Modelled and fired. Finished with a cream-coloured final coat. On the bottom there is a conical cavity.

There is flaking off the tip of the stylus in the left hand, the thumb of the right hand, part of the garment under the right hand, the small right corner of the pedestal at the back, the left corner of the pedestal at the back, the left corner of the pedestal at the front. Along the front of the writing tablet, along the right leg at the front, under the writing tablet and on the back of the tablet there are cracks (which may have occurred during firing).

Collection of the artist;¹¹According to the catalogue for the sale, Amsterdam (Roos), 17 November 1868. his sale, Amsterdam (Roos), 17 November 1868, no. 62/4, ...; 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-15523

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

These two classical female figures in Greek attire personify Gravura (Engraving, shown here) and Pictura (Painting, BK-15522). Gravura can be identified by the stylus in her hand and the writing tablet, which she rests against her hip. Pictura’s attributes are a paintbrush and paint pot. The terracottas originate from the collection of the Amsterdam Van Eeghen family, from whom they can be directly traced to their maker, Louis Royer (1793- 1868). It is clear from the sale catalogue of Royer’s estate that they were part of an ensemble of four terracottas, together with the figures Architectura (Architecture) and Scultura (Sculpture) the present whereabouts of which are unknown.⁴⁴Sale, collection Louis Royer (1793-1868), Amsterdam (Roos), 17-19 November 1868, no. 62. Here is recorded that, prior to the sale, the complete ensemble was acquired by Christiaan Pieter van Eeghen. In the nineteenth century the four were considered to represent the most important visual art forms and they can often be found in the context of art societies, academies or museums. For instance, the roof of the Rijksmuseum building, built round 1884, is decorated with personifications of these four fine arts.

Although there is no documentary proof, it is likely that Royer made the terracottas as models for sculptures that were added to the facade of the building of the Maatschappij Arti et Amicitiae in 1856. In 1839 Royer was one of the founders of this Amsterdam artist society. Nevertheless, the board opted for the designs of the younger sculptor, Franz Stracké (1820-1898). His female figures, also portraying Painting, Sculpture, Architecture and Engraving (fig. a), are more natural and lively than Royer’s elegant but somewhat rigid, neoclassical interpretations.

Royer’s terracottas derive from well-known classical sculptures that he could have seen during his stay in Rome from 1824 to 1828. His Gravura was based on a Juno from Villa Medici and his Pictura on the Juno Cesi in the Capitoline Museum.⁵⁵Langendijk in W. Bergé, Heimwee naar de klassieken: De beelden van Mathieu Kessels en zijn tijdgenoten, 1815-1840, exh. cat. Den Bosch (Noordbrabants Museum) 1994-95, p. 156. Royer adapted the positioning of the figures’ arms and added the suitable attributes to turn the goddesses into allegories.

Langendijk observed that the lower half of Pictura’s garment resembles that worn by the terracotta Madonna in the collection of Museum Amstelkring (Amsterdam) and that of the Madonna corresponds with a design drawing for a sculpture Royer made for the Antonius church in Scheveningen.⁶⁶G. van den Hout and E. Langendijk (eds.), Louis Royer 1793-1868: Een Vlaamse beeldhouwer in Amsterdam, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Amstelkring) 1994, p. 38; Langendijk in W. Bergé, Heimwee naar de klassieken: De beelden van Mathieu Kessels en zijn tijdgenoten, 1815-1840, exh. cat. Den Bosch (Noordbrabants Museum) 1994-95, p. 157. He based the top part of the headscarf on the seated figure of Jurisprudentia in a design drawing he made round 1858 for the monument (meanwhile lost) to the Leiden professor of Roman and civil law, C.J. van Assen.⁷⁷W. Bergé, Heimwee naar de klassieken: De beelden van Mathieu Kessels en zijn tijdgenoten, 1815-1840, exh. cat. Den Bosch (Noordbrabants Museum) 1994-95, no. 74. In fact, Royer often recycled successful elements of earlier compositions - a customary practice among sculptors in those days.

Bieke van der Mark, 2026

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 453a, with earlier literature; Langendijk in W. Bergé, Heimwee naar de klassieken: De beelden van Mathieu Kessels en zijn tijdgenoten, 1815-1840, exh. cat. Den Bosch (Noordbrabants Museum) 1994-95, no. 65; G. van den Hout and E. Langendijk (eds.), Louis Royer 1793-1868: Een Vlaamse beeldhouwer in Amsterdam, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Amstelkring) 1994, p. 38

B. van der Mark, 2026, 'Louis Royer, Gravura, Belonging to a Group Representing the Four Fine Arts, The Hague, c. 1855', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035885