Modelled and fired. Finished with a final coat. Although the bust has a fragmentary appearance, there are no traces of breakages. On the lower part of the front side some small particles have flaked off, but the rest of the bottom surface appears to have been deliberately finished unevenly. At shoulder height, a horizontal seam runs through the hollow interior, but has been concealed on the exterior. So the top and bottom parts of the bust were joined together when the clay was still wet. The same applies for the conjoined part of Christ’s left shoulder, though the seam is now visible from the outside.
According to a luminescence dating analysis by the NCL, the year of creation is 1748 ± 34 years, on the basis of the SAR-method. On the basis of the SAR-SARA-method the outcome is 1718.

Small fragments have chipped off the outer side of the bottom edge, the nose and beard.

…; from an unknown owner, fl. 8, to the Koninklijk Kabinet voor Zeldzaamheden, The Hague, 1882; transferred to the museum, 1885

Object number: BK-NM-7505

The old, tentative attribution of this small terracotta bust of Christ to the Amsterdam sculptor, Jan van Logteren (1709-1745) is problematical for a variety of reasons.¹¹Leeuwenberg, following Fischer, see J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, p. 273. Christ, with his slightly downcast eyes and sensual mouth, has a far more sensitive and subdued presence than the elegant, elevated classicism that characterizes the work of that Amsterdam sculptor – and most of his contemporaries from the Northern Netherlands. The subject also makes provenance from the protestant Northern Netherlands less likely, although by no means impossible.

In terms of theme and style, there is more common ground with late-baroque Southern Netherlandish sculpture. For example, Christ’s features, the pronounced neck muscles, half-closed eyes, the shape of the ear, the hair, and the head tilted to the left, bear a striking resemblance to the figure of Christ in a marble flagellation group by the prominent Antwerp sculptor, Michiel van der Voort I (1667-1737). Van der Voort made this group in 1718-19 for the epitaph of Anna Maria Vincque in the Sint-Jacobskerk in Antwerp (fig. a).²²KIK-IRPA, object no. 60856 (incorrectly dated 1707, last consulted 22 January 2021); M.E. Tralbaut, De Antwerpse “Meester Constbeldhouwer” Michiel van der Voort de Oude (1667-1737): Zijn leven en werken, Antwerp 1950, pp. 162-71, fig. 60; P. Philippot, D. Coekelberghs, P. Loze and D. Vautier, L’Architecture religieuse et la sculpture baroques dans les Pays-Bas méridionaux et la principauté de Liège: 1600-1770, Sprimont 2003, p. 663. The dimensions of the marble and the terracotta (approx. three-quarters life-size) are also largely the same. In turn, Van der Voort’s figure of Christ is related to a number of earlier sculptures with the same subject. The head and neck areas correspond by and large, though mirror-imaged, to Jerôme du Quesnoy II’s life-size figure of Christ (1652-54) on the tomb of Bishop Antoine Triest in the Sint-Baafskathedraal in Ghent – a mirror-image variant of Michelangelo’s Risen Christ in the Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome –,³³For the mausoleum, cf. P. Philippot, D. Coekelberghs, P. Loze and D. Vautier, L’Architecture religieuse et la sculpture baroques dans les Pays-Bas méridionaux et la principauté de Liège: 1600-1770, Sprimont 2003, pp. 388-89 and 830-32. For Michelangelo’s Risen Christ, see, among others, M. Weinberger, Michelangelo the Sculptor, New York/London 1967, pp. 200-09, pl. 58; U. Baldini, L'opera complete di Michelangelo scultore, Milan 1973, no. 29, pls. XXIV-XXV. The lock of hair over the left shoulder instead of the right, and the half-closed eyes of the terracotta head of Christ are the same as the first version of the figure in San Vincenzo Martire in Bassano Romano, see, among others, S. Danesi Squarzina, ‘The Bassano “Christ the Redeemer” in the Giustiniani Collection’, The Burlington Magazine 142 (2000), pp. 746-51. and to the statuette representing Christ at the Column by Jerôme’s famous brother, François du Quesnoy (1597-1643).⁴⁴M. Boudon-Machuel, François du Quesnoy (1597-1643), Paris 2005, pp. 224-27, In. 10 ex. 1-In. 10 dér. 5. Moreover, Christ’s stooping body and arms bound behind, as well as the heads of his flagellators are reminiscent of Alessandro Algardi’s (1598-1654) much imitated Flagellation group.⁵⁵Cf. J. Montagu, Alessandro Algardi, New Haven 1985, pp. 315-18, esp. nos. 9.C.9-9, L.C. 15; V. Krahn (ed.), Von allen Seiten schön: Bronzen der Renaissance und des Barock, exh. cat. Berlin (Alten Museum) 1995, pp. 486-89. A wax model after Algardi’s flagellation group was in the estate of Erasmus Quellinus II (cf. M. Boudon-Machuel, François du Quesnoy (1597-1643), Paris 2005, p. 224). Tralbaut and Philippot mention a terracotta copy of Algardi’s figure of Christ from the flagellation group that has been attributed to Van der Voort (P. Philippot, D. Coekelberghs, P. Loze and D. Vautier, L’Architecture religieuse et la sculpture baroques dans les Pays-Bas méridionaux et la principauté de Liège: 1600-1770, Sprimont 2003, p. 713; M.E. Tralbaut, De Antwerpse “Meester Constbeldthouwer” Michiel van der Voort de Oude (1667-1737: Zijn leven en werken, Antwerp 1950, p. 376, no. 7, fig. 171). Thus Van der Voort’s figure of Christ and the closely related terracotta head of Christ in the Rijksmuseum exemplify the ongoing process of imitation and emulation that provided successive generations of artists with an ever wider gamut of variations on popular precedents, which they in turn incorporated more or less explicitly in new creations.

Recent thermoluminescence dating reveals that the Rijksmuseum’s head of Christ dates from the eighteenth century, possibly around the same year (1718) as work was being carried out on the epitaph of Anna Maria Vincque in Van der Voort’s workshop.⁶⁶Based on the SAR method, the figure is from 1748 ± 34. On the basis of the SAR-SARA method: 1718 (Luminescence Dating Report NCL, 23 April 2014 in Object File RMA). So the possibility cannot be ruled out that the head was modelled by one of Van der Voort’s workshop assistants in order to keep an example of a successful design as an aide-mémoire or workshop model. That would also explain the unevenly finished underside. If the bust was not intended as an art work in its own right, it would not necessarily have had to ‘stand’ on its own – which, in the current situation without any support, would be impossible. Van der Voort was a highly successful sculptor who for almost forty years headed a large workshop in Antwerp with numerous apprentices and employees.⁷⁷For Van der Voort’s apprentices between 1694 and 1733, see M.E. Tralbaut, De Antwerpse “Meester Constbeldhouwer” Michiel van der Voort de Oude (1667-1737): Zijn leven en werken, Antwerp 1950, p. 427. One of them was Laurent Gillis (1688-1749) who was apprenticed to Van der Voort in 1701. According to Marchal, Gillis remained with his master for more than twenty-five years, even after he himself had been admitted as a master in the Antwerp guild of St Luke.⁸⁸E. Marchal, La sculpture et l’orfèverie Belges, Brussels 1895, p. 502. See also https://laurentiusgillis.weebly.com/biografie.html (last consulted 25 January 2021). Tralbaut doubts this data, cf. M.E. Tralbaut De Antwerpse “Meester Constbeldhouwer” Michiel van der Voort de Oude (1667-1737): Zijn leven en werken, Antwerp 1950, pp. 431-32. If that information is correct, Gillis was actually employed in Van der Voort’s workshop when the epitaph was being made and, as an experienced sculptor, could have made a major contribution to it. The attribution of the terracotta head to Gillis is supported by its likeness to that of a marble statue of St John Nepomucene in the same Sint-Jacobskerk (fig. b), which Gilles made over twenty years later.⁹⁹KIK-IRPA, object no. 62012. Although the Bohemian saint depicts a considerably older man with a broader, fuller face, the heads have many characteristics in common. Their facial expression is the same and there are striking similarities between the position of the head, the shape of the eyes, nose and mouth, and the pronounced furrow between nose and cheek on either side of the nostrils. Marchal mentions that the major part of Gillis’ work was exported to the Northern Netherlands. Unfortunately there are no further details, as they could have supplied more certainty about the connection between Gillis and the bust of Christ dealt with here, and shed light on the piece’s provenance before it was purchased by the Koninklijk Kabinet voor Zeldzaamheden.¹⁰¹⁰See ‘Provenance’.

Titia de Haseth Möller, 2025

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 371

T. de Haseth Möller, 2025, 'attributed to workshop of Michiel van der (I) Voort and possibly Laurent Gillis, Bust of Christ, Antwerp, c. 1718 - c. 1725', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035809