Artwork Data

Title

Moeder en kind

Artist

Peter van der Meer

Year

1984

Material

brons / steenachtig

Dimensions

160 cm

Artwork Location

Address

Willem III Straat, Den Haag

City district

Loosduinen

GPS data

52.049487116472, 4.236026406412 View on map

Artwork Description

Text

Wrong image' was the headline of the Haagse Courant newspaper of 28 February 1984. The report mentioned an error. Two weeks earlier it had been published that a statue of Charlotte van Pallandt had been placed on the Molenbrink. A sculpture of a mother and child. According to the newspaper, the municipality of The Hague had announced this. It turned out to be a misunderstanding. There were more sculptures with the same theme and by accident the sculpture by Peter van der Meer was taken away.

Van der Meer's 'Mother and child' is probably a work of art that was made under the so-called Beeldende Kunstenaars Regeling. From 1956 to 1987, artists received financial support from the government in exchange for work or services. This allowed sculptors to deliver a sculpture once a year. Many of these BKR sculptures were given a place in the city's public space. Mother and Child' was placed at the corner of a grass field that is called the horse meadow in this neighbourhood.

The sculpture is a typical Van der Meer, like so many others in The Hague's public space. Like his teachers at the Royal Academy of Art in the Hague (including Dirk Bus), he knew how to depict scenes from everyday life strikingly. Like this 'Mother and child'. A slender female figure holding her baby. A heartfelt representation that is given extra relief by the way in which Van der Meer made his sculptures. His sculptures are never smoothly finished. That's because the sculptor built up his sculptures from slabs of clay or wax and then had them cast in bronze. This creates a rather irregular surface that provides extra light effects.

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