The Magnanimity of Zaleucus, Model for a Relief in the Vierschaar of the Amsterdam Town Hall (now Royal Palace) at Dam Square

Entry

The present relief of the Magnanimity of Zaleucus belongs to a group of 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.²³ 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 Magnanimity of Zaleucus was made in preparation for the sculptural decoration of the Vierschaar – the seat of the municipal tribunal – in the new Amsterdam town hall, now the Royal Palace on the Dam Square. Iconographically, the sculptural programme of this spacious front hall on the building’s ground floor was designed to convey its primary function: to pronounce the death sentence.²⁴ The city’s burghers were able to watch the process from beneath the building’s arcades on the east (Dam Square) side. Intended not only for public viewing, the iconography also served to inspire the schout (bailiff) and the schepenen (magistrates) to exercise wise and fair judgement.

Starting in the sixteenth but especially in the seventeenth century, scenes centring on themes of justice were used to decorate tribunal courts in the Northern and Southern Netherlands. Drawing on both biblical and classical sources, the chosen representations served to remind the accused party, the tribunal spectators and the judges themselves to observe God’s intervening role in the judicial process.²⁵ The Vierschaar in the Amsterdam town hall is adorned with three such exempla iustitiae: one scene from the Bible, the Judgement of Solomon (BK-AM-51-22), and two scenes from classical antiquity, the present Magnanimity of Zaleucus, and the Judgement of Brutus (BK-AM-51-21). In all three reliefs, a child figures as the central element. This reflects a major idea behind Jacob van Campen’s design for the new Amsterdam town hall: to portray the tribunal body as a wijze ouder (wise parent) charged with overseeing the welfare of the kind (child, i.e. the city’s burghers), if and when deemed necessary.²⁶

The Magnanimity of Zaleucus reminds the beholder that all people are subject to the law (excepting the judge himself). Some believe this theme perfectly illustrates the principle of impartiality, while others see it as conveying the importance of preserving the freedom to interpret the same law in various ways, depending on the context.²⁷ Valerius Maximus’s Facta et dicta memorabilia (first century AD) recounts the classical history of Zaleucus – a Greek lawgiver from the seventh century BC, known for his strict and conservative laws²⁸ – and his son (Book 5, Chapter 8,1). One of Zaleucus’s rulings concerns adultery, punishable with blindness by gouging out the eyes. First to be sentenced for this crime was his own son. Despite pleas from members of his court, Zaleucus refuses to spare his only child and resolutely chooses to enforce the law. To avoid subjecting his son to total blindness, however, he decrees that he himself is to share the penalty with his son.²⁹ Consequently, one eye is gouged out of both the son and father. Jacob Vennekool’s (1631-1673) print book on the Amsterdam town hall from 1661[Jacob Vennekool, Afbeelding van’t stadt huys van Amsterdam: In dartigh coopere plaaten, Amsterdam 1661, pp. 58-59.] includes an engraving of Quellinus’s relief, accompanied by the caption ius contra iura (law against law), thus inspiring readers to debate the consequences of sometimes overly strict laws.³⁰

The present relief, with Zaleucus seated in the middle, depicts the dramatic moment just before the gouging out of his eye, with the suspense expressed in various places. In the background, one man raises his arms in an expression of distress. In front of him, an old man with a beard tugs at his own tunic, as if personally undergoing Zaleucus’s suffering. In the middle ground, two men flanking Zaleucus witness his judgment, both with hands clasped. Positioned as such, they create a symmetrical axis around the central figure, who undergoes his self-appointed fate with arms extended at either side and fists clenched. Paradoxically, this gesture can express either desolation or a resistance to suffering. Zaleucus’s son, in his turn, assumes a pose of total acceptance, likewise with outstretched arms but with the hands clasped. Although seated outside the scene’s middle, his pose mirrors that of his father. As with several other works attributed to Artus Quellinus (cf. BK-2012-11), one discerns the unorthodox positioning of the fingers of intertwined hands: instead of alternating, the interlocked fingers of the right and left hand sometimes enclose two fingers together. Also noteworthy is the repeated application of the same face for various figures, albeit from different perspectives. This can be observed, for example, with the bald, long-bearded elderly man, who appears three times in the same scene.

On the present terracotta relief, the relation between the architecture and the figures differs somewhat from that of the marble. The figures are more corpulent, with the angle of the faces slightly altered. Furthermore, the figure far right on the terracotta is absent from the marble. Quellinus drew his inspiration from classical Roman portraits known to him during his time in Rome. Zaleucus’s contorted face is derived from the famed Laocoön group.³¹

The Brutus relief’s authenticity (BK-AM-51-21) as an autograph work by Quellinus has never been questioned. The same cannot be said of the Zaleucus and Solomon reliefs: as early as 1900, both were qualified as works by studio assistants based on their less refined execution.³² Fifteen years later, in her monograph on the elder Quellinus, Gabriels confirmed these earlier attributions, further suggesting that the terracotta model for the Judgment of Solomon was in fact a preliminary sketch modelled by workshop assistants. She believed that the master’s definitive, finished work had been lost.³³ Leeuwenberg followed suit, likewise ruling out both the present relief and that of Solomon (BK-AM-51-22) as autograph works, but without further elucidation.³⁴ On scarcely convincing grounds, Vlaardingerbroek more recently posited that two different designers were involved: Van Campen, as the final decision maker for the visualization of the iconographic programme,³⁵ and Artus Quellinus.³⁶ Nevertheless, the deviating, frontal composition of the Judgment of Solomon arises from its central placement on the Vierschaar wall and does not necessarily betray the hand of another designer.

While differences can be discerned between the Brutus relief (with its rougher texture and traces of modelling) and the two other Vierschaar representations, these are insufficient to dismiss the essentially autograph nature of all three works, acknowledging that a sharp distinction in the distribution of tasks between the master and his assistants need not necessarily have existed in the studio. Moreover, the negative evaluation of the Zaleucus and Solomon reliefs can also partly be explained by the layer of red paint that once covered their surfaces, masking the subtleties of the modellé.³⁷

Two other terracotta versions, one of the present model for the Zaleucus relief and the other for the Brutus relief, surfaced on the London art market in 1990. These reliefs – highly detailed in their finishing but with no trace of spontaneity or evident markings – can only be studio replicas made for the free market.³⁸ They are most likely identifiable as the two reliefs held in Valerius Röver’s art cabinet in the first half of the eighteenth century, described in a 1730-38 inventory as ‘2 bas-reliefs by Quellinus, the original after which he made the same in marble in the Town Hall in the vierschaar in Amsterdam: representing the Histories of Zaleucus and of Brutus, with his Sons, height 2 feet 3 thumbs, wide 22 thumbs’.³⁹ Van Gelder maintained that these are the reliefs in the Rijksmuseum.⁴⁰ Their divergent dimensions preclude a positive identification, however, while those of the two pieces sold in 1990 correspond well.

Unlike the Judgment of Solomon, with its more tightly organized composition governed by the architecture in the background and the concise placement of the figures, the Brutus and Zaleucus reliefs are more ‘atmospheric’. This effect was intentional: in the shallow space of the Vierschaar, the central relief with Solomon's judgment is firmly situated in the surrounding physical architecture. The two flanking scenes, by contrast, are airier in nature, thus creating greater depth towards the sides. With the Zaleucus relief, the beholder is confronted with a multitude of figures forming three concentric half-circles. These begin with the first three figures in the foreground (the doctor, Zaleucus and his son), subsequently expanded with the two men with clasped hands, and the executioner. The third and final half-circle comprises the remaining figures, rendered in very low relief. Those in the background gradually disappear into the depth. Standing in the right top corner is the scene’s sole female figure, representing the personification of Justice. Complementing the composition are the actual, living spectators, standing opposite the relief, thus forming a complete circle.⁴¹

Wendy Frère and Frits Scholten, 2024