Bacchanal with a Satyr Family and Putti

Entry

The Flemish sculptor Gerard van Opstal (c. 1597-1668) garnered tremendous praise as an artist with his exquisite ivory carvings. In Paris, his miniature sculptures in this medium were acquired and collected by members of the highest circles. The Cabinet du Roi boasted no less than seventeen ivory works made by the sculptor, including mythological reliefs, crucifixes and goblets.³ Characteristic of Van Opstal’s style is the openwork relief, liberating the figures from the background. As described in the inventories of contemporaneous collectors, these reliefs were originally mounted on a black-velvet ground (à fondz de velours noir) and displayed as such on tables and in cabinets (pour mettre sur tables et cabinets).⁴

Van Opstal began his career as an apprentice to Nicolaes Diedon, a little known Brussels sculptor. There are indications that he subsequently spent quite some time in the artistic milieu of the Brussels sculptor François du Quesnoy (1597-1643) in Rome before appearing in Paris in 1631.⁵ There, he worked for several years as an assistant to the French sculptor Jacques Sarazin (1592-1660) at Château de Chilly, southwest of the city. In Antwerp, where he settled and registered as a master in the Guild of St Luke in 1635/36, he worked for some time in collaboration with Johannes van Mildert (1588-1638), whose daughter he married in 1637. In 1642, he departed for Paris again, this time presumably at the invitation of Cardinal De Richelieu.⁶ There Van Opstal would eventually become involved in the founding of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture (1648). In his capacity as Sculpteur des Bâtiments du Roi, a position to which he was appointed in 1651, Van Opstal produced (decorative) marble and stone architectural sculptures adorning monumental buildings such as the Palais du Louvre and the (ultimately demolished) Porte Saint-Antoine.

Van Opstal’s favourite theme in ivory were mythological scenes featuring frolicking satyrs and plump putti. Representations of this kind were first popularized by artists working in Rome during the 1630s, most notably by the aforementioned sculptor François du Quesnoy. Van Opstal’s rotund toddlers are in fact highly reminiscent of Du Quesnoy’s putti. In the dynamic compositions and supple corporeality, however, one also discerns the influence of paintings by Rubens.⁷ Van Opstal was one of several Flemish artists responsible for introducing the style of Du Quesnoy and Rubens in France. Du Quesnoy himself had also been invited by Cardinal de Richelieu to come work for the French crown, were it not that he perished during his journey to Paris, meeting his untimely death in Livorno on 12 July 1643.⁸

At far right, a satyr lies semi-recumbent on a goatskin playing a pan flute. His female counterpart suckles her new-born while handing a second satyr-child a bunch of grapes. The family is accompanied on the left by four dancing putti, one of which plays the tambourine. Van Opstal probably carved this relief during his Antwerp period. Those he later produced in Paris are generally somewhat more ambitious in their composition, detailing and the differentiation of textures.⁹

There is strong evidence the famous Antwerp painter Jacques Jordaens (1593-1678) was one of the first owners of the relief. His art collection – which included some sculptures modelled by his own hand – was inherited by his grandson Johan Jacob Wierts (1663-1717), who lived in de Nobelstraat in The Hague.¹⁰ The relief can be identified with ‘An ivory bas-relief depicting a dancing children’s game with a satyr and a satyress, made by Francis of Amsterdam, very artfully executed’ in the estate inventory of his widow Hillegonda Maria van Heemskerk, drawn up after her death in 1734.¹¹ Subsequently the present piece was owned by the Rotterdam collector Jan Snellen (1711-1787), whose close friend, the artist Aert Schouman (1710-1792), made a chalk drawing of the relief in 1738.¹² On the sheet’s reverse, the following annotation was made: ‘after a Bas-relief by François Quesnoij of Amsterdam [sic!] in ivory. By A. Schouman 1738.’¹³ The mistaken association of the Brussels sculptor François du Quesnoy (who spent the majority of his career in Rome) with the city of Amsterdam, can be traced back to the entry for the relief in the 1737 inventory of Jordaens’s grandson’s widow, in which the artist of the relief was listed as by ‘Francis van Amsterdam’ Francis van Amsterdam’ (referring to Francis of Bossuit, which is an erroneous attribution if it indeed concerns the present ivory). Schouman made a second drawing of the relief in 1740.¹⁴ While its present whereabouts are unknown, this second drawing was in the collection of Snellen’s great-nephew, Arnout Vosmaer (1720-1799), described in his 1800 sale catalogue as follows: ‘An exquisitely beautiful drawing in colour by A. Schouman made after an ivory bas-relief by the famous Quinoy now preserved by Mr Vollenhoven of Rotterdam. The [relief] depicts a landscape, in which a pan flute-playing Satyr and [a] Satyress with a suckling at the breast lie beneath a tent-cloth; in front of her four small children dance next to a child-satyr and other elements. This piece is from his very best period. H. 9 B. 12 D’.¹⁵ Schouman evidently embellished his rendering of Van Opstal’s relief – in 1800 seen as a work by François du Quesnoy – with the addition of a tent. The ‘Vollenhoven’ mentioned in the catalogue was Jan Snellen van Vollenhoven (1785-1820), a grandson of Jan Snellen, who had apparently inherited the relief. The Rijksmuseum purchased the ivory in 1876 from his son, Samuel Constant Snellen van Vollenhoven (1816-1880). In 1984, a copy of the present relief surfaced on the art market, carved in a different material, probably ebony, then tentatively attributed to the Brussels architect-sculptor Jan Cosijn (1646-1708), but more likely by a 19th-century hand (fig. a).¹⁶ A similar copy was auctioned in 2021, as part of a set of six ebony reliefs after ivory originals by Van Opstal.¹⁷

Bieke van der Mark, 2025