Netherlandish, circa 1630-1640 | Priant Figure of a Girl

This charming alabaster figure of a kneeling girl is immediately reminiscent of the tomb figures made by the English sculptor Nicholas Stone (1586/7-1647). Stone's monument to Sir Henry and Lady Belasyee in York Minster (1615-1616) features portraits of the subjects kneeling on cushions dressed in sumptuous Jacobean costume. The format of donor or supplicant figures as well as mourners on tomb monuments of course predates the early 17th century and was widespread in the Middle Ages, particularly in France. Such figures later became a focus of church funerary monuments in the Low Countries and England from the late 16th century and into the second half of the 17th century. The tomb format is seen widely in Netherlandish sculpture of the period and it is likely that Nicholas Stone was influenced by his time working in the Low Countries under the celebrated Netherlandish sculptor Hendrick de Keyser I (1565-1621), who is renowned for his full figure tomb sculptures (though arranged in varying poses).

The present figure compares more closely with Dutch and Flemish tomb figures in the simplified dress and the distinctive portrait facial features. Compare, for example, with the reclining portrait of Anna Posse from the monument to Erik Soop and Anna Posse in Skara Cathedral by Hendrick de Keyser's son Pieter de Keyser (illustrated in Scholten, op. cit., p. 104, fig. 95). The use of alabaster is also typical of Netherlandish mannerist and Baroque sculpture, where there was a long tradition. Although the same can admittedly also be said for England, after the Reformation it lacked a major artistic centre.

The figure finds a particularly interesting comparison in a pair of kneeling donors or mourners of a similar scale (41.3cm), also in alabaster, and depicted with analogous simplified costume of the 1630s or 1640s. These figures were sold at Christies on 2 July 1991, lot 74. The present alabaster, however, is distinguished by the charming facial expression of the sitter with retroussé nose and puffed out cheeks, as well as the satisfyingly voluminous costume.

RELATED LITERATURE
F. Scholten, Sumptuous Memories: Studies in seventeenth-century Dutch tomb sculpture, Zwolle, 2003; A. Lipinska, Moving Sculptures: Southern Netherlandish Alabasters from the 16th to 17th Centuries in Central and Northern Europe, Leiden, 2007