Artus Quellinus: Studies for four caryatids (ca. 1650); Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Part II:
With the new Town Hall, the burgomasters of Amsterdam wanted to showcase their administrative power, but they also wished to present the city as the ultimate commercial metropolis of its time. This was not as far-fetched as it may sound today: in the seventeenth century, Amsterdam was the thriving center of a wide-ranging international trading network.
A group of outstanding artists was assembled to convey this message. Architect Jacob van Campen (1596-1657) designed a monumental town hall that bore strong reminiscences of antique architecture, especially of the administrative palaces in Rome: the burgomasters likened themselves to Roman consuls.
The paintings inside the building, which showed similar themes, were mainly done by Dutch artists such as Rembrandt, Lievens, Bol and Flinck, but for the sculptural decoration they commissioned Fleming Artus Quellinus. Quellinus (1609–1668), who also worked in classicist style, provided both the interior and exterior with ornamentation. It is in his contributions that the international pretense and megalomania of seventeenth-century Amsterdam found its strongest expression, culminating in a huge statue on top of the building on the west side, of Atlas bearing the world.
To produce the many sculptures needed, Quellinus worked with a large group of employees. Designs were often made in the form of small terracotta models, which were executed large-scale in marble afterwards. Shown here are the models for the caryatids (columns in the form of a sculpted female figure) that support the roof of the so-called Vierschaar, the room at the front of the town hall where criminals were sentenced. The faces of the women on the left and right show the grief and remorse the convicted is expected to feel. The women with tied hands in the middle represent imprisonment. Luckily, the Vierschaar and the rest of the palace are well-preserved and certainly worth a visit.
(To be continued)