Cast.

On the original, white marble, block-shaped pedestal.

Commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Culture, Recreation and Social Work, 1975; by which donated to the museum, on the occasion of the sitter’s departure as director of the Rijksmuseum, 3 June 1975

Object number: BK-1975-71

Credit line: Gift of the Ministerie van Cultuur, Recreatie en Maatschappelijk Werk

The tradition of commemorating departing directors of the Rijksmuseum has led to a series of seven sculptural portraits.¹¹Specifically: Jonkheer B.W.F. van Riemsdijk by Toon Dupuis (1931), A. Pit by C.C.J.M. Heslenfeld (1938), F. Schmidt-Degener by L.H. Sondaar (1953), Jonkheer D.C. Röell by Charlotte van Pallandt (1959), S.H. Levie by Nel van Lith (1989), R. de Leeuw by Tony van der Vorst (2011), and the present sculpture. Fifth in line is the bronze portrait of Arthur François Emile van Schendel (directorate Rijksmuseum, 1959-1975) by the Limburg sculptor Arthur Spronken (1930-2018).²²The same staring gaze can also be observed on a youth portrait of Van Schendel by the sculptor J. Wertheim from 1930, likewise in the Rijksmuseum’s collection BK-1980-157. For the creation of this work, Van Schendel sat for the sculptor on three separate occasions. Spronken composed his model for the bronze by layering successive wax shards. In his rendering of Van Schendel’s countenance, he emphasized a number of undulating, vertical lines: the form of the skull, the nose, the curves of the cheeks and skin, and the small, S-shaped curls of his bushy eyebrows. This slight exaggeration of the physiognomic features recurs in a far more pronounced form as the main stylistic element in Spronken’s autonomous work. Especially his sculptures of bovines and horses display enormous undulations in the neck, shoulders and buttocks. Contrary to the glossy, warm-tinted artificial patina found on a majority of Spronken’s bronzes, the casting texture of the Van Schendel portrait has been left intact: the rough, grainy, flecked surface of the bronze after removal of the mould. This gives the bronze a stone-like appearance reminiscent of naturally corroded antique bronzes. Consequently, the bust evokes the allure of the tradition and age befitting a director of the Rijksmuseum.

Frits Scholten, 2026

Jaarverslag Nederlandse Rijksmusea 1975, p. 24, fig. 13; Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 23 (1975), p. 195; E. Meyer et al., De gebeeldhouwde kop: De ontwikkeling van de gebeeldhouwde kop en het portretbeeld in Nederland van middeleeuwen tot heden, exh. cat. Nijmegen (Nijmeegs Museum Commanderie van Sint-Jan) 1994, no. 112 (erroneously as 1977); F. Scholten, Gebeeldhouwde portretten/Portrait Sculptures, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1995, no. 55

F. Scholten, 2026, 'Arthur Spronken and Pie Sijen, Portrait of Arthur van Schendel (1910-1979), KelmondBeek (Limburg), 1975', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20036365