Object data
terracotta
height 59 cm × width 31.5 cm × thickness 12.3 cm × weight 18 kg
Artus Quellinus (I) (workshop of)
Mars, After a Model for a High Relief in the Amsterdam Town Hall (now Royal Palace) at Dam Square
Amsterdam, c. 1652 - c. 1664
Inscriptions
- inscription, on the frame’s reverse, in blue chalk: 3
Technical notes
Modelled and fired.
Scientific examination and reports
- condition report: I. Garachon, RMA, 20 October 1994
Condition
The relief has been coated with a greyish-brown slip applied over a light-reddish slip layer. The top slip layer is greyer than the slip on the Cybele (BK-AM-51-18](/en/collection/BK-AM-51-18/catalogue-entry)). In some places on the Mars relief, and especially the legs, this grey layer has worn off due to natural abrasion. Elsewhere, this grey layer appears not to have been coated: the mantle around the left shoulder and a section of the left arm in the shield are redder. Various restorations of old breaks and cracks made in plaster can be discerned: e.g. the eagle’s broken-off beak and the details of the feathers (both sealed with plaster), and on the sandals and hose. Plaster traces are also visible through the slip on the straps of the skirt. A thick slip layer has also been applied to the chain mail. A crack can also be seen where the chain mail transitions into the skirt, on the right at the left hip. The left arm, in the shield, appears to have been restored without form, no longer showing any muscles. The right hand is missing the index finger, though it can still be seen – albeit attached with glue – in the photo of the Mars in the 1973 catalogue. Another crack traverses upwards and to the right from the neck to the relief’s edge. The head has broken off and been reattached with glue. The helmet has sustained damage above the face. The reptile on the helmet is missing its head and wings. Lastly, a crack in the contour of the right arm traverses from the neck to the axe.
The relief is enclosed in a 19th or early-20th century, brown-painted pinewood frame, with the number ‘3’ inscribed on the reverse in blue chalk. The frames of the other reliefs from the planetary gods series (BK-AM-51-12 to -19) are also numbered. This possibly indicates a (later) sequencing.
Provenance
…;1 from the artist,2 transferred to the Town Hall (now Royal Palace) at Dam Square, Amsterdam, 1664;3 transferred to the Stadstekenacademie (at two or three successive locations), Amsterdam, 1808;4 transferred to the Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten (old Exchange of Hendrick de Keyser), Amsterdam, 1821;5 transferred to the Oude Mannenhuis, Amsterdam 1837;6 transferred to the Town Hall at the Prinsenhof, Amsterdam, 1878;7 on loan to the museum, since 18878
Object number: BK-AM-51-17
Credit line: On loan from the City of Amsterdam
Copyright: Public domain
Context
The great wealth and might of the city Amsterdam – the most important merchant city of the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century – manifested itself in grand public works and countless other public and private buildings. This was especially true of the new town hall on the Dam Square, for which initial plans were already being made as early as 1639. The building’s design was aimed to reflect the power and prosperity that Amsterdam had come to acquire since the closing of the Scheldt in 1585, an event that cost Antwerp its leading economic position in the Low Countries.9 The existing town hall, which dated back to the Middle Ages, had become too small to accommodate the rapidly growing civic governmental apparatus and was therefore to be replaced by a new and spacious ‘urban palace’. To carry out this ambitious plan, the city’s burgomasters chose the architect Jacob van Campen (1596-1657).10
In its design, decoration and style, the new Amsterdam town hall was to glorify both the city and its governing council by mirroring illustrious examples from antiquity and its own day: the ancient Roman Republic and the modern Republic of Venice.11 Designated as the central themes were the three mainstays of Amsterdam’s economic success: good and fair governance, peace and prosperity. The Amsterdam city regents were bestowed the honorary title of vredesvader (father of peace), an appellation alluding to the seminal role these men played in negotiating the Peace of Münster, the treaty of 1648 that ended the war with the Spanish and signalled a new period of unparalleled prosperity.12 Through the classicist style of its architecture and the themes depicted in painted and sculptural decoration, this new monumental addition to the city was meant to convey Amsterdam’s standing as a worthy successor to ancient Rome, the geographic source of the Roman Republic’s past power and glory.13 Albeit less explicitly, Amsterdam also wished to mirror itself on the Republic of Venice. Both cities had begun as fishing villages and grown to become powerful merchant centres with international allure. Both cities also boasted a stable government firmly grounded on republican principles.14 Lastly, the decoration programme of the new Amsterdam town hall drew a parallel between the Israelites in the Bible and the present-day inhabitants of the Dutch Republic. Just as the Israelites – also long oppressed by a heathen religion – were led out of Egypt, so too had the Dutch liberated themselves from the yoke of the Spanish king and Catholic idolatry. The inhabitants of the Dutch Republic had God to thank for their freedom and fortune.15 All of these associations were to be unified in the new town hall’s realization, made manifest for both the city’s own burghers but also countless visitors from abroad.
In 1648, the Flemish sculptor Artus Quellinus I (1609-1668) – then one of the most successful and talented sculptors in the Low Countries16 – was hired to devise the sculptural programme of the planned town hall. Having been trained as he sculptor by his father in the Baroque milieu of Rubens in Antwerp, Quellinus travelled to Rome in 1635, where he entered the studio of the Flemish sculptor François du Quesnoy (1594-1643).17 In the words of Du Quesnoy’s biographer, Sandrart: ‘Quellinus made himself very useful when in Rome and there he studied the art of Antiquity with success.’18 Accordingly, the sculptor’s work displays both elements of Du Quesnoy’s austere Classicism and Rubens’s Baroque. Yet the Amsterdam burgomasters’ decision to place the town hall’s sculptural decoration in Quellinus’s charge was not simply based on his style and qualities as a sculptor: his international experience, knowledge of antique sculpture and ability to run a large studio were also important factors.19
The architect of the planned town hall, Jacob van Campen, was ‘artistic director’ of the decoration programme of the building’s exterior and interior in close consultation with his patrons. A number of fairly primitive pen-and-ink sketches and discernible details on the wooden, scale-model maquette show that, especially in this regard, Van Campen had very clear ideas of his own.20 Quellinus’s task was to transform these ideas and simple sketches into clear and detailed three-dimensional designs. Several terracottas in the Rijksmuseum illustrate this specific stage of the design process. Presented for approval to both Van Campen and the burgomasters charged with making the final decision, these models can be described as vidimi (vidimus (Lat.) = we have seen) in the purest sense. A subsequent stage in this process entailed the detailed realization of these sketch models into working models – scale models, possibly followed by so-called modelli grandi – to be used in the studio for the final execution of monumental sculptures in marble and bronze.
Given the monumental scale of sculptural production accomplished in a relatively short period of time, Quellinus is certain to have had a large workshop to accommodate his many assistants. While information regarding the distribution of tasks remains scant, the diverse modelling on the surviving terracottas rules out the possibility of a single sculptor working on his own. Variations in the level of finishing can also be observed. The first group of terracottas can be described as bozzetti: loosely modelled sketches functioning as preliminary, plastic explorations of a theme or composition (cf. BK-AM-51-10). The second group consists of finished modelli – the aforementioned vidimi – from which the cast replicas were made that served as models in the studio. This category of works can sometimes be identified as such by measuring marks: points, lines and grids drawn in the wet clay to facilitate the design’s reproduction and enlargement in marble or bronze.21 The third and final group consists of various replicas likewise made in Quellinus’s workshop but ultimately destined for the free market, e.g. as council members’ gifts to friends or as souvenirs privately commissioned by the burgomasters and their retinue to commemorate their role in the building of the town hall.22
Entry
The present terracotta relief of Mars is one of the terracotta sketches and models made by the Antwerp sculptor Artus Quellinus I (1609-1668) and his assistants in preparation for the sculptural decoration of the new Amsterdam town hall, today the Royal Palace on the Dam Square (for an extensive history of the town hall, its significance and decoration programme, see ‘Context’). After the project’s completion, Quellinus’s Amsterdam studio was closed in 1664. At this time, the city’s burgomasters ordered that all of the remaining works and presentation models be transferred to the new town hall. With this move, the ensemble of fifty-one pieces officially became the property of the city of Amsterdam.23 A number were transferred to the Rijksmuseum in 1887/88 on a long-term basis. All other works are today preserved at the Amsterdam Museum.
On the present terracotta model, the god of war appears full-length in a frontal pose, his weight resting on his left leg. He looks defiantly to his left. Mars’s shield, strapped to his left forearm, is visible from the back; he balances himself on an upturned battle-axe, supported in his right hand. On his right, an eagle spreads its wings at his feet, with its head pointing outward. A wolf emerges from behind his left leg, gazing directly at the viewer. Mars wears full military raiment. Marked by a hawkish nose, his face is partly hidden behind a curling beard and moustache, barely revealing a diminutive mouth. His large eyes are fixed on something in front of him, off to the left. As conveyed by his martial attire, but also his stance and facial expression, Mars is presented as an imposing figure.
The definitive version of the present terracotta belongs to a series of eight marble reliefs depicting planetary gods, mounted in the galleries on both sides of the central hall, the Burgerzaal (Citizens’ Hall). The gods were positioned between the doorways to the various office chambers and between the passages to the stairwells.24 The iconography of these reliefs can in part be traced to Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia, of which a Dutch-language edition was published in Amsterdam in 1644.25 The reliefs refer to the specific functions of each of the adjoining spaces and together form a cosmological system linked to the statues on the pediments of the building’s façades and the large inlay maps of the Eastern and Western hemispheres in the floor of the main hall. In this manner, Amsterdam and its town hall were symbolically portrayed as the centre of the world and the cosmos.26
The marble relief of Mars stands in the north-west corner of the north gallery between the doors of the Schepenkamer Extraordinaris (Magistrates’ Chamber-Extraordinary) and the Schoutskamer (Sherriff’s Office). The models for the overdoor lunettes surmounting the entrances to these spaces have both been preserved (BK-AM-51-20-D-1 and -2). The iconography of the lunettes, featuring children, wolves and military weapons, is associated with Mars and can in part be traced back to Ripa.27 In this gallery, Mars also figures as the companion of the Venus. Intriguingly, their love affair in no way impeded the goddess’ presence here as the benefactress of the chamber just one floor above, where the official registration of marriages occurred.28
The marble relief of Mars is the only work in the town hall signed with ‘AQ’ – Quellinus’s own monogram versus that of his younger nephew and namesake, Artus Quellinus II (1626-1700), as was erroneously posited in the past.29 On 27 or 28 March 1654, the sculptor was paid the amount of 600 guilders for the execution of the belt van Mars (statue of Mars),30 with an additional 200 guilders charged for een piedestal voor den Mars met wapens (a pedestal for the Mars with weapons).31 With the adding of the hoeck stuxkens (cornerstones) at the price of 25 guilders per piece, the marble reliefs were completed on 19 December 1654.32
The surviving town hall account books make no specific mention of a terracotta model for the Mars; the only models cited are for an Apollo and a Diana measuring ‘three feet high’, for the amount of sixty guilders each.33 This, and the fact that the model reliefs of the planetary gods were completed in 1653-54, suggests a dating in the same period (c. 1651-53) for the (non-extant) master model from which the present terracotta Mars was made.34 Assuming this prototype had the same measurements as the Apollo and Diana reliefs, the present terracotta is therefore likely a reduced replica made at some point between 1652/1653 and 1664, the year in which Quellinus closed his workshop. For what purpose it was made and whether it was also commissioned by the city of Amsterdam itself (as opposed to a private patron) are as yet questions unresolved. The fact that the present piece is documented in the town hall’s art cabinet by as early as the eighteenth century nevertheless suggests that it was also a municipal commission. An undated list, compiled before 1806 (1802/03?), mentions two statues of Mars, one perhaps being the non-extant master model and the other the present model.35 A slightly larger version is today preserved at the LWL-Museums für Kunst und Kultur in Münster, acquired on the Amsterdam art market and said to have been retrieved from a house demolished by fire in Valenciennes.36 One difference is that Mars’s head is positioned more upright, in accordance with the definitive marble version. Given its size and provenance, there is little chance this piece was the master model, even if the quality of the finishing somewhat surpasses that of the Amsterdam relief. For a discussion of the various replica groups, see the entry on BK-AM-51-19.
Iris Ippel and Frits Scholten, 2024
Literature
J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 291, with earlier literature; E. Dhanens (ed.), De beeldhouwkunst in de eeuw van Rubens in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden en het prinsbisdom Luik, exh. cat. Brussels (Museum voor Oude Kunst) 1977, p. 144; K. Fremantle and W. Halsema-Kubes, Beelden Kijken: De kunst van Quellien in het Paleis op de Dam/Focus on Sculpture: Quellien’s Art in the Palace on the Dam, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Royal Palace) 1977, p. 82, no. 21; M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, no. 104; H. Vreeken, ‘Quellinus’ boetseersels voor het zeventiende-eeuwse stadhuis op de Dam’, in M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 38-59, esp. pp. 52, 55 (fig. 65a); H.J. Wiggers, ‘De stad Amsterdam en haar vroegste beeldencollectie’, in M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 60-75; F. Scholten, Artus Quellinus: Sculptor of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2010, fig. 27
Citation
F. Scholten, 2024, 'workshop of Artus (I) Quellinus, Mars, After a Model for a High Relief in the Amsterdam Town Hall (now Royal Palace) at Dam Square, Amsterdam, c. 1652 - c. 1664', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035686
(accessed 10 December 2025 21:25:59).