Modelled, fired and (originally?) painted (white?).¹¹Minimal remnants of paint and the noted removal of white chalk layers (oral communication Mischo van Kollenburg to Frits Scholten, 22 October 2019) indicate that the Two Drunkards previously would have looked very different from the warm-orange terracotta colour seen today. Made from two pieces; built by means of coiling.

Renewed are a missing element of the brim of the hat left; a finger on the tankard right; the neck of the right figure. Cracks in the figure left and a breakage on the right figure’s right arm are repaired.

…; from a private collection, Bruges, acquired by the dealer Paul de Grande, Snellegem Castle, Snellegem, before 2004;²²Oral communication Mischo van Kollenburg to Frits Scholten, 22 October 2019. acquired by Kollenburg Antiquairs, Oirschot, 2004; acquired by Van Nie Antiquairs, Amsterdam, 2005; acquired by the dealer Kunstzalen A. Vecht, Amsterdam, 2005; from which, €60,000, to the museum, with the support of the Rijksmuseum Fonds, 2006

Object number: BK-2006-19

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Rijksmuseum Fonds

In Netherlandish art, sculptural equivalents of genre paintings centring on themes of daily life are very rare, let alone on a large scale.³³Several comparable examples carved in stone: two garden statues of standing men with beer tankards (c. 1700), see J. Klinckaert, De verzamelingen van het Centraal Museum Utrecht, vol. 3, Beeldhouwkunst tot 1850, coll. cat. Utrecht 1997, nos. 404, 405; a standing Arlequino, see R. Baarsen et al., Favorieten van Museum de Fundatie, coll. cat. Heino (Kasteel Het Nijenhuis, Museum de Fundatie) 2005, p. 46. Measuring 80 centimetres high and one metre in width, this exceptional terracotta group of two beer drinkers Two Drunkards is by far the largest known work of genre sculpture executed in terracotta from the Netherlands.⁴⁴In Antwerp, religious terracotta sculpture on this scale was more commonly produced, such ass in the oeuvre of Walter Pompe, see L.C.B.M. van Liebergen et al., Walter Pompe, beeldhouwer: 1703-1777, exh. cat. Uden (Museum voor Religieuze Kunst) 1979, pp. 85, 86 (no. 21), 113, 118 (no. 52). Verging on a sculptural tableau vivant, the group’s unusual size is a key aspect of its pronounced visual expression. The summary finishing on the statue’s reverse rules out the possibility that the sculpture was made as a fully autonomous work.

The group comprises two male figures sitting at a small table made from an old, cracked and damaged section of a tree trunk, supported by two wooden legs. A sliced link of sausage lies on top of the table, accompanied by the knife used to cut it. Each of the men protectively clutches a disproportionately large beer tankard. In actuality, drinking vessels of this kind typically measured no more than 25 centimetres in height.⁵⁵E. Klinge, Duits Steengoed, Zwolle 1996, pp. 16-19 and 32-37. For a comparable exaggeration, see for example Cornelis Saftleven’s engraving entitled De Smaeck (Taste) in his series of the Five Senses (K.G. Boon et al., Jan Saenredam to Roelandt Savery, (Hollstein’s Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, 23), Amsterdam 1980, pp. 112-13), in which a hunchbacked man clutches an oversized pitcher. Accordingly, this exaggeration appears to be an intentional component of the group’s visual idiom, most likely to convey the two men’s (excessive) drinking habits.

The two figures are depicted in their work clothes, with aprons such as those worn by butchers and cobblers. Both have clearly put their work to the wayside, seemingly to indulge in quantities of beer and a bite of sausage. The figure on the left turns to his drinking companion as the other clasps his tankard closely to his breast. The latter’s guarded pose suggests the two men have just become embroiled in a conflict, possibly the consequence of high intoxication. The large knife between the legs of the right-hand figure portends a fateful culmination of events. The threatening situation is reinforced by the drinkers’ grotesque faces, leaving little doubt that the scene concerns reckless types prone to illicit behaviour.⁶⁶In early Netherlandish art, caricatural facial expressions serve to convey undesirable personality traits; see for example W. Goeree, Natuurlijk en schilderkonstig ontwerp der menschkunde, Amsterdam 1682, pp. 187-209, esp. pp. 202-03.

The monogram P.VB on the lid of the left figure’s drinking vessel is the signature of the Antwerp sculptor Jan Pieter van Baurscheit I (1669-1728), made to evoke an owner’s mark, as the tin lids of drinking vessels were often furnished with the owner’s initials in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.⁷⁷E. Bijzet, ‘Waer in den Aert en Stand zijn uitgedrukt heel stout: Pieter van Baurscheits Drinkebroers en de boertige kunst in de Nederlanden’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 56 (2008), pp. 424-45, esp. p. 430. Originating from Wurmersdorff near Cologne, Van Baurscheit came to the Netherlands as a soldier in the retinue of Maximilian Emanuel, Prince-Elector of Bavaria.⁸⁸A. Staring, ‘Aantekeningen op de Hollandsche beeldhouwwerken van J.P. van Baurscheit, vader en zoon’, Bulletin van de Nederlandse Oudheidkundige Bond, 1952, pp. 45 and 49; A. Jansen and C. Van Herck, ‘J.P. Van Baurscheit I en J.P. Van Baurscheit II: Antwerpsche beeldhouwers uit de 18e eeuw’, XVIIIe Jaarboek van den Koninklijken Oudheidkundigen Kring van Antwerpen, 1942, pp. 1-74. More recently F. Lammertse, ‘Four letters from Adriaen van der Werff to the Antwerp sculptor Jan Peter van Baurscheit’, Simiolus 34 (2009-10), pp. 119-41. In 1691, he settled in Antwerp where he was trained in the atelier of the sculptor Pieter Scheemaeckers I. From 1695 on, Van Baurscheit worked as an independent sculptor and architect. His success and esteemed reputation is reflected in the title hofbeeldhouwer (court sculptor) bestowed on him in 1717, and his ensuing appointment as sculptor and architect to the emperor. In the early eighteenth century, Van Baurscheit’s sculpture workshop was among the largest in the Netherlands, distinguished by a vast and varied production ranging from church furnishings and religious statues to garden sculpture and facade ornamentation. His contribution to the ‘boertige’ (farcical) genre is less well known, though it was precisely for this reason that Jacobus Van der Sanden, poet-biographer of eighteenth century cultural life in Antwerp, lauded him with the following words: ‘So too did he create farce, pastoral gods, shepherds, peasants in hard stone, in marble and in wood: In which Disposition and Standing are expressed very boldly.’⁹⁹Antwerp City Archives, PK#173, Jacobus van der Sanden, Oud Konst-Toneel van Antwerpen, vol. 3, unpublished manuscript, Antwerp 1775, p. 287. The same description applies to the Two Drunkards, but likewise a pair of small, skilfully modelled terracottas depicting street musicians also by the sculptor’s hand.¹⁰¹⁰Brussels, Art and History Museum, inv. nos. Sc. 93 and 94, see KIK-IRPA, object no. 20042620 and , object no. 20042621. The two figures, presented as a pair, are disproportionate in scale. Moreover, the signature appears to be of later date: the monogram and the year 1722 – present only on Sc. 93 – were added only after the clay was fired, raising the possibility of inauthenticity. Together these works form the only tangible evidence of Van Baurscheit’s works in the farcical genre.

The technical complexity of producing a large terracotta statue like the Two Drunkards would necessitate a level of experience most likely achievable only after Van Baurscheit’s departure from the Scheemaeckers’s workshop, circa 1700 or the early eighteenth century. The Roman numeral VI on the right figure’s beer tankard could perhaps be a dating mark for the year 1706.

As Bijzet has demonstrated, Van Baurscheit’s Two Drunkards comes from a long visual tradition centring on moralist farce.¹¹¹¹E. Bijzet, ‘Waer in den Aert en Stand zijn uitgedrukt heel stout: Pieter van Baurscheits Drinkebroers en de boertige kunst in de Nederlanden’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 56 (2008), pp. 424-45. As far back as Antiquity, grotesque and lowly types have been implemented as negative models, serving to instruct and educate society.¹²¹²H.-J. Raupp, Bauernsatiren. Enstehung und Entwicklung des bäuerlichen Genres in der deutschen und niederländischen Kunst ca. 1470-1570, Niederzier 1986, pp. 126-275. H. Soly, ‘Kroeglopen in Brabant en Vlaanderen’, Spiegel Historiael 18 (1983), no. 11, pp. 569-77. Stupidity, ugliness and unruly behaviour formed the perfect ingredients for the boertige – i.e. farcical – genre, in which morality and humour were integrally interwoven. Peasants, beggars, drunkards and other ‘low-life’ individuals were presented as comical but negative examples illustrating the wayward paths in life. This process of reversal forms the genre’s core.¹³¹³P. Vandenbroeck, Beeld van de andere vertoog over het zelf. Over wilden, narren, boeren en bedelaars, Antwerp 1987, passim. In this light, the caricatural tronies of the present group, with their aggressive postures and oversized drinking vessels, are intended as an admonition against excessive drinking and its consequences. Drunkenness was seen as an expression of the cardinal sin Gula, i.e. gluttony or immoderation, with its depiction essentially referring to its opposite, the virtue of Temperance or Temperantia. Early precursors of the Two Drunkards include several figures on the sides of the late-gothic choir stalls in the St Catharinakerk in Hoogstraten and a misericord in the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam.¹⁴¹⁴E. Bijzet, ‘Waer in den Aert en Stand zijn uitgedrukt heel stout: Pieter van Baurscheits Drinkebroers en de boertige kunst in de Nederlanden’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 56 (2008), pp. 424-45, esp. figs. 16 a, b. A woodcut on the title page of the satirical essay Saufteufel, published in 1562, shows a similar composition with drinking demons seated around a table.¹⁵¹⁵H. Pleij, Het gilde van de Blauwe schuit. Literatuur, volksfeest en burgermoraal in de late middeleeuwen, Amsterdam 1983, p. 93. Yet Van Baurscheit’s inspiration more likely came from seventeenth-century paintings and engravings with farcical themes, particularly evident when comparing the Two Drunkards, for example, to Adriaen Brouwer’s personification of Gula (c. 1632) (cf. RP-P-OB-33.073).¹⁶¹⁶E. Bijzet, ‘Waer in den Aert en Stand zijn uitgedrukt heel stout: Pieter van Baurscheits Drinkebroers en de boertige kunst in de Nederlanden’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 56 (2008), pp. 424-45, esp. pp. 437-40 and fig. 17. The lively and focused interaction between the two beer drinkers moreover recalls many of Brouwer’s drinking and fighting figures, typically based on members of the urban proletariat. The work clothing worn by Van Baurscheit’s two men alludes to common professions in the cities, such as the cobbler, the smith and butcher. As such, the group perfectly reflects notions of seventeenth-century Netherlandish urban moralism, often used to promote good work ethic.¹⁷¹⁷H. Pleij, Het gilde van de Blauwe schuit. Literatuur, volksfeest en burgermoraal in de late middeleeuwen, Amsterdam 1983, pp. 106, 161. One parallel for such a large-scale and somewhat satirical workingman is the statue of Teun de Eierboer (Teun the Eggman) by Van Baurscheit’s teacher Scheemaeckers, which still stands in its original niche on the Antwerp Eiermarkt (Egg Market).¹⁸¹⁸E. Bijzet, ‘Waer in den Aert en Stand zijn uitgedrukt heel stout: Pieter van Baurscheits Drinkebroers en de boertige kunst in de Nederlanden’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 56 (2008), pp. 424-45, esp. pp. 432-33 and fig. 13.

Another source of inspiration for the Two Drunkards can be found in seventeenth-century theatrical literature, as shown by Bijzet.¹⁹¹⁹P. Vandenbroeck, Beeld van de andere, vertoog over het zelf. Over wilden en narren, boeren en bedelaars, Antwerp 1987, p. 55. E. Bijzet, ‘Waer in den Aert en Stand zijn uitgedrukt heel stout: Pieter van Baurscheits Drinkebroers en de boertige kunst in de Nederlanden’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 56 (2008), pp. 424-45, esp. pp. 440-41. The Antwerp playwright Willem Ogier’s popular moralist comedies about the seven cardinal sins, written around 1635 but published fifty years later, reveal interesting parallels to Van Baurscheit’s group. This includes the terracotta’s stage-like composition with two men sitting adjacent to one another – both representing the same kind of lowlife, caricatural types – seemingly caught up in a heated dialogue or dispute. In satirical theatre of the seventeenth century, dialogue was by far the most important form of verbal interaction, with farcical masks and tronies commonly used in theatrical performances by as early as the sixteenth century.²⁰²⁰H. Pleij, Het gilde van de Blauwe schuit. Literatuur, volksfeest en burgermoraal in de late middeleeuwen, Amsterdam 1983, p. 86. In essence, the Two Drunkards appear as if frozen in place while engaged in a spirited dialogue from Ogier’s Gulsigheydt (Greed).²¹²¹G. Ogier, De seven hooft-sonden speels-ghewijs, vermakelyck ende leersaem voor-gestelt, Amsterdam 1715, p. 215. E. Bijzet, ‘Waer in den Aert en Stand zijn uitgedrukt heel stout: Pieter van Baurscheits Drinkebroers en de boertige kunst in de Nederlanden’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 56 (2008), pp. 424-45, esp. p. 441.

It seems unlikely that a relatively fragile terracotta statue could have ever fulfilled a function in a public space, e.g. a pub or pleasure garden.²²²²Two sculptures preserved at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht originate from the garden of the country estate ‘Jaffa’ in Utrecht, see J. Klinckaert, De verzamelingen van het Centraal Museum Utrecht, vol. 3, Beeldhouwkunst tot 1850, coll. cat. Utrecht 1997, nos. 404, 405. Nevertheless, the striking number of surviving small-scale variants of Van Baurscheit’s Two Drunkards suggest that this sculptural group enjoyed a certain level of renown in Antwerp.²³²³A reduction of the group in white clay or plaster (h. 24 cm), is located in a French private collection (see written correspondence, 17 August 2020). A small bronze group of a smoker and drinker held by the dealer G. Cramer, The Hague (offered at the Antiekbeurs Delft, 1955), two derivatives thereof in the form of an autonomous smoker and a drinker (London, Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. nos. A.46-1956 and A.47-1956), a bronze group of two eating men (collection Fokko van der Veen, Apeldoorn, 2010 and sale London (Bonhams), 2 November 2011, no. 103 as ‘19th century in the style of Pieter van Baurscheidt’), two small terracottas of drinkers (Sculptures, sale cat. Nijstad Antiquairs, Lochem 1979, no. 18 and E. Bijzet, ‘Waer in den Aert en Stand zijn uitgedrukt heel stout: Pieter van Baurscheits Drinkebroers en de boertige kunst in de Nederlanden’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 56 (2008), pp. 424-45, esp. fig. 21), a small bronze after one of the aforementioned drinkers in the collection of Erik Bijzet (written communication E. Bijzet, 13 May 2015), a painted terracotta group of two drinkers (sale Namur (Rops), 3 October 2010, no. 134) and three terracotta groups by Antoine (or Joseph ?) Gillis (ex-coll. Van Herck, Antwerp, presently Koning Boudewijn Stichting on loan to Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp), see C. Baisier et al., Terracotta’s uit de 17de en 18de eeuw: De verzameling Van Herck, coll. cat. Antwerp (Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp) 2000, p. 170 (inv. nos. 104 a, b, c), and a terracotta group by the Sicilian sculptor Bongiovanni Vaccaro, sale eBay, 21 March 2014 (print in Object File, RMA).

Frits Scholten, 2026

Jaarverslag Het Rijksmuseum Fonds 2006, pp. 12, 28; E. Bijzet, ‘Waer in den Aert en Stand zijn uitgedrukt heel stout: Pieter van Baurscheits Drinkebroers en de boertige kunst in de Nederlanden’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 56 (2008), pp. 424-45; F. Scholten, ‘Recent acquisitions (2004-09) of sculpture at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam’, The Burlington Magazine 151 (2009), p. 809, no. VII

F. Scholten, 2026, 'Jan Pieter van (I) Baurscheit, Two Drunkards (‘Gula’), Antwerp', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200476983