Model for an Overdoor Lunette with Putti and Fish for the Amsterdam Town Hall (now Royal Palace) at Dam Square

Modelled and fired in two seperate halves. Coated with a finishing layer.

Sections in the middle are missing, and a section bottom right with the child’s foot. At some point in the past, these missing sections were supplemented with plaster and later removed again.¹¹Cf. J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 283 (ill.).

Commissioned by the City of Amsterdam, 1650/51;²²In 1651 Quellinus received a payment of 25 guilders for each of two lunettes met hanen ende vissen ende kinderkens daerby (with cockerels and fish and children thereby) which most likely refers to this model, see Stadsarchief Amsterdam (hereafter: SAA), archive 5039 (Thesaurie Ordinaris), inv. no. 624, nos. 5, 6. See H. Vreeken, ‘Quellinus’ boetseersels voor het zeventiende-eeuwse stadhuis op de Dam’, in M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 38-59, esp. p. 53. from the artist,³³K. Fremantle, ‘The Fountains Designed for Van Campen’s Amsterdam Town Hall and Quellien’s Models for Them’, Album discipulorum aangeboden aan J.G. van Gelder ter gelegenheid van zijn 60ste verjaardag (Utrechtse Kunsthistorische Studiën 7), Utrecht 1963, pp. 101-18, esp. p. 104 (note 15): dewijl zijn werk lootse nu affgebroken wordt dat haer Edele [burgemeesters] sullen laten affhalen de modellen vande beelden die hij ten behoeve dezer Stede gemaeckt heeft (while his workshop is being closed, that her Noble [burgomasters] shall have the models of the sculptures that he made on behalf of this City collected). See also H.J. Wiggers, ‘De stad Amsterdam en haar vroegste beeldencollectie’, in M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 60-75, esp. p. 62 (referring to A.W. Kroon, Het Amsterdamsche stadhuis (thans Paleis), 1625-1700: Zijne geschiedenis naar onuitgegeven officiële bronnen bewerkt, Amsterdam 1867, p. 138). transferred to the Town Hall (now Royal Palace) at Dam Square, Amsterdam, 1664;⁴⁴H.J. Wiggers, ‘De stad Amsterdam en haar vroegste beeldencollectie’, in M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 60-75, esp. pp. 62-64. The models were initially kept in the Thesaurie Ordinaris (Treasury) of the town hall. Around 1700, most were moved to the art cabinet in the kunstkamer (art chamber) on the third floor, see Wegwyzer door Amsterdam, Amsterdam (Nicolaas ten Hoorn) 1713, p. 446. From 1768 on, the task of overseeing the models’ preservation was assigned to the Stadstekenacademie (City Drawing Academy), also located in the aforementioned kunstkamer. In 1769, academy director Cornelis Ploos van Amstel compiled an inventory of all sculptures in the art chamber. This inventory also included Quellinus’s models, see SAA, archive H. 86.003 (Library), Cornelis Ploos van Amstel, Notitie van Boetseersels en Pleisterbeelden enz bewaard wordende op de kunstkamer van het stadhuijs der stad Amsterdam (January 1769). From November 1796 to April 1806, the Stadstekenacademie was obliged to (temporarily) vacate the town hall art chamber on the orders of the French occupier. During this period, it is not known where the models were stored, though presumably they remained in the town hall, albeit without oversight. In April 1806, the models were moved to the rariteitenkamer (curiosity chamber), also called the Diplomatieke Bibliotheek (Diplomatic Library). transferred to the Stadstekenacademie (at two or three successive locations), Amsterdam, 1808;⁵⁵The collection was moved in 1808, when Louis Napoleon took up residence in the town hall. H.J. Wiggers, ‘De stad Amsterdam en haar vroegste beeldencollectie’, in M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 60-75, esp. pp. 67-68. See also SAA, archive 265 (Stadstekenacademie), inv. nos. 1-4 and 6-54. transferred to the Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten (old Exchange of Hendrick de Keyser), Amsterdam, 1821;⁶⁶H.J. Wiggers, ‘De stad Amsterdam en haar vroegste beeldencollectie’, in M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 60-75, esp. p. 70, referring to SAA, archive 265 (Stadstekenacademie), inv. no. 4 (minutes of 1818-1821). transferred to the Oude Mannenhuis, Amsterdam 1837;⁷⁷H.J. Wiggers, ‘De stad Amsterdam en haar vroegste beeldencollectie’, in M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 60-75, esp. pp. 70-71. See also SAA, archive PA 681 (Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten), inv. no. 7. transferred to the Town Hall at the Prinsenhof, Amsterdam, 1878;⁸⁸H.J. Wiggers, ‘De stad Amsterdam en haar vroegste beeldencollectie’, in M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 60-75, esp.  p. 72. See also SAA, archive H. 86.003 (Library). on loan to the museum, since 1887⁹⁹See SAA, archive H. 86.002 (Library).

ObjectNumber: BK-AM-51-20-A

Credit line: On loan from the City of Amsterdam

The great wealth and might of the city Amsterdam – the most important merchant city of the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century – manifested itself in grand public works and countless other public and private buildings. This was especially true of the new town hall on the Dam Square, for which initial plans were already being made as early as 1639. The building’s design was aimed to reflect the power and prosperity that Amsterdam had come to acquire since the closing of the Scheldt in 1585, an event that cost Antwerp its leading economic position in the Low Countries.¹⁰¹⁰P. Vlaardingerbroek, Het paleis van de Republiek, Zwolle 2011, pp. 21-22. The existing town hall, which dated back to the Middle Ages, had become too small to accommodate the rapidly growing civic governmental apparatus and was therefore to be replaced by a new and spacious ‘urban palace’. To carry out this ambitious plan, the city’s burgomasters chose the architect Jacob van Campen (1596-1657).¹¹¹¹P. Vlaardingerbroek, Het paleis van de Republiek, Zwolle 2011, p. 36.

In its design, decoration and style, the new Amsterdam town hall was to glorify both the city and its governing council by mirroring illustrious examples from antiquity and its own day: the ancient Roman Republic and the modern Republic of Venice.¹²¹²K. Fremantle and W. Halsema-Kubes, Beelden Kijken: De kunst van Quellien in het Paleis op de Dam/Focus on Sculpture: Quellien’s Art in the Palace on the Dam, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Royal Palace) 1977, p. 9; F. Scholten, Artus Quellinus: Sculptor of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2010, p. 15. Designated as the central themes were the three mainstays of Amsterdam’s economic success: good and fair governance, peace and prosperity. The Amsterdam city regents were bestowed the honorary title of vredesvader (father of peace), an appellation alluding to the seminal role these men played in negotiating the Peace of Münster, the treaty of 1648 that ended the war with the Spanish and signalled a new period of unparalleled prosperity.¹³¹³K. Fremantle and W. Halsema-Kubes, Beelden Kijken: De kunst van Quellien in het Paleis op de Dam/Focus on Sculpture: Quellien’s Art in the Palace on the Dam, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Royal Palace) 1977, p. 16. Through the classicist style of its architecture and the themes depicted in painted and sculptural decoration, this new monumental addition to the city was meant to convey Amsterdam’s standing as a worthy successor to ancient Rome, the geographic source of the Roman Republic’s past power and glory.¹⁴¹⁴P. Vlaardingerbroek, Het paleis van de Republiek, Zwolle 2011, p. 68. Albeit less explicitly, Amsterdam also wished to mirror itself on the Republic of Venice. Both cities had begun as fishing villages and grown to become powerful merchant centres with international allure. Both cities also boasted a stable government firmly grounded on republican principles.¹⁵¹⁵F. Scholten, Artus Quellinus: Sculptor of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2010, p. 14. Lastly, the decoration programme of the new Amsterdam town hall drew a parallel between the Israelites in the Bible and the present-day inhabitants of the Dutch Republic. Just as the Israelites – also long oppressed by a heathen religion – were led out of Egypt, so too had the Dutch liberated themselves from the yoke of the Spanish king and Catholic idolatry. The inhabitants of the Dutch Republic had God to thank for their freedom and fortune.¹⁶¹⁶P. Vlaardingerbroek, Het paleis van de Republiek, Zwolle 2011, p. 68. All of these associations were to be unified in the new town hall’s realization, made manifest for both the city’s own burghers but also countless visitors from abroad.

In 1648, the Flemish sculptor Artus Quellinus I (1609-1668) – then one of the most successful and talented sculptors in the Low Countries¹⁷¹⁷Prior to travelling to Italy around 1635, Quellinus had already produced work for Stadholder Frederick Henry, see K. Fremantle, The Baroque Town Hall of Amsterdam, Utrecht 1959, pp. 133-34. Upon returning to Antwerp in 1639, his career took off. One important commission he received, just prior to moving to Amsterdam, was a monumental tomb for Count Engelbert van Immerzeel and Helena van Montmorency (Bokhoven, Sint-Antonius Abtkerk), see F. Scholten, Artus Quellinus: Sculptor of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2010, pp. 9-10. – was hired to devise the sculptural programme of the planned town hall. Having been trained as he sculptor by his father in the Baroque milieu of Rubens in Antwerp, Quellinus travelled to Rome in 1635, where he entered the studio of the Flemish sculptor François du Quesnoy (1594-1643).¹⁸¹⁸K. Fremantle, The Baroque Town Hall of Amsterdam, Utrecht 1959, p. 147. In the words of Du Quesnoy’s biographer, Sandrart: ‘Quellinus made himself very useful when in Rome and there he studied the art of Antiquity with success.’¹⁹¹⁹Joachim von Sandrart, Teutsche Academie der edlen Bau- Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste (ed. C. Klemm), Nördlingen 1994 (original ed. Frankfurt 1675-79), p. 351; K. Fremantle, The Baroque Town Hall of Amsterdam, Utrecht 1959, p. 148. See also C. Theuerkauff, ‘Enkele kanttekeningen bij Artus Quellinus en de ‘antiche Academien’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 50 (2002), pp. 308-19, esp. p. 310. Accordingly, the sculptor’s work displays both elements of Du Quesnoy’s austere Classicism and Rubens’s Baroque. Yet the Amsterdam burgomasters’ decision to place the town hall’s sculptural decoration in Quellinus’s charge was not simply based on his style and qualities as a sculptor: his international experience, knowledge of antique sculpture and ability to run a large studio were also important factors.²⁰²⁰F. Scholten, Artus Quellinus: Sculptor of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2010, p. 12.

The architect of the planned town hall, Jacob van Campen, was ‘artistic director’ of the decoration programme of the building’s exterior and interior in close consultation with his patrons. A number of fairly primitive pen-and-ink sketches and discernible details on the wooden, scale-model maquette show that, especially in this regard, Van Campen had very clear ideas of his own.²¹²¹H. Vreeken, ‘Quellinus’ boetseersels voor het zeventiende-eeuwse stadhuis op de Dam’, in M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 38-59, esp. pp. 40-41. Quellinus’s task was to transform these ideas and simple sketches into clear and detailed three-dimensional designs. Several terracottas in the Rijksmuseum illustrate this specific stage of the design process. Presented for approval to both Van Campen and the burgomasters charged with making the final decision, these models can be described as vidimi (vidimus (Lat.) = we have seen) in the purest sense. A subsequent stage in this process entailed the detailed realization of these sketch models into working models – scale models, possibly followed by so-called modelli grandi – to be used in the studio for the final execution of monumental sculptures in marble and bronze.

Given the monumental scale of sculptural production accomplished in a relatively short period of time, Quellinus is certain to have had a large workshop to accommodate his many assistants. While information regarding the distribution of tasks remains scant, the diverse modelling on the surviving terracottas rules out the possibility of a single sculptor working on his own. Variations in the level of finishing can also be observed. The first group of terracottas can be described as bozzetti: loosely modelled sketches functioning as preliminary, plastic explorations of a theme or composition (cf. BK-AM-51-10). The second group consists of finished modelli – the aforementioned vidimi – from which the cast replicas were made that served as models in the studio. This category of works can sometimes be identified as such by measuring marks: points, lines and grids drawn in the wet clay to facilitate the design’s reproduction and enlargement in marble or bronze.²²²²H. Vreeken, ‘Quellinus’ boetseersels voor het zeventiende-eeuwse stadhuis op de Dam’, in M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 38-59, esp. pp. 42-43. The third and final group consists of various replicas likewise made in Quellinus’s workshop but ultimately destined for the free market, e.g. as council members’ gifts to friends or as souvenirs privately commissioned by the burgomasters and their retinue to commemorate their role in the building of the town hall.²³²³H. Vreeken, ‘Quellinus’ boetseersels voor het zeventiende-eeuwse stadhuis op de Dam’, in M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 38-59, esp. p. 44.

This design for a lunette with putti and fish is one of the terracotta sketches and models made by the Antwerp sculptor Artus Quellinus I (1609-1668) and his assistants in preparation for the sculptural decoration of the new Amsterdam town hall, today the Royal Palace on the Dam Square (for an extensive history of the town hall, its significance and decoration programme, see ‘Context’). After the project’s completion, Quellinus’s Amsterdam studio was closed in 1664. At this time, the city’s burgomasters ordered that all of the remaining works and presentation models be transferred to the new town hall. With this move, the ensemble of fifty-one pieces officially became the property of the city of Amsterdam.²⁴²⁴A.W. Kroon, Het Amsterdamsche stadhuis (thans Paleis), 1625-1700: Zijne geschiedenis naar onuitgegeven officiële bronnen bewerkt, Amsterdam 1867, p. 138. A number were transferred to the Rijksmuseum in 1887/88 on a long-term basis. All other works are today preserved at the Amsterdam Museum.

The present lunette design with putti and two fish can be dated circa 1650-51, based on the explicit mention of lunettes met hanen ende vissen ende kinderkens daerby (with cockerels and fish and children thereby) in the town hall account books of 1651.²⁵²⁵See SAA, archive 5039 (Thesaurie Ordinaris), inv. no. 624, nos. 5, 6, and H. Vreeken, ‘Quellinus’ boetseersels voor het zeventiende-eeuwse stadhuis op de Dam’, in M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 38-59, esp. p. 53. For each of his lunette designs, Quellinus received 25 guilders. He would ultimately create a total of eight different designs, seven of which survive to the present day, albeit largely in a fragmentary state.²⁶²⁶J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, nos. 283-88 (BK-AM-51-20-A to -D) and M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, nos. 112-17. A complete design for a lunette with lions and putti – one never held in the Amsterdam municipal collection – in the form of a studio replica that ended up in Leiden already at a very early time. Acquired by the Amsterdam Museum from the collection of the Leiden association Ars Aemula Naturae in 1981, the piece likely once belonged to Gerard Dou’s collection and later entered the association’s possession via his student, Frans van Mieris, and Van Mieris’s son, Willem, see M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, no. 118. Discernible in the putti’s plump bodies is the influence of Quellinus’s teacher in Rome, François du Quesnoy, the Flemish sculptor renowned for this kind of putti (cf. BK-2014-28).²⁷²⁷K. Fremantle, The Baroque Town Hall of Amsterdam, Utrecht 1959, p. 165.

The present design was executed in marble in 1652. Its designated place was above the doorway to the Thesaurie Ordinaris, the city’s financial department likewise charged with the remuneration of Quellinus’s account declarations.²⁸²⁸S. Faber, J. Huisken and F. Lammertse, Van Heeren, die hunn’ stoel en kussen niet beschaemen: Het stadsbestuur van Amsterdam in de 17e en 18e eeuw – Of Lords, Who Seat Nor Cushion do Ashame: The Government of Amsterdam in the 17th and 18th Centuries, Amsterdam 1987, pp. 36-37. The Thesaurie was located in the southeast corner of the south gallery on the town hall’s second floor. The marble version of the present overdoor lunette appears right of a statue of the moon goddess, Diana (cf. BK-AM-51-12), with a second, comparable lunette (cf. BK-AM-51-20-B) mounted left of the statue. In her role as goddess of the hunt, Diana stands amidst the spoils of the hunt: a hart, two large fish, a crab and a lobster. In the right lunette, two putti engage in a kind of child’s play clearly centred on the theme of hunting: each holds the slippery tail of a fish, whose bodies follow the curve of the central oculus on either side. Behind them, cornucopias run parallel to the fish left and right, with all kinds of fruits and vegetables pouring out at the putti’s feet. Viewed as a whole, the scene is a befitting ode to the abundant ‘catch’ brought to the city from around the world by Amsterdam merchants, who greatly contributed to its prosperity during this period.²⁹²⁹K. Fremantle, The Baroque Town Hall of Amsterdam, Utrecht 1959, p. 165; K. Fremantle and W. Halsema-Kubes, Beelden Kijken: De kunst van Quellien in het Paleis op de Dam/Focus on Sculpture: Quellien’s Art in the Palace on the Dam, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Royal Palace) 1977, p. 42.

From the eighteenth century on, an interesting studio replica of the present design in terracotta formed the crowning element of a cabinet today in the British Museum.³⁰³⁰See F. Scholten, ‘Quellinus’s Arion: A Terracotta Modello for the Town Hall of Amsterdam’, Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 90 (2016), pp. 32-43, esp. pp. 40-41 and fig. 16. M.D. Haga, ‘Kunstkasten’, in T. Laurentius, J.W. Niemeijer, G. Ploos van Amstel, Cornelis Ploos van Amstel (1726-1798): Kunstverzamelaar en prentuitgever, Assen 1980, pp. 29-45. The work was formerly owned by the painter Nicolaes Verkolje (1673-1746), whose collection included no less than twenty-eight terracottas by (or attributed to) Quellinus.³¹³¹Sale collection Nicolaes Verkolje (1673-1746), Amsterdam, 18 April 1746, pp. 10-13. The catalogue accompanying the sale of Verkolje’s collection lists under entry no. 38: Twee Kindjes, met Dolfyntjes (Two Children, with Dolphins). The piece then entered the possession of the Amsterdam De Bosch family of art collectors and dealers, at which time it was incorporated in a specially built art cabinet with its door painted by Jacob de Wit (1695-1754).³²³²C. Bille, De tempel der kunst, of, Het kabinet van den Heer Braamcamp, Amsterdam 1961, pp. 192-94. The furniture piece with the lunette appears in three different portraits of De Bosch family members.³³³³F. Scholten, ‘Quellinus’s Arion: A Terracotta Modello for the Town Hall of Amsterdam’, Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 90 (2016), pp. 32-43, esp. figs. 14, 15. At the estate sale of Joannes de Bosch (1713-1784), the terracotta was sold as ‘The original model of the bas-relief, standing above the entrance to the Thesaurie Ordinaris by A. Quelinus, placed in the middle is the head of Apollo, beautifully painted in grey by the famous J. de Wit’.³⁴³⁴Sale Joannes de Bosch (1713-1785), Amsterdam, 23 May 1785, p. 124, no. 1: Het origineelen Model van het basrelief, staande boven den ingang van het Thesaurie Ordinaris door A. Quelinus, in het midden is geplaatst het hoofd van Apollo, fraay in ‘t graauw geschilderd door den beroemde J. de Wit. Via Joannes’ nephew, the Amsterdam art dealer and collector Jan de Bosch (1737-1823), the terracotta came into the possession of the British Museum in the nineteenth century.³⁵³⁵De Bosch also possessed Quellinus’s relief of Arion, acquired in 2015 by the Detroit Institute of Arts, inv. no. 2015.64, see F. Scholten, ‘Quellinus’s Arion: A Terracotta Modello for the Town Hall of Amsterdam’, Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 90 (2016), pp. 32-43. See also sale collection Jan de Bosch (1737-1823), Amsterdam, 11 April 1825, under Beeldwerken, no. 4: Een bas-relief van gebakken aarde, voorstellende Arion, zittende op den Dolphijn, goed bewerkt. (A bas-relief of fired clay, representing Arion, sitting on the Dolphin, well-modelled).

Frits Scholten, 2024

E. Rümmler, C. Theurekauff et al., Europäische Barockplastik am Niederrhein: Grupello und seine Zeit, exh. cat. Düsseldorf (Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf) 1971, no. 241; J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 273, with earlier literature; K. Fremantle and W. Halsema-Kubes, Beelden Kijken: De kunst van Quellien in het Paleis op de Dam/Focus on Sculpture: Quellien’s Art in the Palace on the Dam, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Royal Palace) 1977, pp. 42, 82 (no. 16) and fig. 45; M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, no. 116; H. Vreeken, ‘Quellinus’ boetseersels voor het zeventiende-eeuwse stadhuis op de Dam’, in M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 38-59, esp. pp. 53, 56 (fig. 66e); H.J. Wiggers, ‘De stad Amsterdam en haar vroegste beeldencollectie’, in M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, pp. 60-75; F. Scholten, Artus Quellinus: Sculptor of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2010, p. 23 and fig. 34

F. Scholten, 2024, 'Artus (I) Quellinus, Model for an Overdoor Lunette with Putti and Fish for the Amsterdam Town Hall (now Royal Palace) at Dam Square, Amsterdam, c. 1650 - c. 1651', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.24608