Sculpted.

The surface is badly weathered and there is considerable staining. A piece of the quiver is missing. The bust is complete with its original pedestal.

…; excavated at the site of the country house Herteveld (formerly known as Harteveld), Maarssen, during the digging of the Merwede canal, c. 1881;¹¹Note RMA. garden country house Herteveld, Maarssen, c. 1881-until 1955;²²Note RMA.…; from the architect Pieter Johannes Houbolt (1898-1962), Hilversum, with pendant BK-1955-4-B, fl. 2,000 for the pair, to the museum, 1955; on loan to the Museum Maarssen, since 1997

Object number: BK-1955-4-A

These marble busts of the goddesses Diana (shown here, identifiable by the quiver) and Flora (BK-1955-4-B), were found in the ground during the digging of the Merwede canal (completed in 1894) at the Herteveld estate (known as ‘Harteveld’ until the nineteenth century) in Maarssen.³³For this country house, see H. Tromp and T. Henry-Buitenhuis, Historische buitenplaatsen in particulier bezit, Utrecht 1991, p. 152; E. Munnig Schmidt and A.J.A.M. Lisman, Plaatsen aan de Vecht en de Angstel: Historische beschrijvingen en afbeeldingen van kastelen, buitenplaatsen, stads- en dorpsgezichten aan de Vecht en de Angstel – van Zuilen tot Muiden), Alphen aan de Rijn 1997, pp. 52-55. The classicist sculptures may well have adorned the formal garden at this country residence, which at the end of the eighteenth century had to make way for a park in English landscape style.⁴⁴Engraving no. 13 in Andries de Leth, De zegepraalende Vecht, Amsterdam 1719, by Daniel Stoopendael gives an impression of the formal garden. The busts were presumably then discarded, buried in the garden and forgotten.

The busts date from the time David Mendes da Silva (1667-c. 1740) and his daughter Ribca (1726-1772) (married to Joseph Susso de Lima) were owners of the country house (from 1714 to 1748). It is impossible to trace whether the busts were commissioned by one of the members of this Portuguese-Jewish family. They might have only ended up at Herteveld at a later stage. After they were rediscovered, they were once more placed in the garden at Herteveld, where they remained until the Rijksmuseum acquired them in 1955. The two goddesses are pendant sculptures and so complement each other: Diana, as the protector of the forests, represents untamed nature, whereas Flora, as the goddess of flowers, symbolizes nature tamed by Man.

Leeuwenberg attributed the busts to Michiel Emanuel Shee (c. 1695-1739).⁵⁵J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, p. 281. This Antwerp sculptor was working in The Hague from around 1721 and in Amsterdam from 1727 until his death. Only a few of his sculptures have survived, most of which are mythological and allegorical groups of children for garden ornamentation (cf. BK-1963-24). Thanks to the accounts book which the sculptor kept from May 1726 to 1737 and to the inventory of his household effects, we do know that he also made dozens of ‘marble busts on blue stone [sandstone] terms’.⁶⁶marmore borstbeelden op blauwe steene termen, SAA 2536, no. 1, archive Burgerweeshuis, accounts book M. Shee. See P.M. Fischer, Ignatius en Jan van Logteren: Beeldhouwers en stuckunstenaars in het Amsterdam van de 18e eeuw, Alphen aan de Rijn 2005, pp. 495-504 for a transcription. These were busts of mythological adult figures like Venus and Adonis. A set of such ‘term busts’, depicting a man (Apollo or Bacchus) (fig. a) and a woman (Diana or Flora)⁷⁷No image is available of the female figure. signed by Shee is owned by the Schimmelpenninck van der Oye family. ⁸⁸Note RMA, and P.M. Fischer, Ignatius en Jan van Logteren: Beeldhouwers en stuckunstenaars in het Amsterdam van de 18e eeuw, Alphen aan de Rijn 2005, p. 504. The pair featured here is so akin to those two works, signed ME Shee 173[?] that attribution to the same sculptor would seem justified. We see the same classical physiognomy, with sometimes slightly open mouths, straight noses and almond-shaped eyes, and the folds of the garments and the form of the pilasters are very similar. Busts on downward tapering pedestals of this type developed in the early eighteenth century from the classical term or herm type, in which the upper body merged seamlessly into a tall pillar tapering towards the base.

As a drawing by Jan de Beijer (fig. b) shows, similar ‘term busts’ stood on either side of the gateway to a pond in the pleasure garden of Zijdebalen. They were place on corresponding pedestals formed from blocks.⁹⁹For more about this pleasure garden, see for instance D.P. Snoep, P.J.M. van Gorp and E. de Jong, Zijdebalen, lusthof aan de Vecht: Tuin- en tekenkunst uit het begin van de 18de eeuw, exh. cat. Utrecht (Centraal Museum) 1981; E. de Jong, Natuur en kunst: Nederlandse tuin- en landschapsarchitectuur 1650-1740, Amsterdam 1993, pp. 156-89. Schellekens found the similarity between the bust of Diana and the left-hand work in the drawing (depicting, in her opinion, a goddess) so striking that she considered it possible that a fixed model had existed from which figures had been produced in series.¹⁰¹⁰Schellekens in E. de Jong and C. Schellekens, Het beeld buiten: Vier eeuwen tuinsculptuur in Nederland, exh. cat. Heino/Wijhe (Kasteel ’t Nijenhuis) 1994, p. 93. However, closer study of the drawing reveals that this is a bust of Hercules in a lion skin (with Omphale as the pendant).

Bieke van der Mark, 2025

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 387a; H. Tromp and T. Henry-Buitenhuis, Historische buitenplaatsen in particulier bezit, Utrecht 1991, p. 152; E. de Jong and C. Schellekens, Het beeld buiten: Vier eeuwen tuinsculptuur in Nederland, exh. cat. Heino/Wijhe (Kasteel ’t Nijenhuis) 1994, p. 94; E. Munnig Schmidt and A.J.A.M. Lisman, Plaatsen aan de Vecht en de Angstel: Historische beschrijvingen en afbeeldingen van kastelen, buitenplaatsen, stads- en dorpsgezichten aan de Vecht en de Angstel – van Zuilen tot Muiden, Alphen aan de Rijn 1997, p. 52

B. van der Mark, 2025, 'attributed to Michiel Emanuel Shee, Bust of Diana, The Hague, 1725 - 1739', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200116074