Hollow cast, core material and armature are still present. The shells on the base could be life casts.

Part of the staff in the left hand is missing; the surface of the chest and abdomen is scratched. The right tail fin, the right arm from mid-way the upper arm, the right hand (with the exception of a few fingers) and part of the conch shell have been replaced. The chin has been badly restored.

…; from an unknown plumber, Utrecht, to the dealer De Groot, Utrecht;¹¹Note RMA. from whom, fl. 85, to the museum, with support from the Vereniging Rembrandt, 1896

Object number: BK-NM-10558

Triton, with his double fishtail, rests on a mound of stones decorated with various types of indigenous shells. His upper body slants back, as, with chin raised, he blows on a conch shell held aloft in his right hand. In the hand of his bent left arm, he holds a short staff, possibly the remains of a trident.

Tritons – mermen from the retinue of the god of the sea Poseidon – derive their name from Poseidon’s son Triton. Like him, they are usually portrayed as sea creatures with a muscular upper body and a decoratively coiling, double dolphin tail for the lower body. Their special attribute is a twisted conch shell, which they blow like a trumpet in order to calm or raise the waves. It is depicted here as a funnel-shaped variant. Over the centuries these mythical sea creatures have been a favourite theme for fountain sculpture. This was also the case in the Netherlands, particularly during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when the fashion for formal gardens was at its peak, and city gardens and country estates were lavishly adorned with statuary and fountains. Although most have vanished over the years, triton fountains can be seen in many a contemporary print or drawing and are often mentioned in literature and archives.²²For example, A.G. Bienfait and M. Kossmann, Oude Hollandsche tuinen, The Hague 1943, pls. 81, 93, 154, 160, 209, 216, 221, 224, 272, 346, 347; E. de Jong, Natuur en kunst: Nederlandse tuin- en landschapsarchitectuur 1650-1740, Amsterdam 1993, pl. 54; Daniel Marot, Ontwerp voor een wandnis met fontein, 1716 (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, RP-T-1965-181; Ludolf Backhuysen and Isaac de Moucheron, Het Vuurwerkpaviljoen op het water van de Binnen-Amstel, topped with tritons spewing fireworks, 1697 (M. Schapelhouman, ‘ ? 't pragtik Konst vuurgebouw” in het water van de Binnen-Amstel op 29 augustus 1697’, Leids Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 10 (1995), pp. 235-39); the Triton Fountain at Het Loo Palace (Walter Harris, A Description of The King’s Royal Palace and Gardens at Loo, London 1699, pp. 15, 26, 30, 31); the Triton Fountain in Arnold Hoogvliet’s courtly poem at the country house Zydenbaalen (E. de Jong, Natuur en kunst: Nederlandse tuin- en landschapsarchitectuur 1650-1740, Amsterdam 1993, p. 179); Johan Larson’s Triton Fountain for Willem Huygens (F. Scholten, ‘The Larson Family of Statuary Founders: Seventeenth-Century Reproductive Sculpture for Gardens and Painters’ Studios’, Simiolus 31 (2004-05), pp. 54-89, esp. pp. 64-65). See also the Child Triton BK-NM-9720. Most of these tritons hold aloft a conch shell, thus permitting the jets of water to spout upwards to create a spectacular effect. However, the Rijksmuseum piece does not have a nozzle in the shell, and never did, given the fact that the hollow-cast work is filled with core material and the armature is still present. It would, therefore, have been a free-standing garden figure on a pedestal – like the two mermaids previously in Landsmeer (cf. BK-NM-9720) –, or else a decorative centrepiece in a basin surrounded by spraying fountain figures. Interestingly, in this context, there is a contract from 1696 with the sculptor-plumber Andries Gutsche (1658-1741), who had a flourishing business in plaster and lead statues in The Hague (cf. BK-NM-9720). In it Gutsche undertakes to supply a triton and eight lead figures for a fountain at Huis Bergh in ’s-Heerenbergh. With respect to the triton, it merely states that it would be made ‘…according to the drawings’, whereas for the other eight figures it specifies that their construction should be such that the ‘lead pipe’ (taking water through the figure to the nozzle) could easily be cleaned should it become clogged.³³…mij sal een triton leveren volgens de teeckening en dat voor hondert en sestig gulden en dan d’acht andere beelden om rondom te setten ider met een copere moer daar bij om aan d’loode pijp d’sonderen dan soo can men de selve altijt aff nemen en weder op setten en dat dienst daarom als de selve verstopt wierde dan soo can men daarbij coomen om schoon te maken… (… shall supply me with a triton in keeping with the drawing for a hundred and sixty guilders, and also the other eight figures to place around it, each with a copper nut to permit its removal and return should it become blocked, and thus facilitate cleaning…). Letter from C. van Hoecke to the secretary of Count Oswald III van den Bergh (Archive Huis Bergh, inv. no. 1004). Apparently the triton at Huis Bergh did not have a nozzle either, but since the drawing in question has not been kept as far as we know, it is not possible to determine whether the Triton Blowing a Conch Shell in the Rijksmuseum is related to that by Andries Gutsche for Huis Bergh.

Netherlandish sculptors and fountain-makers primarily drew inspiration from Italian and French examples, which they had at their disposal thanks to print series and illustrations in books on gardens.⁴⁴For an overview of 16th to18th-century books with pictures of fountains, see E.B. MacDougall and N. Miller, Fons Sapientiae: Garden Fountains in Illustrated Books, 16th-18th Centuries, with bibliography by Laura Byers, exh. cat. Washington (Dumbarton Oaks Museum) 1977, pp. 77-84. The arrival in 1685 of the Huguenot Daniel Marot (1661-1752) in the Netherlands formed an important stimulus for the development of Dutch garden art. Marot entered the service of King-Stadholder William III and was responsible for the development of the so-called Marot style – a distinctive decorative style deriving from the court style of Louis XIV – which left its mark on the Dutch as well as the English (William and Mary style) visual arts.⁵⁵D. Ozinga, Daniel Marot: De schepper van den Hollandschen Lodewijk XIV-stijl, Amsterdam 1938; P. Thornton, Seventeenth Century Interior Decoration in England, France and Holland, New Haven/London 1978; F. Hopper, ‘Daniel Marot: A French Garden Designer’ in Holland, in J..D. Hunt, The Dutch Garden in the Seventeenth Century (Dumbarton Oaks Research Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture 12), Washington 1990, pp. 131-58. In 1703 Marot published a series of ornament prints, including six fountain designs, three of which show tritons blowing on conch shells.⁶⁶Oeuvres du Sr D. Marot, Architecte de Guillaume III, Roy de la Grande Bretagne, contenant plusieurs pensées utilles aux architectes, peintres, sculpteurs, orfevres, jardiniers e autres…, The Hague 1703 (up to 1712 two further editions); P. Jessen (ed.), Das Ornamentwerk des Daniel Marot in 264 Lichtdrucken nachgebildet, Berlin 1892, pls. II.1, II.10 and II.12. On pl. I.8 a park landscape with Triton Fountain. The most spectacular version is based on Charles le Brun’s Apollo fountain in Versailles of 1670 and depicts Poseidon driving four seahorses with conch-blowing tritons holding the reins (RP-P-1944-643). The fountain was intended for De Voorst, the country estate of William III’s favourite, Arnold Joost van Keppel, but it was not executed.⁷⁷P. Jessen (ed.), Das Ornamentwerk des Daniel Marot in 264 Lichtdrucken nachgebildet, Berlin 1892, pl. II.12 (Pensée Pour Le Grand Bassin du Jardin de Voorst du dessin du Sr Marot…1701). Another print shows nine designs for smaller fountains, two of which can be related to those in the queen’s garden (Queen Mary’s private garden) at William III’s hunting lodge Het Loo Palace (fig. a/RP-P-1964-3172).⁸⁸E. de Jong and C. Schellekens, Het beeld buiten: Vier eeuwen tuinsculptuur in Nederland, exh. cat. Heino/Wijhe (Kasteel ’t Nijenhuis) 1994, p. 73. They no longer exist, but in 1699 were described by Walter Harris, William III’s personal physician. About one of them Harris wrote: ‘…a Fountain with a large gilded Triton, sitting on a Rock of Stones and Shells, and blowing through a gilded Horn a Spout of about eight foot high…’.⁹⁹Walter Harris, A Description of the King’s Royal Palace and Gardens at Loo, London 1699, pp. 30-31. This tallies with the design in the middle of the print, from which the Triton in the Rijksmuseum differs only in minor details. Considering that the Court set the example and Marot’s ornament prints were widely disseminated, it is quite probable that the Rijksmuseum Triton was based on Marot’s design.

The use of lead for garden statuary became fashionable in the Netherlands in the middle of the seventeenth century.¹⁰¹⁰On the subject of reproductive lead sculpture in the Netherlands, see F. Scholten, ‘The Larson Family of Statuary Founders: Seventeenth-Century Reproductive Sculpture for Gardens and Painters’ Studios’, Simiolus 31 (2004-05), pp. 54-89. Lead is perfectly suited to that purpose: it resists environmental influences well, is cheaper than marble, bronze or sandstone, but is easy to paint and thus give the appearance of such materials. White or gold-coloured paint was often used to imitate marble or gilded bronze, respectively. We can assume that this Triton was also painted, though no traces of paint have been found on it. Another important advantage of lead, especially in view of the great demand for garden statues in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, is that it is very suitable for serial production. Several copies of the master model can be cast using the same casting mould, and when worn out, a new mould can be made from the master model. Accordingly, a successful design could last for years. Moreover, elaborate details can be cast from existing objects (life casting), either separately or integrated in the mould, as may well have been the case with the indigenous shells in this piece.

The attractive modelling of the Triton Blowing a Conch Shell demonstrates that large-scale production of garden sculptures did not necessarily detract from the sculptural quality. Despite the fact that the Triton as a whole has lost some of its impact due to unskilled repairs to the chin, right arm and horn, the high quality of the muscular back in particular indicates that the model was made by a highly skilled modeller.

Titia de Haseth Möller, 2025

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 356; E. de Jong and C. Schellekens, Het beeld buiten: Vier eeuwen tuinsculptuur in Nederland, exh. cat. Heino/Wijhe (Kasteel ’t Nijenhuis) 1994, pp. 72-73; F. Scholten, ‘Andries Gutsche’s loden tuinsculpturen voor Huis Bergh’, in M. Reintjes and A. Vels Heijn (eds.), De oudste tuin van Nederland: De groene geschiedenis van Huis Bergh, ʼs-Heerenberg 2016, pp. 79-93, esp. p. 87

T. de Haseth Möller, 2025, 'after Daniël (I) Marot, Triton Blowing a Conch Shell, Northern Netherlands, c. 1700 - c. 1725', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035800