Modelled and fired. At least one finishing layer has been applied. The plinth’s perimeter is somewhat smaller than the base, to allow for insertion in a socle

The lamb’s right ear has been restored. Cracks can be discerned in the lamb’s neck and traversing the base and plinth between the lamb and the figure’s dress. The finishing layer is flaking off in places, revealing what appear to be additional finishing layers underneath.

…; from Mr De Vries, Leeuwarden, with BK-NM-5151 to -5154, fl. 90 for all five, to the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague, 1881, through the mediation of Victor de Stuers; transferred to the museum, 1885

Object number: BK-NM-5155

This terracotta statuette is signed by Pieter Xaveri (c. 1647-1673) and inscribed with the year 1673 an the front edge of its base. Originating from Antwerp, Xaveri worked as a sculptor in the Northern Netherlandish city of Leiden from around 1670 until his premature death in 1673 (see BK-1980-19 for additional biographical information). While chiefly devoted to making cabinet sculptures modelled in terracotta, Xaveri also received commissions for architectural sculpture, including the tympanum of the facade of ‘In den Vergulden Turk’, a building on the Breestraat in Leiden.¹¹For Xaveri’s oeuvre, see A. Staring, ‘De beeldhouwer Pieter Xavery’, Oud Holland 44 (1927), pp. 1-15 and E. Pelinck, ‘Nieuws over den beeldhouwer Pieter Xavery’, Oud Holland 59 (1942), pp. 102-09; see also P.J.M. de Baar, ‘Pieter Xavery en zijn beeldengroep voor de familie van Scharpenbrant uit Leiden’, Genealogische bijdragen Leiden en omstreken 4 (1989) 1, pp. 257-62, J. Giltaij, ‘Pieter Xavery. Een sculptuur in terracotta: De gewonde duellist’, Antiek 29 (1994), pp. 42-45; F. Scholten, ‘Gebeeldhouwde verhalen’, in A. de Vries et al., Duivenvoorde: Bewoners, landgoed, kasteel, interieur en collectie, Zwolle 2010, pp. 165-73, esp. pp. 165-70; D.H. van Wegen, Pieter Xaveri op Sypesteyn, exh. cat. Loosdrecht (Kasteel-Museum Sypesteyn) 2015.

This ornately attired shepherd girl can best to be compared to a somewhat larger statuette depicting a young girl with a lapdog, a work also dating from the final year of Xaveri’s life (BK-NM-827). This latter sculpture – possibly an allegory of Loyalty – bears no inscriptions other than the sculptor’s name and the year of its manufacture. In the case of the present statuette, by contrast, the name of Flora inscribed on the base clearly affirms the modeller’s wish to convey its allegorical meaning. Flora is the goddess of flowers and the personification of Spring. The lamb at the figure’s feet is inexorably linked to this season.

The theme of Flora gradually made its way into Northern Netherlandish art of the seventeenth century, chiefly as an allegory of Spring (most commonly in series of the Four Seasons). With aromatic flowers as her attribute, she also sometimes figured as an allegory of the sense of Smell (in a series of the Senses). In Northern Netherlandish portraiture of the same period, women were sometimes depicted as Flora, suitably accompanied by flowers. Best known are Rembrandt’s painted portraits of his wife, Saskia van Uylenburgh.²²Cf. St Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum, inv. no. 732; London, National Gallery, inv. no. NG4930. While nothing suggests the present allegorical statuette was ever intended as a portrait,³³See I. van der Giesen, Pieter Xavery: Genre in zeventiende-eeuwse beeldhouwkunst, 1997 (unpublished thesis, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam), p. 90. one cannot rule out the possibility that Flora’s model was a real living person in the sculptor’s environs, for instance, his wife Geertruyt Buysschers. In any event, the above-cited Young Lady with a Lapdog displays the same facial features, albeit in a somewhat nobler form.

Bieke van der Mark, 2025

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 330; I. van der Giesen, Pieter Xavery: Genre in zeventiende-eeuwse beeldhouwkunst, 1997 (unpublished thesis, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam), no. 22; D.H. van Wegen, Pieter Xaveri op Sypesteyn, exh. cat. Loosdrecht (Kasteel-Museum Sypesteyn) 2015, pp. 12-13

B. van der Mark, 2025, 'Pieter Xaveri, Flora, Leiden, 1673', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035771