Modelled in relief and fired.

There is some damage to the bunch of grapes below left and a hairline crack to the left of the middle putto’s head.

Commissioned by the Maatschappij Felix Meritis, 324 Keizersgracht, Amsterdam, c. 1800-20; by which donated to the museum, 1891

Object number: BK-NM-9191

Credit line: Gift of the Maatschappij Felix Meritis

Maatschappij Felix Meritis was a society founded in 1777 by a group of affluent Amsterdammers who whose aim it was to promote the arts and sciences.¹¹For this society, see L. Gompes and M. Ligtelijn, Spiegel van Amsterdam: Geschiedenis van Felix Meritis, Amsterdam 2007. This relief with the society emblem, comprising a beehive on a pedestal with a rose on one side and a sunflower on the other, comes from the eponymous neo-classicist building that was erected at 324 Keizersgracht in 1787-89. The piece is signed by the obscure Amsterdam sculptor Pieter Luypen (1763-1833). It is not known to what purpose the relief served. In view of the unusual form, with chamfered upper corners, comparable with Jacob de Wit’s two grisaille-painted overdoors with putti (SK-A-3231 and SK-A-3233), this could be a model for an overdoor panel. However, the vast majority of sculptural decorations on the building’s interior and exterior are by the better-known sculptor-draughtsman, Jan Swart (1754-1794), who was in fact the director of the society’s drawing department from 1779 to 1783. For example, he made the façade reliefs with the five particular arts and sciences pursued in the building (draughtsmanship, literature, trade, physics and music), the case of the wall clock for the Grand Lobby (BK-NM-8869),²²R. Baarsen et al., Netherlandish Art in the Rijksmuseum 1700-1800, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2006, no. 93. and the lectern which stood in the auditorium (BK-NM-8868). In a description of the building dating from 1800, this mahogany stand is described in detail and the symbolism of the Felix Meritis emblem is also explained.³³… het blazoen van de Maatschappije, zijnde een Bijenkorf, op een voetstuk geplaatst, nevens welke, ter rechter zijde van den Beschouwer, een Zonnebloem, en ter linker zijde een Roozelaar, gevonden wordt; achter dezelve rijst de Zon uit de kimmen, en beschijnt de zig naar dezelve wendende Zonnebloem, terwijl de Bijen uit de roozen hunnen honing leezen en denzelven in den korf verzamelen; ter aanwijzing dat de rijzende Zon der verlichting door de Maatschappij, evenals de Zon door de Zonnebloem, achtervolgd wordt, en dat de ijverige Leden uit de bloemen der geleerde werken honing vergaderen, en in deze korf, of het lighaam der Maatschappije, opleggen. (…the Company’s blazon, that of a Beehive placed on a pedestal, beside which, on the Spectator’s right, a Sunflower, and on the left, a Rose-bush; behind this the Sun rises above the skyline and shines on the Sunflower which turns towards it, while the Bees gather their honey from the roses and collect it in the hive; this to indicate that the rising Sun of the enlightenment is pursued by the Company, as the Sun by the Sunflowers, and that the diligent Members collect honey from the scholarly books, and deposit it in this hive, or corpus of the Company.) In C.S. Roos, Historische beschrijving van het gebouw der Maatschappije van verdiensten, ten spreuke voerende Felix Meritis, Amsterdam 1800, p. 106. The sunflower symbolizes the society that is always turned towards the rays of the rising sun, the Enlightenment. The rose is the ‘flower of the scholarly works’ from which the bees, the members, collect honey which they store in the beehive: the corpus of the society.

Pieter Luypen was baptized in Amsterdam on 25 May 1763 and registered there in the guild of St Luke as an independent master on 20 August 1791.⁴⁴Biographical data sourced from I.H. van Eeghen, ‘Pieter Luypen: Meester-Beeldhouwer te Amsterdam’, Jaarboek Amstelodamum 51 (1959), pp. 218-20. He was also a member of the Stadstekenakademie (City Drawing Academy). Thanks to this academy’s minutes we know that in 1807 Luypen had restored two of the latest acquisitions by ‘Quilinus’.⁵⁵SAA 265 (Archief van het Bestuur der Stadstekeacademie), inv. no. 2, fol. 43; M. Jonker et al., In beeld gebracht: Beeldhouwkunst uit de collectie van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1995, p. 127. One is generally identified as the terracotta relief with the Bacchanal of Eight Putti with a He-Goat (BK-AM-52-7) by Artus Quellinus I (1609-1668).⁶⁶The other work is Apollo and Marsyas a relief also attributed to Artus Quellinus I, in the Amsterdam Museum, inv. no. BA 2465. This is interesting because it portrays the same chubby type of child, the so-called putto moderno derived from François du Quesnoy (1597-1643) to which the present putti also ultimately hark back.

In 1988 two reliefs in wood signed by Luypen surfaced on the Amsterdam art market. They depict infants playing music and scattering flowers.⁷⁷In 1988 with the dealer Fijnaut, Amsterdam, see Burlington Magazine 130 (1988), p. xxxi (ill.). In addition, a drawing by Luypen made in 1812 of the interior of his art school-cum-sculpture workshop (fig. a) features a relief of a putto with a dolphin on the left wall. Evidently putti were among his favourite subjects.

The fact that Luypen also made work of a different kind is confirmed by the announcement that seven of his pieces had been admitted to the General Exhibition of 1810. They were five modelled reliefs with the Adoration of the Magi, the Adoration of the Shepherds, Susanna at her Bath, the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, an allegorical Statue of a Lady with a Child, and two reliefs carved in wood with festoons of flowers. One of the latter reliefs could perhaps be identified as an oak relief with a festoon of flowers signed by Luypen which found its way to the United States.⁸⁸Photo in Object File.

Around 1818 Luypen started work (presumably for financial reasons) as senior sculptor at the naval dockyard, where he designed ornaments for ships.⁹⁹I.H. van Eeghen, ‘Pieter Luypen: Meester-Beeldhouwer te Amsterdam’, Jaarboek Amstelodamum 51 (1959), pp. 218-20, esp. p. 220. From that time there is a signed drawing of a figurehead (NG-1083) and a similar model of a figurehead (NG-MC-1042). Although he had embarked on a new career at the naval dockyard, the Catholic community had not yet written Luypen off as an independent sculptor. The church archive of the Sint-Joannes en Cunerakerk in Amsterdam recorded that in 1821 he had been paid 600 guilders for making a tabernacle.¹⁰¹⁰See SAA 740 (archive of the Begijnhof), inv. no. 698.

Bieke van der Mark, 2026

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 431, with earlier literature; F. Grijzenhout and C. Tuyll van Serooskerken, Edele eenvoud, neo-classicisme in Nederland 1765-1800, exh. cat. Haarlem (Frans Halsmuseum and Teylers Museum) 1989, no. 90

B. van der Mark, 2026, 'Pieter Luypen, Three Putti Holding a Shield with the Emblem of the Felix Meritis Society, Amsterdam, c. 1800 - c. 1820', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035869