Rombout Verhulst

Rombout Verhulst ( born January 15, 1624 Mechelen, † November 27, 1698 in The Hague) was a Flemish sculptor of the 17th century who worked mainly in the Netherlands and was appreciated for his special skill in modeling and material processing. He was not seen as the great inventor of new compositions or motifs, but thanks to the sensitivity of his portraits as "the aristocrat among the sculptors of Flanders ".

Teaching in Mechelen and beginning in Amsterdam

After teaching at the sculptors Verstappen and Jacob van Loo in his birthplace, he was found approximately from 1647 in the workshop of Arthur I. Quellinus hired in Amsterdam to decorate the local town hall (the present Royal Palace ) with sculptures. A statue of Venus ( 1650-1657 ) and two allegorical reliefs of the " Silentia " and the " Fidelitas " can be attributed to him, in any case, since he signed the works.

In the favor of the powerful, the Netherlands

After he left the workshop - long before the expansion of the city hall was completed - to Verhulst was characterized by a series of grave monuments, sculptures and Tumben within the United Provinces, which was the expression of the national interest in his skills. He owed ​​his orders a small but very illustrious network of high-ranking personalities. Since then Quellinus had returned to Antwerp in 1665, was Verhulst as "the" sculptor of the United Seven Provinces. Thus adorned his works soon the churches in Amsterdam ( Oude Kerk, Tomb of Admiral Isaac Sweers and the epitaph for the Vice - Admiral Willem van der Zaan ), Delft, Katwijk, Leiden ( Pieterskerk, grave of Johan Polyander van Kerchoven, 1663 ) and Utrecht ( Cathedral, Tomb of Baron WJ van Gendt, 1673 ), and, finally, in the cities of Groningen and Zeeland (see bust of Jacob van Reygersberg, 1671, Getty Museum )

Climax: Tomb de Ruyter

The beginning of this series you can tie in Delft in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam, and Oude Kerk. His artistic peak experienced Verhulst with the highly acclaimed grave monument of the national hero Admiral Michiel de Ruyter in the already mentioned Nieuwe Kerk 1681st Where before the Reformation had stood the high altar, designed Verhulst an impressive grave monument over the grave vault of the naval hero of the 1676 to died of his wounds at the Battle of Messina. Cleverly had it represented the death mask to Terracotta model, as it so naturalistic that one even sees a wart, yet refined idealized, that the Dutch were able to interpret into all the strengths de Ruyter Verhulst. The fact that de Ruyter rather in the Oude Kerk had even want to be buried, is one of the usual historical aberrations, which rarely takes into account the will of the deceased.

In the New Church there is another plant Verhulst. In the north aisle is the grave monument to the commandant Johann van Galen, who fell at the Battle of Livorno in 1653. Here is Arthur Quellinus had done the draft concept while Verhulst and William de Keyser were entrusted with the execution.