Object data
terracotta
height 72 cm × width 83.5 cm × depth 20 cm
Artus Quellinus (I)
The Judgement of Lucius Junius Brutus, Model for a Relief in the Vierschaar of the Amsterdam Town Hall (now Royal Palace) at Dam Square
Amsterdam, c. 1650 - c. 1652
Technical notes
Modelled and fired. Most of the background figures are rendered in very low relief (schiacciato), while those in the foreground have been executed in greater depth. Some elements have been formed with the fingers, accentuated with sharp lines likely made by means of a nail or a sharp stick. A number of the more schematically rendered passages in the background still display traces of implemented tools and fingerprints. In other places, by contrast, details are executed with great refinements, with traces of such tools either muffled or completely illuminated. Lines and points made in the wet clay can be discerned across the entire surface.1 Following transferral to the ultimately desired format, a finishing layer was applied over these scale distribution markings and subsequently fired with the sculpture itself.2
Condition
The top part of the relief is missing, with only the arms and legs of the seated Jupiter still visible. At some point, the relief had broken into several pieces and then subsequently restored. Some fingers of Brutus’s left hand and the nose of his kneeling son are missing. The son’s head had also once broken off and been restored. On the reverse, plaster has been used in various places to consolidate the piece.
Provenance
Commissioned by the City of Amsterdam, c. 1651;3 from the artist,4 transferred to the Town Hall (now Royal Palace) at Dam Square, Amsterdam, 1664;5 transferred to the Stadstekenacademie (at two or three successive locations), Amsterdam, 1808;6 transferred to the Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten (old Exchange of Hendrick de Keyser), Amsterdam, 1821;7 transferred to the Oude Mannenhuis, Amsterdam 1837;8 transferred to the Town Hall at the Prinsenhof, Amsterdam, 1878;9 on loan to the museum, since 188710
Object number: BK-AM-51-21
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.11 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).12
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.13 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.14 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.15 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.16 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.17 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 Countries18 – 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).19 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.’20 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.21
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.22 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.23 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.24
Entry
This relief with the Judgement of Lucius Junius Brutus belongs to a group of 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.25 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.
The Judgement of Lucius Junius Brutus was made in preparation for the sculptural decoration of the Vierschaar – the seat of the municipal tribunal – in the new Amsterdam town hall, now the Royal Palace on the Dam Square. Iconographically, the sculptural programme of this spacious front hall on the building’s ground floor was designed to convey its primary function: to pronounce the death sentence.26 The city’s burghers were able to watch the process from beneath the building’s arcades on the east (Dam Square) side. Intended not only for public viewing, the iconography also served to inspire the schout (sheriff) and the schepenen (magistrates) to exercise wise and fair judgement.
Starting in the sixteenth but especially in the seventeenth century, scenes centring on themes of justice were used to decorate tribunal courts in the Northern and Southern Netherlands. Drawing on both biblical and classical sources, the chosen representations served to remind the accused party, the tribunal spectators and the judges themselves to observe God’s intervening role in the judicial process.27 The Vierschaar in the Amsterdam town hall is adorned with three such exempla iustitiae: one scene from the Bible, the Judgement of Solomon (BK-AM-51-22), and two scenes from classical antiquity, the Magnanimity of Zaleucus (BK-AM-51-23), and, as depicted on the present terracotta relief, the Judgement of Brutus. In all three reliefs, a child figures as the central element. This reflects a major idea behind Jacob van Campen’s design for the new Amsterdam town hall: to portray the tribunal body as a wijze ouder (wise parent) charged with overseeing the welfare of the kind (child, i.e. the city’s burghers), if and when deemed necessary.28
Lucius Junius Brutus (d. 509 BC) made history as the man who, after overthrowing the last of the Roman kings, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, went on to found the Roman Republic. Together with Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, he was the first consul of the young republic. Various accounts of the scene depicted on the present terracotta relief – the Judgement of Lucius Junius Brutus – were passed down from classical Antiquity. The Roman historian Titus Livius writes that, in a desire to restore monarchical power, a number of aristocrats conspired together to topple the young republic.29 Among them were Brutus’s own sons, Titus and Tiberius. Having soon learned of this betrayal, the consuls ordered the immediate arrest of the traitorous sons and had them brought before the tribunal, with their father presiding as judge. Livius describes the expression on Brutus’s face when pronouncing his sons’ death sentence in vivid detail.30 The history of the Judgement of Brutus serves as a reminder that all men – without exception – are subject to the rule of law, and that the judge’s verdict must always be passed in strict neutrality.
Quellinus’s composition comprises various moments from the telling of the Judgement of Brutus. The relief’s narrative begins with the decapitated son in the foreground far left. The eye is then drawn to the standing figure of Brutus, whose affirming gesture conveys his orders for his second son to be beheaded. His outstretched left arm points in the direction of the executioner, notably depicted entirely in the nude. The son kneels in the middle with his head bowed, awaiting the execution of his death sentence. He holds centre stage in this triangular arrangement, with other background figures gathered around him as spectators. In the case of the definitive marble relief, the spectators physically present in the Vierschaar of the Amsterdam town hall complete the composition, as it were. Just as with the Magnanimity of Zaleucus, positioned at the south end of the west wall, a circular composition is thus created, extending beyond the relief’s visual plane to include the viewer.31
Of the three terracotta models for the Justice reliefs in the Vierschaar, only the Judgement of Lucius Junius Brutus is explicitly described in the town hall account books. A list citing various works Quellinus had accepted and executed for the city of Amsterdam – for which he received payment in instalments between 24 October 1651 and 7 March 1652 – includes an entry concerning a model van potaarde gebotcheert den Junius brutus (model of clay the Junius Brutus) for the amount of 200 guilders.32 On the same page, described as merber werck (marble work), reference is made to the accepting of the commission for the execution of three reliefs in marble, specifically: aengenomen 3 groote platte histories voor de vierschael het stuck tot sestien honderdt gulden (accepted 3 large flat histories for the vierschaar per piece at sixteen hundred guilders).33 Several pages down, the marble relief with the Judgement of Lucius Junius Brutus is again the only work mentioned, accompanied by the same amount (1600 gulden), in a list of works for which Quellinus received remuneration on 7 and 25 June 1652.34 Apparently by this time the marble relief had been completed.35 That the present terracotta in the Rijksmuseum indeed served as the model for the definitive work executed in marble is affirmed by the scale markings applied to its surface, used to transfer the scene to its final format.36
Since 1900, debate has centred on the terracotta reliefs of the Magnanimity of Zaleucus and the Judgement of Solomon, as whether these works maybe considered autograph works by Quellinus; at no point has the authenticity of the Judgement of Lucius Junius Brutus model been questioned.37 The inferior, less refined execution of the other two models is thought to reflect the work of studio assistants under Quellinus’s instructions.38 In the case of the present relief, by contrast, one indication that the master had a substantial hand in its realization is the fact that Brutus’s head is based on the famous Roman bronze known as the Capitoline Brutus. Quellinus would undoubtedly have seen this portrait bust, which had been in Rome since the sixteenth century (Palazzo dei Conservatori).39 Missing in the present terracotta is a large part of the background. On the final marble version this part contains a Jupiter and Hebe in front of a column bearing an image of the Roman she-wolf linked to the foundation myth of Rome. The seated Jupiter looks on unmoved as events transpire below him, as if tacitly conveying his approval. His presence refers to the fact that justice flows from the divine. Comparisons have been drawn between Quellinus’s rendering of Jupiter and a similar figure by Pieter de Grebber (c. 1600-1652), painted for the Orange Hall at Huis ten Bosch Palace in The Hague.40 Another link has been established with the figure of Christ in Jacob van Campen’s painting of the Last Judgement.41 In all probability, however, Jupiter – so too his lightning bolts and eagle – was more than anything inspired by the same figure in Rubens’s Martyrdom of St Lawrence. This painting was widely disseminated via a 1621 engraving by Lucas Vorsterman (cf. a drawing after this print by Moses ter Borch RP-T-1887-A-1076). On a final note, the pose of Brutus’s kneeling son stems from the iconographic tradition of the Sacrifice of Isaac.42
Two other terracotta versions, one of the present model for the Brutus relief and the other for the Zaleucus, surfaced on the London art market in 1990. These reliefs – highly detailed in their finishing but with no trace of spontaneity or evident markings – can only be studio replicas made for the free market.43 They are most likely identifiable as the two reliefs held in Valerius Röver’s art cabinet in the first half of the eighteenth century, described in a 1730-38 inventory as ‘2 bas-reliefs by Quellinus, the original after which he made the same in marble in the Town Hall in the vierschaar in Amsterdam: representing the Histories of Zaleucus and of Brutus, with his Sons, height 2 feet 3 thumbs, wide 22 thumbs’.44 Van Gelder maintained that these are the reliefs in the Rijksmuseum.45 Their divergent dimensions preclude a positive identification, however, while those of the two pieces sold in 1990 correspond well.
Even if rendered in far greater detail, the London reliefs display major similarities to their Amsterdam equivalents. The background of the Judgement of Lucius Junius Brutus is finished more completely, supplemented with additional figures behind Brutus and the executioner and a view of the Pantheon. Unlike the present model, one discerns no scale markings nor any trace of modelling. The London Brutus relief is therefore in all probability a replica, specifically made as a gift or for the free market in Quellinus’s studio.
Wendy Frère and Frits Scholten, 2024
Literature
A. Pit, ‘De verzameling Hollandsch beeldhouwwerk in het Nederlandsch Museum te Amsterdam’, Bulletin van den Nederlandschen Oudheidkundigen Bond 2 (1900-01), pp. 6-17, esp. p. 8-9 (no. 21); J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 279, with earlier literature; J.G. van Gelder, ‘“Beelden en rariteijten” in de verzameling Valerius Röver’, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 31 (1980), pp. 341-54, esp. pp. 344-45, fig. 5; G. Emeis, Het Paleis op de Dam: De geschiedenis van het gebouw en zijn gebruikers, Amsterdam/Brussel 1981, p. 41; M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 48, 50, no. 92; 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. 45-46 (no. 61f) and 48; 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; J. Kiers et al., The Glory of the Golden Age: Dutch Art of the 17th Century: Painting, Sculpture and Decorative Art, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2000, no. 167; J.P. Filedt-Kok et al., Netherlandish Art in the Rijksmuseum 1600-1700, coll. cat Amsterdam 2001, no. 52; F. Scholten, ‘La sculpture et les arts décoratifs du XVIe au début du Xxe siècle’, in T. DaCosta Kaufmann (ed.), L’art flamand et hollandais: Belgique et Pays-Bas 1520-1914, Paris 2002, pp. 319-403, esp. p. 360 and fig. 344; P. Philippot, D. Coekelberghs, P. Loze and D. Vautier, L’Architecture religieuse et la sculpture baroques dans les Pays-Bas méridionaux et la principauté de Liège: 1600-1770, Sprimont 2003, pp. 842 (fig. 2), 843; F. Scholten, ‘Quellinus’s Burgomasters: A Portrait Gallery of Amsterdam Republicanism’, Simiolus 32 (2006), pp. 87-125, esp. pp. 104-05, fig. 14; F. Scholten, Artus Quellinus: Sculptor of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2010, pp. 28, 46, fig. 39, 52; P. Vlaardingerbroek, Het paleis van de Republiek, Zwolle 2011, pp. 117, 120; G.J.M. Weber (ed.), 1600-1700: Dutch Golden Age, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2018, no. 110
Citation
F. Scholten and W. Frère, 2024, 'Artus (I) Quellinus, The Judgement of Lucius Junius Brutus, Model for a Relief in the Vierschaar of the Amsterdam Town Hall (now Royal Palace) at Dam Square, Amsterdam, c. 1650 - c. 1652', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200115923
(accessed 6 December 2025 20:48:37).