Albert Xavery, Albert Saverij or Albertus Xavery (Antwerp, baptized on 26 February 1664 - Antwerp, c. 1728) was a Flemish sculptor principally active in Antwerp. [1] He produced mainly statues of mythological figures, some of them on a large scale, made to be displayed in luxurious residences or in gardens. Like other Antwerp sculptors, he exported many of his works to the Dutch Republic, where his patrons included members of the House of Nassau. [2]
Xavery was a son of the Antwerp sculptor Hieronimus Savery (1639-1724) and Anna Tournois. [1] The sculptor Pieter Xavery, who later worked in the Dutch Republic was his uncle. He married Catharina Maria Herry (Herri) in 1687. From this marriage, Jan Baptist and Gerardus Josephus were born. Jan Baptist became a leading sculptor in the Dutch Republic while Jan Baptist became a painter and printmaker. Both brothers worked most of their life in The Hague. [3] [4] Xavery was admitted as a wijnmeester’' (son of a master) in Antwerp's Guild of St Luke in the guild year 1685-1686. [5]
Contemporary records show that he had close working relationship with other Antwerp sculptors such as Michiel van der Voort the Elder, Alexander van Papenhoven and Jan Claudius de Cock. [6] Alexander van Papenhoven and Jan Claudius de Cock were among a group of Antwerp sculptors that forged an international career from Antwerp mainly by working on commissions for patrons in the Dutch Republic. The Dutch Republic had few homegrown sculptors of quality and had relied since the middle of the 17th century on Flemish artists to supply its wealthy bourgeoisie and nobility with statues and architectural decorations. This trend started with the Flemish sculptor Artus Quellinus the Elder who from 1650 onwards worked for 15 years on the new city hall in Amsterdam. This building and the many Flemish sculptors who joined Quellinus to work on this project had an important influence on Dutch Baroque sculpture. They include Rombout Verhulst, Jan Claudius de Cock, Pieter Xavery, Bartholomeus Eggers and Francis van Bossuit. [7] Xavery is known to have produced garden statuary for patrons in the Dutch Republic. He also sold to England as some large urns made for Wanstead House. [8]
He taught his son Jan-Baptist as well as Jan Huseel, Guillielmus van den Bosch, Daniel Loos, Pedro Misorte, Theodor Franchis d'Uzaine and Joannes de Wyse. [5] This points to a busy workshop.
It is not clear when or where he died, but it is believed he died in Antwerp around 1728. [1] His son Jan Baptist placed in September 1734 an advertisement for that sale of works by his father and other sculptors active in the Dutch Republic. [9]
Xavery's oeuvre is not well-known. Xavery was a prolific maker of garden ornaments and statues, many of which were exported to the Dutch Republic. Dutch garden art flourished in the first half of the eighteenth century. Such art works were not regarded as independent objects but as part of a larger decorative project fusing greenery and garden ornaments into one harmonious composition, often based on a well-thought-out decorative program or a specific world view. [10]
Xavery made the marble statue of the Abduction of a Sabine woman (1696), which is inspired by the work of the 16th century Flemish sculptor Giambologna (1574–82, Loggia dei Lanzi). The work, signed Albertus Xaveri, has stood in the garden of the Het Loo Palace since 1980. Its original location was the garden of Paleis Noordeinde from which it had been moved in 1974 to Huis ten Bosch in The Hague. At the Bartolotti House on the Herengracht in Amsterdam there are two garden statues attributed to Xavery. After Willem Adriaan van Nassau bought the manor of Zeist in 1677 and had Zeist Castle built, Albert Xavery made two sculpture groups for the garden with allegorical representations of the continents Europe and Africa and Asia and America. The sculpture group Europe and Africa has been preserved and are protected as a national monument, the Asia and America group no longer exists. His known works typically represent mythological or allegorical figures. [11]
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Baroque sculpture is the sculpture associated with the Baroque style of the period between the early 17th and mid 18th centuries. In Baroque sculpture, groups of figures assumed new importance, and there was a dynamic movement and energy of human forms—they spiralled around an empty central vortex, or reached outwards into the surrounding space. Baroque sculpture often had multiple ideal viewing angles, and reflected a general continuation of the Renaissance move away from the relief to sculpture created in the round, and designed to be placed in the middle of a large space—elaborate fountains such as Gian Lorenzo Bernini‘s Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi, or those in the Gardens of Versailles were a Baroque speciality. The Baroque style was perfectly suited to sculpture, with Bernini the dominating figure of the age in works such as The Ecstasy of St Theresa (1647–1652). Much Baroque sculpture added extra-sculptural elements, for example, concealed lighting, or water fountains, or fused sculpture and architecture to create a transformative experience for the viewer. Artists saw themselves as in the classical tradition, but admired Hellenistic and later Roman sculpture, rather than that of the more "Classical" periods as they are seen today.
Artus Quellinus the Elder, Artus Quellinus I or Artus (Arnoldus) Quellijn was a Flemish sculptor. He is regarded as the most important representative of the Baroque in sculpture in the Southern Netherlands. He worked for a long period in the Dutch Republic and operated large workshops both in Antwerp and Amsterdam. His work had a major influence on the development of sculpture in Northern Europe.
Pieter Verbrugghen I was a Flemish sculptor from the Baroque.
Rombout Verhulst was a Flemish sculptor and draughtsman who spent most of his career in the Dutch Republic. An independent assistant of the Flemish sculptor Artus Quellinus the Elder in the sculptural decoration project for the new town hall in Amsterdam, he contributed to the spread of the Baroque style in Dutch sculpture. He became the leading sculptor of marble monuments, including funerary monuments, garden figures and portraits, in the Dutch Republic.
Jan Erasmus Quellinus was a Flemish painter and draughtsman and a member of the famous Quellinus family of artists. He was one of the last prominent representatives of the great Flemish school of history and portrait painting in the 17th century. His work displays the classicizing influences of his father Erasmus Quellinus the Younger and Paolo Veronese. Mainly active in his native Antwerp, he worked for some time in Vienna for the Habsburg court as a court painter to Emperor Leopold I.
Gerardus Josephus Xavery, was a Dutch painter. He was the brother of Jan Baptist Xavery, the sculptor, and uncle to the brothers Frans – later his pupil – and Jakob. He was a native of Antwerp, but settled in Holland and practised at The Hague, becoming a member of the Pictura Society in 1741.
Jan Baptist Xavery was a Flemish sculptor principally active in the Dutch Republic. He produced portrait busts, large scale statues for residences and gardens, church furniture, wall decorations, tomb monuments as well as small scale statuettes in boxwood, lime wood, ivory and terracotta. The latter were made for elite collectors who liked to admire such objects in the privacy of their homes. He worked on various projects for William IV of Orange-Nassau, the Prince of Orange who later became the Stadtholder. He is regarded as the leading sculptor active in the Dutch Republic in the first half if the 18th century.
Pieter Xavery was a Flemish Baroque sculptor whose principal known works were made during his residence in the Dutch Republic.
Hubertus Quellinus or Hubert Quellinus was a Flemish printmaker, drawing artist and painter and a member of the prominent Quellinus family of artists. His engravings after the work of his brother, the Baroque sculptor Artus Quellinus the Elder, were instrumental in the spread of the Flemish Baroque idiom in Europe in the second half of the 17th century.
Jan Claudius de Cock was a Flemish painter, sculptor, print artist and writer. De Cock produced both religious and secular sculpture on a small as well as monumental scale. De Cock completed many commissions in the Dutch Republic. He worked on decorations for the courtyard of the Breda Palace for William III, King of England, Ireland, and Scotland and stadtholder. He is credited with introducing neoclassicism in Flemish sculpture. He was a prolific draughtsman and designed prints for the Antwerp publishers. As a writer, he wrote a poem about the 1718 fire in the Jesuit Church in Antwerp and a book of instructions on the art of sculpture.
Nicolaes Millich or Nicholas Millich was a Flemish sculptor, architect and designer of armor and ephemeral objects. He worked for most of his career in Sweden. He was court sculptor to king Charles X Gustav of Sweden and later worked for the king's widow Hedwig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp. His main creation in Sweden was the execution of the sculptural programme of the staircase and hall of Drottningholm Palace, the private residence of the Swedish royal family. He also worked on various grave monuments and epitaphs of prominent Swedes.
Gabriël Grupello was a Flemish Baroque sculptor who produced religious and mythological sculptures, portraits and public sculptures. He worked in Flanders, France and Germany. He was a virtuoso sculptor who enjoyed the patronage of several European rulers.
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St. Paul's Church is a Roman Catholic church located at the Veemarkt in Antwerp, Belgium. Its exterior is mainly Gothic with a Baroque tower while the interior is characterised by its rich Baroque decoration. It holds paintings by Antwerp's leading artists Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens as well as abundant sculpture and church furniture crafted by leading Antwerp sculptors such as Artus Quellinus the Elder, Pieter Verbrugghen I, Jan Pieter van Baurscheit de Elder, Jan Claudius de Cock and Andries Colyns de Nole. Of particular note is the Calvary outside the Church which is made up of 63 life-size statues and nine reliefs executed in a popular and theatrical style.
Artus Quellinus II or Artus Quellinus the Younger was a Flemish sculptor who played an important role in the evolution of Northern-European sculpture from High Baroque to Late Baroque.
Artus Quellinus III, known in England as Arnold Quellin was a Flemish sculptor who after training in Antwerp was mainly active in London. Here he worked in partnership with the English sculptor Grinling Gibbons on some commissions. Some of the works created during their partnership cannot with certainty be attributed to Quellinus or Gibbons. The drop in quality of the large-scale figurative works in the workshop of Gibbons following the early death of Quellinus has been seen as evidence of the heavy reliance on Quellinus to produce such works.
Michiel van der Voort the Elder, Michiel van der Voort (I) or Michiel Vervoort the Elder, nickname Welgemaeckt (Antwerp, 3 January 1667 – Antwerp, buried on 8 December 1737) was a Flemish sculptor and draftsman, who is best known for the Baroque church furniture which he made for the principal churches in Flanders. He also produced secular works, particularly of mythological and allegorical subjects. His work expresses both late Baroque exuberance and the quest for the simplicity of Classicism. His oeuvre shows the influence of Michelangelo, François Duquesnoy and Rubens. He trained many members of the next generation of Flemish sculptors.
Alexander van Papenhoven was a Flemish sculptor, architect and art educator, who is best known for the furniture which he made for the principal churches in Flanders. He worked mainly in Antwerp, but early in his career he was also active for some years in Denmark.
Bartholomeus Eggers was a Flemish sculptor, who after training in his hometown Antwerp spent most of his active career in the Dutch Republic. Here he initially collaborated with other Flemish sculptors on the sculptural decorations for the new city hall in Amsterdam, a project which was under the direction of Artus Quellinus the Elder. He worked on various public projects and on commissions for leading courts in Europe. He is known for his portraits, funerary sculptures, reliefs, statues of children and allegorical, biblical and mythological sculptures. He was, together with Artus Quellinus the Elder and Rombout Verhulst, one of the leading sculptors active in the Dutch Republic in the second half of the 17th century.
Willem Ignatius Kerricx was a Flemish sculptor, painter, draftsman, architect, engineer, playwright and author active in Antwerp in the first half of the 18th century. His sculptural works comprise mostly sculptured church furniture, individual sculptures, mainly statues of saints for churches and a few funerary monuments. His sculptural style is typical for the late Flemish Baroque while he shows a preference for Classicism in his architectural projects. He took over the large family sculpture workshop in Antwerp. As a painter he created both history paintings for churches and still lifes. He was also employed as an architect and engineer, mainly on reconstruction projects. In his youth, he composed a number of comedies and tragedies for the Antwerp theatre.
