the sculpture’s provenance as part of the collection of the Rijksacademie (State Academy of Art). This is the same location where a large number of Quellinus terracottas – invariably studies for the sculptural programme of the Amsterdam town hall – were preserved via the Stadstekenacademie (City Drawing Academy, precursor of the Rijksacademie) in Amsterdam.⁸ Quellinus’s prominently placed signature indicates he considered this work to be a full-fledged work of art in itself – not a study model for in the studio as its seemingly unfinished curved base might suggest. Accordingly, one may reasonably conclude the terracotta Day was made at the request of an (Amsterdam) collector.

Quellinus possibly based this work on a (lost) study modelled directly after Michelangelo’s original, made during one of his trips to or from Rome, documented in 1635, 1638-39 and circa 1645. The sculptor paid his first visit to the city around the age of twenty-five, motivated by a desire to study Roman classical sculpture and to serve as an apprentice to François du Quesnoy (1597-1643), a fellow Flemish sculptor active in the city since 1618. Reflecting back on this time, the German painter Joachim von Sandrart – an artist in close proximity to Quellinus – wrote in his Teutsche Academie (1675-1679) that Du Quesnoy ‘was very taken with him [= Quellinus], giving him the proper insight in all matters, and actively involving him in the study of antique art, thus allowing him to make great progress.’⁹ Upon returning to Antwerp in 1639, Quellinus began applying the chic, Latinized appellation by which he is best known today: Artus Quellinus. He is also believed to have made a shorter, second trip to Italy around the years 1644-45, based on documented time spent in Lyon with the painter Jan Asselijn (after 1610-1652) in 1645, then an important stopping point between the Netherlands and Rome.¹⁰ The two artists had previously met during Quellinus’s first visit to Rome, at which time both joined the Bentvueghels, a convivial society of Dutch and Flemish artists working in Rome. There they were respectively dubbed ‘Crabbetje’ or little crab (Asselijn), and ‘Corpus’, the latter nickname apparently referring to the rather rotund Quellinus.¹¹ Acknowledging two separate sojourns to Italy, it seems highly unlikely that Quellinus would have neglected Florence. Like so many other artists of his generation (and those prior), he would undoubtedly have devoted intensive study to Michelangelo’s sculptures in the Medici Chapel. The fascination with this sculptural ensemble is aptly portrayed in a drawing by Federico Zuccaro, today preserved at the Louvre, which shows a large group of artists at work in the Medici Chapel, including a sculptor modelling in clay or wax.¹²

The present terracotta is by no means a literal copy of the original model. While maintaining the elementary forms, Quellinus chose to somewhat soften the highly pronounced musculature of Michelangelo’s marble version. He also completed Day’s non finito face in line with his own vision. By introducing a new section of drapery – traversing the lower edge of the figure’s back and continuing on the reverse – Quellinus assigned the rear supporting arm a more clearly defined role in the overall composition, with the left hand now logically clasping the drapery’s end. This was by no means a solution of the sculptor’s own invention: numerous artists before Quellinus had sought to resolve evident ‘lacunae’ on Michelangelo’s original, as therein presumably lay an additional artistic challenge. The same solution is found on a terracotta study by Johan Gregor van der Schardt (1530-1591) and numerous other replicated versions of the monumental Day.¹³ Nevertheless, the source of Quellinus’s treatment of the left hand might very well be Michelangelo too: an adaptation of the right hand on his monumental Moses in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome.¹⁴ The ostensibly unfinished base of the terracotta essentially adheres to the volute form of the monumental marble sarcophagus. Quellinus chose to slightly modify its form, however, thus rendering his version as a complete and autonomous work.

Frits Scholten, 2025