Cleopatra and Lucretia

Jan Baptist Xavery, court sculptor in The Hague, was exceptionally versatile. In addition to funerary monuments, portrait busts, marble mantelpieces and even furniture, he made refined figurines in wood and ivory, such as these Classical female heads. They represent famous beauties from antiquity, Cleopatra and Lucretia, both of whom took their own life, one out of shame, the other out of sorrow.