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Van Beveren also worked in ivory (see Cupid on a Lion) and carved larger wood and marble compositions for wealthy religious orders in Antwerp. The monumentality of this Lamentation derives from the sculptor's full-scale version of 1668, made for the altar of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows in Dendermonde (now Belgium). A cutout on the back of the base indicates that a cross once stood behind the group.
Carved images of death were cherished items in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century collectors' cabinets. Most were of wood, though ivory versions are also known. They relate to the artistic preoccupation with death in the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The naturalistic poses, gestures, and movement of drapery date this group to the mid-seventeenth century; indeed, the composition recalls an etching of 1663 by Stefano della Bella. The skeleton has an elaborately hollowed-out torso and neck, and the tendons of his forearms and lower legs are similarly undercut.
The winged Cupid subduing a ferocious lion embodies the notion that "love conquers all," drawn from Ovid and Virgil. In van Beveren's realization of this popular artistic theme, love is represented as a putto, or winged infant. The portrayal of Cupid as a chubby child dates to the Renaissance, as does the virtually indistinguishable imagery of infant angels in the sacred context of the same artist's Lamentation.
Calvary was the hill outside Jerusalem where Christ was crucified. Here, the traditional group of the Virgin, the Magdalen, and Saint John includes the Good and Bad Thieves. The suffering expressed in the contorted poses would have aided in the viewer's efforts at private devotion. In an unusual iconographic touch, the Virgin kneels at the foot of the cross, a place usually reserved for the Magdalen, who is shown in a posture more typical of the Mourning Virgin. The bearded Saint John is also uncommon, as is the Oriental (Turkish?) hairstyle of the thief at the left. The distinctive carving style produced delicate but highly expressive features on comparatively small heads set against broad, flat classical draperies and heavy bodies with unusually stout wrists and ankles.
The technique of forming objects on a lathe, or turning, reached a high degree of complexity in the Renaissance and Baroque eras, when French, Italian, and Central European workshops produced paper-thin hollowed-out shapes from single blocks of ivory. Clerics and noblemen embraced turning as a hobby. Among the rulers who collected masterpieces of turning for their Kunstkammern and practiced the art themselves were the Holy Roman Emperors Maximilian II (r. 1564–76), Rudolf II (r. 1576–1612), and Ferdinand III (r. 1619–37). The eccentric form of this cup exemplifies Mannerist taste in Central Europe, though the most challenging aspect of its creation was concocting the lacy hollows that form the stem and spire. See another example of a turned cup.