Modelled and fired.

Most of the dove and a few bells from the dog’s collar are missing. There is a crack in the boy’s right knee as well as one in his right buttock running upwards over his back. The dog’s front left paw has been broken and glued back on.

…; sale collection S.W. Josephus Jitta (1818-1897, Amsterdam), Paris (Drouot), 5-22 March 1883, p. 93, no. 447; …; from the dealer H. Blairman and Son Ltd., London, fl. 3,029, to the museum, 1963

Object number: BK-1963-24

Little is known about the youth of Michiel Emanuel Shee (c. 1695-1739). Contrary to what was thought for a long time,¹¹Cf. De Koomen in R. Baarsen et al., Rococo in Nederland, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2001-02, no. 2. we now know that this eighteenth-century sculptor was not from Germany, but from Antwerp.²²P.M. Fischer, Ignatius en Jan van Logteren: Beeldhouwers en stuckunstenaars in het Amsterdam van de 18e eeuw, Alphen aan de Rijn 2005, p. 495. There he had trained with Willem Schobbens, a sculptor of ecclesiastical work.³³P. Rombouts and T. van Lerius, De liggeren en andere historische archieven der Antwerpsche Sint Lucasgilde, onder zinspreuk “Wt jonsten versaemt”, The Hague 1876, vol. 2, p. 669. In or before 1721 Shee must have moved to the Northern Netherlands, because in that year he married Maria Teppel in the small town of Drunen in North Brabant. She came from the neighbouring Heusden. The couple originally lived in The Hague, but moved to Amsterdam in 1727 where Shee (‘sculptor from Antwerp’) became a burgher on 16 September. Shortly after the birth of their fifth child in 1739, Maria died, to be followed later that year by Shee himself. The four youngest children were cared for in Amsterdam’s Burgerweeshuis (city orphanage), where the accounts book kept by their father from May 1726 to 1737 also ended up.⁴⁴SAA 2536, no. 1, archive Burgerweeshuis, accounts book M. Shee. This extraordinary document gives a good idea of Shee’s sculptural output and clientele.⁵⁵For a transcription, see P.M. Fischer, Ignatius en Jan van Logteren: Beeldhouwers en stuckunstenaars in het Amsterdam van de 18e eeuw, Alphen aan de Rijn 2005, pp. 496-503.

It transpires that the sculptor concentrated mainly on allegorical and charming figures and groups of children for in the garden. This terracotta piece also served as a model for a garden sculpture. The ultimate, larger sandstone version turned up in London in 1991 where it was sold with three companion pieces.⁶⁶Sale London (Christie’s), 16 April 1991, no. 88, see also Scholten in R. Baarsen et al., Netherlandish Art in the Rijksmuseum 1700-1800, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2006, p. 222. The statues were spotted in 2015, in private possession, see photos in Object File, RMA. The terracotta models of those other pieces have probably been lost. The sandstone figure is a faithful copy of the terracotta model dealt with here, the only appreciable difference being that the little dog in the final version is licking the boy’s chin, making the scene all the more whimsical and endearing.

As is customary, the figure is part of a series of an even number of sculptures, which, in this case, consists of two boys and two girls. Three are dated 1726, but the boy corresponding to the present terracotta is marked 1725, as is the model. Evidently Shee completed this version first.

The iconography of the series is fairly complicated, but thanks to the representation of the allegories in the guise of playful children, the group retains a light-hearted appeal. Each of the four children depicts two virtues. The boy with the beehive, the dog and the dove (in the terracotta version all that remains of the bird is its feet on the roots of the tree behind the child) stands for diligence and loyalty. The other figures represent gratitude and piety, abundance and concord, and winsomeness and mildness. The light, carefree way these complex allegorical concepts are portrayed is typical of the developing taste that was to be termed Rococo. It is not known for which garden the set was made. Shee’s accounts book gives no indications – he started it in 1726, just after the ensemble was finished.

Arjan de Koomen (updated by Bieke van der Mark in 2025)
An earlier version of this entry was published in R. Baarsen et al., Rococo in Nederland, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2001-02, no. 2

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 385, with earlier literature; De Koomen in R. Baarsen et al., Rococo in Nederland, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2001-02, no. 2; P.M. Fischer, Ignatius en Jan van Logteren: Beeldhouwers en stuckunstenaars in het Amsterdam van de 18e eeuw, Alphen aan de Rijn 2005, pp. 503-04