Modelled in the round and fired. Coated with a finishing layer.

There is a crack in the neck and one in the left wrist. The ridge on top of the helmet has been renewed.

…; collection Jonkheer Hugo Loudon (1860-1941), The Hague;¹¹Note RMA. ? his wife Anna Petronella Alida van Marken (1874-1953), 1941; ? her sale Amsterdam (Mak van Waay), 23-26 June 1953, no. 836, fl. 130, to the museum

Object number: BK-1953-22

The sculptor Willem Hendrik van der Wall (1716-1790) trained in his native city of Utrecht with Jacob Cressant (1685-after 1759/before 1766) and later in The Hague with Jan Baptist Xavery (1697-1742).²²For Van der Wall, see L. Helmus, ‘Petrus en Paulus: Willem Hendrik van der Wall (Utrecht 1716-Utrecht 1790)’, Bulletin van de Vereniging Rembrandt 14 (2004), pp. 9-12 and D. de Kool, ‘Willem Hendrik van der Wall (1716-1790): Een verdienstelijk beeldhouwer uit Utrecht’, Jaarboek Oud-Utrecht 2014, pp. 162-75. He adopted the style of his teachers: a Flemish-French orientated baroque, which, particularly in his religious work, was still firmly based on seventeenth-century Roman models of followers of Bernini. With Van der Wall that Roman influence is evident in his preference for lavishly draped garments and a pronounced contrapposto in his figures’ poses. In his later years, these baroque tendencies would increasingly make way for a calmer style tying in with the contemporary classicist, academic sculpture of Paris. A typical example of that work is his fully signed and dated (1782) marble Galateia.³³Utrecht, Centraal Museum, Utrecht, inv. no. 9922, see J. Klinckaert, De verzamelingen van het Centraal Museum Utrecht, vol. 3, Beeldhouwkunst tot 1850, coll. cat. Utrecht 1997, no. 380.

This virile Mars is still characteristic of Van der Wall’s early, baroque style and comparable with the series of apostles in the Sint-Adrianuskerk in Langeraar that are ascribed to him and dated round 1750.⁴⁴Cf. D. de Kool, ‘Willem Hendrik van der Wall (1716-1790): Een verdienstelijk beeldhouwer uit Utrecht’, Jaarboek Oud-Utrecht 2014, pp. 162-75, esp. St Adrian on p. 167 (ill.). Van der Wall might have made this terracotta as a model for a large statue in wood or stone (not realized, as far as we know). However, in view of the considerable refinement, it could also have constituted an independent small-scale sculpture. Whereas terracotta was applied hitherto almost exclusively for preliminary designs and models, in the eighteenth century it was increasingly used as a medium for autonomous work, and appreciated by the very virtue of its informal character and the growing fascination with the creative process.

The statue comes from the same The Hague collection as a fully signed and dated Neptune (BK-1953-21), from 1757. Although the sculptures probably served as pendants, it is unlikely that the terracottas were conceived in that way or, as Leeuwenberg suggested, were part of a larger series of gods from ancient mythology.⁵⁵Verslagen omtrent ’s Rijks verzamelingen van geschiedenis en kunst 1953, pp. 16-17. In that case, the figures would probably have had uniform plinths and that is certainly not the case here: the square base beneath Neptune is a little higher than that of Mars and has bevelled, not straight edges.

Bieke van der Mark and Frits Scholten, 2025

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 420a, with earlier literature; D. de Kool, ‘Willem Hendrik van der Wall (1716-1790): Een verdienstelijk beeldhouwer uit Utrecht’, Jaarboek Oud-Utrecht 2014, pp. 162-75, esp. p. 170

B. van der Mark and F. Scholten, 2025, 'Willem Hendrik van der Wall, Mars, Utrecht, c. 1750 - c. 1760', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035859