Pieter Xavery (Xaverij), Dutch sculptor. Little is known about this artist, except that he was originally from Antwerp and worked in Leiden. Modelling in clay was not a genre much practiced in the 17th-century Netherlands. Xavery was an exception, he worked almost exclusively in clay. In the short time he was active in Leiden he made a number of terracotta statues which were intended as true cabinet structures. He generally took ordinary people and images of everyday life, such as work and play, as his themes. However, he also made several mythological and biblical scenes which clearly betrays his Flemish origin. Another part of his oeuvre consists of comic or farcical genre scenes. //