Carved from Congolese ivory and African (?) fruitwood.

Complete with the original mahogany base of which the design may be attributed to Paul Hankar.

…; sale The Hague (Venduehuis der Notarissen, The Hague), c. 1997; …; from the dealer Delta 98, The Hague to Herman Dommisse, Amsterdam, 1998; whose sale Amsterdam (Christie’s), 15 June 2004, no. 355, to the museum

Object number: BK-2004-3

At the end of the nineteenth century, ivory carving briefly flourished in Belgium thanks to the large-scale import of ivory from the Congo, King Leopold II’s private colony.¹¹See W. Adriaenssens, ‘Philippe Wolfers en de renaissance van de ivoorsnijkunst in België’, Bulletin van de Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis, Jubelpark Brussel 71 (2000), pp. 89-186; W. Adriaenssens and R. Steel, De Wolfers dynastie, van Art Nouveau tot Art Deco, Antwerp/Ghent 2006, pp. 67-74. See also F. Khnopff, ‘The Revival of Ivory Carving in Belgium’, The Studio 4 (1894), pp. 150-51. On the initiative of Edmond van Eetvelde, general administrator of foreign affairs of the Congo Free State, a number of Congolese elephant tusks were made available to a small group of prominent Belgian sculptors in 1893. The ivory sculptures these artists made were received with such great enthusiasm at the Exposition Internationale d’Anvers (Antwerp World’s Fair) of 1894 that a project of broader scope was conceived. During the Brussels World Industrial Exhibition of 1897, thirty-nine sculptors submitted nearly ninety ivory carved sculptures, shown at the Palais des Colonies in nearby Tervuren.²²T. Masui, Guide de la section de l’État indépendant du Congo à l’exposition de Bruxelles-Tervueren en 1897, Brussels 1897, pp. 10-12. Great care was given to the organization of this exhibition, with individual socles – designed by the leading artists of the Belgian Art Nouveau movement, including Henry van de Velde, Victor Horta and Paul Hankar – made to accompany each sculpture.³³T. Masui, Guide de la section de l’État indépendant du Congo à l’exposition de Bruxelles-Tervueren en 1897, Brussels 1897, p. 10. W. Adriaenssens, ‘Philippe Wolfers en de renaissance van de ivoorsnijkunst in België’, Bulletin van de Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis, Jubelpark Brussel 71 (2000), pp. 89-186, esp. p. 97. F. Loyer, Paul Hankar: La naissance de l’Art Nouveau, Brussels 1986, pp. 158-65. This flourishing of ivory carving sculpture in Belgium proved short-lived, with the genre vanishing into obsolescence after the exhibition of 1897 and Van Eetvelde’s subsequent death in 1901.

This appealing ivory bust of the peasant girl ‘Nele’, a character from the novel Tijl Uilenspiegel by the Belgian author Charles de Coster, is an example of Belgian ivory carving during its heyday in the late nineteenth-century. The sculptor of the work, Charles Samuel (Brussels 1862-Cannes 1938), was involved in this flourishing of Belgian ivory sculpture from the very start. Samuel’s entry to the colonial section of the aforementioned 1894 Antwerp exhibition, entitled La Fortune, was greatly lauded by the painter Fernand Khnopff (1858-1921) in the London art magazine The Studio.⁴⁴‘But out of all the exhibits, that of M. Samuel (the sculptor of the De Costa monument [sic, reproduced in the November Studio) – the elegant statuette of Fortune – is the only one expressly composed for ivory. The artist had turned to admirable account the shape of the tusk he was working on, without straining any way the gesture of the figure or fall of the drapery. The Horn of Plenty so daintily uplifted is of silver and gold, which enhances greatly the radiant whiteness of the flesh’. F. Khnopff, ‘The Revival of Ivory Carving in Belgium’, The Studio 4 (1894), pp. 150 and 151 (ill.). ] The piece was sold immediately after the exhibition’s opening.⁵⁵W. Adriaenssens, ‘Philippe Wolfers en de renaissance van de ivoorsnijkunst in België’, Bulletin van de Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis, Jubelpark Brussel 71 (2000), pp. 89-186, esp. p. 95. Three years later, Samuel presented at least five ivory carvings at the 1897 Tervuren exhibition.⁶⁶T. Masui, Guide de la section de l’État indépendant du Congo à l’exposition de Bruxelles-Tervueren en 1897, Brussels 1897, p. 15 cites the following works: Ophélie, Aurore, Crépuscule and Chimère. Samuel also exhibited a mirror frame based on a design by A. Crespin.

Charles Samuel was the son of a Dutch money changer working in Brussels. At the age of fifteen, he studied under the sculptor/goldsmith Philippe Wolfers, and from 1878 to 1888, he was a student at the Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten in Brussels.⁷⁷See for example J. Ogonovsky, ‘Charles Samuel’, in J. van Lennep et al., De 19de-eeuwse Belgische beeldhouwkunst, exh. cat. Brussels (Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium) 1990, pp. 550-53; C. Conrardy, La sculpture Belge au XIXe siècle, Collection Nationale (7th series, no. 83), Brussels 1947, pp. 57-58. For the most recent overview of Samuel’s work, see C. Engelen and M. Marx, Beeldhouwkunst in België vanaf 1830 (Algemeen Rijksarchief en Rijksarchief in de provincien, Studia 90), Leuven 2002, vol. 3, pp. 1388-92. Samuel’s autonomous work consisted largely of symbolist, allegorical sculptures, often depicting elaborately dressed female figures and nymphs. He was also known as a sculptor of public monuments and funerary tombs, and as a portraitist, among them portrait busts and reliefs of his artist friends, including Khnopff.

Samuel’s best-known work is the Tijl Uilenspiegel Monument, erected in 1894 in honour of the novelist Charles de Coster (1827-1879) in Elsene, a Brussels municipality.⁸⁸Near the Flageyplein in Elsene (Ixilles). The idea for a monument had been conceived five years before, during the sculptor’s travels in Italy.⁹⁹P. Verbraeken, Living Marble: Belgian Sculptors 1800-1930, sale cat. Brussels (Artimo) 2017, p. 82. The monument was met with resounding enthusiasm upon its realization, with Samuel awarded gold medals for his design at the aforementioned Antwerp World’s Fair of 1894 and at exhibitions in Paris, Dresden, Munich and Brussels.¹⁰¹⁰P. Verbraeken, Living Marble: Belgian Sculptors 1800-1930, sale cat. Brussels (Artimo) 2017, p. 82. In The Studio of that same year, Gérard Harry described it as ‘a work of repentance, a kind of national reparation for long national neglect.’¹¹¹¹G. Harry, ‘A New Belgian Monument’, The Studio 4 (1894), pp. 64-66. The success of Samuel’s monument – despite the somewhat pompous, hardstone architecture designed by the architect Frans de Vestel (1857-1932) – stemmed in part from the Belgian nationalist sentiment attached to De Coster, but also his novel, referred to by some as ‘the Belgian national Bible’.¹²¹²G. Harry, ‘A New Belgian Monument’, The Studio 4 (1894), pp. 64-66, esp. p. 66.

The monument – executed in the form of a neo-baroque portal – functions as the decor for the seated bronze figures of Tijl Uilenspiegel and his companion, the girl Nele.¹³¹³The bronze group was cast by the bronze foundry J. Petermann in Brussels. For Petermann, see C. Engelen and M. Marx, Compagnie des bronzes: Archief in beeld, coll. cat. Brussels (Algemeen Rijksarchief) 2002, p. 138. Appearing above them is a marble portrait medallion of their creator, De Coster. Nele throws her arms around Tijl’s shoulders and looks lovingly in his direction. The novel’s hero sits in a rather rigid pose, sunken in melancholy. The figure of Nele, by contrast, forms the monument’s most lively and natural component. Samuel knew the novel well, having read it during his study years after receiving the book as a gift from a fellow student, Amédée Lynen.¹⁴¹⁴Mme Charles Samuel, ‘Un grand sculpteur Charles Samuel’, Psyché, June 1928, n.p. Probable inspiration for the monument’s central group comes from a scene in chapter 31:
‘“You’re sad?” she said.
“Yes,” he said.
“Why?” she asked.
“I do not know”, he said, “but these apple trees and cherry blossoms, this warm air, charged with the fire of lightening, these opening daisies blushing on the meadow, the hawthorn, there, near us, in the hedges, all white [...] Who will tell me why I feel so troubled and always ready to die or sleep?” [...]
But she did not speak, regarding Uilenspiegel with a pleasurable smile.’¹⁵¹⁵“Tu es triste?” disait-elle./_“Oui”, disait-il./“Pourquoi?” Demandait-elle./“Je ne le sais, disait-il, mais ces pommiers et ces cerisiers tout en fleurs, cet air tiède et comme chargé du feu de la foudre, ces pâquerettes s’ouvrant rougissantes sur les prés, l’aubépine, là, près de nous, dans les haies, toute blanche… Qui me dira pourquoi je me sens troublé et toujours prêt à mourir ou dormir?”_ (…) Mais elle ne parlait point, et d’aise souriant regardait Ulenspiegel.

The monument’s expressiveness unquestionably stems from the unforced pose of the figure Nele, whom De Coster once referred to as the le coeur de la mère Flandre (the heart of mother Flanders). Samuel made various reductions and derivatives of the original monument. The present bust in the Rijksmuseum is artistically the most successful of these works, with the young woman’s ivory head taken directly from the bronze. In 1925, a large-scale variant of the original monument was sculpted in white marble and erected in Knokke-Heist.¹⁶¹⁶On the corner of the De Costerlaan and the Keuvelhoekstraat in Knokke. An exquisite reduction of this version is today preserved at the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels, executed in ivory and yellow marble and in fact derived from Samuel’s earliest design.¹⁷¹⁷Brussels, Art and History Museum, inv. no. Sc. 72. This piece was acquired before 1909 by the Congo Free State and transferred in 1967 from the Congo Museum in Tervuren to the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels. Also known are small-scale versions of the Nele and Uilenspiegel group in bronze and bronzed plaster,¹⁸¹⁸Versions of this model exist in bronze with green or red marble, cast by the Société Nationale des Bronzes (St. Gilles, Brussels), which operated under the name of the bronze foundry J. Petermann from 1902 on, and by the Compagnie des Bronzes. See P.-P. Dupont & C. Huberty, ‘Les fonderies de bronze’, in J. van Lennep et al., De 19de-eeuwse Belgische beeldhouwkunst, exh. cat. Brussels (Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium) 1990, p. 255; E. Wilwerth, Neel Doff 1858-1942, exh. cat. Brussels (Bibliotheque royale Albert Ier) 1992, pp. 348, 350 (top ill.). For a plaster version, see C. Engelen and M. Marx, _Beeldhouwkunst in België vanaf 1830_ (Algemeen Rijksarchief en Rijksarchief in de provincien, Studia 90), Leuven 2002, vol. 3, p. 1388, which shows Samuel standing next to the sculpture, possibly in his studio.</Footnote> as well as other versions of Nele’s head in marble,<Footnote number="19">A white marble bust of Nele in the possession of the painter Anna Boch (1848-1936) was sold in 1936, see _Catalogue des tableaux, aquarelles, dessins, eaux-fortes par Anna Boch composant son atelier et des tableaux modernes, aquarelles, pastels, dessins, eaux-fortes, sculptures, objets divers, meubles provenant de sa collection particilière, et depandant de sa succession_, sale cat. Brussels (Galerie Le Roy), 15 December 1936, no. 173 (hammer price 600 francs). Anna Boch also possessed a biscuit porcelain bust of Clotilde Kleeberg, Samuel’s first wife, cast after a model by the sculptor. Furthermore, Samuel’s second wife, the sculptress Juliette Samuel-Blum (1877-1931), carved a marble bust of Anna Boch. After Boch’s death, the bust was bequeathed to the Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten in Brussels, Belgium, inv. no. 5096, see KIK-IRPA, <a href="https://balat.kikirpa.be/object/20038411" target="_blank">object no. 20038411</a>. Various indications suggest that Boch and the Samuels knew each other well. My thanks to Lucien Midavaine for imparting this information, written communication 14 July 2022.</Footnote> terracotta, bronze and plaster.<Footnote number="20">The Musée Communal d’Ixelles holds sculptures of Nele executed in bronze and plaster. See J. van Lennep et al., _De 19de-eeuwse Belgische beeldhouwkunst_, exh. cat. Brussels (Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium) 1990, p. 550. Whereabouts unknown. A bronze reduction measuring 60 cm high and resting on a green marble pedestal is preserved in the Brussels City Museum (inv. no. B-1957-4); see E. Wilwerth, _Neel Doff 1858-1942_, exh. cat. Brussels (Bibliotheque royale Albert Ier) 1992, no. 5. See also C. Engelen and M. Marx, Compagnie des bronzes: Archief in beeld, coll. cat. Brussels (Algemeen Rijksarchief) 2002, p. 348. The bronze was also offered by the Paris foundry Siot-Decauville in the sale catalogue accompanying the 1900 Paris Exposition; see _ Bronzes & Objets d’art: Exposition Universelle 1900_, sale cat. Paris (Siot-Decauville) 1900, p. 61. The Rijksmuseum Nele may not have been carved by Samuel himself: the workshop of Philippe Wolfer is known to have executed ivory works on the behalf of Belgian artists. Wolfer’s surviving letters to Samuel indeed confirm the two men had close personal ties, with Samuel also having briefly worked in his studio after 1879.²¹²¹My thanks to Dr Werner Adriaenssens, Brussels, for this suggestion.

With the present head-and-shoulder bust, Samuel chose to carve Nele’s face and cap from ivory, and her clothing from a tropical wood type possibly originating from Congo. The whole was then placed on elegant, stepped pedestal carved from mahogany, very likely designed by the architect Paul Hankar (1859-1901), a close friend of the sculptor responsible for the pedestals and frames accompanying his ivories submitted to the 1897 colonial exhibition in Tervuren.²²²²T. Masui, Guide de la section de l’État indépendant du Congo à l’exposition de Bruxelles-Tervueren en 1897, Brussels 1897, p. 10 (‘P. Hankar, socles des ivoires de Samuel et De Tombay’) (‘P. Hankar, socles of the ivories of Samuel and De Tombay’); F. Loyer, Paul Hankar: La naissance de l’Art Nouveau, Brussels 1986, p. 46 and 162-63: Pour Charles Samuel, il avait conçu le chevalet d’un cadre de glace et le support d’un bas-relief (…) les quatre sellettes supportant les statuettes d’Ophélie, de l’Aurore, de la Chimère et du Crépuscule. (‘For Charles Samuel, he designed the stand for a mirror frame and the support of a bas-relief (...) the four pedestals supporting the statuettes of Ophelia, Dawn, Chimera and Twilight.’). Hankar’s reserved Art Nouveau style, with its emphasis on sober linear patterns, is reflected in the form of Nele’s base. The simple decorative motif comprised of several parallel grooves is characteristic of his style, also encountered on an 1893 design for a candlestick, and the façade and woodwork of the former mansion for Henri Renkin (Brussels, 1898).²³²³Cf. for example C. de Maeyer, Paul Hankar, Monografieën over Belgische Kunst, Brussels 1963, figs. 2, 7, 16, 17, 23 and F. Loyer, Paul Hankar: La naissance de l’Art Nouveau, Brussels 1986, pp. 365-86, 407 and 492. These similarities suggest that Samuel’s Nele also dates from these years, probably between 1894 and 1898. This is further verified by written correspondence between Samuel and the Compagnie des Bronzes in Brussels in May and June 1896 regarding the making of a bronze cast of Nele,²⁴²⁴See also C. Engelen and M. Marx, Compagnie des bronzes: Archief in beeld, coll. cat. Brussels (Algemeen Rijksarchief) 2002, p. 348 (written correspondence between Samuel and the Compagnie des bronzes regarding the casting and cost of the Nele bust, in 1896). which likewise confirms that the model had already been completed by this time. Samuel and Hankar’s close ties are also evident in the existence of a plaster cast of Nele’s bust in the Design Museum in Ghent, which bears a dedicatory inscription from the sculptor to the architect.²⁵²⁵Ghent, Designmuseum, inv. no. 5053, with inscription: à l’ami (Paul) Hankar (‘to my friend (Paul) Hankar’). The plaster is part of a donation made to the Ghent museum by Hankar’s two daughters, consisting of material from his estate. My thanks to Bernadette De Loose for this information. Samuel also received a medal of honour for a reduction of the Nele (or of the entire monument) at the Salon of Antwerp in 1894.²⁶²⁶C. Engelen and M. Marx, Beeldhouwkunst in België vanaf 1830 (Algemeen Rijksarchief en Rijksarchief in de provincien, Studia 90), Leuven 2002, vol. 3, p. 1388.

Samuel’s model for his Nele was the later-to-be writer, Neel Doff (1858-1942). Like the sculptor, she was born in the Netherlands but had spent much of her youth in Brussels. Christened Cornelia, Doff was born into an impoverished family of nine children in the Dutch city of Roermond.²⁷²⁷For Doff, see E. Wilwerth, Neel Doff 1858-1942, exh. cat. Brussels (Bibliotheque royale Albert Ier) 1992.</Footnote> When still a child, she and her family moved to Amsterdam, Antwerp and finally Brussels. In the Belgian capital, Doff eventually came to earn a living both as an artist’s model and prostitute – two professions, which at the time often went hand in hand – posing for well-known artists such as James Ensor and Felicien Rops. The sculptor Paul de Vigne portrayed her as _La petite Hollandaise_ and as _Victoria_.<Footnote number="28">E. Wilwerth, _Neel Doff 1858-1942_, exh. cat. Brussels (Bibliotheque royale Albert Ier) 1992, no. 3 and pl. VI (La petite Hollandaise, bronze, h. 60.5 cm. Brussels, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, inv. no. 3617). For his Tijl Uilenspiegel monument, Charles Samuel chose her as Nele. Via these artistic circles, Doff was able to socially elevate herself, marrying the son of an affluent notary in 1896, and after his death, an Antwerp solicitor. She made her breakthrough in the French literary world with her autobiographical novels Jours de famine et de détresse (‘Days of Hunger and Distress’) and Keetje Trottin (‘Keetje Tippel’ or ‘Hustling Kate’).

In his depiction of Nele, Samuel accurately captures Neel Doff’s appealing countenance, certainly in comparison with portraits made by other contemporaneous artists. The resemblance to Doff in photographs is most evident with the ivory portrait in the Rijksmuseum, but less so on the Uilenspiegel monument in Elsene, where the bronze cast has a mottled patina due to natural oxidation. Particularly striking on the ivory is the precise rendering of the pert nose, the oval face and the sharply delineated mouth.

Frits Scholten, 2026
This entry is an updated version of F. Scholten, ‘Charles Samuels “Nele”, model, fragment, cliché’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 56 (2008), pp. 193-201

F. Scholten, ‘Charles Samuels “Nele”, model, fragment, cliché’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 56 (2008), pp. 193-201; F. Scholten, ‘Recent Acquisitions (2004-09) of Sculpture at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam’, The Burlington Magazine 151 (2009), pp. 805-12, esp. p. 812, no. XVII

F. Scholten, 2026, 'Charles Samuel, Nele, Brussels, c. 1894 - c. 1897', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20071194