Cast and coated with a transparent, yellowish-gold lacquer patina.

From the artist to the dealer W.C.A. Huinck, Utrecht (1881-1966), 1919; whose sale, Amsterdam (Sotheby Mak van Waay), 17/18 November 1981, no. 675, fl. 4,600, to the museum

Object number: BK-1982-65

The sculptor Johan Coenraad Altorf (1876-1955) from The Hague, son of a carpenter, was initially trained as a chair maker. By 1894, however, his ambitions had clearly shifted more in the direction of art.¹¹For a brief overview of Altorf’s work and career, see P.A. Terwen, ‘Het ceramische werk van J.C. Altorf en de samenwerking met Chris Lanooij’, Vormen uit vuur 164 (1998), no. 2, pp. 3-21. At this time, Altorf began taking evening classes at the Haagse Academie voor beeldende Kunsten, then under the direction of conservatively inclined sculptors Eugène Lacomblé (1828-1905) and Arend Willem Maurits Odé (1865-1955). Altorf learned to work with stone at the Tetterode stonecutting factory in Amsterdam. In addition to stone, he also produced works in bronze and ceramics. Throughout his career, however, sculptures carved in wood and ivory formed the core of his oeuvre. This preference moreover determined his style: an approach strongly based on the geometric simplification of his subjects. In this sense, his work is similar to and was undoubtedly influenced by the Amsterdam sculptor Joseph Mendes da Costa (1863-1939). Even so, the schematic simplification Altorf applied to his forms and volumes was carried out more strictly and more consistently. Consequently, Altorf’s forms are more static and closed, and more akin to ornamentation. The high point in his career was the silver medal he received in 1902 for his entry to the World Exposition in Turin. Over the years, Altorf’s style evolved only minimally. Virtually identical sculptures can therefore sometimes differ by a period of more than twenty years, with a precise and accurate dating sometimes elusive.

Animal figures form the majority of Altorf’s subjects, studied in their natural environment during frequent visits made to the Rotterdam zoo, with his particular favourites being monkeys and birds, such as the present bronze parrot.²²A. Hallema, ‘J.C. Altorf, de beeldhouwer’, Elsevier’s Geïllustreerd Maandschrift 28 (1918), no. 55, pp. 71-91, esp. p. 83. From the start, Altorf’s animal sculptures were popular among art collectors due to their size, decorative appeal and recognizable style. Influential in this regard was the Hague art pedagogue Henk Bremmer (1871-1956), who not only possessed a number of Altorf’s works but also acted as an intermediary between his many affluent students and the artist. Prominent among them was Helène Kröller-Müller, who unquestionably owned the largest collection of Altorf’s works, comprizing more than thirty sculptures.³³M. Brouwer and R. Brouns, Sculptuur. Beeldhouwwerken van het Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, coll. cat. Otterlo 1981, pp. 34-38. Writing in his characteristically preaching, moralistic tone, Bremmer describes the sculptor’s style in the following terms: ‘[Altorf’s] working approach is strongly stylized. By no means should one imagine that he actually sees an owl as such. […] Nor must one presume that the artist sits and ponders how he’s going to make it; residing in him is the idiosyncrasy to naturally interpret things as such, an idiosyncrasy that has slowly grown in in him, until the mentality, the way of seeing, has become entirely his own.’⁴⁴Hij gaat sterk styleerend te werk. Men behoeft zich niet voor te stellen, dat hij in de werkelijkheid een uil zoo ziet. (…) Men moet ook niet veronderstellen, dat de kunstenaar staat te bedenken, hoe hij het maken zal; in hem leeft de eigenaardigheid, vanzelf zoo te interpreteeren, een eiegenaardigheid, die langzaam in hem gegroeid is, totdat de mentaliteit, de wijze van aanschouwing hem geheel eigen geworden is.; H.P. Bremmer, (no title), Beeldende Kunst 16, no. 2 (December 1928), no. 21, p. 21.

The present bronze of a sitting parrot is a striking example of Altorf’s stylizing approach: the bird’s form is composed of an extended vertical block rising up out of an integrally cast, stepped pedestal. Only the animal’s sideways-turned head interrupts the compact composition of the block form. Altorf applied the same formula on a number of occasions, including a number of other parrots and his depictions of seated owls. Although typically produced in limited ceramic editions, a number of these figures were also cast in bronze. No ceramic version of the present model is known,⁵⁵P.A. Terwen, ‘Het ceramische werk van J.C. Altorf en de samenwerking met Chris Lanooij’, Vormen uit vuur 164 (1998), no. 2, pp. 3-21, esp. p. 4. though a second bronze cast is preserved in the Museum Kröller-Müller. Like the Rijksmuseum Parrot, this bronze also came from the Utrecht dealer Huinck, from whom Helène Kröller-Müller acquired it in December 1919.⁶⁶Otterlo, Museum Kröller-Müller, inv. no. KM 111.699, see M. Brouwer and R. Brouns, Sculptuur. Beeldhouwwerken van het Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, coll. cat. Otterlo 1981, no. 108, with ills. on p. 37. In 2002, a larger, elongated parrot (Ara) in oak, inscribed with the year 1940, surfaced on the Amsterdam art market,⁷⁷Sale Amsterdam (Christie’s), 28 May 2002, no. 141. while the Collection Meentwijck houses another oak-carved Ara, dated 1917, which might be identical to the version on the photo accompanying Hallema’s discussion of Altorf’s work.⁸⁸M. Bax et al., _ Leven in een verzameling: Toegepaste kunst 1890-1940 uit de collectie Meentwijck_, exh. cat. Laren (Singer Museum) 2000, figs. 37 and 199, A. Hallema, ‘J.C. Altorf, de beeldhouwer’, Elsevier’s Geïllustreerd Maandschrift 28 (1918), no. 55, pp. 71-91, esp. p. 79, fig. 3.

Frits Scholten, 2026

Unpublished.

F. Scholten, 2026, 'Johan Coenraad Altorf and Atelier Brom, Parrot (Ara), The HagueUtrecht, 1919', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20046956