Sculptor Receiving Visitors in his Studio
Nicolaas Aartman Dutch
Not on view
The eighteenth-century Dutch artist Nicolaes Aartman produced various designs for book illustrations, as well as small-scale independent drawings. This scene of a fashionable couple visiting a sculptor’s workshop may have been intended as a design for a book illustration, although no print after the design is known.
The image provides an interesting insight into a contemporary sculptor’s atelier. The master sculptor points towards his latest masterpiece; a free standing statue of a female nude, while his assistant to the left is carving the epitaph on a tombstone. Various workshop attributes – compasses, levels and hammers – are lying around. Little statuettes and other sculptural objects are lining the walls and even hanging from the ceiling.
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