Jan Pieter van Baurscheit was born in Wormersdorff, present-day Germany, in 1669. His father was the erstwhile mayor and alderman of Wormersdorff. The 18th-century artist biographer Jacobus van der Sanden wrote in his “Oud-Konsttoneel van Antwerpen” (1775) that van Baurscheit was already an accomplished woodworker when he moved to Antwerp. It is not known why he moved to the Southern Netherlands, but he seems to have settled in Antwerp by 1691, when he was taught by the sculptor Peeter Scheemaeckers (a nephew of the sculptor Peeter Verbruggen the Elder). He became a master of the Antwerp guild of St Luke in 1694/5. On April 4th 1695 he married Catharina Baets, the daughter of a local art dealer. After having two girls, the couple had a boy - Jan Pieter the Younger - who later on was taught by his father and also became a sculptor. Catharina died in 1700; 4 years later van Baurscheit remarried, to Isabella de Coninck, with whom he had three more children. Besides his son, van Baurscheit also taught the sculptor Cornelis Struyf.

 

Van Baurscheit quickly established himself as a successful sculptor and - at times - architect, receiving many commissions from churches for epitaphs, altars and various other church decorations. In Antwerp, he worked on several commissions for the St Paul’s Church and the St James’ Church. Further afield, he is known to have worked in Brussels and Ghent as well as - occasionally - in the Northern Netherlands. In 1715 van Baurscheit referred to himself as “sculptor to the King”; by 1717 this had seemingly been upgraded to “sculptor to the Emperor” (perhaps in connection to the work he realized for the Joyous Entry; cfr. infra). In 1723 he signed as “statuarius et architectus Caesaris” - “sculptor and architect to the Emperor”. How he came by these titles is unknown; it is however interesting that he also referred to himself as an architect. By the 18th century many courtly sculptors doubled as architects, and it seems van Baurscheit was no exception. For instance, he designed a (temporary) amphitheatre for Emperor Carlos VI’s Joyous Entry in Brussels in 1717. 

 

Jan Pieter II van Baurscheit was born in Antwerp in 1699. Jan Pieter ‘the Younger’ followed in his father’s footsteps: after training with his father, he was registered as a ‘winemaster’ (i.e. the son of a master) in the Antwerp guild of St Luke in 1712/13. Although from then on he could work as an independent master, he continued working in the workshop of his father, collaborating with him on several projects, most importantly on the refurbishment of the interior of the Antwerp Jesuit church, which was largely destroyed by fire in 1718. After his father’s death in 1728 he assumed responsibility of the workshop, with great success. In 1741 he became director of the Antwerp Academy. Early in his career Jan Pieter II was active in Zeeland, part of the Northern Netherlands. In and around the major port-cities of Middelburg and Vlissingen he designed mansions for prominent members of the West India Company. In the latter part of his career he worked primarily as an architect, designing many grand town houses in and around Antwerp, several of which - such as the Osterriethhuis and the Meir Palace - can still be admired today. Nevertheless, the van Baurscheidt workshop continued to produce sculpture of a very high quality, to decorate the interiors and gardens of all these castles, city palaces and country houses. 

 

Like their contemporaries Michiel van der Voort and Jan Claudius de Cock, the van Baurscheits combined the tradition of the Flemish late baroque with the upcoming classicist style idiom. Although Jan Pieter II’s figures became more elongated and more decorative, influenced by the French rococo, he remained true to the baroque legacy of his father, repeatedly re-used his designs and drawings. It is therefore sometimes difficult to distinguish the work of Jan Pieter I and II, especially since father and son also worked together. This problem of attribution also arises with the present work. A specialty of the van Baurscheit workshop was the production of series of often large terracotta putti, in groups of two, four or five, accompanied by various attributes or animals, representing allegories of the senses, the elements, the continents or the seasons. 

 

Such a series, depicting the Four Seasons, attributed to Jan Pieter I is now on loan from a private collection to the Museum of Fine Art, Boston, while a group dated 1733 consisting of four of the Five Senses by Jan Pieter II is in the collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp (inv. no. 5161-5164). They were intended as decorations for interiors or gardens, either displayed in niches (in which case the back was only rudimentarily finished) or standing freely. The present recently rediscovered Allegory of Hearing shows all the typical physiognomical traits known from other works attributed to the van Baurscheit workshop; furthermore, there is a clear relationship between these large-scale works and several drawn designs by van Baurscheit I and II, currently kept in the Print Room at the Antwerp Museum Plantin-Moretus. Our Allegory of Hearing presumable formed part of a series of the senses; as the piece is undated, it remains unclear whether it is by Jan Pieter I or II.