Carved in the round.

Good.

? Commissioned by Pieter Roose (1586-1673), Brussels, Granvelle Palace, 1657; ¹¹Even if partly hypothetical, the line of ownership presented here can be viewed as most probable. Given the biographical data and the dating of the present work, Pieter Roose emerges as the only possible patron. The accuracy of this premise is confirmed by the sculpture’s mention in the estate inventory of his sole heir, Pieter Ferdinand Roose, at Granvelle Palace. My thanks to Bruno Joos de ter Beerst, Ghent, and Ms Danielle Maufort, Antwerp, for their corroboration of this finding (oral communication, 11 November 2016 and written communication 20 October 2016). For the Roose family’s genealogy, see B.J. de ter Beerst, Notice généalogique et historique de la famille Roose, Ghent 2015 (unpublished typoscript, in the Object File). Pieter (or Pierre) Roose was Lord of Froidmont, Ham-sur-Sambre and Jemeppe. In 1632, he was appointed as Hoofd-voorzitter van de Geheime Raad (Head Chairman of the Secret Council), but also as chairman of the Raad van State (Council of State), the latter being the most important political office in the Southern Netherlands at this time. During the summer months, Roose resided at Froidmont Castle; during the winter months, he lived at Granvelle Palace in Brussels. The artist and poet Anna Roemer Visscher (1584-1651) corresponded with and wrote poems to Pieter Roose. his nephew Pieter Ferdinand Roose (d. 1700), since 1683 Baron of Bouchout, Granvelle Palace, Brussels, 1673;²²In 1663, Pieter Roose established a perpetual entail on his estate, thus establishing by testamentary will that all his possessions and titles would consistently pass onto the eldest living male relative. See B. Volckaert, De leden van de Geheime Raad der Zuidelijke Nederlanden onder het bewind van de aartshertogen Filips IV (1609-1653): Een prosopografische studie 2004 (thesis University Ghent). The testamentary will is preserved at the Royal Library of Belgium (Brussels), Handschriftenkabinet, inv. no. 15401 (my thanks to Dr Michiel Verweij, Brussels). See also Brussels, Stadsarchief, Oud Archief, no. 66 (Papiers intéressants de la famille Roose), liasse 470 and Brussels, Rijksarchief Brussel I (Anderlecht), Fonds Notariaat Generaal van Brabant 890/1 (my thanks to Dr Luc Janssens, Rijksarchief in Brussels I). his grand-nephew Melchior-François Roose (1688-1745), Baron of Bouchout, Antwerp or Castle of Bouchout, Meise (near Brussels), 1700;³³That Melchior-François Roose, grandson of Pieter Ferdinand’s brother, Albert, was his heir is affirmed by the wording of the title of the 1703 inventory of his portrait collection, see the Archives of the City of Brussels, Oud Archief, no. 66 (Papiers intéressants de la famille Roose), liasse 470: Liste vande portraiten vande familie van Roose met dewelcke den Inventaris vande meubelen van wylen den heere Baron van Bouchout is belast en dewelcke in vier cassen sijn gesonden naer Antwerpen aenden heere Melchior François Roose desselfs eenigen geinstitueerden erfgenaem testamentair op den 23 octobris 1703 (‘…sent to Antwerp to Lord Melchior François Roose the same sole instituted testamentary heir’; unpaged and unnumbered). ? his son Arnold Melchior Roose (d. 1760), 1745; ? his cousin Pierre Jean-Alexandre Joseph, Count Roose de Baisy (1724-1782), Baron of Bouchout and burgomaster of Antwerp, Antwerp or Castle of Bouchout, Meise (near Brussels), 1745; ? his son Charles-Pierre Joseph, Count Roose de Baisy (1768-1817), Baron of Bouchout, Castle of Bouchout, Meise (near Brussels), 1782; his daughter Elisabeth, Countess Roose de Baisy (1807-1873), married to Amadée de Beauffort (1806-1858), Castle of Bouchout, Meise (near Brussels); ⁴⁴Count Charles-Pierre Joseph Roose de Baisy (1768-1817), Baron van Bouchout (1782-1817) had three daughters and no sons; the Recumbent Greyhound was likely inherited by Countess Elisabeth Roose de Baisy (1807-1873), the wife of Amadée de Beauffort (1806-1858), from 1825 on director of the Museum voor Schone Kunsten in Brussels. The couple resided at Bouchout Castle, which, from 1832 on, was restored in the neo-Gothic style by the Belgian architect Tieleman Frans Suys at De Beauffort’s instigation. De Beauffort possessed a great deal of the Roose family’s material, possibly indicating that many of the items previously belonging to Pieter Ferdinand Roose and his descendants had remained behind at Bouchout Castle. At the time of her death in 1873, Countess Elisabeth was thought to be the wealthiest woman in Belgium. What befell the Recumbent Greyhound after this time - possibly held in the possession of Elisabeth’s descendants - remains unclear. …; purchased from an Antwerp mansion,⁵⁵E. 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. 130. by Baron Freddy Rolin, Brussels, before 1977;⁶⁶For the dealer Freddy Rolin (1919-2001), primarily specialized in African art, see African and Oceanic Art from the Estate of the Late Baron Freddy Rolin, sale cat. Amsterdam (Christie’s) 2 July 2002, p. 9. sold to Galerie René Withofs, Brussels, 1977;⁷⁷At the time of the exhibition De beeldhouwkunst in de eeuw van Rubens in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden en het prinsbisdom Luik, Brussels (Museum voor Oude Kunst) 1977. Information provided by Dr Helena Bussers, Brussels (written communication, 17 August 2009). According to Danielle Maufort (oral communication, 11 November 2016), the sculpture was also in the possession of a Belgian dealer named Meulenbeek or Meulebeek(e) during this period. private collection, New York, 1977;⁸⁸As communicated by Daniel Katz Ltd., London. …; acquired by Axel Vervoordt, Antwerp, 1999; from whom acquired by Daniel Katz Ltd., London, 2008; from whom, €475,000, to the museum, with the support of the BankGiroLoterij, March 2008

Object number: BK-2008-120

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the BankGiro Lottery

This Recumbent Greyhound is a rare and early example of a sculpted animal portrait executed life-size. The work can likely be termed a sculpted ‘portrait’ of a once-existing animal, in part based on the lifelike rendering, but even more so on the presence of the escutcheon on the collar around his neck, which bears the Roose coat of arms, a patrician family in Antwerp. The dog was unquestionably carved as an autonomous sculpture, as it is also signed and dated, specifically with the inscribed monogram A.Q. and the year 1657. This is additionally confirmed by the absence of any trace of a former mounting. Despite the presence of monogram, year and family coat of arms, insufficient grounds exist for a full and conclusive determination regarding the art-historical antecedents of the present work. One previously unresolved matter, for example, centres on whether the monogram belongs to Artus Quellinus I (1609-1668) or his younger namesake and cousin, Artus Quellinus II (1625-1700).⁹⁹For the two men’s family ties, see S. Landuyt, De funeraire monumenten van Artus Quellinus de Jonge (1625-1700): Een kritische analyse van hun geschiedenis, iconografie en stijl, 4 vols., 1998 (unpublished thesis, KU Leuven), vol. 1, pp. 9-10. Hozee, in a catalogue entry of the Amsterdam Greyhound formulated in 1977, chose to leave either option open, as both sculptors would have been capable of obtaining such a commission from an Antwerp patron in or shortly before the year 1657.¹⁰¹⁰Hozee in E. 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. 130.

From 1650 to 1665, Artus Quellinus I lived in Amsterdam while overseeing the sculptural production for the new Amsterdam town hall (the present-day Royal Palace on the Dam Square). During this time, however, the sculptor visited Antwerp multiple times (documented are visits in 1655, 1658 and 1659) and maintained patronage in his native city.¹¹¹¹B. van der Mark, ‘Artus Quellinus: The Light of Sculpture in Our Century’, in B. van der Mark (ed.), Artus Quellinus. Sculptor of Amsterdam, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Royal Palace Amsterdam/ Rijksmuseum) 2025, pp. 14-39, esp. pp. 26-27, 31. When unable to travel to Antwerp himself, his older brother, the painter Erasmus Quellinus II (1607-1678), assumed the role of intermediary. In this capacity, on 14 September 1656, Erasmus signed a contract ‘representing in name Sr Artus Quellinus, his brother’, for two marble statues – one of St Francis Xavier, the other of St Ignatius of Loyola – destined for the choir of the Jesuit church in Antwerp. Quellinus subsequently sculpted these saintly statues in his Amsterdam workshop, where both were seen there by Joost van den Vondel and featured in two of his laudatory poems. While he was briefly in Antwerp in July 1658 and again in July 1659, it is highly likely he also sculpted the monumental statue of St Peter for the epitaph of Pieter Saboth (Sint-Andrieskerk, Antwerp) in Amsterdam (cf. BK-2012-11). He may have carved the Recumbent Greyhound there as well, although it’s also possible he did so during an undocumented trip to Antwerp in 1657. Artus Quellinus II, in his turn, joined his older namesake in Amsterdam for approximately two years until he returned to Antwerp mid-1656. This Amsterdam sojourn is probably the only extended period when he ventured outside the Southern Netherlands. On 11 May 1657 his first son was born in Antwerp.¹²¹²W. Frère, ‘The Antwerp Triumph of Artus Quellinus the Younger’, in B. van der Mark (ed.), Artus Quellinus. Sculptor of Amsterdam, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Royal Palace Amsterdam/ Rijksmuseum) 2025, pp. 182-87.

While both sculptors would have been in the position to receive the commission of the Recumbent Greyhound, strong arguments justify an attribution of the sculpture to Artus Quellinus I. First, a variety of religious but predominantly mythological works are cited in the estate inventory of his brother, Erasmus, compiled after his death in 1678. These consist largely of study models and sketches made by Quellinus I – both modelled and cast – in clay, wax and plaster.¹³¹³E. Duverger, Antwerpse kunstinventarissen uit de zeventiende eeuw, vol. 10, Brussels 1999, no. 3333 (probate inventory Erasmus Quellinus, dated 7 November 1678 and 22, 24 and 27 March 1679). As heir to his brother’s estate following the sculptor’s death in 1668, Erasmus Quellinus II must also have assumed the care of his existing artistic legacy. Also among the works in the 1678 inventory are a number of animal sculptures, including a rearing horse, a plaster model of a horse, pacing and jumping lions, a wild boar and a recumbent lion and lioness. These works demonstrate that Artus I had turned to the subject of autonomous animal sculptures on more than one occasion. In the known oeuvre of the younger cousin, by contrast, not one documented example of such a work exists. Although a relatively under-exposed aspect of the elder Quellinus’s work, the numerous beasts incorporated in his decorations for the Amsterdam town hall and elsewhere bely any further doubt. Most compelling in this context, however, is a Hasewint gegoten (Greyhound cast) also mentioned in the brother’s estate inventory.¹⁴¹⁴E. Duverger, Antwerpse kunstinventarissen uit de zeventiende eeuw, vol. 10, Brussels 1999, p. 353. Not only does this provide tangible proof of Quellinus’s familiarity with the Greyhound theme, it also leaves one tempted to interpret this object as a study model for the life-size canine carved in oak from 1657. Since 1690, Een Hund giort af Qvilino hviid laqveret (a Dog made by Quilino, painted white) had been preserved at the royal Danish Kunstkammer. In an 1825 inventory of this collection, the same work is described as a greyhound cast in plaster by the sculptor Thomas Quellinus, a son of Artus Quellinus II.¹⁵¹⁵B. Gundestrup, Det kongelige danske Kunstkammer 1737: The Royal Danish Kunstkammer 1737, Copenhagen 1991, vol. 1, p. 345 (no. 779/540). The work described here likely concerns a replica made from the model mentioned in the estate, which Thomas subsequently transported to Denmark, where another cast was made. With no trace existing today, this work was probably lost in a fire in 1884.

The attribution of the life-size Recumbent Greyhound to Artus Quellinus I can also be justified on stylistic grounds, particularly when comparing it to other animal figures in the sculptor’s oeuvre. A small number of these sculptures have survived, with most executed in clay. One example is a terracotta statuette of a standing horse signed and dated 1638, of which a Plaester Peerdeken mentioned in the estate inventory is perhaps a cast or model.¹⁶¹⁶Sale New York (Christie’s), 10 January 1990, no. 196; F. Scholten, Quellinus: Sculptor of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2010, fig. 8. From the same list, the recumbent Lion and Lioness can also be linked to various terracotta versions.¹⁷¹⁷Cf. _ Lioness Nursing her Cubs_, c,. 1640-50. Terracotta, 18 x 32 cm. The Leiden Collection, New York, inv. no. AQ-100, see B. van der Mark, ‘Formed by Rubens and Rome. Quellinus’s Stylistic Idiom’, in B. van der Mark (ed.), Artus Quellinus. Sculptor of Amsterdam, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Royal Palace Amsterdam/ Rijksmuseum) 2025, pp. 56-83, esp. p. 78, fig. 33. Stylistically, two terracotta dogs in the Amsterdam Museum show a direct affinity to the dogs and other animals appearing in Quellinus’s reliefs for the Amsterdam town hall.¹⁸¹⁸M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, nos. 131, 132. Cf. for example, K. Fremantle, The Baroque Town Hall of Amsterdam, Utrecht 1959, figs. 53, 55 (Mars). F. Scholten, Quellinus: Sculptor of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2010, figs. 27 (terracotta modello of Mars), 37, 38 (Vierschaar reliefs); E.-J. Goossens, Een schat van beitel en penseel: Het Amsterdamse stadhuis uit de Gouden Eeuw, Amsterdam/Zwolle 1996, figs. 47 (two lions at Cybele’s feet), 76 (wolf, lion and dog: three-headed personification of Prudentia in the Vroedschapskamer). Other similar works include the trusty little dog gazing up at his master on the monumental tomb of Field Marshall Otto Christoph von Sparr in the Marienkirche in Berlin.¹⁹¹⁹R. Bartsch-Molden, Artus Quellinus’ Grabmal Sparr: Der Einfluss der Niederlande auf das Grabmal in Norddeutschland zwischen 1650 und 1725, Frankfurt am Main 1993, fig. 6. Also attributed to Quellinus is a bronze Bellowing Bull in the Rijksmuseum’s collection (BK-16944).²⁰²⁰F. Scholten, M. Verber et al., From Vulcan’s Forge: Bronzes from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 1450-1800, exh. cat. London (Daniel Katz Ltd.)/Vienna (Liechtenstein Museum) 2005-06, no. 43. All of these sculpture share the same strong sense of naturalism, with fluidly modelled physical forms commonly articulated with loosely furrowed coats and hides. The same characteristics can be discerned on the Recumbent Greyhound, including the highly delineated ribs visible on the dog’s flanks, the bone structure and muscle of the two front legs, and the dynamically carved surface of the hind legs, thighs and furrows of the neck.

Comparable stylistic traits also appear with a number of Quellinus’s animals carved in wood: the sitting heraldic lions on the choirstalls from 1658 in the Sint-Jacobskerk in Antwerp and the lions on those in the abbey church of Averbode. In Gabriëls’s estimation, these works were produced in the sculptor’s artistic milieu.²¹²¹J. Gabriels, Artus Quellien, de Oude: ‘Kunstryck belthouwer’, Antwerp 1930, pp. 193-96, 206-10, 212-13 and figs. LV-LVII. To be considered in the same context are two oak-carved medallions that surfaced on the London art market in 1990:²²²²Sale London (Sotheby’s), 8 July 1990, no. 139 (as ‘Artus Quellinus II’). the head of a dog and the head of a wild boar, both encircled by a wreath of oak-tree leaves. Their refined execution and notable size (diameter 14.5 cm) suggest these works were likely made as autonomous cabinet sculptures – the sharp-witted hunting dog versus the untamed boar – to be displayed hanging in a collector’s art cabinet. Their autonomous character is likewise affirmed by the presence of the monogram ‘A.Q.’ found on one of the medallions. Especially the carved rendering of the dog’s head bears a close similarity to the somewhat larger head of the Recumbent Greyhound.

The use of the monogram ‘A.Q.’, as it is found on the Amsterdam Greyhound and one of the two medallions, corresponds to that of a second monogram – an ‘A’ and a ‘Q’ interlocked within a circle – on the axe held by the marble high-relief of Mars in the gallery of the Amsterdam town hall.²³²³K. 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, fig. 50. Here the signature has been placed surreptitiously, made to resemble a quality mark commonly found on wrought-iron objects of that era. A number of Antwerp sculptures also bear hidden, similarly subtle signatures. Examples include Guillielmus Kerricx’s monogram disguised as a quality mark made in a ‘metal’ cooper’s tool on the gate of the cooper’s guild (Antwerp, Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal), and Pieter van Baurscheit’s monogram ‘PVB’, inscribed on the ‘pewter’ lid of a beer tankard in his terracotta group of Two Drinking Fellows.²⁴²⁴Sale London (Christie’s), 2 July 1991, no. 84. E. Bijzet, ‘Waer in den Aert en Stand zijn uitgedrukt heel stout: Pieter van Baurscheits Drinkebroers en de boertige kunst in de Nederlanden’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 56 (2008), pp. 424-45. As with the ‘A.Q.’ on other works, the monogram on the Mars’s axe begs the question of the sculptor’s precise identity, Artus Quellinus I or II. On the basis of quality and style, however, its authorship must most likely be credited to the eldest of the two.²⁵²⁵K. Fremantle, The Baroque Town Hall of Amsterdam, Utrecht 1959, p. 48 (note 4); 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. 60.

The escutcheon on the greyhounds collar – bearing a chevron with three roses – can be identified as that of the regental family Roose of Antwerp.²⁶²⁶For the family’s coat of arms (with erroneously cited colour scheme) see R. Delplanche, Un légiste anversois au service de l’Espagne. Pierre Roose, Chef-Président du Conseil-Privé des Pays-Bas (1586-1673), Brussels 1945, plate XI. The correct coat of arms has a red field with a white chevron, see B.J. de ter Beerst, Notice généalogique et historique de la famille Roose, Ghent 2015 (unpublished typoscript, in the Object File), pp. 7-8. Around 1573, founding father Johan Roose settled in the city, where all three of his sons would eventually rise to hold prestigious political functions. The eldest, Jan Roose (c. 1575/85-1641), served as treasurer, alderman and, in the years 1634, 1635, 1637, 1639 and 1640, burgomaster of the city Antwerp.²⁷²⁷K. van der Stighelen, De portretten van Cornelis de Vos, Brussels 1990, nos. 15, 16 (for the portrait of Jan and his wife by Cornelis de Vos). He died in 1641. Many years later, circa 1670, Artus Quellinus II completed work on the tomb monument in the Sint-Jacobskerk in Antwerp, built for Jan and his wife, Anna Fredericx van der Bouchorst, who had passed in that same year, and commissioned by Jan’s sons.²⁸²⁸C. Lawrence, Flemish Baroque Commemorative Monuments 1566-1725, 1978 (diss. University of Chicago), pp. 267-68 (no. 86) (erroneous dating 1641); S. Landuyt, De funeraire monumenten van Artus Quellinus de Jonge (1625-1700): Een kritische analyse van hun geschiedenis, iconografie en stijl, 4 vols., 1998 (unpublished thesis, KU Leuven), vol. 1, pp. 78-81, vol. 2, no. Gr. 15 (as ‘second half 17th century’). Ambrosius Roose (c. 1575/15-1640), Johan’s second son, went on to become municipal pensionary of Antwerp in 1637 and a councillor in the High Council. He died in 1640.

By comparison, it was nevertheless the youngest of Johan Roose’s three sons, Pieter (1586-1673), who experienced the most illustrious career.²⁹²⁹Sources biographical information: R. Delplanche, Un légiste anversois au service de l’Espagne: Pierre Roose, Chef-Président du Conseil-Privé des Pays-Bas (1586-1673), Brussels 1945; Biographie Nationale de Belgique 20 (1908-1910), cols 49-78; R. Vermeir, ‘De genese van een instructietekst: Pieter Roose en de onderrichtingen voor de kardinaal-infant’, Handelingen van de Koninklijke Zuidnederlandse Maatschappij voor Taal- en Letterkunde en Geschiedenis, 47 (1993), pp. 181-97; René Vermeir’s lemma on Roose at www.dutchrevolt.leiden.edu; B.J. de ter Beerst, Notice généalogique et historique de la famille Roose, Ghent 2015 (unpublished typoscript, in the Object File), pp. 53-64. For the art patronage of Pieter Roose, see also D. Maufort, Le peintre anversois Peter Thijs (1624-1677): L’un des derniers élèves d’Antoine van Dyck, 2004 (unpublished thesis, University Louvain-la-Neuve), vol. 1, pp. 60, 110-12, 128, vol. 2, pp. 11-12 (nos. 7-8), 87 (no. 87), and vol. 3, doc. nos. 28, 47, 58, 68, 73, 117 and 119. My thanks to René Vermeir, Ghent, Bert Timmermans, Antwerp (written correspondence) and Bruno Joos de ter Beerst, Ghent (2016). Educated as a lawyer at the University of Leuven, Pieter worked for some time as an attorney in Brussels. In 1616, he was appointed as fiscal councillor in the Council of Brabant. Six years later, he was promoted to the functions of councillor and fiscal councillor in the Secret Council, the governing heart of the Southern Netherlands. In 1630, he was made a member of the Council of State, together with the Jacob Boonen, Archbishop of Mechelen, and Antoon Triest, Bishop of Ghent. Thanks to his monarchical-political leanings, Roose was a personal confidant of the Spanish king, Philip IV. As a member of the High Council, he spent two years in Madrid preparing for the arrival of the king’s brother Cardinal-Infante Don Fernando, in his new role as governor of the Spanish Netherlands. Upon returning to Brussels in 1632, Pieter was appointed president of the Secret Council and chairman of the Council of State, making him de facto the most powerful political figure in the Southern Netherlands. He would hold both functions until 1654, albeit interrupted for a period of time starting in 1649 while residing at the Spanish court for a second time. When again returning to the Southern Netherlands in 1653, Pieter was honourably discharged from his functions, very much to his own dismay. For the remainder of his years, he lived in seclusion at his country estate Ham-sur-Sambre in the vicinity of Namur. On 27 February 1673, Pieter Roose died – unwed and childless – in Antwerp. Following his death, a tomb monument was erected in the Sint-Goedelekerk in Brussels, built by the Mechelen sculptor François Langhemans. In his testament of 1663, Pieter bequeathed his possessions entirely to his nephew, Pieter Ferdinand, son of his brother Ambrosius.³⁰³⁰B. Volckaert, De leden van de Geheime Raad der Zuidelijke Nederlanden onder het bewind van de aartshertogen Filips IV (1609-1653): Een prosopografische studie 2004 (thesis Ghent University).

Jan and Ambrosius Roose died respectively in 1641 and 1640. Pieter, being the sole surviving family member from his generation, is certain to have commissioned the Recumbent Greyhound. It also perfectly suited his personal situation at this stage in his life. At the time the sculpture was commissioned, he had already withdrawn from politics and was instead leading a life of leisure surrounded by his library and art collection, unwed, childless and the eldest surviving member of the family. Undoubtedly in his possession were a number of the painted portraits still surviving to the present day, attributed to artists such as Anthony van Dyck and his pupil Peter Thys, including a full-length portrait from the 1630s showing Pieter sitting at his writing table.³¹³¹R. Delplanche, Un légiste anversois au service de l’Espagne. Pierre Roose, Chef-Président du Conseil-Privé des Pays-Bas (1586-1673), Brussels 1945, pp. 193-98 and pl. II; for another portrait of Pieter Roose, see Het Belgisch portret van de XVe tot de XVIIIe eeuw, behorend tot Belgische privé verzamelingen, exh. cat. Laarne (Kasteel Laarne) 1970, no. 34 (as ‘by Van Dyck’). In the lower right corner, the painter added a remarkable detail: a small dog with his gaze turned upwards and to the right, apparently surprised by an imaginary visitor outside the painting’s limit. Perhaps nothing more than a painterly improvization, but the motif could also have been added to convey Pieter Roose’s personal affinity for dogs. Such an affinity is likewise conveyed in other portraits of Roose family members, including a now indeterminate portrait of one of Pieter’s cousins, described as follows in the expansive, multi-volume estate inventory from 1703 of his universal heir, Pieter Ferdinand Roose, Baron van Bouchout: ‘Idem the portrait of a brother of sir Baron [= Pieter Ferdinand Roose] having the hand on the head of a dog […]’.³²³²Item het portrait van eenen broeder vanden heere Baron hebbende de handt op thooft van eenen hondt ...’; Archives of the City of Brussels, Oud Archief, no. 66 (Papiers intéressants de la famille Roose), liasse 470 (which includes Liste vande portraiten vande familie van Roose metde welcke den Inventaris vande meubelen van wylen den heere Baron van Bouchout is belast en dewelcke in vier cassen sijn gesonden naer Antwerpen aen den heere Melchior François Roose desselfs eenigen geinstitueerden erfgenaem testamentair op den 23 octobris 1703 (unpaged and unnumbered). This likely concerns the portrait of Albert Roose, considering Pieter Ferdinand’s two other brothers are known to have died early in life. A painting from circa 1622 by Hieronymus Francken II and Jan Brueghel I shows the archducal pair Albert and Isabella viewing the art collection of Pieter Roose, himself depicted standing between his two illustrious guests. Accompanying the trio are several dogs, both sitting and standing, including a standing greyhound visible at an angle behind Isabella’s chair, immediately adjacent to Roose on the right.³³³³Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, inv. no. 37.2010. The sitters were identified in 2015 by Danielle Maufort. My thanks to Bruno Joos de ter Beerst (Ghent), written communication 11 October 2016.

The inventories of Pieter Ferdinand’s bequeathed possessions at Granvelle Palace – his residency in Brussels – provide a good picture of Pieter Roose’s and his nephew’s vast art collection and library.³⁴³⁴Prof Dr René Vermeir (Ghent University) is preparing a publication on Pieter Roose’s book collection (written communication 26 February 2009). The inventory of October 1703 mentions at least six portraits of Pieter Roose: four painted portraits and two modelled portrait busts on wooden socles.³⁵³⁵Archives of the City of Brussels, Oud Archief, no. 66 (Papiers intéressants de la famille Roose), liasse 470 (including the document Liste vande portraiten vande familie van Roose met de welcke den Inventaris vande meubelen van wylen den heere Baron van Bouchout is belast en dewelcke in vier cassen sijn gesonden naer Antwerpen aen den heere Melchior François Roose desselfs eenigen geinstitueerden erfgenaem testamentair op den 23 octobris 1703 (unpaged, unnumbered): ‘Idem three modelled portraits, one of Sir Baron van Bouchout and two others of Chef president Roose with two wooden feet supporting them’ (Item drije geboutseerde portraiten d’een vanden heere Baron van Bouchout ende de twee andere vanden heere Chef president Roose met twee houte voeten daer toe dienende). See also R. Delplanche, Un légiste anversois au service de l’Espagne. Pierre Roose, Chef-Président du Conseil-Privé des Pays-Bas (1586-1673), Brussels 1945, p. 193. More relevant to the present context, however, is the inventory of Pieter Ferdinand’s possessions drawn up between 15 December 1700 and 30 July 1701. Here we find an entry of ‘Idem one wooden Dog’, mentioned along with several other animal sculptures, including a stone dog, three deer and a wooden lion.³⁶³⁶Item eenen houten Hondt; my thanks to Bruno Joos de ter Beerst for sharing this information, written communication 11 October 2016. The quote comes from Dr Danielle Maufort’s transcription of this inventory (p. 42), which Mr De ter Beerst made available to me (copy in Object File). The original inventory is preserved in Brussels, Rijksarchief Brussel I (Anderlecht), Fonds Notariaat Generaal van Brabant, no. 890/1, notary C.F.E. Catz, (unpaged and unnumbered). Other than eenen witten Hondt gesneden in houdt (a white Dog carved in wood) located in the room above the carriage house, this is the only mention of a sculpture of a dog in Pieter Ferdinand’s inventory. This in itself justifies an identification of the object described here as the present Recumbent Greyhound by Quellinus, with additional grounds in support of this theory being the fact that the sculpture was displayed with other animal sculptures in de lange saele met schilderijen (the long room with paintings) at Granvelle Palace, i.e. as part of the art collection in the painting gallery. It was therefore seen not merely as a decorative piece, but as a work of greater artistic value.

Quellinus’s Recumbent Greyhound belongs to a relatively small group of pre-nineteenth-century ‘dog portraits’ in sculpture. The earliest examples of this genre date from antiquity, e.g. the half-seated marble Molossian Hound – known in five different versions and likely traceable to a Greek original in bronze – or the Hellenistic and Roman dog sculptures in the Sala degli Animali (Vatican Museums), which were restored in the late eighteenth century by the sculptor Franzoni.³⁷³⁷Examples can be found in the Vatican Museums, the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence, the British Museum in London and elsewhere. These include various greyhounds depicted in a variety of poses. One may reasonably suppose Artus Quellinus saw some of these works with his own eyes during his years in Rome (1635-1639).³⁸³⁸In terms of the pose, the dog in the Amsterdam Museum greatly resembles a greyhound in the Vatican museums. It also resembles a greyhound in an Antwerp-carved retable in Münstermaifeld, inscribed with the year 1518 (left of the Lamentation in the right compartment), see R. de Boodt and U. Schäfer, Vlaamse retabels: Een internationale reis langs laatmiddeleeuws beeldsnijwerk, Leuven 2007, pp. 136-37. Since the sixteenth century, autonomous sculptural portrayals of (grey-)hounds – whether or not rendered after life – are a regular phenomenon, thus confirming an appreciation for these dogs as house pets arising as early as the Early Modern period, especially in aristocratic circles. In pose and naturalistic expression, the recumbent dog in Jacopo Bassano’s Two Dogs (Musée du Louvre, Paris) displays a remarkable agreement to Quellinus’s Recumbent Greyhound.³⁹³⁹Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. no. RF1994-23. Similarly, in paintings of courtly companies and portraits of members of the nobility and patrician families, dogs – especially greyhounds – are a common motif. In many cases, emphasis is placed on the interdependence of master and his beloved pet. In sculpture, the earliest autonomous representations of dogs date back to the first half of the sixteenth century, with Cellini’s bronze relief from 1545 depicting a standing saluki (Persian greyhound) – possibly a favourite of Cosimo I de’ Medici – is one of the best-known examples. Twenty years before, Frederico Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua – who owned more than a hundred dogs –¬ even hired Giulio Romano to design a tomb monument for his favourite dog following its death.⁴⁰⁴⁰N. Penny, ‘Dead Dogs and Englishmen’, Connoisseur 192 (1976), no. 774, pp. 298-303, esp. p. 298 and fig. 2. For dog portraits in the Early Modern funerary tradition, see S. van Oosterwijk, ‘From Biblical Beast to Faithful Friend: A Short Note on the Iconography of Footrests on Tomb Monuments’, in L.D. Gelfand (ed.), Our Dogs, Our Selves: Dogs in Medieval and Early Modern Art, Literature and Society, Leiden/Boston 2016, pp. 243-60, esp. pp. 254, 260 and figs. 10.9, 10.10. A number of sculptural dog portraits dating from the sixteenth and early seventeenth century – depicted sitting or standing – were clearly made as works of cabinet sculpture intended for collectors, as indicated by their small size.⁴¹⁴¹For Cellini, see G. Toderi and F. Vannel Toderi, Placchette secoli XV-XVIII nel Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence 1996, no. 94. Also H.R. Weihrauch, Europäische Bronzestatuetten, 15. - 18. Jahrhundert, Braunschweig 1967, p. 287, figs. 343, 344; F. Scholten et al., Willem van Tetrode, Sculptor (c. 1525-1580)/Guglielmo Fiammingo scultore, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/New York (The Frick Collection) 2003, p. 32 and figs. 29, 30; sale London (Christie’s), The Beit Collection of Early Italian Bronzes, 7 December 2006, no. 187. C. Scherer, Die Braunschweiger Elfenbeinsammlung: Katalog der Elfenbeinbildwerke, coll. cat. Braunschweig (Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum) 1931, no. 129. Given the frequency with which greyhounds appear in painted portraits of members of patrician families in Antwerp during the first half of the seventeenth century, the commissioning of a portrait of a personal house pet about this time proves less exceptional than one might suppose. Nevertheless, Quellinus’s Recumbent Greyhound, commissioned by a member of the Roose family, remains one of the rare life-size depictions of a house pet made in three dimensions.

Frits Scholten, 2025

E. 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. 130; M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, p. 208 (under no. 132); S. Landuyt, De funeraire monumenten van Artus Quellinus de Jonge (1625-1700): Een kritische analyse van hun geschiedenis, iconografie en stijl, 4 vols., 1998 (unpublished thesis, KU Leuven), vol. 2, no. An 2; F. Scholten, ‘Keuze uit de aanwinsten’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 56 (2008), no. 4, pp. 475-97, esp. pp. 478-79, no. 6; F. Scholten, ‘Recent Acquisitions (2004-09) of Sculpture at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam’, The Burlington Magazine 151 (2009), pp. 805-12, esp. p. 809, no. IX; F. Scholten, Artus Quellinus: Sculptor of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2010, pp. 11, 12 and fig. 9; F. Scholten, ‘Ter nagedachtenis’, Kunstschrift 54 (2010), no. 3, pp. 24-29, esp. p. 26 and fig. 31; B.J. de ter Beerst, Notice généalogique et historique de la famille Roose, Ghent 2015 (unpublished typoscript, in Object File BK-2008-120); B. van der Mark (ed.), Artus Quellinus. Sculptor of Amsterdam, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Royal Palace Amsterdam/ Rijksmuseum) 2025, p. 212

F. Scholten, 2025, 'Artus (I) Quellinus or , Recumbent Greyhound, Antwerp or Amsterdam, 1657', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200498035