Modelled and fired. Coated with a finishing layer. A narrow, vertical hollow has been made on the reverse.

Good.

…; from the dealer Cyril Humphris Ltd., London, £ 270, to the museum, 1965

Object number: BK-1965-2

The woman and the girl with the book represent St Anne and her daughter Mary. This iconography, known as the Education of the Virgin, came into fashion in the sixteenth century and is based on the Legenda Aurea, which describes Mary’s education. Despite objections from the church during the Council of Trent (1545-1563), this apocryphal story – and the veneration of St Anne in general – was popular in counter-reformist circles until far into the eighteenth century. In groups from the Southern Netherlands St Anne is often dressed in a fur-trimmed garment, as here (see also BK-1954-38 and -39.

The meticulously modelled terracotta was probably made as a model for a monumental group. The overall composition stems from a frequently imitated Education of the Virgin by Jérôme du Quesnoy II (1602-1654) of which there are two versions: the first in Avesnes stone in the Sint-Annakapel in Brussels cathedral (1651-52) and the second in marble in the Sint-Janskerk, Mechelen (1652).¹¹Cf. G. Patigny, ‘Sainte Anne et la Vierge de Jérôme Du Quesnoy le Jeune (1602-1654): De la genèse de l’oeuvre à la création d’un type iconographique’, Oud Holland 126 (2013), pp. 163-77, figs. 1 and 2. Similarities are found in the positioning of St Anne and the Virgin, standing just in front of the former’s slightly bent right leg, and the placement of their feet, St Anne’s slightly inclined head, the way she clasps her right hand on her daughter’s shoulder and holds her left arm diagonally across her own body. The most notable difference is the interaction between mother and daughter. In Du Quesnoy’s rendering the Virgin is staring down at the spectator or else into space and Anne looks lovingly at her daughter. In the current version both the mother and daughter’s gazes are directed to the open book Mary now holds in front of her. Anne’s educational role is stressed by the act of her pointing to a passage in this book.

Schulte related the Amsterdam terracotta to an early-eighteenth century, monumental Education of the Virgin in white-painted wood, in the church of Wijchen which also entails a version comprising an open book and St Anne pointing to it.²²Het beeld in de Nederlandse barok, exh. cat. Utrecht (Aartsbisschoppelijk Museum) 1963, no. 96. The figure is one of a series of seven, of which two terracotta models also still survive. See Schulte 1982, figs. 426a and b for the terracottas and figs. 423-30 for the wooden figures. However, the wooden piece in Wijchen, like Du Quesnoy’s original version, with its broad gestures and voluminous folds, is far more baroque than the present terracotta work, which, with no related items in existence, is hard to localize and date. Leeuwenberg situated it, with reservation, in Antwerp and also dated it, with reservation, around the middle of the eighteenth century. However, provenance elsewhere in the Southern Netherlands at the start of the eighteenth century, as was initially surmised,³³Note RMA. or even earlier, in the second half of the seventeenth century, cannot be ruled out. For instance, the folds of the clothing, the physiognomy and facial expression of St Anne and her rather fat fingers are reminiscent of some works by the Mechelen sculptor Lucas Faydherbe (1617-1697).⁴⁴Cf. H. De Nijn, H. Vlieghe and H. Devisscher (eds.), Lucas Faydherbe 1617-1697: Mechels beeldhouwer en architect, exh. cat. Mechelen (Stedelijk Museum Hof van Busleyden) 1997, nos. 13, 19, 46.

Bieke van der Mark, 2025

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 351; U. Geese et al., Nachantike grossplastische Bildwerke, vol. 2 (Italien, Frankreich und Niederlande 1380-1530/40); M. Maek-Gérard, Nachantike grossplastische Bildwerke, vol. 2, Italien, Frankreich, Niederlande, 1380-1530/40, coll. cat. Frankfurt am Main (Liebieghaus) 1981, p. 228

B. van der Mark, 2025, 'anonymous, Education of the Virgin, Southern Netherlands, 1650 - 1750', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035796