Modelled.

The Child’s head has broken off and is preserved separately.

From the artist’s studio in Delft, to the museum, 1900

Object number: BK-18772

Credit line: Gift of E. Lacomblé

The present statuette – a bozzetto of the Virgin and Child, modelled in unfired clay (terra secca) – is one of approximately sixty clay sketch models and design studies from the Delft studio inventory of the Brussels-born sculptor Antoine Eugène Lacomblé (1828-1909) donated to the Rijksmuseum in 1900. It is not known whether the sketch was ever realized.

Lacomblé was educated as a sculptor at the art academies of Brussels and Paris. After moving to the The Hague in 1854, he was appointed head instructor at the Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten in that city in 1859.¹¹For Lacomblé, see J.A. Alberdingk Thijm, Over nieuwere beeldhouwkunst, vooral in Nederland, Rotterdam 1886, pp. 32-33; P.K. van Daalen, Nederlandse beeldhouwers in de negentiende eeuw, The Hague 1957, pp. 67-69. Among his students were the sculptors Charles van Wijk (1875-1917) and Bart van Hove (1850-1914). From 1863 until 1900, Lacomblé combined this position with teaching classes in sculptural modelling at the new Polytechnische School in nearby Delft.

As an artist, Lacomblé garnered the greatest success with his salon sculptures, typically executed in smoothly polished white marble. Examples include his Mother with Her Child (present whereabouts unknown), for which he received a silver medal at the 1856 Tentoonstelling van Schilderijen en Kunstwerken (Exhibition of Paintings and Artworks) in The Hague, and The Sleep of Innocence, commissioned by Queen Sophie of the Netherlands in 1858.²²P.K. van Daalen, Nederlandse beeldhouwers in de negentiende eeuw, The Hague 1957, p. 67. In addition to these sentimental pieces, Lacomblé also executed a number of religious statues, portraits and tomb monuments. One example of the latter is his tomb monument for the Dutch poet Hendrik Tollens in Rijswijk from 1860, originally surmounted by a (now lost) muse. One of Lacomblé’s best-known works is his monument for King William III: a classicist trumpet-blowing Fame in the garden of Het Loo Palace, completed in 1864.³³E. van Heuven-van Nes, A.-M van Schaik and M.E. Spliethoff (eds.), Monumenten voor Nassau en Oranje, Rotterdam 2004, no. 32. Lacomblé’s (designs for) statues tended towards the realistic-historicizing style that was customary for this genre at the time. In this respect, his sculptures are comparable to works by other influential sculptors then active in the Netherlands: Louis Royer (1793-1868), Johann Theodor Stracké (1817-1891), and Johann’s brother, Franz Stracké (1820-1898).⁴⁴See F. Scholten, Gebeeldhouwde portretten/Portrait Sculptures, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1995, pp. 31-38. Unlike these men, however, Lacomblé was never a sculptor of great significance, as he lacked in artistic innovation. Consequently, his numerous entries submitted to various competitions ¬– including the contest for the commission of the ‘National Monument for 1813’ – were very rarely chosen above those of others and seldom ever realized.⁵⁵P.K. van Daalen, Nederlandse beeldhouwers in de negentiende eeuw, The Hague 1957, p. 68.

Upon retiring as a sculptor at the age of seventy-two, Lacomblé moved to the Dutch city of Arnhem in 1900. At this time, he donated approximately sixty of his sketch models and studies from his Delft studio inventory to the Rijksmuseum. The vast majority of these works were modelled in unfired clay, with most already in damaged condition due to the material’s high fragility. Two years prior to Lacomblé’s retirement, a celebratory album assembled by a committee of ‘friends, students and admirers’ was presented to the sculptor on the occasion of his seventieth birthday in 1898.⁶⁶See the newspaper article ‘Lacomblé gehuldigd’, Het Vaderland, 8 March 1898. This album contains images of many of his statuettes, photographed individually and in their original workshop context.⁷⁷Album gekregen in 1898 ter gelegenheid van zijn 70ste verjaardag van vrienden en collega’s. The album today remains in the possession of Lacomblé’s descendants. It was fully digitized by the RKD, The Hague in 2014, and can be found on their website, under inv.no. 0812.01.

Bieke van der Mark, 2026

Verslag van de directie over het jaar (1989-96), Amsterdam (annual report Rijksmuseum) 1900, p. 15, no. 1141; J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 460, with earlier literature

B. van der Mark, 2026, 'Eugène Lacomblé, Bozzetto of a Virgin and Child, Delft, c. 1870 - c. 1900', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035891