Group of Three Quarrelling Children (Allegory of the Seasons ?)

Entry

Jan Pieter van Baurscheit I (1669-1728) came from Wormersdorf near Bonn, Germany. He was part of the retinue of Maximilian II Emanuel of Bavaria, the new governor of the Spanish Netherlands, coming to the Southern Netherlands in 1692. Baurscheit settled in Antwerp to train as a sculptor in the workshop of Pieter Scheemaekers I (1640-1714).² In 1695 he registered as an independent master in the local guild of St Luke and set up a workshop there which was soon one of the foremost sculpture suppliers in the Netherlands. Baurscheit’s work included funerary monuments, architectural art and sculptural decoration for church interiors. Garden statues and vases (cf. BK-NM-8832), mainly in sandstone, also featured significantly in his production and were very popular with clients in the Northern Netherlands.³ On the whole his sculptures are characterized by their distinctly robust baroque style (cf. Hercules and Cacus, BK-NM-13215-C), but in his late work, like this marble group of children of 1726, he was tending towards a degree of classicism. Baurscheit had been using since 1717 the title Statuarius Caesarius (Imperial Sculptor), incised after his initials on the plinth, the year in which he had made decorations for the Joyous Entry into Brussels of emperor Charles VI upon his investiture as the new duke of Brabant.⁴

Allegories in the form of putti were extremely popular garden ornaments in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, so it is hardly surprising that they accounted for much of the Baurscheit workshop’s repertoire. Countless examples and design drawings of such little children (kindertjes) have been handed down, made by both Baurscheit and his son and collaborator with the same name, the well-known architect Jan Pieter van Baurscheit II (1699-1768), who also used them as architectural sculpture.⁵ The groups of putti usually formed ensembles that together depicted the Seasons, the Elements or the Five Senses, for instance.

The iconography of the present group of children is not entirely clear. Leeuwenberg interpreted the design as a minnevete (lovers’ feud),⁶ with two boys quarrelling over a girl. However, it could also be an allegory of the opposing seasons, which are sometimes represented with only three figures.⁷ The most important indication is that the head of one of the boys is covered with a scarf – a motif that is normally reserved for allegories of Winter. If the piece does indeed relate to the seasons, Spring and Summer are symbolized in one figure: the girl with a garland of flowers, leaves and fruits, and Autumn by the second boy.

The children and their attributes recur in two sandstone variations on the composition, which are not fully signed but bear the Baurscheit monogram (used by both father and son).⁸ The presence of a vine on the back of the boy not wearing a scarf on his head confirms that these groups are indeed allegories of the seasons, this one being Autumn. However, the vine attribute is omitted in the present group.

The ensemble featured here stood for centuries in the garden at country house Hulhorst near Hierden, Gelderland, and consequently the surface of the marble is greatly weathered due to climatic influences. The piece is said to have originated from Het Loo Palace and was perhaps a gift from the House of Orange to Baron Frederik Willem van Spaen for services rendered, or else to subsequent owners of Huize Hulshorst.⁹ The fact that the work is made in marble and Baurscheit signed it in full are indications supporting the supposition of a royal commission.

Bieke van der Mark, 2025