Carved in the round.

Joseph’s lily branch, the button of a buckle on his shoulder, and a button on a rolled-up cuff are missing, as are the Christ Child’s index finger and the tip of the thumb on the left hand, and his lance or cross-staff. On the reverse, two cracks on the left begin at the socle and extend into Joseph’s hair. A wide drill hole can be discerned in the underside.

…; from the dealer B. Stodel, Amsterdam, fl. 12,500, to the museum, 1976

Object number: BK-1976-16

This boxwood statuette is attributed to the leading Mechelen sculptor Lucas Faydherbe (1617-1697) on the basis of a compositional similarity to his monumental marble group of St Joseph and the Christ Child in the Sint-Romboutskathedraal, Mechelen (fig. a).¹¹H. De Nijn, H. Vlieghe and H. Devisscher (eds.), Lucas Faydherbe 1617-1697: Mechels beeldhouwer en architect, exh. cat. Mechelen (Stedelijk Museum Hof van Busleyden) 1997, nos. 35, 36. C. Baisier et al., Terracotta’s uit de 17de en 18de eeuw: De verzameling Van Herck, coll. cat. Antwerp (Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp) 2000, no. 5. Despite obvious agreements, however, there are also significant differences to be discerned. The Christ Child on the Mechelen group raises his head in the direction of his father. In his arms he holds the cross, clearly alluding to Christ’s sacrificial death and his triumph over evil. The Jesus on the much smaller boxwood version in the Rijksmuseum, by contrast, has been assigned a different role: here he gazes down at the crushed and defeated snake, what might have signified Protestant ‘heresy’. The point of the Child’s now missing spear or staff perhaps terminated at its head, thus dealing the final blow to end the evil creature’s life.

On the present boxwood statuette, the scale of the Christ Child in relation to the globe on which he stands is more in balance. Consequently, he figures more prominently in the composition of the present group when compared to that of the marble. In general terms, the large group appears more distant and less intimate, an impression further enhanced by Joseph’s attire: on the marble, his mantle is classical in style, while the wooden figure appears in seventeenth-century dress.

The present statuette’s attribution to Faydherbe can also be argued on stylistic grounds, even without other documented examples of boxwood carvings by the sculptor’s hand. Parallels for the remarkably supple and fluid modelling of the wood – particularly evident in the folds of the draperies and the rendering of hair and clouds – can also be observed on several of Fayherbe’s terracotta figures, including his relief of Pan with Putti, the Triton with Dolphin and the seated Virgin and Child, of which marble and terracotta variants survive today.²²H. De Nijn, H. Vlieghe and H. Devisscher (eds.), Lucas Faydherbe 1617-1697: Mechels beeldhouwer en architect, exh. cat. Mechelen (Stedelijk Museum Hof van Busleyden) 1997, nos. 12, 18, 46, 47.

Faydherbe’s monumental group of St Joseph and the Christ Child was made in memory of Dismas de Briamont, with the statue executed in the years directly following his death in 1652. During the same period, the sculptor carved a second monumental group of Joseph and Jesus for the church of the Jesuits in Brussels. This statue, signed and dated 1655, today also stands in the cathedral of Mechelen.³³See KIK-IRPA, object no. 10077357; H. De Nijn, H. Vlieghe and H. Devisscher (eds.), Lucas Faydherbe 1617-1697: Mechels beeldhouwer en architect, exh. cat. Mechelen (Stedelijk Museum Hof van Busleyden) 1997, no. 37. Interpreted as a later variant of the marble group, the Amsterdam statuette can also be dated to the 1650s on the basis of these works.

Under the influence of the Counter-Reformation and the propagandistic efforts of the Jesuits, Joseph’s role transformed, moving away from medieval tradition of depicting him as a wayward old man. The emphasis placed on the saint’s role as Jesus’s earthly father, the person who raised him as little boy and his work as a carpenter brought him a more active role in the Salvation History. In 1679, the pope named St Joseph as the patron saint of the Roman Catholic, Southern Netherlands. Faydherbe’s statuette is an extraordinarily successful expression of Joseph’s growing veneration in this region.

Frits Scholten, 2025

Jaarverslag Nederlandse Rijksmusea 1976, p. 16, fig. 5; ‘Keuze uit de aanwinsten’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 24 (1976), p. 183, fig. 2; H. De Nijn, H. Vlieghe and H. Devisscher (eds.), Lucas Faydherbe 1617-1697: Mechels beeldhouwer en architect, exh. cat. Mechelen (Stedelijk Museum Hof van Busleyden) 1997, no. 38; Scholten in C. Stiegemann (ed.), Peter Paul Rubens und der Barock im Norden, exh. cat. Paderborn (Erzbischöfliches Diözesanmuseum) 2020, no. 97

F. Scholten, 2025, 'Lucas Faydherbe, St Joseph with the Christ Child, Mechelen, c. 1655 - c. 1660', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200116287