Sculpted in the round. The figure and the plinth are carved from a single block of marble.

The wine jug’s cork is missing; the drill hole in the neck of the jug indicates the missing cork was in fact a later replacement of the original, likewise non-extant. The marble’s surface is abraded and soiled, and displays various minor points of damage. Two toes and the heel of the left foot have been replaced, as have sections of the right foot. Above the right elbow and both ankles, breakages have been rejoined with glue; on the right foot, the surface of the breakage has been filled. Three corners of the plinth have been reattached with glue.

…; from the dealer Webb of Bond Street, London, £250, to Richard Grenville, 1st or 2nd Duke of Buckingham, Stowe House, date unknown;¹¹H.R. Forster, The Stowe Catalogue: Priced and Annotated, London 1848, p. 269, no. 86. Probably the dealer John Webb (1799-1880), who ran his business from no. 8 Old Bond Street from before 1837 until c. 1857. Because the date of the purchase is unknown, it is uncertain which duke acquired the piece: either the 1st (1776-1839) or the 2nd (1797-1861) Duke of Buckingham. sale collection Richard Grenville, 2nd Duke of Buckingham (1797-1861), Stowe House (Christie and Manson), 3 October 1848, no. 86 (1st suppl. cat., p. 8), £89 s. 5, for all four sculptures, to Mark Philips, Esq.;²²H.R. Forster, The Stowe Catalogue: Priced and Annotated, London 1848, p. 269, no. 86. unknown private collection, England; from Heim Gallery, London, with BK-1970-29-A and -C, fl. 35,000, for all three, to the museum, with support from the Commissie voor Fotoverkoop, 1970

Object number: BK-1970-29-B

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Stichting tot Bevordering van de Belangen van het Rijksmuseum

Autumn is personified by a young boy who leans against a hexagonal pedestal holding leafy bunches of grapes. A wreath of grapevines drapes around his head, which he tilts back with open mouth, poised to devour grapes from a bunch held in his upraised right hand. The boy’s billowing mantle is held in place by a ringed strap that wraps around his body above the waist. A flask-like wine jug stands immediately behind his left leg.

The statue belongs to a group of the Four Seasons, with Summer (BK-1970-29-A) and Winter (BK-1970-29-C) also held in the museum collection. In the catalogue accompanying the Stowe House sale of 1848 (see Provenance), the series is described as ‘A set of four exquisite small marble figures of the Seasons, by A. Quelinus’.³³H.R. Forster, The Stowe Catalogue: Priced and Annotated, London 1848, p. 269, no. 86. At this time, the group was therefore still complete and situated in the garden of the orangery. The Spring figure is presumably no longer extant, as it has not been seen again since the sale. A terracotta Spring attributed to Artus Quellinus II (1625-1700) that surfaced on the art market in 2015, provides an impression of what the missing statue might have looked like.⁴⁴Antwerp, Galerie Lowet de Wotrenge (2015). In style and pose, the terracotta approximates the other three sculptures. While the standing figures of the latter works are accompanied by a classical pedestal as a support, however, this Spring leans against a tree stump. Accordingly, it is unlikely that the terracotta served as a design for the missing Amsterdam statue.

The natural abrasion of the marble indicates that in the past the sculpture stood outdoors for an extended period of time. Garden statues in the form of life-size, allegorical children’s figures were a common feature in baroque gardens in the Northern Netherlands. With the rise of the English landscape style garden at the end of the eighteenth century, however, these so-called kinderkens (little children) fell out of favour, with most eventually lost. The three statues of Summer, Autumn, and Winter in the Rijksmuseum are among the few surviving examples of this once highly popular genre.⁵⁵For a tentative inventory of the kinderken statues still today preserved in the Netherlands, see the appendices in E.V. Buitenhuis, De tuinsieraadkunst in de Hollandse tuin, 1983 (unpublished thesis, Leiden University).

When acquired by the museum in 1970, the three Seasons were attributed to Artus Quellinus I (1609-1668). Stylistically, however, they display a greater affinity with the somewhat later children’s figures of the master’s younger cousin and apprentice, Artus Quellinus II. From 1652 to 1654, the younger Quellinus belonged to the team of sculptors working on the sculptural decoration of the Amsterdam town hall under the direction of his elder cousin, whose austere, classicist-baroque style he adopted. Upon returning to Antwerp, however, this sculptural style gradually gave way to a more theatrical, late-baroque idiom of form likewise evident in the three surviving garden statues in the Rijksmuseum. Characteristic are the elegant poses, sumptuous locks of hair and lavish draperies. Stylistically, numerous sculptures of children by Artus Quellinus II display marked similarities to the three statues in the Rijksmuseum, such as those adorning the main altar (c. 1666) and communion bench (c. 1665?) in the Sint-Romboutskerk in Mechelen,⁶⁶S. Landuyt, De funeraire monumenten van Artus Quellinus de Jonge (1625-1700): Een kritische analyse van hun geschiedenis, iconografie en stijl, 1998 (unpublished thesis, KU Leuven), vol. 4, for instance plates 166, 272-75. For the sculptor’s various putto types, see ibid., vol. 1, pp. 96-98 and plates 158-90. The three Seasons in the Rijksmuseum fall under Landuyt’s ‘type 1d’. the main altar (1685) of the Sint-Jacobskerk in Antwerp,⁷⁷S. Landuyt, De funeraire monumenten van Artus Quellinus de Jonge (1625-1700): Een kritische analyse van hun geschiedenis, iconografie en stijl, 1998 (unpublished thesis, KU Leuven), vol. 4, figs. 177-79, 188. and the former Kuipersaltaar (1678-79) in the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal, also in Antwerp.⁸⁸S. Landuyt, De funeraire monumenten van Artus Quellinus de Jonge (1625-1700): Een kritische analyse van hun geschiedenis, iconografie en stijl, 1998 (unpublished thesis, KU Leuven), vol. 4, esp, figs. 180-84. A striking agreement between Autumn and the infant Christ – with his dancing step and upturned gaze – from the sculptural group St Joseph with Christ as a Child in the Église de Notre-Dame at Saint-Trond can also be observed.⁹⁹See KIK-IRPA, object no. 31595.

Baudouin pointed out Autumn’s close similarity to the following works: a chalk drawing of Bacchus as a Child formerly attributed to Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640);¹⁰¹⁰Vienna, Grafische Sammlung Albertina, inv. no. 8243, see F. Baudouin, ‘Twee Rubensiaanse tekeningen in de Albertina te Wenen en hun samenhang met beeldhouwkunst uit de zeventiende eeuw’, Bulletin van de Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis 57 (1986), pp. 59-79, esp. pp. 59-74, fig. 1. a small ivory sculpture adorning the lid of an Augsburg Deckelhumpe (lidded tankard) by, or from the circle of, Georg Petel (1601/2-1635) after a design by Rubens;¹¹¹¹Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. no. KK 4519, see K. Feuchtmayr and A. Schädler, Georg Petel 1601/2-1634: Gesammelte Aufsätze, Berlin 1973, no. 91; F. Baudouin, ‘Twee Rubensiaanse tekeningen in de Albertina te Wenen en hun samenhang met beeldhouwkunst uit de zeventiende eeuw’, Bulletin van de Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis 57 (1986), pp. 59-79, esp. pp. 59-74, figs. 4-5; L. Krempel, Georg Petel 1601/2-1634: Bildhauer in Dreißigjährigen Krieg, exh. cat. Munich (Haus der Kunst) 2009, no. 55). Over the years, the tankard has been attributed to the following sculptors (successively): Lucas Faydherbe, Georg Petel, Ferdinand Murmann and David Heschler. The Kunsthistorisches Museum maintains the attribution to Petel. The same figure also appears on an Augsburg jewellery box from the mid-17th century likewise as a personification of Autumn, see F. Baudouin, ‘Twee Rubensiaanse tekeningen in de Albertina te Wenen en hun samenhang met beeldhouwkunst uit de zeventiende eeuw’, Bulletin van de Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis 57 (1986), pp. 59-79, esp. figs. 7-8. and a terracotta statuette featured in paintings by the Antwerp painter Gerard Thomas (1663-1720) – possibly (after) a non-extant sculpture by Artus Quellinus I.¹²¹²F. Baudouin, ‘Twee Rubensiaanse tekeningen in de Albertina te Wenen en hun samenhang met beeldhouwkunst uit de zeventiende eeuw’, Bulletin van de Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis 57 (1986), pp. 59-79, esp. p. 69 and fig. 3. Baudouin cites five paintings by Thomas in which the statue appears. A sixth painting is held in a private collection in Amsterdam. For another painting by Thomas featuring the same terracotta, see RKD images no. 204351.

Despite differences, no doubt these works are derived from the same prototype. Baudouin’s research led to the hypothesis that the drawing of Bacchus as a Child was a copy (made by a sculptor?) of a non-extant painted or drawn sketch design by Rubens, on which Petel and Artus Quellinus I subsequently modelled their Bacchus children. Artus Quellinus II, in his turn, was then thought to have based his Autumn on the terracotta modelled by his older cousin.¹³¹³F. Baudouin, ‘Twee Rubensiaanse tekeningen in de Albertina te Wenen en hun samenhang met beeldhouwkunst uit de zeventiende eeuw’, Bulletin van de Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis 57 (1986), pp. 59-79, esp. pp. 59-74. Not to be overlooked, however, is the influence of François du Quesnoy (1597-1643), the Flemish sculptor active in Rome, whose plump putti greatly contributed to the genre’s popularity. Both Rubens and Artus Quellinus I were admirers of Du Quesnoy’s work and are known to have possessed sculptures of his making. Having served Du Quesnoy as his apprentice for several years in Rome, the elder Quellinus was very familiar with his work, as was undoubtedly his younger cousin. The resemblance between the Amsterdam Autumn and the small Cupid in Du Quesnoy’s bronze Apollo and Cupid (c. 1630-40)¹⁴¹⁴Vienna, Liechtenstein Museum, The Princely Collections, inv. no. SK610. Cf. also M. Boudon-Machuel, François du Quesnoy 1597-1643, Paris 2005, pp. 263 ff., 327-28. is striking; the above-cited Christ Child at Saint-Trond is an even closer imitation thereof. It is above all the suggestion of frozen motion that emerges as a shared characteristic of these three sculptures, thus indicating a direct link to Du Quesnoy’s Cupid. This is less the case with the ivory, while the poses of the terracotta statuette and the Bacchus in the drawing display a far greater stability through their more conventional contrapposto. Accordingly, there are strong grounds for citing Du Quesnoy’s Cupid as Artus Quellinus II’s direct model. This does not exclude the possibility that the younger of the two sculptors may have derived such a noteworthy detail as the flat wine jug – present both in the drawing and on the terracotta – from a variant of Du Quesnoy’s invention, e.g. the terracotta statuette that Baudouin linked to Artus Quellinus I.

Titia de Haseth Möller, 2025

H.R. Forster, The Stowe Catalogue: Priced and Annotated, London 1848, p. 269, no. 86; Forty Paintings and Sculptures from the Gallery’s Collection, Autumn Exhibition, exh. cat. (Heim Gallery) London 1966, no. 39; ‘Keuze uit de Aanwinsten’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 19 (1971), pp. 189-94, esp. p. 189; E. Rümmler, C. Theuerkauff et al., Europäische Barockplastik am Niederrhein: Grupello und seine Zeit, exh. cat. Düsseldorf (Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf) 1971, p. 305 (under no. 249-250); J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 338a, with earlier literature; E.V. Buitenhuis, De tuinsieraadkunst in de Hollandse tuin, 1983 (unpublished thesis, Leiden University), App. I A, p. 13; F. Baudouin, ‘Twee Rubensiaanse tekeningen in de Albertina te Wenen en hun samenhang met beeldhouwkunst uit de zeventiende eeuw’, Bulletin van de Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis 57 (1986), pp. 59-79, esp. pp. 68-69; E. de Jong and C. Schellekens, Het beeld buiten: Vier eeuwen tuinsculptuur in Nederland, exh. cat. Heino/Wijhe (Kasteel ’t Nijenhuis) 1994, pp. 56-57 (ill.); S. Landuyt, De funeraire monumenten van Artus Quellinus de Jonge (1625-1700): Een kritische analyse van hun geschiedenis, iconografie en stijl, 4 vols., 1998 (unpublished thesis, KU Leuven), vol. 1, p. 96, 116, vol. 4, fig. 183; F. Scholten, Artus Quellinus: Sculptor of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2010, p. 36, fig. 44; S. Haag et al., Wintermärchen: Winter-Darstellungen in der euopäischen Kunst von Bruegel bis Beuys, exh. cat. Vienna (Kunsthistorisches Museum)/Zürich (Kunsthaus Zürich) 2011-12, pp. 252-53, no. 92

T. de Haseth Möller, 2025, 'Artus (II) Quellinus, Autumn, from a Series of the Four Seasons, Antwerp, c. 1680 - c. 1690', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035781