Jan Claudius de Cock

De Cock was a prolific and versatile artist who worked on a wide range of church furniture such as altars, choir stalls, confessionals, pulpits and tombs, as well as secular items such as garden statues and vases, designs for cradles, clocks, floats, reliquaries and monuments.[6] In addition, he also produced smaller scale sculptures and portrait busts.[14] He was a prolific draftsman and was sought after as a teacher of drawing and sculpting. He created designs for the frontispieces and illustration of publications of the Antwerp printers. He produced a few prints of his own. While he was described by Weyermans as a painter, no known paintings by his hand are known. He wrote poems on occasional subjects as well as a manual of sculpture in rhyme.[4]

De Cock worked in many materials including marble, stone, bronze, wood and terracotta.[10] His style shows the influence of the late Baroque works produced by the workshop of his master Verbrugghen. He also admired sculpture from the Antique and the work of his compatriots François Duquesnoy and Artus Quellinus the Elder.[16] This is reflected in the tendency towards Classicism in his work.[4]

Bust of a young moor

He known for his allegorical representations of children. An example are a pair of terracotta figures representing Air and Fire. The Africa boy stands for the element Fire because of the association of black people with the heat of the African sun.[17] The statues may also be allegorical representations of the continents Europe and Africa. They were likely created as workshop models for larger stone and marble compositions. These terracotta models appealed as individual works of art and were collected by contemporary collectors.[18] Among his allegorical representations of children are a few busts and statues of African boys, such as the African boy with a crown in the form of a fortress (1704, Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam),[19] the marble Bust of a black boy (1705–10, Victoria and Albert Museum)[14] and the bronze Bust of an African Boy (Walters Museum). There have also been a number of similar busts attributed to de Cock sold on the art market. These busts may have been based on a particular individual but were also intended to represent a general type of the African[20] The African boys typically wear on their chest a medallion, showing a portrait or a symbol. These were likely connected with the particular preference of the patron for whom the sculpture was produced. For instance, the medallion on the bust in the Victoria and Albert Museum represents a cardinal's hat. This suggests that the boy represented a cleric's page and that the bust was likely commissioned by a cardinal.[21]

Angel with the robe of Christ and dice, Calvary, Antwerp

De Cock also made a set of four sculpture groups representing the four continents (Princeton University Art Museum). The set once were in the collection of the American statesman Elias Boudinot IV (1740–1821). The continents are personified by women shown with bear attributes characterizing each continent and its peoples. Europe features a domed temple, papal crown, books, arms and armor, grains, flowers and a horse. These symbolized Europe's religious, cultural and military achievements and its abundant resources, which in the European ideology of that time was deemed to reflect the Christian God's favor.[22] Another allegorical group is the Allegory of War and Peace (Stedelijk Museum Breda), a terracotta sculpture, which was possibly created at the time of the peace talks in the War of the Spanish Succession held in 1710 in Geertruidenberg.[23][24] An example of the work he did for the Princes of Orange in the Dutch Republic are the bas reliefs with the mythological scenes of Alpheius and Arethusa and Apollo en Daphne, both signed and dated 1707. They are located in the house at the Korte Vijverberg 3, The Hague, where the Dutch cabinet holds its meetings. These companion pieces depict scenes of mythological lovers taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses.[25][26]

Many of de Cock's commissions were for church furniture and decoration as well as tomb monuments. He made in 1713 Caryatids for the choir stalls of the former priory of Corsendonk in Oud-Turnhout, today partially displayed in the collegiate St. Peter's Church in Turnhout.[27] They are the most striking example of the classicist streak in de Cock's work. He was able to incorporate his medallions and caryatids into the back panel in a soberly harmonious manner, so that the balance between architecture and sculpture was restored. Some of the elegant figures in the choir stall are executed in the late Baroque style, others in a restrained classical manner.[28]

Sleeping Cupid

De Cock was one of the artists who worked on the creation of a group of statues referred to as the Calvary on the outside of the St. Paul's Church in Antwerp. Its overall design dates from 1697. In 1734 construction of the Calvary was completed but further statues were added up to 1747. It is built as a courtyard and leans on one side against the south aisle of the church and the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament. The structure includes 63 life-size statues and nine reliefs executed in a popular and theatrical style. The statues are arranged into four groups: the angel path, which ascends to the Holy Sepulcher, the garden of the prophets on the left, the garden of the evangelists on the right and the Calvary itself, which consists of an elevated artificial rock, divided into three terraces, on which statues are placed with Christ on the cross at the top.[29] Most statues are of white stone with some made of wood. Some statues are dated or signed. The principal sculptors were de Cock, Michiel van der Voort the Elder and Alexander van Papenhoven with some statues by the hand of Jan Pieter van Baurscheit de Elder, Willem Kerricx and his son Willem Ignatius Kerricx and anonymous collaborators. De Cock also sculpted a number of the statues, 12 of which are signed and 5 of which are attributions. These include various angels carrying symbols of Christ's Passion, various biblical figures as well as a penitent Maria Magdalen.[30][31]

Burning city by a river

De Cock was a prolific draughtsman who left an extensive body of drawings. Many of these were studies for his sculptures or other objects such as garden vases and cradles. Some were artworks in their own right such as the Burning city by a river (Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum).[32] Others were designs for illustrations made for the Antwerp printers. We now know that no fewer than five engravers turned his designs into prints, including Jan Antoni de Pooter,, Petrus Balthasar Bouttats, Hendrik Frans Diamaer, Jan Baptist Jongelinck and Norbert Heylbrouck the Elder.[5]

He designed the title page and 17 illustrations for the Breviarium Romanum published by Balthasar IV Moretus first in 1707. The Antwerp engraver cut the plates for the publication. In 1706 and 1708 he provided the design for the title page of the Syntagma de annulis historico-symbolicum. Authore R.P. Francisco Curtio Augustiniano Brugensi (...) and a portrait of the eighty-one-year-old artist biographer Cornelis de Bie, which were both engraved by Hendrik Frans Diamaer.

He made several prints of which only two are known, one an etching of the Martyrdom of Saint Quirin of Neuss and the other a woodcut representing Psyche in clair obscur.[5] He had apparently learned his printmaking techniques from his study of the, which appeared in Dutch translation of Abraham Bosse's 1645 Traité des manières de graver en taille-douce (Treatise on Line Engraving) published in Amsterdam in 1662 as Tractaet in wat manieren men op root koper snijden ofte etzen zal (…). A copy of the book with de Cock's name inscribed in it was found in his collection.[5]

He also wrote treatises on art and poems.[4] In 1720 he wrote a treatise on sculpture entitled Eenighe voornaemste en noodighe regels van de beeldhouwerye om metter tydt een goet meester te worden (Some principal and necessary rules of sculpture to become a good master with time). This manual was written in verse and contained practical instructions for sculptors aiming become a good master over time.[6] In the book he also takes the opportunity to criticize the training at the academy of Antwerp. The question is, however, whether this was merely based on the quality of the teaching, are was also driven by selfish motives. Master sculptors often relied on apprentices to help in the projects of their workshops. By educating new sculptors in the academy, this important resource was lost to the master sculptors.[5]