Francis van Bossuit

In 1727, Matthys Pool published in Amsterdam the Beeld-snijders kunst-kabinet door den vermaarden beeldsnijder Francis van Bossuit in yvoor gesneeden en geboetseert (English translation: Cabinet of sculpture carved and sculpted in ivory by the renowned sculptor Francis van Bossuit), a collection of ninety engravings after sculptures by van Bossuit, which was translated the same year into French as Cabinet de l'art de schulpture par le fameux sculpteur Francis Van Bossuit, exécuté en yvoire ou ébauché en terre, gravées d'après les desseins de Barent Graat, par Mattys Pool.

[4][5] The majority of the engravings were made by Matthys Pool from drawings by his father-in-law, the painter Barend Graat.

He left for Italy probably in the hope of being appointed to one of the courts, where there was traditionally a great deal of interest in ivory carving.

Two auction catalogues mention sculptures begun by van Bossuit and completed by Ebbelaer.

[1] Van Bossuit's small collectable reliefs in ivory were much sought after by private collectors in the Dutch Republic.

Dutch collectors Petronella de la Court and her husband Adam Oortmans owned about ten other ivories by van Bossuit.

It also shows a penchant for classicism, probably due to the exposure during his stay in Rome to ancient Italian art and contemporary sculptors such as the Flemish François Duquesnoy and the Italian sculptors Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Alessandro Algardi.

[3] Van Bossuit's small-scale sculptures introduced replicas and variations of famous masterpieces from Antiquity to Northern Europe.

[1] His first reliefs executed in Italy, such as Mercury, Io and Argus (Liebieghaus, Frankfurt) and its pendant The Flaying of Marsyas (Art Gallery of Ontario) were probably created while he was working in the vicinity of Balthasar Permoser, who created similar, but less finely sculpted works at about the same time in Italy.

His Abduction of the Sabine Women (Liebieghaus, Frankfurt) is inspired by a work with the same subject by Pietro da Cortona (Capitoline Museums, Rome).

Especially the engravings of his works, published in the "Cabinet of the Art of Sculpture" by Matthys Pool after drawings by Barend Graat served as models for artists until the 18th century.

[1] This is for instance the case in the figure of Ulysses in van Mieris' Circe begging Ulysses for mercy (c. 1700, formerly in the Sør Rusche Collection), which is very similar in pose, gesture and expression to the Mars by van Bossuit (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam).