Erasmus (?1469-1536)

Entry

This oak statuette of Erasmus (?1469-1536) is fully signed on the reverse side of the plinth by the Amsterdam sculptor Albert Vinckenbrinck (1605-1664). The work is a fairly precise reduction of the well-known, larger-than-life-size bronze by Hendrick de Keyser I (1565-1621) (fig. a). Erected in Rotterdam in 1622, this statue of the Roman Catholic humanist caused a great commotion at the time, particularly among the orthodox Counter-Remonstrants.¹ By the time Vinckenbrinck made his copy, the angry sentiment of those riled had long subsided. The high quality of Vinckenbrinck’s statuette points to a manufacture at the peak of his career, occurring shortly before or around 1650.² Erasmus’s well-proportioned body is atypical for Vinckenbrinck, whose own figures sometimes appear rather ungainly and thickset. Clearly, this disparity is largely due to his reliance on De Keyser’s composition. The marked agreement between the bronze statue and the present copy suggests Vinckenbrinck had direct access to one of De Keyser’s original models, perhaps one of the two scale models of the Erasmus statue held in an Amsterdam private collection up until the eighteenth century.³

Like De Keyser’s original, Vinckenbrinck’s Erasmus wears an ample, fur-lined tabard, gathered by a sash at the waist. A second garment worn beneath the tabard emerges at the neck and wrists. Depicted in a pacing stance, Erasmus reads from a thick folio supported with his left hand, while clasping several pages between the fingers of his right hand. Tight curls of hair emerge from the sides of his characteristic bonnet; a long, fur-lined scarf hangs freely over the shoulders. The only marked deviation from the model is the original carved wooden socle on which Erasmus stands: ornamented with auricular and scroll decoration and an uninscribed banderole hanging on a carved ringlet in front.

Both De Keyser’s and Vinckenbrinck’s portrayal of Erasmus follow an established visual tradition introduced in 1517,⁴ the year in which the philosopher was first portrayed in a painting by Quinten Massijs. The Rijksmuseum possesses a copy (SK-A-166) of the original held in the British Royal Collection.⁵ Characteristic traits include the playful locks of hair emerging from Erasmus’s bonnet and the angular facial type with high cheekbones. De Keyser based his statue on the engraving Erasmus im Gehäus after a design by Hans Holbein (RP-P-1905-1185). In this woodcut of 1538/40, the humanist is depicted standing, with his right hand resting on a herm. Here too he wears a voluminous tabard that virtually engulfs his entire body, a motif De Keyser chose to adopt almost literally and which Vinckenbrinck subsequently copied.

Various examples of Vinckenbrinck’s wooden medallions bearing relief portraits of historical figures survive to the present day (cf. BK-BR-443). The Amsterdam Erasmus statuette is the only portrait made by the sculptor as a standing, independent sculpture. As far as can be ascertained, only this one copy exists. This suggests the statuette was privately commissioned, most likely by an Amsterdam humanist wishing to convey his admiration for Erasmus. It would most likely have been displayed in a gentleman’s study, a perfect setting for images of scholarly men.

Floor ter Haar and Bieke van der Mark, 2025