Object data
terracotta
height 91 cm
Artus Quellinus (I)
Prudentia, Model for a Statue on the East Facade of the Amsterdam Town Hall (now Royal Palace) at Dam Square
Amsterdam, 1650 - 1651
Technical notes
Modelled, partly hollowed out and fired. Coated with a greyish-brown finishing layer. Analysis by Hallebeek (ICN) in 1997 revealed that this finishing layer consists of chalk, plaster and lead white.1 In many places, this layer is opaque, with the exception of the bottommost section of the undergarment and the drapery folds in the vicinity of the left breast and shoulder.
Scientific examination and reports
- X-ray powder diffraction: P. Hallebeek (ICN), RMA, 97-107, 13 March 1997
Condition
The right forearm (possibly holding a mirror), the snake’s head and sections of the feet are missing. The base and feet have broken off at the level of the dress’s hem. Substantial cracks discernible right on the underside of the undergarment traverse in the direction of the deep fold of her overgarment. These cracks are scarcely concealed and therefore likely relatively new. One of the cracks continues on to the armpit, where it splits, traversing over the right upper arm and in the direction of the neck to the edge of the hair. Here the crack again splits across the back of the hair and across the right cheek, forehead and hair. Restorations to the nose and a section of the right cheek can be discerned. On the sculpture’s reverse, a section of the right drapery fold is missing, resulting in a hole. The break’s surface appears old and has a dark-brown colour (possibly glue remnants?).
Provenance
Commissioned by the City of Amsterdam, 1650/51;2 from the artist,3 transferred to the Town Hall (now Royal Palace) at Dam Square, Amsterdam, 1664;4 transferred to the Town Hall at the Prinsenhof, Amsterdam, 1808;5 on loan to the museum, since 18876
Object number: BK-AM-51-6
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.7 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).8
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.9 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.10 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.11 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.12 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.13 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 Countries14 – 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).15 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.’16 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.17
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.18 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.19 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.20
Entry
This Prudentia (Prudence) 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.21 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 present terracotta is the scale model for the bronze statue personifying Prudentia at the left end of the pediment on the town hall’s eastern façade (the side facing Dam Square). At the pediment’s opposite (right) end stands her pendant, Justitia (Justice, cf. BK-AM-51-5). At the pediment’s apex in the centre stands the personification of Peace,22 a statue for which no terracotta model has been preserved. Crowning the pediment of the western façade, i.e. the ‘rear’ of the building, is the monumental statue of Atlas (cf. BK-AM-51-7). The god bears the heavenly firmament – represented in the form of a large sphere – on his shoulders, flanked on either side by Temperantia (Temperance) left and Vigilantia (Vigilance) right. Collectively, the statues’ message reads: Universal Peace, in Heaven and on Earth, is solely possible through these four virtues. The bronzes were cast by the Hemony brothers between 1663 and 1665. The actual-scale casting models for these works have been installed in the building’s central hall, the so-called Burgerzaal (Citizens’ Hall).23
On the present terracotta model, Prudentia’s traditional attribute, the mirror, is missing; the snake coiled around her arm, another important attribute, is missing its head. Prudentia turns her head to gaze over her left shoulder; this gives the impression she is leaning back. Her right arm is slightly bent, with the forearm – half of which is missing, together with her hand-held mirror – resting on the hip. The snake circles about the left arm, with its tail tightly clasped in her hand. With the mouth slightly ajar and a mildly frowning forehead, Prudentia’s face is less classical in appearance when compared to her counterpart, Justitia. Her hair is also notably more detailed and varied. Tied loosely at the back, it hangs in a ponytail that traverses the neck, falling over the left shoulder. A beaded headband worn at the crown of the forehead pushes the hair up and back. A beaded necklace, visible behind the right ear, has been interwoven with the hair.
For Prudentia’s raiment, Quellinus turned to a classical Roman model, the so-called Zingarella, a statue standing in the Villa Borghese at the time.24 The drapery scheme on the Roman figure has been copied very precisely, including the band diagonally traversing the chest. This suggests that Quellinus, during his sojourn in Rome, had made a study model of the Borghese statue, which he subsequently consulted some ten years later in Amsterdam. Contrary to the detailed modelling in front, Prudentia’s reverse has been treated summarily, with tool markings still discernible. Drapery folds at the left shoulder blade and the back of the hair are very loosely modelled. The terracotta is hollow, as can be observed through a small crack on the figure’s reverse.25
The present terracotta’s designation as a vidimus is based in part on the object’s known provenance: at some point after 1769, the Prudentia ended up in the town hall’s art cabinet. One may reasonably presume it had always been in the city’s possession, possibly from the time it was shown as a model for approval to the city’s burgomasters. The town hall account books list the statue as Noch een belt wtwijsende de Voorsichtichheit (Another statue representing Prudence), accompanied by the amount of sixty guilders.26 Recorded at the bottom of the statement are four payment instalments, all occurring in the year 1651. In the Antwerp art world, paying in instalments was indeed customary practice.27
At one point it was posited that the white slip covering the terracotta model of Prudentia was meant to suggest marble.28 While such practices were indeed common, in this specific case it can be deemed less probable when considering the terracotta served as the model for a statue to be executed in bronze. Nevertheless, the vidimi were in fact modelled long before the statues’ definitive casting in the period 1663-65. During the intervening period, the terracottas were therefore seen as autonomous works, displayed in the burgomasters’ chamber from the time of the town hall’s celebratory opening.29 The thin layer of slip would have conveyed a more finished quality and bestowed the appearance of classical statuary. Lastly, one cannot rule out the possibility that the statues were initially planned in marble: uncertainty regarding the choice of material might explain why a period of nine years had passed before the actual casting was undertaken.
The inclusion of the word Noch (another) in the aforementioned account book entry can be interpreted in two ways, applied either in reference to other statues listed in the same records or to other earlier, unapproved models.30 Certain is that, in 1746, other terracotta models by Quellinus – a Justitia, Prudentia and a Vigilantia – were included in a sale of art objects in the possession of the painter Nicolaas Verkolje, who owned a large collection of the sculptor’s works.31 Furthermore, an additional two models – in this case, a Justitia and a Prudentia – are documented in the 1819 sale of the collection of the Delft burgomaster Emanuël Sandoz (whereabouts thereafter unknown).32 Also noteworthy is the resemblance of the Prudentia and Justitia (BK-AM-51-5) to Rombout Verhulst’s ivory Virgin and Child in the collection of the Rijksmuseum (BK-2002-28). Verhulst was the only assistant in Quellinus’s workshop to produce and sign several prominent sculptures for the Amsterdam town hall, including a relief of Venus, Anteros and Eros.33
Iris Ippel and Frits Scholten, 2024
Literature
J.A. Alberdingk Thijm, Over nieuwere beeldhouwkunst, vooral in Nederland, Rotterdam 1886, p. 14; 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. pp. 7-8, no. 18; J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 274, with earlier literature; A. Linfert, ‘Die “Zingarella”’, Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 93 (1978), pp. 184-201, esp. pp. 185, 190 and figs. 8, 9; M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, no. 84, p. 194; 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. 61d) 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; 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, p. 840 (fig. 1); F. Scholten, Artus Quellinus: Sculptor of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2010, p. 21, fig. 22
Citation
I. Ippel and F. Scholten, 2024, 'Artus (I) Quellinus, Prudentia, Model for a Statue on the East Facade of the Amsterdam Town Hall (now Royal Palace) at Dam Square, Amsterdam, 1650 - 1651', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200115912
(accessed 6 December 2025 22:29:11).