Modelled and fired. Finished with a cream-coloured final coat.

A small piece of the right wing has flaked off. There are repairs in the unfired clay between the folds.

Collection of the artist;¹¹According to the catalogue for the sale, Amsterdam (Frederik Muller), 14 November 1883 sqq. his widow Carolina Frederica Royer-Kerst (1801-1883); her sale, Amsterdam (Frederik Muller), 14 November 1883 sqq., no. 339; ...; collection Catharina van Eeghen (1860-1943) Amsterdam;²²Note RMA. her nephew, Christiaan Pieter van Eeghen (1880-1968), Amsterdam;³³Note RMA. by whom donated, with 11 other objects, to the museum, 1943

Object number: BK-15524

Credit line: Gift of the heirs of C. van Eeghen, Amsterdam

Apart from a great many initial sketches for large statues and monuments, Louis Royer (1793-1868) also made a number of autonomous cabinet sculptures in terracotta.⁴⁴Cf. A. Jacobs, Welgevormd: Mechelse beeldhouwers in Europa (1780-1850), exh. cat. Mechelen (Lamot/Museum Schepenhuis) 2006, no. 87. The loosely modelled figure featured here is a successful example of such work. In the sale catalogue of Royer’s widow it has the title L’Amour déguisé (Love in disguise).⁵⁵Sale collection C.F. Royer-Kerst (1801-1883), Amsterdam (Frederik Muller), 14-15 November 1883, no. 339. It depicts Amor, the god of love. His wings, bow and arrow are concealed under a cloak, meaning he can go his way, unnoticed. Royer might have been inspired by the terracotta, dated 1807, by Gilles Lambert Godecharle (1750-1835), the artist who preceded him as royal sculptor. In Godecharle’s piece, Amor is similarly wrapped in a cloak and depicted as if walking. Unlike Royer’s version, in which the young god of love looks as if he is looking for a victim, Godecharle’s Amor is in the process of extracting an arrow from his quiver (fig. a).⁶⁶Cleveland, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund, inv. no. 1977.72.

The iconography of Amor in disguise can ultimately be traced to the scene in Virgil’s Aeneas telling how Venus disguised Amor as Ascanius and instructed him to cause Dido to fall in love with Aeneas (Aeneid, Book 1). However, it would be going too far to equate Royer’s putto with that myth. Yet Amor’s blanket-like cloak and arms crossed over his chest – a sign that he feels cold – do evoke associations with allegorical representations of Winter and the Latin saying Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus (‘Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus freezes’, i.e.: without food and drink, love cools), in which case, the mournful, shivering Amor here identifies with his mother, Venus.

Bieke van der Mark, 2026

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 452, with earlier literature; G. van den Hout and E. Langendijk (eds.), Louis Royer 1793-1868: Een Vlaamse beeldhouwer in Amsterdam, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Amstelkring) 1994, no. 42; A. Jacobs, Welgevormd: Mechelse beeldhouwers in Europa (1780-1850), exh. cat. Mechelen (Lamot/Museum Schepenhuis) 2006, p. 239

B. van der Mark, 2026, 'Louis Royer, Amor in Disguise, The Hague, c. 1830', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035884