Two Bronze Tritons from Nicolaes Witsen’s Collection

Authors

  • Ruurd Halbertsma
  • Frits Scholten

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.52476/trb.10068

Abstract

It recently emerged that two bronze ‘doorknobs’ in the Rijksmuseum collection, decorated with Tritons blowing conch shells and with inlaid silver discs, came from the renowned collection of the Amsterdam merchant and burgomaster Nicolaes Witsen. They were listed in 1728 in the catalogue of the sale of his estate (in the Antiquiteyten section) and appear in an engraving in the third, enlarged edition of Witsen’s Noord en Oost Tartaryen of 1785. It was also possible to establish that they were not, as had long been thought, sixteenth-century objects, but Roman appliques dating from the first century AD. The pair probably came from a litter used to carry the body of a deceased to its burial place. The two pieces were recently transferred to the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, where they have been reunited with other antiquities from Witsen’s collection.

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Author Biographies

Ruurd Halbertsma

Ruurd Halbertsma is curator of Greek and Roman Art at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden. His main interest lies in the origin and history of the collections of classical art in the Netherlands. He is also professor at the Faculty of Archaeology of Leiden University and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. His publications on museum history include Scholars, Travellers and Trade: The Pioneer Years of the National Museum of Antiquities in Leyden, 1818-1840 (2003).

Frits Scholten

Frits Scholten is senior curator of sculpture at the Rijksmuseum and holds the Rijksmuseum Chair in the History of Western sculpture at the University of Amsterdam.

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Published

2017-12-15

How to Cite

Halbertsma, Ruurd, and Frits Scholten. 2017. “Two Bronze Tritons from Nicolaes Witsen’s Collection”. The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 65 (4):340-53. https://doi.org/10.52476/trb.10068.

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Articles