Young Lady with a Lapdog (Loyalty?)

Entry

This terracotta statuette is signed by Pieter Xaveri (c. 1647-1673) and inscribed with the year 1673 along the right front edge of its base. Originating from Antwerp, Xaveri worked as a sculptor in the Northern Netherlandish city of Leiden from around 1670 until his premature death in 1673 (see BK-1980-19 for additional biographical information). While chiefly devoted to making cabinet sculptures modelled in terracotta, Xaveri also received commissions for architectural sculpture, including the tympanum of the facade of ‘In den Vergulden Turk’, a building on the Breestraat in Leiden.²

The richly attired young lady holding a lapdog can best be compared to a somewhat smaller statuette depicting a shepherd girl with a baby lamb at her feet, a work that also dates from the final year of Xaveri’s life (BK-NM-5155). In this latter case, the modeller has clearly conveyed the allegorical meaning by inscribing the name Flora on the base, the personification of Spring. The absence of a comparable inscription on the present work leaves it unclear whether the figure should also be interpreted as an allegory. The lapdog’s presence might point to an interpretation of the statuette as a personification of Loyalty.³

The present terracotta was sold in 1771 as part of the collection of Leonard van Heemskerk from Leiden. A total of eight signed terracottas by Pieter Xaveri were featured in the auction, along with six signed pieces by his follower, the Leiden sculptor Jan Smeltzing I (1656-1693) (cf. BK-NM-5346). It is not known whether Van Heemskerk collected these works himself. Instead, the statuettes may have entered his possession by inheritance – as did a sizeable collection of glasswork (cf. BK-KOG-133) – via the father of his grandfather, Willem Jacobsz van Heemskerk (1613-1693), a textile merchant and dilettante glass engraver in Leiden. Acknowledging the period in which he lived, Willem could very well have acquired such works directly from the artists. Certain is that he moved in artists’ circles, as affirmed by his friendship with the painter Frans van Mieris I (1635-1681).⁴

In the catalogue accompanying the sale of Leonard van Heemskerk’s collection, the present statuette immediately follows a terracotta listed as ‘A Young Lady with a Bird in her Hand, richly attired, by Xavery, height 16 thumbs’ and described as: ‘A ditto with a Lapdog under the arm, by the same, somewhat smaller’.⁵ Together with two other works by an anonymous artist, the statuettes were sold for the modest price of 3.50 guilders to one Does Boekverkooper (Does, bookseller).

Nothing is known of the whereabouts of the Young Lady with a Bird following the sale, just as the whereabouts of the Young Lady with a Lapdog prior to its entering the Rijksmuseum collection at an undocumented point in time. Certain is that the museum acquired the statuette either in or before 1825, at which time all sculptures preserved at the Trippenhuis – then the national ‘Rijks Museum’ on the Kloveniersburgwal in Amsterdam – were transferred to the Koninklijk Kabinet voor Zeldzaamheden in The Hague.⁶

Bieke van der Mark, 2025