Friday, 21 November 2014

Week 9: Archduke Leopold William’s Pictures and Collecting Art in the North



Collecting and the Art Market in Antwerp

The market in Antwerp has been called “the first showroom in postclassical Europe to be constructed expressly for the exhibition and sale of works of art” (Ewing). Our Lady’s “Pand” (covered market) was a courtyard in the ground of the Church of Our Lady, later the cathedral of Antwerp. The Pand was rented to art merchants during biennial trade fairs; stalls were occupied by painters, sculptors, joiners and booksellers. The Pand grew and grew, and with the establishment of the Antwerp Exchange, the city became a centre of cultural and financial activity. Unfortunately, the “New Bourse” put the Pand out of business and ushered in the era of modern capital with pictures becoming swept up in the whirlwind of trade and commerce. Things slowed down with the revolt of the Northern provinces in 1570 with Antwerp riven by religious factionalism between Catholics and Calvinists. Things became steadier with the advent of the Archduke Albert and his consort Isabella (Rubens’s patrons) during which a truce was engineered between 1609-21. This encouraged the recovery of the art market and ushered in a new era for Northern art and a roll call of illustrious names like Rubens, Van Dyck, Jordaens, Snyders Jan Breughel the Elder. A window onto the world of Antwerp collecting and the market is provided by the genre known as the “cabinet picture” which shows paintings, natural objects, and scientific instruments in some patron’s gallery. Though these contain some truth about the state of art collecting in Antwerp and the north, they should ultimately be seen as elaborate fictions designed to flatter the patron and announce his civilised taste. 

Attributed to Adriaen van Stalbent, Gallery Picture, oil on canvas, Prado, Museo Prado.
Frans Francken II, Art Room, 1636, Oil on wood, 74 x 78 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
Willem van Haecht, Gallery of Cornelis van der Gheest, 1628, Oil on panel, 100 x 130 cm, Rubenshuis, Antwerp.
Anthony van Dyck, Cornelius van der Gheest, oil on oak, 37.5 x 32.5 cm, National Gallery, London.

Archduke Leopold William.

There are many reasons for the metamorphosis from a Hapsburg cleric into a great art collector which are identified in Jonathan Brown’s Kings and Connoisseurs. The chief factors are (a) the legacy of Hapsburg collecting suggesting that art accumulation was in the dynasty’s genes; (b) the dispersal of gigantic collections of art from England (Charles I, Arundel’s and Hamilton’s); (c) the growth of the art market in cities like Antwerp.  It was during the boom in the art market that Archduke Leopold William of Austria became governor of the Spanish Netherlands on 11th April, 1647. The northern provinces of the Netherlands (later known as the Dutch Republic) had declared their independence from Spain; the southern area was, however, ruled over by a member of a Royal Family, or elevated aristocrat. Cousin of Philip IV, he was eventually persuaded by that august monarch to take control of the southern provinces. Leopold was born in Graz on 6th January, second son of Ferdinand II. Originally, a clerical career beckoned but in 1639 Leopold switched to General of the Imperial Army leading campaigns against such foes as Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. However, Leopold’s successes on the field were few, mainly due to Spain’s declining power. Until 1636, the Archduke seems to have taken no part in the world of art and collecting. Leopold had his own painter, Jan van den Hoecke who was a mediocre artist competent at representing his patron in various celebratory poses and situations. Leopold’s eyes may have been opened to the world of collectors when the Earl of Arundel visited him in Vienna in 1636. The event is recorded in a diary by a functionary who notes tersely and dismissively that there is not much to see, - only “a few pictures” in the Archduke’s gallery.[1]
David Teniers, Modello for the Frontispiece of the Theatrum Pictorium, 1658, oil on panel, Private Collection

 David Teniers, the Younger, Portrait of Leopold William in Armour, oil on canvas, 203 x 138 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
Att to Jan Breughel the Younger, Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia strolling in the Grounds of the Palace on the Coudenberg in Brussels, oil on panel, 150 x 128 cm, Prado, Museo Prado.
David Teniers, Peasants Dancing and Feasting, 1660, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, oil on canvas, 63.8 x 74.9 cm
 David Teniers (1610-1690) the Younger and Archduke Leopold

Other collectors nearer home such as the Bishop of Ghent, Anton Triest (1576-1657) may have impressed him enough to want to start a gallery of his own. A letter of 8th November expresses amazement at the modern Flemish paintings in the Bishop’s house, especially David Teniers’s colourful scenes of peasants and fairs. Teniers was admitted as a Master of the Guild of St Luke in 1632, but he had made his scenes of peasants known to the public before then. His Prodigal Son painted for the Guild (now in the Hermitage) was much admired and did much to enhance his reputation.  Teniers rose to become head of the Guild of St Luke in 1644, and it was shortly after this that he came to the attention of the Archduke. Teniers brought Leopold a large painting and many commissions followed. With the death of Jan van der Hoecke in 1650, Teniers assumed his duties and Leopold appointed him court painter in 1651- at the latest. Leaving his native city of Antwerp where he had enjoyed considerable success, Teniers moved his house and workshop to Brussels to take up the job of court painter.

David Teniers the Younger, Archduke Leopold Willem in his Gallery in Brussels, about 1651, oil on canvas, 123 x 163 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
David Teniers the Younger, The Gallery of Archduke Leopold in Brussels, 1640, Oil on canvas, 96 x 128 cm, Staatsgalerie, Schleissheim. Leopold points to Fetti's Hero and Leander while Teniers steadies Titian's Madonna of the Cherries.
David Teniers, Self-Portrait, before 1648, etching by Peter de Jode, from Cornelis de Bie, 1662.

The Archduke’s Picture Gallery, English & Other Collections & the Theatrum Pictorum.

Amongst Tenier’s duties was presiding over the Archduke’s picture gallery which by 1650 was one of the most outstanding collections in Europe. As we learnt earlier on this course, the beating heart of this magnificent collection was the Duke of Hamilton’s pictures. It is estimated that Leopold acquired a staggering 400 pictures from the estate of the Duke, but lack of documentation means this important purchase remains shrouded in mystery. Though Teniers was despatched to England, no more than four paintings from Charles I’s are believed to have come into the Archduke’s picture gallery.[2] But the Archduke did get more involved in the sale of another one of the large English collection,- the Duke of Buckingham’s which was brought via Amsterdam to be put up for sale in Antwerp, but in this case Leopold was acting for his brother, Leopold III who wanted to make up for art treasures lost at Castle Prague looted by the Swedish army in 1648.[3] The purchase of the Buckingham pictures was not concluded until 1650 and the sum involved was £5,000, a considerably smaller amount than the collection had been valued at in 1649- 30,000 guilden (guilders). The Buckingham works sold in 1650 are thought to have been of the highest quality with no copies or unattributed paintings.[4] According to McEvansoneya, it seems to have been well known that Leopold intended to buy up pictures in Antwerp as well as in Brussels as indicated by documents.[5] We learn much about the nature of Leopold’s gallery, not only from Tenier’s paintings of it, but from the Theatrum Pictura (Theatre of Painting) a book produced with engravings done by a team of eleven of the most famous Italian works in the collection.[6] Note that the pictures were all of different sizes, but Teniers was compelled to make them all the same to fit into his book. As he put it: “The original pictures, copies of which you see here, are not all the same form and size; therefore it was necessary to reduce them all to the same form and size so that they could be presented to you more appropriately in this book.”[7] An important task of Teniers would have been to make small copies on panel of the originals (his so-called pasticci). In addition to Italian pictures (617), Leopold also owned 885 northern pictures, mostly Flemish, with some German.[8] There is much to admire here, such as Breughel’s peasant scenes, altarpieces by Rogier van der Weyden and Bosch, as well as portraits by Jan van Eyck.  

Rogier van der Weyden, Crucifixion Triptych, c. 1445, Oil on oak panel, 101 x 70 cm (central panel), 101 x 35 cm (each wing), Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
Pieter Breughel, Hunters in the Snow, 1565, oil on panel, 46 x 63 ¾ inches, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Jan van Eyck, Portrait of Cardinal Niccolò Albergati, 1431-32, Oil on wood, 34,1 x 27,3 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
Peter Paul Rubens, Cimon and Iphigenia, 1617, oil on canvas, 81.9 x 111 inches, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Slides. 


1)      Jacob de Formentrou (active Antwerp 1640-59), A Gallery of Pictures, 1659, Royal Collection.

2)      Attributed to Adriaen van Stalbent, Gallery Picture, oil on canvas, Prado, Museo Prado.

3)      Frans Francken II, Art Room, 1636, Oil on wood, 74 x 78 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

4)      Willem van Haecht, Gallery of Cornelis van der Ghent, 1628, Oil on panel, 100 x 130 cm, Rubenshuis, Antwerp.

5)      Anthony van Dyck, Cornelius van der Gheest, oil on oak, 37.5 x 32.5 cm, National Gallery, London.

6)      Peter Thys, Archduke Leopold William, oil on canvas, size not known, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

7)      David Teniers, the Younger, Portrait of Leopold William in Armour, oil on canvas, 203 x 138 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna,

8)      Att to Jan Breughel the Younger, Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia strolling in the Grounds of the Palace on the Coudenberg in Brussels, oil on panel, 150 x 128 cm, Prado, Museo Prado.

9)      David Teniers, Self-Portrait, before 1648, etching by Peter de Jode, from Cornelis de Bie, 1662.

10)   David Teniers the Younger, Self-Portrait, about 1654-55, oil on canvas, 117 x 97 cm, Private Collection/ David Teniers the Younger, Portrait of Anna and Justin Leopold Teniers, about 1654-55, oil on canvas, Private Collection.

11)   David Teniers, Flemish Kermess, 1652, Oil on canvas, 157 x 221 cm, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels.

12)   David Teniers, Peasants Dancing and Feasting, 1660, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, oil on canvas, 63.8 x 74.9 cm.[9] Link

13)   Jan van Troyen, Frontispiece of the Theatrum Pictorum, etching.[10]

14)   David Teniers, Modello for the Frontispiece of the Theatrum Pictorium, 1658, oil on panel, Private Collection.

15)   Titian, prev att to Palma Vecchio, “Il Violante”, c. 1514, Oil on canvas, 65 x 51 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

16)   Lucas Vorsterman II (after Pieter Thys), Portrait of David Teniers, from the Theatrum Pictorum.[11]

17)   Wenceslaus Hollar, Self-portrait, 17th century, etching, second state, 15.6 x 11 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

18)   Wenceslaus Hollar Engraving of Durer’s Self-Portrait, 1645, etching.

19)   Titian, Portrait of Jacopo Strada, 1567-68, oil on canvas, 125 x 95 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

20)   Unknown artist, Titian’s Portrait of Jacopo Strada, etching.

21)   David Teniers the Younger, The Gallery of Archduke Leopold in Brussels, 1640, Oil on canvas, 96 x 128 cm, Staatsgalerie, Schleissheim.

22)   Wenceslaus Hollar, detail of a gallery of painting by Teniers featuring Esther and Ahasuerus by Veronese, 1651-52, 48.4 x 55.6 cm.[12]

23)   David Teniers, Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in his Picture Gallery, 1651, oil on canvas, 127 x 162.6 cm, Petworth House.

24)   Frans van der Steen (after a drawing by Nicolas van Hoy), Porticuum Prospectus, A Gallery in Stallburg in Vienna, Theatrum Pictorium, 1st edition.

25)   David Teniers (after Bassano), The Good Samaritan, oil on wood, 17.1 x 22.9 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.[13]

26)   David Teniers the Younger, Archduke Leopold Willem in his Gallery in Brussels, about 1651, oil on canvas, 123 x 163 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

27)   Guido Reni, St Peter Weeping, c. 1635-37, oil on canvas, 74 x 61 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.[14]

28)   Peter Paul Rubens, Cimon and Iphigenia, 1617, oil on canvas, 81.9 x 111 inches, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.[15]

29)   Rogier van der Weyden, Crucifixion Triptych, c. 1445, Oil on oak panel, 101 x 70 cm (central panel), 101 x 35 cm (each wing), Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

30)   Jan van Eyck, Portrait of Cardinal Niccolò Albergati, 1431-32, Oil on wood, 34,1 x 27,3 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

31)   Frans Francken and David Teniers, Interior of a Picture Gallery c. 1615 and c. 1650, oil on panel, 58.5 x 79 cm, Courtauld Institute, London.

32)   Hieronymous Bosch, Last Judgment Triptych, 1504-08, Mixed technique on panel, 163 x 128 cm (central panel), 167 x 60 cm (each wing), Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna.

33)   Pieter Breughel, Hunters in the Snow, 1565, oil on panel, 46 x 63 ¾ inches, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.[16]

34)   Pieter Breughel, Return of the Herd, 1565, oil on panel, 46 x 62 5/8 inches, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.


[1] “On the next day, which was Sunday, 26th June, His Excellency [Arundel] had an audience with the Queen of Hungary and Archduke Leopold, the emperor’s second son. There is nothing noteworthy about the archduke’s palace apart from its spacious courtyard. Visiting the archduke’s lodging the following day, we saw only a few pictures.” Cited in Brown, 148. Hervey (Life of Arundel, 370) says this remark suggests that the Archduke had “already acquired some reputation” in art collecting, hence the astonishment at finding so little in the Archduke’s place in Vienna.
[2] Teniers homed in on the Earl of Pembroke’s gallery where he bought some pictures like Titian’s Venus and Cupid with an Organ Player. Teniers irritated Cardenas, the Spanish ambassador, but he must have been useful as a connoisseur. Most of Tenier’s pictures were sent to Fuensaldana in Brussels who then then passed them on to other Spanish collectors including Philip IV. Fuensalda also bought pictures in Antwerp like Van Dyck’s Continence of Scipio The painting ended up in Philip IV’s collection but is now in Christchurch Gallery, Oxford.
[3] Leopold III through his go-between brother may have been trying to buy back imperial property. After the death of Rudolph II in 1612, 115 paintings which he had left to his brother the Archduke Albert were removed to Flanders in 1616, and subsequently sold off. Several of these later appeared in Buckingham’s collection, possibly via Rubens. Philip McEvansoneya, “The Sequestration and Dispersal of the Buckingham Collection”, Journal of the History of Collections, 8, no. 2, (1996), 133-154, 142.
[4] McEvansoneya, “The Sequestration and Dispersal of the Buckingham Collection”, 136.
[5] For example, a letter cited by McEvansoneya from Jan van der Hoecke: “His Highness has said to me that when he comes to Antwerp he wishes to see all the most beautiful things that can be seen in Antwerp in the art of painting, and that he wishes to buy all the most beautiful things that suit him best, according to his own taste.”
[6] For this, see the exhibition catalogue to David Teniers and the Theatre of Painting, ed. Ernst Vegelin van Claerbergen and others (Courtauld Institute, London, 2006). The Theatrum was most successful; five editions have been identified (1660, 1673, 1684, c. 1700 and finally 1755). The first edition was produced at Tenier’s own expense.
[7] David Teniers, 25. The printed copies of Italian paintings divide into five different sizes
[8] Brown, Kings and Connoisseurs, 162. Teniers listed these in an “appended list of principally Northern artists represented in the Archduke’s collection.” David Teniers, 19. According to an inventory drawn up in Vienna in 1659, Archduke Leopold owned 517 Italian paintings and 880 paintings from the Dutch, Flemish and German schools.
[9] From Met’s website: “?Jeanne d'Albert de Luynes, comtesse de Verrue (until d. 1736; her estate sale, Paris, March 27, 1737, for Fr 1,755); marquis de Brunoy (until 1776; his anonymous sale, Joullain fils, Paris, December 2, 1776, no. 30, as "Lendemain des Noces," with "Accords flamands," for 10, 999.19 livres, to Merle); Lord Radstock (until 1810; sold to Bonnemaison); [François Bonnemaison, 1810–11; sold to Penrice]; Thomas Penrice, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk (1811–d. 1816); Mrs. Penrice, Great Yarmouth (by 1826–at least 1829); by descent to John Penrice, Great Yarmouth (until 1844; his sale, Christie's, London, July 6, 1844, no. 9, as "Le Lendemain des noces," for £519, to Nieuwenhuys); marquès de Salamanca, Madrid and Paris (until 1867; his sale, Paris, June 3–6, 1867, no. 120, for Fr 24,000); comte Cornet de Ways Ruart, Brussels (until 1870); William T. Blodgett, Paris (from 1870; sold half share to Johnston); William T. Blodgett, Paris, and John Taylor Johnston, New York (1870–71; sold to MMA).”
[10] “Pallas’s gifts are Leopold’s own. Bravely and gently he devotes himself here to arms, there to the arts.The arms belong to another time. Artists surround him now with beautiful forms, for he very much likes his crown. With art a true likeness is painted, without it an ordinary one; This hand made a likeness only with submission.” 
[11] The towers in the background are thought to be his country seat “Three Towers”, (Drij Toren) which he acquired in the 1650s, Brown, Kings and Connoisseurs, 183.
[12] Teniers may have met Hollar in Antwerp where Hollar lived between 1644 and 1652, but the motivation for using Hollars’s print for the Theatrum Pictorum remains unknown.  The curators of the Teniers exhibition say that “In adapting Hollar’s large copper plate, Teniers may also have sought to save time and costs.”
[13] The original is in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, (Leopold’s) and another reduced version is in the Courtauld (David Teniers, no. 22). A painting of the Good Samaritan is mentioned by Viscount Feilding in a list sent to Hamilton (March, 1636). In June 1637, Feilding sent a different list of paintings in “Bartolomeo della Nave study”. Ernst Vegelin van Claerbergen thinks two versions were involved, one now in the KH, Vienna. Teniers not only selected it for the TP but included it in three of his gallery views for the archduke (Petworth, Prado and the KH, Vienna). It found further fame in other illustrated books, in the 18th century.
[14] As observed previously, Viscount Feilding wrote to Hamilton on the subject of Guido Reni’s heads. “…the Helanas head of Guido Reno is of his schoole, but thought to be touch’d by him, but for St Peeter’s head I am assur’d itt is an original, and am promis’d a certificate thereof from Guido Rheno, and that itt is of his most fierce and best way.” Spear comments: The original (in Vienna) “…appears to be an autograph variant of a very similar canvas in the Prado, indicating that, in this instance anyway, Fielding was not misled.” The Divine Guido, 239.
[15] The tale intended to demonstrate the power of love. As Iphigenia sleeps in a grove by the sea, a noble, but coarse and unlettered Cypriot youth, Cymon, seeing Iphigenia's beauty, falls in love with her. Cymon, by the power of love, becomes an educated and polished courtier. This is not given the “Cimon and Iphigenia” in Buckingham’s collection, but it might be the “Hermit with a Naked Woman” which hung in the “Vaulted Room” in York House, Randall Davies, “An Inventory of the Duke of Buckingham’s Pictures at York House”, Burlington Magazine, Vol. 10, no 48, (March 1907), 376- 382, 380.
[16] Thought to have been painted for a certain Antwerp merchant called Niclaes Jonghelinck. Probably there were originally 12 pictures representing the months of the year. Five enumerated in Leopold’s collection. In his 1660 “catalogue” of Leopold’s collection, Teniers speaks of “six pictures representing the variety (diversitié) of the Twelve Months by the old Bruegel.”  Wolfgang Stechow, Breughel,  (Thames and Hudson), 1990, 86, where Stechow says the present pictures represents the month of January.  
Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)