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To the side of the building that houses the highest legal body in the Netherlands stands a sculpture. This time it is not a respectable lady Justice, as is customary with judicial institutions, but a goddess from classical antiquity who symbolises victory. And that, of course, is at least as applicable to a country like the Netherlands where you can expect the administration of justice to be sound and fair, and thus justice to prevail.

Niké, the goddess of victory, by Marius van Beek has an unsightly place. Buses, trams, cyclists and cars whiz past her, the brick walls behind her are high and hermetic, the concrete posts of the subway thick and unyielding.

Van Beek is a nationally renowned sculptor. During the last years of his life, he made abstract geometric sculptures in alabaster. Much better known, however, are his monuments and other sculptures in which he depicts historical events, biblical stories and classical myths respectively. The Jan van Hoofmonument at the foot of the Waalbrug in Arnhem was his big breakthrough in 1954.

Van Beek's craving for justice did not only make him participate in the resistance movement during the Second World War. Afterwards, he also expressed his opinion as a sculptor on several occasions. In the first place by the many war memorials he made. But also later his sculptures bear witness to that sense of justice. In the early 1970s, for instance, he created sculptures that were a direct indictment of the dictatorships in South America.

A characteristic of Van Beek's figurative sculptures is their mobility. This can already be seen in the Jan van Hoof monument, in which a man with a flapping flag comes rushing towards us. The Niké in The Hague also bears witness to this dynamism. Despite the somewhat blunted wings, her whole body seems to be moving upwards: on the way to victory.