Mantelpiece with relief of Paris and Oenone

• Mantelpiece with relief of Paris and Oenone
• Chimney Piece with Shepherd Boy and Girl Making Music and Overmantel Relief with Paris and Oenone

BK-1995-3

Schouw van Belgische rood-grijs geaderd marmer en van Carrarisch wit marmer en gedecoreerd met pastorale iconografie van Paris en Oenone op het schoorsteenstuk, geflankeerd door een zittend, vrij gebeeldhouwd musicerend kinderpaar in herdersdracht. Gesigneerd J.B.XAVERY. // ANNO 1739.

signature and date: ‘J.B.XAVERY. // ANNO 1739’

sculptor: Jan Baptist Xavery

1739

white Carrara marble and brownish-grey veined Belgian marble (_rouge royal_)

height 461 cm x width 252 cm

In 1738 gaf Diederik baron van Leyden de opdracht voor deze schouw, bestemd voor de grote zaal van zijn woonhuis aan het Rapenburg in Leiden.

Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt, with additional funding from the Prins Bernhard Fonds

purchase 1995-01-10

Public domain

Commissioned by Diederik van Leyden II (1695-1764) for the grand salon of his house Rapenburg 48, Leiden, 1739;{For the history of Rapenburg 48, and those residing there from 1739 on, see T.H. Lunsingh Scheurleer et al., _Het Rapenburg: Geschiedenis van een Leidse gracht_, vol. 5, Leiden 1990, pp. 509-46.} with the house, to his son Pieter Cornelis van Leyden (?-1788), 1764; with the house, to his son Diederik van Leyden III (1744-1811), 1788; with the house, acquired by Pieter Johan Marcus (?-1811), 1791;{T.H. Lunsingh Scheurleer et al., _Het Rapenburg: Geschiedenis van een Leidse gracht_, vol. 5, Leiden 1990, pp. 534-35. The 1791 sale included a comprehensive description of the house, with the chimney piece is mentioned separately as part of the _zeer capitaal en buitengewoon groot zijsalet_ (‘extremely costly and extraordinarily large side salon’) ... _mitsgaders door een schoorsteen van divers marmer, van onder tot boven aan het blaffon, op de hoeken van dezelve twee musiceerende kinderen van statuariemarmer, en voorts in ’t midden van dezelve schoorsteen gelijk ook boven de deuren van ’t zelve vertrek basrelieven, meede van statuariemarmer, alles zeer konstrijk gehouwen door den vermaarden J.B. Xavery_ ... . (‘… together with a chimney piece of various marble types, from below to above at the ceiling, at the corners of the same two music-making children of statuary marble, and furthermore in the middle of the same chimney piece and also directly above the doors of the same room bas-reliefs, likewise of statuary marble, all of it very masterfully sculpted by the esteemed J.B. Xavery … .’).} to his widow, Ida Agatha Deutz (?-1830), 1811; with the house, acquired by Hendrick Cock (?-1866), 1830; with the house, to his daughter Bertha Cock, 1866; with the house, to her sister, Anna Maria Gesina Cock (?-1901), date unknown; with the house, to her brother Coenraad Cock (?-1908), 1901; with the house, to the Werndly family, 1908; from their sale, Amsterdam (Frederik Muller), 24 November 1908, no. 1, $3,216 (fl. 7,200) to Count Gerard Joseph Emile d’Aquin (1865-?) for William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951);{According to the Hearst Records, Hearst bought the present chimney piece at the Frederik Muller sale on 24 November 1909. This is likely the consequence of a written error (1909 instead of 1908) (my thanks to Mary Levkov for this information, written correspondence 17 July 2007). While a second sale of items from the house at Rapenburg 48 did indeed occur in 1909 (on 27 April/1 May), it did not include the large chimney piece (T.H. Lunsingh Scheurleer et al., _Het Rapenburg: Geschiedenis van een Leidse gracht_, vol. 5, Leiden 1990, p. 546). For the proceeds, see C.W. Fock, ‘Cultuurbarbarisme met recht gewroken’, _Bulletin Vereniging Rembrandt_ 6 (1996), no. 3, pp. 25-27, esp. p. 27. An annotation in the Brummer archive purports that Frederik Muller sold the chimney piece to ‘Mr. D’Aquin’ (Count d’Aquin) on the behalf of Randolph Hearst in April 1910, but an invoice had already been sent on 24 November 1909 for the same object. He is said to have paid $3,216. See New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Thomas J. Watson Library, The Brummer Gallery Records, inv. no. N5981. Brummer did a great deal of business with Hearst, mostly selling him antique and medieval art; see M.L. Levkov, _Hearst the Collector_, New York/Los Angeles 2008, pp. 71, 109, 114 (notes 17, 19), 223-25 (nos. 107, 108, 111), 234 (no. 122). For the dealer Count Gerard Joseph Emile d’Aquin (born in Rotterdam in 1865), a close friend of Hearst’s, see D. Nasaw, _The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst_, Boston 2000, p. 301.} transferred to the International Studio Art Corporation (ISAC), after 1919;{The International Studio Art Corporation in New York was a Hearst-owned company charged with uncrating, cataloguing, storing, and shipping art objects purchased and stored in a warehouse in the Bronx by Mr Hearst.} acquired by the dealer Joseph Brummer (1883-1947), New York, 7 June 1944;{From an annotation in the Artist File Jan Baptist Xavery, RMA it can be concluded that discussions (with Hearst or Brummer) concerning the Rijksmuseum’s purchase of the chimney piece had already occurred during the years of the Second World War 1940-1945. At this time, however, the physical transportation of the piece from the USA to The Netherlands was out of the question due to the war. Written on a card in the Brummer archive is the following: ‘Bought from International Studio Art Corporation, June 7, 1944’.} from his sale, New York (Parke-Bennet) 20-23 April 1949, no. 838, $500, to the dealers Victor and Nicholas de Koenigsberg, New York and Buenos Aires; acquired by Gaby Salomon, Buenos Aires, October 1958; sale, his heirs, New York (Christie’s), 10 January 1995, no. 51 (bought in); to the museum as ‘after-sale’, $332,000 (fl. 581,000) with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt, 1995

• F. Scholten, 'Gebeeldhouwde schouw', Bulletin van de Vereniging Rembrandt 5 (1995), nr. 3, p. 15-18.
• H. Schmitz, Deutsche Möbel des Barock und Rokoko, Stuttgart, 1923, p. 183.
• L.J. van der Klooster, 'Jan Baptist Xavery (1697-1742), documentatie over enkele van zijn werken', Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 21 (1970), p. 99-138, spec. p. 110, noot 45.

To refer to this object, please use the following persistent URL:

https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/200375703