Ascanius Survives

NOTES

• The observation goes back to Arnold Houbraken (De Groote Schouburgh der Nederlantsche Konstschilders en Schilderessen. 3 vols. Amsterdam, 1718–1721), but it has come back recently for discussion and evaluation. For example, see Cornelis, Bart. ‘Arnold Houbraken's Groote schouburgh and the canon of seventeenth-century painting’, Simiolus 26 (1998), 3, pp. 145–161. Also, Hecht, Peter. ‘Rembrandt and Raphael back to back: the contribution of Thoré,’ ibid., pp. 162–178.
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• The painting is oil on canvas, 24 × 29 1/2 in. (61.0 × 74.9 cm). Signed with the monograms DvW and AE, and Asanius. It was purchased from Otto Naumann, Ltd., New York, with funds from the Marriner S. Eccles Foundation for the Marriner S. Eccles Masterwork Collection of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts in Salt Lake City, Utah, Acc. 1995.010.001. A shorter version of some parts of this article appeared in a Utah Museum of Fine Arts brochure produced for the first public exhibition since the acquisition: Muller, Sheila D., ‘Enlightened by Peace, Amsterdam Inspires the Arts’: A Painted Allegory byDomenicus van Wijnen (1661-ca. 1700). Salt Lake City, 1998.
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• The biographies of Domenicus van Wijnen and Willem Doudijns are included in Van Gool, Johan. De Nieuwe Schouburg der Nederlandtsche Kunstschilders en Schilderessen. 2 vols. The Hague, 1750–1751. Facsimile reprint, Soest, 1971, vol. 2, pp. 451–454, and vol. 1, pp. 5157, respectively. Van Gool mentions Doudijns's ‘two magnificent houses’, on the north side of the Buitenhof, adorned with life-sized sculptures of Hercules and Flora, and his ‘grand painting studio’ where he worked on commissions from The Hague's civic magistrates and for noble patrons. Van Gool wrote that, within one year of joining the fraternity of artists in The Hague, Doudijns was elected ‘Hooftman’ in 1662, and held the office of ‘Deken van de Kamer’ several times. He was one of the first directors of The Hague drawing academy, which opened in 1682.
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• Van Gool, De Nieuwe Schouburg, vol. 2, pp. 451–452.
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• See Hoogewerff, G.J. De Bentvueghels. The Hague, 1952.
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• Van Gool, De Nieuwe Schouburg, vol. 2, p. 452.
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• Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 452–453.
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• Ibid., vol. 2, p. 454. See Hoogewerff, De Bentvueghels, pp. 111, 167, and Pl. 23–24. The painter Cornelis de Bruyn (1652–1727), whose Schildersbent nickname was Adonis, published an account of his stop in Rome in his journal, Reizen door de vermaardste deelen van Klein Azie’. (Delft, 1698), and illustrated it with the engravings made by M. Pool after Van Wijnen's drawings. Jan Willem Salomonson discussed and reproduced three engravings and a painting that may the original for one of them. Salomonson, Jan Willem. ‘Dominicus van Wijnen: Ein interessanter “Einzelgänger” unter den niederländischen Malern des späten 17. Jahrhunderts’. Niederdeutsche Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte 24 (1985), pp. 137–141, figs. 26–29.
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• ‘Lageher, Weerhaen, Lantaren, Slempop’ are identified among the portraits in Van Wijnen's depictions of the Schildersbent. Van Gool, De Nieuwe Schouburg, vol. 2, p. 454. See also Vries, Lyckle de. Diamante Gedenkzuilen en Leerzaeme Voorbeelden: Een bespreking van Johan van Gools Nieuwe Schouburg. Groningen, 1990, p. 69. A catalogue of the Schildersbent members with their nicknames was compiled by Hoogewerff, De Bentvueghels, pp. 131–146.
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• In the Aeneid, Virgil's Latin epic poem, Aeneas, descended from Venus and Anchises, after exile from Troy, sends his fair young son, Ascanius, to conquer Latium and found the Julian line, thus opening the way for the development of Rome.
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• The analogy was used for others as well. Van Gool, De Nieuwe Schouburg, vol. 1, pp. 172–173, in a biography of Van Wijnen's contemporary, Theodoras Netscher (1661–1732) who was trained as a painter by his father, Kasparus Netscher, quotes Vondel on Ascanias following in Aeneas's footsteps to say that even as a youngster Theodoras had no trouble keeping up with his father.
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• In the biography of Jacobus de Baen (1673–1700) in De Nieuwe Schouburg, vol. 2, pp. 467–468, Van Gool relates how the young artist was received by the Grand Duke of Tuscany in Florence and shown his art collection, which included a self-portrait by Jacobus's father, Jan de Baen, next to a portrait of Willem Doudijns. The young artist was told that both portraits had been commissioned earlier for the Duke's gallery of famous painters in Europe. Cf. De Vries, Diamante Gedenkzuilen, p. 180.
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• Salomonson, Jan Willem. ‘Dominicus van Wijnen: Ein interessanter “Einzelgänger” unter den niederländischen Malern des späten 17. Jahrhunderts’, Niederdeutsche Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte 24 (1985), pp. 107–170. See also note 8 above.
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• Salomonson, p. 120, fig, 12; and p. 135, fig. 24. The painting in Warsaw is signed ‘Ascanius’; the Dublin painting is signed ‘DvW AEscanius’. Potterton, Homan. Dutch Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Paintings in The National Gallery of Ireland: A Complete Catalogue. Dublin, 1986, pp. 185–187. Salomonson, ‘Dominicus van Wijnen: Ein interessanter “Einzelgänger”’, pp. 119–131, gave a detailed explanation for the subject of the Warsaw painting. For an interpretation of the Dublin painting, see Blankert, Albert, et al. Gods, Saints and Heroes: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1980, pp. 288–289.
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• Salomonson, ‘Dominicus van Wijnen: Ein interessanter “Einzelgänger”’, pp. 141–143, 152, observed that the setting in a rustic inn makes this painting the closest in form and content to Van Wijnen's representations of the Schildersbent. Therefore, it was probably painted in the same period (i.e., 1685–1690). See also Ember, Ildikó. Nederlandse 17de eeuwse schilderijen uit Boedapest. Cologne: Wallraf Richartz Museum, and Utrecht; Centraal Museum, 1987, p. 142, no. 49.
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• Based on the absence of documentation and few citations of works in eighteenth-century auction catalogues, Salomonson believed that Van Wijnen might not have been active for very long after his return. Salomonson, ‘Dominicus van Wijnen: Ein interessanter “Einzelgänger”’, pp. 152–153. The artist's date of death is not known.
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• Salomonson, ‘Dominicus van Wijnen: Ein interessanter “Einzelgänger”’, p. 133–134, fig. 23.
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• Sterk, J.F.M., et al., eds. De Werken van Vondel. Amsterdam, 1927–1940. Vol. 5, p. 710. Quoted in Salomonson, ‘Dominicus van Wijnen: Ein interessanter “Einzelgänger”’, p. 159, note 87.
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• Lucifer was once reprinted just before the end of the seventeenth century and again reprinted just after; Salmoneus was reprinted in 1685 and 1696. Schuytvlot, A.C. Catalogus van Werken van en over Vondel gedrukt vóór 1801 en aanwezig in de Universiteitsbibliotheek van Amsterdam. Bibliotheca Bibliographica Neerlandica, Vol. 25. Amsterdam, 1987, pp. 195, 197.
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• Van Gool, De Nieuwe Schouburg, vol. 2, pp. 453–454. Van Overbeek was well connected to serve Van Wijnen's ambition. According to Van Gool, Van Overbeek may have been a pupil of Gerard de Lairesse, and supplied the artist with drawings and casts that he brought back from Rome. As a consequence he was a welcome visitor at De Lairesse's home and studio. He also remained close to other artists whom he had met in Rome. Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 154–171.
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• Vondel, Joost van den. Gijsbrecht van Amstel. Translated, with an Introduction and Notes, by Kristiaan P.G. Aercke. Ottawa, 1991, esp. pp. 25–36.
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• Vondel, Joost van den. Op den gedenkpenning van den overval. = Op den gedenkpenning van den afval. [Amsterdam, 1650]. See Schuytvlot, Catalogue van Werken van en over Vondel gedrukt vóór 1801, p. 115, no. 382.
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• Van Wijnen's The Punishment of Salmoneus, containing Vondel's invented characters, elicits the comparison that Vondel made many times for his own work, citing classical authors for authority, between the dramatic poet who creates ‘speaking painting’ on the stage (in the static performances called vertooningen or tableaux vivants) and the visual artist who creates painting that is ‘voiceless poetry’. Schenkeveld, Maria A. Dutch Literature in the Age of Rembrandt. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1991, pp. 119–121.
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• Salomonson, ‘Dominicus van Wijnen: Ein interessanter “Einzelgänger”’, pp. 152; 164, note 152. Because Salomonson could not find any mention of the painting after the eighteenth century, he listed it among the lost works; see p. 166, no. C.20. The earliest record is in the auction of Jacob van Hoek, Amsterdam, April 12, 1719, no. 21: ‘Daer de vreede haer zeegen over Amsterdam en de vrije zeevaert stort, en den oorlog gekluywerd, van Aseaan, konstig geschildert’ (Peace sheds her blessing over Amsterdam and free navigation, and war is entangled, by Ascanius, ingeniously painted). The painting appeared again later at the auction of J. de Roore, The Hague, September 4, 1747, no. 132; and again in the auction of a Paris dealer (Musier), May 2, 1774, no. 24. The description given on the last occasion was simply ‘Une allégorie de la ville d'Amsterdam par Ascanius’.
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• Construction of the Town Hall, designed by Jacob van Campen, and the exterior sculptural decoration by Artus Quellinus were substantially completed by 1680, about the time that Van Wijnen left for Italy. The interior decoration, begun in earnest even before the roof was on, was taking longer than expected to accomplish. Amsterdam's magistrates could anticipate further delays with a war to support in the 1690s.
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• Such lighting devices are standard in Baroque allegory, with numerous examples to be found among the paintings that Van Wijnen might have seen in Roman churches and palaces. An interesting, nearer source of influence, especially given the idea of divine will and earthly agency that is involved, along with some close compositional similarities, is the engraved dedication page for Martin Martinus, S.J.'s ‘Novus Atlas Sinensis’ (New Chinese Atlas) in Johan Blaeu, Le Grand Atlas of 1663. (See The Third Centenary Edition of Johan Blaeu Le Grand Atlas; ou Cosmographie blaviane. 12 vols. Amsterdam, 1663-. Facsimile edition, Amsterdam, 1967–1968, dedication page to vol. 11.) At the top left of the engraving, a light that is beaming from the initials IHS in the sky is directed onto the Speculum Sine Maculae (a mirror held up by the Virgin Mary who wears the papal tiara as personification of the Church), and is reflected down to ignite the torch of faith that is held up by' a putto, whose pose is similar to Van Wijnen's artist, on a stone ledge. Below, more putti in front of a stone wall and open gate hold up a map and use surveyors' tools to measure a globe and distance into the landscape. Martinus's dedication of his atlas, the sum of his travel and study, was to Archduke Leopold Willem, a renowned patron and collector of art who was governor of the Southern Netherlands between 1641–1661.
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• ‘Amsterdam Supreme’, the theme of the west pediment, shows the Stadsmaagd seated in the centre with her arms outstretched (similar to her position in Van Wijnen's painting) and her foot resting on a globe. On the peak of the cornice directly above her, Atlas stands supporting a world globe on his shoulders. Atlas's position in relation to the Stadsmaagd below him echoes that of the Vredesmaagd on the cornice above the Stadsmaagd on the east pediment. For the symbolic decoration and its meaning in connection with the building and its function, see Fremantle, Katharine. The Baroque Town Hall of Amsterdam. Utrecht, 1959. Also informative is Kistemaker, Renée and Roelof van Gelder. Amsterdam: The Golden Age 1275–1795. New York, 1982, pp. 100–101.
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• The art-theoretical concepts in the Netherlands go back to Karel van Mander's Schilder-Boeck. Haarlem, 1604. See Melion, Walter S. Shaping the Netherlandish Canon. Chicago, 1991, esp. pp. 65–66, 22–23.
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• Blankert, Albert and Rob Ruurs. Amsterdams Historisch Museum: Schilderijen daterendvan voor 1800. Amsterdam, 1975–1979, pp. 167–168, no. 219 (A 8214). For the importance of the commission in the artist's career, with an analysis of the painting's iconography, and its significance as a demonstration of his art theory, see Vries, Lyckle de. Gerard de Lairesse: An Artist between Stage and Studio. Amsterdam, 1998, pp. 43–48.
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• These are among the main opinions of De Lairesse, expressed in his art and in his art-theoretical writings, that De Vries discusses, places in context, and clarifies. See, for example, De Vries, Gerard de Lairesse, pp. 103, 138, 141–142. This book, which I discovered later in my research, was welcome reinforcement for my observations about Van Wijnen's work.
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• Until recently it has been difficult to tell the difference between the two artists' works, even when signed. An example is the painting in Warsaw's National Museum, discussed above, which in spite of being signed ‘Ascanius’ was attributed to Gerard de Lairesse until 1970. Europäische Malerei des Barock aus dem Nationalmuseum in Warschau. Braunschweig: Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, 1989, p. 91.
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• For De Lairesse's objections to fijnschilderijen and his ideas about illusionism see De Vries, Gerard de Lairesse, esp. pp. 127–128.
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• In any case, the Amsterdam magistrates were apparently not in a hurry to reassign the commission that they had given to De Lairesse. The lunette in the Burgerzaal was filled with a painting made by two of his pupils in 1708. Roy, Alain. Gerard de Lairesse, 1640–1711. Paris, Arthena, 1992, p. 324.
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• Roy, Gérard de Lairesse, pp. 358–360.
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• Ibid., p. 359, identifies the figure standing behind Minerva, wearing a crown in the shape of a town, and sacrificing at an altar as the personification of Protestant Religion, which the armies of Willem III and Mary II Stuart were sent to defend in the War of the League of Augsburg (1689–1697).
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• Lairesse, Gerard de. Groot Schilderboek, Waar in de Schilderkonst in al haar deelen grondig werd onderweezen, ook door Redeneeringen en Prentverbeeldingen verklaard. 2nd edition. 2 vols. Haarlem, 1740. Facsimile reprint, Doornspijk, 1969, vol. 1, pp. 118–119. Also, De Vries, Gerard de Lairesse, p. 111.
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• On the theory of art as imitation of a perfected nature, see Lee, Rensselaer W. Ut pictura poesis: The Humanist Theory of Painting. New York, 1967. On the reception of Italian humanist theory in the Netherlands at the time of Van Mander, see Melion, Shaping the Netherlandish Canon, esp. pp. 129–142.
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• Another image that the Maid of Amsterdam in Van Wijnen's painting recalls is the title print, attributed to Salomon Savery, that accompanied the publication of Vondel's poem on the Inwydinge van't Stadhuis (Inauguration of the Town Hall, Amsterdam, 1655 (Schuytvlot, Catalogus van Werken van en over Vondel gedrukt vóór 1801, p. 64, no. 200). There, the Maid, with flowing veil but no crown, sits on a high pedestal, with the river gods of the Amstel and IJ below. In her left hand she holds up architect's tools (compass, t-square, plumb line), and with her right hand she supports a model of the Town Hall that rests upon her knee. Around her feet are sculptor's tools and a map globe. Four putti fly in the air: two on the left blow on trumpets; one on the right wears Mercury's hat and carries his caduceus, while the other next to him hugs a fruit cornucopia.
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• When appealing to sixteenth and seventeenth-century rulers to curb the power of the guilds and let the arts freely flourish, humanist authors and artists composed allegories in which Minerva, Jupiter or Hercules defend the arts against Invidia (Envy) or Ignorantia (Ignorance). Warnke, Martin. The Court Artist: On the Ancestry of the Modern Artist. Cambridge, 1993, p. 67. In the Allegory of Amsterdam, Ignorance holds onto a mask as he falls, which may be Van Wijnen's way of showing that Ignorance often masks itself, and is thus worse for practising deceit.
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• It is interesting that the earliest recorded owner of Van Wijnen's painting was the wealthy merchant Jacob van Hoek (1671–1718), who lived on the Keizersgracht between the Leidsestraat and the Leidsegracht in Amsterdam. Salomonson published the information that Van Wijnen's Allegory of Amsterdam was one of the paintings in the auction of Van Hoek's collection on April 12, 1719 (Salomonson, ‘Dominicus van Wijnen: Ein interessanter “Einzelgänger”’, p. 164, note 152). An advertisement for the auction in the Amsterdamsche Courant, February 12, 1719, described the collection as ‘een schoon Kabinet van konstige uytmuntende Schilderyen, met groote kosten en moeiten by een vergadert, en naergelaten door wylen de Heer Jacob van Hoek….’ (A beautiful Cabinet of ingenious, excellent paintings, with great expense and difficulty gathered together, and left behind by the late Mr. Jacob de Heer….) Among the artists whose works it included, in addition to ‘Askaen’, was ‘Ger. Laerissen’. Dudok van Heel, S.A.C. ‘Ruim Honderd Advertenties van Kunstverkopingen uit de Amsterdamsche Courant 1712–1725’, Jaarboek van het Genootschap Amstelodamum 69 (1977), pp. 113–114, no. 189. Even though Van Hoek's collection was well known to Arnold Houbraken (Cornelis, ‘Arnold Houbraken's Groote schouburgh and the canon of seventeenth-century painting’, pp. 147–148), the only works by Van Wijnen mentioned by Houbraken are those that he made of the Roman Schildersbent, and that later became known through Matthys Pool's engravings. Houbraken, De Groote Schouburgh, vol. 2, p. 347. See also Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. Quellenstudien zur Holländischen Kunstgeschichte: Arnold Houbraken und seine ‘Groote Schouburgh’, Kritisch Beleuchtet. The Hague, 1893, p. 182.
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• Middle-class prosperity in Amsterdam did, indeed, produce a great supply and demand for butter. In a recent study that analyzed the economic data from 1639–1812 for the Amsterdam Burgerweeshuis (Municipal Orphanage), one of the charitable institutions that paid Jacob van Campen to design and construct the Amsterdam Schouwburg and later collected the theater receipts as part of its income, Anne McCants has shown that the orphans and staff could expect about 25 percent of the calories in their diet to come from dairy products even in the worst years. Since it was the mission of the Burgerweeshuis regents to ensure that their orphan charges had a good, middle-class diet, the high consumption of dairy products (butter, cheese, buttermilk, whole milk) and meat, and the relatively low consumption (compared with other European countries) of bread, is significant. McCants's calculations show that for the period 1680–1710, 28 percent of calories in the typical middle-class urban diet in Amsterdam came from dairy products, and 14.4 percent of that came from butter. McCants, Anne E. C. Civic Charity in a Golden Age: Orphan Care in Early Modem Amsterdam, Urbana and Chicago, 1997, esp. p. 44, Table 2. The figure in Van Wijnen's painting has her hair arranged like two horns on the top of her head which, with the butter that she holds, bring to mind attributes associated with the Well-fed Milk Cow, the popular emblem of Holland. By the end of the seventeenth century, it had become common in national-historic imagery to represent the Batavian Lion (symbol of the United Provinces) and the Milk Cow (symbol of Holland) together. Van Wijnen retains the Lion, an appropriate companion to monarchy, but invents a female personification to represent Holland, thus demonstrating his commitment to history painting and to its first rule of using the human figure to represent an ideal. Rounds of cheese and butter are used in the decoration of the cartouches that identify the maps of Rhenolandia and Amstellandia, and that of Amstelodami in Johan Blaeu's Le Grand Atlas, vol. 4. Another suggestion—that the object being held up by the figure is a helmet or a liberty cap—seems not to fit either the context or the form, which is not open underneath and rests flat on the hand of the figure.
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• The outstanding example is Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), who in his correspondence with scholars and courtiers, and in his paintings for European royalty, eloquently raised the issue again and again. See Magurn, Ruth Saunders. The Letters of Peter Paul Rubens. Cambridge, Mass., 1955, esp. pp. 408–409, Letter 242. In this letter Rubens makes the point in a description of his allegorical painting The Horrors of War, 1637–1638, Palazzo Pitti, Florence.
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• The reference in the composition to scales being weighed is, of course, a familiar feature of depiction's of the Last Judgment. It is used for profound dramatic effect in Michelangelo's fresco of the Last Judgment, 1534–1541, in the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican, Rome. In Netherlandish paintings, St. Michael the Archangel is often represented holding the scales and acting like the fulcrum between them as he weighs souls for Christ's judgment of the saved and the damned.
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• Night is one of the four allegorical figures that Michelangelo designed for the tombs of Lorenzo and Giuliano de'Medici in the Medici Chapel, 1519–1534, Church of San Lorenzo, Florence. The Rebellious Slave, ca. 1513, Musée du Louvre, Paris, was intended for the tomb of Pope Julius II in St. Peter's in Rome. Both tomb projects were never completed. The sculptures were well known in Europe through drawings and engravings made in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
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• My thanks to Harry Berger, Jr., for introducing me to his concept of revisionary allusion, which he defines as directionally opposite to influence, which occurs when one artist comes after another and, responding to tradition, copies, imitates or emulates the prior artist's work, style or example. Berger writes, ‘Unlike influence, revisionary allusion is a practice, and more specifically, a preposterous practice, a perversely palimpsestuous practice’. An artist whose work quotes or alludes to the prior work as an emphatic feature of itself is practicing conspicuous revisionary allusion. A fuller account of the concept will appear in Professor Berger's forthcoming book on Rembrandt's ‘allusionary negotiations with Italian painting’. (Correspondence with Harry Berger, Jr., April 6, 1999.)
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• Vondel, Gijsbrecht van Amstel, Translated by Aercke, p. 58, lines 47–55.
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