Modelled in the round, fired and probably originally polychromed. Several firing cracks can be discerned. A cylindrical mass of clay surmounting Mary’s head has been made for securing a (now lost) crown.

The Christ Child’s left foot and the toes of his right foot are missing, as are the front part of the snake’s head, the top segment of Mary’s sceptre and the cross staff or spear in Christ’s left hand. The Child’s broken-off left hand and the break in the same arm have been restored, as have the break in Mary’s neck, the break between the Virgin and the Christ Child, and the broken-off snake’s head. The statuette was probably originally polychromed, as indicated by traces of a greyish paint, presumably a chalk ground, discernible across its entire surface.

…; from the dealer Ilas Neufert, Munich, DM 5,000, to the museum, as a gift from the Commissie voor de Fotoverkoop, 1969

Object number: BK-1969-3

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

The present terracotta shows the Virgin standing on a mass of clouds; trampled beneath her feet is a snake, the symbol of evil. The Christ Child, seated on his mother’s left arm, extends his left hand, which likely originally clasped a wooden cross staff or spear used to deal the snake a final death blow. As such, the terracotta combines the iconographic types of Mary as the Woman of the Apocalypse and that of Mary as the ‘new Eve’, who together with Christ, the ‘new Adam’, triumphs over evil. This third combined iconographic type, also known as the Virgin in Triumph,¹¹E. Rümmler, C. Theuerkauff et al., Europäische Barockplastik am Niederrhein: Grupello und seine Zeit, exh. cat. Düsseldorf (Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf) 1971, no. 63. was a theme cherished by proponents of the Counter-Reformation, with the Reformation accordingly identified with evil.

The maker of this evidently late-baroque terracotta is unknown. One finds numerous stylistic parallels in sculptures produced at Antwerp and Mechelen in the circles of Artus Quellinus I (1609-1668), his cousin of the same name, Artus Quellinus II (1625-1700), and Lucas Faydherbe (1617-1697). The dough-like drapery folds of Mary’s heavy mantle are comparable to those found on two seated terracotta Virgins signed by Johannes Cardon (1614-?1656),²²C. Baisier et al., Terracotta’s uit de 17de en 18de eeuw: De verzameling Van Herck, coll. cat. Antwerp (Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp) 2000, no. 1 and p. 42 (ill.). both bearing the date 1643. At the same time, Mary’s pose and the noticeably full, round form of her face are quite similar to those of a boxwood Virgin and Child from the circle of Maria Faydherbe (1587-1643).³³E. Dhanens (ed.), De beeldhouwkunst in de eeuw van Rubens in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden en het prinsbisdom Luik, exh. cat. Brussels (Museum voor Oude Kunst) 1977, no. 81. Such agreements point to the region of Brabant around the middle of the seventeenth century, and more precisely, the city of Antwerp or Mechelen.

Bieke van der Mark, 2025

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 309, with earlier literature

B. van der Mark, 2025, 'anonymous, Virgin and Child, Brabant, c. 1640 - c. 1675', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035760