Object data
ivory and limewood
height 8.5 cm × width 6.6 cm (ivory)
height 18 cm × width 12.5 cm (frame)
Nicolaas Seuntjes
Self-Portrait
The Hague, c. 1735
Inscriptions
-
Inscription, on a piece of paper (inv. no. BK-1966-18-1), formerly mounted on the back of the frame, in black ink: Portret van den Beeldhouwer Nicolaas Seuntjes, door hem zelven. De in hout gebeitelde lijst is een kunststuk het welk door kunstkenners wordt bewonderd. Nicolaas Seuntjes is den maker van de Graftombe van den Prins van Hesse Philipsthal, op last van zijne Gemalin Catharina Amelia van Solms, in de groote of St. Jacobs Kerk, te ʼs Gravenhage, opgerigt. Bij geene levensbeschrijvingen van Nederlandsche Kunstenaren word van Seuntjes melding gemaakt. (Portrait of the Sculptor Nicolaas Seuntjes, by him self. The frame carved in wood is an art work which is admired by art connoisseurs. Nicolaas Seuntjes is the maker of the Tomb of the Prince van Hesse Philipsthal, erected on the orders of his Spouse Catharina Amelia van Solms, in the great or St. Jacobs Kerk, in The Hague. No biographies of Dutch Artists make mention of Seuntjes.)
Technical notes
The ivory is carved in bas relief; the frame partially in openwork.
Condition
Flawless. The paper which was formerly on the back of the frame is kept separately (BK-1966-18-1.
Provenance
…; sale collection Aernout Vosmaer, The Hague (B. Scheurleer), 17 March 1800, p. 299, no. 4, fl. 9.11 (with nos. 5 to 8) to Schuilenburg;1 …; collection princess Luise zu Wied (1880-1965), Schloss Monrepos (Neuwied); from her estate, fl. 500, to the museum, 1966
Object number: BK-1966-18
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
Judging from this finely carved self-portrait, the little-known sculptor Nicolaas Seuntjes (1700-1778) must have been a talented artist of small-scale works. The quality of the carving, including that of the frame, is particularly surprising when one considers his other known works, which consist of a few rather uninspired tombs: for Otto von Vittinghoff in Nederhemert (c. 1727) and for the Ockersse brothers in Dreischor (c. 1742). An inscription on a piece of paper which was formerly mounted to the back of this self-portrait (BK-1966-18-1) states that Seuntjes was also the sculptor of the tomb of Philip van Hessen-Philipsthal of 1723 in The Hague, which is based directly on a design by the court architect Daniel Marot (1661-1752). Seuntjes came from a family of sculptors that included his father Dirk (d. 1724) and his brother Herman (1704-1755). Although Nicolaas was probably the most accomplished of the three, he seems to have abandoned sculpture in the mid-1730s to follow a career as boatman on the city’s yacht (or a tow-boat?). In a deed from 1749 and a printed source from seven years later he is referred to as captein van het Hagse jagt (captain of the Hague yacht) and as living on Delffsche Veer.2 Incidentally, this was close to where the court sculptor Xavery had bought a house and workshop in 1741.3
Seuntjes’s self-portrait was once in the collection of Aernout Vosmaer (d. 1799), director of the stadholders’ natural history cabinet, where it formed part of a series of small ivory portraits of Seuntjes and his family. In addition to his full-face likeness there was a second self-portrait in a similar frame but this time en profil, and the portraits of the sculptor’s wife, brother (possibly Herman) and sister-in-law. 4 The present whereabouts of those works is not known.
The frame supplies the best clues for dating the portrait. It already displays a slight departure from the dominant style of Marot and tends towards the rococo, particularly in the Shell-shaped crest. This points to a date around the mid-1730s, when Seuntjes was about 35 years old, which is borne out by his apparent age in the self-portrait. Stylistically, the ivory is consistent with the international taste for ivory medallion portraits of this type. For instance, medallions with comparably delicate carving are found in England – made by Gaspar van der Hagen, an ivory carver from the Netherlands who was working in London in the middle of the eighteenth century, or in Germany – made by Carl August Lücke the Elder (active from before 1688 to c. 1730).5
Frits Scholten, 2025
This entry is a revised version of F. Scholten, Gebeeldhouwde portretten/Portrait Sculptures, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1995, no. 33
Literature
J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 407; F. Scholten, ‘Daniël Marot, ontwerper van grafmonumenten’, in K. Ottenheym and W. Terlouw (eds.), Daniël Marot: Vormgever van een deftig bestaan: Architectuur en interieurs van Haagse stadspaleizen, Zutphen 1988, pp. 85-99, esp. pp. 92-94; F. Scholten, Gebeeldhouwde portretten/Portrait Sculptures, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1995, no. 33; Scholten in R. Baarsen et al., Netherlandish Art in the Rijksmuseum 1700-1800, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2006, no. 28
Citation
F. Scholten, 2025, 'Nicolaas Seuntjes, Self-Portrait, The Hague, c. 1735', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035846
(accessed 9 December 2025 04:05:30).