Bacchante with grapes

About this artwork.

Frederik Engel (Fré) Jeltsema (1879 - 1971) was registered as a girl (Frederika) at birth due to a medical uncertainty and raised as a girl, even after it was established at the age of three that he was actually physically more male than female. Probably Jeltsema was – what we would now call – an intersex person: someone born with both male and female sex characteristics.

Because Frederika went through life as a woman, he could be accused of transvestism. In 1906, a life as a woman was no longer tenable for him and he no longer wanted to hide that he was actually a man. Ultimately, by a judgment of the district court in Groningen, the mistake was corrected by means of an amendment to the birth certificate, purely administratively and therefore without a medical transition, and he also started presenting himself as a man.

Frederik Jeltsema was a sculptor, medalist and painter. Jeltsema attended classes at the Minerva Academy in Groningen from 1892 to 1896. He then initially educated as an art teacher, but eventually chose to train as a sculptor in Amsterdam (1899 - 1902). Jeltsema worked in a neoclassical style, mainly in sandstone, marble and bronze. Mostly he portrayed human figures.

The statue of the Seated Youth, made in 1916 and on display on Emma square in Groningen since 1960, is by his hand. The artist then donated the statue to the municipality of Groningen, together with the marble statue from the early twentieth century, the female nude with a bunch of grapes, representing a bacchante. The Bacchante with grapes is in the City Hall, at the entrance to the wedding hall.

Facts & Figures.

• Artist(s)
  Frederik Engel Jeltsema

• Year of creation
  Unknown

• Dimensions (in cm)
  200x100

• Collection
  Town Hall Collection

• Technic
  Marble

• Floor
  Ground floor