Background
Jan Claudius de Cock was born in 1667 in Brussels. He was the son of the sculptor Claudius de Cock.
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Jan Claudius de Cock
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also known as
Joannes Claudius de Cock
Jan Claudius de Cock was a Flemish sculptor, painter, printmaker, and writer associated with the late Baroque and early Neoclassical traditions in the Southern Netherlands. He worked extensively on religious and decorative sculpture in Antwerp and contributed to the development of Neoclassicism in Flemish sculpture.
Education
De Cock studied under Pieter Verbrugghen the Younger in Antwerp during 1682–1683.
Career
He became a master of the Guild of Saint Luke in Antwerp in 1688 or 1689.
From 1692 to 1697 he worked on the decoration of Breda Castle for William III of England, then stadtholder of the Netherlands. Assisted by his brother-in-law Melchior Serlippens and several pupils, he decorated the palace courtyard, carved the “William and Mary” ceiling, and created busts of members of the House of Orange, including Philip William, Prince of Orange and Maurice, Prince of Orange.
After returning to Antwerp in the late 1690s, de Cock established a large workshop that produced both religious and secular sculpture. His commissions included altars, choir stalls, pulpits, confessionals, tombs, garden statuary, and decorative monuments. He also wrote poems and treatises on art.
Among his known works are the “Negro Boy with Fortress Crown” (1704) in the Rijksmuseum, the “Bust of a Black Boy” (1705–1710) in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the “Bust of an African Boy” in the Walters Art Museum.
His terracotta sculptures “Ayer” and “Ignis,” created around 1705, may represent allegories of Europe and Africa. Other works include the reliefs “Alpheius and Arethusa” and “Apollo and Daphne,” both signed in 1707.
In 1713 de Cock created caryatids for the choir stalls of the former priory of Corsendonk Priory. A marble sculptural group depicting boys, satyrs, and a goat is dated 1724.
His work “War and Peace,” an early 18th-century terracotta sculpture possibly connected with the 1710 peace negotiations in Geertruidenberg, reflects his allegorical and decorative style. He also produced drawings, including the signed “Allegory of Sculpture” of 1706.
De Cock died in 1736 in Antwerp.
