Issuu

february 2022

NEW RESEARCH ON ART AND ITS HISTORY

FEBRUARY 2022

In search of Van Eyck’s workshop Art of conservation: Jan Cornelis Traas and the Van Gogh family collection | British portraits of a Danish king A Netherlandish altarpiece in Clerkenwell | Hogarth, race and empire | Sophie Taeuber-Arp in New York

the burlington magazine no. 1427 vol. 164 COVER_FEB22.indd 2

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KOETSER GALLERY

FRANS HALS 1582/83 – Haarlem – 1666 Portrait of a young man holding his gloves Oil on an oval panel, 25 x 18.5 cm

Recently sold to the Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection, designated for the Centre for Netherlandish Art (CNA) at The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA INQUIRIES: KOETSER GALLERY, TALSTRASSE 37, 8001 ZURICH, SWITZERLAND T : +41 44 211 5240 E : DAVID@KOETSERGALLERY.COM KOETSERGALLERY.COM

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NEW TITLES &

HARVEY MILLER PUBLISHERS The Drawings of Peter Paul Rubens

A Critical Catalogue, Volume One (1590–1608) By Anne-Marie Logan & Kristin Lohse Belkin

This is Volume I of the three-volume catalogue raisonné of all drawings considered by the authors to be by Rubens. It is the ﬁrst publication that presents the artist’s entire drawn oeuvre in chronological order, previous such publications containing only selections of drawings. By leaﬁng through the illustrations, this arrangement provides the user with a quick visual impression of the variety of techniques, media, subject and functions of Rubens’s drawings at any one time.

2 vols, 536 p., 260 col. ills, ISBN 978-2-503-59570-2

Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard XIX.3

Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard XX.2

Portraits of Unidentiﬁed and Newly Identiﬁed Sitters Painted in Antwerp

Study Heads By Nico Van Hout

By Katlijne Van der Stighelen & Hans Vlieghe 2 vols, 680 p., 340 b/w ills, 150 col. ills, ISBN 978-1-912554-65-2

410 p., 75 b/w ills, 60 col. ills, ISBN 978-1-912554-63-8

Many Antwerp Hands: Collaborations in Netherlandish Art Edited by Abigail D. Newman & Lieneke Nijkamp 242 p., 80 col. ills, ISBN 978-1-912554-73-7

Questioning Pictorial Genres in Dutch Seventeenth-Century Art

Deﬁnitions, Artistic Practices, Market & Society

The Ghent Altarpiece

Research and Conservation of the Interior: The Lower Register By Griet Steyaert, Marie Postec, Jana Sanyova & Hélène Dubois 210 p., 420 col. ills, ISBN 978-2-930054-41-4

Images and Indulgences in Early Netherlandish Painting By Miyako Sugiyama

Edited by Marije Osnabrugge 402 p., 130 colour ills ISBN 978-2-503-59624-2

iv + 193 p., 10 b/w ills, 126 col. ills, ISBN 978-1-912554-58-4

info@brepols.net – www.brepols.net – Tel: + 32 14 44 80 20 Available in the UK through: direct.orders@marston.co.uk Available in North-America through: orders@isdistribution.com

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Call for

articles 2022

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Burlington Contemporary is a free-access, digital platform that publishes a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal. The fifth issue was published in November 2021 and we are now seeking article submissions for Journal Issue 6.

details can be found on contemporary.burlington.org.uk. Before submitting an article, potential contributors should submit a 150-word synopsis to the Contemporary Art Editor: lloyd@burlington.org.uk.

Submissions, which should be no longer than 5,000 words, should be based on original unpublished research and deal with the work of living artists, or with work made since 1960. All articles will be subject to peer review. Further

Deadline for Issue 6: 14th February 2022 Image: Tattooing with Rose Wallpaper, by Martha Edelheit. 1963. Oil on canvas, 68.6 by 129.5 cm. (Courtesy Eric Firestone Gallery, New York; DACS, London, 2021).

the burlington magazine | 164 | february 2022

18/01/2022 10:58

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Modern & Contemporary British & Irish Art Auction Tuesday 15 February

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Simiolus In the most recent volume of Simiolus, we have published a previously unknown Van Eyck document and a detailed study on the identity of the male sitter in the Arnolfini portrait (definitely not Giovanni). We also revealed the identity of the family portrayed in Adriaen van Ostade’s famous picture in the Louvre, and published an evaluation of the archival sources on the living conditions of the northern Netherlandish painters in seventeenth-century Italy – to mention just a few of the papers in volume 43 (2021). In the concluding issue you will find – among much else – the reason for the hitherto unexplained presence of the monumental Atlas on Amsterdam’s seventeenth-century Town Hall and a study of the career of the unscrupulous art dealer Leo Nardus, who merrily sold masterpieces as well as fakes to some of the greatest collectors of the gilded age.

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www.roseberys.co.uk 70/76 Knights Hill, London SE27 0JD | +44 (0) 20 8761 2522

Netherlands quarterly for the history of art Simiolus has been critically serving the history of Netherlandish art for over fifty years now. It is published in English, and pays for the cost of translation of papers submitted in Dutch, German, French or Italian which we have agreed to produce. But to go on providing that service while retaining our very modest subscription fee, we do need your support. So please urge your library to subscribe or continue subscribing, and/or take out a subscription yourself! Institutions pay € 100 a year and individuals pay € 60 – for volumes of over 300 pages. Visit our site at Simiolus.nl for the conditions of subscription and information on how to advertise, where to send your copy and how to order the backsets not yet in JSTOR.

THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE | 164 | FEBRUARY 2022

18/01/2022 11:01

NEW & NOTABLE

Underworld Imagining the Afterlife in Ancient South Italian Vase Painting

The Sun King at Sea Maritime Art and Galley Slavery in Louis XIV’s France

Edited by David Saunders

This richly illustrated volume, the first devoted to maritime art and galley slavery in early modern France, shows how royal propagandists used the image and labor of enslaved Muslims to glorify Louis XIV.

Abundantly illustrated, this essential volume examines depictions of the Underworld in southern Italian vase painting and explores the religious and cultural beliefs behind them.

Dominicus Lampsonius

Antiquarians of NineteenthCentury Japan The Archaeology of Things in the Late Tokugawa and Early Meiji Periods

Edited and translated by Edward H. Wouk

Hiroyuki Suzuki Edited and translated by Maki Fukuoka

Available for the first time in English, these two key texts are among the earliest written on the history and theory of Netherlandish art.

Bold and innovative, this volume explores the changing process of evaluating objects during the period of Japan’s rapid modernization.

The Life of Lambert Lombard (1565); and Effigies of Several Famous Painters from the Low Countries (1572)

getty.edu/publications

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Monique Kornell, with contributions by Thisbe Gensler, Naoko Takahatake, and Erin Travers At the intersection of science and art, this illustrated volume explores themes of anatomy from the Renaissance to modern times

Holbein Capturing Character Edited by Anne T. Woollett Best known for his stunning portraits of nobles, ladies, scholars, and merchants, this catalogue explores the vibrant visuals and intellectual approach of German artist Hans Holbein.

Getty Publications

Meredith Martin and Gillian Weiss

Flesh and Bones The Art of Anatomy

12/24/21 AM 18/01/20229:11 10:37

feb22page6.qxp_Internet and Contacts 18/01/2022 10:52 Page 1

C O N T @ C T S

2022 SCHOLARSHIP for the study of French 18th-century fine and decorative art INVITATION FOR APPLICATIONS The Burlington Magazine is pleased to announce its fifth annual scholarship for the study of French 18th-century fine and decorative art. The scholarship has been created to provide funding over a 12-month period to enable the development of new ideas and research that will contribute to this field of art historical study.

T R I N I T Y F I N E A RT 15 old bond street london w 1s 4 a x www.trinityfineart.com

info @trinityfineart.com +44 (0)20 7493 4916

Research funded by this scholarship may lead to the submission of articles for publication in the Magazine: as such, the panel are looking for object related research, of the kind that the Burlington publishes. Applicants must be studying, or intending to study, for an MA, PhD, post-doctoral or independent research in the field of French 18th-century fine and decorative arts within the 12-month period the funding is given. Applications are open to scholars from any country.

Daniel Katz Gallery f r o m a n t i q u i t y t o t h e 2o t h c e n t u ry

www.katz.art

A grant of £10,000 will be awarded to the successful applicant. Deadline for applications is 25 March 2022 and the successful applicant will be notified by 31 May 2022. For application guidelines and terms and conditions please visit our Academic Noticeboard at www.burlington.org.uk

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Contents

Volume 164 | Number 1427 | February 2022

Books 212 213 214

215 216

217

Editorial 119

Looking forward

Articles 120

130 145 155 164

Margaret van Eyck, a house called ‘The Wild Sea’ and Jan van Eyck’s posthumous workshop by JAN DUMOLYN, SUSAN FRANCES JONES, WARD LELOUP, TOON DE MEESTER and MATHIJS SPEECKE The ‘Weston Altarpiece’ in the Museum of the Order of St John, Clerkenwell by RICHARD WEST ‘The crucifixion of St Peter’: Gerard Seghers, Michelangelo and Caravaggio by ANNE DELVINGT Christian VII of Denmark’s lost British portraits by SARA AYRES THE ART OF CONSERVATION XVII: Jan Cornelis Traas as a conservator of Van Gogh by ELLA HENDRIKS

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Shorter Notices 178

180

Colossal orders and a Classical façade: Hoefnagel and Nonsuch revisited by MARTIN BIDDLE The finding of the infant Bacchus: Godfried Maes by LARS HENDRIKMAN

Exhibitions Sophie Taeuber-Arp: Living Abstraction by LYNNE COOKE 188 Émailler le verre à la Renaissance: Sur les traces des artistes verriers entre Venise et France by SYLVIE LHERMITE-KING 190 Venezia 1600: Births and Rebirths by CAMILLA PIETRABISSA 192 Caravaggio e Artemisia: la sfida di Giuditta. Violenza e seduzione nella pittura tra Cinquecento e Seicento by KEITH CHRISTIANSEN 195 New galleries of Dutch and Flemish art by IVAN GASKELL 198 Hogarth and Europe by RICHARD STEMP 201 Late Constable by MARK EVANS 204 The Morozov Collection: Icons of Modern Art by ROSALIND P. BLAKESLEY 206 Laura Knight: A Panoramic View by SALLY BEAZLEY-LONG 209 Carrie Moyer and Sheila Pepe: Tabernacles for Trying Times by ANNE SWARTZ

218 219 221 222

184

Rembrandt: Landschaftszeichnungen / Landscape Drawings, A. Gnann by CHRISTOPHER WHITE Treasury, Memory, Nature: Church Objects in the Middle Ages, P. Cordez by TOM NICKSON Die Bronze, der Tod und die Erinnerung. Das Grabmal des Wolfhard von Roth im Augsburger Dom, G. Lutz and R. Müller, eds by PAUL WILLIAMSON Watermarks: Leonardo da Vinci and the Mastery of Nature, L.A. Geddes by FRANCIS AMES-LEWIS Painting in Stone: Architecture and the Poetics of Marble from Antiquity to the Enlightenment, F. Barry by MARYL B. GENSHEIMER Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768): Ein Europäisches Rezeptionsphänomen / Fenomeno Europeo della Ricezione O. Dally, M. Gazzetti and A. Nesselrath, eds by CLARE HORNSBY Gemalte Kunstgeschichte: Bildgenealogien in der Malerei um 1800, L. Kuhn by ROBERT SKWIRBLIES Horace Pippin, American Modern A. Monahan by COLIN RHODES Art and the Nation State: The Reception of Modern Art in Ireland, R. Kennedy by PHILIP McEVANSONEYA Iconoclasm and the Museum, S. Boldrick by THOMAS STAMMERS

Obituary 223

Christian Theuerkauff (1936–2021) by MARJORIE TRUSTED

224

AMONG THIS MONTH’S CONTRIBUTORS

Cover Detail of Panoramic map of Bruges, by Marcus Gerards. 1562. (p.124). Above left Detail of St Jerome in his study, by the workshop of Jan van Eyck. 1442. (p.122). Left Cast of an original seal of John Weston. c.19th century. (p.141). Above right Circle picture, by Sophie Taeuber-Arp. 1931. (p.186).

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www.burlington.org.uk

Editor Michael Hall

Managing Director Andrew Dunn

www.contemporary.burlington.org.uk

Reviews Editor Alexandra Gajewski

Advertising & Development Director Mark Scott

14–16 Duke’s Road, London wc1h 9sz Tel: 020–7388 1228 Email: burlington@burlington.org.uk Editorial Tel: 020–7388 8157

Contemporary Art Editor Kathryn Lloyd Assistant Articles Editor Sarah Bolwell Assistant Reviews Editor Lisa Stein Editorial Assistant, Burlington Contemporary Freddie Nelson Art Editor Tzortzis Rallis

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The Burlington Magazine is owned and published by Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd. Registered in England, company no.790136. Registered charity in England and Wales no.29502. Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd is owned and supported by the Burlington Magazine Foundation CIO (charity no.1187286) and the Burlington Magazine Foundation Inc., a not-for-profit company incorporated in the State of New York, USA. Directors, BMPL Caroline Campbell Craig Clunas fba Simon Swynfen Jervis fsa John Nicoll, Chairman Nathanael Price Andrea Rose cmg obe Desmond Shawe-Taylor lvo Anna Starling Paul Williamson obe fsa frhists Alison Wright

Trustees, BMF CIO Dawn Ades cbe fba Hugo Chapman Elizabeth Cropper Gabriele Finaldi David Landau cbe John Nicoll, Chairman Sir Nicholas Penny fba fsa Jane Portal fsa Andrea Rose cmg obe Desmond Shawe-Taylor lvo Paul Williamson obe fsa frhists

Directors, BMF Inc. Andrew Dunn Colin B. Bailey Joseph Connors Lynne Cooke Elizabeth Cropper John Nicoll, Chairman Duncan Robinson cbe Patricia Rubin John Walsh

the burlington magazine foundation’s benefactors and supporters Contributing institutions The Morgan Library & Museum, New York • The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston • Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth • Fondation Custodia, Paris • The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York • The J. Paul Getty Museum Director’s Council Supporters Charles Booth-Clibborn Commercial supporters Bridgeman Images John Sandoe Books Ltd The European Fine Art Foundation (TEFAF)

Benefactors The Michael Marks Charitable Trust Timothy Llewellyn obe Richard Mansell-Jones Past benefactors Samuel H. Kress Foundation The late Gilbert de Botton The Deborah Loeb Brice Foundation • Christie’s • Sir Harry Djanogly cbe • Francis Finlay The J. Paul Getty Trust Nicholas and Judith Goodison Daisaku Ikeda • Jerwood Charitable Foundation • The late Paul Z. Josefowitz • Samuel H. Kress Foundation • Robert Lehman

Foundation Inc. • The Leverhulme Trust • John Lewis obe • The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation • The late Jan Mitchell • The Monument Trust Stavros S. Niarchos Foundation Mr and Mrs Brian Pilkington Mrs Frank E. Richardson Sir Paul Ruddock fsa • The Coral Samuel Charitable Trust Nancy Schwartz • Madame Andrée Stassart • The late Saul P. Steinberg • Thaw Charitable Trust Past supporters The Ahmanson Foundation Arts Council England • Janet de Botton • Gifford Combs

The late Hester Diamond Mark Fisch • The Frick Collection, New York • The J. Paul Getty Junior Charitable Trust Global Asset Management Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation The Lady Heseltine The Isaacson-Draper Foundation The Pilgrim Trust • The Rayne Foundation • Billy Rose Foundation The Rt. Hon. Lord Rothschild om gbe fba • The Sheldon H. Solow Foundation Waddington Custot Galleries • Patricia Wengraf The Wyfold Foundation Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

consultative committee Dawn Ades cbe fba David Anfam Colin B. Bailey David Bindman Christopher Brown cbe Richard Calvocoressi cbe Lorne Campbell Lynne Cooke Caroline Elam

David Franklin Julian Gardner fsa Elizabeth Goldring frhists Christopher Green fba Tanya Harrod Simon Swynfen Jervis fsa C.M. Kauffmann fba Rose Kerr Felix Krämer

Alastair Laing fsa Shane McCausland Elizabeth McGrath fba Robin Middleton Jennifer Montagu cbe lvo fba fsa Peta Motture fsa Sir Nicholas Penny fba fsa J.M. Rogers fba fsa Pierre Rosenberg

John-Paul Stonard Deborah Swallow Gary Tinterow Julian Treuherz Simon Watney Sir Christopher White cvo fba Paul Williamson obe fsa frhists

Although the members of the Consultative Committee give invaluable assistance to the Editor on their respective subjects, they are not responsible for the general conduct of the Magazine.

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Editorial Looking forward

hanks to the pandemic, 2022 has stepped nervously into history. As we go to press, museums in Denmark have just reopened, but those in the Netherlands remain closed; the museums of Dresden, in common with all of Saxony, are still shut. In France, Italy and the United Kingdom, museums remain open, albeit with constraints, such as having to book visits or produce vaccination certificates. In New York, museums are open, but all visitors aged five and older must show proof of vaccination status. Among the many art fairs to have been postponed is the European Fine Art Fair in Maastricht, in that case to a date to be announced. Yet despite the grey news and, in the northern hemisphere, grey skies, the mood is shifting: it really does seem as though the pandemic is nearing its end. It is therefore with a degree of optimism that we look forward to some of the highlights of the coming year – and after almost two years in which we have been living a largely digital life make no apology for the fact that these are all physical experiences: pages to be turned, buildings to be visited, art to be enjoyed in real life. february Not surprisingly, museums counting the cost of long closures are banking even more than usual on big names to draw visitors to exhibitions this year. Vincent van Gogh features prominently, beginning with Van Gogh: Self-Portraits at the Courtauld Gallery, London (3rd February–8th May) – astonishingly, it is the first exhibition on the subject to cover the artist’s whole career. Among those that study a lesser known aspect of a great artist is Jacques-Louis David, Radical Draftsman at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (17th February–15th May), the first exhibition dedicated to David’s works on paper. The lively interest, both popular and scholarly, in Artemisia Gentileschi has resulted in a number of exhibitions – the latest is reviewed by Keith Christiansen in this issue (pp.192–95) – and a monograph by Sheila Barker, Artemisia Gentileschi (Lund Humphries; 1st February), which discusses recent archival discoveries and newly attributed paintings as well as highlighting the painter’s engagement with emerging ideas about the dignity of womanhood.

march A contender for the title of exhibition of the year, Donatello: The Renaissance opens at Palazzo Strozzi and the Bargello in Florence (19th March –31st July) before travelling in smaller iterations to the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (2nd September–8th January 2023), and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, in 2023. In Florence around 130 works will be shown that as well as representing all stages of the sculptor’s career will examine his influence on artists in other media. Two museums reopen this month after being closed for major refurbishments: the Musée de Cluny, Paris, where the collections have been redisplayed on a chronological rather than the previous thematic basis, and the Burrell Collection, Glasgow, where the building, opened in 1983, has been refitted to provide over a third more display space. april One of the casualties of the pandemic in 2020 was the exhibition Raphael planned by the National Gallery, London, to mark the fivehundredth anniversary of the artist’s death, so it will be a particular pleasure to welcome its opening this month (9th April–31st July). The exhibition will range across his entire career including architecture, poetry

and designs for sculpture, tapestry and prints and well as his paintings and drawings. To coincide with the exhibition a monograph by Paul Joannides, Raphael, is being published in Thames & Hudson’s World of Art series. One sign that the world is returning to normal will be the revival of the parties that traditionally accompany the opening of the Venice Biennale (23rd April–27th November). The British representative this year is Sonia Boyce, whose work in drawing, photography, video and installation, using images and sounds captured during the participatory art events she initiates, will be the subject of a book, Sonia Boyce: Feeling her Way by Emma Ridgway and Courtney J. Martin (Yale University Press). may A blockbuster by any definition, Cézanne, which opens at the Art Institute of Chicago this month (15th May–5th September) and travels to Tate Modern, London (6th October–12th March 2023), is the first major retrospective of the artist’s work in the United States in more than twentyfive years. It will explore the artist’s work across media and genres with ninety oil paintings, forty watercolours and drawings and two complete sketchbooks. Postponed from its usual March slot, the Salon du Dessin will be at the Palais Brongniart, Paris, from 18th–23rd May. A highlight will be an exhibition organised by the Musée du Grand Siècle of some fifty drawings ranging from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, selected from the 3,500 that Pierre Rosenberg has given to the Hauts-de-Seine Department. One of the most intriguing-sounding books of the year is Culture as Scandal: The Hermitage Story by Geraldine Norman and Mikhail Piotrovsky, which will cover ‘restitution issues, controversial sales and purchases, thefts, fluctuating attributions, the fight over new art, corruption associated with the construction of new buildings and politically motivated scandals’. How frank will it really be? june A number of museums are marking the 150th anniversary of Piet Mondrian’s birth in 1872 with exhibitions: Mondrian Moves at the Kunstmuseum den Haag, The Hague (2nd April–25th September), explores his place in a circle of artist friends; Mondrian. Evolution at K20, Düsseldorf (22nd October-10th February 2023), examines his move into abstraction; and his entire career is surveyed in Mondrian at Fondation Beyeler, Basel (5th June–9th October). On 11th June Norway’s new National Museum opens in Oslo, bringing together the collections of the National Gallery, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design in a building designed by the German architects Kleihues + Schuwerk. A book that justifiably invites the epithet ‘long-awaited’ is Charles Hope’s mighty Titian: Sources and Documents (Ad Illisum, in partnership with The Burlington Magazine), which publishes all known documents about Titian and his work dating from his lifetime, and all known references to him in contemporary publications. july–december From the summer onwards dates become vaguer but any round-up of the year’s highlights would include the openings of the Hong Kong Palace Museum in July, The Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, in ‘late 2022’ and towards the end of the year the extension of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, which almost doubles the display space. For details of the autumn’s exhibitions, go to the calendar ‘What’s On’ on our website, burlington.org.uk/whats-on/. the burlington magazine | 164 | february 2022

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Margaret van Eyck, a house called ‘The Wild Sea’ and Jan van Eyck’s posthumous workshop Understanding of the transition in painting in Bruges between the death of Jan van Eyck in 1441 and the early career of Petrus Christus has been hampered by uncertainty about the size, location and fate of Van Eyck’s workshop, which some scholars argue was continued by his widow, Margaret. Reassessment of the evidence suggests a new terminus ante quem for its closure. by jan dumolyn, susan frances jones, ward leloup, toon de meester and mathijs speecke

emarkably little is known about Jan van Eyck’s workshop, including its size, location and date of closure. It is widely accepted that the workshop would not have stopped trading immediately on Van Eyck’s death, which seems to have occurred towards the end of June 1441; however, it is not clear how long it remained operative or who took over the workshop’s management, whether his widow Margaret, his surviving brother, Lambert, or a trusted workshop assistant. Before the 1990s it was believed that Petrus Christus (d.1475/76), Van Eyck’s principal follower in Bruges, had been a member of his workshop, but this idea was later rejected, and the nature of their relationship remains obscure, although it was clearly fundamental to Christus’s artistic identity. All these problems impede proper understanding of the transition in Bruges painting between Van Eyck’s workshop of the 1430s and the subsequent This article is a collaborative effort: Jan Dumolyn, Ward Leloup, Mathijs Speecke and Toon De Meester conducted new archival research on The Wild Sea house (De Wilde Zee), Susan Frances Jones addressed the evidence for the various paintings referred to in the article and both Jones and Dumolyn re-examined the evidence for Jan van Eyck’s workshop and family. The authors are very grateful to Lorne Campbell and Catherine Reynolds for reading a draft of this article and making improvements to the text. 1 For a useful overview of methodological approaches to late medieval and early modern workshops, see S. Cassagnes-Brouquet: ‘Les ateliers d’artistes au Moyen Âge: entre théorie et pratiques’, Perspective: Actualité en histoire de l’art 1 (2014), pp.83–98. A foundation for a complete visual and technical reassessment of Jan van Eyck’s œuvre has been created by the VERONA project (Van Eyck Research in OpeN Access), based at the KIK-IRPA (The Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage) in Brussels, for which, see http://closertovaneyck.kikirpa.be/, accessed 11th January 2022. 2 The documents are in Stadsarchief,

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Bruges (hereafter cited as SAB), Oud Archief (OA), 216, Rekeninghe van de tresoriers van der stede van Brugge van 2 September, 1431, tot 1 September, 1432, fol.78r; and Archives Départementales du Nord, Lille, Série B, 1948: Compte de la recette générale des finances du 1 Janvier au 31 Décembre, 1433, fol.viijxxviijv. They are published in W.H.J. Weale: Hubert and John van Eyck: Their Life and Work, London 1908, pp.xxxviii, no.18 and xxxix, no.20; and J. Paviot: ‘La vie de Jan van Eyck selon les documents écrits’, Revue des archéologues et historiens d’art de Louvain 23 (1990), pp.83–93, p.88 and notes 36 and 37. Since the amounts of both gratuities are divisible by five, Campbell suggested that Van Eyck had five assistants at that time, see L. Campbell: National Gallery Catalogues: The Fifteenth Century Netherlandish Schools, London 1998, p.23. For the idea that Van Eyck had twelve assistants, see, for example, T.-H. Borchert: Jan Van Eyck, Hong Kong, Cologne, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Paris and Tokyo 2008, p.69; idem: ‘The Ghent Altarpiece and the workshop of the Van Eyck brothers’, in S. Kemperdick and J. Rößler, eds: Der Genter Altar –

phase, dominated by Christus. This article seeks to clarify this short but complex period. It begins by reassessing documentary evidence for the number of assistants in Van Eyck’s workshop and proceeds to reconsider the question of the posthumous workshop, presenting new research on Jan’s widow, Margaret, and a house in Bruges she is reputed to have owned, called The Wild Sea (De Wilde Zee). As such, it addresses the topic of Van Eyck’s workshop partly from the point of view of its material structure and physical location.1 Attempts have been made to extrapolate the number of assistants in Van Eyck’s workshop from records in account books of gratuities given to them in Bruges on two separate occasions in 1432, one by the two burgomasters of Bruges along with members of the city council and the other by Van Eyck’s patron Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy on a visit to Van Eyck’s ‘hostel’, most probably the workshop at his house.2 Reproduktionen, Deutungen, Forschungskontroversen, Petersberg 2017, pp.158–61, p.158 and note 4. 3 For a useful look at categories of assistant and relevant terminology, see H. Deceulaer and A. Diels: ‘Artists, artisans, workshop practices and assistants in the Low Countries (fifteenth to seventeenth centuries)’, in N. Peeters: Invisible Hands?: The Role and Status of the Painter’s Journeyman in the Low Countries c.1450–c.1650, Leuven 2007, pp.1–32, at pp.13–22. 4 For the document, see Weale, op. cit. (note 2), p.xxxix, no.20; and Paviot, op. cit. (note 2), p.88, notes 36 and 37. The visit probably took place late in 1432, between September and December. There has been some debate about whether the duke went to Van Eyck’s premises or vice versa. J. Duverger: ‘Jan van Eyck as court painter’, The Connoisseur 194 (March 1977), pp.172– 79, at pp.176–77, thought that the term ‘son hostel’ implied the duke’s palace in Brussels, but Paviot has shown that the painter’s workshop at his house is more likely. For the money of account used in these documents, see P. Spufford: Monetary Problems and Policies in

the Burgundian Netherlands, 1433– 1496, Leiden 1970, p.17. 5 For the document on Van der Weyden, see J. Guillouet: ‘Deux volets peints par van der Weyden pour l’abbaye Saint-Aubert de Cambrai’, Bulletin de la Commission historique du Département du Nord 47 (1993), pp.9–17, p.14. 6 The authors are grateful to those who generously lent their expertise on this question: Erik Aerts, Professor Emeritus at the KU Leuven; and the late Peter Spufford, formerly Professor Emeritus of European History at the University of Cambridge, who both favoured the idea that standard silver coins would have been used. 7 The kromstaart was valued at 2 groats in the pound Flemish, or pound groat; in the pound of 40 groats, it was valued at 1 shilling. See E. Aerts and H. Van der Wee: Vlaams-Brabantse muntstatistieken 1300–1506. Deel 1. De aanmuntingsgegevens van de zilvermunten, Leuven 1980, pp.58–59. For further details regarding these documents, see J. Dumolyn, N. Geirnaert and M. Speecke: ‘“Giovanni da Bruggia”: Jan van Eyck in Brugge (1425– 1441)’, in T.-H. Borchert, ed.: Jan van Eyck in Brugge, London forthcoming.

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According to the accounts, the tips were given to Van Eyck’s ‘cnapen’ (in Dutch) or ‘varlets’ (in French). A systematic linguistic study of these terms and their usage in guild records shows that they are generic terms that can mean either apprentice boy or journeyman. In account books, where the precise status of these persons of lesser importance was no issue for the clerks registering such gratuities at the end of a year by copying a pile of receipts, the distinction would not have been made. This article therefore will use the anachronistic but pragmatic translation ‘workshop assistants’ to include the two possible categories.3 The documents in each instance do not record the denomination or number of the actual physical coins that were distributed but rather the equivalent value in money of account: the clerk who recorded the expenses in the city accounts, which use the pound Flemish or pound groat, valued the tip given by the city officials at 5 shillings of Flemish groats (or 60 groats); the accounts of the Burgundian recette générale, which for the most part use the pound of 40 groats, valued the duke’s tip at 25 sols (shillings).4 Gratuities might sometimes be given in gold coins – Rogier van der Weyden’s wife and his ‘ouvriers’, for example, were given a tip in écus d’or when they delivered a retable to Cambrai in 1459 – but gold coins are usually explicitly recorded in accounts, specifying both the type of coin and its value.5 Where such information is not provided, it is reasonable to assume that the tip was made in silver coins, which were

in common use. It is most likely that the coins used for these tips to the assistants in 1432 – the year before Philip the Good introduced a unified system of coinage in his disparate territories – were the silver double groats known as kromstaarten (because the obverse showed a lion rampant with a curved tail, or ‘gekromde staart’).6 The number of coins that were distributed is clear from the value of the kromstaart in the two different monies of account: in short, the city government would have given out 30 kromstaarten, and the duke of Burgundy a total of 25.7 If, as appears likely, ‘round numbers’ of coins such as five or ten would have been distributed, this could give us five assistants (each of whom received five coins from the Duke), but it also allows for six (each of whom received five coins from the city government), or even only three (who would have been handed ten coins each from the city). The number of workshop assistants could also have changed between the first occasion and the second. The question of the workshop’s size or organisation can also be investigated through other kinds of document. In a decree of 1441 and a related lawsuit still ongoing in 1487, the master painters of Bruges sought to reduce competition from those in Sluis by regulating the number of ‘dieninghe’ – the latter could use to two or three at most – with ‘dieninghe’, in 1. The Virgin and Child with St Barbara, St Elizabeth and Jan Vos, by Jan van Eyck, possibly with workshop. c.1441–43. Oil on masonite, transferred from panel, 47.3 by 61.3 cm. (Frick Collection, New York).

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2. St Jerome in his study, by the workshop of Jan van Eyck. c.1442. Oil on linen paper on panel, unframed 20.6 by 13.3 cm. (Detroit Institute of Arts; © KIK-IRPA, Brussels).

this context, apparently signifying two journeymen and one apprentice.8 From this we can infer that Bruges masters regularly employed two or more journeymen themselves: a reasonable estimate might be a workshop of three or four journeymen and an apprentice. Other South Netherlandish masters are recorded using similar numbers of journeymen: in 1454, for example, the painters Jacques Daret (c.1404–c.1470) and Daniel de Rijke (active 1440–82) worked on preparations for court festivities with four and three journeymen respectively.9 Furthermore, the complex

documentation concerning the Tournai painter Robert Campin indicates that when he was sentenced to a year’s banishment on 30th July 1432 he was working with three or four journeymen.10 These sources on painters are broadly in keeping with studies by socio-economic historians on workshop sizes in the artisanal world of the Southern Low Countries of the period, as well as other trades, which have always emphasised the importance of small and medium-size workshop.11 In this context, it is also worth remembering that earlier in his career, when he had a permanent position in the service of John of Bavaria, Count of Hainaut-Holland, Van Eyck was also working with only a few assistants, as was common in his day. Accounts of the comital treasury running from 1422 to 1424 show regular payments to Van Eyck that mostly appear under the rubric ‘Pantgelt’.12 In 1422/23 the accounts record a payment to Van Eyck and one assistant (‘Jan den maelre [. . .] ende sijnen knecht’); in 1423 there are payments to ‘Johannes die scilder ende sijnre knechten’, indicating more than one assistant, and in 1423/24 two assistants are specified: one ‘who works with him’ (‘sinen knecht die met hem werct’) and ‘another assistant’ (‘een ander knecht’).13 Whether these documents record all of the assistants Van Eyck employed at the time is open to question, but whether or not that is the case, they suggest a relatively small-scale operation. Taking all this into account, it is reasonable to assume that in the 1430s Van Eyck had somewhere between two and six assistants, perhaps changing according to the circumstances of production or the kinds of work executed. All this evidence makes it unlikely that Van Eyck’s workshop exceeded the average size of a master painter’s workshop of the period by any great degree. It is true that his position of valet de chambre to the duke of Burgundy exempted him from guild regulation, but this did not mean that he had special freedom to employ more journeymen than did guild members, as the Bruges guild of image-makers and saddlers, to which the city’s painters belonged, set no limit on the number of journeymen that a master painter might employ (although it did restrict master painters to training only one apprentice at a time).14 In addition to his workforce, Van Eyck may also have received visiting painters who came to learn, potentially including Southern European painters who required training in the oil medium. One possible candidate is Lluís Dalmau, a painter active in Valencia who was in Flanders between 1431 and 1436.15 The evidence that Van Eyck’s workshop continued to function after his death relies on the dating of just two or three paintings and is more fragile than often assumed. Documents published by Hendrik Jan Joseph Scholtens in the 1930s allow for the possibility that the Virgin and Child with St Barbara, St Elizabeth and Jan Vos (Fig.1) was painted or completed between 30th March 1441 and 3rd September 1443 and thus almost entirely after Van Eyck’s death; however, they do not in

8 The authors thank Catherine Reynolds for bringing this lawsuit to their attention. For the decree of 5th November 1441, see L. Gilliodts-Van Severen: Inventaire des archives de la ville de Bruges, Section Première, Inventaire des chartes, Bruges 1871– 85, V, pp.231–51, at p.248; for the arbitral proceedings, W.H.J. Weale: ‘Inventaire des chartes et documents appartenant aux archives de la corporation de S. Luc et S. Eloi à Bruges’, Le Beffroi: Arts, Héraldique, Archéologie 1 (1863), pp.214–20. On the dispute, see also C. Reynolds: ‘Illuminators and the painters’ guilds’, in T. Kren and S. McKendrick, eds: exh.

enrolled in the guild as independent masters; a third did so on 18th October. All three had registered in Campin’s shop as ‘apprentices’ in 1427, but in actuality they were probably journeymen. A fourth member of the workforce, who registered as an apprentice in 1431, never became a free master at Tournai, see A. Châtelet: Robert Campin: Le Maître de Flémalle. La fascination du quotidien, Antwerp 1996, pp.26–29. 11 See for example Deceulaer and Diels, op. cit. (note 3), pp.9–13. See also N. Peeters and J. Dambruyne: ‘Some introductory remarks on

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cat. Illuminating the Renaissance: The Triumph of Flemish Manuscript Painting in Europe, Los Angeles (J. Paul Getty Museum) 2003, pp.15–33, at p.17. 9 L. Campbell: ‘The early Netherlandish painters and their workshops’, in D. Hollanders-Favart and R. Van Schoute, eds: Le Dessin sous-jacent dans la peinture, Colloque III, 6–7–8 septembre 1979, Le problème Maître de Flémalle-Van der Weyden, Louvain-la-Neuve 1981, pp.43–61, at pp.49–50. 10 Only days after the sentence two members of Campin’s workforce (including Rogier van der Weyden)

journeymen in painters’ workshops in the Southern Netherlands c.1450–c.1650’, in Peeters, op. cit. (note 3), pp.ix–xxiv, at p.xviii, citing a hypothesis of M. Martens and N. Peeters that the average workshop in Antwerp between 1500 and 1579 had between five and seven people, comprising the master, apprentices and journeymen. 12 A.-M.J. van Egmond: ‘Materiële representatie aan het Haagse hof 1345–1425’, unpublished PhD thesis (University of Amsterdam, 2019), pp.235–38. This is an elaboration of idem: ‘Dirc die maelre en Jan van Eyck: Een ambachtsman en een kunstenaar

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themselves exclude production in the 1430s.16 The date ‘1442’ inside the pictorial field of St Jerome in his study (Fig.2) may well be the date either of the painting’s execution or of its completion. It does not, at any rate, show that the painting is a forgery, an idea disproved by recent technical analysis.17 A final work, now lost, which has traditionally been regarded as an unfinished work by Van Eyck is the Virgin of Niklaas van Maelbeke, destined for St Martin’s church in Ypres, the composition of which is preserved in two fifteenth-century silverpoint drawings (Figs.3 and 4). The hypothesis that the painting had been left unfinished by Van Eyck at his death arose in the early nineteenth century and has since become entrenched in the literature, but the in Den Haag’, Geschiedkundige Vereniging Die Haghe, Jaarboek (2014), pp.11–28. The present authors are most grateful to A.-M.J. van Egmond for providing access to her most recent analysis of the documents. The documents are also discussed in Weale, op. cit. (note 2), pp.xxvii–xxviii, no.1; and Paviot, op. cit. (note 2), pp.83–84. 13 The documents are transcribed in full in Van Egmond 2019, op. cit. (note 12), pp.299–300, appendix 10. 14 For sources on journeymen and their regulation, see N. Peeters with the collaboration of M. Martens: ‘Assistants in artists’ workshops in

the Southern Netherlands (fifteenth and sixteenth centuries)’, in Peeters, op. cit. (note 3), pp.33–48, at p.35 and note 10. For restrictions on journeymen numbers in other crafts, see G. Des Marez: L’Organisation du travail à Bruxelles au XVe siècle, Brussels 1904, pp.64, 70–71 and 212– 13. On the regulation of Bruges apprenticeships, see Campbell, op. cit. (note 9), pp.47; and D. van de Casteele: Keuren 1441–1774, Livre d’admission 1453–1574, et autres documents inédits concernant la Ghilde de StLuc, de Bruges suivis des Keuren de la corporation des peintres, sculpteurs et verriers de Gand

3. Virgin and Child with a kneeling cleric. South Netherlandish, 15th century. Silverpoint on prepared paper with areas of light yellow wash, 13.4 by 10.2 cm. (Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg). 4. Virgin and Child with a kneeling cleric. South Netherlandish, 15th century. Silverpoint on prepared paper with areas of light yellow wash, 27.8 by 18 cm. (Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna).

evidence is questionable. When the sixteenth-century writer Marcus van Vaernewijck described the painting as incomplete (‘onvuldaen’), he referred specifically to wings then attached to the centre panel – and these were not necessarily by Van Eyck. The only other evidence for the painting’s state rests in the silverpoint drawings, which omit exactly 1541–1575, Bruges 1867, p.19. 15 N. Salvadó et al.: ‘Mare de Déu dels Consellers, de Lluís Dalmau. Una nova tècnica per a una obra singular’, Butlletí del Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya 9 (2008), pp.43–61; S.F. Jones: ‘Jan van Eyck and Spain’, Boletín del Museo del Prado 32 (2014), pp.30–49, pp.32–33; and B. Fransen: ‘Van Eyck in Valencia’, in C. Currie, L. Preedy et al., eds: Van Eyck Studies, Papers presented at the Eighteenth Symposium for the Study of Underdrawing and Technology in Painting, Brussels, 19–21 September 2012, Paris, Leuven and Walpole MA 2016, pp.469–78, at pp.476–77.

16 H.J.J. Scholtens: ‘Jan van Eyck’s “H. Maagd met den kartuizer” en de Exeter-Madonna te Berlijn’, Oud Holland 55 (1938), pp.49–62. 17 For the scientific and technical evidence for the painting’s authenticity, see B. Heller and L.P. Stodulski: ‘“Saint Jerome” in the laboratory: scientific evidence and the enigmas of an Eyckian panel’, Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 72 (1998), pp.38–55; the study did not attempt ‘to verify the date’s age or originality by invasive analytical means’, but its authors observed that it predated the development of the ‘crackle pattern’, for which, see ibid., p.49.

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the same parts of the design and must therefore go back to a single model. Most scholars have concluded that the drawings are copies made from the surface of the Van Maelbeke Virgin, which had been kept in the workshop in an unfinished state. On these grounds, it has been proposed that the painting was completed by Van Eyck’s journeymen after Jan’s death and that this occurred as late as 1445, the year of Van Maelbeke’s death;18 it has also been argued, however, that the drawings are not copies of an unfinished painting at all but rather deliberately omit select features from a finished model.19 Further, an eighteenthcentury transcription of Van Eyck’s name and the date on the painting, although problematic in its own right, permits the argument that the painting was designed, painted and delivered to Ypres all within Van Eyck’s lifetime.20 18 See, for example, Borchert, op. cit. (note 2), p.72 and figs at pp.72 and 75– 76; idem: ‘Petrus Christus after Jan van Eyck and workshop. “The Virgin and Child with a donor” (copy of the “Maelbeke Madonna”) c.1445–50’, in idem, ed. with contributions by J. Chapuis et al.: exh. cat. Van Eyck to Dürer: Early Netherlandish Paintings and Central Europe 1430–1530, Bruges (Groeningemuseum) 2010, pp.153–55, at p.153. 19 S.F. Jones: ‘The use of patterns by Jan van Eyck’s assistants and followers’, in S. Foister, S.F. Jones and D. Cool, eds: Investigating Jan van Eyck, Turnhout 2000, pp.197–207, p.197–98; and S.F. Jones: ‘New evidence for the date, function and historical significance of Jan van Eyck’s “Van Maelbeke Virgin”’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 148 (2006), pp.73–81, at p.73.

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20 Jones 2006, op. cit. (note 19), pp.73–81. 21 J. Bruyn: Van Eyck Problemen. De Levensbron: Het werk van een leerling van Jan van Eyck, Utrecht 1957. 22 M.J. Friedländer: Early Netherlandish Painting. I. The Van Eycks and Petrus Christus [1924], transl. H. Norden, comments and notes by N. Veronée-Verhaegen, repr. New York and Washington 1967, p.81; E. Panofsky: Early Netherlandish Painting, its Origins and Character, New York, Hagerstown, San Francisco and London 1971, pp.187–90; and Bruyn, op. cit. (note 19), pp.100 and 115–21. Bruyn argued instead that two other paintings, the Lamentation in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, and the lost Crucifixion formerly in the Anhaltinische Gemäldegalerie, Dessau,

5. Detail of Panoramic map of Bruges, by Marcus Gerards, showing the city centre. ‘A’ marks the location of the Sint Gillisnieuwstraat (now called the Gouden-Handstraat) and ‘B’ the location of the Oostmeers. North is towards the lower left. 1562. Modern coloured offset of a copper engraving assembled from ten sheets, 177 by 100 cm. (www. kaartenhuisbrugge.be/Kaart).

As with other master painters, the historiography of Jan van Eyck’s workshop in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries attributed most of the extant paintings to the hand of the master. Systematic study of anonymous ‘pupils’ began only in the 1950s, most notably in Josua Bruyn’s Van Eyck Problemen, published in 1957.21 The book re-examined the influential hypothesis put forward by both Max J. Friedländer and Erwin Panofsky that Petrus Christus had been one of Van Eyck’s ‘pupils’. Bruyn broadly supported these views but, interestingly, showed a direct relationship between Christus and Van Eyck. 23 Friedländer, op. cit. (note 22), p.81; M.P.J. Martens: ‘Petrus Christus: a cultural biography’, in M. Ainsworth, ed. with contributions by M.P.J. Martens: Petrus Christus: Renaissance Master of Bruges, New York 1994, pp.15–23, at p.15; and J.M. Upton: Petrus Christus: His Place in Fifteenth-Century Flemish Painting, University Park and London 1990, p.7. 24 Panofsky, op. cit. (note 22), p.188. 25 For Van Eyck’s children, see Weale, op. cit. (note 2), pp.xl, no.22, xlvii, no.31 and xlix, no.36; and Paviot, op. cit. (note 2), p.90. 26 J.K. Steppe: ‘Lambert van Eyck en het portret van Jacoba van Beieren’, Mededelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen,

Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, Klasse der Schone Kunsten 44 (1983), pp.53–86. The document is an early seventeenth-century inventory of the castle of Arenberg at Heverlee, near Leuven, drawn up for Karel van Croÿ (Charles de Croÿ), the fourth Duke of Aarschot (d. 1612), entitled Recueil et Registre du Chateau D’Heverlé de toutes les places et Chambres étans en icelui, Leuven, KU Leuven, University Archives, B.H. 76.2. 27 Steppe, op. cit. (note 26), pp.60, 62 and 85. 28 T.-H. Borchert: ‘Introduction, Jan van Eyck’s workshop’, in idem, ed.: exh. cat. The Age of Van Eyck: The Mediterranean World and Early Netherlandish Painting 1430–1530, Bruges (Groeningemuseum) 2002, p.25; idem: ‘Being there: Jan van Eyck and Petrus

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he disagreed with Panofsky’s attributions to Christus, dismissing Panofsky’s view that Christus collaborated on the Detroit Jerome and painted the Frick Virgin.22 Christus is first documented in Bruges on 6th July 1444, some three years after van Eyck’s death, when he paid to become a burgher (poorter) of the city. It is recorded in the register in which new burghers were inscribed (‘Poorterboek’) that he took this step ‘om[m]e scilde[re] te zine’ – in order to set himself up as the master of an independent workshop – which necessitated becoming a burgess of the city.23 Panofsky placed Christus in the posthumous workshop, arguing that he oversaw production in the workshop’s last years ‘in the name of the widow until such time as he established himself in his own right’.24 The posthumous management of the business has always been at issue because Van Eyck’s children were too young to inherit it: one of them (of unknown gender) was born in 1434 and was thus no more than seven years old when Van Eyck died.25 In 1983 the terms of the debate changed when Jan Steppe published a description in an early seventeenth-century inventory of a lost portrait of Jacqueline of Bavaria by Lambert van Eyck, which suggested that Lambert too was a painter.26 Since Lambert was certainly in Bruges between March and June of 1442, Steppe proposed that he was one of Van Eyck’s executors and that he took over his brother’s workshop, running it until around 1450.27 A date around 1450 for the workshop’s closure has sometimes been accepted.28 Susan Jones, however, raised the possibility that the workshop closed earlier, since Van Eyck’s house in Bruges changed hands between 24th June 1443 and 24th June 1444.29 Her proposal was that the workshop was wound down in the early 1440s, possibly by Lambert or alternatively by Jan’s widow, Margaret, as the guild regulations allowed for the widow of a master painter to inherit his rights and privileges.30 As scholarship moved away from the figure of Petrus Christus and towards Van Eyck’s surviving family members in the course of the 1980s and 1990s, Christus’s own career was also reassessed. In the mid-1990s, it was argued – and widely accepted – that Christus could not have been one of Van Eyck’s journeymen because he acquired the status of burgess by payment on 6th July 1444, whereas if he had already lived in Bruges for more than one year and one day he would have become a burgess automatically.31 Art historians during this period therefore argued that Christus’s career in Bruges probably began in July 1444, or only shortly beforehand. Only if Van Eyck’s posthumous workshop continued to operate after that date might Christus have been active there – and indeed, some scholars argued that Christus must have worked in a posthumous workshop still functioning in 1444–45.32 The theory that the workshop closed somewhat earlier, in the course of 1443–44, however, required an alternative explanation, such as that Christus in Bruges’, in E. Capron, ed. with M. Ainsworth and T.-H. Borchert: exh. cat. The Charter-house of Bruges: Jan van Eyck, Petrus Christus and Jan Vos, New York (Frick Collection) 2018, p.102; M.W. Ainsworth: ‘Attribution mysteries of the “Virgin and Child with St Barbara, St Elizabeth, and Jan Vos”’, in ibid. 2018, p.87. Till-Holger Borchert speculated that production took place in two successive locations: Margaret (probably in collaboration with Lambert) would have sold the house on the Sint Gillisnieuwstraat in 1444 and potentially transferred the business to new premises, remaining in business until 1450, see Borchert, in ibid. 2018, pp.101–02. 29 S.F. Jones: ‘The workshop and followers of Jan van Eyck’, unpublished PhD thesis (Courtauld Institute of Art,

London, 1998), pp.17–20 and 184–86 (distinguishing ‘a period of about two to three years during which Jan van Eyck’s workshop may have remained operative after his death’); and idem: ‘Jan van Eyck and Spain’, Boletín del Museo del Prado 32 (2014), pp.30–49, at p.45. 30 On this possible role for Jan’s widow, see, for example, Jones 2000, op. cit. (note 19), p.197; T.-H. Borchert, ‘Introduction, Jan van Eyck’s Workshop’, in idem, ed.: exh. cat. The Age of Van Eyck: The Mediterranean World and Early Netherlandish Painting 1430– 1530, Bruges (Groeningemuseum) 2002, pp.9–32, pp.15 and 25. 31 Upton, op. cit. (note 23), pp.8–19, and in particular p.9, note 9; and Martens, op. cit. (note 23), p.15.

6. Detail of the map in Fig.5, showing Van Eyck’s house on the Sint Gillisnieuwstraat, now called the Gouden-Handstraat.

Christus was in contact with former assistants of Van Eyck who had subsequently opened their own workshops.33 Resolving when the workshop closed necessitates revisiting the question of its location, and in particular whether it was in Jan van Eyck’s house on the Gouden-Handstraat in Bruges (then called the Sint Gillisnieuwstraat; see Fig.5, A). Between 1432 and 1441, he paid an annuity of 30 shillings parisis on a property on that street, due on 24th June, and his widow Margaret continued to make the payment subsequent to his death, in 1442 and 1443.34 Yet the evidence for the workshop’s location and posthumous continuity has always been complicated by a statement made by W.H. James Weale (1832–1917) that in 1444 Margaret sold the house 32 For the idea that Christus ‘participated in’ a posthumous workshop, based on the attribution to him of the Vienna drawing after the Van Maelbeke Virgin, see M.W. Ainsworth: ‘Madonna and Child with a donor’, in M.W. Ainsworth, ed. with contributions by M.P.J. Martens: exh. cat. Petrus Christus. Renaissance Master of Bruges, New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art) 1994, pp.182–84. Till-Holger Borchert has also argued that Christus made the Vienna drawing c.1445 as a member of Van Eyck’s posthumous workshop, see Borchert 2008, op. cit. (note 2), p.72 and figures at pp.75–76; and idem 2010, op. cit. (note 18), pp.153–55. More recently, Maryan W. Ainsworth has spoken of a workshop that was ‘perhaps’ still in operation when

Christus arrived in Bruges, see Ainsworth, op. cit. (note 28), pp.71–89, at p.87. 33 Jones adopted the viewpoint that since Van Eyck’s workshop likely closed before 24th June 1444, Christus probably obtained knowledge of Van Eyck’s working practice through contact with former journeymen still active in Bruges, see Jones 1998, op. cit. (note 29), pp.185–86; and Jones 2000, op. cit. (note 19), p.204. 34 See T. De Meester et al.: ‘“Meester Jans huus van Eicke”. The house, workshop and environment of Jan van Eyck in Bruges: new evidence from the archives’, in T.-H. Borchert, M. Martens and J. Dumolyn, eds: exh. cat. Van Eyck: An Optical Revolution, Ghent (Museum voor Schone Kunsten) 2020, pp.127–37, at p.130.

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in the Gouden-Handstraat and moved to a dwelling on the Oostmeers named The Wild Sea (see Fig.5, B).35 Weale claimed that she lived there until at least 1456. Weale was one of the pioneers of archival research in the study of the so-called ‘Flemish Primitives’ and his observations must be taken seriously. Uncharacteristically, however, he did not provide any reference for this information, making the evidence regarding The Wild Sea distinctly problematic: it could not be excluded that Margaret set up a posthumous workshop in a new location after selling the house on the Gouden-Handstraat, or even that the house on the Oostmeers was already in Van Eyck’s possession in the 1430s, giving him two possible workspaces. New archival research on The Wild Sea, however, has resolved this matter, and indicates that Weale, who was otherwise a meticulous Van Eyck biographer – and someone who did not shy away from castigating other scholars for their mistakes – drew some hasty and inaccurate conclusions in this instance. Although he neglected to provide his source, it is clear that he relied on the accounts of the Obediëntie of the Chapter of the Collegiate Church of St Donatian in Bruges.36 These are the same accounts that record Margaret paying the annuity on the house in the Gouden-Handstraat. A first mistake made by Weale is his claim that Margaret ‘sold’ the house: the accounts do not explicitly mention a sale, and although the house must have changed ownership between the summer of 1443 and the spring of 1444, this could also have happened by way of gift or inheritance. More seriously, Weale also appears to have jumped to conclusions regarding his principal claim that The Wild Sea house was owned by Margaret. From 1438 onwards, a certain ‘Margriete sHeex beghina’ appears in the accounts of the Obediëntie, to which she owed an annuity of 6 shillings, 9 pence and 1 poitevin on a property in one of the city’s six administrative districts (‘zestendelen’), that of Our Lady (Onze-LieveVrouw).37 This Margaret sHeex (also sHeics, sHeycx or sHeyx, the female genitive of ‘Van Eyck’) remained the owner of this estate until at least 1459–60, after which the accounts are missing.38 In later life, this beguine must have enjoyed high status, since from the mid-1440s she was referred to in records as ‘domicella’. What seems to have happened is that Weale identified this Margaret as Van Eyck’s wife and, later, widow – despite the fact that the woman in question was described in documents as a beguine even during Van Eyck’s lifetime. As beguines by definition lived a single life and took a vow of chastity, this would have entailed the couple living separately from at least 1438 onwards, but Van Eyck’s portrait of

Margaret, finished in 1439, makes this impossible, as an inscription on the frame refers to ‘my husband Jan’ (‘co[n]iu[n]x m[eu]s Joh[ann]es’) (Fig.7). Additionally, the fact that Van Eyck’s widow (‘relicta Johannis de Eyke’) and the beguine Margaret sHeex were referred to with different appellations in the same source contradicts Weale’s implicit supposition that they were one and the same person.39 The accounts of the Obediëntie provide no additional information on the house of Margaret sHeex aside from the fact that it was situated in the district of Our Lady. Luckily, however, the annuity mortgaged on the house can be traced in subsequent rent registers that yield further details. Thus, it appears from a register drawn up in 1451 that the annuity Margaret paid every year on St Bavo’s Day (1st October), was mortgaged on two singleroom houses (‘ex fundo duarum camerarum’) situated on a plot on the west side of the Oostmeers.40 The clerk compiling the register probably made a mistake in locating the houses, as a later register, dated 1543, situated the same annuity on the east side of the Oostmeers.41 At that time, the plot on which the houses were located was owned by a tanner named Pieter van den Berghe. However, none of these fifteenth- and sixteenth-century rent registers gives the house a name – or any house for that matter, as the registers of St Donatian’s merely record individual rents to be paid on each street without providing details on the individual plots of land or houses. Why then did Weale think the house was called The Wild Sea? As far as we know, the house name is first recorded in a deed of sale dated 1578. The deed concerns a house ‘formerly named De Wilde Zee’ and an adjacent dwelling whose roof ridge runs parallel to the street (‘dweersloove’) on the east side of the Oostmeers, which had until recently been owned by a certain Jozef de Roo.42 The proto-cadastral registers of the zestendelen, which start in 1580, indicate that The Wild Sea was located in the row of houses between the Zonnekemeers and the Wijngaard (Fig.8). As is the case in the deed of sale of 1578, the registers record two houses: a northern house ‘formerly joined to the adjacent property’ and a southern house, designated as The Wild Sea.43 In 1580 both houses belonged to Joos de Muelenaere; two years later his heirs sold the northern house,44 and in 1585 an outstanding debt appears to have been mortgaged on The Wild Sea in favour of a Pieter van den Berghe –

35 Weale, op. cit. (note 2), p.26; and W.H.J. Weale and M.W. Brockwell: The Van Eycks and their Art, London 1912, p.22. 36 Without giving an explicit source, Weale stated in an explanatory footnote that ‘the accounts for the following years [post 1456] are wanting’, Weale, op. cit. (note 2), p.26. The accounts were likely those of the Obediëntie of St Donatian’s – Bisschoppelijk Archief, Bruges (herafter cited as BAB), Obediëntie van Sint-Donaas, G130-131 – which Weale had used for his earlier research on Van Eyck’s house, for which, see W.H.J. Weale: Notes sur Jean van Eyck: Réfutation des erreurs de M. l’Abbé Carton et des théories de M. le Comte de Laborde suivie de nouveaux documents découverts dans les archives de Bruges, London, Brussels and Leipzig 1861, pp.6–14. These are indeed wanting, although not after 1456 as Weale claimed, but rather after 1459–60. 37 BAB, Obediëntie van Sint-Donaas, G128: rekening 1438, fol.14r. Before that date, the annual charge was paid by a certain Johannes Monachi (‘Jan de

the first stone house, all next to one another, located at the east side of the Oostmeers, between a house with a thatched roof and a stone façade belonging to the carpenter Pieter Eenhoghe to the south, and the premises of Pieter Aert, stonemason, with a stone wall at the street side, to the north’ (‘twee steenen woensten loofwijs staende met wat aerve ende plaetse van lande ter strate met eenen muere ande zuudtside daer an. Item noch up een love ende een cleen huusekin booven de eerste steede die van steenen es met een cleen houten ghevelken ande noordtside daer an al neffens malcan-dren, staende ande oostside vander strate ghenaemt de Oostmeersch tusschen een huus met stroo ghedect, hebbende eenen steenen ghevele, toebehoorende Pieter Eenhoghe, temmerman, ande zuudtside ende de aerve ende plaetse van lande hebbende een muur ter straten waert toebehoorende Pieter Aert, steenhauwere, ande noordtside’). 42 SAB, OA, 182: Verkopingen bij decreet 1561–81, fols.143v–144r. The parcel sold was described as ‘a house

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Muenc’): ibid., account 1435, fol.14r. A painter in Bruges called Jan de Meunic is recorded between 1448 and 1470, however, there was also an important ‘de Muenc’ family of carpenters in the beginning of the fifteenth century (Jan and Jacop de Muenc, among others) with properties in the nearby Goezenputstraat and Zonnekemeers. For the painter, see A. Schouteet: De Vlaamse primitieven te Brugge: bronnen voor de schilderkunst te Brugge tot de dood van Gerard David, Brussels 2004, II, pp.77–78. 38 BAB, Obediëntie van SintDonaas, G129 and G130, passim. 39 BAB, Obediëntie van SintDonaas, G129: account 1441–43, fols.14r and 15v. 40 BAB, Obediëntie van SintDonaas, A191, fol.224v. 41 BAB, Obediëntie van Sint-Donaas, A194, fol.58v. The annuity is here described as mortgaged on ‘two stone dwellings parallel to the street with some open space at the street side and a stone wall at the south side. Next, on a shelter and a small house with a small wooden façade, north of

7. Margaret van Eyck, by Jan van Eyck. 1439. Oil on oak panel, including the frame 41.3 by 34.5 cm. (Groeningemuseum, Bruges; © KIK-IRPA, Brussels).

with its belongings formerly known as The Wild Sea, with a house to the south of it, lying next to each other in the Oostmeers on the east side of the street’ (‘een huus met zijnen toebehoorten wijlen gheheeten De Wilde Zee, met een dweersloove ter zuudtzijde daerneffens staende, ten voorhoofde neffens elcanderen in de Oostmeersch an de oostzijde van der strate’). 43 SAB, OA, 138: Zestendelen, OnzeLieve-Vrouw, fols.596 bis and 597. The deed of sale designated the northern house as the Wild Sea while the 1580 register assigns this name to the southern house, a contradiction that must stem from the fact that both houses previously formed a single unit called the Wild Sea. 44 The buyer was an Inghelbrecht Vlamync, see SAB, OA, 182, Verkopingen bij decreet 1581–87, fol.151r. Earlier, Pieter van den Berghe was the owner of the houses to the north of the Wild Sea, which he sold to the same Inghelbrecht Vlamync in 1580, see SAB, OA, 138: Zestendelen, OnzeLieve-Vrouw, fols.592bis and 596.

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apparently the man who owned the house of Margaret sHeex in 1543.45 These must be the same pieces of evidence that Weale uncovered in the nineteenth century and linked together to arrive at the conclusion that Margaret sHeex’s house was called The Wild Sea. It was a premature conclusion. Among other reasons, the outstanding debt owed to Pieter and mortgaged on The Wild Sea does not necessarily prove that Pieter was once the owner of the house: it is also possible that the owner of The Wild Sea mortgaged a debt to Pieter on his property without the latter having had anything to do with the house. It is even debatable whether this Pieter van den Berghe documented around 1580 was the same man as the tanner recorded in 1543.46 All in all, the hypothesis that the house of Margaret sHeex was named The Wild Sea rests on decidedly slender foundations – and the fact that Weale, unusually, did not cite his sources may mean that he was conscious of this at some level. The idea should probably be rejected. It is impossible to identify the beguine Margaret sHeex as the wife of the master painter Jan van Eyck, but she could still have been a relative of the Van Eyck family of painters, as the sixteenth-century writers and humanists Marcus van Vaernewijck and Lucas de Heere believed that Hubert and Jan had a sister called Margaret. This sister was proficient in ‘the noble art of pictoria or painting’ and, according to Van Vaernewijck, remained a virgin for her entire life.47 The question whether this beguine Margaret sHeex was Van Eyck’s sister was raised as early as 1847 in a publication by the priest and scholar Charles Carton, who had seen the name in the rent registers.48 But this too is very unlikely, as Margaret sHeex was a well-known figure in the beguinage of the Wijngaard (St Elizabeth) in Bruges around the mid-fifteenth century. The daughter of ‘Maergrieten’ and ‘Jooris sHeics’ (who died before 1420), she rose up the career ladder at the beguinage from 1425 to 1467, and was grand mistress from 1429/30 onwards.49 These findings have several important implications. The overturning of Weale’s speculations about The Wild Sea makes it almost definite that Van Eyck’s workshop was in his house on the Gouden-Handstraat – which is now the only house in Bruges recorded in the possession of the Van Eyck family. This is not excluded by the physical characteristics of the house: it was two storeys high with a peaked gable, and was set on a fairly large plot of land on which stood a second two-storey building, likewise with a peaked gable, which backed directly onto the canal now called the Gouden-Handrei (Fig.6).50 The second house at the rear of the property could even have been Van Eyck’s main working space, or at least an additional one. That Van Eyck actually resided there is supported by the fact that Margaret continued to pay the annuity on the house after his death, the last payment dating from June 1443.51 Rather than a smooth, decade-long continuation of Jan’s business, therefore, we propose the hypothesis that there was a particular moment, in spring 1444, when Jan’s workshop closed for good. The stock of

unfinished panels it had contained must have been liquidated by then. This is not contradicted by the dates of the three works most often regarded as ones left incomplete by Van Eyck: the Van Maelbeke Virgin, the Frick Virgin and the Detroit Jerome. The first two works were certainly finished before 1444, and this may well be the case for the Jerome, which is inscribed with the date 1442. In the case of the Van Maelbeke Virgin, numerous scholars have supported the idea that the painting was still preserved in the workshop in an unfinished state as late as 1445; however, that year was only ever associated with the painting in an unreliable late eighteenth-century town chronicle of Ypres by Petrus Martinus Ramaut (1719–83), published in 1825 by the archivist Liévin de Bast.52 Whatever the explanation for the date 1445 in the chronicle, it is not solid evidence for the date of the work’s completion.53 At least some of these paintings could have belonged to a final, posthumous phase of production in the early 1440s, when unfinished paintings were completed and potentially new ones made. This relatively short phase is probably best understood not as one of continuity but as a gradual winding down. Evidence arising from other works made in the early to mid-1440s does not contradict this argument. A lost painting of St George and the dragon attributed to ‘Johannes’ and acquired in Bruges by the merchant

45 SAB, OA, 138: Zestendelen, OnzeLieve-Vrouw, fols.596bis and 597. 46 The latter, born around 1515, is recorded in the archives of the guild of the Bruges tanners up to 1559, but not subsequently, not even in a list of all of the guild members compiled in 1568, see Rijksarchief, Ambachten Brugge, Bruges, 71, fols.103r and 116r. 47 For transcriptions of the texts by De Heere and Van Vaernewijck, see Weale, op. cit. (note 2), pp.lxxix, lxxxvi and xc. There are no contemporary sources for the sister of the Van Eycks. In an article of 1847, Charles Carton cited the notes of the architect and collector Pierre-Jacques Goetghebuer

have misstated his own source, as he wrote that the name was listed in the accounts of the chapter of St Donatian between 1438 and 1465, see Carton, op. cit. (note 47), p.265, whereas it appears in the accounts of the Obediëntie of St Donatian. His assertion that the name could be found in the accounts until 1465 cannot be verified since the accounts of the Obediëntie are missing between 1460 and 1479. 49 For this document and the career of Margaret sHeex, see D. Desmet: ‘Het begijnhof ‘De Wijngaerd’ te Brugge. Onderzoek naar het dagelijks leven rond het midden van de vijftiende eeuw’, unpublished MA thesis

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(1789–1866), who found in the written subscription to the guild of Onze-LieveVrouw-op-de-Rade in the church of St John in Ghent a master Hubrech Van Hyke in 1412 and his sister Mergriete van Hyke in 1418, for which, see C.L. Carton: ‘Les trois frères van Eyck’, Annales de la Société d’Émulation pour l’Étude de l’Histoire et les Antiquités de la Flandre 9 (1847), pp.237–326 and 324–25. The guild register is now missing, see D. Lievois: ‘Het archiefmateriaal over Hubert van Eyck in Gent’, Handelingen der Maatschappij voor Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde te Gent 67 (2013), pp.59–67, at pp.64–65. 48 The unreliable Carton seems to

C A

8. Detail of the map in Fig.5, showing the Oostmeers. ‘A’ marks the row of houses between the Zonnekemeers; ‘B’ marks the Cowgate; ‘C’ marks the Wijngaard.

(Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 1979), pp.217–19. 50 For further discussion of the material aspects of the building, see De Meester et al., op. cit. (note 34), p.130. 51 Ibid. 52 L. De Bast: ‘Notes on the “Série inférieur de la grande composition peinte, pour l’église de S. Jean à Gand, par Jean van Eyck” by G.F. Waagen’, Messager des Sciences et des Arts (1825), p.168, notes 1 and 2, and p.169, note 1. For a transcription of two known versions of the chronicle, only one of which is now extant, see Jones 2006, op. cit. (note 19), pp.73–81, at p.81. 53 For the idea that the chronicle

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Joan Gregori for Alfonso V of Aragon for the substantial sum of 2,000 sous reyals of Valencia, was purchased before 2nd May 1444.54 This allows for the possibility that the painting was acquired directly from the posthumous workshop, close to the date of its closure, although it is equally possible that Gregori simply persuaded its owner, then resident in Bruges, to part with it. A second painting of St George, also lost, was likewise acquired in Bruges some years later, this time for Leonello d’Este, who, in 1446, paid the lawyer and cleric Antonio Domaschi in Bruges the sum of 100 gold ducats for the painting.55 Whether or not the Este George was modelled on Alfonso’s St George and the dragon, its acquisition cannot be used to argue that Van Eyck’s workshop remained open in 1446, as the document does not name the painter. What of the hypothesis that one or both of Van Eyck’s surviving family members – Margaret and Lambert – ran a posthumous workshop in Bruges? The new evidence regarding The Wild Sea changes the biographical evidence for Margaret. Weale’s misidentification led him to believe that Margaret was ‘still living’ in 1456, but the last record of her now dates from 1446, when her name appears in the records of the Bruges lottery. Margaret had not remarried, as she is referred to as Jan van Eyck’s widow.56 She is listed as receiving 2 pound groats, which in all likelihood represents the income from an annuity issued by the city.57 The fact that her name is not listed in a register of all the annuities held by the city, which starts in the year 1450/51 therefore indicates that Margaret had probably died before that year. The new date for her death clearly undermines the theory that Margaret ran a continuing Van Eyck workshop in the city until around 1450. In addition, there is no evidence to suggest that she was a painter, something which seems to have been possible for women at this period only if they were trained within the family.58 Furthermore, the memorial list of the Bruges guild of imagemakers and saddlers, which begins in 1450, does not record a single widow.59 Although the regulations did permit a widow to take over her deceased husband’s business, we can infer that this option was rarely if ever taken up in practice, unless as a short-term measure – and perhaps in such cases, the widows were not listed. Indeed, the very fact that some three years after Jan’s death Margaret moved away from the house and workshop on the Gouden-Handstraat favours a different hypothesis: that Margaret had no need for this large house with its working spaces and substantial outbuilding, and moved into a smaller house. Finally, it cannot be ruled out that Margaret left Bruges entirely. The final surviving document concerning Van Eyck’s family – the financial gift from Philip the Good to Jan and Margaret’s daughter Lievine, dated February 1449 O.S. – does not refer to Margaret by name, but it does indicate that at the period of her mother’s death Lievine entered the monastery of St Agnes in Maaseik, in the Mosan region.60 Recent research has confirmed that Margaret’s natal family, like her husband’s, originated from the diocese of Liège, making it possible that she returned there after his death.61 Taken transmits a text from a written document, see Jones 2006, op. cit. (note 19), pp.73–81, at p.77. 54 For the documents on Dalmau, see Archivo del Reino de Valencia, Mestre Racional, 59: Batlia general de Valencia. Comptes d’administraciò, Valencia, 1444, fols.273v–274r, 2nd May 1444, and fol.283v, 22nd August 1444, see also J. Sanchis y Sivera: Pintores Medievales en Valencia, Valencia 1930, pp.114–15; and R. Weiss: ‘Jan van Eyck and the Italians’, Italian Studies 11 (1956), p.15. 55 We are grateful to Geoff Nuttall for sharing his interpretation of this document with us and Paula Nuttall for her insights into the reception of the St

George paintings. For Leonello’s mandate, see Archivio di Stato, Modena, Camera Ducale, Computisteria, Mandati, vol.7 (1445–1446), c.317v. 56 SAB, OA, 273, fol.3 identifies her as ‘de wed(uw)e Jans va(n) Eyck’. On the lottery, see L. Gilliodts-Van Severen: ‘La loterie à Bruges’, La Flandre 1 (1867– 68), pp.5–26, 80–92 and 160–95; II, 1868–69, pp.408–73; III, 1869–70, pp.5– 110, for the widow of Van Eyck, see p.9. 57 On Margaret and the Bruges lottery, see further Dumolyn, Geirnaert and Speecke, op. cit. (note 7). The interpretation of this document is uncertain: either the city paid Margaret

together, all these points make it possible that Margaret played a role in the winding down of Van Eyck’s Bruges workshop in the early 1440s, but unlikely that she continued to manage a posthumous Van Eyck workshop in Bruges until c.1450. This leaves us with the figure of Lambert van Eyck. Whether Lambert worked alongside his brother Jan in the 1430s and early 1440s requires further study. The evidence that he was a painter combined with the commercial success of Jan’s business certainly make it a reasonable hypothesis in principle that he took over his brother’s workshop; however, no evidence has yet emerged to show that he re-established the workshop in Bruges after the sale of Jan van Eyck’s house and workshop in 1443–44. After 1442 we lose all trace of Lambert, and it remains possible that he subsequently left Bruges. It is remarkable that Steppe failed to identify any paintings that could have been made in a Lambert van Eyck workshop at this date, speculating only that he could have produced unspecified copies of Jan van Eyck’s lost Holy face. Clearly, the hypothesis of a Lambert van Eyck workshop is not needed to account for the surviving panel paintings in Van Eyck’s style that may have been made in Bruges or its vicinity in the second half of the 1440s. Such works could equally be divided (hypothetically) among workshops established by former journeymen or apprentices, on one hand, and those of painters in Bruges who had not been formally trained by Van Eyck but who had assimilated his style and techniques, on the other. The arguments presented here potentially reduce the roles played by Margaret and Lambert in the posthumous workshop, but they also refocus our attention on Jan’s journeymen. Is it possible after all that a trusted journeyman took over the workshop’s management after Jan’s death? More particularly, the hypothesis that the workshop closed in spring 1444 reopens the question whether Petrus Christus was active in the posthumous workshop before 1444, when he paid to become a burgess in Bruges, in order to establish himself as a master in his own right. As mentioned earlier, scholars in recent decades rejected this possibility on the grounds that Christus would already have become a burgess by default if he had lived in Bruges for more than one year and one day; it now appears unlikely, however, that this particular rule was operating in Bruges at that period – and that makes it possible that up to the moment that he became a burgess in July of 1444, Christus had been living and working in the city.62 Other solutions cannot be excluded: for example, Christus could have come to Bruges in July 1444 to take advantage of a temporary reduction in the rates for becoming a burgess ordered by Philip the Good on 24th January 1440 (1441 N.S.) and set to expire four years later.63 What is needed now, therefore, is a complete scholarly reappraisal of the nature of Christus’s relationship to Van Eyck, involving both thorough reassessment of the laws and regulations that shaped the activity of painting in Bruges, and fresh study of the documentary, physical and visual evidence. the income from an annuity out of the lottery proceeds, or alternatively the city ‘paid’ her the annuity in the form of a stake in the lottery. It is uncertain why Weale settled on the year 1456 when he stated that Margaret was ‘still living’ in that year, as the accounts of the Obediëntie of the Chapter of St Donatian’s end slightly later, in 1459– 60: this may have been an error on his part. For the records of the town lottery, see SAB, OA, 273, fols.3 and 14v. 58 See Reynolds, op. cit. (note 8), p.22; and M. Droz-Emmert: Catharina van Hemessen: Malerin der Renaissance, Basel 2004, pp.37–38. 59 For the memorial list, which is a

copy made c.1490, see SAB, OA, 314: Beeldenmakers and https:// erfgoedbrugge.be/memorielijstvan-de-brugse-schilders/, accessed 5th January 2022. 60 Weale, op. cit. (note 2), pp.xlix–l, no.36. 61 H. Callewier: ‘A new document on Jan van Eyck: his request for a confessional letter in the Vatican Archives’, Simiolus 43 (2021), pp.16–25, p.19. 62 New research on this problem by Jan Dumolyn will be published in a forthcoming publication. 63 For this explanation, see Martens, op. cit. (note 23), p.15.

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1. Holy Trinity, here identified as the inner left exterior wing of an altarpiece by a follower of Rogier van der Weyden. c.1478–81. Oil on panel, 119 by 47 cm. (The Museum of the Order of St John, London). 2. St John the Baptist, here identified as the outer right exterior wing of an altarpiece by a follower of Rogier van der Weyden. c.1478–81. Oil on panel, 119 by 47 cm. (The Museum of the Order of St John, London).

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The ‘Weston Altarpiece’ in the Museum of the Order of St John, Clerkenwell Two late fifteenth-century panels painted on both sides that are associated with John Weston, Prior of the Order of St John of Jerusalem in England from 1476 to 1489, are here identified as wings of a carved altarpiece, possibly by an artist in the circle of the Master of the View of St Gudula. It is likely that the altarpiece was acquired by Weston for the priory church in Clerkenwell, where the wings remained until probably being removed in 1540 to Milton Abbey, Dorset. by richard west

n the museum of the Order of St John in Clerkenwell, London, are two fifteenth-century North European panels, each painted on both sides.1 On the exterior of one is a Holy Trinity, with a Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple on the interior (hereafter the Trinity panel and the Virgin panel; Figs.1 and 4). On the exterior of the second is a St John the Baptist with a Presentation of Christ in the Temple on the interior (hereafter the Baptist panel and the Christ panel; Figs.2 and 5). The author’s designation of the Trinity and Baptist panels as exterior panels and the Virgin and Christ panels as interior panels, is based on similar extant altarpieces as this article will elucidate. The two panels are first documented in an article by Martin Conway on Milton Abbey, Dorset, published in Country Life in June 1915, which stated that these ‘wings of an altarpiece which belonged to an abbey’ hung in the serving room of the house.2 The Order of St John of Jerusalem (hereafter the Order) acquired the panels at an auction held in September 1932 after Milton Abbey was sold.3 Museum tradition, and their current labelling, has it that these two panels are the surviving wings of a This article presents findings from an MA dissertation submitted by the author to the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, in June 2018 together with subsequent research. I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Susan Jones, for her guidance and support throughout this project. I am also indebted to Abigail Cornick and her colleagues at the Museum of the Order of St John, London, for their generosity in allowing me regular access both to their archives and the panels themselves; to Philippa Abrahams for sharing recollections and photographs of the 1976 restoration of the panels and to Lorne Campbell for suggesting the panels as subjects for research and inspecting and discussing the panels with me. 1 The Order’s full name is the Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem. During the fifteenth century it was headquartered in Rhodes but had estates in several Western European countries, including England.

2 M. Conway: ‘Country homes and gardens old and new: Milton Abbas, Dorsetshire, the seat of Sir Everard Hambro. K.C.V.O. – II’, Country Life 3, no.961 (5th June 1915), pp.770–74, at p.774. 3 In Sale, Phillips, Son and Neale Ltd, Milton Abbey, Dorset: Catalogue of the Entire Contents of the Historic Mansion, September 1932, p.131, lot 1324, as ‘German School (late 15th Century) 47 x 19 ins (2). Inscription says “Syr John Weston Pryor of the Order in England”’. Based on the photographic evidence in the catalogue itself, the addition of the words ‘the Order in England’ can be attributed to auctioneer’s licence. 4 Probably deriving from W. Constable: ‘Report on the wings of a triptych at Milton Abbey’, Museum of the Order of St John, Archive, LDOSJ 1876 (hereafter LDOSJ 1876), 1932. Constable, the first director of the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, visited Milton Abbey to advise the Order on the acquisition of the panels. 5 Conway, op. cit. (note 2), p.774. For

triptych, of which the painted centre panel is assumed lost.4 The panels have consequently become known as the Weston Triptych. The name ‘Weston’ derives from two escutcheons and the inscription ‘Syr John Weston Pryor of [. . .]’ found on the wings when rediscovered in 1915 (Fig.3), but removed during conservation in 1976 as ‘an obvious much later addition’.5 All members of the Order were allocated into different branches, or langues, according to where they were born. The effective head of the English langue, based in Clerkenwell, was the Prior of England. Weston was Prior from 1476 until his death in 1489.6 It has been asserted, without further evidence, that the panels would therefore have been in the priory church at Clerkenwell at that time.7 If that were the case they were probably removed from Clerkenwell when the Order’s houses in England were dissolved by Henry VIII in May 1540.8 However, no records have been found relating to the original acquisition or commissioning, production, installation or ownership of these panels and the limited scholarship on them to date has left these questions open.9 In the present article the issue the removal of the inscription, see P. Abrahams: ‘The restoration and conservation of the Weston Triptych and other works of art of the Order of St John’, St John’s Historical Society Proceedings (1987–88), p.43. 6 H. Fincham: The Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem and its Grand Priory in London, London 1933, p.58; and G. O’Malley: The Knights Hospitaller of the English Langue 1460–1565, Oxford 2005, pp.44 and 339. 7 Fincham, op. cit. (note 6), p.58; E. King: The Knights of St John in the British Realm: Being the Official History of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, 3rd edn, rev. and cont. by H. Luke, London 1967, p.75. 8 For the Parliament of April to July 1540 passing an Act to dissolve the Order and vest its property in the crown, see Statutes of the Realm, Henry VIII, III, pp.778–81; J. Youings: The Dissolution of the Monasteries, London 1971, p.90; and J. Clark: The Dissolution of the Monasteries:

A New History, New Haven and London 2021, p.3. 9 See Constable, op. cit. (note 4); C. Grössinger: North-European Panel Paintings: A Catalogue of Netherlandish and German Paintings before 1600 in English Churches and Colleges, London 1992, pp.139–43; K. Woods: Imported Images: Netherlandish Late Gothic Sculpture in England c.1440–1550, Donington 2007, pp.117–18; T. Hale: ‘An iconographical study of the “Weston Triptych” to establish connections with Grand Prior Sir John Weston and the Sovereign Order of the Knights of St John’, unpublished MA thesis (Open University, 2014); and S. Zdanov: ‘Entre Bruxelles et Londres: un volet inédit du retable de John Weston (d.1491), prieur de l’Ordre de Saint-Jean de Jérusalem en Angleterre’, in Dixième Congrès de l’Association des Cercles Francophones d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de Belgique (ACFHAB) & LVII Congrès de la Fédération des Cercles d’Archéologie et d’Histoire de Belgique: Congrès D’Arlon 3, Arlon 2018, pp.526–34.

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3. Photograph of the panel in Fig.4. 1932. (The Museum of the Order of St John, London). Opposite 4. Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, here identified as the outer left interior wing of an altarpiece by a follower of Rogier van der Weyden. c.1478–81. Oil on panel, 119 by 47 cm. (The Museum of the Order of St John, London). 5. Presentation of Christ in the Temple, here identified as the inner right interior wing of an altarpiece by a follower of Rogier van der Weyden. c.1478–81. Oil on panel, 119 by 47 cm. (The Museum of the Order of St John, London).

of attribution will be addressed and it will be argued that the panels were part not of a painted triptych but a carved altarpiece with four painted wing panels. Elements of the shields painted on the panels have been misunderstood; closer scrutiny suggests that the panels were indeed taken to Milton Abbey in 1540. Close visual examination of the Virgin and Christ panels has been undertaken by the present author but, because of the way they are installed in the museum, the Baptist and Trinity panels were observable only from a distance through glass. Scientific analysis was not possible.10 Nor was it possible to inspect the panels out of their frames, which are believed to date from no earlier than September 1932, when the Order acquired the panels.11 In the fifteenth century panels painted on both sides were usually enclosed in engaged frames and painted after the frame was attached.12 The presence of barbes (ridges of paint at the edge of the painting) and of visible unpainted edges of 3–4 millimetres on both the Virgin and Christ panels indicate that they were painted in the frame but that, as assumed, the current frame is not original.13 The absence of any mechanism or hinging to join the frames to the missing centre and the presence of modern metal screws on the inner frame further confirm this.14 The panels are generally in good condition and there is little evidence of the recurrence of the severe cracking or blistering noted in past restoration reports.15 Without scientific analysis the medium in which the panels were painted cannot be determined with certainty but it is probable that it was predominantly oil, as would be normal in Northern European art of the period.16 Similarly, dendrochronological analysis would be necessary to confirm the type of wood used, but oak from the Baltic region was commonly employed by Northern European artists at the time.17 The Virgin panel is formed of three separate planks, laid vertically, with widths left to right of 9.5, 29 and 8.5 centimetres.18 There are traces of what could be underdrawing, although without scientific analysis this cannot be confirmed.19 Remains of the inscription referring to ‘Syr John 10 The panels were last conserved and X-radiographed at the Courtauld Institute of Art in 1976. There are no records of the work in the Courtauld archives but the conservator, Philippa Abrahams, has photographs which were taken during the conservation and which the author has seen. 11 In conversation with Abigail Cornick, Curator of the Museum of the Order of St John, on 19th April 2018. 12 H. Verougstraete: Frames and Supports in 15th and 16th-century Southern Netherlandish Painting, transl. M. Lomax, 2015, available at https://www.kikirpa.be/en/publications/ frames-and-supports, accessed 21st December 2021, pp.66–68; and R. Billinge, L. Campbell et al., eds: ‘Methods and materials of Northern European painting in the National Gallery, 1400–1550’, National Gallery Technical Bulletin 18 (1997), pp.19–20. 13 It is likely that these unpainted edges extend into the new frame.

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14 Arnold Wiggins and Sons, framers, removed the panels from the frames for the 1976 restoration. The firm has no archives from the 1970s. 15 See, for instance, P. Abrahams: ‘Report: the John Weston panels’, LDOSJ 1876 (November 1976). 16 In a conversation on 27th April 2018, Philippa Abrahams said that she did not recall finding anything other than oil as the medium on the panels. 17 For the usage of Baltic oak panels in Northern European painting, see Billinge, op. cit. (note 12), p.17. 18 All measurements are of that part of the panels and planks that are visible inside the frames. 19 Some evidence of underdrawing was noted on the body of Christ, for which, see Grössinger, op. cit. (note 9), p.139; after visual inspection, the present author believes that underdrawing may exist on other panels, but any meaningful stylistic analysis would require scientific investigation.

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6. Detail of Fig.5, showing the family arms of John Weston. 7. Detail of Fig.5, showing the shield of office of John Weston. 8. Detail of Fig.2, showing a heavily restored shield, here identified as the shield of office of John Weston.

Weston’ can be seen under strong light with the naked eye. The Christ panel is formed of two planks, laid vertically, with widths left to right of 23.3 and 23.7 centimetres. The coats of arms on the left side extend over the barbe, indicating that the shield was painted at a later date than the rest of the work (Fig.6). The shield with an anchor appears incongruous in the manner in which it is painted over the temple, indicating that it too is not contemporary (Fig.7). However, Philippa Abrahams, who conserved the panels in 1976, believes that these shields are near contemporary.20 The location of the joins between the planks on the Trinity and Baptist wings match that of the interior panels.21 Three levels of overpaint on the Baptist panel were removed in 1976 and the much altered and damaged red drapery was reconstructed.22 A shadow of a shield was discovered through X-radiography to the bottom left, where the overpaint could not be removed. A second shield was revealed at the

bottom right of the painting and Abrahams detected that the original colours were ‘basically red, black and gold’ (Fig.8).23 In his 1915 Country Life article Martin Conway asserted that the panels were English pictures ‘painted in the style borrowed from the Flemings about the end of the fifteenth century’, whereas in 1932 William Constable wrote that the artist was a later fifteenth-century follower of Rogier van der Weyden and dated the panels 1476–89, based on Weston’s term in office.24 In 1966 the London art dealer Colin Agnew attributed the panels to the Brussels based artist Colyn de Coter (active c.1479– 1540), with a date between 1460 and 1480.25 Christa Grössinger argued that the panels are in the tradition of Netherlandish masters Robert Campin and Rogier van der Weyden. She also attributed them to the workshop of De Coter and suggested that the inner panels were painted during Weston’s priorship but that the Trinity and Baptist panels were added during the time of his successor, John Kendal (prior from 1489 to 1501).26 Sacha Zdanov has recently linked the panels to another follower of Rogier, the Master of the View of St Gudula.27 With regard to their original format, Grössinger described them as ‘two remaining wings from a carved altarpiece’ and Kim Woods wrote that ‘the layout of the surviving wings certainly follows the format of carved altarpiece shutters’ and that ‘a further two shutters must have perished, together with the small upper shutters’.28 However, neither provided detailed evidence sufficient to refute Constable’s view that the original work was a painted triptych. Zdanov has argued that a panel painting of the Meeting at the Golden Gate in the Pinacoteca dell’Accademia dei Concordi, Rovigo, was originally an upper shutter of the Weston Altarpiece.29 Constable identified the shield at the top left of the Presentation of Christ panel as that of Weston and that at top right as that of the Fair family of Scotland (a suggestion that can be dismissed as they had no contemporary associations with the Order), whereas Grössinger associated both with Weston.30 Neither explained that the top left arms seen in Fig.6, displaying colour on colour, are heraldically impossible.31 With regard to the two shields on the Baptist panel, Grössinger suggested that the overpainted one is that of Weston and the heavily restored arms at bottom right those of Kendal, whereas Tony Hale postulated that they may be the arms of Weston’s two successors, Kendal and Thomas Docwra.32 In terms of commissioning, Woods mentioned briefly Weston’s travels to the Low Countries and his association with the merchant family Cely, who had a base in Calais.33

20 Email correspondence with Philippa Abrahams, 7th and 10th October 2019. 21 This indicates that the current format, in terms of which scenes appear on the exterior and interior of each panel, is original and that neither panel has been split. 22 Abrahams, op. cit. (note 15), p.1. 23 Ibid., p.1. In an email of 28th October 2020 Philippa Abrahams commented that it was most likely paint representing the colour gold rather than metallic gold. 24 Conway, op. cit. (note 2), p.774; and Constable, op. cit. (note 4). 25 Letters from Colin Agnew to the Order of St John, 6th July 1966, LDOSJ 1876; and 4th October 1966, LDOSJ 1876. For the dates of Colyn de Coter’s activty, see C. Périer-D’Ieteren: Les Volets Peints des Retables Bruxellois

five colours used in heraldry and a basic rule is that two colours are not displayed on top of one another. A metal (white/silver or yellow/gold) may be displayed on a colour. 32 Grössinger, op. cit. (note 9), p.143; and Hale, op. cit. (note 9), p.38. 33 Woods, op. cit. (note 9), pp.117–18. 34 L. Campbell: The Fifteenth Century Netherlandish Paintings, London 1998, p.392; and D. de Vos: Rogier van der Weyden: The Complete Works, transl. T. Alkins, New York 1999, pp.44–52. 35 S. Neilsen Blum: Early Netherlandish Triptychs: A Study in Patronage, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1969, pp.49– 58; and L. Campbell: ‘The new pictorial language of Roger van der Weyden’, in idem and J. van der Stock, eds: Rogier van der Weyden 1400-1464: Master of Passions, Leuven 2009, p.36.

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conservés en Suède et le rayonnement de Colyn de Coter, Stockholm 1984, p.5. 26 Grössinger, op. cit. (note 9), pp.139 and 143. Grössinger incorrectly gives the dates of Kendal’s priorship as 1485–1500. 27 Zdanov, op. cit. (note 9), pp.531–33. 28 Grössinger, op. cit. (note 9), p.139; and Woods, op. cit. (note 9), p.117. Zdanov, op. cit. (note 9), pp.526–34 agrees with the Grössinger and Woods analysis with regard to precedents and formatting. 29 Ibid., pp.531–34. 30 Constable, op. cit. (note 4). Grössinger, op. cit. (note 9), p.143. 31 I am grateful to Lorne Campbell for this observation and William Hunt, Research Assistant to Windsor Herald, The College of Arms, for discussing it with me. Black and red are two of the

36 V. Vandekerchove: ‘Triptych with the Descent from the Cross and donors’ portraits (Edelheere Triptych): Rogier van der Weyden (follower)’, in Campbell and van der Stock, op. cit. (note 35), p.484; and V. Vandekerchove: ‘Trinity: Rogier van der Weyden (workshop)’, in Campbell and Van der Stock, op. cit. (note 35), p.486. In Campin’s Trinity in the Städel Museum, Christ’s legs turn towards his right. In an email of 16th October 2020, Lorne Campbell pointed out the similarity between Christ in the Trinity Altarpiece by Hugo van der Goes (c.1478; Royal Collection, on loan to the Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh) and that in the Christ panel and suggested that Hugo may have taken his drawings to Rooklooster, near Brussels, in 1475 or after. 37 Grössinger, op. cit. (note 9), p.139.

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Antecedents of the panels can be found in works by Robert Campin and Rogier van der Weyden. Rogier is believed to have been apprenticed to Campin in Tournai but he spent the majority of his artistic life in Brussels.34 The left, external panel on a wing of the Edelheere Triptych in St Peter’s church, Louvain (Fig.9), the interior centre panel of which is a copy of Rogier’s Deposition in the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, shares characteristics with the Trinity panel.35 There are some differences, notably God and Christ’s left hands, but the framing of Christ’s wound by his right hand and the positioning of Christ’s legs and the dove in the Louvain altarpiece are all close to the Trinity panel. The Edelheere Trinity panel was likely copied from an earlier Trinity attributed to Rogier’s workshop, originally in the same church (c.1430–40; M-Collection, Louvain), which in turn appears to be informed by prototypes by Campin

such as the Trinity in the Städel Museum, Frankfurt (c.1428–30).36 The figures of St John in Campin’s Werl Altarpiece (1438; Museo Nacional del Prado) and Rogier’s Medici Madonna (c.1453–60; Städel Museum, Frankfurt) may be forerunners of St John in the Baptist panel. The red bed and awnings in the Virgin panel may derive from Rogier, one example being the left wing of his St John Altarpiece (c.1455–60; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin). A Joseph similar to that in the Christ panel appears in several works by Rogier, including the centre panel and right wing of the St Columba Altarpiece (c.1455; Alte Pinakothek, Munich).37 This commonality is unsurprising since the copying and adapting of earlier works was widespread at this time. 9. Edelheere Triptych, exterior wings, by a follower of Rogier van der Weyden. c.1443. Oil on panel, 99 by 47 cm. (St Peter’s church, Louvain).

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Strong connections can also be made with late fifteenth and early sixteenth-century altarpieces attributed to artists working in Brussels. High walls, often with cloths of honour similar to those of the exterior Weston panels, appear in several Brussels altarpieces of the period,

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including that known as Strängnäs II in Strängnäs Cathedral; one in St Dymphna’s church, Geel; one in Queens’ College, Cambridge; and another in Bro Church in Sweden (Fig.10).38 The interior panels also share a common composition with contemporary paintings. A

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Presentation of the Virgin attributed to De Coter from the altarpiece known as Strängnäs III in Strängnäs Cathedral shares both the curve of the railings and staircase of the Virgin panel, and the depictions of Anne and Joachim are similar (Fig.11, panel second from left when open). Although the panels appear to be painted in a style practised in Brussels or its environs, the attribution to De Coter or his workshop can be questioned. The nimbi in the panels are of the type used by De Coter but unlike his they have a black outline.39 Christ’s nimbus in the Trinity panel has floriated crosses, a motif that does not appear on De Coter’s nimbi but was used on the haloes of Christ in works attributed to the Master of the View of St Gudula (active c.1470s–1500s), who also used both black-edged nimbi and the motif of figures in front of high walls with cloths of honour attached (Fig.12).40 Many of the painted wings attributed to this master are still attached to carved altarpieces which are in caisses (boxes) bearing the stamp of Brussels joiners.41 Other features, such as elongated fingers, rounded eyebrows and half-closed eyes, as well as the figure of Joseph in the Christ panel, also link the panels to the Master of St Gudula.42 Zdanov connected the pattern of flowers on Joachim’s robe to this master’s workshop.43 However, the attribution of the wings to the Master of St Gudula is nonetheless problematic as other contemporary Netherlandish artists appear to have borrowed Rogier’s Joseph, and nimbi with black contours or floriated crosses appear widely in fifteenth-century painting, although rarely together.44 In addition, the Master of St Gudula’s figures are often more expressive and idiosyncratic than those in the Weston Altarpiece. Indeed, the Weston panels may have been painted by several hands, to judge by the difference in quality between the face of St Anne on the Virgin panel and the more clumsily depicted features of St John on the Baptist panel. There is strong evidence, therefore, to suggest that the panels’ artist, or artists, were influenced by the pictorial language and working practises of artisans based in Brussels, and possibly the atelier of the Master of St Gudula in particular. However, there is insufficient evidence to propose more than Constable’s 1932 attribution to a follower of Rogier. Additionally, as suggested by Conway in 1915, there remains the possibility that the panels were painted in England, either by a domestic artist familiar with Netherlandish painting or by an artist from the Netherlands. There is more conclusive evidence that the missing centre of the panels was not painted but carved in wood. Early Netherlandish, opened, carved altarpieces with painted wings invariably contain a narrative from left to right as the Weston Altarpiece would seem to have done, on the basis of 38 Ibid., p.143. Périer-D’Ieteren, op. cit. (note 25), p.87, dates the Strängnäs II and Geel altarpieces to c.1500 and Bro to 1515–20. Other examples of contemporary monumental figures in front of high walls attributed to Brussels workshops can be found in altarpieces in the churches at Vadstena and Veckholm, Sweden, and Altarpiece I in the church at Orsoy, Germany. 39 Ibid., p.98. 40 Other examples of this symbol on nimbi attributed to the Master of St Gudula are in the Passion altarpiece known as Strängnäs II and that in Geel. For estimated active dates of the Master of St Gudula, see N. Toussaint: ‘Introduction to the Master of the View of Saint Gudula’, in P. Syfer-d’Olne et al., eds: The Flemish Primitives IV: Masters with Provisional Names, Brussels 2006, p.365.

Opposite 10. Altarpiece of the Passion of Christ (closed), by unknown Brabantine painter. c.1500–20. Oil on panel, c.140 by 490 cm. (Bro church, Uppland). 11. Altarpiece of the Virgin (Strängnäs III) (opened), wings by Colyn de Coter. c.1500–20. Wood and oil on panel, c.125 by 490 cm. (Strängnäs Cathedral). 12. St Barbara, by the Master of the View of St Gudula. c.1490–1500. Oil on panel. 147 by 64 cm. (St Dymphna’s Church, Geel).

41 G. Steyaert: ‘Maître à la vue de Saint Gudule’, in V. Bücken and G. Steyaert, eds: L’Héritage de Rogier van de Weyden: La peinture à Bruxelles 1450–1520, Brussels 2013, pp.296–97. 42 For the finger and eyes, see ibid., p.295; and Toussaint, op. cit. (note 40), p.363. Similar figures of Joseph appear in a Betrothal of the Virgin (c.1490–1500; Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels) and an Adoration of the Magi (c.1475–1500; Baltimore Museum of Art), both attributed to the Master of St Gudula’s workshop. 43 Zdanov, op. cit. (note 9), p.533. 44 For a similar Joseph, and overall composition, to the Christ panel, see the Presentation in the Temple by the Master of the Prado Adoration (c.1470–80; National Gallery of Art, Washington).

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the extant interior panels.45 Painted triptychs rarely represent a narrative and the Infancy story is very uncommon among those that do.46 In a sample of eight carved altarpieces produced in Brussels containing either Infancy or Life of the Virgin narratives, six have painted interior wings depicting the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple (see Appendix).47 All examples of complete altarpieces with depictions of high walls and monumental figures seen by this author have a carved centre in a caisse.48 A strong connection between painters and sculptors in Brussels dated back at least to the life of Rogier and continued with his successors.49 For instance, both the Master of St Gudula and De Coter were prolific producers of wing panels for carved altarpieces and often collaborated with sculptors.50 In Sweden alone, over thirty Brussels carved altarpieces survive, of which at least twenty-five percent have been attributed to the workshops or circles of these two masters.51 Finally, no example is known to the present author of a Netherlandish painted triptych with the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple on the left wing and the Presentation of Christ in the Temple on the right, although such an iconography would be possible in theological terms.52

There is, however, at least one example of wings painted with these scenes flanking a carved fifteenth-century Netherlandish caisse: the interior wing scenes of the Rieden Altarpiece (Fig.13), by an unknown Brussels master.53 In its caisse are, from left to right, a Marriage of the Virgin, a Nativity and an Adoration of the Magi.54 In the Creglingen Altarpiece (c.1450; Herrgottskirche, Creglingen) the extant right wing and the caisse depict the same scenes as the Rieden Altarpiece. It has plausibly been postulated that the left wing would have shown the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple.55 The Clerkenwell panels, therefore, almost certainly originally flanked a carved, wooden altarpiece, which should be designated the Weston Altarpiece rather than the Weston Triptych. Most Brussels carved altarpieces of the time were an inverted T-shape, with upper shutter wings to cover the upper carved area (Figs.11 and 13).56 It is very probable that the Weston Altarpiece shared these characteristics and that the carvings in the caisse were polychromed.57

45 See L. Jacobs: Early Netherlandish Carved Altarpieces 1380–1550: Medieval Tastes and Mass Marketing, Cambridge 1998, p.54 and 55–57. In a survey of sixty-eight altarpieces produced in Brussels in B. D’HainautZveny, ed.: Miroirs du sacré: Les Retables sculptés à Bruxelles XVe-XVIe siècles. Production, Formes et Usages, Brussels 2005, pp.159–225, thirty-one were of the Passion, twenty-four the Life of the Virgin or Infancy and thirteen other narratives. For Brussels sculpture workshops devoting themselves almost exclusively to narrative works from the middle of the fifteenth century, see Woods, op. cit. (note 9), p.77. For the argument that Netherlandish altarpieces tended to be narrative, unlike their Italian, Spanish and German

this survey, eleven have missing wings, three are different in shape to the Weston Altarpiece and, of the remaining ten, complete iconographical information was available on eight. 48 See, for example, note 38. 49 See B. Fransen: Rogier van der Weyden and Stone Sculpture in Brussels, Turnhout 2013, for Rogier’s involvement in sculpture in Brussels. 50 Woods, op. cit. (note 9), p.296. 51 Author’s calculation using PérierD’Ieteren, op. cit. (note 25), preface and pp.40–86; and Jacobs, op. cit. (note 45), p.194. 52 To judge on the basis of Friedländer, op. cit. (note 46). 53 See K. DiMartino Mensel: ‘The late Gothic carved altarpieces from Brussels: a catalogue, with an historical

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counterparts, see D. Brine: ‘Jan van Eyck, Canon Joris van der Paele, and the art of commemoration’, Art Bulletin 96 (2014), p.273. 46 Of ninety-two painted triptychs dated to the fifteenth century illustrated in the first eight volumes of M. Friedländer: Early Netherlandish Painting (rev. edn of Die Altniederländische Malerei), transl. H. Norden, eds. N. Veronée-Verhaegen et al., 14 vols., Leyden and Brussels 1967– 76, seventy are not narrative in character. Of the twenty-two that are, most are Crucifixions, Depositions and Lamentations; only two show the Infancy. 47 D’Hainaut-Zveny, op. cit. (note 45). Of the twenty-four Life of the Virgin or Infancy carved wooden altarpieces in

13. Infancy Altarpiece open, by the Master of the Rieden Altarpiece. c.1440. Wood and oil on panel, c.136 by 354 cm. (Württembergisches Landesmuseum, Stuttgart).

and interpretive introduction’, unpublished PhD thesis (Brown University, Providence, 1992), p.298; and J. Steyaert: ‘Beschouwingen over de stijlevolutie van de Brusselse laatgotische beeldhouwkunst’, in idem et al., eds: Laat-gotisch e beeldhouwkunst in de Bourgondische Nederlanden, Ghent 1994, p.73. See also M. Voegelen: ‘Die Gruppenaltäre in Schwäbisch Hall und ihre Beziehungen zur Niederländischen Kunst’, Münchner Jahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst 13 (1923), p.155. In the present author’s view Voegelen correctly identifies the right interior wing of the Rieden Altarpiece as the Presentation of Christ in the Temple since Joseph holds two doves or pigeons and several candles can be seen. D’Hainaut-Zveny, op. cit. (note 45), p.196,

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Visitation

Nativity

Marriage of the Virgin

Adoration of the Magi

Annunciation

Flight into Egypt

Caisse

14. Reconstruction of the Weston Altarpiece open. (Photograph the author). 15. Reconstruction of the Weston Altarpiece closed. (Photograph the author).

It remains to determine the number of painted wings that the altarpiece originally possessed. A structure such as the Rieden Altarpiece, with one wing panel on each side, is a possibility. More likely, however, it would have been an altarpiece in the form of Strängnäs III, with each

Saint

Virgin

wing composed of two panels, which opened and closed together. This would have resulted in the Weston Altarpiece having the typical dimensions whereby the width of the caisse is greater than its height, excluding any upper section of the caisse.58 There are at least three extant double-winged altarpieces with a panel showing the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple (see Appendix). All three of these scenes are on the inner left wing, with a Birth of the Virgin to the left. In the Weston Altarpiece the Birth of the Virgin is painted within the Virgin panel. The Virgin panel was likely the first in the narrative and on the extreme left. The next panel to the right, possibly a Marriage of the Virgin, could have contained the remainder of the inscription ‘Syr John Weston Pryor of ’. Thus, two panels have been lost over the passage of time, possibly during the substantial demolition and building works undertaken at Milton Abbey in the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.59 The caisse was probably burnt along with most of the other carved altarpieces in England during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The dimensions of the double-winged Weston Altarpiece would have been consistent with other Early Netherlandish carved altarpieces of the names this scene the Circumcision of Christ. It is not unknown for artists to erroneously include the birds and candles in a circumcision but there appears to be no evidence in this scene that it is such. 54 Ibid., p.196; and Voegelen, op. cit. (note 53), p.155. 55 Ibid. 56 L. Jacobs: ‘The inverted “T”-shape in early Netherlandish altarpieces: studies in the relation between painting and sculpture’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 54 (1991), p.35. 57 For the polychroming of the majority of Brussels carved altarpieces, see Woods, op. cit. (note 9), p.99; and L. Jacobs: ‘The marketing and standardization of south Netherlandish carved altarpieces: limits on the

role of the patron’, The Art Bulletin 71 (1989), p.211. 58 The present author knows of no example where the height is greater than the width, excluding the upper section of the caisse. See, for instance, the altarpieces catalogued in D’HainautZveny, op. cit. (note 45), pp.159–225. 59 See J. Hutchins: The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset, London 1870, IV, p.393; A. Oswald: ‘Milton Abbey, Dorset – III’, Country Life 139, no.3617 (30th June 1966), pp.1720– 22; idem: ‘Milton Abbey, Dorset – IV’, Country Life 140, no.3620 (21st July 1966), pp.152–56; and idem: ‘Milton Abbey, Dorset V’, Country Life 140, no.3621 (28th July 1966), pp.208–12 for details of extensive demolition and rebuilding.

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period. It would have measured approximately 130 by 230 centimetres closed and 130 by 460 centimetres open, and so would have been comparable to the similarly themed Strängnäs III altarpiece, which measured approximately 125 by 245 centimetres closed and 125 by 490 16. The Meeting at the Golden Gate, by a follower of Rogier van der Weyden. c.1480. Oil on panel. 71 by 33 cm. (Pinacoteca dell’Accademia dei Concordi, Rovigo).

centimetres open.60 The Weston Altarpiece would have fitted comfortably in the space, some 650 centimetres wide, between the pillars at the east end of the chancel in the medieval priory church at Clerkenwell, where the high altar may have been positioned.61 In their current location, the Baptist panel is displayed to the left of the Trinity, as is typical in Early Netherlandish paintings. However, the Trinity panel would have originally been seen to the left of the Baptist.62 This is because, when the Weston Altarpiece was opened, the Virgin panel must have been to the left of that of the Christ, the latter being a later episode from the Life of the Virgin. Any narrative of extant carved altarpieces always flows from left to right and the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple always appears to the left of centre (see Appendix). Supporting this, crenellations in other paintings of high walls, such as those on the altarpieces at Bro and Orsoy, slant outwards, as those on the Trinity and Baptist panels would when the panels are positioned correctly. The question of the subject-matter of the missing parts of the Weston Altarpiece can be explored using extant examples of carved altarpieces listed in the Appendix.63 When closed, a lost exterior panel may have shown a Virgin to the right of the Trinity panel (Fig.15). The Virgin is a suitable candidate being the mother of the dead Christ seen in the Trinity; the external wings of the Edelheere Triptych are an example of this arrangement. The far left exterior panel could, in principle, have included Weston’s portrait, to broadcast his patronage and devotion, as was common in painted works of the period.64 However, such portraits are very rarely found in the painted wings or caisses of carved altarpieces, so a saint is more likely to have been the subject of this panel.65 An Annunciation or two saints were often depicted on the exterior, upper wings. Opened, the Virgin panel was probably followed by a Marriage of the Virgin (Fig.14). The scenes within the caisse were most likely to have been, from left to right, an Annunciation, a Nativity in the centre (which often had a Crucifixion above it) and to the right either a Circumcision or Adoration of the Magi. There would then follow the Christ panel and, on the extreme right, either a Flight to Egypt or Christ amongst the Doctors. On the upper, interior wings a Visitation or Coronation of the Virgin were common themes. Zdanov has argued that the Meeting at the Golden Gate panel in Rovigo was an upper shutter of the Weston Altarpiece.66 He sees clear similarities between the Rovigo and Virgin panels in both the facial features of Joachim and the composition of the dianthus on his robe and suggests that they were produced using patterns from the same workshop (Figs.4 and 16).67 It can be noted also that in both panels St Anne’s nimbus has a black border, that the dimensions of the Rovigo panel are suitable in 60 The author has made some allowance for the width of the frame on the panels of the Weston Altarpiece in this calculation. These dimensions exclude the upper part of the caisse forming the inverted T-shape. The dimensions of Strängnäs III are from D’Hainaut-Zveny, op. cit. (note 45), p.216, again excluding the upper part of the caisse. 61 See the scale and diagram in B. Sloane and G. Malcolm et al., eds: Excavations at the Priory of the Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, Clerkenwell, London, London 2004, p.149, fig.101. 62 It is unusual for a Trinity to appear on an external wing of an altarpiece but not unique to the Weston Altarpiece. For example, the Edelheere Triptych, the Holy Trinity by Robert Campin in Frankfurt and the Trinity Panels by Hugo van der Goes in Edinburgh all share this feature.

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63 The choice of subject matter could be dependent on local traditions. See Jacobs, op. cit. (note 45), p.68 for the Mass of St Gregory being found frequently on the upper external painted wings of carved altarpieces in Germany and Sweden. Destruction through iconoclasm prohibits the analysis of any specific subject matter on the painted wings of carved altar pieces in England in the fifteenth century. 64 L. Jacobs: Opening Doors: The Early Netherlandish Triptych Reinterpreted, University Park 2012, pp.163–68; and I. Falque: Devotional Portraiture and Spiritual Experience in Early Netherlandish Painting, Boston and Leiden 2019. 65 See ibid., p.30 for only thirty of Falque’s corpus of 754 devotional portraits found in Early Netherlandish paintings appearing on outer panels

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size for an upper shutter of the Weston Altarpiece and that the subject matter is in keeping with the theme of the Life of the Virgin.68 However, the Rovigo panel’s location and lack of provenance are problematic for Zdanov’s argument, especially considering the high percentage of losses of works of this type.69 Given the large number of this type of altarpiece that were made, the Rovigo panel could have been part of a different example, possibly one exported directly to Italy from the same workshop in Brussels. The connection of the altarpiece to Weston is based on the two painted shields on the interior Christ panel and the former inscription on the Virgin panel. The shield to the right, which incorporates an anchor, is more likely to be the arms of an office rather than of a family.70 It resembles one of Weston’s seals, on which his name is inscribed (Fig.17). The shield and seal allude to Weston’s post of turcopolier (responsible for the defence of the coast, including by ship), which he held while stationed with the Order at its headquarters in Rhodes.71 Both the arms on the left of the Christ panel and Weston’s seal contain five bezants, as do those of the Weston family.72 As mentioned, the crosses at the top are heraldically impossible in terms of colour. It is therefore probable that they would originally have been the white cross of the Order on a red background to the left with the red cross of St George of England on a white background to the right. Albeit rarely, lead white, the predominant white pigment used by fifteenth-century Northern European painters, can blacken if in contact with hydrogen sulphide, especially if the shield was left unvarnished or little or no oil was used in the binding process.73 The fact that the white has blackened in Weston’s shield but not elsewhere in the same panel increases the likelihood that the shields were added after the date of original painting, possibly using a different technique. Weston probably originally had his patronage displayed more prominently in the two escutcheons that existed on the exterior Baptist panel, of which only the heavily restored one to the right is now visible. These were discovered on the removal of several layers of overpaint and so are believed to have been contemporary. As previously stated, the original colours of the visible shield were red, black and gold.74 These are the same colours as Weston’s arms of office on the Christ panel. The suggestion that they are arms of Kendal or Docwra can be dismissed, as their arms contain no gold.75 Winged altarpieces were predominantly seen in the closed position, since they were opened only for specific events in the church calendar or for important visitors.76 It would be logical, therefore, for Weston to display his identifiers on the exterior Baptist panel, St John the Baptist being both the Order’s patron saint and of any form of triptychs or polyptychs, and p.77 for only seven such portraits appearing on the panels of carved altarpieces like the Weston Altarpiece, all but one of these being on inner panels; Jacobs, op. cit. (note 45), p.38. 66 Zdanov, op. cit. (note 9), pp.531–34. 67 Ibid., p.533. For the flowers, see C. Fisher: Flowers of the Renaissance, London 2011, p.70. The present author is indebted to Celia Fisher for confirming that these flowers are dianthus, email corespondence, 30th April 2018. 68 See D’Hainaut-Zveny, op. cit. (note 45), p.217 for a Meeting at the Golden Gate being the subject of an exterior painted panel of de Coter’s Strängnas III; and ibid., pp.161, 218 and 219 for a similar subject within the wooden caisse. 69 In L. Collobi Ragghianti: exh. cat. Dipinti fiamminghi in Italia 1420-1570, Bologna (Musei d’Italia –Meraviglie d’Italia) 1990, p.107; and A.

Romanagnolo: La Pinacoteca dell/ Accademia dei Concordi, Rovigo 1981, p.263. The painting is first recorded in 1818, when it was owned by a Francesco Casilini in Italy. Zdanov, op. cit. (note 9), p.533 cites infra-red reflectography undertaken by Maddalena Bellavitis, which revealed underdrawing on the Rovigo panel: see M. Bellavatis: Telle depente forestiere: quadri nordici nel Veneto, le fonti e la tecnica, Padua 2010, pp.493–97. Without similar analysis of the Clerkenwell panels the underdrawing does not assist in linking the Rovigo panel with them. 70 I am grateful to Peter O’Donoghue, York Herald, The College of Arms, London for this observation in a conversation on 24th April 2018. 71 E. King: The Seals of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, London 1932, p.109. For the role of the turcopolier, see O’Malley, op. cit. (note 6), pp.42–43

17. Cast of original of a seal of John Weston. c.19th century. Wax and plaster, diameter 3.7 cm. (The Museum of the Order of St John, London).

Weston’s name saint.77 It can therefore be argued that Weston’s arms of office were on the right of the Baptist panel and the overpainted shield on the left was that of his family. It is possible that Weston later had his escutcheons added to the Christ panel to proclaim his patronage when the altarpiece was open. Inscriptions were sometimes used to identify donors. However, since Weston’s arms were painted on the Baptist panel, and possibly on the Christ panel too, it is not obvious why he would require an identifying inscription on the Virgin panel or why a succeeding prior would have added one. The inscription was painted skilfully in the Gothic script textualis, identifiable by, among other things, the fact that the ‘s’ in ‘Weston’ and ‘f ’ in ‘of ’ stood on the baseline.78 In formal terms the inscription was in keeping with fifteenth and sixteenth-century usage: the presence of a round ‘r’ after the ‘o’ and ‘p’, for example, accords with scribal practice. Although the script was formally consistent with late medieval examples, its size and placement on the panel were not, raising the question of who added it and 304–13; and A. Mifsud: Knights Hospitallers of the Venerable Tongue of England in Malta, Valetta 1914, pp.87–94. For examples of Weston’s seaborne campaigns, see ibid., p.144. 72 ‘Seal matrix of John Weston, prior of St Johns’, Antiquaries Journal 17 (1937), p.321; and J. Burke: The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales comprising a Registry of Armorial Bearings from the Earliest to the Present Time, London 1884, pp.162 and 1095. Weston’s nephew, William, had arms similar to Prior John Weston. John Weston of Stafford, Prior John Weston’s second cousin, had arms ermine on a chief, azure, five bezants. 73 R. Guttens, H. Kühn and W. Chase: ‘Lead white’, in A. Roy, ed.: Artists’ Pigments: A Handbook of Their History and Characteristics, Washington 1993, II, pp.71–72; S. Lussier and G. Smith: ‘A review of the phenomenon of lead white

darkening and its conversion treatment’, Reviews in Conservation 8 (2007), p.48. In a telephone conversation of 19th November 2019 Marika Spring, Head of Science at the National Gallery, London, confirmed that this is unusual but possible. 74 Abrahams, op. cit. (note 15), p.1. 75 See Burke, op. cit. (note 72), pp.289 and 558. 76 Jacobs, op. cit. (note 45), pp.17–18; and K. Woods: ‘Thèmes iconographiques et sources’, in B. D’Hainaut-Zveny, op. cit. (note 45), p.79. 77 For discussion of St John the Baptist becoming patron saint of the Order, see J. Riley-Smith: The Knights of St. John in Jerusalem and Cyprus c.1050–1310, London 1967, pp.32–35. 78 A. Derolez: The Palaeography of Gothic Manuscript Books: From the Twelfth to the Early Sixteenth Century, Cambridge 2003, p.9.

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and when.79 Although it is possible that it was added centuries later, the most likely candidate in this author’s view is the lawyer John Tregonwell (c.1498–1565), a former owner of Milton Abbey. Tregonwell was made a Privy Councillor in 1532, acted in a legal capacity for Henry VIII in his divorce from Katherine of Aragon in 1533 and was employed by Thomas Cromwell as a monastic visitor from 1535.80 Despite these activities he was a religious conservative and, after seemingly retreating from London life under Edward VI, returned to favour under Queen Mary.81 As a prominent lawyer, he was based in London from the 1520s to 1535 and was then occupied predominantly with the dissolution of south-western ecclesiastical institutions until early 1539.82 He then returned to London, where he was involved in a legal case in June 1539 and, on 9th July 1540, was a witness to the signing of the letters testimonial declaring the invalidity of Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne of Cleves.83 There is no evidence as to who actually dissolved the priory in Clerkenwell but the inventory recorded plate, gilt and cash and ‘besides ornaments of the church remaining in the vestry, stuff delivered to the King, stuff remaining in St. John’s charged to Sir Henry Knevett, stuff to be sold’.84 There is no record of any subsequent sale but Tregonwell was most probably in London, was experienced in these activities and could have obtained, or purchased, the panels at this time and taken them to Milton Abbey.85 Cromwell’s men were no strangers to taking advantage of their position and Tregonwell himself was permitted to acquire Milton Abbey for the advantageous price of £1,000 in 1540, having dissolved it on 11th March 1539,86 a large sum of money for a man born of a family of little means.87 The destruction or survival of objects following dissolution was a matter of chance and there are numerous examples of religious objects that survived.88 Many objects passed into private hands and secularisation was often seen as sufficient desecration by itself for reformers.89 Even Cromwell owned a carved altarpiece of the Nativity at his death in July 1540 that had already been in his possession in 1527.90 Although a statute of 1550, during the reign of Edward VI, decreed that all images removed from churches should be destroyed, some passed into private houses and religious paintings could still be seen displayed openly in English houses at the end of the sixteenth century.91 However, in 1563 images of the Trinity were specifically condemned.92 Despite this hostile environment Tregonwell’s recusant widow, Elizabeth, harboured priests at Milton Abbey in the late sixteenth century, suggesting that she would not be averse to also harbouring religious paintings.93 In the 1640s ordinances demanded the removal of images of the

Trinity and the Virgin Mary from all religious establishments, an edict that was often followed in private houses.94 If this hypothesis is correct, the Tregonwells may have displayed the panels at Milton Abbey, probably in the house rather than the abbey church. By the reign of Edward VI, or almost certainly by that of Elizabeth, it is probable that the panels would have been hidden, possibly with the inscription added as an aide-mémoire. The style of the Gothic inscription and lettering on Tregonwell’s brass on his tomb (c.1565) in Milton Abbey is not unlike that formerly on the Virgin panel (Fig.18).95 Milton Abbey was sold by descendants of Tregonwell in 1752, but the panels could have remained there before being discovered in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries by a subsequent owner. There remains a possibility that the inscription was added at a much later date in order to procure the sale of the panels, odd though it would be to add an incomplete sentence. If that were the case, they may have been acquired by the subsequent owners of Milton Abbey, the Damer and Dawson-Damer families (1752–1852) or the Hambro family (1852–1932).96 Joseph Damer, later Lord Milton and Earl of Dorchester, who purchased the estate in 1752 , did indeed acquire paintings on the continent.97 The Dawson-Damer family records regarding Milton Abbey do not survive but it is known that they left behind some possessions, including paintings, when they moved to Ireland in 1852, but the sale document does not list the contents.98 Baron Carl Joachim Hambro is said to have collected art, including paintings, after his purchase of Milton Abbey in 1852 and he employed the Gothic revivalist Gilbert Scott to restore the main hall.99 He may have purchased the panels separately from the acquisition of the abbey, although neither his son Everard, who owned Milton Abbey at the time of the Country Life articles in 1915, nor the present Hambro family professed any knowledge of this.100 It would be a remarkable, although not impossible, coincidence if the panels were purchased by a subsequent owner of a property once belonging to one of the Cromwell’s key monastic visitors, who was in London at the time of the dissolution of the English langue. Assuming that John Weston was the first owner, questions arise as to why he chose an altarpiece in the Netherlandish style. Weston was born in Boston, Lincolnshire, to a family associated with the Order.101 Stationed in Rhodes, he was summoned to England in 1465 because of an accusation of disloyalty to the crown, although no action appears to have been taken.102 His appointment as turcopolier, in combination with service in Rhodes, was a normal step to becoming Prior of England. However, in 1474 the English

79 For examples of typical inscriptions of the fifteenth century, see A. Acres: ‘Rogier van der Weyden’s painted texts’, Artibus et Historiae 21 (2000), pp.75–109, or the quatrain and banderols on the Ghent Altarpiece by Jan and Hubert van Eyck. Inscriptions of the period were usually much smaller than that on the Weston Altarpiece and were either biblical quotations or descriptive of the subject matter of the painting. 80 For Tregonwell’s relationship with Henry VIII and Cromwell, see J. Bettey: ‘Sir John Tregonwell of Milton Abbey’, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society 90 (1969), pp.297–301; and D. MacCulloch: Thomas Cromwell: A Life, London 2018, pp.271–73, 296 and 305. The role of monastic visitors was to enforce the Acts of Succession and Supremacy of 1534, paving the way for the Dissolution of the Monasteries. For examples of Tregonwell’s activities in this role, see A. Shaw: ‘The “Compendium Compertorum” and the making of the Suppression Act of 1536’, PhD thesis

residence was in Surrey, had inherited a house in Shapwick, Somerset, from his mother and Hale speculated that Richard Weston, in turn, gave the panels to Tregonwell, whose house at Milton Abbey was some ten miles away. Hale does not mention Tregonwell’s role as a monastic visitor. There is no evidence for this convoluted history. 86 Bettey, op. cit. (note 80), p.301. The annual income of Milton Abbey in 1535 was £665 3s. 21/2d. For Tregonwell taking personal advantage of his role under Cromwell, see ibid., p.301 and Rowse, op. cit. (note 81), p.192. For the deed of surrender of Milton Abbey, see J. Traskey: Milton Abbey: A Dorset Monastery in the Middle Ages, Tisbury 1978, pp.225–26; and for the sale of Milton Abbey to Tregonwell, see ibid., pp.227–30. 87 For his origins, see Rowse, op. cit. (note 81), p.187. 88 See M. Aston: Broken Idols of the English Reformation, Cambridge 2016, pp.219–57; E. Duffy: The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England c.1400-c.1580, New Haven and

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(University of Warwick, 2003), pp.136– 49; and J. Youings, op. cit. (note 8), pp.67, 74, 78–79, 88 and 180–83. 81 For Tregonwell’s Catholic sympathies, see A.L. Rowse: Tudor Cornwall: Portrait of a Society, London 1969, p.222; and for his life under Mary, see ibid., p.193; and Bettey, op. cit. (note 80), p.302. 82 Ibid., pp.296–301. 83 G. Burnet: The History of the Reformation of the Church of England, ed. N. Pocock, Oxford 1865, I, p.414; and J. Strype: Ecclesiastical Memorials, Oxford 1822, I, part 1, pp.559–61. 84 British Library, London, Cotton MS. Appx. 28, fol.52, ‘An abridgement touching the money, plate, stuff, store, and payments at St John’s’, transcribed in J. Gairdner and R. Brodie, eds: Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, London 1896, XV, p.308, item 646. 85 Hale, op. cit. (note 9), p.64, suggested that the last Prior of England before the dissolution in 1540, William Weston, gave the panels to his brother, Richard, for safekeeping. The latter, whose main

London 2005, pp.478–503; and Clark, op. cit. (note 8), pp.391–420. 89 Aston, op. cit. (note 88), pp.177–78; and M. Aston: ‘Gods, saints, and reformers: portraiture and Protestant England’, in L. Gent, ed.: Albion’s Classi-cism: The Visual Arts in Britain, 1550–1660, New Haven and London 1995, p.199. 90 Aston, op. cit. (note 88), p.119. 91 Ibid., pp.225 and 561. 92 Ibid., p.565. 93 Traskey, op. cit. (note 86), p.179; and R. Lloyd: Dorset Elizabethans: At Home and Abroad, London 1967, pp.94 and 106. 94 Aston, op. cit. (note 88), pp.605 and 610. For more general discussion of iconoclasm with respect to images of the Trinity, see ibid., pp.543–614. 95 For this brass, see W. Lack, M. Stuchfield and P. Whittemore: The Monumental Brasses of Dorsetshire, London 2001, pp.128–29. 96 Traskey, op. cit. (note 86), pp.190–91 and 197. 97 See ibid., p.192, where it is stated, without reference, that he acquired

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18. Detail from the tomb of John Tregonwell, showing the inscription. c.1565. (Milton Abbey Church). (Photograph the author).

brethren, with the approval of Edward IV, elected Robert Multon, a man unacceptable to the Order in Rhodes and much less qualified than Weston.103 Edward’s decision may have been influenced by the Weston family’s Lancastrian sympathies.104 Only three years earlier, John Langstrother, Prior of England 1468–71, had been executed after the battle of Tewkesbury for siding with the Lancastrians.105 However, after nearly two years of debate between Edward and the Order in Rhodes, Weston finally gained royal approval on 24th July 1476 to replace Multon as prior later that year.106 Edward’s grudging acceptance of Weston as prior, lingering suspicion of his loyalty to the crown, his long absence from England and the preference of the English brethren for Multon may well have created uncertainty over Weston’s status in contemporary society. Ownership of art could assist in self-promotion. In Burgundy, altarpieces were ‘a genre through which some works by Rubens, Titian, Van Dyck, Poussin and Rembrandt. 98 See Hutchins, op. cit. (note 59), p.395, Conway, op. cit. (note 2), pp.772–73; and Phillips, op. cit. (note 3), p.191, no.1842. 99 On Carl Joachim Hambro’s interest in art, see B. Bramsen and K. Wain: The Hambros, 1779–1979, London 1979, pp.212, 250 and 256, but no references are given. 100Letter from the Secretary of the Order to William St John Hope, 23rd November 1915, LDOSJ 1876, where it is stated that Everard (1842–1925) said ‘that his father got them from somewhere but he does not know where’. Peter Hambro has confirmed that the family has no knowledge or records relating to the panels, email to the present author, 21st November 2018. 101 O’Malley, op. cit. (note 6), pp.34–35. 102 Ibid., pp.126–27. Edward IV was king between 1461–70 and 1471–83. 103 Ibid., p.133. 104 See S. Phillips: The Prior of the Knights Hospitaller in Late Medieval England, Woodbridge 2009, p.76, for

John Weston’s brother Edmund’s Lancastrian sympathies. 105 O’Malley, op. cit. (note 6), pp.127–31. 106 For the negotiations that took place before Weston’s appointment was sanctioned, see ibid., pp.133–37; J. Sarnowsky: ‘Kings and priors: the Hospitaller Priory of England in the later fifteenth century’, in idem, ed.: Mendicants, Military Orders and Regionalism in Later Medieval Europe, Aldershot 1999, pp.93–94; and C. Tyerman: England and the Crusades, 1095–1588, Chicago and London, 1988, pp.95–97. 107 H. Wijsman: ‘Patterns in patronage: distinction and imitation in the patronage of painted art by Burgundian countries (15th and Early 16th Century)’, in S. Gunn and A. Janse, eds: The Court as a Stage. New Histories of the Court, Woodbridge 2006, pp.53–69, at p.67. 108 For Edward’s ownership of manuscripts, see J. Backhouse: ‘Founders of the Royal Library: Edward IV and Henry VII as collectors of illuminated manuscripts’, in D.

of the most important court officials promoted themselves’ and courtly practices of England in many ways took their lead from the dukedom.107 Possibly because of his close ties with the duchy of Burgundy, which included a period of exile there, Edward IV commissioned at least fortyseven Netherlandish illuminated manuscripts, thus effectively founding the English Royal Library.108 His courtiers followed suit and both Edward’s close friends Lord Hastings and Thomas Thwaites, Chancellor of the Exchequer, acquired Netherlandish manuscripts.109 John Donne, Hastings’s brother-in-law, also owned Netherlandish manuscripts and commissioned a triptych by the Bruges-based painter Hans Memling in c.1478.110 Weston would have known these men, as the Prior of England played a prominent role in this society, regularly attending the King’s council and holding the position of the premier lay baron in England.111 He was also wealthy, since in the 1470s he personally controlled forty percent of the Order’s substantial English profits.112 It would be unsurprising if Weston used his wealth to imitate the court in acquiring a Netherlandish altarpiece for his priory church at Clerkenwell. Weston would have been associated intrinsically with the great palace at Clerkenwell, which was comparable to those of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and the Palace of Westminster.113 Through the Weston Altarpiece, distinguished visitors, such as Richard III, who visited the priory and its church in 1485, could have observed that Weston’s tastes were aligned with the great courtiers of the time.114 Weston’s standing in society would have been displayed through his escutcheons. The bezants on his family shield indicate his forebearer’s service in the crusades and the shield of office with anchor proclaims his own service for Christendom and the Order in the East.115 The inclusion of the cross of St George on the family arms endorsed his other loyalty, to England. Strategies such as these employed by Weston to ingratiate himself with the King seem to have met with success. By 1480, judging by various ambassadorial and royal family services asked of him, Weston appears to have gained Edward’s trust.116 He met Margaret, dowager Duchess of Burgundy, on behalf of her brother Edward IV at Gravesend on 6th July 1480, carried the spice plate at the christening of Edward’s youngest child on 11th November 1480 at Eltham, where Edward made Weston ‘ryught whelcum’, and was dispatched to France in August 1480 as part of an embassy to treat with the French king for the marriage of the dauphin to Elizabeth of York.117 It is probable that Weston acquired the altarpiece early in his priorship, between 1476 and August 1481, when he left for Rhodes, not returning to Williams, ed.: England in the fifteenth century: Proceedings of the 1986 Harlaxton Symposium, Woodbridge 1987, pp.23–26. 109 Ibid., pp.29–30; and T. Zitman: ‘King Edward IV of England’s collection of Flemish manuscripts: how a collection of illuminated manuscripts came about through emulation of Burgundian magnificence’, unpublished MA thesis (Leiden University, 2017), pp.30–32. 110 For the Donne Triptych, see Campbell, op. cit. (note 34), pp.374–91; and for Donne’s ownership of Netherlandish manuscripts, see J. Backhouse: ‘Sir John Donne’s Flemish manuscripts’, in P. Monks and D. Owen, eds: Medieval Codicology, Iconography, Literature, and Translation: Studies for Keith Val Sinclair, Leiden 1994, pp.48–57. 111 For the Prior attending the King’s council, see Phillips, op. cit. (note 104), p.124. For a letter of 1461 confirming the Prior of England as England’s premier lay baron, see Sarnowsky, op. cit. (note 106), p.85. For the position

of premier lay baron, see D. Knowles: The Religious Orders in England. Volume II: The End of the Middle Ages, Cambridge 1955, p.304. 112 O’Malley, op. cit. (note 6), p.62; and for income of Clerkenwell, see Phillips, op. cit. (note 104), pp.5–7 and 11. 113 Sloane, op. cit. (note 61), pp.129, 190 and 199–200. 114 For Kings Henry II, John, Henry IV and Byzantine Emperor Manuel II visiting the priory, see W. Pinks: The History of Clerkenwell, ed. E. Wood, London 1881, pp.219–20; Fincham, op. cit. (note 6), p.16; and H. Sire: The Knights of Malta, New Haven and London 1994, p.184. For Henry VII staying at the priory in 1508, see Sloane, op. cit. (note 61), p.206. 115 Bezants, the Western name for coins minted in Byzantium, were adopted for use by crusaders in their arms; see A. Kazhdan et al., eds: The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, New York and Oxford 1991, I, p.287. 116 O’Malley, op. cit. (note 6), pp.137–38. 117 See A. Hanham, ed.: The Cely Letters: 1472–1488, London 1975, pp.86–89.

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The Weston Altarpiece

London until 1485.118 Although carved altarpieces could be commissioned they were also made speculatively to sell in the open markets of Brussels and Antwerp.119 It could take up to two years to commission and take delivery of an altarpiece but purchasing on the open market would be much quicker,120 and did not necessarily translate into lower quality or esteem for the patron.121 Brussels altarpieces were sold in quantity to foreigners and exported across the networks of the Hanseatic League to foreign markets, including England and Scandinavia. These sales were dominated by standardised narratives of the Passion and Infancy.122 Painted wings were usually produced separately from the caisse and securing a panel with St John the Baptist on the exterior would not have been difficult. Just as Hastings, Thwaites and Donne had positions in Calais that afforded them proximity to the Netherlandish art markets, so did Weston through his patronage of the merchant family Cely, who may have been the conduit for his acquisition of the altarpiece, as they were for other Netherlandish goods for him.123 Weston probably visited Calais in 1480 and 1481 and he may have visited Bruges in August 1481 on his journey to Rhodes.124 Although it is possible that he commissioned the altarpiece from an artist based in England, his connections would have enabled him to source it from Brussels or Antwerp. The Order valued Netherlandish art and accumulated a substantial collection on Rhodes, which Weston would have observed while serving there.125 In terms of the altarpiece’s religious function, the feast day of John the Baptist was observed in all the Order’s churches.126 The Order also had a special allegiance to the Virgin Mary.127 Inscriptions on the Netherlandish cadaver tomb of William Weston (d.1540), originally in the north wall of the chancel of the priory church in Clerkenwell (it is now in the crypt), indicate devotion to the Virgin.128 It is probable that his uncle John Weston shared this devotion, which would explain why he chose an Infancy narrative containing Feasts of the Virgin for his altarpiece, as opposed to the more popular alternative of a Passion cycle. The site and nature of John Weston’s tomb is unknown but presumably, as with his nephew William and another successor as prior, Thomas Docwra, it was in the church at Clerkenwell.129 The altarpiece, with his arms prominently displayed on the Baptist panel, would have ensured that the deceased Weston would be long remembered, and prayed for, in the priory church, particularly on the first Monday in Lent, when the statues of the Order specified that ‘a solemn office for the dead should be celebrated for the Masters and the brethren who have departed this life.130 In summary, visual evidence suggests that the panels were painted by a follower of Rogier van der Weyden, possibly in the circle of the Master of the View of St Gudula. They are two of four panels flanking a carved wooden altarpiece, which was almost certainly commissioned or purchased by John Weston for the priory church in Clerkenwell, where it remained until probably being removed by John Tregonwell in 1540 to Milton Abbey. Scientific examination might well assist with dating the panels and the 118 Ibid., pp.108–09, 111–12 and O’Malley, op. cit. (note 6), p.139–41. 119 Jacobs, op. cit. (note 45), pp.149– 57; and D. Ewing: ‘Marketing art in Antwerp, 1460–1560: Our Lady’s Pand’, The Art Bulletin 72 (1990), pp.558–84. For Brussels as an important supplier to the Antwerp fair, see ibid., p.561. 120 F. Vermeylen: ‘Exporting art across the globe: the Antwerp art market in the sixteenth century’, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 50 (1999), p.16. 121 Jacobs, op. cit. (note 45), pp.201–03. 122 For export of carved altarpieces, see ibid., pp.159–61. For documentation

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of the contemporary importation of Early Netherlandish sculpture into England, see Woods, op. cit. (note 9), pp.106–42. For export sales being dominated by Passion and Infancy narratives, see Woods, op. cit. (note 76), p.93. 123 For Hastings, Thwaites and Donne in Calais, see Zitman, op. cit. (note 109), pp.30–33. For Weston’s close connections with the Cely family, including him buying Netherlandish goods through their Calais based relative, see Hanham, op. cit. (note 117); and A. Hanham: The Celys and their World: An English Merchant Family of the Fifteenth Century, Cambridge 1985, pp.10 and 201.

inscription, identifying the white paint in the family shield on the Christ panel and revealing the overpainted escutcheon on the Baptist panel together with any underdrawings that could be compared with those on the Rovigo panel. appendix The eight complete Infancy and Life of the Virgin carved altarpieces catalogued in D’Hainaut-Zveny, ed.: Miroirs du sacré: Les Retables sculptés à Bruxelles XVe–XVIe siècles. Production, Formes et Usages, Brussels 2005. BV: Birth of the Virgin; PV: Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple; MV: Marriage of the Virgin; Magi: Adoration of the Magi; PC: Presentation of Christ in the Temple; Egypt: Flight into Egypt; Doctors: Christ among the Doctors. One painted panel on each side Page and Location

Left panel

Left of caisse

Centre of caisse

Right of caisse

Right panel

163/4 Brussels

Annunciation

Nativity

Circumcision

Doctors

164/5 Brussels

Annunciation

Nativity

Circumcision

Magi

189 Berlin

Annunciation

Nativity

Circumcision

Magi

196 Stuttgart

Nativity

Magi

Two painted panels on each side Page

Outer Inner left left panel panel

201/2 Rouen

210/11 Jäder

Left of caisse

Centre of caisse

Right of caisse

Inner right panel

Annunciation Nativity Magi

Egypt Doctors

Nativity

Magi

Egypt Doctors

BV 213/14 Skepptuna

Nativity

Magi

Egypt Doctors

216/7 Strängnäs

Nativity

Magi

Egypt Doctors

124 Hanham, op. cit. (note 117), pp.108–09 and 111. 125 M. Buhagiar: ‘The treasure of the Knights Hospitallers in 1530: reflections and art historical considerations’, Peregrinationes: Acta et documenta 1 (2000), pp.41–56. 126 C. Dondi: ‘The liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem (XII–XVI Century): with special reference to the practice of the Orders of the Temple and St John of Jerusalem’, PhD thesis (University of London, 2000), pp.118–19 and 122–24; and A. King: Liturgies of the Religious Orders, London 1955, p.252. 127 See M. Kishpaugh: ‘The Feast of the Presentation of the Virgin

Outer right panel

Mary in the Temple: an historical and literary study’, PhD thesis (Catholic University of America, Washington, 1941), p.129 for the Feast of The Presentation of The Virgin being adopted by the Order. 128 Pinks, op. cit. (note 114), pp.38–39. 129 Ibid., p.214, for the burial of Docwra. 130 Chapter-General of 1262, Statute 51; see E. King: ‘The thirteenthcentury statutes of the Knights Hospitallers: being a translation into English, together with an introduction and notes’, Library Committee, Order of St John of Jerusalem, Historical Pamphlets: No. 6 (London, 1933), p.16.

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‘The crucifixion of St Peter’: Gerard Seghers, Michelangelo and Caravaggio A large painting of the crucifixion of St Peter in the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, is here attributed to Gerard Seghers and dated c.1620–21. It was inspired by Michelangelo’s fresco in the Pauline Chapel in the Vatican, possibly mediated through Caravaggio’s lost first version of his painting of the subject for the Cerasi Chapel in S. Maria del Popolo, Rome. by anne delvingt

ver the past two centuries a large painting of the crucifixion of St Peter in the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, has been attributed both to Caravaggio and to various of his followers (Fig.1). After a historical review, this article will propose an attribution to the Antwerp painter Gerard Seghers (1591–1651) based on stylistic comparisons and new connections with works of art in Flanders. It will also suggest iconographical parallels with works by Michelangelo and Caravaggio and in particular will re-examine the painting’s links with the lost first version of Caravaggio’s Crucifixion of St Peter, painted for the Cerasi Chapel in S. Maria del Popolo, Rome, c.1600–01. Among the numerous Caravaggesque treatments of the subject painted in the first half of the seventeenth century, that in the Hermitage is the most intriguing.1 Its early history is unknown and its attribution has changed several times since Tsar Alexander I bought it in September 1808 as a Caravaggio. It was sold through Dominique-Vivant Denon by a Madame Levy de Montmorency in Paris.2 She has not been identified and no trace of that prestigious surname appears in Frits Lugt’s repertoires or in the Getty Provenance Index. The painting was not in the Giustiniani collection in Rome, as was assumed from 1864 to 1975.3 The only Crucifixion of St Peter inventoried in Palazzo Giustiniani, a lost painting by Luca This article is based on a chapter of my PhD thesis, Gérard Seghers (1591–1651) et le caravagisme européen: entre l’Italie, l’Espagne et les anciens PaysBas (Université Libre de Bruxelles, 2009). It is published in loving memory of Stéfan Leclercq, inspiring vivacious Dionysian mind. 1 The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, inv. no.2182. S. Vszevolozhskaya and I. Linnik: Caravaggio and his Followers, Leningrad 1975, pls.11–12. 2 L. Kagané: ‘Denon et la Russie: intermédiaire pour l’Ermitage impérial’, in D. Gallo, ed: Les vies de DominiqueVivant Denon, Paris 2001, pp.296–97. 3 From G.F. Waagen: Die Gemäldesammlung in der Kaiserlichen Ermitage zu Saint-Petersbourg, Munich

1864, no.216, p.82, to Vszevolozhskaya and Linnik, op. cit. (note 1), n.p. 4 L. Salerno: ‘The picture gallery of Vicenzo Giustiniani 2, the inventory, Part 1, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 102 (1960), p.94, no.6; and S. Danesi Squarzina: La collezione Giustiniani: Inventori, Milan 2003, p.187. 5 M. Cinotti, G.A. Dell’Acqua et al.: Cristoforo Roncalli detto il Pomarancio, Michelangelo Merisi detto il Caravaggio, Viviano Codazzi, Niccolo Codazzi (I Pittori Bergamaschi: il Seicento), Bergamo 1983, p.560; Vszevolozhskaya and Linnik, op. cit. (note 1), n.p. 6 Catalogue historique et raisonné, de tableaux par les plus grands peintres, principalement des écoles d’Italie, qui composent la rare et célèbre galerie du

Saltarello, was in horizontal format (‘in forma di sopraporto’), measuring about 210 by 315 centimetres.4 In addition, it did not leave Italy until 1870.5 Although numerous Caravaggesque works from that collection did appear in a sale in Paris in 1808, including Caravaggio’s Lute Player (Hermitage), they did not include a Crucifixion of St Peter. 6 The Hermitage painting had in any case already appeared in a sale in Paris, on 20th July 1802.7 Catalogued under the name of Caravaggio, its subject and dimensions correspond in all respects to the Hermitage canvas. Its purchaser was François-Marie Neveu (1756–1808), government commissioner for Science and Arts in 1800,8 who was perhaps the intermediary for Madame Levy de Montmorency. The 1802 sale was anonymous, but the seller was perhaps Alexandre-Louis de Montaleau (1748–1808), whose name is written in the margin of several copies of the sale catalogue.9 Montaleau, Director of the Monnaie de Paris from 1791 to 1797, collected his works of art between 1795 and 1801 and died bankrupt. However, he was no longer the owner of the works in the 1802 sale because a certain ‘Janet’ had acquired his paintings and pawned them at the Mont de Piété.10 The history of the Crucifixion of St Peter before July 1802 is not known. In the twentieth century, the Hermitage canvas was attributed to various Italian imitators or followers of Caravaggio, including, as well as Luca Saltarello,11 Bartolomeo Manfredi and Lionello Spada (1576–1622).12 Prince Giustiniani [. . .], Paris 1808. 7 A. Paillet and H. Delaroche, Catalogue de tableaux formant une réunion imposante d’articles [. . .] le 19 juillet 1802 et jours suivants, Paris 1802, no.23, p.13 (20th July). 8 B. Savoy: Patrimoine annexé. Les biens culturels saisis par la France en Allemagne autour de 1800, Paris 2003, pp.56–86. 9 J. Tuchlender: Les Roëttiers de la Tour et de Montaleau. Orfèvres, francs-maçons, industriels, XVIIIeXIXe siècles, Paris 2016. 10 Getty Provenance Index, sale catalogue F-33. 11 R. Longhi: ‘Ultimi studi sul Caravaggio e la sua cerchia’, Proporzioni 1 (1943), p.59, note 83; W. Friedländer: ‘The Crucifixion of St Peter: Caravaggio

and Reni’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 8 (1945), no.24B, pl.63; and M. Marini: Michelangelo da Caravaggio, Rome 1974, p.290 and no.R-2, p.463. 12 On the attribution to Manfredi, see L. Zahn: Caravaggio, Berlin 1928, p.42. On the attribution to Spada, see S. Vszevolozhskaya, I. Grigorieva and T. Fomitchova: The Italian Painting in the Hermitage, 13th to 18th Century, Leningrad 1964, pls.125–26 ; and M.I. Shcherbachova: ‘Italianskije Caravaggisty V. Ermitaje, II (‘Italian Caravaggesques from the Hermitage’) Soobshchenija Gossudarstvennogo Ermitagea (Bulletin of the Hermitage Museum) 27 (1966), pp.21–24; and Vszevolozhskaya and Linnik, op. cit. (note 1), n.p.

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‘The crucifixion of St Peter’ by Gerard Seghers

It is catalogued by the Hermitage Museum under this last name, with a question mark, but the attribution is not justified by style or typology.13 For a short time Spada’s work took ‘Caravaggio’s direction’, to quote Benedict Nicolson, when, c.1611, the painter returned to Bologna after a stay in Malta, where he saw Caravaggio’s works there.14 The degree of extravagant realism in the rendering of the flesh and facial expressions in the Hermitage canvas departs from the classical and ideal aspect of Spada’s works. In a fundamental article, Walter Friedländer was the first to argue that the Hermitage Crucifixion of St Peter is a work of the Dutch or French school and probably a copy after the lost first version of the painting by Caravaggio for the Cerasi Chapel.15 Mia Cinotti and Gian Alberto Dell’Acqua thought that the painter must be Flemish: ‘the central idea of the cross is undoubtedly Caravaggio’s, but the strong naturalism and crude exuberance of some of the figures (the upright executioner on the left and the one in the feathered beret on the right) are more Flemish than Italian or French’.16 Cesare Brandi believed that the canvas is a copy of the first version of Caravaggio’s painting, perhaps by a French or Flemish painter in the first two decades of the seventeenth century.17 Maurizio Marini, with a Giustiniani provenance in mind, proposed that it was by Joachim von Sandrart.18 Von Sandrart (1606–88) lived from 1632 to 1635 in Palazzo Giustiniani, but the figures in his Caravaggesque paintings, which quote from works by Gerrit van Honthorst and from antiquities in Giustiniani’s collection, are less monumental in type than those in the Hermitage painting.19 For Alfred Moir, the Hermitage canvas is ‘undoubtedly Caravaggesque’, but the ‘chaotic and charged’ composition is opposed to the spirit of Caravaggio’s tendency to simplification.20 He instead compared the head of St Peter to works by Matthias Stomer (c.1600–c.1650). John Spike was the first to propose an Antwerp painter, Thedoor Rombouts.21 The Hermitage Crucifixion of St Peter offers sufficient stylistic and typological parallels to the works of another Antwerp painter, Gerard Seghers, to allow it to be attributed to him. In style, it is close to his paintings of the early 1620s, which emulated Caravaggio and the works Seghers had seen in Rome during the previous decade. A master in the Antwerp painters’ guild from 1608, Seghers departed for Italy after

January 1611, when he was last documented in the city.22 Isaac Bullart reported that the painter spent several years in Italy in order to copy Italian works for the Goetkint brothers, merchants in Antwerp.23 The date of his arrival in Rome is not known and no works are documented from his Italian career, between c.1611 and 1617, or from his stay in Spain, between 1617 and c.1620.24 However, recent additions to his oeuvre, such as the Crucifixion in the Capuchins Convent of Monterosso al Mare,25 the Ecstasy of St Francis in the church of the Blessed Virgin of the Carmine, Soragna,26 and the Mystic marriage of St Catherine in the Real Academia de Bella Artes de San Fernando, Madrid,27 were most likely painted before his return to Antwerp in 1620. These last two works have great affinities with the elegant Caravaggism of Bartolomeo Cavarozzi (1587–1625).28 Seghers certainly knew that Roman master because during the summer of 1617 he travelled with him and Giovanni Battista Crescenzi from Rome to Genoa and Madrid under the patronage of Cardinal Antonio Zapata (1550–1635).29 In its rich Caravaggesque vocabulary, the Resurrection (Fig.2), Seghers’ first documented work after his return to Antwerp in 1620, demonstrates his fresh Italian visual experiences.30 It was largely inspired by the painting of the subject by Giovanni Baglione (1601–03), which Seghers surely saw on its side altar in the Gesù in Rome during the second decade of the seventeenth century.31 The Hermitage Crucifixion of St Peter may correspond to an important but previously unidentified work by Seghers mentioned by his biographer Isaac Bullart: ‘Seghers, having made a name for himself among the Italians and Spaniards, was also admired by the Flemish: for in his paintings was seen an elegance so similar to that of the greatest Italian painters that when he had finished this incomparable piece of St Peter crucified with his head down, the most experienced believed at first that it was by Michelangelo Caravaggio’.32 This painting also inspired a laudatory comment by Florent Le Comte (paraphrased from Bullart): ‘On his return to Antwerp, he [Seghers] undertook to paint the Martyrdom of St Peter, with all the circumstances of the crucifixion; it is one of the rarest and most singular pieces in all of

13 It does no appear in M. Pirondini: Leonello Spada (1576–1622), Manerba 2002. 14 B. Nicolson: Caravaggism in Europe, Turin 1989, pp.178–79. 15 Friedländer, op. cit. (note 11), p.153. 16 ‘l’idée centrale de la croix est indubitablement du Caravage mais le naturalisme emporté et l’exubérance grossière de certains personnages (le bourreau dressé à gauche et celui au béret à plume à droite) sont de marque plus flamande qu’italienne ou française’, Cinotti, Dell’Acqua et al., op. cit. (note 5), p.560; and A. Ottino della Chiesa and R. Morselli: Tout l’oeuvre peint de Caravage, Paris 1980, no.80, pp.103–04. 17 C. Brandi: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio [duplicated copy course], Università di Roma, 1972–73, pp.61–63, quoted in Cinotti, Dell’Acqua et al., op. cit. (note 5), p.561. 18 M. Marini: ‘“Michael Angelus Caravaggio Romanus”: Rassegna degli studi e proposte’, Studi barocchi, Rome 1978–79, I, p.77, note 10; and idem: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, ‘pictor praestantissimus’, Rome 1987, p.338. 19 C. Klemm: Joachim von Sandrart, Kunst-Werke und Lebens-Lauf, Berlin 1986. 20 A. Moir: Caravaggio and his Copyists, New York 1976,

and A. Lercari, eds: Il convento dei Cappuccini di Monterosso al Mare, Genoa 2019, II, pp.590–92 26 G. Papi: Bartolomeo Cavarozzi, Soncino 2015, p.82, fig.79. It is attributed to Maino in R. Contini: ‘Polyphony and polycentrism: Spanish painting in the seventeenth century’ in M. Eissenhauer et al.: exh. cat. The Spanish Golden Age. Painting and Sculpture in the Time of Velásquez, Berlin (Gemäldegalerie) and Munich (Kunsthalle der HypoKulturstiftung) 2016, p.43. 27 Papi, op. cit. (note 26), pp. 79–81, pl.lxxxvi. G. Papi: ‘Indagini sulla fase matura di Bartolomeo Cavarozzi’, Arte Cristiana 89 (2001), pp.435–36, fig.13. 28 The first publication on Seghers’ link with Cavarozzi is M.G. Guardata: ‘Gerard Seghers e l’ambiente gesuitico romano (Anversa 1591–1651)’ in A. Zuccari, ed.: I Caravaggeschi: percorsi & protagonisti, Milan 2010, pp.659–66. Guardata did not cite any sources, as pointed out in Papi, op. cit. (note 26), ‘Da Bartolomeo Cavarozzi a Gerard Seghers’, pp.79–85, at p.79. See also Kientz, op. cit. 2014 (note 24), p.82; and Kientz, op. cit. (note 24), p.511. 29 M. von Bernstorff: ‘Da Roma a Genova e alla corte di Spagna. Il viaggio di Crescenzi, Cavarozzi e Seghers come esempio del transfer artistico tra Anversa, Roma e Madrid’ in Zanelli, op.

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pp.145–46, figs.68–71. 21 J. Spike: Caravaggio, New York and London 2001, C 6 under no.24.2. 22 P. Rombouts and T. Van Lerius: De Liggeren, Antwerp 1864–76, I, p.424. D. Bieneck: Gerard Seghers, 1591–1651, Leben und Werk des Antwerpener Historienmalers, Lingen 1992; and C. Van De Velde: ‘In de ban van Caravaggio en Rubens: de schilder Gerard Seghers’, Belgisch tijdschrift voor Oudheidkunde en Kunstgeschiedenis 61 (1992), pp.181–99. 23 I. Bullart: Académie des sciences et des arts, Brussels 1682, II, p.494. 24 However various attempts to situate works by Seghers before 1620 are made in G. Kientz: ‘Spain, 1600–1620, new trends in painting’, in L.M. Helmus and V. Manuth, eds: Utrecht and the International Caravaggesque Movement, Paris 2014, pp.83–84, fig.3; and G. Kientz: ‘Velásquez, Caravaggio y el Caravaggismo en España’, in B. Navarrete Prieto, ed.: El Joven Velásquez, Seville 2015, p.515. 25 D. Sanguineti: Genova 1617: incontro con Bartolomeo Cavarozzi, in G. Zanelli: exh. cat. Bartolomeo Cavarozzi a Genova, Genoa (Galleria Nazionale di Palazzo Spinola) 2018, pp.53–57, fig.29. A. Delvingt, ‘Gérard Seghers, Cristo spirante tra la Madonna Addolorata e San Giovanni Evangelista’, in A. Cippelli

1. The crucifixion of St Peter, here attributed to Gerard Seghers. c.1620– 22. Canvas, 232 by 201 cm. (State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg).

cit. (note 25), pp.7–29. A. Delvingt: Gérard Seghers (1591–1651) et le caravagisme européen: entre l’Italie, l’Espagne et les anciens Pays-Bas, unpublished Ph.D. diss. (Université Libre de Bruxelles, 2009), pp.28–80, ‘Bullart, Baglione, Zapata et Cavarozzi’. 30 A. Delvingt: exh. cat. Gérard Seghers (1591–1651), un peintre flamand entre Maniérisme et Caravagisme, Valenciennes (Musée des Beaux-Arts) 2011, pp.39–45, and p.26, fig.7 31 For this lost painting, see R. Longhi: ‘Govanni Baglione e il quadro del processo’, Paragone 163 (1963), pp.23–31. 32 ‘Segers s’estant signalé parmy les Italiens & les Esagnols, se fit encore admirer parmy les Flamens: car on vit en ses Tableaux une élégance si ressemblante à celle des plus grands Peintres d’Italie, que lors qu’il eut achevé cette pièce incomparable de Saint Pierre Crucifié la teste en bas; les plus experimentez crurent d’abord qu’elle estoit, de Michel Ange Carovage’, Bullart, op. cit. (note 23), p.494; A. Delvingt: ‘“L’Académie des sciences et des arts” d’Isaac Bullart (1682) et les peintres illustres du PaysBas et autres en deçà des monts’, in M.-C. Heck, ed.: L’Histoire de l’histoire de l’art septentrional au XVIIe siècle, Turnhout 2009, pp.67–78.

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‘The crucifixion of St Peter’ by Gerard Seghers

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‘The crucifixion of St Peter’ by Gerard Seghers

Opposite 2. The resurrection, by Gerard Seghers. c.1620. Oil on canvas, 324 by 240 cm. (Musée du Louvre, Paris; Bridgeman Images). 3. The raising of the Cross, by Gerard Seghers. c.1623–25. Oil on canvas, 535 by 395 cm. (St Charles Borromeo church, Antwerp; Bridgeman Images).

Flanders; it is noticeable that he had adopted the manner of Manfredi’.33 Both writers date the painting to after Seghers’ return to Antwerp, c.1620, when his style was Caravaggesque.34 Le Comte qualifies it as ‘manner of Manfrede’, referring to ‘Bartholomaei Manfredi Manier’, a formula coined by Von Sandrart in his biography of Seghers.35 Bartolomeo Manfredi (1582– 1622) indeed successfully adopted and developed Caravaggio’s style and themes after 1610. But rather than being a precise reference to Manfredi’s style and compositions, ‘the manner of Manfredi’ was intended simply to characterise Seghers’ Caravaggesque idiom. Sandrart’s terms defining Seghers’ ‘Manier’ are exactly those that Gian Pietro Bellori had used three years earlier to describe Caravaggio’s style.36 The Crucifixion of St Peter mentioned by Bullart and Le Comte is not further documented in the seventeenth century. It is not cited by Von Sandrart among Seghers’ Caravaggesque paintings nor is it mentioned by Baptiste Descamps or Joshua Reynolds.37 It is not known, therefore, where Seghers’ ‘incomparable piece’ was originally installed. It was surely not the large version (approximately 250 by 202 centimetres) of the subject attributed to Seghers that belonged to the canon of Antwerp cathedral and art lover Pierre André Joseph Knijff (1713–84), which was sold three times in Antwerp, in 1785, 1802 and 1817. The catalogues of these sales do not refer to this painting as Caravaggesque in style.38 As it was apparently a brutal composition with ferocious figures, it was perhaps close to the one Rubens painted c.1638–40 (St Peter’s church, Cologne), also with six characters, showing the apostle writhing under the effect of his crucifixion.39 Rubens departed from Caravaggio’s final version in S. Maria del Popolo, which does not involve any demonstration of physical effort or excessive suffering.40 The Hermitage Crucifixion of St Peter can be stylistically linked with other paintings by Seghers. It must have been executed at the same time or shortly after his Resurrection, painted in 1620. Both canvases possess the same intense radiating yellowish light, creating strong shadows that vigorously outline shapes and illuminate the white surfaces. They both include robust, plastic forms and their protagonists have similar enormous fingers, almost rectangular phalanges (the old man with a shovel, for example) and thick hair. Seghers also uses local colours with a Caravaggesque vocabulary of multicoloured feathered hats and, on the right, gesticulating bravos. He locates the scene in an undifferentiated exterior with succulent plants all of the same type. In an illusionistic – and very Caravaggesque – way Seghers depicts the foot of St Peter’s cross at the foreground edge of the painting. The impressively monumental body of the saint, strongly illuminated and sharply outlined against the dark background, seems to slide out of the frame towards the faithful. Seghers

depicts the body of the martyr with raw realism, emphasising his wrinkled and reddened flesh, mutilated by his torment. Seghers designed the monumental figure of Christ in his Raising of the Cross in Antwerp with the same naturalistic emphasis (Fig.3).41 Large nails also crush the flesh into which they sink, Christ’s feet are distorted by the strong traction exerted on his muscles and his toes are large. In both works the executioners – who all have robust and enormous hands – strain to lift the cross with a rope and Seghers depicted the cross in the same unusual way, combining a greenish tree trunk for the upright with a transverse board. The Hermitage painting can also be compared to Seghers’s Ecstasy of St Francis, another large Caravaggesque work, painted c.1622–24 (Fig.5).42 The soft and refined depiction of the executioner wearing a feathered beret in the Hermitage painting closely recalls the face of St Francis, with very large eyebrows terminating in a shadow, delicately wrinkled temples, pockets under the eyes and a fine, straight nose. In his Christ at the column,

33 ‘A son retour à Anvers, il entreprit de peindre le Martyre de saint Pierre, avec toutes les circonstances du crucifiement ; c’est un morceau des plus rares et des plus singuliers qui soit dans toute la Flandre; l’on y remarque qu’il avoit pris la manière du Manfrede’, F. Le Comte: Cabinet des singularitez d’architecture, peinture, sculpture et gravure, Paris 1699, II, p.308. 34 See D. Roggen and H. Pauwels: ‘Het caravaggistisch œuvre van Gerard Seghers’, Gentse Bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschiedenis en Oudheidkunde 16

voyage pittoresque de la Flandre et du Brabant, Paris 1769; and J. Reynolds: A Journey to Flanders and Holland, Cambridge 1996 38 Catalogue de la riche, rare et célèbre collection de tableaux [. . .] qui formoient le cabinet de feu Mr. Pierre André Joseph Knyff [. . .], dont la vente se fera [. . .] le 18 juillet 1785 [. . .], Antwerp 1785, no.1; Le catalogue d’une collection de tableaux vendus à Anvers le 16 juin 1802, Antwerp 1802, no.6; Catalogue d’une belle et riche collection des tableaux, dont la vente se fera le 1 sept-

(1955–56), pp.255–301. 35 J. von Sandrart: Teutsche Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste in ursprünglicher Form neu gedrukt mit einer Einleitung von Christian Klemm, Nördlingen 1994, p.301. 36 For these, see Delvingt, op. cit. (note 30), pp.43–44; and G.B. Bellori: Le vite de’ pittori, scultori a architetti moderni [Rome 1672], Paris 1991, p.18. 37 Von Sandrart, op. cit. (note 35), p.301; J.-B. Descamps: Vie des peintres flamands, allemands et hollandais, Paris 1753–63, I, pp.387–88; idem: Le

embre 1817 [. . .], Antwerp 1817, no.232. 39 M. Hanstein: Peter Paul Rubens’ Kreuzigung Petri: ein Bild aus der Peterkirche zu Köln, Cologne 1996. 40 P. Jansson: ‘Some reflections on Caravaggio’s religious art based on “The Conversion of St Paul” and “The Crucifixion of St Peter”’, in New Caravaggio, Papers Presented at the International Conference in Uppsala and Rome, Florence 2013, pp.122–23. 41 Delvingt, op. cit. (note 30), p.23, fig.2. 42 Ibid., p.23, fig.3.

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painted in the 1630s (Fig.4), the depiction of the crouching executioner and Christ’s monumental body with large torso and wide hips recalls the Crucifixion of St Peter.43 The head of St Peter is brightly painted, with sparkling eyes, shaggy eyebrows and twinklingly iridescent locks of hair. It is strikingly like the head of the saint in Anthony van Dyck’s Crucifixion of St Peter (Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels).44 Van Dyck’s martyr also has a massive face, coarse features, an air of hallucination, reddish flesh and disorderly hair and beard. Seghers and Van Dyck may have used the same Antwerp model for their St Peters. The early provenance of Van Dyck’s painting, dated c.1615–16, is not known. Its vertical composition, verdant setting and bright blue sky evoke Venetian painting more than Caravaggio. Although the original location of Seghers’s Crucifixion of St Peter remains unknown, it appears to have been in the Southern Low Countries in the first half of the seventeenth century. The theme is relatively rare in this region, but there are a few later Flemish works that appear to demonstrate firsthand knowledge of the painting, which was not engraved. In the second half of the 1640s Gaspar de Crayer (1584–1669) painted the subject for the parish church of Sint-Pieters-Leeuw, near Brussels.45 His crucified St Peter echoes exactly Seghers’s and his cross also consists of a trunk and a plank. A preparatory oil sketch by De Crayer (Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam) is even more clearly inspired by Seghers in its inclusion of a crouched executioner with a moustache and a soldier to the left holding 4. Christ at the column, by Gerard Seghers, c.1630–35. Oil on canvas, 268 by 144 cm. (St Michael’s church, Ghent; © photograph the author). Opposite 5. The ecstasy of St Francis, by Gerard Seghers. c.1622–24. Oil on canvas, 236 by 161 cm. (Musée du Louvre, Paris).

a shovel.46 A Crucifixion of St Peter (Fig.6) by Antoon Sallaert (1594–1650) also closely repeats Seghers’ figure of the martyr and the design of the cross.47 Sallaert’s painting, dating from the 1630s, also quotes Caravaggio’s Crucifixion of St Andrew (1607; Cleveland Museum of Art) in the executioner in profile on the right, wearing an exuberantly plumed hat.48 Caravaggio’s original was painted in Naples in 1607 and taken to Spain in 1610. Sallaert never visited Italy or Spain but he could have seen the copy made in Naples that was taken north via Amsterdam and Antwerp in 1619,49 the so-called ‘Back-Vega’ version now in London.50 An anonymous Crucifixion of St Peter in Lo-Reninge owes a debt both to Seghers’ Crucifixion of St Peter and his Raising of the Cross in St Charles Borromeo church, Antwerp.51 However, the artist amends the collapsed pose of St Peter’s body by depicting the saint’s arms in a convex position. This painting is surely the former main altarpiece of the church in Lo-Renige that in 1639 was replaced by Jan Boeckhorst’s Golgotha. The circumstances of St Peter’s crucifixion are given in the apocryphal Acts of Peter and The Golden Legend.52 Peter, the first bishop of Rome, was crucified in about AD 64, probably on the site of S. Pietro in Montorio.53 The apostle wanted to be crucified head downwards and he addressed the crowd gathered around him to explain his intention.54 Michelangelo followed the Scriptures to the letter in his immense fresco in the Pauline Chapel in the Vatican (Fig.8).55 He was the first painter to represent the raising of St Peter’s cross, breaking with the old vertical presentations of the crucifixion to create a dynamic diagonal composition.56 The body of the martyr slipping tragically from the cross dramatises the scene even further. Although Seghers clearly borrowed the figure of St Peter from Michelangelo, the relationship between the two paintings has not previously been noted in studies of the Hermitage Crucifixion of St Peter. As Seghers was in contact with Cardinal Antonio Zapata in Rome, he may have had access to Michelangelo’s fresco. However, since the painting’s composition mirrors the fresco, it is possible that his model was the engraving after the fresco made before 1568 by Giovanni Battista de Cavalieri (1525–1601), which shows it in reverse.57 Seghers was especially interested by the monumental body of the saint, sliding off the cross, and in particular the lateral movement of his knees and hips. He was also inspired by the depiction of the martyr’s broad torso and the way his arms form a V on the cross in a naturalistic position that had no parallels in earlier representations of the scene. The executioners supporting the cross in the painting also have counterparts in Michelangelo’s fresco. 43 Bieneck, op. cit. (note 22), A 77. 44 N. De Poorter et al.: Van Dyck, The Complete Paintings, New Haven and London 2004, no.I. 43., pp.60–61 (the Hermitage’s painting as ‘Caravaggesque’) and A. Vergara and F. Lammertse: The Young Van Dyck, London 2013, no.11, p.128, note 10, fig.45 (as ‘follower of Caravaggio, Lionello Spada?’). 45 Oil on canvas, 375 by 250 cm. See H. Vlieghe: Gaspard de Crayer, Brussels 1972, A 113, fig.112. 46 Oil/panel, 64 by 44.5 cm. See H. Vlieghe: ‘De marteldood van de H. Petrus, een olieverfschets door Gaspard de Crayer’, Bulletin Museum Boijmansvan Beuningen 17 (1966), pp.13–22. 47 A.-C. Olbrechts: ‘Onvermoede schatten in de Sint-Pieterskerk (Denderwindeke)’, Het Nieuwsblad (20th December 2005). The painting was restored in 2010 by Frederik Cnockaert, Kerat Fine Art Studio, Wervik. 48 The Cleveland Museum of Art, inv. no.1976.2, see E.E. Benay: Exporting Caravaggio. The Crucifixion of Saint Andrew (Cleveland Masterwork, IV), Cleveland and London 2017. 49 A. Bredius and N; De Roever: ‘Pieter Lastman en François Venant’,

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Oud Holland 4 (1886), pp.7–8, fully published in D. Bodart: Louis Finson, Brussels 1970, pp.234–35. 50 Benay, op. cit. (note 48), pp.105–38. 51 Oil on panel, 300 by 240 cm: see KIK-IRPA photo m12572 (as school of Pieter II Claeissens). 52 W. Schneemelcher: ‘The Acts of Peter’, New Testament Apocrypha, Louisville 2003, pp.311–21; and J. De Voragine: The Golden Legend, Readings on the Saints, Princeton 2012, pp.345–46. 53 P. Fehl: ‘Michelangelo’s Crucifixion of St. Peter: notes on the identification of the locale of the action’, The Art Bulletin 53 (1971), p.327. 54 W. Braunfels: ‘Petrus, Apostel’, in Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie, Rome, Freibourg and Vienna 1976, VIII, p.171. 55 W.E. Wallace: ‘Narrative and religious expression in Michelangelo’s Pauline Chapel’, Artibus et Historiae 19 (1989), pp.107–21. 56 L. Steinberg: Michelangelo’s Last Paintings: The Conversion of St Paul and the Crucifixion of St Peter in the Capella Paolina, Vatican Palace, London, 1975. 57 See Fehl, op. cit. (note 53), p.331, fig.4.

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‘The crucifixion of St Peter’ by Gerard Seghers

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It is possible, however, that the influence of Michelangelo on Seghers’ painting was mediated through Caravaggio’s lost first version of the Crucifixion of St Peter. The subjects of the two works that Caravaggio painted between September 1600 and May 1601 for the Cerasi Chapel are the same as those depicted by Michelangelo in the Pauline Chapel.58 According to Baglione, Cerasi rejected the paintings, which passed into the collection of Cardinal Giacomo Sannesio (c.1557–1621) in Rome.59 The first Crucifixion of St Peter was last recorded in Madrid in 1702, and no description or proven copies are known.60 Its dimensions and its support must have been the same as those of its pendant, the first version of the Conversion of St Paul (Fig.9), which is painted on a cypress-wood panel measuring about 237 by 189 centimetres.61 This painting was also for a time in Spain but by the time it was recorded in Francesco Maria Balbi’s collection in Genoa in 1682 it had been separated from its pendant.62 Caravaggio executed two new versions for the Cerasi Chapel before May 1605, largely so that they would fit better into the narrow architectural space of the newly built chapel designed by Carlo Maderno.63 His second Conversion of St Paul is more refined than the first and its composition less crowded.64 This raises the question of how different Caravaggio’s first version of the Crucifixion of St Peter was from the second. His first Conversion of St Paul was inspired by the version painted by Michelangelo fifty years earlier.65 His St Paul is also lying in the foreground, his legs bent back and his body turned towards the spectator. In his second version, Caravaggio reversed St Paul’s position, so that his head points downwards. Since Caravaggio was inspired by Michelangelo for his first St Paul, it is possible that his first Crucifixion of St Peter similarly reproduced the crucified martyr and the monumental and naturalistic qualities of the fresco.

6. The crucifixion of St Peter, by Antoon Sallaert. c.1630s. Oil on canvas, 400 by 280 cm. (St Peter’s church, Denderwindeke; © 2014 Kerat bv Kunstatelier-Frederik Cnockaert). 7. The martyrdom of St Lievin, by Gerard Seghers, 1633. Oil on canvas, 259 by 194 cm. (St Bavo’s cathedral, Ghent; © Lukasweb).

The Michelangelesque aspects of Seghers’ painting may conceivably, therefore, be an echo of Caravaggio’s lost painting.66 The Hermitage canvas is comparable in size to the first version of the Conversion of St Paul – it is just a little wider – and it has similar monumental characters in the foreground.67 Some scholars, however have argued that the diagonal compositional scheme of Segher’s painting, with the apostle’s head in the middle of the picture and not on its right, could not correspond to the composition of 58 L. Spezzaferro: ‘La Capella Cerasi e il Caravaggio’, in M.G. Bernardini et al.: Caravaggio, Carracci, Maderno: La cappella Cerasi in Santa Maria del Popolo, Milan 2001, pp.9–35. 59 G. Baglione: Le vite de’ pittori, scultori et architetti: Dal Pontificato di Gregorio XIII fino a tutto quello d’Urbano VIII, Rome 1642, p.137. 60 A. Vannugli: ‘Caravaggio: l’ultima traccia della’ ‘Crocifissione di San Pietro’ Sannesio’, Bollettino d’Arte 107 (1999), p.104. 61 As the autograph first version for Cerasi: A. Morassi: ‘Il Caravaggio di Casa Balbi’, Emporium (1947), p.98; and idem: exh. cat. Pittura del Seicento in Liguria, Genoa (Palazzo Reale) 1947, no.135, p.99. For the contract with dimensions and medium, see D. Mahon: ‘Egregius in Urbe Pictor, Caravaggio revised’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 93 (1951), p.226. 62 P. Boccardo: ‘Da Roma a Madrid, da Madrid a Genova, da Genova a Roma: Vicende della “Converzione di Saul” del Caravaggio sullo sfondo del mercato internazionale delle opere d’arte nel Seicento’, in G. Lepri, ed.: Capolavori da scoprire. Odescalchi e Pallavicini, Milan 2006, p.89. 63 Spezzaferro, op. cit. (note 58), p.14; and A. Mignosi Tantillo: ‘La cappella Cerasi, Vicende de une decorazione’, in Bernardini et al., op. cit. (note 58), pp.57–63.

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64 M.G. Bernardini: ‘‘La quale istoria è affato senza azzione’, la Converzione di san Paolo di Caravaggio’, in Bernardini et al., op. cit. (note 58), pp.87–107; and R. Vodret: exh. cat. Il Caravaggio Odescalchi: Le due versione di S. Paolo a confronto, Rome (S. Maria del Popolo) 2006. 65 W. Friedländer: Caravaggio Studies, Princeton 1955, p.184. 66 Friedländer, op. cit. (note 11), p.155; Nicolson, op. cit. (note 14), p.81 and fig.35; and S. Ebert-Schifferer: Caravaggio: the Artist and his Work, Los Angeles 2012, p.279, note 152. 67 In 1943 Longhi first judged the Odescalchi panel as ‘cosa fiamminga del 1620’: Longhi, op. cit. (note 11), p.101. R. Longhi: exh. cat. Mostra del Caravaggio e dei caravaggeschi, Milan (Palazzo Reale) 1951, p.19, no.13 (as Caravaggio). 68 Ottino della Chiesa and Morselli, op. cit. (note 16), no.80, p.104 (attributed to Caravaggio). H. Nolin: ‘“Non piacquero al Padrone”. A reexamination of Caravaggio’s Cerasi “Crucifixion of St Peter”’, Rutgers Art Review 24 (2008), pp.53 (as Luca Saltarello), where it is suggested that Domenico Cresti’s lost Crucifixion of St Peter, formerly in St Peter’s, Rome (c.1611), which is known through an engraving by Jacques Callot, better reflected Caravaggio’s first St Peter. 69 Vszevolozhskaya and Linnik, op. cit. (note 1), pls.11–12.

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‘The crucifixion of St Peter’ by Gerard Seghers

Caravaggio’s first version of the Conversion of St Paul since it does not take account of how the viewer would have seen the painting while entering the chapel.68 Seghers may, however, have adapted Caravaggio’s composition, since his painting was presumably intended as an altarpiece that would have been seen straight on and not from the side, like Caravaggio’s. It can be assumed that Seghers had the opportunity to study Caravaggio’s first versions of the Cerasi Chapel paintings when he was in Rome in the 1610s under the patronage of Cardinal Zapata and potentially had access to Cardinal Giacomo Sannesio’s collection. This supposition is strengthened by the fact that Seghers borrowed a figure from Caravaggio’s first Conversion of St Paul (of which no copy or engravings are known), the bearded soldier raising his shield to defend himself from the vision of Christ. Seghers reversed the figure’s pose for that of the plumed bravo pulling on the

rope on the right of his painting. The position of the legs is identical, as is the design of his extremely muscular arm. Seghers, who often drew on more than one source when creating his compositions, could have been inspired by both of Caravaggio’s first versions of the Cerasi Chapel paintings when creating his Crucifixion of St Peter. It has been suggested that the left side of the Hermitage canvas, in which the three executioners are supporting the cross, is superior to the rest and was copied from the lost Caravaggio, whereas the figures on the right side, including the man with the plumed hat, are additions by an artist of the Flemish school.69 The old man on the far right and the two soldiers behind the cross do not appear in an anonymous variant once 8. The crucifixion of St Peter, by Michelangelo. c.1545–50. Fresco, 625 by 661 cm. (Pauline chapel, Vatican City; Bridgeman Images).

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9. The conversion of St Paul, by Caravaggio. c.1600–01. Oil on cypress panel, 237 by 189 cm. (Palazzo Odescalchi, Rome; Bridgeman Images). 10. The crucifixion of St Peter, by an anonymous painter. c.1601–50. Oil on canvas, 245 by 225 cm. (Formerly Castello Santa Margherita Ligure).

in the Castello Santa Margherita Ligure (Fig.10).70 This canvas has been lost and its provenance is unknown, as is also the case with a weaker copy in S. Martino, Verezzi, Liguria.71 The slightly different typologies of the figures indicate another hand than Seghers’, probably an Italian artist of the first half of the seventeenth century. The chronology of these versions and their relationship to the Hermitage painting are difficult to define. The two helmeted soldiers behind the cross and the old man at far right in the Hermitage canvas seem to be Seghers’ invention. Similar soldiers, also leaning on pikes, appear in his Martyrdom of St Lievin. The old man as spectator on the edge of the Crucifixion of St Peter could also be an original idea of Seghers, since it does not appear in previous representations of this subject. Might the Santa Margherita Ligure Crucifixion of St Peter, which lacks these ‘Flemish’ elements, have been more faithful to Caravaggio’s original? In which case, had the latter passed through Genoa before arriving in Madrid, where it is documented in 1647?72 Alfred Moir has suggested that the three executioners holding the cross in the Hermitage painting are borrowed from Caravaggio’s lost original because they appear also in two slightly later Italian versions.73 In a painting by Ventura Salimbeni made for an unknown destination (c.1610–12; Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome),74 the executioners’ faces are scarcely visible, 70 Marini, op. cit. (note 11), R-2, pp.290, 463 (as Luca Saltarello). 71 M. Bartoletti: ‘Una nuova traccia caravaggesca in Diocesi di Albenga-Imperia “La Crocifissione di San Pietro”’, unpublished lecture, Museo Diocesano, Albenga, 13th October 2012.

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72 Bernardini, op. cit. (note 64), p.87, fig.5. 73 Moir, op. cit. (note 20), p.145. 74 Oil on canvas, 124 by 97 cm. See B. Santi and C. Strinati: exh. cat. Siena & Roma: Raffaello, Caravaggio e i protagonisti di un legame antico, Siena (S. Maria della Scala and Palazzo

as in Seghers’s painting. Moir also refers to a drawing by Ricci da Novara,75 preparatory to his fresco in S. Maria in Traspontina, Rome, dated 1619.76 The executioner supporting the cross in the centre looks upwards, exactly as in the Hermitage painting and there are also similarities in St Peter’s reversed head as well as in his arms and torso and the four nails. Caravaggio’s first St Peter appears, therefore, to have been a model for painters present in Rome in the first two decades of the seventeenth century. Friedländer even argued that Rubens’s Raising of the Cross (1610–11; Antwerp Cathedral) could be a development of Caravaggio’s ‘first and imperfect’ idea, reflected also in the Hermitage canvas.77 Rubens’s and Seghers’ paintings share a general compositional scheme, in which the cross tilts obliquely to the left and an executioner to the right pulls it upright with a rope. They also have some figures in common, such as the two executioners pushing and supporting the cross, who appear also in Ricci da Novarra’s drawing.78 A similar comparison can be made with Rubens’s earlier Raising of the Cross, painted in Rome in 1602 and known through a copy in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame-du-Puy, Grasse.79 Rubens admired Caravaggio’s inventions – for example, he made a copy of his Entombment of Christ (c.1602–04; Vatican Museums), painted for S. Maria in Vallicella, Rome – so it is possible that his 1602 Raising of the Cross could have been inspired by Caravaggio’s first Crucifixion of St Peter, executed only a year earlier. Seghers in turn created an original interpretation of the Crucifixion of St Peter that formed an inspiring and imposing example of Caravaggism in Flanders around 1620. Squarcialupi) 2005–06, no.5.10 (c.1610) and, for Manetti’s pendant, no.6.8 75 Moir, op. cit. (note 20), fig.69. 76 M. Mercalli: ‘Momenti e aspetti dell’attivita’ di Giovan Battista Ricci da Novara a Roma: I cicli della Traspontina’, Annuario del Istituto di Storia dell’Arte 1 (1981/82), pp.34–42, fig.2.

77 Friedländer, op. cit. (note 11), p.155. 78 F. Baudouin: ‘De kruisoprichting van Pieter Paul Rubens’, in R. D’Hulst et al., eds: De kruisoprichting van Pieter Paul Rubens, Brussels 1992, pp.54–55. 79 H. Vlieghe: Saints, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, 8, Turnhout 1972, II, pp.65–68, no.112, fig.35.

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Christian VII of Denmark’s lost British portraits In 1768–69 the young King Christian VII of Denmark visited London and Paris, where several portraits of him were painted. Three were by artists born or working in Britain – Angelica Kauffmann, Edward Cunningham, known as Calze, and Matthew Peters. All are now lost, but evidence about the commissions survives in copies and prints, contemporary descriptions and documents in the Danish State Archives. by sara ayres

he history of art naturally privileges extant works, yet the histories of lost objects, preserved in archival ephemera, copies and reproductions, can shed important new light on artists’ biographies and commercial practices and on the interests of their clients. This article will discuss the creation in 1768 of now-lost portraits of Christian VII, King of Denmark (1749–1808), by three artists, one, Angelica Kauffmann (1741–1807), who was then working in Britain, and two who were British but worked abroad, Edward Francis Cunningham, known as Calze (c.1742–95), and Matthew William Peters (1742–1814). Made within a few months of one another during the king’s Grand Tour of Northern Europe that began in May 1768, fifteen months after he had come to the throne at the age of sixteen, these portraits collectively memorialise a short, bright moment in the career of an absolute monarch whose life was otherwise dominated by mental illness.1 In this series of portraits, the young Danish king was briefly celebrated as a modern, enlightened prince. By undertaking a Grand Tour, Christian was following a long tradition of the Oldenburg monarchy. Johann Friedrich Struensee (1737–72), who would have such a definitive impact on Danish political history, was contracted to accompany him as his personal doctor.2 In 1766 Christian had married Princess Caroline Matilda (1751–75), the youngest sister of George III of Great Britain; in 1770 she began an affair with Struensee, by then royal physician, resulting in the birth of a daughter widely thought to be his, but who was recognised by the king as his own. Struensee’s favour with the king and queen catalysed his political career, culminating in the effective transfer of absolute power to him during the king’s mental disintegration in 1771. Struensee’s enlightened, radically reforming government fell I would like to acknowledge the generosity of Charlotte Christensen, Peter Kristiansen and Mette Birkedal Bruun, and the financial support of the Paul Mellon Foundation, the Centre for Privacy Studies at Copenhagen University and the Nordea Foundation. 1 Ulrik Langen, Christian VII’s biographer, titled his life of the king The Powerless One: U. Langen: Den

Afmægtige: en Biografi om Christian 7, Copenhagen 2008. 2 For accounts in English, see M. Bregnsbo et al., eds: Scandinavia in the Age of Revolution: Nordic Political Cultures 1740-1820, London 2016; and S. Tillyard: A Royal Affair: George III and his Troublesome Siblings, London 2006. On the king’s insanity, see J. Schioldann: ‘Struensée’s memoir on the situation

in January 1772, when he, the queen and members of their party were arrested at Christiansborg Palace during a coup sanctioned by the king’s stepmother, Juliane Marie of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. Convicted of lèse majesté, Struensee was executed a few months later and Caroline Matilda was divorced and exiled to Celle, in the Electorate of Hanover, where she remained until her death in 1775. Excluded from power by the successive regencies of his half brother, Hereditary Prince Frederick, and his son by Caroline Matilda, Crown Prince Frederick, later Frederick VI, the king survived until 1808, shortly before his sixtieth birthday. Passing over the borders of Denmark, which in 1768 lay somewhat further south than today, the king’s suite travelled through Germany, moving overland to Holland and from there by sea to first London and then Paris. Caroline Matilda had been left behind in Denmark with the couple’s infant son, on the grounds that her presence would make it impossible for the king to travel incognito. Yet, despite masquerading as the ‘Prince of Travendhal’, his feted arrival by river and the conspicuous accommodation of his extensive suite at St James’s Palace easily identified the king to London’s curious population.3 He hired the Haymarket opera house to host a vast masked ball for which over 3,000 tickets were issued, attracting a storm of publicity.4 Under the care of Struensee, the king’s mental health improved. Horace Walpole saw him several times during his stay in London in the summer of 1768, writing to George Montagu on 13th August: I came to town to see the Danish King. He is as diminutive as if he came out of a kernel in the fairy tales. He is not ill made, nor weakly made, though so small, and though his face is pale and of the King (1772): “Christian VII of Denmark”’, History of Psychiatry 24 (2013), pp.227–47; and A. Chery: ‘Le pouvoir des Lumières et l’effroi onaniste: les cas de Christian VII de Danemark et Louis XVI de France’, Medizinhistorisches Journal 53 (2018), pp.263–81. For an iconography of Christian VII, see C. Bech and P. Eller: ‘Christian 7’, Dansk Biografisk Leksikon, biografiskleksikon.lex.dk/

Christian_7. (2014), accessed 12th January 2022. 3 M. Doderer-Winkler: Magnificent Entertainments: Temporary Architecture for Georgian Festivals, London 2013. 4 A. Ribeiro: ‘The King of Denmark’s masquerade’, History Today 27 (1977) www.historytoday.com/archive/ king-denmark’s-masquerade, accessed 12th January 2022.

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delicate. It is not at all ugly [. . .] Still he has more royalty than folly in his air: and considering he is not twenty, is as well as one expects any King in a puppet-show to be.5 The king’s presence in London and then in Paris, where he stayed from October 1768 to January 1769, produced a demand for his portrait. In London the king sat for Nathaniel Dance Holland (1735–1811) at the request of George III (Fig.3) and in Paris the court painter Louis Michel van Loo (1707–71) began a portrait now in the Museum of National History, Frederiksborg Castle, Hillerød, in Denmark, which was finished by the Swedish portraitist Alexander Roslin (1718–93) following Van Loo’s sudden death, by when he had completed only the head. The version illustrated here (Fig.1) was painted entirely by Roslin for a former French ambassador to Denmark, Jean-François Ogier d’Ivry (1703–75), the originator of the Van Loo commission.6 Roslin’s masterly confection follows the pattern of the French royal portrait en costume de sacre. This portrait is primarily one of the king’s public office, yet the king’s hold on power was at best consistently frustrated and at worst usurped. The evidence for the portraits made in Britain or by British artists, by contrast, suggest a seam of private character that was never to develop beyond this brief flicker of youthful sensibility. 5 Letter from Horace Walpole to George Montagu, 13th August 1768, in W.S. Lewis and R.S. Brown, eds: The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole’s Correspondence: vol. 10, Correspondence with George Montagu, New Haven 1937, p.264.

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6 M. Skougaard: ‘En Dansk Konge i Paris: Christian VII Malet af Roslin’, Carlsbergfondets Årsskrift, Copenhagen 2010, pp.76–87. Other variants include a bust-length version in the Château of Versailles and a fulllength in a Swedish private collection.

1. Christian VII in coronation robes, holding the crown and sceptre, by Alexander Roslin. 1772. Oil on canvas, 129 by 93 cm. (The Museum of National History, Frederiksborg Castle, Hillerød). 2. Augusta, Duchess of Brunswick, with her son, by Angelica Kauffmann. 1767. Oil on canvas, 272.1 by 180.6 cm. (Royal Collection Trust; © HM Queen Elizabeth II, 2022). Opposite 3. Christian VII, King of Denmark, by Nathaniel Dance Holland. 1768. Oil on canvas, 76.6 by 63 cm. (Royal Collection Trust; © HM Queen Elizabeth II, 2022).

Angelica Kauffmann’s studio was an undoubted highlight of Christian’s London sojourn. Between 1766 and 1781 Kauffmann lived in London, where she rapidly rose to fame and became a founder member of the Royal Academy of Arts.7 In 1767 she had painted George III’s sister (and Christian’s sister-in-law) Augusta, Duchess of Brunswick (1764–88), with her young son, Charles George Augustus (Fig.2). Kauffmann was being considered for a new portrait in advance of the king’s arrival in London, as was the court painter Allan Ramsay (1713–84). Notes by the Danish ambassador to London, Baron von Diede zum Fürstenstein (1732–1807), and the Danish legation include a list of persons for whom presents must be purchased: ‘To Princess Amelie, his Majesty’s portrait, 7 B. Baumgärtel et al., eds: Angelica Kauffmann, London 2020, produced for the cancelled exhibition Angelica Kauffmann: Artist, Superwoman, Influencer at the Royal Academy of Arts, London; and A. Vickery: ‘Branding Angelica: reputation

management in late eighteenthcentury England’, Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 43 (2020), pp.3–24; and P. Zudrell: ‘Dialog in porträts: Angelika Kauffmanns Blütezeit in London’, Angermion 7 (2014), pp.13–60.

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8 feet high, by Ramsay or . . . or Angelika’.8 This suggests that the portrait had first been thought of as a gift to Princess Amelia (1711–86), the second daughter of George II, who hosted a dinner for Christian VII at her house in Gunnersbury, west of London. The gap between Ramsay’s and Kauffmann’s names indicates an intention to consider a third candidate, but none is identified in the notes. Ramsay was well known to the Danish court and its London representatives, having been commissioned in 1765 to paint a copy of his state portrait of George III in coronation robes (1761–62) for the Hall of Potentates in Christiansborg Palace, where twelve copies of state portraits of contemporary European rulers were displayed.9 The legation reports regarding this commission are intriguing: There are two famous Painters here, who are the only ones used, on important occasions, to make Portraits of the Royal British Family: I think Monsr. Le Comte preferred this one to the other, called Reynolds, because long ago I heard him say that [Reynolds], who is certainly also a man of great talents in his profession, relies too much on nonchalance, & thereby 4. Christian VII, King of Denmark, by Richard Houston, after Angelica Kauffmann. c.1768–75. Mezzotint, 39.9 by 28.9 cm. (Royal Collection Trust; © HM Queen Elizabeth II, 2022). 5. Queen Caroline Matilda, by James Watson, after Francis Cotes. c.1766–71. Mezzotint, 37.6 by 27.6 cm. (Royal Collection Trust; © HM Queen Elizabeth II, 2022).

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[the work] is neglected in the Execution, to a Point which has produced examples of poor results, as opposed to those taking great Attention to support a Reputation for consistency.10 The reports demonstrate the importance of the studio visit to the business of the eighteenth-century portraitist: I mentioned that 80 Guineas makes a good price: he [Ramsay] told me that it was the regular price, and that which the King of Gr. Br. always pays him, for every piece, indeed I saw there six copies in process, all in coronation robes, and in the same pose, all entirely the same, each one a little more advanced than the others [. . .] It is true that the Portrait, after which he copies all the others, is very well executed, & very resembling.11 Although Kauffmann’s novel singularity as a female artist may have played its part, it seems most likely that a British royal recommendation was decisive for the commission. Kauffmann herself was aware of the power of her proximity to the court. In a letter dated 25th August 1768, she wrote to Diede: As your Excellency was so kind to promise me that he would accept a Copy of the portrait I have just made of His Majesty the King of Denmark – I dare to hope he will also contribute to its perfection by granting me the honour of placing myself at the

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feet of His Majesty in order that he may bestow in a few minutes the last traits of resemblance but first I have the honour of begging your Excellency to come and see some twenty paintings and portraits that I have done, so that He may better judge if I am Worthy of so many favours, and to recognise by the same that my concern is indivisible from the honour of serving such a great and amiable King. I live opposite the Princess of Wales in Pall Mall.12 Kauffmann’s portrait is recorded in a small oval copy in oils (Fig.6). The blue sash and the star of the Order of the Elephant adorn the king’s pinkish-red coat, which is trimmed with gold braid and buttons; his black collar and white cravat are simple and unfussy. The painting was acquired for the Museum of National History in 1913 and had no provenance, so it is not possible to confirm that it is the copy Kauffmann made for Baron Diede. Since her portrait was swiftly and expertly reproduced by Richard Houston in mezzotint (Fig.4) the possibility that the Frederiksborg painting was derived from a print cannot be discounted. In any case, it seems to have been cut down, as indicated by the loss of detail in the lower right area of the canvas, and it sits rather awkwardly in its frame, which is inscribed ‘Portrait de Christian VII. Roy de Dannemarc venu a Paris en 1768’. Kauffmann was an astute businesswoman.13 She may have composed her portrait of the king with its dissemination in mind, perhaps visualising its printed reproduction as a pendant to the popular mezzotint of Caroline Matilda by James Watson, after Francis Cotes (Fig.5). As pendants, these printed royal heads would have inclined towards one another, enabling those who may have been disappointed by the absence of the English princess in London during the king’s visit to reunite the pair in portraiture. Kauffmann enchanted Christian’s entourage, including the German feuilletonist Helferich Peder Sturz (1736–79), who was secretary to the Danish Foreign Minister, Count Johann Hartwig Ernst von Bernstorff. In his diary Sturz wrote an account of the visit to her studio on 15th September 1768. Kauffmann’s studio has often been remarked on as a site of elite sociability and self-fashioning.14 Published in 1779 in his collected writings, Sturz’s text is one of the most detailed descriptions of her performances of enlightened cultivation: ‘I found our countrywoman, Angelika Kaufmann, today with [Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock’s] Messiah in her hand and Pope’s Homer laying nearby. She reads both with rapture: 8 ‘An Pr.s Amelie S. M.s Portrait 8 Füß hoch, von Ramsay oder . . . oder Angelika’, Rigsarkivet, Copenhagen (cited hereafter as RA) 301, Tyske Kancelli, Udenrigske Afdeling. 1767– 1772. England: Diede zum Fürstensteins gesandtskabsarkiv. Indkomne breve, korrespondance, diverse 1768–1772. 63–284. In England C, Breve fra Legationssekretær Frederik Hanneken 1768 Juli–Oktober. All transcriptions and translations are the author’s own unless otherwise specified. 9 O. Andrup: ‘Billederne fra Potentatgemakket’, Kunstmuseets Aarsskrift, Copenhagen 1921–23, pp.7– 29. Ramsay’s copy is now in Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, inv. no.KMS886. 10 ‘Il y’a icy deux fameux Paintres, qui sont les Seuls employés, dans les occasions importantes, pour faire les Portraits de la Famille Royale Brittanique: je pense que Monsr. Le Comte a preferé celvicy à l’autre, appellé Reynolds, parce que bien

auparavant je l’ai entendu dire que l’autre, qui certainement est aussi un homme à grands Talents dans son mêtier, se fie trop à la Facilité, & par là se neglige dans ses Executions, à un Point qui a donné des exemples de mauvaises Reüssites, au lieu que celui a prend grand Soin de soutenir une Reputation toujours ègale’, legation report, 2nd August 1765, Danish State Archives Online: Realia (1500–1773), in Vejledende Arkivregistraturer XI, s. 46, TKUA Alm. del 3 nr. 2–37, file beginning ‘Officerer, Operahuset’, pp.207–10, available at www.sa.dk/aosoegesider/da/billedviser?epid= 19852167#260540,48665098, accessed 12th January 2022. 11 ‘je puis Occasion de mentioner que 80 Guinées faisoient un bon Prix: il me repondit que c’etoit son Priz reglé, & que Le Roy de la Gr. Br. le luy payoit toujours, pour chaque Piéce, dont je voyois là 6 autres en Oeuvre, les tous en Habit de Sacre, & dans le même Attitude, enfin entierement

6. Christian VII, King of Denmark, after Angelica Kauffmann. 1768. Oil on canvas, 23.5 by 19 cm. (The Museum of National History, Frederiksborg Castle, Hillerød).

but the German is closer to her heart’.15 Kauffmann was, of course, Swiss, not German; the mistake reveals Sturz’s desire to claim her as compatriot. It seems likely that the well-travelled, fluently multilingual Kauffmann was able to beguile her clients in their preferred language. Having established the primacy of their shared mother tongue, Sturz continued: In her form and her painting, in her conversation and in her transfiguration, reigns only one note throughout; namely gentle, vestal dignity. She is now around twenty-seven years old, no polished beauty, but nonetheless charming in her form pareils, les uns un peu plus avancés que les autres [. . .] Il est vray que le Portrait, après le quel il tire tous les autres, est trés bien executé, & trés resemblant’, ibid. 12 ‘Come votre Excellence a eu la bonté de me promettre q’u Elle accepteroit une Copie du portrait que je viens de faire de Sa Majesté le Roy de Dannemarck - j’ose esperer qu’elle contribura ausi á la perfection en me procurant - lhonneur de me metre aux pieds de Sa Majesté pour pouvoir y donner en quelques minutes les dernieres trait de resemblance mais auparavant jay l’honneur de supplier votre Excellence de venir voir une vintaines de tableaux et portrait que jay fais, pour qu’Elle puisse mieux juger si je suis Digne de tant de faveurs, et connoitre par Elle meme que l’interet y a moins de part que lhonneur de servir un si grand et si aimable Roy. Je loge vis à vis de la Princesse de Gale dans Pell Mell’, Angelica Kauffmann to Baron von

Diede zum Fürstenstein, 25th August 1768, RA, 301, Tyske Kancelli Udenrigske Afdeling, 1767–1772, England: Diede zum Fürstensteins gesandtskabsarkiv. Indkomne breve, korrespondance, diverse, 1768–1772, 63–284, fol. C, Indkomne breve fra forskellige, 1768, A–J. 13 Vickery, op. cit. (note 7). For Kauffmann’s prints, see B. Baumgärtel: Anmut und Aufklärung: Eine Sammlung von Druchgraphik nack Werken von Angelika Kauffmann, Ruhpolding and Mainz 2016. 14 See W. Wassyng Roworth: ‘A celebrity artist’s studio: Angelica Kauffman in Rome’, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 47 (2018), pp.137–50. 15 ‘Unsere Landsmännin, Angelika Kaufmann, fand ich heute mit dem Meßias in der Hand, und Pope’s Homer lag in der Nähe. Sie liest beide mit Entzücken: aber der Deutsche ist näher mit ihrem Herzen vertraut’, H.P. Sturz: Schriften, Leipzig 1779, I, p.44.

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and her entire modesty. The character of her face belongs to the pattern which Domenichini painted, whose heads were equal to Raphael’s: noble, diffident yet eminent, enchanting yet unreserved.16 Sturz has been somewhat misinterpreted as a harsh critic of Kauffmann, an impression largely drawn from the practice in secondary sources of using quotations excerpted from the context of the meandering, circular style of the feuilleton genre he established. He writes, at length: As a painter, however, she lacks important parts of art: she does not draw correctly, and therefore has to avoid rich inventions full of action; even in the single figure she cannot risk a difficult position or foreshortening; she delineates the anatomy of the male nude in an uncertain and timid manner; even if the proportions are true, the extremities, especially the hands and feet, are not always correct. One finds her colouring cold and strange, her shadows monotonous, and a violet aura suffuses her flesh tones, on the other hand, the colour of the drapery dominates all too brilliantly and is not united with the attitude of the whole piece, also she understands little of atmospheric perspective, nor proportion, nor landscape, and priming not at all.17 Then, Sturz adds an important, concluding caveat – none of these errors matters, because Kauffmann’s work is beautiful and beautifully composed: but she has compensated for all these mistakes with beauties. Her works are profound, sensu tincta sunt; she elects, with much wisdom, a clear and simple action, and the moment before the decision, when apprehension is heightened by risk, and the imagination flies far into rhapsodies, her forms are full of grace, as if raised in Grecian silent grandeur.18 An order in the Danish archives suggests that Kauffmann’s commission included further copies of her portrait of Christian. Dated 11th October 1768 and signed by the Danish minister Count Adam Gottlob Moltke, it requisitions £94 10 shillings for two gold boxes to be sent to ‘der Malerinen Angelica’.19 Could Moltke have intended miniature copies of Kauffmann’s portrait of the king to be set into these gold boxes? It was common practice to have one’s portrait in large copied in miniature. Such small 16 ‘In ihrer Gestalt und ihren Gemälden, in ihrer Rede und ihrem Wandel, ist überall nur Ein Ton herrschend; nämlich sanfte jungfräuliche Würde. Sie ist jezo ohngefähr 27 Jahre alt, keine vollendete Schönheit, aber dennoch einnehmend in ihrer Form und ihrem ganzen Anstand. Der Character ihres Gesichts gehört zur Gattung, welche Domenichin gemalt hat, der in seinen Köpfen den Raphael erreichte: edel, schüchtern und bedeutend, anziehend und mittheilend’, ibid., pp.45–46. 17 ‘Als Malerin fehlen ihr gleichwohl wichtige Theile der Kunst: sie zeichnet nicht allerdings richtig, und muß daher reiche, handlungsvolle Erfindungen meiden; selbst in der einzelen Figur darf sie keine schwere Stellung und keine Verkürzung wagen; sie deutet die Anatomie des Nackenden ungewiß und furchtsam an; wenn auch ihre Verhältnisse richtig sind, so sind doch ihre Umrisse, zumal an Händes und

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Füssen, nicht immer korrekt. Man findet ihr Kolorit kalt und fremde, ihre Schatten eintönig, und über ihre Karnation schwebt ein violetter Duft, dahingegen dringt die Farbe der Gewänder allzublendend vor, und ist nicht mit der Haltung des ganzen Stücks vereinigt, auch versteht sie wenig Luftperspektiv, kein Beywert, keine Landschaft, und überhaupt keine Grunde’, ibid., pp.46–47. 18 ‘aber alle diese Fehler hat sie durch Schönheiten aufgewogen. Ihre Werke sind tiefen Sinnes, sensu tincta sunt; sie wählt, mit vieler Weisheit, eine leicht zu fassende einfache Handlung, und den Augenblick vor der Entscheidung, wenn das Interesse durch die Ahndung gesteigert wird, und die Einbildungskraft in einem weiten Spielraum schwärmt, ihre Formen sind voller Anmuth, gleich in der griechischen stillen Würde hingestellt’, ibid., pp.48–49. 19 RA, 208, Partikulærkammeret 1768–1769 Kong Christian 7.s

copies were highly valued, especially when incorporated into jewellery or a gold box.20 Portraitists in London were equipped to deal not only with copying but with mounting miniaturised images into precious settings.21 Alternatively, Kauffmann may have supplied other kinds of imagery rather than copies of her portrait; her motifs were widely disseminated across a variety of objects in diverse materials.22 Gold boxes constituted the diplomatic gift par excellence. Diede’s notes on gifts during the royal tour list a number of tabatières (snuff boxes) or gold boxes provisionally allotted to members of the British court. Francis Seymour-Conway, 1st Marquess of Hertford (1718–94), and William Talbot, 1st Earl Talbot (1710–82), appear at the very top, with 1,000 Reichsthalers allotted to each recipient.23 Against Hertford’s name is jotted the sum of 1,000 Reichsthalers ‘zu einer Tabatiere mit Portrait’. He was Lord Chamberlain between 1766 and 1782, in which capacity he liaised with the Danes during their stay at St James’s Palace. Talbot was Lord Steward of the Royal Household between 1761 and 1782. By contrast, only 100 Reichsthalers were allocated to the box intended for the Clerk Comptroller of His Majesty’s Kitchen, Mr Secker. A little further down the list we find: ‘David Garrick: something that flatters his vanity’. No estimate in Reichsthalers was allotted to this gift.24 Another list is headed ‘Presente an die Departments’.25 Lord Hertford again heads it, with the trilingual suggestion of ‘Ein magnifique Present’, for ‘der Oberkammerherr MyLord Hertford’. The writer adds the suggestion of a ring or the king’s portrait set with diamonds.26 Frustratingly, no objects matching these descriptions survive in the Wallace Collection, London, or in the possession of the present Marquess of Hertford.27 It is still possible to detect in the archive echoes of the voguish significance of these lost items. In a letter to Baron Diede, the legation secretary Frederik Hanneken, who was responsible for distributing presents after the king’s suite had departed, wrote that Lord Talbot had, in conversation, reported himself: highly obliged for my own Present, & for every thing, & particularly for the fine Present to Mr. Secker, which I look upon just the same as a Favour done to My Self. Besides, every body in my Office is pleased & thankfull, as very well they have Reason to be; but when you come home, You will find that Mr. Secker hath been there allready: I have Send [sic] him to You with a Letter of Thanks, as I ought, to Baron [Diede]; Now he is gone to Hampton Court, to a Ball where your King’s Snuffbox hath been desired to be shewn.28 udenlandsrejse, bilag 201–300; no.246. 20 M. Pointon: ‘“Surrounded with brilliants”: miniature portraits in eighteenth-century England’, The Art Bulletin 83 (2001), pp.48–71, at p.56. 21 Ibid., pp.56–58. 22 Vickery, op. cit. (note 7), p.11. 23 Document cited at note 8 above. 24 ‘David Garrik: etwas daß seiner Vanité flattiert’, document cited at note 8 above. 25 RA, Kongehuset Christian 7. 1768–1770. Udenlandsrejser 1. 26 ‘Item ein Ring, oder das Königs Portrait mit Diamanten befest’, document cited at note 8 above. 27 Sincere thanks to Suzanne Higgott at the Wallace Collection and Lord Hertford for responding to my queries. 28 RA, 301, Tyske Kancelli Udenrigske Afdeling, 1767–1772, England: Diede zum Fürstensteins gesandtskabsarkiv. Indkomne breve, korrespondance, diverse 1768–1772. England C. Indbydelser, Planer for Udflugte,

Festprogrammer, m.v. under Fyrsten af Travendahl (Kong Christian VII.s) Ophold i England 1768. The Ball was given by Lady FitzRoy (Anne FitzPatrick, Countess of Upper Ossory, 1737–1804). 29 Pointon, op. cit. (note 20), p.58. See also T. Murdoch et al., eds: Going for Gold: Craftsmanship and Collecting of Gold Boxes, Eastbourne 2014. 30 U. Langen: ‘Le roi et les philosophes: le sejour parisien de Christian VII de Danemark en 1768’, Histoire, Économie et Société 29 (2010), pp.39–55. 31 ‘Monr Calze étant convenû de faire pour S.M. Le Roi de Dannemarc un portrait de Roi en piéd de grandeur naturelle’. RA, 208. Partikulærkammeret 1768–1769 Kong Christian 7.s udenlandsrejse, bilag 401–497. This order is unnumbered and is filed at the end of the archive box, post no.497. 32 See ibid., nos.489–90; and document filed with that cited at note 28? above.

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Christian VII of Denmark’s lost British portraits

The value of the tabatière’s materials persisted for much longer than the prestige of the gift. As the gold box lost its modern sheen, many were returned to their manufacturers to be melted down into more fungible capital.29 In September the king’s party sailed for France, where the best part of the rest of the year was spent in Paris. Here, Christian hosted an extraordinary soirée for eighteen of the leading lights of Enlightenment philosophy, including the encyclopaedists Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert.30 He also sat to two British artists then working in the French capital. A full length, life-size standing portrait was commissioned from the grand manner portraitist Edward Francis Cunningham (1742–95), also known as Francesco Calza or Calze, since he was born in Kelso, Scotland. The son of Jacobite exiles, Calze was largely brought up in Italy and studied at Parma, Rome, Venice and

Paris. A memorandum signed by the banker and statesman Baron Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann, dated 8th December 1768, states ‘Mr Calze being agreeable to make for H.M. the King of Denmark a lifesize portrait of the King, full-length’, for 4,800 livres.31 A money order to the Danish ambassador in Paris, Baron von Gleichen, was made on 5th January 1769, which seems to cover the payment for this portrait. The order reveals that an extra charge of 480 livres was added for a version of the portrait with the royal cipher set in diamonds, intended for insertion within a tabatière to be given to Emmanuel-Félicité de Durfort, duc de Duras (1715–89), who had acted as the king’s maître de plaisir in Paris.32 This seems to have reached its intended recipient, 7. Christian VII, King of Denmark, here attributed to Edward Francis Cunningham (Calze). 1768. Pastel on paper, 62.5 by 51.4 cm. (Rosenborg Slot, Copenhagen).

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since the Oxford Magazine reported on 2nd January 1769 that ‘The king of Denmark has made a present to the duke of Duras of his portrait, enriched with diamonds, which are valued at above 200,000 Francs’.33 No trace remains of these works today. On 10th March 1769 the sum of 4,800 livres was paid to Calze, who signed the original memorandum to indicate receipt. 150 livres were added for packaging and transport of the king’s portrait.34 Another receipt, dated 13th December 1768, shows that a further 1,350 livres were paid to a Parisian framer via an intermediary to provide a frame presumably – since Calze is named – for Calze’s portrait of the king, together with a small oval frame, which was given to Christian’s favourite, Count Holck.35 Calze also produced a copy in pastels, according to a report in the Whitehall Evening Post: Last Friday Mr Calze, an Italian artist, was introduced to the Queen, at her Majesty’s Palace, to deliver a portrait in crayons of the King of Denmark, which his Majesty did Mr Calze the honour of sitting for whilst he was at Paris, as a present for her Majesty, who received Mr Calze very graciously, and expressed the highest approbation of his work.36 A pastel portrait in an oval frame, inscribed Prince Charles Edward, 1740 (Fig.7), was recently acquired for Rosenborg Palace, Copenhagen. The sitter wears his sash on the left shoulder and his celadon suit, which is embroidered with gold, silver and bronze threads, is emblazoned with 8. Christian VII, King of Denmark, formerly attributed to Angelica Kauffmann. 1768. Oil on canvas, 91 by 71 cm. (Private collection, Darmstadt).

the star of the Order of the Elephant. On the basis of his facial features and costume, the sitter can be identified as Christian VII.37 It is also now possible firmly to attribute the pastel to Calze, on the basis of this documentary evidence. Over the past century or so, two further portraits of the king have appeared in reproduction and at auction, where they appear to have been conflated and attributed to Angelica Kauffmann or her studio as a copy of her Christian VII. Both are now in private collections, one in Darmstadt (Fig.8) and the other in Copenhagen (Fig.9).38 According to a Danish sale catalogue, the latter was formerly in the collection of the ‘Duke of Buckingham at Stowe’, to whom it was apparently gifted by Christian VII himself, when he visited Stowe in 1768.39 Stowe was then owned by Richard Grenville-Temple, 2nd Earl Temple (1711–79).40 The source of this information appears to be the famous Stowe sale of 1848, at which a portrait of the King of Denmark by ‘A. Kauffman’ was sold to Samuel Morton Peto (1809–89), a railway entrepreneur.41 Peto established the Flensburg–Husum–Tönning Railway Company and oversaw its construction of railways in the Duchy of Schleswig. This link may indicate how the portrait came to be in Denmark. Without being able to examine these objects in person it is difficult to make definitive statements regarding their attribution. Since they do not much resemble Kauffmann’s portrait, it seems likely that these two very similar paintings are versions of a portrait by a different artist. They present their subject half-length and show the king’s right hand resting on a crown posed atop a tasselled cushion, his left upon the hilt of a sword (these approximate but do not exactly represent Denmark’s coronation sword and Christian V’s crown).42 The king directly engages the beholder’s gaze. Only the costumes and backgrounds vary. The costume in the Darmstadt version, which is ornately decorated with embroidery, frogging and tassels, appears to approximate a Danish admiral’s uniform; the backdrop to the figure is hung with rich textiles.43 The Copenhagen variant is simpler, with fewer details in costume and backcloth. In both, the king is wearing the Star of the Order of the Elephant. If these portraits do in fact date from 1768, then a document in the Danish State Archives raises the possibility that Matthew William Peters (1741–1814) was the artist. A signed receipt reveals that 1,440 livres were received in October 1768 by a W. de Peters for two portraits of the king. A further 1,200 livres were paid for another portrait intended for the duc de Duras and 240 livres for a copy for Count Holck, as a remembrance.44 These sums suggest that these portraits were on a smaller scale than the life-size full length commissioned from Calze. Peters signed his works W. Peters, but he has been thought to have been in Paris only in 1775 and 1783–84.45 Irish by birth, he was ordained in 1781 and served as chaplain to 33 A Society of Gentlemen, Members of the University of Oxford: ‘Foreign and domestic intelligence’, The Oxford Magazine: or, University Museum 2 (1769), p.33. 34 Document cited at note 31 above. 35 ‘No. 445. Pour £1350. J’ai reçu de Messieurs Tourton & Baur en vertu d’un mandement donné par son Excellence Monsieur le Trésorier Baron de Schimmelman à Mr. Calze Peintre, la somme de treize cent cinquante livres, savoir, douze cent livres pour une grande Bordure que j’ai faite pour le Portrait de Sa Majesté Le Roy de Dannemarck, & cent cinquante livres pour une petite Bordure ovale que j’ai remise à Mr. Le Comte de Holcke. fait double à Paris le 13 Xbre 1768’, RA, 208. Partikulærkammeret 1768–1769 Kong Christian 7.s udenlandsrejse, bilag 301–400; 445.

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36 Dated November 1769, for which, see N. Jeffares: ‘Edward Francis Cunningham’, Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800, www.pastellists.com/ Articles/Cunningham.pdf (2021). Jeffares reports that Cunningham exhibited a pastel portrait of Baron von Diede at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1770 (no.25). 37 The identification was first made by Peter Kristiansen, who communicated it to the present author. 38 The Copenhagen version was illustrated in B. Baumgärtel: Angelika Kauffmann, Düsseldorf 1998, p.161, where it was possibly reproduced from the catalogue of Sale, Copenhagen, Arne Bruun Rasmussen, auction no.228, 11th– 21st February 1969, pp.42 and 47, lot 233. For a cropped reproduction of the Darmstadt version, see É.S.F. Reverdil: Struensee og den Danske Hof, transl.

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Christian VII of Denmark’s lost British portraits

9. Christian VII, King of Denmark, formerly attributed to Angelica Kauffmann. 1768. Oil on canvas, 91 by 72 cm. (Private collection, Copenhagen).

the Royal Academy of Arts and then to the Prince of Wales, later George IV. As a painter he is best known for his mildly risqué cabinet pieces, female portraits and intimate genre scenes. He was taught by Robert West, who had been a pupil in Paris of Jean-Baptiste Van Loo (the father of Louis-Michel) and may have arranged an introduction for his pupil to his former master’s son; such networks commonly supported young artists’ training abroad.46 The influence of Van Loo might explain the exceptional nature of this portrait in Peter’s œuvre, if he is indeed the artist of the Copenhagen and Darmstadt paintings. Paul Læssøe Müller, Copenhagen 1917, p.1a, credited on p.309 as: ‘Kong Christian VII, eft. Orig. af Angelika Kauffmann, malet Sept. 1768 i London, tilh. Generalmajor Biegeleben i Darmstadt’. For a complete image attributed to a German photographer, Friedrich van der Smissen (1886–1944), dated c.1910/1929, see Bildarchiv Foto Marburg Aufnahme, no.70.852. 39 Rasmussen Sale, op. cit. (note 38), p.42. A letter from George Grenville to Thomas Whatley, 18th September 1768, discussing the king’s visit does not mention of the gift of a portrait, for which, see W.J. Smith, ed.: The Grenville Papers: being the Correspondence of Richard Grenville Earl Temple, K.G., and the Right. Hon. George Grenville, their Friends and Contemporaries, London 1853, IV, pp.364–66. 40 L.J. Bellot: ‘Richard Grenville [later

Grenville-Temple], second Earl Temple (1711–1779), politician’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004), www.oxforddnb.com, accessed 12th January 2022. 41 The Stowe Catalogue: Priced and Annotated by Henry Rumsey Forster, London 1848, p.160. 42 P. Kristiansen: Power, Splendour and Diamonds: Denmark’s Regalia and Crown Jewels, Copenhagen 2015, pp.18–19. 43 For a comparison, see Jens Juel’s full-length portrait of Christian VII in admiral’s uniform (1795; Reventlow Museum, Pederstrup), 44 ‘Je sousigne reconnois avoir recu de Monsieur Texier la Somme de mille quatre cent quarante livres pour honoraire de deux portrait de la Majeste le Roÿ de Dannemarck scavoir mille deux cent livres pour celui de

No reference to the fate of the portraits by Kauffmann, Calze and Peters has yet come to light in the Danish palace inventories. Fires consumed a large part of the Danish royal collections at Christiansborg Palace in 1794 and Frederiksborg Palace in 1859. During the Napoleonic Wars, the British Navy attacked Copenhagen in 1801 and 1807.47 This second bombardment destroyed 1,000 buildings in the capital, with further damage being caused by looting, notably at the palace of Hirschholm. Many portraits were lost during these disastrous conflagrations. The existence of these paintings raises the question of why the Danish king was so enamoured of British portrait artists. An artist of Kauffmann’s calibre and charisma held court for her clients as much as she paid court to them, but Calze and Peters did not wield the same social capital. Their Parisian studios presumably offered an experience quite different to the elite, gently feminine sociability of Kauffmann’s Pall Mall address. Neither Calze nor Peters were mentioned in Sturz’s published writings on the king’s Parisian stay. It is possible also that the subsequent scandal of Caroline Matilda’s affair reduced the commercial potential of the royal association, resulting in the portraits’ misidentification and attribution to the better-known Kauffmann. The commissions may reflect an Anglophilia resulting from the fact that Christian VII’s mother was Princess Louisa (1724–51), a daughter of George II and, as sister to Frederick, Prince of Wales, Queen Caroline Matilda’s paternal aunt. She died in childbirth when Christian was only three years old. His visit to London gave him the opportunity to meet his mother’s family, who were also his in-laws, for the first time. Perhaps the portraits are also evidence of a rare moment of political agency, since they originated within the Danish suite and were not French or British commissions, unlike the Roslin and Dance Holland portraits. While in London the king tried to meet the philosopher David Hume, then secretary to Lord Hertford. Hume wrote to Diede on 10th October 1768: ‘I imagined that you had proposed to me to have the Honour of dining with his Danish Majesty today; but Lord Hertford thinks I must be mistaken, and that it is not probable His Majesty woud [sic] dine in company the day of his Masquerade’.48 Whether or not this meeting took place, it is interesting to consider it in the light of the granting of complete freedom of the press within Denmark, declared by the king on 14th September 1770, a freedom for which Hume was a fierce advocate. This law is almost always credited to Struensee, an avowed Francophile. The contribution Christian made to the enlightened reforms enacted during Struensee’s government has tended to be viewed as negligible.49 Yet, the image of the man filtered through British artists’ studios in 1768 offers us a glimpse of an aspiring philosopher king, thriving for the briefest moment before being lost to sickness and scandal. M le Duc de Duras et deux cent quarante livre pour celui le Copie mise en souvenir pour M le Comte de Holck donc quittance a Paris ce on de – 1768’, RA, 208. Partikulærkammeret 1768– 1769 Kong Christian 7.s udenlandsrejse, bilag 401–497; no.406. 45 P. Walch: ‘Rev. Matthew William Peters’, Grove Art Online (2003), available at www.oxfordartonline.com, accessed 6th June 2020. See also R. Simon: ‘(Matthew) William Peters (1742– 1814), portrait and genre painter and Church of England clergyman’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004), www.oxforddnb.com, accessed 6th June 2020. 46 Lady V. Manners: Matthew William Peters, R.A.: His Life and Work, London 1913, p.2. 47 R. Cavendish: ‘The bombardment of Copenhagen’, History Today 57 (2007),

available at www.historytoday.com/ archive/bombardment-copenhagen, accessed 20th December 2021; and T. Munch-Petersen: Defying Napoleon: How Britain Bombarded Copenhagen and Seized the Danish Fleet in 1807, Stroud 2007. 48 David Hume to Baron Diede, 10th October 1768. RA 301 Tyske Kancelli. Udenrigske Afdeling. 1767–1772. England: Diede zum Fürstensteins gesandtskabsarkiv. Indkomne breve, korrespondance, diverse 1768–1772. England C. Breve fra Legationssekretær Frederik Hanneken. 1768 Juli-Oktober. 49 J. Nordin et al.: ‘Northern declarations of freedom of the press: the relative importance of philosophical ideas and of local politics’, Journal of the History of Ideas 81 (2020), pp.217– 37, at p.277, note 36. See also Langen, op. cit. (note 1), pp.323–25.

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the art of conservation: xvii

Jan Cornelis Traas, paintings restorer of the Van Gogh family collection Between 1926 and 1933 the collection of nearly 200 paintings by Vincent van Gogh owned by his family, now in the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, underwent conservation by Jan Cornelis Traas in a campaign that had a major impact on their condition and appearance. by ella hendriks

his article traces the early restoration history of the paintings by Vincent van Gogh (1853–90) that now form the core of the Van Gogh Museum collection in Amsterdam. The paintings came from the collection of Vincent’s younger brother, Theo van Gogh (1857–91), and remained in the Van Gogh family’s possession until 1962 when, with the help of the government of the Netherlands, the collection was donated to the Vincent van Gogh Foundation, which then gave the collection to the Van Gogh Museum on permanent loan. For the first thirty-five years the paintings were looked after by Theo’s widow, Jo van Gogh-Bonger (1862–1925), who had frequently loaned them, and in consequence they were in a poor state of conservation. After her death, from 1926 to 1933 almost the entire collection, nearly two hundred works – many of which had not been treated – was subjected to a major campaign of restoration by the Dutch conservator Jan Cornelis Traas (1898–1982). These treatments typically involved surface cleaning, wax-resin lining and varnishing the pictures, which were fitted with new stretchers. Later in his career Traas treated some of the works again, and in hindsight we may observe how the cumulative effects of these interventions have profoundly influenced the condition and appearance of the collection today. Moreover, Traas provides an interesting case study to examine early twentieth-century attitudes towards the treatment of paintings by late nineteenth-century ‘modern’ artists such as Van Gogh. It also demonstrates how subsequently it became clear that it was necessary to develop conservation approaches and methods that were tailored The Art of Conservation series is edited by Jane Martineau. The author would like to express her gratitude to the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, for supporting this research, in particular to Marije Vellekoop, Kees van den Meiracker and Louis van Tilborgh for his critical reading of earlier versions of this article. Furthermore, she is grateful to colleague conservators who generously shared information and sources, especially Esther van Duijn, René Boitelle, Sabrina Meloni and Elke Oberthaler, and also to

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Ruud van der Velden, Jaap Nijstad and Toon and Jo Klaver for their valuable recollections of Traas. 1 M. Blewett: ‘The Art of Conservation VI: Helmut Ruhemann, paintings restorer in Berlin and London’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 158 (2016), pp.638–64; and E. van Duijn and M. te Marvelde: ‘The Art of Conservation VII: Hopman and De Wild: the historical importance of two Dutch families of restorers’, ibid., pp.812–23. 2 Personal recollection of R. van Velden by email to the author, 22nd

1. Jan Cornelis Traas at work on Girl with a pearl earring, by Johannes Vermeer, in the Mauritshuis, The Hague. 1960. Photograph. (Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague).

to suit the specific requirements of paintings by Van Gogh and his contemporaries, as distinct from old-master works. Traas belonged to the same generation as his influential colleagues Helmut Ruhemann and Martin de Wild,1 but unlike them he did not publish, and consequently his views on restoration are less well known. We know his appearance only from a photograph showing him late in his career at work on Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a pearl earring (Fig.1), a photograph that was displayed on the living room mantelpiece of his home.2 It was a reminder of his long and distinguished career as a picture restorer who was awarded the medal of a Knight of the Order of Oranje Nassau soon after he officially retired on 1st February 1962.3 Traas began his museum career working as concierge at Museum Mesdag in The Hague, first on a temporary basis, but from 1922 in fixed employment.4 From this position he started to train and work as a restorer for the Mesdag collection, which at that time was run as a small state museum (rijksmuseum), thus giving him the status of a civil servant. This meant that, as Traas’s competence as a restorer grew, the Ministry of Education, Art and Science (henceforth referred to as the Ministry) could ‘lend’ his services free of charge to work on paintings from other national collections, including the Rijksmuseum Huis Lambert van Meerten in Delft and the Mauritshuis in The Hague. Traas started to work on paintings in the Mauritshuis collection in 1931, February 2021; see also note 10 below. 3 National Archive, The Hague, onderscheidingen Kanselarij der Nederlandse Orden, 1815–1993, archive 2.02.32, inv. no.896ED.2, file 00173710. Traas received the medal on 25th April 1962, when he was registered as an A category paintings restorer at the National Museum H.W. Mesdag and other museums (Ministry of Education, Art and Science; hereafter cited as MEAS). Additional notes mention that Traas died on 22nd December 1982 and that his medal

was returned by his widow on 12th January 1983. 4 Details of Traas’s appointments are taken from Mauritshuis Archive, The Hague (cited hereafter as MA), typed list of former restorers employed by the Mauritshuis and Museum Mesdag, compiled partly from annual reports of the Museum Mesdag, not dated, unnumbered. A later annotation by the conservator L. Rutgers van der Loeff adds that Traas continued to restore paintings for the Mauritshuis after his official retirement.

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Jan Cornelis Traas

and in 1933 officially took up the post of restorer there (keeping his job as concierge at Mesdag until 1943).5 In 1940 Traas was promoted to First Class Technical Assistant at the Mauritshuis and until he retired continued to work as Rijksschilderijenhersteller on paintings from the Mauritshuis and Mesdag collections, as well as from other state collections. In 1945 he was asked to assess the condition of the collection of the Kroller-Müller Museum in Otterlo when it was moved back to the museum from storage in bunkers in the dunes during the Second World War, concluding that it was good, and that many paintings were perhaps even in a better state than they would have been had they been kept on display.6 Alongside his museum work, Traas was also allowed to take on private commissions to top up his museum salary, which was not an unusual arrangement, although the Ministry expressed its disapproval when they got wind of this practice at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.7 He built up a large clientele that extended to prestigious patrons abroad, such as the Rothschild family.8 Consequently his work as a restorer is substantial, and his contribution to the preservation of Dutch cultural heritage has been of great significance. This article, however, goes back to the lesser-known period of Traas’s career, when as a young man in his twenties he started out on his journey towards becoming a restorer and, almost straight away, was entrusted with the commission to work on the family collection of Van Gogh paintings. Nowadays it seems unthinkable that someone so inexperienced would be allowed to take responsibility for such valuable works, but tracing the history of events allows us to understand how this situation came about. Traas’s career can be reconstructed from museum correspondence, family documents, newspaper articles, job and internship records, as well as from accounts by people who knew him. These include a memorandum, ‘The restorer Traas’, based on an interview with Vincent Willem van Gogh (1890–1978), nephew of Vincent van Gogh, in 1974, the year after the Van Gogh Museum first opened its doors to the public;9 and memories of Ruud van der Velden and Jaap Nijstad, who as boys paid regular visits to Traas and his second wife, Geraldine J. Traas-Janssen (called Diet), at their home at Nieuweweg 14 in Lochem, in the province of Gelderland, when Traas would tell stories about his early career.10 Finally, a local artist, Toon Klaver, provided details of Traas’s restoration practice, which he observed at first hand, since from 1966 he lived in the Traas house for over two years, acting as his assistant and trainee.11 Traas was born on 10th April 1898 in Baarland, a small and sparsely populated town in the south-west province of Zeeland in the Netherlands.12 Later in life, Traas still reportedly had the character of a typical Zeeuw (someone from that region) as he was initially rather reserved, but very 5 Document cited at note 4 above. On Traas’s early work for Rijksmuseum Huis Lambert van Meerten, see note 26. 6 See https://krollermuller.nl/tijdlijn/ rijksmuseum-kroller-muller-heropend, accessed 31st October 2021. 7 The archives of the Director of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, are held in Noord-Hollands Archief, Haarlem, 476 ‘Rijksmuseum en rechtsvoorgangers te Amsterdam 1807–1945’ (hereafter cited as NHA), MEAS to Frederik Schmidt-Degener, Director of the Rijksmuseum, 27th May 1925, folder 1495, no.13176, subject ‘Training Traas’. MEAS objected when they heard that the picture restorers at the Rijksmuseum, Bakker and Greebe, were paid for the work they did for the city of Amsterdam on top of their museum salary and suggested that it would be fitting if they paid that extra income into the government’s reserves.

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8 Document cited at note 2 above; Van der Velden recalls that Traas was invited to stay in one of the Rothschilds’ properties in France to evaluate the paintings and carry out some necessary treatment of them. 9 Van Gogh Museum Archives, Amsterdam (cited hereafter as VGM), ‘Memorandum, De restaurator Traas’, 13th November 1974. 10 Their fathers were active in the art and antiques trade; email exchanges between Ruud van der Velden, Jaap Nijstad and the author, 22nd February– 26th July 2021. 11 Toon Klaver and his wife, Jo, were interviewed by Jaap Nijstad, who relayed his answers to the present author by email; Klaver was also interviewed by Mauritshuis colleagues Carol Pottasch and Sabrina Meloni on 19th June 2020, MA, unpublished notes. 12 Zeeland Archive, Middelburg

straightforward and principled.13 His father had a farm,14 but the young Traas hated farming so in June 1918, aged nineteen, he signed up for the military police (Marechaussee), but served for less than two years after being accidentally shot in the leg.15 The episode left him with a slight limp, which was later mentioned as a hinderance to his job as a restorer. A letter of 1928 from Wilhelm Martin, Director of the Mauritshuis, to the Ministry suggests that Traas was physically unsuited to the task of lining large-scale paintings,16 while in 1930, a letter from Frederik SchmidtDegener, then Director of the Rijksmuseum, rejecting Traas’s application for the post of First Class Technical Assistant, claims that he lacked the agility required to carry large paintings up the 106 steps to the restoration studio in the south-east tower of the museum without harming himself. Notwithstanding his merits as a restorer, the letter concludes, Traas ‘does not appear physically suited for the job’,17 which hardly seems fair, since he had already shown himself perfectly capable of handling large paintings.18 In 1920, shortly before leaving the military police, Traas married his first wife, Marie Louis Pauwels,19 and the couple moved to The Hague, where he was taken on as concierge at the Museum Mesdag. This opened the way to his becoming a restorer thanks to the new Director, Willem Steenhoff (1863–1932), who was appointed in 1924 and served until his retirement in 1928 (Fig.2). Steenhoff had moved from the Rijksmuseum, where as Deputy Director since 1905 he had been a strong advocate of broadening the modern art collection and had secured important Van Gogh loans, some from the Van Gogh family. However, his ideas no longer coincided with those of Schmidt-Degener, who succeeded Barthold van Riemsdijk as Director in 1922 and, after a reorganisation, Steenhoff became surplus to the museum’s requirements and was transferred to the Museum Mesdag, where his struggles to promote modern art continued.20 Soon after taking up his post as director of the Museum Mesdag, Steenhoff embarked upon a rearrangement and pruning of the modern paintings collection, which included works by the Hague School and Barbizon painters. His intention was periodically to vary the display of the paintings and to hold a series of temporary exhibitions, including one of the Van Gogh collection. Vincent Willem van Gogh had just taken over the care of the family collection from his mother, Jo van Gogh-Bonger, who died in 1925, and he was prepared to continue her support of Steenhoff ’s efforts to present Van Gogh as the successor to the Barbizon and Hague School painters, albeit now at Mesdag instead of the Rijksmuseum. Steenhoff ’s plans met with fierce resistance from the Mesdag heirs, however, and in 1926 he was forced to restore the original display of the collection, while the Van Gogh exhibition never took place.21 (hereafter cited as ZAM), Civil registration births, Burgerlijke Stand Zeeland (1798) 1811–1969, access code 25, record BAA-G-000976.jp2. 13 Document cited at note 2 above. 14 Jacob Traas was registered as a farmworker (boerenknecht) on his son’s birth certificate, documents cited at note 12; see also note 2 above. 15 Traas was enrolled on 7th July 1918 and discharged on 7th April 1920, for which, see www.marechausseesporen. nl/pagina_genealogie_t.htm, accessed 4th January 2022. 16 W. Martin to MEAS, 12th March 1928, MA, no.1292, ‘herstellen van schilderijen’. 17 Director of the Rijksmuseum to MEAS, 19th November 1930, NHA, folder 1496, no.14788, ‘sollicitatie J.C. Traas’. 18 In 1929 a picture measuring 210 by 480 cm., one of five behangselstukken by Johannes Petrus van Horstok (1745–

1825), was lined with wax-resin by Traas and an obscure colleague, H.A. Hage. The ensemble is now undergoing conservation treatment in Alkmaar City Museum. Thanks to Christi Klinkert for drawing my attention to this. An inscription on one of the stretchers reads ‘gerestaureerd door J.C. Traas and H.A. Hage 1929’. 19 ZAM, Civil registration marriages, Burgerlijke Stand Zeeland (1796) 1811– 1980, Philippine, access code 25, no. PHI-H-1920, 11-03-1920, record no.3, available at www.openarch.nl/ zar:60591141-32CB-43E9-8B759FA61D26400C, accessed 27th May 2021. 20 For Steenhoff’s career at the Museum Mesdag, see J.F. Heijbroek: ‘Het Rijksmuseum voor Moderne Kunst van Willem Steenhoff. Werkelijkheid of utopie?’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 39 (1991), pp.163–231.

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2. Willem J. Steenhoff in the Van Gogh Gallery of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, with The potato eaters (F82) in the background. 1918. Photograph. (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; Vincent van Gogh Foundation).

It was in this period that Steenhoff hatched his plan to train Traas as a restorer. Before Steenhoff ’s arrival at Museum Mesdag, it had been usual to outsource treatment of works in the collection to independent restorers in The Hague. Records in the Van Gogh Museum mention two well-known restorers who were trained in the traditional way from father to son: 21 R. de Leeuw: ‘The Museum Mesdag in perspective’, Van Gogh Museum Journal (1996), pp.17–19. 22 René Boitelle, Senior Conservator at the Van Gogh Museum, has compiled records of the restoration history of the Mesdag collection, 1919–59, based on a compilation of notes in the files of each painting; communication of 4th June 2018; see also R. Boitelle: ‘Lining inevitable: an introduction to wax-resin lining at the Mesdag Collection (1919– 74)’, 21st July 2021, online lecture 13 in the series ‘The Dutch Method Unfolded’ at the University of Amsterdam, with support from the Getty Foundation Conserving Canvas initiative (cited hereafter as Dutch Method series). At present these lectures can be viewed online only by the participants in the masterclass. 23 Van Duijn and Ter Marvelde, op. cit. (note 1), pp.820–22.

24 For Petrus Philippus Johannes (Piet) Stiefelhagen, see https://www. openarch.nl/hga:2B3A252A-85DA44EB-BC08-CF072971E2F9, accessed 3rd September 2021. 25 Prof. W. Martin to MEAS, 9th September 1925, MA, no.4811, ‘Request Restaurateur C.B. van Bohemen’. 26 MEAS to the Director of the Mauritshuis, 27th February 1928, MA, no.470; and 12th March 1928, MA, no.1292. A similar proposal was made to the Director of the Rijksmuseum, see MEAS to the Director, 12th March 1928, NHA, folder 1496, no.1292, ‘restauratie van schilderijen’. Traas’s proposal for extensive treatment of a painting in the collection of Rijksmuseum Huis Lambert van Meerten to be carried out in the studio of Museum Mesdag raised concerns discussed between MEAS and the museum director, Ida Peelen, who called in Professor Martin to give his

Cornelis Bernardus van Bohemen (1878–1948), who lined and restored a picture by Jean-François Millet in 1923, and Derix de Wild (1869–1932), who treated twenty-three paintings from the Mesdag collection in 1919 and 1921 (plus three more at an unknown date).22 Derix de Wild was the ‘natural choice’ at the time since from 1911 he had run the family studio situated in the same street, Laan van Meerdervoort, as Museum Mesdag, and from 1914 had restored pictures for the Mauritshuis, where he developed a close professional relationship with the Director, Wilhelm Martin.23 It is therefore striking that, while Steenhoff at first continued to send works out for treatment, he did not opt for the usual restorers, but chose Petrus P.J. Stiefelhagen (1873–1956), who treated eight paintings from the Mesdag collection in 1924–25.24 We know little about this frame-maker and restorer other than that he worked for commercial galleries in The Hague. Almost without exception, from 1925 onwards, Traas took over all restoration work for the Mesdag collection, while still acting as concierge, and was officially appointed as restorer at the Mauritshuis in 1933. Steenhoff ’s decision to back a complete novice and outsider as the museum’s restorer broke with a long tradition. In a letter sent to the Ministry on 8th September 1925, Martin described how for over twentyfive years, successive generations of the de Wild family had worked splendidly for the Mauritshuis, winning international acclaim, adding that in his opinion it would be counter-productive to deviate from this practice.25 Martin rejected accusations that conservation in The Hague was dominated by the de Wild family, dismissing the term ‘monopoly de Wild’ as a gross exaggeration and pointing out that Traas was now employed at Museum Mesdag. In reality, however, change was slow. From 1928 the Ministry tried to persuade Martin to allow Traas to work on pictures from the Mauritshuis, pointing out that his services would be free of charge as he was a civil servant owing to his employment at Museum Mesdag.26 Martin responded that he was willing to try him out, yet he felt that Traas still lacked the experience to perform the complex treatments they proposed, recommending that these be entrusted to the more established restorer de Wild.27 When Derix de Wild died in 1932, Martin was forced to reconsider. It is tempting to draw a parallel between Steenhoff ’s unorthodox choice of restorer and his own situation as a self-taught art historian. Steenhoff had trained as a painter at the state academy in Amsterdam and did not belong to the establishment.28 He must have quickly spotted Traas’s potential, for soon after joining the museum, he embarked upon his plan to teach him what he called the ‘secrets of restoration’.29 In 1924–25 Steenhoff had varnished works in the Mesdag collection, like his predecessor Willy Martens, who was also a painter, and he may have given some basic handson instruction to Traas.30 He used his contacts to set up proper tuition, advice on the matter, see MEAS to Ida Peelen, Director of the Rijksmuseum Huis L. van Meerten, 4th December 1928, MA, no.5686, subject ‘restauratie van schilderijen’; see also Ida Peelen to Prof. W. Martin, 7th December 1928, MA, unnumbered. 27 Prof. W. Martin to MEAS, 17th March, 8th November and 11th November 1928, 30th April 1931, 9th June and 10th August 1932, MA, unnumbered. 28 J.H. de Bois, a Haarlem art dealer and critic, made a telling sketch of Steenhoff’s character as one of the candidates to succeed van Riemsdijk at the Rijksmuseum, see Heijbroek, op. cit. (note 20), p.210. 29 MEAS to Director of the Rijksmuseum, 22nd May 1925, NHA, folder 1495, no.2628. 30 In an annotated catalogue of paintings in the Museum Mesdag, René

Boitelle found references to Steenhoff varnishing seven paintings in 1924 and two in 1925; document cited at note 22 above. It is unclear if he undertook other small interventions on the paintings. For example, Steenhoff mentions that he would tip in some flaking passages of paint in a picture by Gauguin using watercolour retouches that could be easily removed, but this might be something that he would ask Traas to do under his supervision, see W. Steenhoff to V.W. van Gogh, undated, VGM, b5617v. It was not yet uncommon for museum directors with a background in painting to perform small restoration treatments, another example being Gerrit David Gratama who, as Director at the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, 1912–46, worked on paintings in an upstairs studio at the museum, see A. Erftemeijer: 100 jaar Frans Hals Museum, Rotterdam 2013, pp.232–35.

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starting with colleagues from the Rijksmuseum who in 1924 taught Traas how to patinate (aftonen) and colour frames and also donated materials to the Mesdag studio.31 Traas began with frame maintenance and repair work on the Mesdag collection, and in 1925 progressed to what Vincent Willem van Gogh referred to as ‘simpler’ interventions on paintings, which, however, involved lining (doubleren) and ‘cleaning’ (schoonmaken), a rather ambiguous term but which might have included the removal of varnish.32 In 1925 Steenhoff tried to arrange for Traas to travel occasionally to Amsterdam to work at the Rijksmuseum. However, despite pressure exerted by the Ministry, his request was met with objections from the museum’s restorers, Bakker and Greebe,33 who were ‘too busy’ to offer Traas guidance since they were preparing for the big exhibition Amstelodamum and were also involved in Schmidt-Degener’s reinstallation of the entire museum. The restorers’ refusal to co-operate was backed by SchmidtDegener; thus, the possibility of Traas being trained by colleagues at the Rijksmuseum was blocked.34 It was at this time that the idea of treating the Van Gogh paintings took shape, as described by Vincent Willem in his ‘Memorandum on the restorer Traas’.35 He recounts that Museum Mesdag was very quiet, and the young concierge had little to do, so Steenhoff approached him to discuss the restoration of Van Gogh’s paintings, which was badly needed. The paintings were in poor condition because Jo’s frequent loans of them, made in her attempts to raise awareness of Vincent’s work, had exposed them to much travel but they had received little attention.36 Steenhoff had first proposed treatments for some of the works he hoped to include in the Van Gogh exhibition he was planning for Museum Mesdag, but once the Mesdag heirs had put a stop to this idea, a more ambitious one came into being: the long-term loan of the paintings to the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, which in 1930 took over management of the family collection.37 Steenhoff suggested to Vincent Willem that Traas could prepare the pictures for loan and perform the required treatments under his supervision, starting with simple procedures. Vincent Willem trusted Steenhoff, who for more than twenty-five years had acted as friend and adviser to the Van Gogh family, so he went along with the idea, remunerating Traas for his work so that he could pay to follow Professor Willem Vogelsang’s lectures in art history at the University of Utrecht, the first course in the subject in the Netherlands. In his memorandum Vincent Willem concluded that ‘things had gone well’. 31 Director of the Rijksmuseum to MEAS, 28th May 1925, NHA, folder 1495, no.13176, ‘opleiding concierge TRAAS’. 32 Document cited at note 22 above. 33 Pieter Nicolaas Bakker (1882–1940) and Willem Frederik Cornelis Greebe (1865–1946) were officially promoted to 1st Class Technical Assistants with the staff title of Paintings Restorer in 1920; they continued to work at the Rijksmuseum until they retired or left in 1930. The author thanks Esther van Duijn for this information. 34 For the Amstelodamum exhibition catalogue, see https://rkd.nl/nl/explore/ library/9722. Exchanges between MEAS and Director of the Rijksmuseum regarding ‘opleiding concierge TRAAS’, NHA, folder 1495, no.2628 (22nd May 1925); nos.13176 and 2784 (both 28th May 1925). 35 Document cited at note 9 above. 36 For instance, The bedroom at Arles (F482) was exhibited twenty times between 1890 and 1926, see W. Feilchenfeldt: Vincent van Gogh: The Years in France, complete paintings 1886–1890, London 2013, p.120; and H. Luijten: Alles voor Vincent; Het leven van Jo van Gogh-Bonger, Amsterdam 2019, p.433.

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37 H. Tromp: A Real van Gogh: How the Art World Struggles with Truth, Amsterdam 2010, p.210. The 1930 loan consisted of ninety-two paintings and 143 drawings by Van Gogh and twentyone works by his contemporaries. 38 During the course of his thirty plus years of working at the Mauritshuis, Traas lined only seven paintings, see S. Meloni: ‘An overview of almost 150 years of wax-resin linings in the Mauritshuis’, March 2021, Dutch Method series. 39 Traas was planning to return some smaller works he had treated in person with a companion by train providing there were not too many, see W. Steenhoff to V.W. van Gogh, 10th May 1928, VGM, b5636v/1996. 40 De Leeuw, op. cit. (note 21), pp.5 and 25. 41 List of paintings handed over to Traas for treatment on 11th October 1926, undated, VGM, b5625; and W. Steenhoff to V.W. van Gogh, 2nd December 1926, VGM, b5626. 42 Invoice, VGM, b4206. 43 Invoice, VGM, b4203. 44 Y. Marcus-de Groot: Kunsthistorische vrouwen van weleer De eerste generatie in Nederland vóór 1921,

Working on Van Gogh’s paintings thus formed an essential part of Traas’s training, enabling him to practise his skills of restoration on a large scale and especially to gain experience of lining.38 For seven years from October 1926 the paintings in the family’s collection were transported back and forth by road – and in the case of some smaller works, by rail – from Vincent Willem’s house, Rozenlaantje 12 in Laren, to the studio in the garden of Museum Mesdag.39 The studio was built by Mesdag for his painter friend Willy Martens when Martens was appointed Director of the museum in 1915, but under Steenhoff it came to serve as a restoration studio where works from Mesdag and the Mauritshuis, as well as other state collections, were brought until 1990, when it was demolished.40 On 11th October 1926 the earliest documented consignment from Vincent Willem was delivered: seven paintings that were ‘as good as ready’ by 2nd December of that year.41 Treatment of nineteen paintings in December 1926 to January 1927 followed,42 and this momentum was kept up until the end of the campaign in the summer of 1933, with the last invoice dated 12th July 1933.43 In all, Traas received seventeen deliveries comprising a total of 223 paintings, the vast majority by Van Gogh, but also including some thirty-nine pictures by his contemporaries and a number of unidentified works. The work could not be completed before Steenhoff ’s retirement in 1928, so he left a list of works to be treated, for his successor, Ida C.E. Peelen, to supervise. Peelen also arranged for some adjustments to be made to the garden studio so that Traas could treat big paintings there. He reportedly attracted visitors to watch him at work, including Queen Juliana.44 In general Traas appears not to have kept written records of the treatments he performed, something that would become routine only for the next generation. Luitsen Kuiper, who from 1961 was Traas’s assistant at the Mesdag and the Mauritshuis and took over his position when he retired, started to write notes on the paintings he treated and was the first restorer to introduce records as a standard procedure at the Rijksmuseum, where he headed the paintings conservation studio from 1970 to 1989.45 But Traas’s documentation at the Mauritshuis does include technical photographs of paintings made at various stages of treatment, as is evident from the lightbox and perhaps an X-ray visible behind him in Fig.1. Indeed, we know that Traas was educated early on in technical aspects as he followed classes given by Dr J.J. Lijnst Zwikker, a chemist employed at the Kunsthistorisch Instituut, Utrecht, from 1926 to 1938 to teach the ‘chemical aspects of Hilversum 2003, p.267. 45 Document cited at note 4 above. Kuiper was appointed Technical Assistant A, and it was intended that he would succeed Traas when the latter retired on 1st May 1963. He was promoted to Restorer of Paintings A on 1st January 1968 and moved to the Rijksmuseum in 1970, see F. van der Knaap: ‘Luitsen Kuiper, de praktijk van een restaurator’, unpublished MA thesis (University of Amsterdam, 2011), pp.10 and 12–13; idem: ‘Luitsen Kuiper, a conservator’s methodology’, Art Histories Society 2.2 (1st March 2012), p.2; and P.J.J. van Thiel: ‘In memoriam Luitsen Kuiper 1936–1989’, Bulletin van Het Rijksmuseum 37 (1989), pp.307–09. 46 The lessons with Zwikker are mentioned in a letter requesting permission to apply for the post of restorer at the RMA, J.C. Traas, Museum Mesdag, to the MEAS, NHA, folder 1496, 6th November 1930. For Zwikker, see A. Hoogenboom and I. Gerards, eds: De Swillenscollectie; De kunsttechnische verzameling van het Kunsthistorisch Instituut te Utrecht, Vianen 2002, p.14. 47 The document cited at note 46 mentions that an X-ray was

included with the application. 48 Ten of the invoices are handwritten and seven of them typed, probably on the portable typewriter that was given by Traas’s widow to Van der Velden; R. van der Velden email correspondence with the author, 7th June 2021. 49 Heijbroek, op. cit. (note 20), pp.212–15. 50 F numbers refer to the numbering in J.B. de la Faille: The Works of Vincent van Gogh: His Paintings and Drawings rev. edn, London 1970. See also W. Steenhoff to V.W. van Gogh, 2nd December 1926, VGM, b5626. 51 W. Steenhoff to V.W. van Gogh, undated, VGM, b5618. The paintings mentioned were restored in October– November 1926. 52 W. Steenhoff to Jo van GoghBonger, Amsterdam 1917, VGM, b5605. 53 L. van Tilborgh: ‘Framing van Gogh 1880–1990’, in E. Mendgen, ed.: exh. cat. In Perfect Harmony: Picture + Frame, 1850–1920, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum) 1995, p.176, fig.167 and pp.178–79. 54 J. van Gogh-Bonger to Messrs Ernest Brown and Phillips, 17th November 1923, VGM, b5896; and Luijten, op. cit. (note 36), p.432.

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painting, using X-rays, ultraviolet light and suchlike’, before the restorer Martin de Wild took over the role.46 We also know that Traas himself experimented with X-rays, for he included a sample in his portfolio when applying for the post of First Class Technical Assistant at the Rijksmuseum in 1930.47 Unfortunately, no photographs survive from his treatments of the Van Gogh collection, although dated invoices from Traas listing the consignments of paintings in the early campaign give basic descriptions of the treatment for each work. The invoices, both handwritten and typed, also give an idea of the speed at which the paintings passed through his hands, compared to today’s procedures. 48 Traas would have followed the instructions of Steenhoff, whose letters regarding the works he had planned to include in his projected Van Gogh exhibition reveal that he had clear ideas about how each painting should be treated.49 In many cases, although not always, Steenhoff advocated lining and varnishing them as a necessary preventive measure to fix loose paint and reinforce the canvas supports. For instance, he recommended lining a still life with pears (probably F383, Quinces, lemons, pears and grapes) even though it was not immediately necessary, ‘since the canvas had begun to look a bit like a sieve when held against the light’,50 and in the case of a Still life with apples (presumably F254) and The sower (F451) he considered that the lack of varnish had contributed to problems of flaking paint.51 His proposal to varnish Van Gogh’s later French paintings broke with the stipulations of Jo van Gogh-Bonger, who wished to keep them in the

unvarnished state in which Vincent had left them. In Van Gogh-Bonger’s lifetime, Steenhoff had tried to coax her into having pictures carefully cleaned, but he knew she was vehemently opposed to the application of even a thin layer of varnish.52 A photograph reveals that Van Gogh-Bonger chose to hang certain pictures at home behind protective glass, including the triptych of orchards painted in Arles in 1888 that is known to have held special value for her and her husband, Theo (Fig.3).53 Van Gogh-Bonger responded vehemently in November 1923 to a suggestion by Ernest Brown & Phillips that works she had lent to the Leicester Galleries, London, should be varnished: On no account do I want the paintings to be varnished. I am strongly opposed to it, and forbid it for any pictures in our collection. I express myself rather strongly on this subject, because I know it spoils their beautiful appearance. I have seen some pictures, which German collectors had varnished, and I found the effect horrible, Van Gogh’s technique does not agree with varnish.54 3. Living room of Jo van Gogh-Bonger’s house in Brachthuyzerstraat, Amsterdam, showing from left to right: The white orchard (F403); The pink peach tree (F404); and The pink orchard (F555). c.1917. Photograph Thijs Quispel. (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; Vincent van Gogh Foundation).

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Throughout her life, Van Gogh-Bonger resisted recommendations by Steenhoff and others to have the pictures restored. The Hague dealer Johannes Hendricus de Bois (1878–1946) did not mince words when describing the poor condition of the paintings (principally the frames), which in his opinion looked ‘as if they were fished out of the gutter’.55 The situation changed, however, when her son took over care of the collection, since Vincent Willem trusted Steenhoff implicitly and relied on his judgment and advice in preparing the loans to the Stedelijk Museum. By today’s standards, the methods he proposed seem highly invasive, as the paintings were to receive full treatments, which typically involved surface cleaning,56 wax-resin lining, varnishing the pictures and putting them onto new stretchers to carry the extra weight of the lining. Yet in his day, Steenhoff ’s recommendations were nothing out of the ordinary, since well into the twentieth century it was common practice to line and varnish Impressionist-style paintings. Only in a few instances did Traas refrain from lining, and it is striking that these unlined works included a number dating from the spring of 1887, when Van Gogh applied his paints very thinly onto absorbent supports, without his usual impasto, in a style that was influenced by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.57 Whether lining was deemed unnecessary or inappropriate for these works is not explained, but it was something of an exception to the rule of wax-resin lining as a standard measure. Most of the paintings had never been lined and varnished before; only in four cases does Traas mention having to remove an old lining, which was probably a French glue lining, as he specifies in one case.58 Traas relined The bedroom at Arles (F482) in the winter of 1931–32. In unusual detail, he described how the old lining had compromised the painting and that it required much effort and consultation to restore it to its original state.59 From Van Gogh’s correspondence we know that The bedroom was already damaged by damp in the artist’s studio, so Vincent had stuck newspapers onto the paint surface to prevent it from flaking and asked his brother Theo to have the picture lined. While in general

he considered that sooner or later his paintings would need to be lined,60 he envisaged that it would have been in the traditional French method of glue paste lining rather than the Dutch wax-resin method. He was given a detailed description of the French procedure, which had been demonstrated to Paul Gauguin. It entailed sticking newspaper onto the front of a canvas with flour paste, then placing it on a smooth board and pressing it with very hot irons to flatten and secure flaking paint. In that way, ‘All the breaks in your colour will remain but will be flattened down and you’ll have a very fine surface’. Gauguin added, ‘That’s largely the whole secret of lining’.61 When The bedroom was restored in 2009–10, traces of these earlier interventions were still evident in the form of pressed-down cracks and flattened hills of impasto onto which newsprint had been transferred.62 Traas’s work on the loans for the Stedelijk Museum was interrupted by an internship he spent at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, from September 1927 to January 1928.63 It was organised by Steenhoff who was said to have got the idea from Professor Vogelsang, whose art history classes Traas had followed, and Professor Martin at the Mauritshuis.64 We know of only one other Dutch restorer who studied in Vienna, namely Carel de Wild (1870–1922), who was there for almost a year from November 1894 to September 1895 before starting to work for the Mauritshuis in 1901.65 This is unlikely to be a coincidence, and the choice of the Kunsthistorisches Museum as a place of training seems to indicate the wish to follow in the footsteps of that illustrious predecessor. Yet evidently the Vienna internship no longer carried the same prestige for Traas as it had for De Wild, since immediately after Traas’s return from Vienna, Martin wrote that, ‘reading between the lines’ of Traas’s internship he had ‘merely gained technical experience’,66 which is confirmed by the logbook records of his work performed under the supervision of Karl Proksch. While Traas’s work was satisfactory, it was quite limited in scope, as he had worked mainly on panel paintings and done remedial work, such as fixing paint blisters, rather than complex cleaning or lining treatments.67 Traas later said he had learned how to line paintings in Vienna, yet this claim does not seem credible since, as far as we know, at that time only traditional glue-paste lining was practised in Vienna, rather than the Dutch wax-resin method used by Traas.68 Professor Martin adds to

55 J.H. de Bois to J. van Gogh-Bonger, 23rd July 1908, VGM, b541. Luijten, op. cit. (note 36), pp.432–33. 56 The term used is cleaning (schoonmaken), which in this context can usually be taken to mean the removal of surface grime from the back and/or front of the paintings rather than the removal of an old varnish, which in most cases had not then been applied to the paintings. When Traas did remove an old varnish, this was usually specified in the invoice. 57 The works left unlined include Basket of crocus bulbs (F334) mentioned in VGM, b4211, May–August 1928, and Dish with citrus fruit (F338), mentioned in VGM, b4215, September 1928; and Plaster cast of a woman’s torso (F216h), which are all still unlined. 58 The four paintings are: The bedroom

behandeling dit schilderij hopeloos slecht verdoekt, en in de verflaag vreeselyk geknoeid was, kon dit schildery slechts met zeer veel moeite en overleg weer in zyn oorspronkelyken toestand terug gebracht worden’. Other translations of the word ‘overleg’ are deliberation or consideration. 60 Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, 5th–6th September 1889, see L. Jansen, H. Luijten and N. Bakker, eds: Letters, http://vangoghletters.org/ (hereafter cited as Letters) 800. 61 Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh, between 8th and 16th January 1889, Letters 779. 62 I. Fiedler et al.: ‘Materials, intention and evolution’, in G. Groom, ed.: exh. cat. Van Gogh’s Bedrooms, Chicago (Art Institute) 2016, p.94. 63 Direktion der Gemäldegalerie to J.C.

4. Diagram of the Dutch method of wax-resin lining; in this case the original and lining canvases are enlarged with paper strips adhered to the edges, rather than the canvas strips sewn on by Traas, enabling the canvases to be stretched on wooden looms during lining. (From S. Cursiter and A.M. de Wild: ‘Picture relining’, in Technical Studies in the Field of Fine Arts 5 (1937)).

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at Arles, F482, December 1931–January 1932, VGM, b4200; ‘t Parijsche gezicht op Montmartre’, perhaps Montmartre: windmills and allotments F346, undated, VGM, b5618; Grapes, F603, December 1932, VGM, b4205; and Woman with cradle, F369, December 1932, VGM, b4210. An undated letter from W. Steenhoff to V.W. van Gogh describes how ‘t Parijsche gezicht op Montmartre’ is stuck onto another canvas, probably with glue, in such a way that the original canvas bulges in places, so that the later canvas needed to be removed and afterwards the work could be properly relined with wax. The relining and restoration treatment by Traas was invoiced on 7th June 1932, VGM, b4202. 59 Traas invoice addressed to V.W. van Gogh, December 1931–January 1932, VGM, b4200: ‘Daar by een vorige

Traas, 12th January 1928, certificate of internship, Kunsthistorisches Museum Archives, Vienna (henceforth cited as KMA). A copy of this is attached to his job application to the Rijksmuseum in 1930, see document cited at note 46 above. 64 Correspondence between Steenhoff and Ernst H. Buschbeck concerning ‘Volontieren des Herrn Jan C. Traas aus dem Haag in der Restaurieranstalt der Gemäldegalerie’, 13th April–28th June 1927, KMA, unnumbered. 65 Van Duijn and Ter Marvelde, op. cit. (note 1), p.817. Thank you to Esther van Duijn for further clarifying the dates of Carel’s training in Vienna and a subsequent timeline based on his correspondence with Hofstede de Groot. From September to December 1895 Carel travelled in Italy and worked

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the puzzle, as in his letter he explains that Traas had visited him after his return from Vienna and had told him that he was still searching for a way of lining paintings that was suited to the Dutch climate.69 Perhaps Traas was referring to a refinement of his lining procedure, since it does not seem tenable that he was not yet acquainted with wax-resin lining after Vienna given that, even prior to his internship, he had already wax-resin lined a considerable number of Van Gogh’s paintings. One of these was Sunflowers, which must have posed a particular challenge, owing to the fact that Van Gogh had added a painted wooden strip to the top of the painting, which Traas had to remove before lining the painting and then had to nail the strip back onto the new stretcher.70 So far it has not been possible to establish who taught Traas to waxresin line paintings at the start of his career in Museum Mesdag. Given the rivalry between restorers in The Hague it unlikely that it was Derix de Wild (although we know that Traas visited his studio),71 and it is tempting to speculate on a possible role played by Petrus P.J. Stiefelhagen, who lined three paintings in the Mesdag Collection in 1924–25, precisely the period when Traas was learning to restore. A peculiar feature of the paintings Traas lined from late 1929 is the machine stitching seen on the tacking margins, which seems unparalleled and constitutes a personal hallmark of his lining procedure. As an ‘autodidact’, a term Steenhoff used to describe Traas when recommending him for the Vienna internship, it is conceivable that he devised his own lining method based on various procedures, or invented certain aspects of it himself. Examination and analysis of the large number of Van Gogh’s paintings treated by Traas during the early campaign suggests that he worked in a neat and methodical way. The pictures share consistent features – traits of his method – which were slightly adjusted over time. These characteristics can prove helpful in identifying undocumented works treated by his hand. Traas wax-resin lined the paintings using the traditional Dutch method that involved ironing the painting face down on a cold table, with both the original and lining canvases stretched on wooden looms. Klaver recalls that Traas used a one-step process, rather than the original two-step procedure of the Dutch method: the wax-resin was not applied to the reverse of the painting in a separate step, but was brushed onto the lining canvas and ironed through to the front of the painting in a single procedure.72 Analysis has identified the materials he used: automated thread counting has revealed that Traas used lining canvases cut from different rolls that closely resembled the original Tasset et L’Hote canvases used by Van Gogh.73 Chemical analysis showed that he used a typical lining adhesive mixture of beeswax and diterpenoid resin, which agrees with a handwritten bill dated 26th January 1931 listing ingredients Traas purchased: beeswax, Venetian turpentine and colophony.74 in Vienna, then for three months from January to March 1896 studied under Hauser in Berlin to learn the wax-resin lining method, before returning to The Hague to start his own studio in the summer of 1896. 66 Director of Mauritshuis to the MEAS, 12th March 1928, MA, no.1292. 67 The author is indebted to Elke Oberthaler, Chief Paintings Conservator at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, for sharing log book records of Traas’s internship at the Museum. 68 Information kindly provided by Elke Oberthaler, and Manfred Koller, Institut für Konservierung und Restaurierung, University of Applied Arts, Vienna. 69 Document cited at note 66 above. 70 E. Hendriks et al.: Conservation of the Amsterdam “Sunflowers”: from

past to future’, in idem and M. Vellekoop, eds: Van Gogh’s Sunflowers Illuminated: Art meets Science, Amsterdam 2019, pp.175–205, esp. pp.179–80. 71 Traas to V.W. van Gogh, 11th August 1932, VGM, b8686, mentions that Traas took a painting to be photographed in de Wild’s studio. 72 Klaver’s recollections cited in an email from J. Nijstad, 26th July 2021. 73 In the Thread Count Automation Project, a pilot study was performed by D.H. Johnson of Rice University and this author using automated thread count measurements on scaled photographs of the reverse side of eight paintings lined by Traas. The lining canvases are all very similar, but based on slight variations in thread density they could be assigned to three different rolls (roll 1 with 10.6 by 13.3 threads per cm.; roll 2

5. Relining of Van Gogh’s Railway bridge over Avenue Montmajour, Arles (F480; whereabouts unknown), showing the preparation of the sawdust bed on which the painting is laid face downwards for lining without a hot table, by ironing, using ‘an elaborate insulation with tin foil and a sawdust bedding’ to protect the high impasto. Photograph, taken probably in Helmut Ruhemann’s studio in Berlin c.1932. (From Manual on the Conservation and Restoration of Paintings, Paris 1940).

To stretch the original canvas before lining it, Traas extended the flattened tacking edges of the painting with strips of canvas that could be wrapped around the oversized wooden loom (Fig.4). Still identifiable on the paintings Traas lined from late 1929 onwards are traces of the machine stitching (applied in two straight rows in natural coloured thread) used to sew on the strips, and occasionally remnants of the fabric strips survive.75 Some paintings have much coarser, oblique stitches made by hand with double strands of coloured thread, but these are thought to have been paintings lined by Traas later in his career.76 To avoid undesirable mark-through of texture, Traas might file or sand off irregularities on the reverse of the original canvas prior to lining. This practice, which may have been necessitated by the lumps of ground that often penetrated between the threads of the open-weave canvases used by Van Gogh, is thought to explain the broken threads and tiny circular losses of ground observed in Sunflowers.77 To protect the delicate texture of Van Gogh’s paint surfaces when ironing them face down, Traas applied a tissue paper facing with glue. Klaver recalls his use of a rice paper facing for textured paintings, and that he placed an additional blanket on the linoleum tabletop for textured paintings, and spread a with 11.4 by 15.1 th/cm.; and roll 3 with 10.4–10.6 by 14.7–14.9 th/cm). The quality of the lining canvas is very close to the Tasset et L’Hote ordinary type of canvas used by Van Gogh in the period 1888–90, for example, the canvas used for Sunflowers has 11.4 by 16.9 th/cm. 74 To determine the composition of the wax-resin adhesive used by Traas, samples of wax-resin adhesive were taken from the reverse of eleven paintings in 2004 by Stephan and Ana Schaefer and analysed using DTMS by Jerre van der Horst and Jaap J. Boon at AMOLF (FOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics), University of Amsterdam. Invoice from J.C. Traas to Prof. Martin, 26th January 1931, MA, unnumbered, listing materials Traas used for restoration of two portraits owned by the Department of Defence

‘verdoekspecie: was. Venetiaansche terpentijn en kolophonium’. 75 An example is illustrated in E. Hendriks: ‘Treatment History of the Collection’, in idem and L. van Tilborgh: Vincent van Gogh Paintings: Antwerp & Paris 1885–1888, Zwolle 2011, II, p.31, fig.2. 76 Examples are the ochre stitches found on Bank of the Seine (F293) and remnants of brown stitches on A crab on its back (F605), pictures which are thought to have been lined and restored by Traas in 1960. J.C. Traas to V.W. van Gogh, 18th January 1960, Archive Stedelijk Museum (hereafter cited as SMA), unnumbered, list of paintings requiring treatment, mentions ‘krab (verdoeken)’. 77 Hendriks, op. cit. (note 70), pp.181–82.

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Opposite 6. Field with irises near Arles, by Vincent van Gogh. May 1888. Oil on canvas, 54 by 65 cm. (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; Vincent van Gogh Foundation). 7. Fig.6 photographed in raking light after the removal of the varnish in 2014–15. 8. Enlarged detail of Fig.6, showing canvas weave impressed in the flattened impasto from rolling and sending the painting to Theo van Gogh.

layer of flour on the linoleum for highly textured ones.78 While we can no longer find direct evidence for this cushioning, it agrees with similar recommendations to use sawdust or felt padding to protect the impasto surfaces of Van Gogh’s paintings during handlining by the Dutch method (Fig.5).79 This precautionary measure would help to explain how Traas managed to preserve the extremely intricate texture of paintings such as Field with irises near Arles (F409; Fig.6) in such pristine condition, with no signs of visible damage, something that now seems a breathtaking accomplishment (Figs.7 and 8).80 To bear the additional weight of the pictures after lining, Traas replaced the original stretchers with sturdy softwood stretchers that could be stained with a darker colour. The usual construction is with bridle (slot mortise-and-tenon) corner joins and mortised strips nailed around the outer edge to prevent distortions in the corners of the canvas when keyed out. Where needed, crossbars were added for reinforcement. For example, the new stretcher for Sunflowers was modified to incorporate a horizontal bar, presumably to bear the extra weight of the painted wooden strip nailed to the top of the stretcher.81 Traas took care to use stretchers that corresponded to the format of the pictures, which sometimes meant undoing earlier adjustments, for example for the loose canvases that Vincent sent to Theo in Paris, which had been put onto ready-made stretchers that did not quite match the paintings’ dimensions. One example is Wheat field with crows (F779), which was painted on a ‘double-square’ canvas mounted on a stretcher that was too small. When Traas lined the painting in the spring of 1928,82 he followed Steenhoff ’s suggestion to replace the undersized stretcher with one in the correct format, even though this would mean that the existing picture frame would no longer fit.83 Down the left side of the painting we can still detect the two-centimetre-wide strip with tack holes that had served as a tacking margin, now turned back into the picture plane after being lined by Traas.84 Unusually, in the case of the The bedroom at Arles, Traas reduced the size of the picture when lining it in the winter of 1931–32, folding a 1.5 centimetre strip of the painting over the left side of the new stretcher so that it was lost from view. Perhaps this was prompted by the damaged state of this area, which suffers extensive losses of zinc white paint used to render the jamb of the door leading to Gauguin’s bedroom.85 78 See email correspondence cited at note 72 above. 79 Anon. [H. Ruhemann and A.M. de Wild]: ‘II. Lining’, Manual on the Conservation and Restoration of Paintings, Paris 1940, p.221 and figs.57– 59. ‘In 1932 Philip Hendy, then curator at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, sent a Netherlandish panel of St Luke painting the Virgin to Berlin [. . .] The painting was cleaned by Ruhemann in his private studio to remove a discoloured, non-original varnish that was also toned with pigments as well as old dark retouchings’, see Blewett, op. cit. (note 1), p.641; the painting can be seen in the background of the photograph, hence the dating given in the caption.

80 The painting shows some local flattening of impasto with the impression of a canvas weave, which must have been caused by Van Gogh rolling the picture when the paint was still fresh, rather than the lining by Traas; letter of Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Arles, on or about 13th August 1888, mentions that the painting was rolled in a bundle of studies to carry back to Paris, Letters 660. See Fig.8. 81 Hendriks, op. cit. (note 70), p.180. 82 VGM, invoice b4215, March– May 1928. 83 Willem Steenhoff to Vincent Willem van Gogh, undated, VGM, b5635v/1996. 84 E. Hendriks et al.: ‘Automated thread counting and the Studio Practice Project’, in M. Vellekoop

When mounting canvases onto new stretchers, it was Traas’s custom to keep the original tacking margins that had been used to stretch the paintings for lining, but to trim them straight along the back edge of the stretcher. Initially, Traas kept the corners of the original canvas, which were tuck-folded and tacked to the stretcher, but from late 1929 he cut these off to provide a neat butt join around the corners of the stretcher. At a time when it was still common to remove original tacking margins prior to lining, Traas’s method was restrained, and agreed with the recommendations published in the slightly later series on lining by Stanley Cursiter and A.M. de Wild in Technical Studies in the Field of the Fine Arts.86 Traas’s combination of trimmed edges and clipped corners is also found in early linings by Derix de Wild,87 but more research is needed to know if it was general practice at the time. To protect the edges of the lined paintings, Traas covered them with brown paper tape, usually varnishing the pictures afterwards with a brush coat of dammar which is absent beneath the tape. Compared to artist-restorers such as Claude-Emile Schuffenecker (1851–1934), whose habit it was to ‘complete’ Van Gogh’s works by fabricating additions around the edges,88 Traas’s approach to retouching was much more restrained. He refrained from inventing new parts and from the common practice of ‘completing’ the rough borders of late nineteenthcentury works that were considered to lack ‘finish’.89 When faced early on with treatment of An old woman of Arles (F390; Figs.9 and 10), a painting with large losses in the corners, Traas chose to fill them with a smooth putty and tone them with an even colour, making no attempt to reconstruct texture and detail in the missing areas.90 This forms an interesting early example of a ‘neutral retouch’ that seems quite exceptional for Traas, whose normal approach was to aim for a fully integrated retouching, which could even et al., eds: Van Gogh’s Studio Practice, Amsterdam 2013, p.180, fig.15 reconstructs the later changes in format of all the ‘double square’ canvases Van Gogh painted in Auvers-sur-Oise. 85 E. Hendriks et al.: ‘A comparative study of Vincent van Gogh’s “Bedroom” series’, in M. Spring, ed.: Studying Old Master Paintings: Technology and Practice, The National Gallery Technical Bulletin 30th Anniversary Conference Postprints, London 2011, p.238 and note 7. The folded-over portion is illustrated in Fiedler, op. cit. (note 62), p.89, fig.19. 86 S. Cursiter and A.M. de Wild: ‘Picture relining’, Technical Studies in the Field of the Fine Arts 5, no.2 (January 1937), p.162.

87 Examples illustrated in a lecture by René Boitelle cited at note 22. 88 Schuffenecker’s practices are discussed in L. van Tilborgh and E. Hendriks: ‘The Tokyo “Sunflowers”: a genuine repetition by Van Gogh or a Schuffenecker forgery?’, The Van Gogh Museum Journal (2001), pp.17–44, esp. pp.31–32. 89 An example is discussed in R. Woudhuysen-Keller et al.: Die Rosenallee: Der Weg zum Spätwerk Monets in Giverny, Aachen and Mainz 2001, pp.39–42. 90 The painting is thought to correspond to ‘Oude vrouw v. Gogh’ listed in VGM, b4206, December 1926–January 1927, as having been lined, ‘repaired’ (bijgewerkt), retouched and varnished.

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9. An old woman of Arles, by Vincent van Gogh. 1888. Oil on canvas, 58 by 42 cm., showing the corners filled with putty and an even tone. (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; Vincent van Gogh Foundation). 10. Photograph of Fig.9 recording its damaged condition prior to the 1927 restoration by Traas. (Photograph Bernard F. Eilers; from W. Scherjon and W. Jos de Gruyter: Vincent van Gogh’s great period. Arles, St. Rémy and Auvers sur Oise, Amsterdam 1937).

extend to the addition of pencil lines to imitate the grooves and cracks in Van Gogh’s textured brushwork.91 Nowadays, some of Traas’s retouches no longer match the surrounding colour of original paint, since he used pigments that have proved to be more stable than the fugitive ones used by Van Gogh. Such old retouches, along with glimpses of original colour preserved beneath the paper tape applied around the edges of the pictures after lining, may provide valuable evidence for the original vivid colour schemes of 91 For illustrated examples of pencil lines in two versions of the Sunflowers, one restored by Traas in 1927 and the other by Helmut Ruhemann in 1942 (at which time he may have left some older retouches in place), see E. Hendriks et al. in Hendriks and Vellekoop, op. cit. (note 70), pp.186–87; and C. Higgit, G. Macaro and M. Spring: ‘Methods, materials and condition of the London “Sunflowers”’, in ibid., pp.49–83, at p.67. 92 E. Hendriks: ‘“Paintings fade like flowers”: colour change in paintings by Vincent van Gogh’, in R. Clarricoates, H. Dowding and A. Gent, eds: Colour Change in Paintings, London 2016, esp. pp.44–45.

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93 VGM, invoice b 4200, December 1931–January 1932, no.1. The painting received extensive treatment, including relining, filling and retouching of damages and varnishing. J.C. Traas invoice, 15th October 1958, VGM, unnumbered, records that the painting had again been ‘cleaned’, retouched and varnished. 94 Hendriks, op. cit. (note 85), p.241; and Fiedler, op. cit. (note 62), pp.86–91. Traas’s later adjustment of his own retouches is discussed by E. Hendriks in an unpublished treatment report, 2010, VGM conservation archive. With thanks to Roy S. Berns and Brittany Cox (Rochester Institute of Technology, New

the paintings that have continued to change since they were treated by Traas.92 When The bedroom was treated in 2009–10, it emerged that Traas had been confronted with this ongoing change, since when he treated the picture in 1958, some thirty years after his first campaign,93 he had to adjust the colour of his earlier retouches to match the new, cooler tint of the floor that resulted from further fading of the geranium lake pigment it contains (Figs.11 and 12).94 While Traas resisted overpainting to resurrect the ‘original’ colours of Van Gogh’s works, he did use overpaint to restore the coherence of paint areas that had been disrupted by the effects of later discolouration and other alterations. For example, he corrected the mottled colour caused by the fading of a red lake pigment in the back wall of The bedroom by using a cerulean blue scumble (rather than reinstating the original purple) and evened out the roughness of Van Gogh’s reworking of the sky in Field York) and Maurice Tromp (Van Gogh Museum) for Fig.12. 95 F482 was cleaned and restored in 2009–10, and F409 in 2014–15, when in both cases Traas’s overpaint was removed; unpublished treatment reports by E. Hendriks in conservation files, VGM, archived by F number. 96 Drips of vermilion paint from the roofs that had landed in the middle of the field were touched out by Traas, who must have found them unsightly. 97 Document cited at note 9 above. Vincent Willem was referring to Christiaan (Chris) van Voorst, who worked with a colleague, the restorer Jacobus

(Co) van Beek; see M. Prins: ‘Restauratoren uit het verleden, Van Manusje-vanalles tot restaurator, Chris van Voorst en Co van Beek’, CR: Inter-disciplinair vakblad voor conservering en restauratie 8 (2007), pp.36–38. M. Prins: ‘Geduld, Waardigheid en Nauwgezetheid. Professionalisering van de eerste schilderijenrestauratoren van het Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam’, unpublished MA thesis (University of Amsterdam, 2006). 98 Discussed in L. Wijnberg: ‘The history of the wax-resin lining of paintings by Kazimir Malevich at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam’, May

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11. The bedroom at Arles, by Vincent van Gogh. 1888. Oil on canvas, 72.4 by 91.3 cm. Photographed after the 2009–10 treatment when Traas’s old varnish and retouches were removed. The originally pale violet walls and lilac doors described by the artist are now light blue, owing to the fading of a red cochineal lake in the paint mixture used. (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; Vincent van Gogh Foundation). 12. Digital visualisation providing an impression of the original colours of Fig.11. (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; Vincent van Gogh Foundation).

with irises near Arles, which he must have misconstrued to be the effect of abrasion.95 The latter also provides an example of Traas’s practice of touching out drips of paint that had unintentionally fallen from the artist’s brush elsewhere on the painting, which is perhaps less invasive than the option of total removal.96 1933 marked the end of Traas’s first campaign treating Van Gogh’s paintings, but Vincent Willem van Gogh recalled that Traas cared for the Van Gogh paintings until the Second World War, after which a large part of the collection was kept at the Stedelijk Museum where the restorer ‘van Voorst’ ‘carried out all sorts of tasks’.97 In 1957 a new studio was established at the Stedelijk under the directorship of Willem Sandberg, which moved to a new space in 1961 with an electrically heated hot-table purchased in 1959. In the busy first years of the studio from 1957 to 1961, the Stedelijk conservators were preoccupied with treating the newly acquired collection of Malevich paintings,98 so they farmed out the treatment of several Van Gogh paintings to Traas. Some of these paintings Traas lined for the first time, but for those that had passed through his hands before, he would keep the old waxresin linings from the 1926–33 campaign, but ‘cleaned’, ‘retouched’ and ‘varnished’ the works.99 Several paintings by Van Gogh sent to Traas for treatment in the summer of 1961 were varnished with an alkyd resin (so far identified on three paintings) instead of the natural dammar resin he had used in his earlier campaign.100 He may have switched to the synthetic varnish in the belief that it was more stable than the traditional dammar, which is known to yellow over time. However, this does not seem to chime with the presence of red and dark iron-oxide pigment particles found in the varnish, added by Traas to adjust the tone.101 It is known that he applied pigmented varnishes to the old-master paintings he treated at the Mauritshuis in accordance with Professor Martin’s ideas. Martin was the first museum director to publish on the matter, confessing that he liked the effect of a yellow tone provided by traditional gallery varnish, although he preferred a very thin layer that revealed all the details of the painting.102 Perhaps the tonal character of the Sunflowers encouraged Traas to transfer an aesthetic associated with old-master pictures to his treatment of a nineteenth-century painting by Van Gogh.103 While Traas’s later switch to the use of alkyd varnish suggests his willingness to follow the latest trends in the use of modern synthetic materials, we do not witness an equivalent ‘progression’ with respect to his linings, since well into his retirement he continued to wax-resin 2021, Dutch Method series. 99 Typed invoice J.C. Traas to V.W. van Gogh, 15th October 1958, SMA, unnumbered, mentions ‘het schoonmaken, (geheel) bijwerken en vernissen’ for eight of the Van Gogh paintings in the period 14th December 1957 to 23rd September 1958. 100 Discussed in Hendriks et al., op. cit. (note 70), at pp.188–92; and K.J. van den Berg et al.: ‘Structure and chemical composition of the surface layers in the Amsterdam “Sunflowers”’, in Hendriks and Vellekoop, eds, op. cit. (note 70), pp.159–73. 101 Hendriks et al., op. cit. (note 70),

pp.190–92. The pigments are thought to have been added by Traas and not in a ready-mixed ingredient, since they are selectively found in the different varnish layers and paintings analysed. 102 P. Noble et al.: ‘Conservering, restauratie en materiaaltechnisch onderzoek in het Mauritshuis. Een historisch overzicht’, in E. Runia, ed.: Bewaard voor de eeuwigheid; Conservering, restauratie en materiaaltechnisch onderzoek in het Mauritshuis, Zwolle 2008, p.29; and M. Mundigler: ‘Wilhelm Martin and the art of restoration in the Netherlands in the early 20th century’, unpublished MA

line paintings, using his tried and tested method of hand-lining and employing traditional materials, without using a hot table, or even an iron with a thermostat.104 In this respect it is instructive to consider how Traas’s practices aligned with those of his English contemporary Helmut Ruhemann. While we do not know how close the two men were, they had already met by November 1932, when both were called on to act as technical experts at the public trial concerning the so-called Wacker Van Gogh forgeries.105 Like Traas, Ruhemann wax-resin lined thesis (University of Amsterdam, 2019), pp.24 and 32–34. 103 Toon Klaver recalled that Traas added ochre(?) pigment to the varnishes he applied to a couple of Witjes (grisailles) he restored for Kasteel Rechteren in Dalfsen to give them a slightly warmer appearance, R. van der Velden, email correspondence with the author, 6th April 2021. 104 R. van der Velden recalls the smell of wax-resin emanating from the attic studio (later moved downstairs) during his Sunday visits to Traas in his retirement, while Toon Klaver provides details of his late lining practice, which seems a

basic continuation of his handlining method. Van der Velden, email correspondence with the author, 22nd February 2021; and J. Nijstad, email correspondence with the author, 26th July 2021. 105 Traas replaced Martin de Wild as witness at the second public trial, see H. Tromp: A Real Van Gogh: How the Art World Struggles with Truth, Amsterdam 2010, p.160. Ruhemann mentions Traas in his later account of the trials, see National Gallery Research Centre, London, inv. no.NGA34/1, ‘Technical testing methods and Van Gogh falsifications: retrospections on the Wacker case’, undated and unnamed, pp.7 and 9.

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and ‘varnished’ Van Gogh paintings throughout his career.106 However, Ruhemann’s approach to treatment varied from that of Traas as he held different views on how pictures should look. Ruhemann was a strong advocate of total cleaning: the complete removal of surface grime as well as discoloured and pigmented restoration varnishes, which he believed falsified the artist’s intentions.107 Like Traas, Ruhemann did varnish the Van Gogh paintings he treated, but he used pale beeswax rather than resin to give a matt, unvarnished appearance that he found appropriate for ‘modern’ Impressionist-style paintings.108 Like Traas, Ruhemann started with traditional, face-down handlining of Van Gogh paintings, taking measures to improve the safety of the method. These included the use of a sawdust bed to cushion the delicate impasto and adding an insulating layer of tin foil on the paint surface to conduct the heat evenly, as illustrated in his Manual on the Conservation and Restoration of Painting (Fig.5).109 In 1947 Ruhemann devised an improvised hot table to wax-resin line Van Gogh’s painting Peach blossom in the Crau (called by Ruhemann La Haie: Landscape near Arles; Courtauld Gallery, London), concluding that with this method it was possible to watch the surface of the painting at every stage unhindered by facing or bedding.110 Soon afterwards an electrically heated hot table was made by Stephen Rees Jones at the Courtauld under Ruhemann’s instruction.111 Towards the end of his career Ruhemann still recommended wax-resin lining for Van Gogh paintings in particular, in view of the ‘all-too absorbent canvas (frequently without sufficient ground on it)’ and heavy impasto used by the painter, leading to cracking and flaking paint, adding that there could now be little to say against the idea of lining as a standard precautionary measure, since modern improvements – such as the introduction of the hot table and vacuum-

lining methods – had eliminated most of the known risks associated with the traditional practice of hand lining.112 In Holland it would be left to the next generation of conservators at the Stedelijk Museum to introduce such methods when they took over treatment of the Van Gogh paintings after Traas retired. Existing records from the period 1968–74 suggest that the younger colleagues Chris van Voorst and Co van Beek varied their approach to structural treatment of the Van Goghs. In 1967 they added a wax-resin lining on the hot table to an existing lining;113 in 1970 they partially impregnated the reverse of an existing lining with wax-resin on the hot table,114 and in 1964 and again in 1974 they lined paintings using a synthetic polyvinyl acetate adhesive instead of the traditional wax-resin for lining.115 Use of a PVA adhesive reflects the influence of the Central Research Laboratory in Amsterdam, where safer alternatives to the wax-resin lining had been developed and the use of synthetic PVA adhesives was imported from the field of textile conservation. The paintings conservator Vishwa R. Mehra (b.1931; Fig.13) joined the staff in 1966 and came to play a crucial role as one of the main protagonists in the growing international debate on wax-resin lining, culminating in the lining moratorium that followed the legendary Conference on Comparative Lining Techniques held in 1974 at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. It is against this background that a controversy was sparked by an act of vandalism that took place at the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, the forerunner of the present Van Gogh Museum. On 25th April 1978, around closing time, a mentally disturbed visitor pulled out a sharp pocketknife and mutilated Van Gogh’s Paris Self-portrait with grey felt hat (F344; Fig.14), slashing diagonally through the canvas in the form of a cross.116 Since the museum, which had opened in 1973, did not yet have its own restoration department, repair of the portrait was entrusted to Luitsen Kuiper at the Rijksmuseum. He had joined the museum in 1970, moving from the Mauritshuis, where he had been assistant and afterwards successor to Traas. He was a highly experienced practitioner of wax-resin lining, the usual method for treating old-master paintings at both museums. An advisory committee was set up to discuss an appropriate course of treatment and at the inaugural meeting, Kuiper presented his proposal to renew the wax-resin lining of the support, replacing Traas’s old lining canvas that had been removed immediately after the attack.117 However, Ernst van de Wetering (1938–2021), art historian and colleague of Mehra at the Central Research Laboratory, questioned the suitability of this proposal, concerned that a further impregnation with wax-resin might cause exposed passages of the absorbent ground to discolour even more.118 Van de Wetering framed his objections in the light of international developments of formulated safer methods of lining yet, while Kuiper’s wax-resin lining was put on hold, eventually it went ahead.119 In the mid-1980s, as the Van Gogh Museum still did not have its own conservation studio, Mehra and Van de Wetering were engaged by the Central Research Laboratory to undertake a survey of the condition

106 H. Ruhemann: The Cleaning of Paintings: Problems and Potentialities, London 1968, p.153. 107 Ibid., pp.217–19. 108 Ibid., pp.269 and 343. 109 [Ruhemann and de Wild], op. cit. (note 79), pp.212–25; and Ruhemann, op. cit. (note 106), pp.150–53. 110 Ibid., pp.153–54 and p.343, Appendix D, ‘Restoration of “La Haie: Landscape near Arles” by Van Gogh’. 111 Ibid., pp.335–39. 112 Ibid., p.153. 113 Typed list of Van Gogh works restored in the Stedelijk Museum, compiled June 1978, SMA, unnumbered.

117 Minutes of the committee meeting held on 12th May 1978, VGM, unnumbered. The members of the advisory committee were L. Kuiper and W. Hesterman from the restoration department of the Rijksmuseum, S.H. Levie (director) and H. van Crimpen (curator) from the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, J. van Beek from the restoration department of the Stedelijk Museum, and J.A. Mosk (scientist) and E. van de Wetering (art historian) from the Central Research Laboratory. 118 E. van de Wetering’s report, 30th May 1978, VGM, unnumbered. Van de

13. Vishwa R. Mehra making a condition report on the Van Gogh collection. 1984. Photograph. (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Vincent van Gogh Foundation).

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The work in question is Head of a woman (F206). 114 Ibid., Cottages (F17) and Wheatfield with crows (F779). 115 Ibid., respectively, The pink orchard (F555), and a French landscape by Van Gogh that did not belong to the collection. 116 Retrospective report concerning the damaged Self-portrait with grey felt hat by Vincent van Gogh, compiled by L. Kuiper in August 1978 and signed by S.H. Levie, VGM, unnumbered. The act of vandalism was also reported in several newspapers, including the Volkskrant, on 26th April 1978.

Wetering’s concern was that the ground was of an unusually absorbent type, consisting of barium sulphate probably in a caesine binder (since disproved), which would be especially prone to darkening from the waxresin impregnation. 119 L. Kuiper’s response to van de Wetering’s report, 14th June 1978, VGM, unnumbered; and subsequent minutes of the committee meetings held on 16th and 30th June 1978, ibid. Some of the reasons put forward in favour of wax-resin relining were the Rijksmuseum’s familiarity with that method, the fact that the portrait

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Jan Cornelis Traas

14. Self-portrait with grey felt hat, by Vincent van Gogh. 1887. Oil on canvas, 44.5 by 37.2 cm. Shown after it was vandalised in 1978. (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; Vincent van Gogh Foundation).

of the Van Gogh collection. Assisted by the art historians Monique Berends-Albert and Brigitte Blauwhoff, they submitted their findings and recommendations to the Ministry of Cultural Affairs in July 1985.120 Mehra pointed out that paintings by Van Gogh and his contemporaries were particularly vulnerable to structural lining treatments applied with heat, causing serious changes in their subtle texture and tonal values. His detailed condition reports pay especial attention to registering defects thought to be the result of Traas’s linings, which he captured in images on 35mm. slides from recorded spots on the painting, forming an invaluable historic record of phenomena then perceived to be a consequence of waxresin lining.121 In 1986, soon after the plan for the collection was submitted, Ronald de Leeuw was appointed as General Director of the Van Gogh Museum and reorganised it; this provided the opportunity to follow up on Mehra’s recommendations to set up a conservation studio in the museum. At first had already been wax-resin lined, the importance of an effective tear mend, and the Rijksmuseum’s apprehension regarding the use of synthetic materials for lining. 120 Mehra submitted interim reports on the condition of the paintings on 8th July 1984 and 12th February 1985, and a final report on 22nd May 1986. Van de Wetering and Blauwhoff conducted their examinations between June and October 1984, submitting a provisional report in January 1985 for the whole collection that incorporated Mehra’s findings, see letter from C.E. van Blommestein, interim director at the

Central Research Laboratory, to the Ministry of Cultural Affairs (WVC) 31st July 1985, VGM. 121 The condition cards and slides are held in the conservation documentation system at the Van Gogh Museum. 122 Peres transferred from The Hague, where, like Traas, she had worked as Rijksinstelling conservator. From 1977 to 1985 De Leeuw had organised exhibitions for the same Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage (Dienst Verspreide Rijkscollecties) and having experienced a ‘fine working relationship’ with Peres

the Ministry of Culture had its own plans for setting up a central studio that would serve more state collections, including the Mauritshuis, but when de Leeuw pointed out that the costs of insuring the Van Gogh paintings to be moved to an outside studio would be staggering compared to those of hiring an in-house conservator, they became convinced, and in December 1986 Cornelia Maria Peres (1952–2020) was appointed as the first conservator on the staff.122 Since then the department has grown considerably. For scientific support, conservators at the museum continue to work closely with colleagues at the Central Research Laboratory (now the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands), as well as with other university and industrial partners. Much emphasis has been placed on systematic technical and analytical studies of works in the collection to identify the materials and techniques used by the artist, exploiting new methods such as automated thread counting to study the canvas supports (both the original canvases and the lining canvases added by Traas),123 and advanced analytical techniques to determine the composition and build-up of paint and varnish layers.124 Based on the results, historically informed reconstructions of Van Gogh’s primed canvases and paints could be made. These in turn were used for experiments to study colour change in Van Gogh’s paintings caused by deterioration of the pigments used by the artist and by past lining and varnishing treatments.125 While there is still much to be learned, we now have a better understanding of the condition of individual works and can provide a more nuanced assessment of the impact of past treatments in each case. In summary, a main part of this article has addressed the circumstances that determined the early restoration history of the Van Gogh collection of paintings treated by Jan Cornelis Traas. It sketches the remarkable tale of Traas’s rise from novice to respected restorer in The Hague and the social forces influencing this process, which reminds us of the importance of the human aspect driving conservation, as is increasingly recognised in current conservation theory. Like many restorers of his day, Traas does not appear to have kept detailed records of his work, let alone to have published or lectured on his approach, so we lack first-hand information on his ideas. This highlights the urgency of gathering oral testimonies from witnesses for this particular generation of restorers before it is too late, which in this case fortunately still proved possible. Within the context of his day Traas worked in a generally careful and comparatively restrained manner and introduced small improvements to his method, yet did not move with his times to the extent of some of his contemporaries. Until the end of his career he continued to handline paintings with wax-resin and apply tinted varnishes, despite mounting criticism of such methods and their inappropriate use for modern paintings in particular. When tracing trends in the early history of treatment of nineteenth-century paintings, it is important to factor in this more conservative approach, alongside the advances propagated by the prominent pioneers in the field. By dedicating this article to the important restorer Jan Cornelis Traas, it is hoped to encourage renewed interest and appreciation of his legacy as a restorer. he invited her to fill the chair at the Van Gogh Museum. Information kindly shared by Ronald de Leeuw, General Director of the Van Gogh Museum from 1986 to 1996, in an email dated 9th December 2020. Peres worked at the VGM from December 1986 to October 1998. 123 L. van Tilborgh et al.: ‘Weave matching and dating of Van Gogh’s paintings: an interdisciplinary approach’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 154 (2012), pp.112–22; and Hendriks, op. cit. (note 84). 124 E. Hendriks and C. Miliani: ‘Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers”: research in

context’, in Hendriks and Vellekoop, eds, op. cit. (note 70), esp. pp.12–15. 125 For the pigments, see Hendriks, op. cit. (note 92); and E. Kirchner et al.: ‘Digitally reconstructing Van Gogh’s “Field with Irises near Arles” Part 3: Determining the original colors’ in Color Research and Application, DOI: 10.1002/col.22197, 2017. For the lining and varnishing, see E. Nieder, E. Hendriks and A. Burnstock: ‘Color change in sample reconstructions of Vincent van Gogh’s grounds due to wax-resin lining’, Studies in Conservation 56, no.2 (2011), pp.94–103.

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Shorter Notices Colossal orders and a Classical façade: Hoefnagel and Nonsuch revisited by MARTIN BIDDLE if we knew of nonsuch only from the engraving on John Speed’s map of Surrey, published in 1611 (Fig.1), from written descriptions and from the excavated ground plan, we would be hard put to know what the palace begun for Henry VIII in 1538 and demolished in the 1680s was really like. It is Joris Hoefnagel’s watercolour of 1568 (Fig.3), a greatly enlarged detail of which was first published in colour in this Magazine in 1984, which revealed something of the reality that was Nonsuch.1 The watercolour emerges (so far as the present author been able to find out) for the first time in Paris in 1828, in the sale of the collection of General Count Antoine-François Andréossy (1761–1828), when it was bought for 200 francs.2 By 1866 the watercolour was in the collection of the London dealer Thomas Miller Whitehead (1812–97), who sold it that year to the collector Alfred Morrison of Fonthill (1821–97).3 It remained in the Morrison family until 2016, when, following an export bar, it was acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.4 Hoefnagel’s watercolour shows the south or garden front of the palace. The building’s upper levels, corresponding to the principal apartments on the first floor with a garret floor above, were timber-framed. The timbers were

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concealed behind plaques of carved and gilded slate, which enclosed three registers of stucco panels of mythological scenes, moulded in high relief. The watercolour has been used to explain how the stuccoes, hundreds of fragments of which were found in the excavation of the site of the palace in 1959, were set in the external elevations.5 The discussion has not, however, addressed how these stucco panels and their slate borders were gathered together in sets of four, as shown by Hoefnagel, and how these sets were arranged and framed by substantial elements both horizontal and vertical (Fig.2). As soon, however, as attention is drawn to these verticals, which are painted red on the watercolour, it becomes clear that they flare out at the top into something clearly intended to represent capitals of what may well have been the Corinthian order. These verticals, their capitals topped by horizontal lintels, also painted red, supported the angles of the octagonal towers and central semi-octagonal bay and sub-divided the façades between the towers and the central bay. In Hoefnagel’s watercolour their lower part is hidden behind the wall of the privy garden, which we know from a Parliamentary Survey

of 1650 to have been fourteen feet high.6 Speed’s engraving shows that the lowest timber element of the external walls, hidden in the Hoefnagel view, rested on a substantial masonry plinth, which was probably about three feet high. This means that on Hoefnagel’s watercolour something like the lower eleven feet of the decorated elevation is hidden from view. The upper elevations of the south-west and south-east towers provide further information. Each of the external angles above the soffit supporting the wider upper storey of the towers is emphasised by verticals which continue upward the line of the red-painted verticals below. Each of these upper verticals has three elements: a lower part painted white, a middle part painted red, and an elaboration at the top to represent a capital. This is the standard division of a classical column into base, shaft and capital. The arrangement must have been the same for the taller columns on the main façade, the bottom eleven feet or so of which are concealed behind the privy garden wall. Hoefnagel shows the taller, middle part of the columns on the wide upper storey of the towers as red and their bases as white, presumably because that is how they were decorated. This may mean that on the building itself the red was intended to represent porphyry and the white limestone bases on which the red columns stood. The use of colour was perhaps the element that above all justified the name ‘Nonsuch’ – ‘none such’. The palette of the decorations around 1. Nonsuch Palace, Surrey, by Joducus Hondius after John Speed. 1610. Engraving, 28.5 by 51 cm. (From J. Speed: Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain, London 1611). 2. Detail of Fig.3, showing the the west end of the south front.

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each set of stuccos would have been red for the columns, black with gilding for the carved slatework framing each panel and white in high relief for the stuccos themselves. The angles of the central bay of the south front (also visible only above the garden wall), are also emphasised by red-painted columns marked as stonework and elaborated at the top by detailing presumably intended to represent capitals. The façades between the central bay and the south-west and south-east towers are treated the same way, each divided into three sections by columns painted red and each with the same emphasis at the top. As with the rest of the south front, the lower part of each of these four columns is hidden behind the privy garden wall but it may be suspected that each of the four, together with those of the south-west and south-east towers and the central bay, rose from a basal element of coursed stonework designated by being painted white. Some idea of the height of these verticals can be gathered from scale drawings made by the artist Simon Hayfield in order to reconstruct the palace.7 The top of the main elevation, marked by the bottom of the concave soffit that runs

across the façade, which is also the level of the top of the lower decorated zones on the southwest and south-east towers, corresponds to the ceiling level of the principal apartments on the first floor of the inner court. This was about twenty-six feet above the level of the inner court and this, including the basal plinth, is probably about the height of the garden façades. This implies that the vertical columns at the angles of the towers and the central bay were perhaps about twenty-three feet tall, resting on a basal plinth of three feet or so. If this interpretation is correct, the south front, including the angles of the towers and central bay, was divided into bays by tall columns (superimposed on the upper storeys of the two towers), each consisting of base, shaft and capital. Such columns find no parallel in Gothic architecture and can only be explained as a Classical design. The scale of the principal orders, approximately twenty-three feet high, shows that they were indeed colossal, part of a system of superimposed columns articulating the decorated façades of Nonsuch in a Classical framework.8 Anything else would have been inappropriate, given the character of the

3. Nonsuch Palace from the south, by Joris Hoefnagel. 1568. Black chalk, pen and brown and black ink and watercolour, heightened with white and gold, on paper, 24.2 by 26.3 cm. (Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Bridgeman Images).

stuccos and their borders of carved slate: it is only surprising that it has taken us so long to appreciate that in Nonsuch in the years around 1540 we have the first fully realised Classical façade in England. The obvious, indeed the only possible, source must be Sebastiano Serlio’s ‘Fourth Book of Architecture’, published in Venice in 1537 as Regole generali di architetura sopra le cinque maniere degli edifici (Fig.4). Whether or not Serlio sent a copy to Henry VIII (as he did to Francis I of France and to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V),9 the book will certainly have been known by Italians working at Fontainebleau and thus to those among them, including Nicholas Belin of Modena, who came to England in 1537 to work for Henry VIII. Everything needed to design the façades of Nonsuch is in Serlio’s ‘Fourth Book’ and it must be supposed to have been the principal, perhaps the only, source for the Classical façades of Nonsuch.

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4. A triumphal arch, by Sebastiano Serlio. (From S. Serlio: Regole generali di architetura sopra le cinque maniere de gli edifici, Venice 1537; Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York). 1 M. Biddle: ‘The stuccoes of Nonsuch’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 126 (1984), pp.411–17, at p.413, fig.21, with fig.22 showing the whole watercolour in black and white. Hoefnagel produced a second verison of the watercolour (British Museum, London, inv. no.1943,1009.35), which was used for the engraving of Nonsuch in G. Braun and F. Hogenberg: Civitates Orbis Terrarum, Cologne 1572–1617, V, plate 1. 2 Sale, Paris, Andréossy Collection, 1828; see also La Chronique des Arts 67 (1864), p.179. 3 See invoice for £300, Thomas Whitehead to Alfred Morrison, 31st January 1866, Morrison Family archive, F/02/1128, by kind permission of Lord Margadale and the Trustees of Fonthill Estate. 4 Inv. no.E.2781-2016. 5 M. Biddle: ‘“Makinge of moldes for the walles” – the stuccoes of Nonsuch: materials, methods and origins’, in R. Frederiksen and E. Marchand, eds: Plaster Casts: Making, Collecting and Displaying from Classical Antiquity to the Present, Berlin and New York 2010, pp.99–117. 6 Parliamentary Survey of Nonsuch House and Park, 1650, The National Archives, London, E317/Surrey/41; see also J. Dent: The Quest for Nonsuch, London 1962, pp.286–94. 7 See, for example, Biddle op. cit. (note 5), figs.5.14 and 15. 8 Biddle, op. cit. (note 1), p.412. It is remarkable that this has not been noticed before. Even H.W. Brewer’s littleknown but splendid drawing reconstructing the view looking east along the south front, published in The Builder (27th January 1894), gives no hint of the Classical framing of the adjacent elevations. Brewer’s original is in the Royal Institute of British Architects Drawings Collection, London, PA 786/1. 9 W. Bell Dinsmoor: ‘The literary remains of Sebastiano Serlio’, The Art Bulletin 24 (1942), pp.55–91, at p.67.

The finding of the infant Bacchus by LARS HENDRIKMAN a little-known and hitherto little studied painting of the infant Bacchus surrounded by a group of men has been on loan to the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, since 1961 (Figs.5 and 6).1 Recent cleaning and removal of overpaint have led to the identification of the model and subject, and consequently to a revision of the former attribution to Gerard de Lairesse (1641–1711). This attribution was not referred to at the time of the acquisition,2 and the painting is not mentioned in Alain Roy’s 1992 catalogue raisonné of the artist, nor was it included in the monographic exhibition at Enschede in 2016 and its associated publication.3 Although there is no doubt that the painting depicts a very young Bacchus, as is made obvious by the vine or ivy leaves that drape him and the leopard skin on which he reclines, as well as the large jar being carried on the shoulder of one of the bystanders, the precise episode that is being depicted has remained unclear until now. The museum tentatively suggested 180

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that it represents the moment when Mercury appears in order to take the young god to the nymphs of Nysa.4 Although the figure in blue on the Maastricht painting vaguely resembles Mercury in some representations of this event, such as that by Nicolas Poussin (Fig.8), he lacks any of the attributes of the god and the absence of nymphs, Jupiter, Bacchus’s mother, Semele, or the deceived Juno is puzzling. That incident, derived from the historian Diodorus of Sicily (1st century), Lucian of Samosata (c.125–180) and others, has a strong pictorial tradition, and is referred to in Karel van Mander’s commentary on the Metamorphoses in his Schilderboek, published in 1604.5 Mercury taking Bacchus to the nymphs of Nysa is not, however, in Ovid’s text. The removal in 2020 of extensive overpaint revealed a figure entering the composition on the left-hand side and one walking out of it on the right, indicating that the painting was once considerably wider. Technical analysis of the relined canvas corroborated this.6 The

removal of the overpaint also led to the source of the painting being identified as a drawing by Godfried Maes (1649–1700). Born in Antwerp, Maes was admitted to the guild of St Luke in that city in 1672 and between 1681 and 1698 trained at least twelve apprentices. He carried out commissions for Eugen Alexander Franz, 1st Prince of Thurn and Taxis, and Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria. His best known works, which were mentioned in every biography of the artist from the earliest onwards, are the eighty-three drawings he made to illustrate Ovid’s Metamorphoses.7 The source of the painting is the Finding of the infant Bacchus on Chios (Fig.7), one of Maes’s illustrations for Ovid’s tale of Acoetes (Book III, 597–614). Following his arrest for participating in a Bacchic rite in the Greek city of Thebes, Acoetes tells his interrogators about his first encounter with Bacchus. Pentheus, King of Thebes, had sought to end the spread of the cult of Bacchus, and had ordered the god to be arrested, but succeeded only in capturing his follower Acoetes. It is often assumed, however, that Acoetes is in fact Bacchus in disguise, who misleads Pentheus with the following story.8 Acoetes was captain of a ship that accidentally landed on the island of Chios in the Aegean. He

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ordered his men to find fresh water, but they returned with a girlish looking baby boy, rosy from wine and sleep. The crew regarded him as extra booty – Acoetes’s trade was not strictly confined to fish – and wanted to take the boy with them. Acoetes recognised that this was no ordinary child: ‘I do not know which god is in that body, but there is a god within! Whoever you are, O favour and assist our efforts, and forgive these men!’9 The men, however, ignored their captain and brought the boy on board. The figure in the centre of Maes’ drawing is Acoetes, who is identified as captain by the long setting pole resting against his shoulder. The young, naked Bacchus rests on a panther’s skin, his right arm leaning on a wine jug, a wreath of vine-leaves or ivy on his head. Five crew members, one on the left holding a boat hook, gaze at the boy with reticent curiosity. Behind Acoetes are men loading the ship with a barrel and a large situla hanging from a carrying pole. Maes depicts the defining moment in the story in which Acoetes recognises the boy as divine. The story continues with Bacchus awakening angrily from his intoxication (‘Where’s the glory in men cheating a boy, or many cheating just one?’) and demanding to be taken to Naxos. Although Acoetes agrees, the mutinous crew sail in the other direction. Bacchus then assumes adult form, blocks the ship’s prow with ivy, covers its sails with grapes and threatens the men with wild panthers, whereupon the crew jump overboard and are changed into dolphins. Acoetes remains on the boat unscathed and brings Bacchus to Naxos, thus explaining his devotion to the god, as he tells 5. Young Bacchus, after Godfried Maes. After 1762. Oil on canvas, 63 by 54.7 cm. (Bonnefanten, Maastricht; photograph Peter Cox). 6. Fig.5, photographed in 2012 before cleaning and removal of overpaint in 2020. (Bonnefanten, Maastricht; photograph Peter Cox).

Pentheus.10 In both drawing and painting, the panther skin on which Bacchus lies, and perhaps the ivy or vine, refer to these forthcoming events, some of which are illustrated in the next drawing in the series, Bacchus turns Acoetes’ crew into dolphins (Fig.9). The whereabouts of all Maes’s eightythree drawings are known until well into the eighteenth century, which helps to establish when the painted copy could have been made. The drawings were in Maes’s possession when he died in 1700. The complete set was then acquired by the Amsterdam painter, designer and draughtsman Jacob de Wit (1695–1754), most likely during his stay in Antwerp in 1709– 14. In 1732 twenty-three of the drawings served as models for illustrations in three editions of Ovid (the Latin text with Dutch, English and French translations respectively), published by Weststeins and Smith in Amsterdam.11 The drawings by Maes selected for illustration were first copied by De Wit – sometimes with minor

adaptations and a degree of bowdlerisation – in order to protect the originals from damage during the process of printmaking.12 It is not known whether Maes intended his drawings for reproduction as prints, but by 1732 they were clearly considered autonomous works of art, which should be protected from damage. The complex history of the 1732 edition is not relevant here because The finding of the infant Bacchus was not included and it is therefore highly unlikely that De Wit made a copy. In 1755 and again in 1762 the complete set of eighty-three drawings was sold at auction, after which they were scattered and many are now lost.13 The last mention of them being together was in 1763.14 Groups of thirty-one and twenty-seven unspecified drawings came onto the art market in Antwerp in 1774 and Brussels in 1789, respectively.15 Almost nothing is known about the whereabouts of individual drawings after 1762, including The finding of the infant Bacchus, until their gradual reappearance

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on the art market between 1967 and 1986.16 The finding, together with four other drawings, including Bacchus turns Acoetes’ crew into dolphins, resurfaced in 1977.17 The finding was bought by the Dutch collector Anton Dreesmann (1923–2000), who acquired at least forty of the drawings, which after his death were offered at auction in 2002.18 In 2012 and 2013 eighteen of Dreesman’s drawings, including The finding, were offered for sale no fewer than three times.19 There can be no doubt that the painter of The finding of the infant Bacchus had direct access to Maes’s drawing. No other versions of the composition are known today and it is unlikely that there ever was one. The drawing and the painting are the only known works of art depicting this subject in early modern art history, possibly in all of art history. Telling differences in details indicate that the artist of the painting did not fully understand the drawing. For example, he did not include the setting pole, which identifies Acoetes. The 182

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omission of this iconographically key element from an otherwise faithful copy indicates that the painter knew what he was painting, but not whom. It can only be speculated whether the equally significant boat hook on the left was present, since it is not known how wide the painting originally was. The painter’s second iconographical misunderstanding concerns the panther skin on which the infant Bacchus lies. Maes drew the skin with one claw still attached, draped over a jug and two bunches of grapes. In the painting, the jug and grapes have merged into some kind of dog, with two paws and an open, beak-like mouth. Again this indicates that the painter did not know what story he was illustrating. The painter also turned the large situla in Maes’s drawing into something that is hard to identify, sometimes tentatively interpreted as a bell.20 The artist apparently had no knowledge of the function of a situla, although it must be admitted that this part of the drawing is

7. The finding of the infant Bacchus on Chios, by Godfried Maes. Last quarter of the 17th century. Black chalk, pen and black ink and grey and brown wash on paper, approx. 18 by 24 cm. (Courtesy F. Baulme Fine Arts).

hard to read. Finally, in the drawing Bacchus is completely naked, whereas in the painting the little boy is draped with leaves across his waist. This points towards a date for the painting after 1700, when Maes’s inventions began to be repeated in more decorous forms.21 The painting’s provenance does not go further back than 1961, when it appeared on the art market. However, a terminus post quem for its creation can be established from the history of the drawings sketched above. The drawings remained in Maes’s studio in Antwerp until De Wit acquired the whole set. It may be assumed that he, like Maes’s widow, Josina Baeckelandt, knew what their subjects were. The obvious mistakes in the painting’s iconography would not have been made under

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the direction of a draughtsman working on the 1732 edition of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. It seems likely that the collector B. Cronenburgh, who owned the complete set from 1755 to 1762, also knew what the drawing’s subject was. The obvious mistakes make it much more plausible that the painting was made after the dispersal of the drawings, which weakened the internal coherence of the series and probably also knowledge of their sources in Ovid. A date for the painting of after 1762 is therefore likely. Determination of its origins can be no more than an educated guess. It can be assumed that it was painted in a collectors’ milieu in a city

in which large numbers of the drawings were present in the later eighteenth century, such as Amsterdam, Antwerp or Brussels. Now that one painted copy after Maes’s drawings has come to light, more will perhaps turn up in the future, shedding further light on appreciation of these drawings following their dispersal in 1762 and the way contemporary copies were valued in their own right. I would like to thank Gwen Fife, Charlotte Franzen and Dorien Tamis for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this article. 1 Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, inv. no.10-01363, on long-term loan from the Royal Limburg Historical and Archaeological Society; see L. Hendrikman:

Bonnefan-tenmuseum: Collectie Nederlandse en Duitse schilder-kunst 1500–1800, Maastricht 2012, pp.111–13, 188 and 196; and G. Fife and C. Franzen: ‘Een intrigerende ontdekking’, De Maasgouw 140/2 (2021), pp.74–75. 2 Publications de la Société Historique et Archéologique dans le Limbourg, XCVIII–XCIX (1962–63), p.XXI. 3 A. Roy: Gérard de Lairesse (1640–1711), Paris 1992; and J. Beltman, P. Knolle and Q. Van der Meer Mohr, eds: exh. cat. Eindelijk! De Lairesse, Enschede (Rijksmuseum Twenthe), 2016–17, reviewed by Albert Blankert in this Magazine, 159 (2017), pp.158–60. 4 Hendrikman, op. cit. (note 1), pp.113–14; Fife and Franzen, op. cit. (note 1), pp.74–75. 5 J.D.P. Warners and L.P. Rank: Bacchus. Zijn leven verteld en verklaard door dichters, mythografen en geleerden, Amsterdam 1968, I, pp.13–14, 19; J. Godwin: Ovid: Metamorphoses III An Extract: 511–733, With Introduction, Commentary and Vocabulary, London 2014, pp.19–20; and K. van Mander: Wtlegghingh op den Metamorphosis Pub. Ouidij Nasonis, Haarlem 1604, fol 23v. Van Mander refers to the version of the story told by Lucian. 6 G.R. Fife: Behandelingsverslag, Gerard de Lairesse, Jonge Bacchus, AC19150.010, AC20150.010. 2021 (unpublished); Fife and Franzen, op. cit. (note 1), pp.74–75. 7 J.-B. Descamps: La vie des peintres flamands, allemands et hollandois, avec des portraits, Paris 1763, IV, pp.19–20; C. Kramm: De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, beeldhouwers, graveurs en bouwmeesters, Amsterdam 1857, III, p.1041; and exh. cat. Divines Métamorphoses, par Godfried Maes (Anvers 1649–1700), Paris (F. Baulme Fine Arts) 2013, pp.2–3. 8 Warners and Rank, op. cit. (note 5), pp.13–15; I. Gildenhard: ‘572–691: The captive Acoetes and his tale’, Ovid, Metamorphoses, 3.511–733: Latin Text with Introduction, Commentary, Glossary of Terms, Vocabulary Aid and Study Questions, Cambridge 2016, pp.163–206, available at books.openedition.org/obp/3623, accessed 14th January 2022; Godwin, op. cit. (note 5), p.11. 9 Ovid: The Metamorphoses, III, p.98, transl. A.S. Kline, available at www.poetryintranslation.com/klineasovid. php, accessed 14th January 2022. 10 Godwin, op. cit. (note 5), p.24. 11 A.W.A. Bosschloo et al., eds: exh. cat. Ovidius herschapen: geïllustreerde uitgaven van de Metamorphosen in de Nederlanden uit de zestiende, zeventiende en achttiende eeuw, ’s Gravenhage (Rijksmuseum Meermanno-Westreenianum) 1980, no.41. 12 J. Tatenhove: ‘Tekeningen van Jacob de Wit voor de Ovidius van Picart’, Leids Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 1985 (1987), pp.224–25. 13 Sale, Jacob de Wit, Amsterdam, 10th March 1755, lot 87; Sale, B. Cronenburgh, Amsterdam, 22nd March 1762, lot 1203; and Tatenhove, op. cit. (note 12), p.232, note 38. 14 Descamps, op. cit. (note 7), pp.19–20. 15 Tatenhove, op. cit. (note 12), p.232, note. RKD, Cornelis Hofstede de Groot fiches, nos.1300626 and 1300648. 16 Three were acquired by the Rijksmuseum’s Royal Cabinet of Drawings, nos.RP-T-1967-34–36. ‘Keuze Uit De Aanwinsten 1967 Van Het Rijksprentenkabinet’, Bulletin Van Het Rijksmuseum 15 (1967), pp.151–52. 17 Sale, Sotheby’s Mak van Waay, 21st March 1977, lot 161. Tatenhove, op. cit. (note 12), p.233, note 42. The following lot (162) and next in Acoetes’ story was acquired Leiden University Print Room, inv. no.PK-1977-T-1. 18 Sale, Christie’s, London, 11th April 2002, lots 661–670. The finding of the infant Bacchus was part of lot 668. 19 Sale, Christie’s, New York, 21st June 2012, lot 1069; Sale, Christie’s, New York, 31st January 2013, lot 121; With F. Baulme Fine Arts, Paris, 2013. Baulme, op. cit. (note 7), p.11. 20 Fife and Franzen, op. cit. (note 1), p.75. 21 Tatenhove, op. cit. (note 12), p. 224.

8. The infant Bacchus entrusted to the nymphs of Nysa; the death of Echo and Narcissus, by Nicolas Poussin. 1657. Oil on canvas, 122.6 by 180.5 cm. (Harvard Art Museums). 9. Bacchus turns Acoetes’ crew into dolphins, by Godfried Maes. Last quarter 17th century, Black chalk, pen and black ink and grey and brown wash on paper, approx. 18 by 24 cm. (Leiden University Library, Print Room).

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Exhibitions A comprehensive retrospective of Sophie Taeuber-Arp’s varied practice repositions the origins of modernist abstraction Sophie Taeuber-Arp: Living Abstraction Museum of Modern Art, New York 21st November 2021– 12th March 2022 by lynne cooke

The most comprehensive retrospective of work by the Swiss artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889–1943) to date, this unforgettable exhibition sets a benchmark. Key among many achievements is its fine-tuned

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articulation of the radical crosspollination at the heart of TaeuberArp’s practice, populated by a dazzling constellation of art forms: painting, performance, photography, needlepoint, tapestry, watercolour, gouache, architecture, design, sculpture, puppetry and more. Also notable is the revelation of modernist abstraction’s origins in the applied arts – specifically, in the age-old mediums of needlepoint and tapestry. Embodied in gendered labour, the source unveiled here for what would

1. Guards (marionette for ‘King Stag’), by Sophie TaeuberArp. 1918. Metallic paint and oil on wood and metal, height 55.5 cm. (Museum für Gestaltung Zurich; exh. Museum of Modern Art, New York). Opposite 2. Verticalhorizontal composition, by Sophie TaeuberArp. 1916. Wool on canvas, 50 by 38.5 cm. (Fondazione Marguerite Arp, Locarno; exh. Museum of Modern Art, New York).

become the defining language of the avant-garde stands apart from those routinely identified in arthistorical narratives: the drive towards reductivist representation and the manifestation of spiritualist inspiration in non-objective forms. Third, and not least, of the show’s accomplishments is its revision of disciplinary accounts of the subversion of the entrenched hierarchies that long segregated the fine arts from handicraft, design and the decorative arts. The deconstructive polemics of second-wave feminism are conventionally credited with this laurel, but, as this exhibition makes clear, sedition took form at the dawn of the twentieth century. Far from the doctrinaire theoretical critique that impelled the 1970s revolution, it was based in a generative indifference to genre categorisations and to medium-specific distinctions. Modelled by the trailblazing TaeuberArp as a productive, exploratory engagement with textiles, for the artist it crystallised as a desire to design ‘out of the essence of materials and techniques’ (p.176). These achievements depend in no small part on the exhibition’s judicious and elegant installation, which encourages cross-referencing between stylistically related objects in different media and from different genres. That, in turn, serves to underscore the resourcefulness with which TaeuberArp’s rigorously economic vocabulary, for which the point of departure was the orthogonal structure of embroidery’s textile ground, could be transported to all forms of her practice over a thirty-year career. In addition, the installation highlights the remarkable chromatic intensity and sophistication of Taeuber-Arp’s early works based in modular geometric forms. A hallmark of her signature style, these features are already fully evident in the wool-on-canvas work Vertical-horizontal composition from 1916 (Fig.2). Modestly scaled, this abstract composition includes four black rectangles (over time one has changed into an olive/brown hue) each of which comprises a monochrome chequerboard of twelve squares visible only to the most attentive of eyes. By orientating the direction of the

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3. Circle picture, by Sophie Taeuber-Arp. 1933. Oil on canvas, 74.3 by 119.8 cm. (Kunstmuseum Bern; exh. Museum of Modern Art, New York).

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cross-stitch woollen thread used in the alternating squares from a vertical to a horizontal direction, Taeuber-Arp produced the requisite pattern; each axial shift imbues the surface plane with a darker or lighter sheen and corresponding visual weight. First coming to the fore in her fibre works, Taeuber-Arp’s refined colour sense was grounded in ‘harmonic gradations’ (p.33), as the co-curator Walburga Krupp writes in her catalogue essay, as opposed to contrasts of complementary colours.1 In October 1910 Taeuber-Arp enrolled at the Debschitz School, Munich, which was noted for an innovative pedagogy that encompassed the fine and applied arts. By the following autumn she had opted to specialise in textile design and turned-wood sculpture. In November 1914 Taeuber-Arp returned to her hometown of Zurich, where, the following summer, she began studying dance at Rudolf von Laban’s School of the Art of Movement. In May 1916 she accepted a teaching position in the

Applied Arts Department at the city’s Trade School, where she would remain on the faculty until 1929. Presenting her work in national museums and exhibiting societies, Taeuber-Arp quickly established herself as a crafts professional whose preferred technique of needlework was deployed in the making of functional artefacts and works of art alike. Yet, even as she gained recognition for her textile works, Taeuber-Arp was drawn into the orbit of the iconoclastic Dadaists, who congregated at Cabaret Voltaire. At the opening of Galerie Dada in March 1917 she performed an abstract dance set to an onomatopoeic sound poem by Hugo Ball (1886–1927), who was one of the group’s principal protagonists. In 1918 she designed stage sets and turnedwood polychromed string puppets (Fig.1) for an eighteenth-century play performed at Zurich’s Marionette Theatre; they, too, were well received. By the mid-1920s, however, her focus had pivoted toward interior design, a shift that was consolidated in 1926 with the renovation of the Aubette,

a historic building on Strasbourg’s main square, into a multipurpose entertainment complex (Fig.4). For this commission, she invited Jean (Hans) Arp (1886–1966), her husband and long-term artistic collaborator, and the Dutch founder of De Stijl, Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931), to join her. By the late 1930s, now showing internationally in a range of avant-garde contexts, she was counted a peer by coteries of Concrete and Constructivist artists of divergent persuasions. A rare female painter in otherwise heavily male dominated spheres, her spare meticulous geometries continued to reveal unexpected nuance and vitality. Although widely recognised in European artistic and design circles, Taeuber-Arp never had a solo show during her lifetime. Following her untimely death in 1943, critical and art-historical attention prioritised her work as an abstract painter – a myopic focus that has severely limited not only the reception of her multidisciplinary practice but also the recognition of her pioneering role in Modernism’s history.

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The narrowing and ‘normalising’ of her multifarious endeavours – a bid for mainstream status – was encouraged, if not initiated, by the posthumous catalogue raisonné published in 1948 and overseen by her bereaved partner.2 It accorded her applied art works and design nominal significance at best. In 1981 the Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA), hosted the first retrospective in the United States devoted to Taeuber-Arp. Comprising approximately forty works in total, it underscored that bias, discerning a steadiness of focus and purpose in the artist’s later years that signalled the maturation of her vision. Four decades later, the present survey, assembled from some three hundred objects, puts on full display the dynamic spirit and formal inventiveness with which Taeuber-Arp engaged – what she called ‘living abstraction’ (p.20). Here, the exhibition’s compelling visual rhetoric – the subtle attunement of works of art to institutional container – that characterises the installation as a whole, comes into its own. Designed to house the late work, the monumental last gallery is divided by short free-standing walls into a series of interlocking smaller spaces, which afford each of the various subsets of works from this period a suitably scaled enclave while, at the same time, permitting transverse sightlines across the gallery. These tunnelling vistas create dialogues between works with different formal lexicons, often with unanticipated and playful results. In short, the design reinforces the visitor’s parting impression that Taeuber-Arp’s future production would branch out in multiple fertile directions. Standout essays by Briony Fer and Jodi Hauptman in the excellent catalogue further illuminate the work of the artist’s last years. Attentive to the enduring role of dance and the performative in Taeuber-Arp’s vision, Fer argues that such choreographies of movement – through lines – in her œuvre did not culminate in the pure, essential and absolute identified with a Constructivist aesthetic; rather, their trajectory traces an alternative journey towards the ambiguous, contingent and playful, exemplified, for example, in the series ‘Schematic

Compositions’ begun in 1930 (Fig.3). By contrast, Hauptman homes in on a group of works from 1941, small in dimension but monumental in feel, which she reads in relation to contemporary sociopolitical events and the psychic toll they exacted on the homeless artist in flight from the Nazi regime. Consider, for example, the drawing Crossing of lines, bars and figure-planes (1941; Kunstmuseum Basel) or the linocut Crossing of straight lines, planes from the portfolio 10 Origin (1942; Museum of Modern Art, New York; not exhibited). Executed in easily portable materials, such as

pencil and coloured pencil on paper, these charged works feature dense overlapping of angular forms with few precedents, as Hauptman astutely points out, in what to date had been a very consistent visual vocabulary. That said, it is the works from TaeuberArp’s first decade – c.1915–25 – that currently excite. At a time when cross-disciplinary modes are ascendant in the contemporary art arena, with textile-related practices foremost among them, it is the fibre works of art with seemingly little pedigree, such as Vertical-horizontal composition, or the woven wool tablecloth, complete

4. Aubette 127 (axonometric drawing of the ‘Five O’Clock’ tearoom in the Aubette, Strasbourg). 1927. Gouache, metallic paint, ink and pencil on diazotype, 123 by 99 cm. (Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg; exh. Museum of Modern Art, New York; photograph M. Bertola).

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with fringes, Cross on red ground (1924; Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau) that require an accounting. Though formal and material parallels may be adduced in concurrent explorations by Sonia Delaunay (1885–1979) and, shortly after, Anni Albers (1899–1994), the granular scholarship that would ramify their shared values and impulses remains in potentia. Beautifully calibrated and even-handed, Sophie Taeuber-Arp: Living Abstraction may be the match needed to fuel a blaze. 1 Catalogue: Sophie Taeuber-Arp: Living Abstraction. Edited by Anne Umland, Walburga Krupp and Charlotte Healy. 352 pp. incl. 435 col. ills. (Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2021), £69.99. ISBN 978–1–63345–107–0. 2 See G. Schmidt, ed.: Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Basel 1948.

Émailler le verre à la Renaissance: Sur les traces des artistes verriers entre Venise et France Musée national de la Renaissance – Château d’Écouen 13th October 2021– 14th February 2022 by sylvie lhermite-king

The Château d’Écouen, commissioned by the Constable Anne de Montmorency (1493–1567), and now a museum dedicated to the decorative arts of the Renaissance, is the perfect setting for an exhibition that focuses on enamelled and gilded glass from Venice and France in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and that seeks to distinguish it from recreations in the nineteenth century. The curators, Aurélie Gerber, Françoise Barbe and Isabelle Biron, have brought together 120 objects from a large number of national and international collections. The exhibition is the culmination of more than ten years of research conducted under the project name Cristallo. One of the central objectives of the project has been to identify the composition of the glass and enamels by means of chemical analysis, with the aim of determining whether the objects are of Renaissance and Venetian origin or produced elsewhere in the style of Venice or, indeed, were made in the nineteenth century. The results presented in the exhibition and

catalogue are impressive, even though they raise new questions.1 Glassware held an important place in the Kunst- and Wunderkammern of the Renaissance courts of Europe. Venetian glassmakers had acquired their expertise from the tenth century onwards thanks to commercial and cultural exchanges with the East. From 1279, when the expansion of the industry and the ever-present risk of fire necessitated its transfer to the island of Murano, glassmaking provided the Venetian economy with an important source of income. The city had a virtual monopoly on the manufacture of fine glass, which was

5. Covered bowl showing the Triumph of Chastity. Venice, c.1500. Blue glass, polychrome enamels and gold, height 27.8 cm. (Musée du Louvre, Paris; exh. Musée national de la Renaissance – Château d’Écouen; © RMN-Grand Palais; photograph Franck Raux).

exported to Europe and the Orient. In the mid-fifteenth century, the master glassmaker Angelo Barovier not only rediscovered lost techniques of colouring, gilding and enamelling glass but also developed a formula for obtaining a glass of supreme quality, called ‘cristallo’. In Venice the market for luxury glassware was modest and demand was mainly limited to utility glass. Although decorated luxury glass is rarely mentioned in the inventories of aristocratic or wealthy Venetian families, pieces enamelled with the arms of such families as the Tiepolo, Barberigo, Marcello, Moncenigo, Loredan and Grimani nonetheless attest to the prestige in which Venetian glass was held. Most of the production of enamelled glass was reserved for export. For example, in the second half of the fifteenth century, Florentine families, including the Medici, Pucci, Salviato and Strozzi were avid buyers. Around 1500, Venetian glass production was at its apogee, but glass manufactories were soon to develop in other Italian cities on the initiative of their sovereigns, such as the Medici in Florence and the Gonzaga in Altare. From the mid-sixteenth century onwards, glassmakers – first from Altare and then from Venice – travelled to all the courts of Europe, and their production, either replicating Venetian glass or adapting it to the tastes of their patrons, acquired the sobriquet à la façon de Venise. The exhibition is installed in two rooms on the ground floor of the château, the former apartments of Catherine de’ Medici. The display cases are positioned so that the pieces can be viewed from all sides, and the soft lighting reproduces the effect of candlelight reflecting on the glass. The first and largest room contains a number of masterpieces of Venetian enamelled glass from the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, such as footed bowls, goblets and pilgrims’ flasks made of coloured glass and enamelled with figures or arabesque scroll work. These pieces are often decorated with patterns of gilded scales and enamel dots. The colours of the enamels are bright and varied and

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those of the glass bodies are turquoise, deep emerald green and cobalt blue. The last was used for a magnificent covered bowl representing the Triumph of Chastity (cat. no.9; Fig.5), from the collection of Salomon Mayer von Rothschild (1774–1855). With its shape inspired by goldsmiths work and the decoration reminiscent of illuminated manuscripts, this prestigious piece was probably intended to be displayed at banquets. The attribution of the bowl to Venice has now been confirmed by scientific analysis. Several enamelled goblets made from colourless glass on display can now be assigned to Venice, including one decorated with putti riding dolphins (Musée du Louvre, Paris; no.11), also from Rothschild’s collection, which was chosen for the cover of the catalogue. In the past, some of the pieces have been identified as being products of workshops outside Venice, on the basis of such criteria as shape and decoration. For instance, the soft colours of the enamel and the motif of foliage and birds on a cylindrical

Below 6. Footed goblet known as the ‘Halberdiers’, French, mid16th century. Uncoloured glass and polychrome enamels, height 71.2 cm. (Musée du Louvre, Paris; exh. Musée national de la Renaissance – Château d’Écouen; © RMNGrand Palais; photograph Hervé Lewandowski). 7. Cylindrical covered pot on a foot, Venetian style. Second half of the 16th century. Uncoloured glass, polychrome enamels and gold, height 25 cm. (Musée du Louvre, Paris; exh. Musée national de la Renaissance – Château d’Écouen; © RMN-Grand Palais; photograph Martine BeckCoppola).

covered pot on a foot (no.47; Fig.7) have been thought to point to a Catalan origin. According to the curators, analysis has confirmed that the composition of the glass support ‘is not compatible with the formulas used by Venetian glassmakers’ (p.131). However, two related objects from the Musée du Louvre, Paris, a ewer (no.46) and a cup with two handles (no.45), the decoration of which is stylistically similar, are compatible with Venetian formulas, thus raising questions about workshop practices. The second room presents a selection of the most important French enamelled glass from the sixteenth century, including a sumptuous goblet from the Wallace Collection, London (no.89), which is among the first loans by this institution. Decorated on its foot with a crucifixion in enamel, the goblet has provoked a long-standing and continuing discussion about its possible liturgical use as a chalice. Another important example of French production is a footed goblet known as the ‘Halberdiers’ (no.90; Fig.6). Once suspected to date from the nineteenth century on account of its refinement and the clarity of the glass, its origin in the Renaissance has now been established. The costume of the halberdiers suggests a date in the 1560s or shortly after, although a later sixteenth-century date cannot be ruled out. One display case is devoted to pilgrim flasks, some of which are made of opaque turquoise and blue glass and decorated with pewter or gilded copper mounts and Limoges enamel medallions. Other display cases present a selection of enamelled glass pieces of doubtful dates. Two pieces with the arms of Catherine de’ Medici (Musée national de la Renaissance – Château d’Écouen; nos.106 and 107) are thought to consist of Renaissance glass but to have ‘certainly been re-enamelled in the second half of the nineteenth century’ (p.207); for others, the composition demonstrates a complete nineteenth-century origin, but often it remains open to question whether they were fakes or copies. Throughout the exhibition, information is provided as to whether the pieces have been analysed for

their chemical composition and, if so, whether the tests produce results ‘compatible or incompatible with the Venetian Renaissance formulas’. This scientific approach to the glass, which largely excludes such considerations as object design, iconography, gilding and enamelling techniques and manufacturing processes, may confuse non-expert visitors, especially as no dates are proposed for any of the objects. The well-illustrated catalogue contains a number of informative essays, mostly by the curators, and an appendix with tables that presents the results of the technical analyses. 1 Catalogue: Émailler le verre à la Renaissance: Sur les traces des artistes verriers entre Venise et France. Edited by Aurélie Gerber, Françoise Barbe and Isabelle Biron. 272 pp. incl. 200 col. + b. & w. ills. (Réunion des musées nationaux - Grand Palais, Paris, 2021), €39. ISBN 978–2–7118–7858–1.

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Venetia 1600: Births and Rebirths Palazzo Ducale, Venice 4th September 2021– 25th March 2022 by camilla pietrabissa

Celebrating the 1600th anniversary of the legendary foundation of Venice, this exhibition was originally due to open in the spring of 2021 but was postponed for six months because of the covid-19 pandemic. It will now close on the day of the city’s annual anniversary celebrations, the 25th of March, which is also the Feast of the Annunciation. Venice has remained attached to its traditions, particularly as it faces the threats of demographic decline, the erosion of its remarkable buildings and the devastation of the lagoon’s fragile ecosystem. Against this background, the exhibition shows the role of art in shaping and mediating the urban imaginary of its inhabitants and its tourists – both the Grand Tourists and their contemporary version, the global tourists. Planning for the present exhibition began after the curators, Robert Echols and Frederick Ilchman, collaborated on a Tintoretto exhibition at Palazzo Ducale, Venice, in 2018–19.1 For this exhibition they have been joined by Gabriele Matino, an independent scholar, and Andrea Bellieni, the curator of the Museo Correr, Venice, the museum from which the majority of works have been borrowed. The subtitle alludes to one 190

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of the city’s most enduring symbols, the phoenix. Jacopo Sanguinacci, a Paduan scholar writing at the eve of the millenary jubilee of 1421, addressed Venice as ‘a living phoenix that renews itself and never changes form’ (p.36).2 Significantly, the theme of reappearance also plays an important role in the cult of the city’s patron saint, St Mark, whose lost relics are said to have been discovered in a column during the renovation and expansion of the basilica in 1094. The twelve loosely chronological sections of the exhibition pivot around the subject of such fresh starts, which, according to the curators, ‘define the history of Venice and the Venetian character’ (p.23). Although almost 190 out of the more than 270 works on display date from roughly between 1400 and 1800, the selection also includes a sixth-century Byzantine marble stoup (Museo Archeologico di Torcello; cat. no.2b.11) and a 2021 video installation by Studio Azzurro, Mose and Beyond (nos.12.1 and 12.2), documenting the lagoon’s flood-control system. On entering the introductory room, visitors are faced with Vittore Carpaccio’s Lion of St Mark (no.1.1; Fig.8), restored for the occasion by the organisation Save Venice. In the same room, Jacopo de’ Barbari’s woodcut of 1500 (Museo Correr, Venice; no.1.2) and a wooden model of the city by Marco Acerbi (c.1961; IUAV University of Venice; no.1.3), establish the metropolitan city (called the dominante) as the exhibition’s sole

focus, thus excluding the islands in the lagoon, the territories on the mainland and the city’s Mediterranean colonies. Since Venice’s foundation could not be traced back to Classical Antiquity, Venetians relied on legends and myths to help establish an account of the city’s origin. According to the Chronica extensa (1352) by the doge Andrea Dandolo, St Mark received a prophetic dream, which announced the birth of Venice on the day of the Annunciation in 421. On display in the second room are objects connected with this legend: a selection of illuminated manuscripts, chalices and other artefacts from the treasury of St Mark and a large chromolithograph by Alberto Prosdocimi (1881; Museo Correr; no.2b.8), depicting the basilica’s famous façade. The Annunciation became a preferred subject for many of the city’s patrons and artists and the exhibition brings together paintings made for private devotion and works created for churches, such as a refined mosaic by Giovanni Novello (1516; Scuola Grande Arciconfraternita di San Rocco, Venice; no.2a.3), commissioned for a sumptuous altar in the church of S. Rocco. A group of objects relating to the personification of Venice as Justice concludes this section. The third room opens a sequence of galleries more firmly rooted in material culture. Rooms three and four examine maritime trade and conflicts, using nautical atlases, an astrolabe (14th century; Museo Storico Navale, Venice; no.3.11), paintings and vases

8. Lion of St Mark, by Vittore Carpaccio. 1516. Oil and tempera on canvas, 130 by 368 cm. (Palazzo Ducale, Venice).

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brought from China, coins from the Venetian mint and a display relating to the establishment of Aldus Manutius’s Aldine Press in 1494. The two following rooms focus on urban renewal in the decades after the disastrous battles of the League of Cambrai (1509–16) with painted portraits of the doges and city views. Architectural models and books by Andrea Palladio, together with a marble capital from Jacopo Sansovino’s Loggetta (1537–49; Palazzo Ducale; no.5.11), illustrate the role of architects in this enterprise. Although outbursts of the plague in 1576 and 1630 and a fire that destroyed the two largest rooms of Palazzo Ducale in 1577 were moments of crisis, they were succeeded by periods in which artists received significant public and private commissions, as paintings by Alessandro Varotari, called Padovanino (no.7.22; Fig.10), Domenico Tintoretto and Bernardo Strozzi in the seventh room demonstrate. From the late seventeenth century until the fall of the Republic in 1797, the city’s policy of neutrality in conflicts between foreign powers led to a burst of creativity. Thus, the room

dedicated to the eighteenth century provides the most spectacular display, with a central group of mannequins dressed in original costumes from the Museo di Palazzo Mocenigo, Venice, arranged around a model of the bucintoro, the magnificent state barge (Fig.9). The theatre was thriving at this time and opera singers were highly popular figures, as for example Faustina Bordoni Hasse, a favourite of audiences and composers, who was portrayed by Rosalba Carriera (1731; Ca’ Rezzonico, Museo del Settecento Veneziano, Venice; no.8.5). The room dedicated to the nineteenth century, a tumultuous time of revolution and modernisation, is particularly convincing: Luigi Querena’s views of the Austrian bombardments of the city (1849; Museo Correr; no.9b.3) and the large-scale allegory Venice united with Italy by Giacomo Casa (1861; Museo del Risorgimento; Udine; no.9b.8) are important examples of the revival of traditional Venetian genres – the veduta and Renaissance history painting. By contrast, the rooms dedicated to the twentieth and twenty-first century are less persuasive.

9. Installation view of Venetia 1600: Births and Rebirths at Palazzo Ducale, Venice, 2021.

The selection of paintings by artists patronised by Venice’s resident Peggy Guggenheim, such as Jackson Pollock, Tancredi Parmeggiani and Giuseppe Santomaso, exhibited alongside models for buildings designed by foreign architects for Venice, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier and Steven Hall, hint at an ambiguity in Venice’s attitude to international initiatives. At least since the inauguration of the first Biennale in 1895, the temporary presence of foreign patrons and artists in the city was greeted with ambivalence. Guido Zucconi’s excellent essay in the catalogue demonstrates that most recent architectural projects remain largely unfinished. Urban renovation appears to have become utopian. Preservation is perhaps a more suitable term to define the exhibition’s agenda: as the visitors move towards the last rooms in which videos address current ecological concerns, they can see photographs of the disastrous floods in 1966 and 2019 lined up in a corridor. In Bill Viola’s video sound installation, The raft (2004; no.11.1), a storm of water turns a group of strangers into a

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Caravaggio e Artemisia: la sfida di Giuditta. Violenza e seduzione nella pittura tra Cinquecento e Seicento Palazzo Barberini, Rome 26th November 2021– 27th March 2022 by keith christiansen

10. Virgin and Child with a votive model of S. Maria della Salute, by Alessandro Varotari, called Padovanino. 1631. Oil on canvas, 266 by 168 cm. (Diocesi Patriarcato di Venezia, Venice; exh. Palazzo Ducale, Venice). 11. Judith and her maidservant with the head of Holofernes, by Orazio Gentileschi. c.1621–24. Oil on canvas, 136 by 159 cm. (Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford CT; exh. Palazzo Barberini, Rome).

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community. In Studio Azzurro’s Mose and Beyond, the protection of Venice and its lagoon are posited as major challenges for the future. Overall, this exhibition presents recurring themes of symbolic and political value across a variety of artefacts of differing qualities and provenances, while signalling the vulnerable condition of urban heritage. Enthusiastic visitors have suggested on social media that this display should be made permanent as a Museum of Venice. It is open to question whether a permanent display would represent an appeal for a better urban survival plan, or whether it would constitute another step in the process of turning the city into a museum.

The catalyst for this engaging exhibition is one of the masterpieces of the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica at Palazzo Barberini: Caravaggio’s Judith and Holofernes (cat. no.II.5). It is easy to forget that this now-famous work was virtually unknown prior to 1951, when the Roman-based restorer Pico Cellini brought it to the attention of Roberto Longhi – just in time to be inserted, hors catalogue, into the groundbreaking exhibition on Caravaggio and the Caravaggisti at Palazzo Reale, Milan (to make this possible the exhibition was extended by the then Minister of Education, Guido Gonella).1 The circumstances of the painting’s creation c.1600 and its convulsive impact on a younger generation of artists – most famously, at least for modern viewers, Artemisia Gentileschi – are the subject of this exhibition and a richly informative catalogue essay by Maria Cristina Terzaghi.2

Thanks in no small part to the studies of Terzaghi, we now know that the Genoese banker Ottavio Costa gave the painting pride of place in his notable collection, which included two other works by the artist, keeping it behind a silk curtain and prohibiting its sale by his heirs. Terzaghi believes he restricted access to the work (although it is mentioned by Giovanni Baglione in his Life of Caravaggio) and guarded against copies being made – as we have learned from the correspondence between the collector Giulio Mancini and his brother, Deifebo, copies were thought to lower the prestige of the original.3 Be that as it may, the impact of the picture on a generation of younger artists was enormous, for no one prior to Caravaggio had given such sensationally visual form to the account of Judith’s heroic and transgressive act as recounted in the Clementine Vulgate Bible of 1592. Earlier artists had most often depicted her holding the head of the Assyrian general – as an emblem of Humility overcoming Pride. Alternatively, she was shown putting the head into a meat bag held by her servant and accomplice, Abra, or the two making their way back to Bethulia with their grisly trophy (pictures of both themes are included in the exhibition).

1 R. Echols and F. Ilchman, eds: exh. cat. Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice, Venice (Palazzo Ducale) and Washington (National Gallery of Art) 2018–19; see the review by T. Nichols: ‘Coming of age: Jacopo Tintoretto’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 160 (2018), pp.1024–29. 2 Catalogue: Venetia 1600: Births and Rebirths. Edited by R. Echols, F. Ilchman, G. Matino and A. Bellieni. 366 pp. incl. numerous col. + b. & w. ills. (Consorzio Museum Musei, Milan, 2021), €52. ISBN 978–88–320–2614–6.

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At issue was the matter of decorum as well as a societal reluctance to show a woman killing a man.4 Yet the biblical account of the murder, which reads remarkably like a blow-by-blow police report, could not help but inspire artistic invention. Veronese, for one, did not shy from depicting the immediate aftermath of the decapitation, with Holofernes’s headless body exposed on the bloodied sheets of his bed and a richly attired Judith gathering her trophy while her African servant opens the bag into which it will be put. Dating from c.1580, the painting, in Palazzo Rosso, Genoa, is illustrated in Lara Scanu’s fascinating catalogue essay tracing representations of Judith before Caravaggio. On a canvas of c.1552–55 in the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, Tintoretto illustrated the moment before the decapitation, when Judith, armed with the Assyrian general’s sword, draws back the bed curtain to view her victim, while in another canvas, also in the Prado (1577–78; no.I.2), he represented the moment after the beheading, when Judith, in a ritual act reminiscent of Tosca, drapes the bedcover over the headless body. Unusually, Pierfrancesco Foschi artfully depicted Judith delivering the second blow to Holofernes’s neck (c.1540–45; Spier Collection; no.I.1). But it is a composition by Giulio Romano, known from an engraving, that provides a real precedent for the violence in Costa’s prized picture. Caravaggio added a further element by substituting for Judith’s young female servant an old crone such as was generally associated with depictions of procurers, thereby introducing an erotic subtext to the story that could be justified by the fact that Judith’s ploy involved seduction. He went still further in the painting of Judith’s revealing blouse. This subversively shocking aspect of his depiction was pointedly not taken up by Artemisia, the other protagonist of the exhibition. The theme of the exhibition’s subtitle is taken up in Filippo Maria Ferro’s catalogue essay that takes a psychoanalytical approach to women and violence in western art. It has often been assumed that in

12. Judith beheading Holofernes, by Artemisia Gentileschi. c.1612. Oil on canvas, 159 by 126 cm. (Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, Naples; exh. Palazzo Barberini, Rome).

the art of Caravaggio and Artemisia life experience and art intersect in a novel fashion, and Terzaghi reviews the possible importance for them of the trial and public execution in September 1599 of the young and beautiful Beatrice Cenci for the murder of her father, who had abused her, while in a fascinating catalogue essay Elizabeth Cohen addresses questions relating to women in contemporary society. The twenty-nine paintings in the exhibition range from famous works to others that only recently

have garnered attention or been newly identified. They are distributed among five galleries, each of which is organised around a dominant image or different thematic moments in the story. The paintings by Foschi and Tintoretto set the prelude – ‘Judith at the Intersection of Mannerism and Naturalism’ – while Caravaggio’s celebrated picture for Costa holds the end wall of the second, key gallery: ‘Caravaggio and his First Interpreters’. There, displayed on angled panels (Fig.13), six paintings suggest various responses, ranging from

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Giuseppe Vermiglio’s banalisation of Caravaggio’s composition (1610–15; private collection; no.II.7) to Valentin de Boulogne’s psychologically acute depiction (1627–29; MUŻA, Valletta; no.II.8), in which a disconcertingly unflappable young Judith – she can hardly be more than sixteen – locks eyes with her screaming victim, whose raised arm reaches desperately into the dark void. A stilled, candlelit scene ascribed to Trophime Bigot (c.1630; Galleria Nazionale di Parma; no.II.10) and a vigorously painted, brutal rendition by an artist now identified as Bartolomeo Mendozzi (c.1625; private collection; no.II.9) mark two further responses. In the latter, Judith turns her head to engage the viewer – a notably theatrical idea employed by the German painter Johann Liss to even greater, dynamic effect in a canvas displayed in a later gallery (1624–27; Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest; no.III.18). The literary and theatrical treatment of the story of Judith is the subject of a catalogue essay by Paola Cosentino. This theatrical strategy, which extends the drama into the viewer’s space, distinguishes a canvas sometimes ascribed to Louis Finson (c.1607; Intesa Sanpaolo Collection, Naples; no.II.6) that had been thought by many to copy a second version of the Judith story painted by Caravaggio in Naples in 1607 and subsequently owned by Finson. The original of that composition was discovered in an attic in Toulouse in 2014 and, following 194

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13. Installation view of Caravaggio e Artemisia: la sfida di Giuditta. Violenza e seduzione nella pittura tra Cinquecento e Seicento at Palazzo Barberini, Rome, 2021–22. (Photograph Alberto Novelli).

heated debates, alternatively ascribed to Caravaggio (alone or assisted) or to Finson.5 The copy was a necessary stand-in for the ex-Toulouse picture, which could not be lent but is discussed both in Terzaghi’s essay and in Tania De Nile’s entry. In it, Judith, a mature and beautiful woman of fierce dignity and resolute determination, is austerely dressed in black, as the heroic Biblical widow, thereby eliminating the element of deception that to many contemporaries was suggestive of the wiles women employ to entrap men. Terzaghi feels that the absence of ‘any hint of seduction’ is ‘unthinkable’ for a genius such as Caravaggio (p.66). But this verdict surely underestimates the originality of this singular and, to this reviewer’s mind, powerfully affective departure from the norm, which reimagines Judith as a defiantly heroic woman who does not require the youthful charms of seduction to perform her grisly mission. It also overlooks the stylistic advance made over the brilliant but planar composition of Costa’s picture, which – remarkable as it is – adheres to sixteenth-century ideas, with its clear bilateral organisation emphasising contrasts of emotion, figure types and gender. The space in the ex-Toulouse picture is at once tighter and more clearly defined (the red cloth sweeps back and is hung over the branch of tree); the triad of figures is brought together, with the hands and heads of the two women united to a common purpose; and Abra’s fixed gaze on

Judith and Judith’s challenging glance at the viewer introduce a completely new dynamic. This reviewer believes that the last word on this remarkable picture, the quality of which has little to do with the bland copy attributed to Finson, has yet to be said. In the third gallery, ‘Artemisia Gentileschi and the Theatre of Judith’, it was a treat to see juxtaposed Orazio’s canvas from the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo (1608–09; no.III.15) with Artemisia’s related picture from Palazzo Pitti, Florence (c.1615; no.III.16). In both, the two women, their deed accomplished, are shown as though leaving the Assyrian camp, with Holofernes’s head in a basket from which drips the Assyrian general’s coagulating blood. Artemisia clearly recalled her father’s painting (doubtless she had a drawing or tracing of it), but she exchanges the mood of quiet reflection for one of sharp alertness to danger. The reassuring hand that Orazio shows Judith placing on Abra’s shoulder is altered in Artemisia’s picture so as to suggest Judith’s anxiousness to depart. And there could be no greater contrast than that between Artemisia’s painting from Naples (no.III.13; Fig.12), in which the two women, their sleeves rolled up for their bloody task, struggle to pin down their victim, and Orazio’s elegant canvas from Hartford (no. III.17; Fig.11). Orazio freezes the action of their escape, showing the two women huddled together, cradling the basket with Holofernes’ blood-

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drained head, and describes contrasts in dress, social status and character, Judith’s inspired calm providing a counterpoint to Abra’s alert anxiety (interestingly, Orazio never depicted the beheading). Thought-provoking comparisons such as these make this an engrossing exhibition. This section spilled into a fourth gallery, where to very different effect both Guido Cagnacci (c.1645; Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna; no.III.21) and Mattia Preti (c.1650–53; Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte; no.III.24) show Judith, still within the tent, gazing heavenwards in prayerful gratitude after completing the deed. The fifth and final gallery addresses the overlap – emblematic as well as dramatic – between depictions of Judith, David with the head of Goliath, and Salome with the head of John the Baptist. Here again Valentin takes a lead role, with his powerfully confrontational painting of David (c.1615–16; Museo Nacional ThyssenBornemisza, Madrid; no.V.28) and his eloquently triumphant Judith from the Musée des Augustins, Toulouse (c.1626–27; no.IV.27). The exhibition does not aspire to completeness. Rather it focuses on a moment and addresses a phenomenon of seventeenth-century culture worthy of further investigation: the fascination with socially subversive, violent subjects, often drawn from the Old Testament. That said, it is unfortunate that two crucial works are absent. One is Adam Elsheimer’s oil on copper in the Wellington Collection at Apsley House, London. Elsheimer’s candlelit scene, in which Holofernes looks desperately out at the viewer, had an impact out of all proportion to its diminutive size and was admired – indeed owned – by Rubens, who in turn painted one of the most erotically charged, over-the-top depictions of the story (known through copies and an engraving). The second is Artemisia’s masterful painting in the Detroit Institute of Arts (c.1623–25), in which the two women are shown full length, by candlelight, gathering up Holofernes’s head while anxiously gazing ‘off stage’ at some unseen but possibly heard disturbance. Often considered her greatest masterpiece,

it is a work that marvellously explores the poetics of Baroque painting. But such are the limitations imposed on exhibitions. The excellent essays in the catalogue cover a range of topics that extend the discussion well beyond the purely art historical. 1 See Editorial: ‘The first modern painter’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 93 (1951), p.211. 2 Catalogue: Caravaggio e Artemisia: la sfida di Giudetta. Edited by Maria Cristina Terzaghi. 184 pp. incl. 95 col. ills. (Officina Libraria, Rome, 2021), €29.50. ISBN 978–88–336– 7162–8. 3 M. Maccherini: ‘Caravaggio nel carteggio familiare di Giulio Mancini’, Prospettiva 86 (1997), pp.71–92, at p.80. 4 In 1504, during the discussions about moving Donatello’s bronze Judith and Holofernes to make room for Michelangelo’s David in front of Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Francesco di Lorenzo Filarete, the herald of the Signoria, noted that it was not a good thing to have a work showing a woman killing a man. See G. Gaye: Carteggio inediti d’artisti, II, Florence 1840, p.456: ‘la giuditta è segno mortifero [. . .] non sta bene che la donna uccida Ihomo, et maxime essendo stata posta chon chattiva chonstellatione, perchè da poi in qua siate iti de male in peggio’. 5 The attribution to Caravaggio was defended in J. Gash: ‘Caravaggio’s other “Judith and Holofernes”’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 161 (2019), pp.716–31. The case for Finson’s involvement is made, most recently, in G. Papi: ‘Caravaggio e Finson: un’amicizia’, in M.C. Terzaghi, ed.: Caravaggio a Napoli e l’Ecce Homo di Madrid: Nuovi dati e nuove idee, Naples 2021, pp.68–83; and R. Vodret: ‘La “Giuditta che taglia la testa a Oloferne” di Tolosa, considerazioni sulle analisi techniche e confronti con la prassi executiva di Caravaggio’, in ibid., pp.85–99.

The Boston area has enjoyed a long engagement with seventeenthcentury Dutch and Flemish art through generations of collectors and the attention of scholars in universities and museums. In recent years the MFA has had distinguished curators in this field, among whom are Clifford J. Ackley, now emeritus; Ronni Baer, who moved to the Princeton University Art Museum in 2019; and Antien Knaap. Christopher Atkins, formerly a curator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, joined the MFA as the inaugural Van Otterloo-Weatherbie Director of the CNA in August 2019 and has been working in pandemic conditions to prepare the centre for its opening. It has now elegantly appointed premises for its staff, library and pre- and postdoctoral fellows. Yet can a research institute dedicated to the art of one small area of western Europe command more than specialist attention, especially at a time when many seriously question the cultural pre-eminence of Europe and its diaspora?

14. Kalis Boud, by Adriaen van de Venne. c.1635. Oil on canvas, 39.4 by 26 cm. (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).

New galleries of Dutch and Flemish art Museum of Fine Arts, Boston from 20th November 2021 by ivan gaskell

2021 saw the opening at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), of two related initiatives: the Center for Netherlandish Art (CNA), the first resource of its kind in the United States, and a suite of newly installed corridors and galleries for Dutch and Flemish art. Both were made possible through the generosity of two collector couples, Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo and Susan and Matthew Weatherbie. They have given or promised 114 Dutch and Flemish paintings, the library of the late art-historian Egbert HaverkampBegemann and initial endowment funds for the CNA. the burlington magazine | 164 | february 2022

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Atkins and his colleagues are well aware of the challenges of promoting Dutch and Flemish art in a worldwide context. The idea of a ‘Golden Age’ is dead. The Dutch are facing a reckoning for their colonial past. There is now little room for the celebration of values that appealed to many in earlier generations and that still prompt the interest of collectors: Dutch religious tolerance, which has proved to be a historical myth, and middle-class virtues expressed in secular subject-matter. The seven provinces that rebelled against Spanish rule and established a republic were a model, in part, for later republican movements. In The Rise of the Dutch Republic (1856), John Lothrop Motley evoked parallels between the emergence of the United Provinces and that of the United States. The commercial oligarchs who ruled the former could readily serve as models 196

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15. Model of the Dutch East India Company ship Valkenisse. 1717. Wood with hemp and cotton rigging, 48.3 by 35.6 by 172.7 cm. (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).

for the ambitions of the plutocrats who have long dominated the latter. The United Provinces continues to be of historical interest not least because modern capitalism, with its distinctive banking and joint stock companies, took shape there earlier and more virulently than elsewhere. The idea that the merchants and investors who dominated the Dutch republic were beneficent has long since gone the way of other romantic fictions. Class conflict was a big issue in the United Provinces as the majority of the population laboured under crippling indirect taxation to pay for the emerging country’s wars. Baer explored this topic in her MFA exhibition Class Distinctions: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer in 2015–16,1 yet in the displays of the new gallery questions of class, the emergence of a nascent proletariat and the role of het grauw (the vulgar masses) receive short

shrift. The titles given to paintings by Adriaen Brouwer and Cornelis Bega still include the discredited term ‘peasants’. The fact that wealth was far less widely distributed than popularly believed surfaces only occasionally in label commentaries, as when a description of a portrait by Nicolaes Maes of Helena van Heuvel (c.1680–83) states that she and her husband bought a house in Amsterdam in 1664 for 42,000 guilders, ‘140 times the annual salary of a skilled craftsman’. A grisaille painting by Adriaen van de Venne of a fictional member of het grauw, named Kalis Boud, is tucked away in a dark corner (Fig.14). He is a character from Van de Venne’s book Picture of the Laughable World (1635), which explores the underclass of Dutch society, such as the unemployed, beggars and war refugees; a copy of it is on display beneath the painting.2 A good part of the wildly unevenly distributed wealth in the new republic derived from overseas trade shading into rapacious colonialism that fed a nascent industrial capitalism. The historian Sven Beckert has dubbed this ‘war capitalism’.3 The Dutch were among its harshest exponents, notably through their overseas joint stock trading companies, the East India Company (VOC), and the West India Company (GWC). In 1619 the VOC destroyed the Javanese town of Jayakarta to build Batavia (presentday Jakarta), and two years later slaughtered thousands on the Banda Islands in pursuit of nutmeg and mace. The GWC transported thousands of captives from West Africa to the Caribbean and Dutch Brazil. The GWC continued its trade in enslaved Africans for most of the eighteenth century. A large model of the VOC ship Valkenisse (Fig.15) is a commanding presence in the largest gallery, yet rather than point to the exploitation inherent in colonial resource extraction that such intimidating vessels enabled, the text panel focuses on luxury consumption and wealth creation in the metropolis. Admittedly, it would be no small task for the CNA project to decentre its field of study and to acknowledge the material pluralism of the parts of the world affected by the spread of the Dutch and the attendant movement of

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peoples and goods in the seventeenth century, in particular in an institution that strictly separates cultures from different geographical areas and where many expect the CNA to address Dutch and Flemish art in a narrow sense. Atkins and his colleagues have made a good-faith start by drawing attention to the role of African slavery in the production of Dutch wealth. Among the many works of decorative art on display is furniture. Some items include ebony – also used for picture frames – which, as a label states, was felled and processed by enslaved workers. Most ebony came from the Dutch Indian Ocean colony of Mauritius, where enslaved captives from Madagascar laboured. In a gallery section on ‘Global Commerce’, the curators relate paintings of a table laden with sugared sweetmeats by Osias Beert (Fig.16), a young woman eating sugar from a silver canister by Godfried Schalcken and a fantasy landscape of

a Brazilian sugar plantation by Frans Post to the role of enslaved Africans in the production of this tropical commodity. The installation includes an informative video featuring Knaap and Mary Hicks, a historian from the University of Chicago, which follows on from a speaker programme that the CNA organised in November 2019, titled ‘Sugar in the Early Modern Atlantic World’. Atkins and his colleagues not only face the legacy of capitalism and colonialism as well as the inevitable constraints of what is at their disposal in the museum, they also have to negotiate what one might term ‘collector values’. Many collectors have different assumptions and values from those of scholars. Collector values tend towards celebration and nostalgic attitudes that have been typical of heritage, in contradistinction to critical history. Art museums have to perform the tricky task of balancing

16. Still life with various vessels on a table, by Osias Beert. c.1610. Oil on canvas, 72.4 by 108.6 cm. (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).

heritage with history, and the MFA is no exception. Although in some galleries attention is paid to slavery, one corridor presents without qualification an installation called ‘Collecting Dutch and Flemish Painting: A Boston Story’. Some labels go so far as to uncritically include the donors’ own observations on the works shown. The subsections adhere to a standard set of tired tropes in the study of Dutch and Flemish art, including ‘Sumptuous Still Lifes’, ‘Copper as Canvas’ and ‘The Lure of Italy’. These topics are all compatible with collector values. They perpetuate received opinion rather than represent adventurous scholarship. A research institute, including one in a museum, has a responsibility to challenge received opinion. If it is held captive to collector values this is unlikely to happen, whatever the wishes of its director might be. To their credit, Atkins and his colleagues have put down admirable markers of

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intention. These include a collaboration with Harvard University on a fourpart online symposium in April 2021, ‘Art Museums and the Legacies of the Dutch Slave Trade: Curating Histories, Envisioning Futures’, and a collaborative project on the Dutch art market with Northeastern University. These are early days, and Atkins and his colleagues deserve the encouragement and support of scholars in museums and academia to overcome the difficulties and limitations they face. It will take great fortitude and determination on their part not to fall into the trap of rearticulating received opinion or of contributing no more than incremental gains in knowledge rather than initiating big ideas. This reviewer feels optimistic that they can achieve a great deal. 1 Reviewed by Dennis P. Weller in this Magazine, 158 (2016), pp.159–61. 2 A. van de Venne: Tafereel van de belacchende werelt, en des selfs geluckige eeuw, goed rondt, met by-gevoegde raedsel-spreucken, aen-gevvesen in de boer-agtiche eenvoudigheyt, op de Haegsche kermis, The Hague 1635. 3 S. Beckert: Empire of Cotton: A Global History, New York 2014.

Hogarth and Europe Tate Britain, London 3rd November 2021– 20th March 2022

first glance, have any connection to Europe. Nor does it on any subsequent glances. Set on the outskirts of London, it may conceivably illustrate the exhibition’s subtitle, ‘Uncovering City Life’, given in the exhibition and the accompanying guide but to which there is no further reference in the book or on Tate’s website. Even in the exhibition the interpretation of the painting is confused. Whereas the label interprets the soldier in the foreground as a reference to the Classical trope of Hercules at the crossroads – the choice between duty and pleasure – the book suggests that he ‘shows dignity in parting from his pregnant wife’ (p.75), with no reference to the woman who grasps his other arm. To this reviewer’s eye, the former interpretation seems more likely, but the unacknowledged contradictions give little confidence about what follows. Clearly, the second work exhibited, O the roast beef of old England (‘The gate of Calais’) (1748; Tate), would have been a far better introduction to the exhibition as named, showing, as it does, Hogarth’s direct experience of Europe (his arrest, as a spy, when sketching the Englishbuilt gates), packed full of ‘xenophobic stereotypes’ and yet nuanced by his

clear appreciation of European art – the curators suggest both Chardin and Canaletto. Despite his apparent suspicion of Europeans, Hogarth had deep love and profound knowledge of European art, but sadly this is never explored with the depth that might have been expected or hoped for. The section ‘Modern Painters’ considers the developing possibilities for artists in the eighteenth century and introduces portraits of Hogarth and some of his European contemporaries. In several European states painters could no longer rely on court patronage, leaving them more free but also more likely to suffer financial hardship. The suggestion that the tendency to romanticise the notion of the struggling artist started earlier than the Romantic movement is convincing. This section is followed by a closer look at the exhibition’s nominal secondary theme, ‘Artists and Cities’. Although the large maps of the locations considered – London, Paris, Venice and Amsterdam – are impressive objects, a single map tells us little about the development of the city in question, nor about the functioning of its artistic community. Admittedly, the book does include four

17. Captain Lord George Graham, 1715–47, in his cabin, by William Hogarth. 1742–44. Oil on canvas, 68.5 by 88.9 cm. (National Maritime Museum, London; exh. Tate Britain, London).

by richard stemp

In their preface to the book that accompanies this exhibition, the curators, Alice Insley and Martin Myrone, state that, following early discussions, ‘it became clear that there were several exhibition projects, rather than just one, that could be developed’ (p.9).1 Unfortunately, at no stage do they seem to have decided on which of the projects they should focus. The exhibition as it stands could represent three or more different takes on the subject, none of which is coherently argued or followed through and some of which are never fully acknowledged. This confusion is explicit from the outset. The first work displayed is Hogarth’s The march of the guards to Finchley (1749–50; Foundling Museum, London), a painting that does not, at 198

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short essays that cover some of these ideas in different ways, but the sheer size of these maps leaves little room for the paintings themselves and so each city’s art is poorly represented. The works displayed here also underline one of the essential problems of the exhibition. Despite some similarity in theme and approach, often inspired by the readily available prints of Hogarth’s work, none of the artists who can be said to represent the ‘Hogarthian’ strand in European art, such as Cornelis Troost and Pietro Longhi, is as graphically skilled – either in naturalistic representation or caricatural dexterity – nor are they as incisive in terms of identifying social mores or deploying excoriating wit. Or, to put it in other terms, unpopular with some art historians no doubt, they are simply not as good. The same holds true in the following section, ‘Modern Moral Narratives’, which is carried by Hogarth’s work – how could it be otherwise? Even vague references in the exhibition and book to narrative scenes by other artists (notably Giuseppe Crespi) do little to suggest it was ever different. ‘In the Company of Men’ gets closer to one of the main aims of the exhibition, explicitly stated in a subsection to this theme, that of ‘Questioning Hogarth’. Such questioning is already present earlier in the exhibition in the labels and wall texts, by a rich variety of voices including the artist Lubaina Himid and the Museum Detox network. The celebration here (in the art at least) of white male privilege cannot be avoided. Several of the paintings seem to represent reasonable situations, in which nothing untoward is going on. Hogarth’s Captain Lord George Graham, 1715–47, in his cabin (Fig.17) is one such example. Elsewhere, it is frequently hard to gauge the level of satirical intent. In neither Sir Francis Dashwood at his devotions (c.1733–39; private collection) nor Francis Matthew Schutz in bed (c.1755–60; Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery) is it clear to what extent Hogarth disapproves of the subjects’ behaviour – the hypocrisy and sexual depravity of the former or the over-indulgence of the latter. But that is always the case: he enjoys

18. The times of day: morning, by William Hogarth. 1738. Etching and engraving on paper, 48.7 by 39.2 cm. (Private collection; exh. Tate Britain, London).

pointing out people’s foibles, delights in criticising anyone and everyone to the extent that no one escapes his razor-sharp wit. To what extent he was complicit with the behaviours depicted is precisely what the curators suggest should be questioned, although such questions are never – and perhaps can never be – answered. The focus here is on Hogarth’s lost painting A midnight modern conversation, a depiction of an all-male gathering, whose participants are in advanced – and degrading – states of drunkenness. It is represented in the exhibition by painted copies, prints and images on punchbowls, both European and Chinese.2 Hogarth’s

print of the composition (1733; Royal Collection) is inscribed ‘We lash the vices but the persons spare’, but was this just a way of excusing his enjoyment of the debilitating excess he depicts? Was there any criticism of a ruling class who applied one rule for themselves and another for those they governed? The curators do not draw any contemporary parallels – but then, they do not need to. Another painting here asks yet more questions. John Greenwood’s Sea captains carousing in Surinam (c.1752–58; Saint Louis Art Museum) is undoubtedly derived from A midnight modern conversation. However,

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Greenwood was American, the subjects of the painting are white Americans and Black slaves in Suriname, which, although a Dutch colony, is not European, nor is the place depicted a city. Does this painting really belong in this exhibition? It is certainly fundamental to the curators’ initial ideas; this is the very first work they mention in their first essay in the book, ‘Painting modern life, making the modern world’. It is clear that race and colonialism are two of the unacknowledged themes of this exhibition, themes which deserve serious, focused attention. Not only would it have been more honest to have entitled the exhibition Hogarth and Colonialism, but this painting would also have more reason to be here. Hogarth and Race would be another, equally appropriate, title. Were this the primary subject of the exhibition, however, it would deserve better powers of observation than it is given, complex and fraught with difficulties as it is. Often the visual evidence is not given its full weight, and the following are just some examples of the loaded and potentially inaccurate observations 200

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19. A game of quadrille, by Hubert François Gravelot. c.1740. Oil on canvas, 63.5 by 76.2 cm. (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven; exh. Tate Britain, London).

that occur. Although the exhibition label is right in saying that in Hogarth’s print The times of day: morning (Fig.18) the pious, church-going woman ‘ignores the Black beggar woman’ (a comment not repeated in the book), it is also true that she ignores everyone else around the beggar. Of this group, four are warming themselves by the fire and are intent on nefarious ends, whereas the remaining three could well be what in contemporary terminology (which the exhibition insists, anachronistically, on using) would be ‘rough sleepers’. Of these three, one is Black. Surely it is more damning of society and indicative of its racism that, of this admittedly small sample, thirty-three per cent of rough sleepers are Black. This number is disproportionately high given the statistic, quoted in the book and more than once on the wall panels, that between one and three per cent of people living in London at the time had African heritage. Another example of oversimplified interpretation is Captain Lord George Graham, of which we are told that there is ‘music played by a Black servant

boy, positioned in the margins of the picture frame’ (p.115). However, he is arguably slightly more central than the white servant boy on the other side of the painting. He is also dressed better and with greater dignity than his white counterpart. Admittedly this one of few images in Hogarth’s œuvre of a person of colour who is painted with dignity. There are many stereotypical and arguably racist images in his work – but then, no one escaped his savagery and few, if any, are depicted with dignity in his satirical works. But does this mean that Hogarth himself was racist? Or was he pointing out the racism of society as a whole, as another way of digging into the hypocrisy of Britain’s white majority? This is another question the exhibition does not – and perhaps cannot – answer. One last example of this sadly imprecise approach is in the section ‘High Life’, which includes the painting A game of quadrille, by Hubert François Gravelot (Fig.19). As well as the (white) players, there is a white servant about to serve tea, accompanied by her Black assistant. The exhibition label states that he is in the shadows, as if he has been kept out of sight. The implication is the same as for Graham’s Black musician – that Black members of the community were, as a whole, marginalised. This is of course true. But for Black servants the situation was different and arguably worse. The servant in question is dressed in a bright green coat over a brighter red waistcoat. The intention was never to keep him in the shadows – he just happens to be there in this painting. He was dressed to be showcased, to stand out, an ‘exotic’ addition to the household, an owned object, a pet even. This is certainly the situation in Hogarth’s truly grotesque Taste in high life (1742; private collection). It should come as no surprise to anyone that European society in the eighteenth century was profoundly racist. Any society that permits slavery – let alone flourishes as a result – cannot be otherwise. The ways in which this is evidenced in the art of the period is something that deserves to be treated thoroughly, and with honesty, rather than with the broadbrushstroke generalisations we have here, hidden behind the tenuous title Hogarth and Europe.

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1 Accompanying publication: Hogarth and Europe. Edited by Alice Insley and Martin Myrone. 208 pp. incl. 200 col. + b. & w. ills. (Tate Publishing, London, 2021), £35. ISBN 978–1–84976–768–2. The exhibits are not numbered. 2 The book includes a superb essay on these ceramics, L. Tharp: ‘Pots in Hogarth’, in ibid., pp.102–07.

Late Constable Royal Academy of Arts, London 30th October 2021– 13th February 2022 by mark evans

After Constable’s death in 1837 his friends resolved to give a painting in his memory to the National Gallery, London. His ‘six-footer’ Salisbury Cathedral from the meadows (1831–37; Tate, London) was proposed, on

account of its ‘magnitude, subject and grandeur of treatment’.1 Because ‘the boldness of its execution rendered it less likely to address itself to the general taste’, they decided instead to present The cornfield (1826; National Gallery, London; cat. no.11). However, the very qualities of ‘magnitude’, ‘grandeur of treatment’, ‘boldness of execution’ and disregard for ‘general taste’ seem to characterise Constable’s late style. This exhibition of fifty-four exhibits has been deftly curated by Anne Lyles, formerly responsible for the Constable collection at Tate, and Per Rumberg, curator at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. It occupies an enfilade of three rooms; the first and last are painted sage green, a colour deemed especially suitable for picture galleries by the artist and

curator Richard Redgrave, whom Constable had taught at the Academy Schools. The central gallery, which is reserved for light-sensitive works, is a very dark green. The show opens with A boat passing a lock (1826; Royal Academy of Arts, London; no.21), which the artist presented as his diploma work when he was elected an academician in 1829. Nearby are several of the vibrant outdoor oil sketches he painted between 1810 and 1828, which Constable’s daughter Isabel later gave to the Academy. On the end wall, fixed to a maroon-coloured screen for added emphasis, are the full-size sketch and final version of The leaping horse (nos.8 and 9; Fig.20). In front of them, a sloping lectern supports three preparatory drawings. According to his friend and biographer C.R. Leslie,

20. The leaping horse, by John Constable. 1825. Oil on canvas, 142 by 187.3 cm. (Royal Academy of Arts, London).

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Constable worked simultaneously on both canvases, deciding only late in the day which one to finish and submit for exhibition at the Academy. Redgrave perceptively described the full-size sketch: ‘The subjects are laid in with the [palette] knife, with great breadth and in a grand and large manner [. . .] enhancing points of colour added, and brightness and daylight obtained by further draggings and knife touches [. . .] Viewed at a distance, the scheme of the picture is complete, the local truth of colour beautifully felt, and the freshness and daylight are startling’.2 After the excitement of The leaping horse, the high finish of The cornfield seems ingratiating, and Constable himself wryly remarked ‘it has certainly got a little more eyesalve than I usually condescend to give’.3 At the centre of the long wall facing the entrance is the magisterial Dedham Vale (1828; National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh; no.12). Its vertical composition derives from

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Claude’s Landscape with Hagar and the angel (1646; National Gallery), a picture of which Constable had made an exact copy. Lyles’s informative catalogue essay identifies Dedham Vale as a tribute to the artist’s late mentor Sir George Beaumont, who had given the Claude to the National Gallery.4 The elegant ash at the right of the scene was probably based on a favourite tree, which Constable personified as a ‘young lady’ in a lecture at Hampstead in 1836.5 A similar one appears later in The valley farm (1835; Tate; no.29). A more overt memorial, to Constable’s recently deceased wife, Maria, is Hadleigh Castle, also exhibited here alongside its full-size sketch (1829; Tate and Yale Center for British Art, New Haven; nos.14 and 15). Its subject of a frowning fortress may have been suggested by J.M.W. Turner’s diploma work, Dolbadarn Castle, North Wales (1800; Royal Academy). However, Constable’s shattered tower silhouetted against a seemingly

infinite cloudy sky and sunlit sea is redolent of loss and departure, like the medieval ruins and seascapes painted by his German contemporary Caspar David Friedrich. The next room has subdued lighting to show watercolours on the left wall and sepia drawings on the right. On the centre line, Constable’s eerie watercolour of Stonehenge (no.48; Fig.21) is isolated on a maroon screen. To its left is Old Sarum (1834; Victoria and Albert Museum, London (V&A); no.47). Both incorporate the rainbow from an earlier study (1827; Yale Center for British Art; no.42), a recurrent symbol of hope in the artist’s late works. When Stonehenge was exhibited in 1836 an anonymous reviewer remarked: ‘The effect [. . .] is as marvellous and mysterious as the subject itself ’.6 In his thoughtful catalogue essay, Matthew Hargreaves emphasises the priority of chiaroscuro over colour in Constable’s late style. This is strikingly apparent in two

21. Stonehenge, by John Constable. 1835. Watercolour, 38.7 by 59.7 cm. (Victoria and Albert Museum, London; exh. Royal Academy of Arts, London).

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abstracted sepia studies (c.1836; V&A; nos.52 and 53) that recall the powerful wash drawings by Claude he had seen in the collection of Richard Payne Knight. Hundreds of surviving progress proofs demonstrate the immense care Constable took between 1829 and 1837 to correct the mezzotints that David Lucas made after the designs for the sets of prints known as English landscape scenery. Given their importance, it is unfortunate the exhibition included only one of these prints (1829; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; no.54), a proof entirely overpainted in chalk and wash. The final room comes as something of a disappointment. At the centre of its left wall is The valley farm. Despite earning Constable his highest ever fee of £300 when it was first shown in 1835 this painting caused a critic to complain: ‘He ought to be whipped for thus maiming a real genius for Landscape’.7 It seems especially dour alongside the furious brushwork of A farmhouse near the water’s edge (c.1830– 36; Phillips Collection, Washington; no.31). Even experts were troubled by the immense stylistic difference between such works. In 1893 C.R. Leslie’s son George denounced A cottage at East Bergholt (c.1833; Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight; no.32) as ‘mere palette scrapings’ and thought it a forgery. He was corrected by Charles Holmes, who praised ‘the purity of its colour, and the transparency of its shadows’ as well as the ‘amazing power of [its] drawing with the palette-knife’.8 On the end wall, a final maroon screen supports one of Constable’s most idiosyncratic works, Cenotaph to the memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds (no.37; Fig.22). It depicts the monuments to Reynolds, Michelangelo and Raphael in the grounds of Beaumont’s country estate. Related landscape drawings (1823; V&A; nos.34–36) occupy a lectern in front of the painting. Comparable to a Baroque allegory in the late style of Titian, The Cenotaph has a deep significance, commemorating a pantheon of the artist’s heroes. At the far end of the right wall is Constable’s last picture,

Arundel mill and castle (1837; Toledo Museum of Art; no.39). Nearby, two oil sketches for the Opening of Waterloo Bridge (c.1819 and 1829–31; V&A and Yale Center for British Art; nos.23 and 24) stand in for the opulent riverscape painting of the same title, indebted to Canaletto (1832; Tate), which is not in the show. However, the absent work that casts the longest shadow over the exhibition is undoubtedly Salisbury Cathedral from the meadows, the painting Constable told Leslie ‘would probably in future be considered his greatest’.9

22. Cenotaph to the memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds, erected in the grounds of Coleorton Hall, Leicestershire by the late Sir George Beaumont, Bt, by John Constable. 1833–36. Oil on canvas, 132 by 108.5 cm. (National Gallery, London; exh. Royal Academy of Arts, London).

Late Constable provides a timely and engaging survey of the artist’s final decade. He was then preoccupied with memorial projects and his personal contribution to the history of painting, especially what he called in 1833 ‘the chiar’Oscuro of Nature’ (p.133, note 70). The exhibition does not seek to place Constable’s work in the broader context of late artistic style. It could, for example, be likened to ‘Beethoven’s final compositional mode’, which Edward Said characterised as ‘a peculiar amalgam of subjectivity and convention’

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overshadowed by ‘a sense of his impending death.10 Moreover, the absence of individual entries in the catalogue limits its space for consideration of specific works. The full admission price of £19–21 for a show in which almost four-fifths of the exhibits are drawn from public collections in London may also appear high. There remains scope for an ampler and more nuanced treatment of this fascinating subject. 1 C.R. Leslie: Memoirs of the Life of John Constable, ed. J. Mayne, Oxford 1980, pp.267–68. 2 R. Redgrave and S. Redgrave: A Century of Painters of the English School, London 1866, II, pp.394–95. 3 R.B. Beckett, ed.: John Constable’s Correspondence VI: The Fishers, Ipswich 1968, p.217. 4 Catalogue: Late Constable. With contributions by Anne Lyles, Matthew Hargreaves, Annette Wickham and Mark Pomeroy. 144 pp. incl. 87 col. ills. (Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2021), £21.95. ISBN 978–1–912520–72–5. 5 R.B. Beckett, ed.: John Constable’s Discourses, Ipswich 1970, p.71. 6 J. Crosby Ivy: Constable and the Critics 1802–1837, Woodbridge 1991, p.217. 7 Ibid., p.202. 8 C.J. Holmes: Constable and his Influence on Landscape Painting, London 1902, p.236. 9 Leslie, op. cit. (note 1), p.237. 10 E.W. Said: On Late Style: Music and Literature Against the Grain, New York 2006, p.9 (with reference to the writings of the philosopher and musicologist Theodor W. Adorno).

The Morozov Collection: Icons of Modern Art Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris 22nd September 2021– 22nd February 2022 by rosalind p. blakesley

The story of the spectacular collections of the Russian brothers Mikhail and Ivan Morozov, long hushed after Stalin decried their pernicious formalist aesthetic, has riveted growing audiences in recent years. Natalya Semenova’s lifetime of research has fuelled Russian-language publications and reached Anglophone readers in her book Morozov: The Story of a Family and a Lost Collection (2020). Visitors to the vast exhibition in 2016–17 that the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, dedicated to Ivan’s great peer, the collector Sergei Shchukin, would also have gleaned from the commentary that the 204

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Morozov collection would yield an equally eye-watering array.1 Yet little can prepare one for the sheer scope and quality of works that the Fondation Louis Vuitton has amassed for this, the first exhibition outside Russia in which the Morozov brothers do not share the stage with Shchukin but rightly headline the event on their own. Organised in partnership with the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, and the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts and State Tretyakov Gallery, both in Moscow, it brings to Paris some two hundred works by many of the world’s pre-eminent modernists. These are interspersed with superb Russian paintings (many, although not all, of which were acquired by the Morozovs), highlighting the influence that the Morozov collection had in Russia while reiterating that Moscow was no cultural backwater but a roiling artistic melting pot in its own right. The visual banquet is complemented by expert essays and previously unpublished documents in a hefty catalogue, which is less an exhibition guide than a monolithic endeavour to enjoy at home.2

23. Ivan Abramovitch Morozov, Moscow, 1910, by Valentin Serov. 1910. Tempera on cardboard, 63.5 by 77 cm. (State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow; exh. Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris).

Thanks to the Fondation Louis Vuitton’s slick publicity, expectations are high as visitors enter Frank Gehry’s curvilinear, glass-clad edifice that rears improbably in the verdant expanse of the Bois de Boulogne. With the lure of iconic paintings displayed in Gehry’s towering, lightfilled space, it is something of an anti climax to descend into the bowels of the building to start the exhibition. The first room nonetheless dispels any subterranean unease with arresting portraits of the Morozovs and their relatives alongside those of pioneering Russian patrons and artists of the day. We meet Mikhail, paunchy, flushed and balding in a portrait by Valentin Serov (1902; State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow), his vast fists evoked in a few broad brushstrokes. ‘You cannot tell where his head ends and his neck begins’, the artist Vasily Perepletchikov disobligingly recalled.3 Mikhail died of a heart attack the following year at the age of thirty-three, by which time he had become the first Russian to acquire a Van Gogh as well as buying paintings by vanguardists from Toulouse-Lautrec and the Nabis

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to Akseli Gallen-Kallela and Edvard Munch, all of whom feature here. Ivan, Mikhail’s junior by a year and the better-known Maecenas of the two, is introduced by a decent enough portrait by Konstantin Korovin painted the same year that Mikhail died (1903; Tretyakov Gallery). But it is Serov’s portrait of 1910 (Fig.23) that came to define the man, depicting him in front of Matisse’s Fruit and bronze (1910; Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow) that he had acquired that same year. These two pictures hang side by side towards the end of the exhibition, providing a golden opportunity to consider how Matisse’s painterly bravura inspired a boldness of contour and form in one of Russia’s greatest portraitists.

Such are the Russian cultural luminaries portrayed in the exhibition’s first hall that visitors can temporarily lose their bearings, as the connection between this illustrious pantheon of sitters and the Morozov collection is not always clear. Focus is restored in the neighbouring room, in which photographs of the interior of Ivan Morozov’s mansion dating from 1909 to 1941 (the earliest taken by Maurice Denis) create an unassailable record of the artistic jewels that it contained. These photographs document with foreboding the evolution of the collection from private passion to state asset, as Ivan’s collection was nationalised in 1918. A decade later it was amalgamated with Shchukin’s collection in Morozov’s mansion,

24. The cork or Country inn (La Guinguette), by Édouard Manet. c.1878. Oil in canvas, 72.4 by 92 cm. (Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow; exh. Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris).

where together they formed the State Museum of Modern Western Art. (After the Revolution, Ivan, termed ‘deputy director’, lived with his family in just three rooms of his home before fleeing abroad, dying in Karlsbad in 1921.) In one photograph, Red Army soldiers are given a tour of Denis’s monumental panels The story of Psyche (1908; State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg) in Morozov’s music salon – an installation that is reassembled in the exhibition’s final hall. In another, a portrait of Stalin hangs in what had been Morozov’s dining room. The photographs reveal the precise placement of the likes of Renoir’s Portrait of Mademoiselle Jeanne Samary (1878; Hermitage), Manet’s The cork or Country inn (La Guinguette)

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(Fig.24) and the first Picasso to come to Russia, Harlequin and his companion (The Saltimbanque) (1901; Pushkin Museum). Along with the Morozovs’ other western European works these paintings were removed from view after Stalin closed the museum in 1948 to protect the honest Soviet mind from bourgeois aberration. They are here reunited in a single, poignant room. The thrill of seeing much of the Morozov collection reassembled cannot be overstated, with its Impressionist landscapes, Cubist landmarks and entire rooms devoted to Gauguin and Cézanne, by whom Ivan owned a full eighteen works. Yet for all the parade of masterpieces, it is the provocative juxtaposition of western and Russian trailblazers that lingers in the mind. On one wall, Picasso’s Portrait of Ambroise Vollard (1910; Pushkin Museum) rubs shoulders with Natalia Goncharova’s The smoker (1911; Tretyakov Gallery; ex-catalogue) and Kazimir Malevich’s Portrait of Mikhail Matyushin (1913–14; Tretyakov Gallery), illuminating the starkly different ways in which these artists challenged the orthodoxies of figurative art. On another, Cézanne’s quietly contemplative Self-portrait in a casquette (c.1873; Hermitage) is buttressed by the fabulously peremptory self-portraits of Pyotr 206

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Konchalovsky, lent by the Ekaterina and Vladimir Semenikhin Foundation and Petr Aven’s private collection in Moscow, and rarely on public display. Although one must read the labels carefully to appreciate which of these paintings were part of the Morozov collection and which have been included by way of comparison (Ivan found Malevich, for one, a step too far), the point about the cut and thrust of transcultural artistic exchange is well made. Whether this show succeeds in capturing the true impact of the Morozov collection is nonetheless a moot point. Ivan arranged his paintings salon style in sumptuous interiors, where they jostled for attention in a dazzling, kaleidoscopic display. Here, by contrast, they plod along in single file on walls of a relentless pale beige, and are at times so widely spaced that they seem lost. Gauguin’s Café at Arles (1888; Pushkin Museum) is entirely friendless on its own wall. Cézanne’s small but exquisitely muscular Bathers (Fig.25), despite punching above its weight at just 26 by 40 centimetres in size, is all but marooned. Most curious of all is the decision to hang Van Gogh’s The prison courtyard (1890; Pushkin Museum) like some religious relic in a room

25. Bathers, by Paul Cézanne. 1892–94. Oil on canvas, 26 by 40 cm. (Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow; exh. Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris).

of its own. This has the predictable if ironic outcome that visitors – by now fatigued as they reach the third of the exhibition’s four floors – are compelled to shuffle along in a queue to pay homage to a painting that by its very nature challenged the adulation of ‘high’ art. Only the recreation of Ivan’s music salon corresponds to the collector’s vision (one that Maurice Denis did not share, writing in 1909 that ‘my large decoration is a little isolated in a big cold room’; p.24). Meanwhile, important aspects of less well-known paintings go unremarked, such as the colonialist attitudes that are evident in the two paintings by Georges Manzana-Pissarro (c.1906; Hermitage; and 1907; Pushkin Museum). Inspired by Gauguin’s work in Tahiti, these images depict naked people of seemingly Polynesian heritage reduced to patterns and shapes as decorative as those of the zebras and peacocks behind them. The Fondation Louis Vuitton may have felt obliged to place these and other paintings in spacious splendour to enable the crowds they correctly anticipated to view them properly: but collectors as ingenious as the Morozovs arguably deserved a more probing and creative display. 1 Reviewed by Markus Lähteenmaki in this Magazine, 159 (2017), pp.62–63. 2 Catalogue: La collection Morozov: Icônes de l’Art modern. Edited by Anne Baldassari. 524 pp. incl. numerous col. + b. & w. ills. (Gallimard and Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, 2021), €49. ISBN 978–2–07–290458–5. English edition: The Morozov Collection: Icons of Modern Art. ISBN 978–2–07–290459–2. 3 N. Semenova: Morozov: The Story of a Family and a Lost Collection, transl. A. Tait, New Haven and London 2020, p.66.

Laura Knight: A Panoramic View MK Gallery, Milton Keynes 9th October 2021– 20th February 2022 by sally beazley-long

In 1965 Laura Knight (1877–1970) was the first female Academician to be honoured with a major retrospective at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, with 260 works displayed. In the introduction to the catalogue, William Russell Flint commented on Knight’s

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‘sheer variety of achievement’,1 but although the exhibition was received enthusiastically in the national press, it was subject to a scathing review in this Magazine, which described her art as ‘facile and sentimental’.2 This view compounded the dwindling interest in her work in the wake of avant-garde Modernism but since feminist initiatives emerged half a century ago to challenge dominant art-historical narratives, the growing focus on women artists has gradually led to renewed recognition of Knight’s significant contribution to twentiethcentury visual culture. Her works are still sought-after by collectors today; however, there remains a tension between Knight’s phenomenal popularity during her lifetime and the relative lack of enduring critical acclaim, which means she is still largely unknown to contemporary audiences. Laura Knight, A Panoramic View is the most extensive display of the artist’s work since the Royal Academy retrospective and aims to reintroduce Knight to the wider public. Organised as part of a trilogy of exhibitions, each with a slightly different focus, this show complements Laura Knight: A Celebration, which was held at the Penlee House Gallery and Museum, Penzance, in 2021, and Laura Knight, which is due to open at Nottingham Castle Museum in March.3 An ambitious presentation of over 160 works from public and private collections, the exhibition under review is dominated by the large colourful oil paintings for which Knight is best known, but it also includes numerous other items that reveal the exceptional scope of her creativity – from watercolours, prints and drawings, to designs for jewellery, costume, chocolate boxes and ceramics. Although a number of these works have rarely been on public display, there are also notable omissions: for example, her posters for the London Underground, the book jackets she designed for a series of novels in the 1920s and her remarkable self-portrait with a nude model, Laura Knight with model, Ella Louise Naper (Self-portrait) (1913; National Portrait Gallery, London).4 As the photographer Hannah Starkey (b.1971) comments in

26. Study of a girl aka Sarah, by Laura Knight. c.1893. Charcoal, 49.5 by 39.4 cm. (© Estate of Dame Laura Knight DBE RA 2021; private collection; courtesy John Mitchell Fine Paintings, London; exh. MK Gallery, Milton Keynes).

her catalogue essay, ‘Pictures within pictures’, this painting is sometimes more familiar than the artist’s name.5 Knight’s prolific œuvre, estimated to comprise over three thousand works spanning more than seventy years, is significant for its versatility and engagement with disparate subjects; however, as a result, it is difficult to track the evolution of an identifiable style. Such diversity thus presents challenges in the curation of a solo exhibition, which usually seeks to give a coherent view of an artist’s achievements. Instead of trying to create cohesion where it does not

exist, the curators of this exhibition, Fay Blanchard and Anthony Spira, have arranged the works thematically by subject-matter and highlighted the divergent nature of Knight’s projects through the use of contrasting colours on the gallery walls, giving the impression of a series of smaller discrete exhibitions. Displayed against a cream background, Knight’s early works include arresting figurative drawings she made in charcoal as a teenager, which demonstrate her precocious talent for handling the details of facial features and hair (Fig.26). Nearby

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27. Installation view of Laura Knight, A Panoramic View at MK Gallery, Milton Keynes, 2021. (Photograph Robert Harris).

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oil paintings, including Dressing the children (1906; Ferens Art Gallery Hull Museums), her first work accepted for display at the Royal Academy, are striking for their confident proportions and accomplished use of light effects in muted tones. Knight’s palette brightened after she moved to the Cornish coast in 1907 but it was a relocation to London in 1919 that precipitated the most dramatic change in her work. In the exhibition space, this is marked by an abrupt transition to crimson walls in the third and largest room in the gallery (Fig.27), where her vibrant ballet and circus images are displayed to theatrical effect. This room includes some of Knight’s most engaging works, which date primarily from the inter-war years, when she was at the height of her celebrity. Many of her subjects are depicted behind the scenes, sometimes in dressing rooms, a space that fascinated Knight for its transformative potential. This subject-matter was equally

compelling for contemporary audiences as the roles of artifice and glamour in the construction of femininities assumed new significance in the Hollywood era (Fig.28). Knight capitalised on the allure of such concepts and the ‘print collection boom’ by making a series of small prints that show women attending to their hair and make-up, of which two are exhibited here: Make-up (1925; private collection) and Gilding the lily (1926; private collection).6 Often overlooked, these images form part of her print œuvre of eighty, mainly monochrome, works, which were for sale in editions of up fifty-five and were aimed at the new market of young fashionable female consumers.7 There is another sharp shift in tone in the fourth room, where some of Knight’s imposing commissions as a Second World War artist are displayed. These are juxtaposed with portraits of racially segregated patients in an American hospital and a series of paintings of gypsies. These much smaller works demonstrate

Knight’s ability to engage sensitively with marginalised groups without succumbing to stereotypes of representation but, hung against cream walls, they are overshadowed by the war paintings, dramatically displayed on a navy background. The momentum created in the central display of theatrical works fades further in the final room. This space is decorated an incongruous pale pink and presents backstage scenes from the 1920s to the 1940s, several commissioned portraits and a series of landscapes of the Malvern area in Worcestershire, where Knight settled in later life. It is an incoherent selection that will either fascinate or bemuse the viewer but is also an apt summary of Knight’s resistance to categorisation by style, subject or medium. To further understand this eclectic artist from a twenty-firstcentury perspective, the catalogue that accompanies the exhibition provides valuable additional material. It includes incisive essays and contributions from contemporary

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Carrie Moyer and Sheila Pepe: Tabernacles for Trying Times Museum of Arts and Design, New York 22nd May 2021–6th February 2022 by anne swartz

artists who provide personal responses to Knight’s work and demonstrate her enduring relevance, particularly in relation to the representation of women. In the catalogue Barbara Walker (b.1964) describes Knight as ‘a complicated artist’ who is ‘a fiendishly difficult figure to pin down’ (pp.146– 47) and in this context the show offers an insightful introduction to Knight and the rich legacy of her production. 1 Pamphlet for Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Dame Laura Knight, DBE, RA, London (Royal Academy of Arts) 1965. 2 K. Roberts: ‘Current and forthcoming exhibitions’ THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 107 (1965), p.483. 3 See E. Knowles, ed.: exh. cat. Laura Knight: A Celebration, Penzance (Penlee House

Gallery and Museum) 2021. Laura Knight is scheduled to be held at Nottingham Castle Museum from 12th March to 12th June 2022. 4 See S. Beazley-Long: ‘Laura Knight on display: book jackets and self-promotion in the 1920s’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 163 (2021), pp.594–603. 5 Catalogue: Laura Knight, A Panoramic View. Edited by Fay Blanchard and Anthony Spira. 216 pp. incl. 119 col. + 45 b. & w. ills. (Bloomsbury, London, 2021), £25. ISBN 978–1–7813–0111–1. 6 A. Stephenson: ‘From conscription to the Depression: the market for modern British art in London, c.1914–1930’ in C. Gould and S. Mesplède, eds: Marketing Art in the British Isles, 1700 to the Present: A Cultural History, Farnham 2012, p.62. 7 A. Stephenson: ‘Strategies of display and modes of consumption in London art galleries in the inter-war years’ in P. Fletcher and A. Helmreich, eds: The Rise of the Modern Art Market in London: 1850–1939, Manchester 2011, pp.57–68.

28. The dressing room at Drury Lane, by Laura Knight. 1922. Oil on canvas, 76.2 by 63.5 cm. (© Estate of Dame Laura Knight DBE RA 2021; private collection; exh. MK Gallery, Milton Keynes).

This two-person exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, speaks to the idea of home as a space that during our pandemicrelated confinement has transcended notions of security to ascend to the realm of the sacred.1 First shown at the Portland Museum of Art in 2020, it presents the individual and collaborative practices of Carrie Moyer (b.1960) and Sheila Pepe (b.1959). This iteration in New York is one of the first exhibitions shown in the city to reflect on past and ongoing experiences of isolation caused by the pandemic.2 At the same time, it signifies the continuity of the ways that feminist makers have resisted the confines and constraints of the patriarchal art world. At the Museum of Art and Design the exhibition is shown in a large U-shaped gallery; the works are ordered according to visual and aesthetic complements, rather than in a chronological or thematic arrangement, and solo works are displayed alongside collaborative ones. This space allows for more intimate contact with the work than the Portland showing, where the exhibition took up the majority of the museum, and several replacements from the artists’ collections for works that could not travel make this show distinctive. Incorporating a wide range of media, it presents decoration, domesticity, craft and patterning as emancipatory tools and positions art as a method of engagement for possibility and freedom. Moyer and Pepe have been an artist couple for more than twentyfive years and their work addresses feminist form and abstraction; the potential for historical material to speak through the present; queer activism; and queer collaboration. It is imbued with a simultaneous sense of anguish and psychic protection. In this exhibition, the artists indirectly address life in an era of multiple global

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crises – from the climate emergency to refugee displacement and persistent gender discrimination, as well as pernicious sexual violence and the exploitation of children. These issues provide a stronger mooring to the lure of the home and studio, and the

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desire for increasing opportunities for communal connectivity. Both artists rely on craft techniques and materials alongside more conventional approaches to drawing and painting; their work combines the oft-lauded cultural material of painting alongside less acknowledged ‘minor’ or decorative crafts. Maine is a key part of the origin story for this couple. Moyer and Pepe first met in 1995 at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Madison, which is a renowned nine-week summer residency programme. Nevertheless, the art on view promotes a dialogue that reaches beyond this specificity of place. A number of the works on show were made during collaborative residencies, including ones at Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, in 2011, the Joan Mitchell Center, New Orleans, in 2016, and the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, Umbria, in 2019. Both artists teach in higher education and highlight their ideas about art actively and in various forums. Although the appearance and forms

29. Opera buffa, by Carrie Moyer and Sheila Pepe. 2019. 26 looseleaf drawings of ink, gouache and acrylic on paper, each 38.1 by 55.9 cm. (Private collection; photograph Jenna Bascom; exh. Museum of Arts and Design, New York).

of their respective works have little in common, they consult each other regularly and work in adjacent studios. One such benefit of this arrangement is that Pepe aids Moyer in the naming of her paintings. Naming too is a crucial aspect of this exhibition, as demonstrated by the title. A tabernacle usually refers to a sacred object, an idea that is recalled in their collaborative work Opera buffa (Fig.29), an altar-like installation composed of twenty-six drawings based on Italian churches and castles. The work was made during their two-month residency in Umbria as a form of call-and-response: a drawing completed by one artist prompted reciprocal action by the other. The title refers to a genre of Italian comic opera and highlights the frivolous, double-edged, yet profound play that underpins the artists’ work. The individual components are arranged in order to evoke an altarpiece – an element that defines a space for veneration – and which, perhaps, can also be read as a tongue-in-cheek

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suggestion that viewers will esteem the work itself. In the conventionally masculine space of the architectonic, rigid frame, the artists insert feminist symbols and puns. At the top of the ‘altar’ installation, a headdresslike adornment resembles a vulva; multiple prehistoric Venus figurines flank the sloping ‘roof ’; and on the left-hand side the inclusion of the letters ‘SPQR’ signals the ancient Roman Republic all-male government, which on the right has been altered to the artists’ initials, ‘SPCM’. Several of these images look up to the bright blue sky via portals or surroundings, giving a hopeful air, and even perhaps recalling the unifying colour of Giotto’s frescos. As part of the radical operations of this show, a cluster of humorous works, hung together on a wall, offer variations on the idea of breaking out of the box – or the constraints

30. Parlor for the people, by Carrie Moyer and Sheila Pepe. 2020. Fabric, batting, rubber, hardware, plexiglass, paracord, poplar, paint, hardware and leather, overall dimensions variable. (Private collection; photograph Jenna Bascom; exh. Museum of Arts and Design, New York). 31. Carries a soft stick, by Carrie Moyer and Sheila Pepe. 2016. Oil paint, wood, cut plastic bag and glitter on canvas, 119.4 by 111.7 by 7.6 cm. (Private collection; exh. Museum of Arts and Design, New York).

of the canvas. Moyer and Pepe have labelled the action of producing these collaborative works as ‘play time’ (p.46), the largest of which is Carries a soft stick (Fig.31), a multimedia work made of oil paint, wood, a cut plastic bag and glitter on canvas. The work resembles a polygonal painting with an adjacent fabricwrapped peg leg. Some of the painted imagery transitions into tangible form, for example, a painted white circle extends into white fabric at the left-hand edge of the canvas. The artists passed such works back and forth in the manner of the Surrealist exquisite corpse. The adjacent five, smaller-scale works, Yvette (2021), Dandy’s drogress (2021), Lardy-dardy (2011), Our hump (2011), and Freeze pops on the couch (2011), were made during their Saratoga Springs residency, and they share a common formal feature: they all break out of the box. These pieces demystify the artistic process; and complicate the ideal notion that the art object can contain everything. When boundaries became constraints, feminist makers figured ways around them: augmentation, accretion, obsession and embellishment all became ways for such artists to move beyond formally rigid limitations. The idea of the tabernacle also refers to a private, intimate and shared space, such as the home. The focal point of the exhibition is the installation work Parlor for the people (Fig.30). This ‘communal space’,

described by the artists as a ‘big tent’ (p.52), comprises custom-made stools, pillows and fabrics, rugs and chairs together with a series of collaborative webbed sculptures and cloud-like forms, which hang from the ceiling. The particular shape of folding chair the artists have used here – known as X-chairs or Savonarola chairs – originate in medieval Italy and are of particular interest to Pepe because of her Italian heritage and interest in Italian art history. Intended as a gathering space, this work speaks to resistance in the museum to testing the rules or categories of different media. Furthermore, presenting a functional seating area that can be used by visitors as an art installation redefines what occurs in the museum space; it activates the viewing experience, allowing it to include conversation between visitors, who are able to gaze upon, and exist within, the work while engaging in dialogue. Although Moyer and Pepe maintain regular practices as individual artists, this exhibition reveals the potent possibilities when they ally themselves creatively. With the range of captivating prospects set forth here, anticipation builds for their future cooperative efforts. 1 Catalogue: Carrie Moyer and Sheila Pape: Tabernacles for Trying Times. By Jamie DeSimone et al. 89 pp. incl. 50 col. ills. (Portland Museum of Art, Portland, 2020), $29.99. ISBN 978–0–916857–64–6. 2 The exhibition in Portland was scheduled for 7th February–7th June 2020 but closed early because of the pandemic.

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Books A reconsideration of Rembrandt’s landscape drawings rejects the recent radical reduction of works attributed to him by Otto Benesch Rembrandt: Landschaftszeichnungen / Landscape Drawings By Achim Gnann. 368 pp. incl. 311 col. ills. (Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg, 2021), €79. ISBN 978–3–7319–0962–0. by christopher white

When Otto Benesch’s six volumes cataloguing all Rembrandt’s drawings were published between 1954 and 1957, they were received with a mixture of praise for the successful execution of a Herculean task and criticism that he had been too generous in what he accepted as being by the master.1 At the time, works in dispute may have amounted to as much as ten per cent, but this was nothing compared to the wholesale reduction of Benesch’s list carried out by Peter Schatborn in his book on the drawings, which has reduced the supposed œuvre by almost exactly one half, from approximately 1,390 sheets to no more than 700.2 A number of other scholars, such as Martin Royalton-Kisch and Holm Bevers, have also been actively diminishing Benesch’s list.3 Perhaps the time has come to ask whether some or indeed much of the baby has been thrown out with the bathwater.

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Achim Gnann, a curator at the Albertina, Vienna, and a scholar more generally associated with Italian art than with Rembrandt, clearly thinks it has. In his beautifully illustrated book, with German and English text printed side by side, he argues his case. It must be said that with so many drawings and so many varying opinions under discussion, the absence of both an index and a concordance is regrettable, making it difficult for factually minded scholars to tot up the score. Gnann’s position is that Benesch’s list of just over 250 landscapes, reduced by nearly a half by Schatborn, should be augmented to around 260 accepted drawings; that is to say he virtually accepts all of Benesch’s attributions and adds some new ones, such as the obviously genuine Kostverloren House (Kupferstichkabinett, Dresden). It is good to learn from the book that the lively debate that apparently took place between Schatborn and Gnann was entirely amicable. Gnann’s disagreements with Schatborn become apparent early in the volume, and 1. Windsor Castle, by Rembrandt van Rijn. 1640. Pen and brown ink with wash on blue paper, 18.3 by 29.7 cm. (Albertina, Vienna).

it is unfortunate that Schatborn was given no opportunity to explain why he rejects the attribution of particular drawings. Among the examples are the four English views copied from some unknown source. Schatborn accepts Windsor Castle (Fig.1) and St Alban’s Cathedral (both Albertina, Vienna), which are signed and dated 1640, but not the two views of London with St Paul’s Cathedral (Albertina and Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin). Gnann convincingly argues that stylistically they hang together and are therefore by one hand, which he believes is that of Rembrandt. Other examples of drawings omitted by Schatborn but accepted by Gnann include Willow tree stump (Biblioteca Reale, Turin), which is thematically close to the etching of St Jerome writing in a landscape, dated 1648; River landscape with a man bathing (Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin), sometimes argued to be by Constantijn van Renesse on account of its relationship with a drawing by the latter; and the late impressionistic Pesthuis, Amsterdam (whereabouts unknown). This reviewer finds Gnann’s arguments for restoring these works to Rembrandt convincing. Gnann’s revision of Rembrandt’s œuvre as presented by Schatborn is not all one way, since A landscape with a bear (Fondation Custodia, Paris), a drawing after Titian, which has been accepted – even by Schatborn – as by Rembrandt from the time it was first published by this reviewer,4 is here rejected. In this instance, I do not accept Gnann’s arguments, but he might well retort, ‘he would say that, wouldn’t he?’. In his act of revisionism, Gnann has also turned his attention to the question of dating, offering some new solutions to this old problem as presented by Benesch and other scholars. For example, he argues that the dating to 1648–50 by Benesch of three stylistically cohesive drawings, all executed in an unusually free manner, namely Landscape with a drawbridge (Albertina), Tree-lined road leading to a farmhouse (Fondation Custodia) and Landscape with farmhouse with trees (Kupferstichkabinett), is too late and they should be placed at the beginning of the decade. But Gnann’s book is much more than an exercise in connoisseurship, since he is offering an in-depth study of Rembrandt’s practice of landscape, largely based on the drawings but also, where relevant, including related etchings and the occasional painting. In his discussion of his approach to the subject he commends Rudolf Steiner’s theory of the seven-year cycles that occur

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in human development as expounded by the late Konrad Oberhuber, who applied it to the work of Raphael. Gnann’s study takes off from the work of previous scholars, notably Cynthia Schneider’s exhibition of Rembrandt’s landscapes in Washington in 1990 and, more specifically, the revision proposed in the volume edited by Boudewijn Bakker of Frits Lugt’s seminal study of Rembrandt’s walks in and around Amsterdam.5 The book is divided into twenty short chapters covering a wide range of topics, including drawings of identifiable localities, such as the English views, Rembrandt’s two supposed journeys to Utrecht and Gelderland and views of Amsterdam and Diemen, which must have been the artist’s favourite village. Some of the chapters examine individual works, such as Cottage near the entrance to a wood (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), Boathouse (Lubomirski Princes Museum, Wroclaw) and the drawings connected with the drypoint The clump of trees. Finally, there are discussions of more general themes, such as ‘A new approach to landscape in drawings and etchings’, ‘Light and air’ and ‘Painterly abstractions’. Each drawing discussed is meticulously subjected to a concentrated analysis according to subject, style, date and technique, requiring the reader’s full attention, particularly when, as is often the case, the illustration is on another page. The main text is supplemented by nearly five hundred often discursive footnotes. By the end of the book, one has the sense that one knows exactly what engaged the artist in each instance and how he achieved his result. The author’s tone is didactic and his analysis precise; there is nothing vague about his conclusions. Some Rembrandt scholars may be tempted to accuse Gnann of trying to turn the clock back, but to this reviewer he has presented a convincing image of an artistic personality with an œuvre that coheres. 1 O. Benesch: The Drawings of Rembrandt, London and New York, 1954–57. 2 P. Schatborn and E. Hinterding: Rembrandt: The Complete Drawings and Etchings, Cologne 2019, reviewed by Christopher Brown in this Magazine, 162 (2020), pp.630–31. 3 See, for example, M. Royalton-Kisch: The Drawings of Rembrandt: A Revision of Otto Benesch’s Catalogue Raisonné, available at https://rembrandtcatalogue.net/, accessed 4th January 2022; and H. Bevers: Rembrandt: Die Zeichnungen im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett: Kritischer Katalog, Berlin 2006. 4 C. White: ‘A Rembrandt copy after a Titian landscape’, Master Drawings 13 (1975), pp.375–79. 5 See C.P. Schneider: exh. cat. Rembrandt’s Landscapes: Drawings and Prints, Washington (National Gallery of Art) 1990; and B. Bakker, ed.: Landscapes of Rembrandt: His Favourite Walks, Bussum 1998.

Treasury, Memory, Nature: Church Objects in the Middle Ages By Philippe Cordez. 284 pp. incl. 75 col. ills. (Harvey Miller, London and Turnhout, 2020), £76.50. ISBN 978–1–912554–61–4. by tom nickson

In the fifteenth century visitors to Bayeux Cathedral could marvel not only at the famous embroidery, displayed in the nave on the Feast of the Holy Relics, but also at an extraordinary number of other precious textiles, relics and metalwork items such as were once found in church treasuries across Latin Christendom. An inventory of 1476, based partly on one made in the 1330s, records these items together with over thirty books chained to different parts of the cathedral interior and an unusually wide-ranging collection of wonders. These included a rock crystal reliquary in the form of a column, topped with coral; two narwhal tusks, believed to be unicorn horns; and an inscribed ivory casket, still in the cathedral today, which was possibly made in Muslim Toledo. Displayed around the high altar were five oliphants, carved from elephant ivory; three other horns, said to be griffins’ claws; an ostrich egg; and what the inventory calls a ‘whale’s tooth’, perhaps a walrus tusk carved to resemble a fish. These and other treasures have long fascinated antiquaries and art historians, but their significance is for the first time fully explored in this book by Philippe Cordez, the English version of the author’s PhD thesis, completed in 2010 at the Humboldt University, Berlin, and the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris (EHESS), and already published in German and French in 2015 and 2016 respectively. A brisk introduction to the etymology and historiography of church ‘objects’ is followed in chapter 1 by a detailed consideration of ideas of ‘treasure’ from late Antiquity onwards. Cordez shows how St Ambrose and St Augustine expanded the notion of spiritual treasure found in St Matthew’s Gospel, and how under Charlemagne the modern sense of church treasures was first fully established. From the early twelfth century, relics and treasures found a new use, dispatched on tours to raise funds for building campaigns. Ironically, however, the near-contemporaneous establishment of the opus – the financially independent institution responsible for construction and the provision and maintenance of many church goods – to some extent sidelined the custodes responsible for church treasures. A final section demonstrates

2. Ostrich egg reliquary. Probably second half of the 13th century. Gilt silver, precious stones, enamel and ostrich egg, height 33.5 cm. (Domschatz Halberstadt; © Landesamt für Demkmalpflege und Archäologie SachsenAnhalt; photograph Juraj Lipták).

how the ‘treasury of merit’ was developed by scholastics in the 1230s and underpinned the indulgence inflation of the later Middle Ages. Donors were commonly recorded in inventories, and in his second chapter Cordez explores connections between objects and memory. He discusses the earliest relic lists, demonstrating their relationship to prayers and litanies that itemised different categories of saints and their dependence on the small labels identifying the saints that were commonly attached to relics. Relics could also be enumerated in the liturgy, as in the sequences assembled for the Sainte-Chapelle, Paris, in the 1250s, or made more publicly visible, as with the names of saints inscribed on the back of the Hildesheim portable altar (now in the British Museum, London), or the large painted inscriptions on the apsidal piers of the abbey church of Veruela, eighty kilometres west of Zaragoza. Cordez offers three detailed case studies of the intertwined relationships

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between objects, memory and politics: St Peter’s staff, supposedly taken to Cologne cathedral in the tenth century but also claimed by Metz, Trier and elsewhere; Christ’s foreskin, preserved at the abbey of Charroux in western France, which prompted an extended debate on Christological relics from the late eleventh century onwards; and chess pieces, notably the rock crystal pieces set into the pulpit at Aachen in the early eleventh century and the ivory examples kept at the abbey of Saint-Denis and Reims Cathedral. Perhaps the most groundbreaking chapter is the last, which underlines the global nature of medieval treasuries. They included coconuts (first recorded in Angers in 1255 as a ‘nut of India’) repurposed as chalices and reliquaries, nautilus shells from south-east Asia, ostrich eggs (possibly from the Arabian ostrich, extinct by the 1940s) (Fig.2) and twisting nautilus teeth, which from the 1380s onwards gained a reputation in Latin Christendom for counteracting poison. The purported remains of giants, dragons, griffins and crocodiles were proudly shown to visitors as mirabilia, but from the sixteenth century onwards were increasingly recognised as rare specimens of naturalia and can sometimes be identified as whale bones, the fossilised bills of swordfish or the horns of European bison or Alpine ibex. Many such examples are represented in the book’s sumptuous illustrations. Many readers will appreciate Cordez’s deep mining of French and German sources and scholarship but may be frustrated by the book’s claims to speak for all of Latin Christendom and the lack of engagement with recent work by such authors as Erik Inglis, Joseph Ackley and Mary Carruthers.1 Notwithstanding these quibbles, the book provides an innovative, wide-ranging and important account of the content and conception of medieval church treasuries. It opens new opportunities to reassess, for example, early inventories from Spanish churches published in Manuel Gómez-

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Moreno’s Iglesias mozárabes (1919); the detailed records of church goods from medieval Iceland printed in the Diplomatarium Islandicum series; the cosmopolitan collecting habits of Charles IV of Bohemia or the canons of San Isidoro, León; or, indeed, scholarly interest in treasury objects evident in publications by the Society of Antiquaries, London, in the eighteenth century or by A.W.N. Pugin in the nineteenth. That enquiry might even be carried further to consider early collecting practices in Jewish contexts (one thinks of the proud record of Samuel HaLevi’s donations to the Tránsito synagogue in Toledo, inspired by biblical descriptions of Solomon’s Temple) or the collections of objects in the Kabaa, Mecca, or the Fatimid royal treasury. Cordez’s book reminds readers of the scale of what has been lost, but also causes us to look again and wonder anew. That is an achievement by any standards. 1 See E. Inglis: ‘Expertise, artifacts, and time in the 1534 inventory of the St-Denis Treasury’, Art Bulletin 98 (2016), pp.14–42; J.S. Ackley: ‘Reapproaching the Western medieval church treasury inventory, c.800–1250’, Journal of Art Historiography 11 (2014), available at https://arthistoriography. files.wordpress.com/2014/11/ackley.pdf, accessed 13th January 2022; and M. Carruthers: The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture, Cambridge 2008, esp.pp.37–55.

Die Bronze, der Tod und die Erinnerung. Das Grabmal des Wolfhard von Roth im Augsburger Dom Edited by Gerhard Lutz and Rebecca Müller. 256 pp. incl. 113 col. + b. & w. ills. (Dietmar Klinger Verlag, Passau, 2020), €29.90. ISBN 978–3–86328–174–8. by paul williamson

The bronze tomb slab of Bishop Wolfhard von Roth (reg.1288–1302) in Augsburg Cathedral (Fig.3) is remarkable on several counts. Thought to have been made shortly after his death in 1302, the tomb shows the bishop lying on a fringed pall with full episcopal vestments and crozier, his gloved hands resting on his stomach, with a long inscription running along the four sides of the slab, giving the date of the bishop’s demise. Unusually for a gisant of this date, the figure is shown naturalistically, as if laid out in death, his head resting on a pillow, with the draperies of his robes falling to the sides, rather than represented more conventionally for the time, as a standing figure placed in the horizontal. Furthermore, the markedly gaunt and sunken face of the bishop – more

cadaverous and elongated than normal – is shown with closed eyes. These features alone would make the slab worthy of study, but there is much more to it than that, as the book under review makes clear. Alongside its striking stylistic and formal characteristics, the tomb slab is of outstanding significance as a signed work, not just by one artist but by two. At the foot of the effigy, on the return of the bishop’s suppedaneum, is an extraordinary if short leonine hexameter inscription ‘otto me cera fecit cunratque per era’ (‘Otto made me of wax and Conrad of bronze’). Otto and Conrad may therefore be viewed as Swabian counterparts to their English contemporaries, the sculptor Alexander of Abingdon and the goldsmith and founder William Torel, who supplied wax models and cast large-scale bronze effigies respectively. For the English craftsmen we have the royal accounts to flesh out their contributions; the enigmatic Otto and Conrad, however, appear to emerge from obscurity – this is frustrating, because because palpably unlikely – and little else is left by which they may be judged. Although the contributors to this book have not been able to identify any additional works by Otto and Conrad – even the bronze bell of 1299 of St Moritz, also in Augsburg and signed by a ‘Magister Cunr(adus)’ does not appear to be the work of the same Conrad – they have provided us with a rich and valuable handbook covering every aspect of the tomb slab, its making and context. Twelve chapters have been devoted to the various strands. Following a block of fifteen good colour illustrations of the slab, the volume begins with an essay by Florian Dorn and Thomas Krüger that provides a short biography of Wolfhard, seen through the lens of his documents and seals while Bishop of Augsburg. There follow three essays on the tomb and the liturgy by Jürgen Bärsch, Jens Brückner and Dorothea Diemer, the last two discussing the original location (but with no consensus) and later positions of Wolfhard’s tomb in the cathedral before it was moved to its present resting place in the chapel of St Konrad in the eastern choir. Two technical essays on the composition of the alloy and the casting technique by Björn Seewald and Martin Mach, both of the laboratory of the Bayerisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege, Munich, complement a detailed study of the majuscule inscriptions by Franz-Albrecht Bornschlegel. The second half of the volume is given over to art-historical issues, starting with two stimulating essays on the background

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and wider context of Wolfhard’s tomb slab by Diemer and Gerhard Lutz, the latter introducing some compelling comparisons with Italian effigies, most tellingly that of Pope Clement IV (d.1268) in Viterbo. Dominic Olariu concentrates on Wolfhard’s face and notions of recumbency, and succeeds in demolishing the suggestion put forward by Erwin Panofsky in his influential Tomb Sculpture (1964) and by other earlier authorities that it was modelled with the aid of a death mask. The book concludes with two essays: a characteristically thorough and enlightening one by Joanna Olchawa, who is rapidly inheriting the mantle of doyenne of medieval bronze studies from Ursula Mende, with 3. The tomb slab of Bishop Wolfhard von Roth (d.1302), signed by Otto and Conrad. Early 14th century. Bronze, 227 by 88 cm. (Augsburg Cathedral).

concise observations on the material and techniques of the German and French bronze tomb slabs that pre-date that in Augsburg; and another by Rebecca Müller on artists’ signatures elsewhere and their relevance to the names on the Wolfhard slab. With the publication of this volume, which is both focused and wide-ranging, the tomb slab of Wolfhard von Roth has been transformed from a neglected ‘Sleeping Beauty’ of medieval art history (to borrow the words of Olariu) into a celebrity. The reviving kiss bestowed upon this strange and unique sculpture by the editors and authors is emphatically deserved. The publishers could have been forgiven for assuming that a relatively arcane subject would appeal only to a small audience and justified a high price; they are to be commended, therefore, for producing a handsome, clearly laid-out paperback at a reasonable price in the hope that it will attract a wider readership, as it surely warrants.

Watermarks: Leonardo da Vinci and the Mastery of Nature By Leslie A. Geddes. 256 pp. incl. 124 col. + 14 b. & w. ills. (Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ and Oxford, 2020), £48. ISBN 978–0–691–19269–7. by francis ames-lewis

A well-known drawing by Leonardo da Vinci in the Royal Library, Windsor Castle (Fig.4) shows an old man seated in profile, his head supported on his left hand, contemplatively looking across at a series of studies of water flowing past rectangular obstacles placed in the stream’s path. The sheet comes from a disassembled notebook, so Leonardo would not have drawn, or ever have seen or made any connection between, the two halves of the sheet together. Nevertheless, serendipity has provided us with a bipartite image that is vividly suggestive of Leonardo’s lifelong preoccupation with water and the dynamics of water flow. It is moreover a celebrated example of Leonardo’s habit of analysing a natural phenomenon through complementary drawings and text as well as of his use of analogy. In his accompanying explication, he compares the movements of the water with those of hair ‘which has two motions, of which one depends on the weight of the hair, the other on the direction of the curls’. Although she makes no comment on the pensive, Leonardo-like figure, Leslie

Geddes reproduces this sheet as an example of the difficulties of visually analysing and describing flowing water because of ‘its speed, transparency, and lack of differentiation or fixity’ (p.101). This is an ambitious book – some might say over-ambitious – partly because of these perceptual problems, but also because Geddes seeks to examine Leonardo’s explorations of water within the much broader context of the ‘growing scholarly interest in the environmental humanities [. . .] the complex interconnection of man and the natural world’ (p.3): it is a truism that, as she says, ‘water is a requirement for life’ (p.197). The danger inherent in her praiseworthy ambition is that her argument may seem to run out of control, just as the unconstrained forces of water itself, in the form of storms, hurricanes and floods, can only too easily break through human systems designed to regulate and harness it. The book is divided into two parts, ‘Water Tamed’, and ‘Water Unleashed’. In the first part, Geddes ‘analyzes the role of engineering – and drawing as the primary mechanism for design – in controlling water’ (p.11). She discusses in close, revealing detail a series of studies in which Leonardo considered the designs of mechanisms for harnessing waterpower. These include Archimedean screws to raise water from rivers or streams, to be used for irrigation or for driving machines like watermills; dredging equipment, vital for keeping channels of navigation clear and easily negotiable; and pumps and other similar machines. Geddes observes and carefully records how Leonardo repetitively drew variants of these mechanisms, each design stimulating the next; and she analyses how he progressed from right to left across his sheets of paper, filling in spaces between his diagrams with complementary textual descriptions and explanations. She contrasts this process with the more formal design techniques of the Sienese artist-engineer Francesco di Giorgio Martini, whose book of civil engineering designs Leonardo owned, emphasising the fertility of Leonardo’s inventive mind and of the graphic conventions that he developed. The second part, ‘Water Unleashed’, opens with an examination of Leonardo’s studies of the dynamics of waterflow. Geddes rightly observes that ‘[w]ater’s fleeting whirls and eddies are difficult to perceive, and hydrological patterns of movement challenged the artist’s powers of graphic abstraction’ (p.97). In another impressively inventive Royal Library sheet (c.1510–12; RL12660v), Leonardo had earlier

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encountered the representational problem of how graphically to describe the flow of water around obstacles, finding increasingly sophisticated ways of tracking the curling movements of the stream. Below this is an exceptionally complex study of water falling through a culvert into a pool below. Here Leonardo developed new ways of describing the foamy bubbles generated by the stream’s plunging movement and created new graphic conventions of helical swirls and twists by which his pen lines explored ripples fanning out across the water surface. This subtle and elaborate study of patterns of water flow that Leonardo both perceived and intuited perhaps deserves lengthier consideration than Geddes gives it, if only because it foreshadows his extraordinarily imaginative and inventive series of ‘Deluge’ drawings. These show Leonardo’s poetic imagination at its most fully developed towards the very end of his life and well deserve the rich and appreciative discussion they provoke in this book. The notion of ‘water unleashed’ neatly reflects the sense that Leonardo’s later thought and imagination were untrammelled, no longer controlled by pictorial or graphic orthodoxies. As in part one, Geddes’s selection of material for consideration echoes the breadth and fertility of Leonardo’s thinking. But responding to the artist’s difficulty in guiding the flow of his creative inventiveness along pathways that develop logically encourages her to develop lines of enquiry that sometimes lose touch with her principal areas of exploration and generate

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some structural looseness in her text. As noted above, part 1 is relatively compact and taut in organisation, justifiably opening up into relevant fields of analysis of Leonardo’s wide-ranging activity, such as his canal engineering and thence also his map-making. But already Geddes digresses, for example in considering Leonardo’s preoccupation with the patterns of knots, which culminated in his decoration of the Sala delle Asse, in Castello Sforzesco, Milan, for which water does not appear to have much relevance. In part 2 the discussion becomes more markedly discursive, responding as it does to Geddes’s wish to expand the context of Leonardo’s thinking about water by integrating it within the ‘environmental humanities’. She explores the role of the elemental force of dynamically flowing water in the evolution of landscape and in geological change through close analysis of Leonardo’s studies of rock formations. Diverting yet further beyond water, she considers Leonardo’s textual and graphic investigations of fire and smoke, and his experiments on hearing and the sense of sound. Covering such increasingly broad fields of exploration results in relatively thinly spread analysis; but one cannot help admiring how, through her own fertile processes of thought and analogy, Geddes mirrors the astonishing liveliness of Leonardo’s creative imagination. 4. Studies of water, and a seated old man, by Leonardo da Vinci. c.1512–13. Pen and ink on paper, 15.2 by 21.3 cm. (Royal Library, Windsor Castle, RL 12579r).

Painting in Stone: Architecture and the Poetics of Marble from Antiquity to the Enlightenment By Fabio Barry. 448 pp. incl. 215 col. + 117 b. & w. ills. (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2020), £30. ISBN 978–0–300–24817–3. by maryl b. gensheimer

This book narrates a history of stone; it is ‘a biography of a material’ (p.1) in examples spanning the fourth millennium BC through to the eighteenth century. Previous studies have stressed marbles’ historical role as expressions of conspicuous consumption, social prestige or political power.1 Barry, however, interprets marble as an artistic medium rather than a luxury commodity, the material qualities of which communicated a spectrum of associations to, and elicited a range of responses from, patrons and viewers. The first chapter sets the stage, tracing the development of the use – or simulated appearance – of coloured stones in the art and architecture of the ancient Near East, from Egyptian faience to Mesopotamian glazed brick. This brief history introduces a key theme: coloured stones (or their likeness) were desired for their radiance, which in both religious and secular contexts denoted symbolically and metonymically the divine aura of gods or monarchs. Chapter 2 examines marble architecture and sculpture in the Greek and Roman worlds, in which ‘white’ signified light and radiance. Thus, for marble temples, such as the Parthenon in Athens (447–432 BC), and sculpture, such as the Via Labicana Augustus (early 1st century; Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome), Barry argues that their materials were important because luminous white marbles seemed to absorb a divine essence. It was the stones’ shimmering qualities that made white marble so desired in early periods and, later, essential for premier buildings and sculpture. In the third chapter Barry explores the enduring premodern view that all materials are a compound of the four elements (earth, fire, air and water). The continuing belief that marbles are water-based and, in a way, images of their own elements – the generative earth and its watery arteries supposedly creating marbles’ veined composition – guides Barry’s discussion of sculpture and architecture from Hellenistic Alexandria to imperial Rome. The idea that marbles were prized for the natural artistry of their markings also underlies the discussion of fresco in chapter 4. Barry

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stresses that the fresco technique was first invented and later used widely in Minoan, Greek and Roman contexts to recall – and sometimes elaborate upon – the veining of genuine coloured stone. The discussion of domestic decoration in chapter 4 is expanded on in the following chapter, in which Barry reviews the use of, and rationale for, marble and other stones in palaces and palatial homes. Barry suggests that the palace in Ptolemaic Alexandria (330–323 BC) set a standard for polychrome marble architecture against which Augustus may have measured himself following his annexation of Egypt in 31 BC, and which many Romans emulated in the centuries following. Through chronologically later examples, such as the reception hall in a house at Ostia (c.AD 394), Barry argues for a direct link between Alexandrine court culture and later Roman architecture, where luminous marbles created artful interiors that shone with their own light. To build on the idea of incandescent spaces, the following three chapters examine early church interiors. Barry explicates the theological significance of churches created with a seemingly innate radiance – of marbles and their counterfeits in paint, plaster and glass used because of their miraculous, divine veining. Such themes climax with an analysis of the Hagia Sophia, Istanbul (532–37), which probes Byzantine constructs of divine light as manifested through the gold mosaic and the book-matched marble revetment. Hagia Sophia’s Proconnesian flagstone flooring, which resembles a rippling sea, reprises the idea – as set out in chapter 3 – that marbles were of watery origin and is interpreted therefore in terms of its metaphysical significance as cosmic waters. Barry then leaps to quattrocento painting to discuss marbles’ veining as abstracted materialisations of, for example, the Passion or Annunciation. He then departs from painting to investigate coloured marbles in Renaissance chapels and church façades, where they appear with the greatest concentration in Venice, and explores marble (real and imitation) in palatial homes in Renaissance Italy. Again, Barry notes that a large part of marbles’ appeal lay in their veining, which was understood to translate astral rays into gemlike displays of colour and celestial pattern. The final chapter highlights Gianlorenzo Bernini’s work in Rome, particularly the Cornaro Chapel in S. Maria delle Vittoria (1647–52) and S. Andrea al Quirinale (1658–71).

Barry elucidates once more coloured stones’ potential to draw connections to divine light as it is sublimated into marbles and their veining, and as Bernini’s tableaux created sfumato progressions from earth to ether. This is an ambitious book. Barry’s multidisciplinary approach and geographical and chronological scope draws insightful connections between, for example, the Judaeo-Christian vision of a gemlike Heavenly Jerusalem and the multicoloured ziggurats of the neo-Babylonian period (626– 539 BC). Barry’s wide lens, however, does introduce some tangents, such as the analysis in chapter 3 of works constructed from a single stone – ex uno lapide – which, although interesting, deviates from the chapter’s overall focus on beliefs about the generation of stones. Yet given its rich discussion, artful prose and abundant illustrations, Painting in Stone makes a distinctive contribution to art and architectural history. This is a book in which readers will find food for thought as they consider coloured stones as an artistic medium in their own right, one with the potential to express myriad cultural, social and religious meanings. 1 See, for example, M. de Nuccio and L. Ungaro, eds.: I marmi colorati della Roma imperiale, Venice 2002.

Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768): Ein Europäisches Rezeptionsphänomen / Fenomeno Europeo della Ricezione Edited by Ortwin Dally, Maria Gazzetti and Arnold Nesselrath. 200 pp. incl. 39 col. + 2 b. & w. ills. (Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg, 2021), €42. ISBN 978–3–7319–1115–9. by clare hornsby

The response to the work of the groundbreaking historian of art Johann Joachim Winckelmann began across Europe during his lifetime (1717–68) but was crystallised and heightened by his murder; for example, shortly after that tragic event, Goethe, with poetic certainty, wrote that Winckelmann ‘was marked by destiny’. The untangling of the meaning and importance of the work from the almost mythical status his writings rapidly achieved – and have to a large extent maintained – in German literature is assisted by the publication of this volume. The introduction points out that as Rome was the centre of Winckelmann’s life and studies, it was therefore the ideal place

for conferences and exhibitions to mark his double anniversary in 2017 and 2018. This volume on the European reception of his writings is the result of those initiatives. The essays, primarily in German with some in Italian and two in English, are all by well-known Winckelmann scholars. Surveys of his reception in the German-speaking countries, in Italy, France, Bohemia, the Habsburg Empire, Spain, Poland, Russia, the Netherlands and Great Britain are preceded by an introduction by the editors and a fundamental contribution on Winckelmann’s scholarly and intellectual formation by Marcello Barbanera. The book concludes with an illuminating theoretical essay by the French scholar Elisabeth Décultot and a summary of the varied receptions of Winckelmann and his importance in the present day by Eric Moormann, written in Italian; Moormann has also contributed a short survey in English on the response in the Netherlands. By asking what was new about Winckelmann’s approach, Barbanera’s essay acts as a thought experiment enabling him to identify both the origins of the writer’s intellectual formation in earlier historiography, philosophy and aesthetics and the way he exploited a variety of European scholarly traditions, including German philology, the French Encyclopédie and English aesthetics. Barbanera notes the importance of Winckelmann’s first book, Gedanken über die Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in der Malerei und Bildhauerkunst (Thoughts on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and Sculpture; 1755), written before he arrived in Rome, in which the clarity of his thought regarding the absolute pre-eminence of Greece was established, deriving from his deep immersion in Classical texts and his historiographical formation in Dresden. It is inevitable that many of the contributions discuss the translations of Winckelmann’s works, which, other than in France, where unauthorised versions appeared as soon as 1766, came surprisingly late. Of particular interest is the contribution by Dorota Folga Januszewska on the Polish reception of Winckelmann, which focuses on the fascinating reworking, translation and publication by Count Stanisław Potocki of Winckelmann’s most important book, Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums (History of the Art of Antiquity; 1764). Potocki’s The Polish Winckelmann, the fruit of many years’ work, appeared in 1815 and the museum he created in Wilanów, based on Winckelmann’s

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writings and a collection of antiquities, turned his adoration of the master’s work into a national educational project. In an excellent contribution, Maria Fancelli, co-editor of the complete edition of Winckelmann’s letters in Italian – a huge enterprise – thoroughly analyses the history of the response to him and his writings in Italy, from the translations by the antiquary and museum director Carlo Fea (1753–1836) up to the present day. Fascinating early piecemeal translations – the descriptions of the Belvedere Torso and other canonical statues (taken from Beschreibung des Torso im Belvedere zu Rom of 1759 and from Geschichte der Kunst) – were published in London by the artist Henry Fuseli in 1765 and 1768 in the journal Universal Museum, as recounted in the essay on Winckelmann’s reception in Britain by Katherine Harloe. Somewhat misleading in this contribution is the emphasis given to a connection between Winckelmann’s thought and the study of buildings in Greece by the British architects James Stuart and Nicholas Revett during their travels there in 1751–53. Although this was commented on by Winckelmann in his writings on architecture, their empirical approach is not connected in spirit to his aesthetic concerns. Additionally, there is a digression relating to the Society of Dilettanti – needlessly emphasised by an illustration of William Hogarth’s portrait of one of its founding members, Francis Dashwood as a monk blasphemously ‘at his devotions’ before an image of a sprawled Venus (c.1733–39; private collection) – that is quite unconnected to the impact of Winckelmann’s work on the educated elites and scholarly societies of England. Décultot’s contribution is the climax of the volume. It has been translated into Italian, surely unnecessarily, given that the purpose of this book is to highlight the pan-European nature of Winckelmann’s intellectual heritage and scholarly ambitions. It is a shame that French is not one of the languages of the volume; the only occasions on which it appears are in quotations. Décultot answers the question posed by Barbanera in the first essay by arguing that Winckelmann’s principal innovation was the identification of the primacy of style-asevolution as the moving force of the narrative of art history. As she says, Winckelmann, although he never travelled there, lived in Greece in his mind; his writings were the outward manifestation of his continual meditation on the role Greek art played in artistic developments within every other 218

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society. This excellent volume, which is particularly strong on the responses during the lifetime of Winckelmann and up to the end of the eighteenth century, will be an essential part of the library of anyone interested in the reception of ancient art.

Gemalte Kunstgeschichte: Bildgenealogien in der Malerei um 1800 By Léa Kuhn. 333 pp. incl. 24 col. + 54 b. & w. ills. (Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Paderborn, 2020), €69. ISBN 978–3–7705–6453–8. by robert skwirblies

It is generally agreed that around 1800 the foundations of the modern discipline of art history were laid in written debates and commentaries. In this book, based on her PhD thesis submitted to Munich University in 2018, Léa Kuhn asks whether and, if so, how art history was also ‘made’ with images and investigates the existence of conceptual tools and art-historical methods that were adapted to painting or developed in competition with it. Thus, Kuhn examines pictorial genealogies, that is to say a history of artistic forms that has its own laws and can be distinguished from the historical or iconographical approach of art-historical writing. As a key example she presents an engraving after Jean-Baptiste Descamps (1715–91), which provided the frontispiece to his Lives of Flemish, German and Netherlandish painters, first published in 1753. It depicts a seated personification of Pictura, who is writing and painting at the same time. For Kuhn, this illustrates her core argument: the effort of painters to ‘steer the reception of their own work – in the long term’ (p.xvii) not (only) in the form of written but also pictorial statements. Following Caroline van Eck’s and Alfred Gell’s theory of the agency of works of art, the author considers that the works themselves stimulated art-historical debates. The book is organised into three main chapters, which consist of case studies intended to demonstrate the author’s thesis, followed by a short conclusion. The first chapter is devoted to a fulllength double portrait (Fig.5), which shows the artist Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein (1751–1829) and his brother, Heinrich Jacob (1760–1803). Once considered a collaborative work of the two brothers, the painting is now recognised as a work by Wilhelm from 1782, painted when the brothers were in Zurich

together, after Wilhelm had been to Rome for about a year. It depicts them in conversation in their studio; Wilhelm points to his brother and to the easel beyond, on which an unfinished painting is propped up, showing the well-known story of the philosopher Diogenes carrying his lamp looking for a man; behind on the wall are three portrait drawings of scholars and poets of the Enlightenment in Zurich, representing the artist’s ‘intellectual fathers’ (p.39). According to Kuhn, the painting serves to assert Wilhelm’s conception of himself as an artist and to underline his independence not only of his artist family in Kassel but also of history painting in the tradition of Carracci and Mengs, which he achieved by varying iconographic motifs such as Diogenes or Hercules at the crossroads and bringing new naturalism and veracity to the forms and representations. In its immediacy more effective than any text could be, the painting’s impact was carefully orchestrated through exhibiting and circulating the work. The second case study concerns a family portrait (1788; New-York Historical Society, New York) by William Dunlap (1766–1839), whose artistic activity extended to working as a dramatist, theatre entrepreneur and critic. Painted shortly after his return from a study visit to England, it shows Dunlap with his parents, to whom he presents a large canvas that is shaded and partly concealed in the background of the composition but can be identified as a scene from Hamlet. Kuhn interprets the work as a response to the ‘emerging exclusion mechanism of the subject of history of art’ (p.xxix). The obscure but dominating presence of Shakespeare in Dunlap’s work underlines the difficulty of gaining access to art in more peripheral locations, as New York was at this time, and the impossibility of creating art that is free from historical influences. As in Tischbein’s painting, the history of the painting’s creation is depicted in the painting itself, which can thus be understood as ‘painted (micro) art history’ (p.156). A work by Marie-Gabrielle Capet (1761–1818) is the focus of the third and most detailed chapter. Like Tischbein and Dunlap, the artist depicts herself; she is in the company of her teacher, the painter Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, and a number of pupils in Labille-Guiard’s Paris studio (1808; Alte Pinakothek, Munich). The latter is shown painting her own master, Joseph-Marie Vien, and his family, assisted by her husband and teacher, François-André Vincent, who stands behind her, pointing to some detail in

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the painting. Kuhn convincingly argues that the work demonstrates Capet’s opposition to the increasing gender divide in artistic practice after the French Revolution, which took place physically in the studios as well in relation to subjects and modes of painting, with women expected to paint in small format or miniatures, depict children and still lifes and use soft brush strokes, whereas paintings in large format, portrait and history painting and vigorous brushstrokes were reserved for male painters. Capet’s painting, by contrast, highlights the cooperation between men and women in the practice and teaching of art. The fundamental question raised by Kuhn’s study is whether she succeeds in demonstrating the validity of the concept of ‘painted art history’ or whether, ultimately, her in-depth interpretations of a small

number of specific works remain within the framework of an iconographical approach, with a particular focus on the socio-historical aspects of art production and reception. The author herself admits that the effect paintings had on art-historical discourse is rarely verifiable. Yet, although it may remain difficult to ascertain whether the works possessed an agency of their own, they are certainly singular expressions of the artistic personalities who created them. What all the paintings discussed by Kuhn have in common is the artists’ interest in their own 5. The brothers Heinrich Jacob and Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein. 1782. Oil on canvas, 81 by 65.3 cm. (© Freies Deutsches Hochstift and Frankfurter Goethe-Museum; photograph David Hall).

origin and background, be it the family or the circle of teachers and colleagues. Indeed, the central theme of a genealogy of artists, based on descent, as in the case of artist families, on education, as in a master-student relationship, or on the stimulus of ideas, as in a thinker-artist relationship, provides a necessary and effective framework for the study. Moreover, Kuhn’s largely conclusive pictorial analyses are intellectual bravura pieces. A large body of literature is referenced and the author indicates where she develops on other scholar’s ideas. Despite the complexity of the subject, the language and structure are clear. The deliberately focused choice of illustrations adds to the impression of precision and clarity. It is a pleasure to read this book and to follow the author’s train of thought.

Horace Pippin, American Modern By Anne Monahan. 264 pp. incl. 96 col. + 25 b. & w. ills. (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2020), £40. ISBN 978–0–300–24330–7. by colin rhodes

Horace Pippin’s short public career as an artist spanned just a decade before his untimely death in 1946. Born in 1888, he spent most of his adult life in Chester County, Pennsylvania. He is mostly known for his paintings relating to his service in the First World War, during which he received a life-changing wound that severely restricted movement in his dominant right arm, but which ironically helped him to become an artist because of the disability pension he received as a result. Pippin also created images of poor Black American life, which are conventionally understood as belonging to the contemporary folk art category of ‘memory paintings’ of Southern subjects, although Pippin actually grew up in Goshen, New York. During his lifetime his work was lauded by such influential American art world figures as Alfred H. Barr Jr, Dorothy Miller and Albert C. Barnes. He enjoyed the patronage of the prominent New York dealer Edith Gregor Halpert and such champions of Black American as Alain Locke. Seldon Rodman’s monograph on Pippin, published in 1947, was the first on an African American artist.1 Despite this, after his death Pippin’s star quickly faded, as a new wave of internationalist American Modernism, exemplified by Abstract Expressionism, gained dominance. the burlington magazine | 164 | february 2022

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Pippin was later claimed as part of the specialist fields of self-taught and contemporary folk art, owing largely to a selective reading of his biography and art that produced erroneous narratives of spontaneous creativity and separation from the art mainstream. In fact, of the nearly one hundred exhibitions in which Pippin was included between 1937 and his death, only three were devoted to ‘self-taught’ or ‘Modern primitive’ art.2 The rest were a mixture of interracial group exhibitions of Modern American art, surveys of contemporary African American art and solo exhibitions.3 His Modern credentials were determined at the time by a peculiarly American construction of homegrown Modernism, which was figurative and conceptually based on Whitmanesque notions of existential ‘freedom’, the idea of being ‘self-made’ and truth to one’s geographical roots. Pippin’s Modern identity was also bound up with notions of ‘primitive art’ that were understood rather differently in 1930s America than in the second half of the twentieth century, when it acquired a marginalising meaning distanced from the modernist project proper. In its earlier usage the term had long referred admiringly to periods and types of art that appeared to eschew mimetic representation, from ancient Egyptian, European medieval and Italian quattrocento art to traditional Chinese and Japanese forms of painting and printmaking admired for their apparent approach to pictorial form, but with little attention paid to historical or cultural specificity. The notion of the ‘Modern primitive’, exemplified by such French artists as Henri Rousseau (1844–1910), was related to this narrative. In Horace Pippin, American Modern, Anne Monahan seeks not only to recuperate Pippin to the Modern context in which he operated, but also to firmly establish his credentials as a professional artist centrally engaged in the development of his career. While acknowledging the important roles played by dealers, curators and collectors, Monahan also convincingly describes Pippin’s own agency. In other words, Pippin emerges as an artist operating much like any other, and more successful than many in his time, albeit as a one facing additional impediments in his struggle for visibility, as a Black man who was subject to systemic racist attitudes and assumptions. Monahan demonstrates the ways in which Pippin interacted with and influenced both Black 220

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6. The domino game, by Horace Pippin. 1943. Oil on composition board, 32.4 by 55.9 cm. (Phillips Collection, Washington).

and white audiences, including his skilful manipulation of the ‘artist statement’: ‘Pippin understood the value of his story. As his career escalated, he increasingly instrumentalized autobiography via statements and interviews, and watched his prices rise over 1,000 per cent’ (p.7). To resist a purely biographical reading, Monahan’s book replaces historical teleology with a thematic structure arranged in chapters on ‘Autobiography’, ‘Labor’, ‘Process’ and ‘Gifts’. Nothing is taken for granted, and Pippin cyclically emerges and re-emerges out of a narrative driven by forensic readings of specific works, both iconographically and as visual reference to contemporary lived experience. The painter’s historical personhood is continually refreshed, as it were, by facts thereby revealed through his paintings, which are rightly treated as planned and studied constructions, rather than as expressions of some quasi-visionary inner outpouring of individual and community memory. For example, Pippin’s war paintings, made primarily in two phases, at the beginning of his career and at the outbreak of the Second World War, were long understood as straightforwardly autobiographical. However, through examination of Pippin’s military service, his written autobiographical remarks and potential pictorial sources for iconographical elements, Monahan reveals not only their sophistication, but also the ways in which the artist modulated his practice to appeal

to audiences as he came to understand them. This is also true of the series of cotton farm pictures that followed the first wave of war subjects, such as Cabin in the cotton (c.1931–37; Art Institute of Chicago), which Monahan describes as a ‘redirecting [of] his quasi-autobiographical energies’ (p.51). In other words, Pippin’s figurative impulse led quickly to subjects he believed would likely interest collectors, from local sights, portraits and still life, to history and genre pictures, some of which, Monahan tells us, have been often viewed as southern scenes, but which more likely relate to Pippin’s own childhood in Goshen, as in the case of The domino game (Fig.6). Monahan also demonstrates Pippin’s active participation in local art world conversations. It is a moot point whether he would have been able to achieve what he did had he lived in the South, but despite a high degree of segregation in his life, in Chester County the possibility of interracial community activities and interpersonal relations was real. Pippin was also aware of significant art collections, notably the Barnes Foundation in nearby Merion, Philadelphia. There he was able not only to see the breadth of modernist subjectmatter, but also to study work by Henri Matisse (1869–1954) and Rousseau, who at that time in America were regarded more for the similarities in their work and seen as fellow travellers in modernist innovation and formal simplification, as opposed to the segregated exemplars of mainstream Modernism and naive art respectively, which emerged in later discourse. Pippin’s posthumous reputation suffered a similar

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fate when the facture of his work came to be considered condescendingly as an aspect of his general education and ethnicity. Monahan’s concluding remarks are interesting because even as they seek to reinscribe Pippin’s centrality in discourses of American Modernism, as opposed to folk or self-taught art, they are by inference reminders of the marginal position America occupied at that time in respect of dominant (European) modernist discourse. It is what the likes of Clement Greenberg railed against in his polemics, and when American Modern art reinvented itself in the decade after the Second World War, Pippin was just one among many prominent American artists of the preceding period whose work became deeply unfashionable. It is fitting therefore that Monahan brings Pippin back to life for us as a professional artist and a modern in his time. 1 See S. Rodman: Horace Pippin: A Negro Painter in America, New York 1947. 2 See, for example, H. Cahill: exh. cat. Masters of Popular Painting: Modern Primitives of Europe and America, New York (Museum of Modern Art) 1938. The exhibition toured nationwide throughout 1939. 3 See, for example, J.D. Hatch: exh. cat. The Negro Artist Comes of Age: A National Survey of Contemporary American Artists, Albany (Institute of History and Art) 1945; and W.R. Valentiner: exh. cat. Advance Trends in Contemporary American Art, Detroit (Institute of the Arts) 1944.

Art and the Nation State: The Reception of Modern Art in Ireland By Róisín Kennedy. 304 pp. incl. 24 b. & w. ills. (Liverpool University Press, Liverpool, 2021), £90. ISBN 978–1–78962–235–5. by philip mcevansoneya

Mainie Jellett’s work was ‘artistic malaria’ (p.154); Auguste Rodin’s was ‘revolting’ (p.54) and Henry Moore’s was a ‘foretaste of hell’ (p.151). These were some of the epithets applied to examples of modern art in twentieth-century Ireland. Such views were not those of philistines but of people who on other occasions had pretensions to artistic discernment, such as the painter and poet George (‘AE’) Russell, the nationalist politician and writer J.J. O’Kelly and Lady Dunalley (who said she was misquoted), the respective authors of the judgments quoted above. This is evidence of the anxiety, confusion and suspicion that created obstacles to the critical evaluation of Modernism in Ireland in the period from the 1920s to the 1970s,

as Róisín Kennedy shows in her informative and closely argued book. In the 1920s and 1930s Ireland was finding its feet as an independent state and appeared introspective despite the existence of a global diaspora.1 Art in the public realm was a low priority for the new state and the promoters of Modernism were viewed as a suspect elite that was swayed by cosmopolitan rather than national values. However, change was initiated with the establishment under the Department of External Affairs of the Cultural Relations Committee in 1948 and An Chomhairle Ealaíon (The Arts Council) in 1951. The book starts with the bold assertion that there was substantial public interest in modern art in post-independence Ireland, at least so far as a series of controversies is concerned. For example, Harry Clarke’s Geneva window (1929–30; Wolfsonian-Florida International University, Miami) was bought back by the artist’s widow from the Irish government, since it had never been installed due to doubts over the androgyny and eroticism of its imagery. Kennedy uses these controversies to highlight ‘the ongoing tensions between the demands of the international art world, which required art both to reflect national characteristics and to express universal modernist values, and the needs and requirements of local factions in Ireland’ (p.12). Those tensions were never resolved and Kennedy concludes that it was only with the advent of postmodernism in the 1970s that Irish art came into its own both domestically and internationally. The disputes – of various magnitudes – are discussed chronologically in chapters dealing with such topics as the censorship or, more precisely, marginalisation of controversial art; the surprisingly fertile period during the isolation of the Second World War, which saw the establishment of the Irish Exhibition of Living Art in 1943 as a liberal antidote to the Royal Hibernian Academy; the attempts at building international connections in the 1950s through participation in events such as the Venice Biennale and in the 1960s with the first of the Rosc exhibitions, held every few years in Dublin between 1967 and 1988, which brought American and continental Modernism to Ireland. Given Kennedy’s foregrounding of women artists, some analysis might have been expected of the role of women critics and writers in these developments, such as Máirín Allen (Máirín Nic Ailín), Elizabeth Curran and Gertrude Gaffney, although they are mentioned.

The success of the book relies on its capacity to breathe new life into several well-known events and to integrate them with some less familiar episodes. For example, the much-debated and drawn-out confrontation over Georges Rouault’s Christ and the soldier (1930; Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane), which was first offered to the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art in 1942 but rejected until 1956, is discussed in as much detail as the design, production and installation of Andrew O’Connor’s sculpture Triple Cross, Christ the King (c.1931–33). The latter was erected in Dún Laoghaire in 2014, albeit not as originally intended on the principal passenger quay in the harbour, having been spurned by the Church authorities even though it was paid for by public subscription. Its setting is said by Kennedy to affirm ‘its position as central to the official image of Dún Laoghaire as a place of culture and free thinking’ (p.69), which, no doubt, explains why it adorns the entrance to an underground car park. These controversies may be seen as evidence of the struggle for authority as much as clashes of opinion over artistic merit. Controversy was caused not only by difficulties in accepting modern styles but also by a variety of social, religious and political factors. Gender also played a role because women artists and their work came in for particular criticism. It was difficult to reconcile the desire for conformity and stability in the newly independent state with the radical and questioning nature of Modernism. The result was, at least until well into the 1960s, the production of works of art in variations on modernist styles but from which any political content had been voided. For example, an artist as stylistically radical as Jellett (1897–1944), who in the early 1920s went to Paris, where she was taught by André Lhote and Albert Gleizes, chose to reconcile her modernity with her conservative milieu by introducing religious and national iconography into her work. Given its price, the book is parsimoniously illustrated with a meagre ration of grainy black-and-white illustrations. There are some minor quibbles: T.G. (Tom) Rosenthal is confused with Norman Rosenthal (p.121); some footnotes are incorrect (for example, note 41 on p.92 refers to the Sunday Independent not the Irish Independent); and Louis le Brocquy was not the first artist to be represented in the National Gallery of Ireland while still living (p.4 and p.149); so too were George Sharp and

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Stephen Catterson Smith when the gallery opened in 1864. More seriously, like so much commentary on Ireland, the book is Dublincentric. The efforts made in, for example, Cork, Galway and Waterford to establish and sustain public collections and civic art-life are relegated to a footnote. Nevertheless, this is a highly valuable study that ably complements and expands on S.B. Kennedy’s Irish Art and Modernism 1880–1950 (1991). 1 The artistic dimensions of the diaspora have begun to be tackled, see, for example, E. O’Connor: Art, Ireland, and the Irish Diaspora: Chicago, Dublin, New York, 1893–1939: Culture, Connections and Controversies, Newbridge 2020.

Iconoclasm and the Museum By Stacey Boldrick. 212 pp. incl. 60 b. & w. ills. (Routledge, London and New York, 2020), £34.99. ISBN 978–1–138–36968–9. by thomas stammers

On 9th July 1776, rebellious colonists read out the Declaration of Independence in front of Joseph Wilton’s equestrian monument to George III in Bowling Green, New York. That evening they proceeded to drag the statue from its plinth, remove its laurel wreath, chip off its nose and dismember it into several parts. The decapitated head was initially intended to be exhibited above Fort Washington, in a manner recalling the fate of convicts, although it was rescued by Loyalists and returned to England. The remaining lead parts were dispatched to Litchfield, where they were melted down and cast into bullets for use against British troops. The plinth itself came to serve as a tombstone for Major John Smith in 1783, before it was debased in a different way, becoming the flagstone for the front step of the Mayor of Jersey City’s mansion, on which the statue’s hoof marks are still visible today. This incident is one of several episodes of iconoclasm explored by Stacey Boldrick over the past five hundred years, ranging from the Reformation assault on the Gothic statuary of Winchester Cathedral in 1538 and the Puritan levelling of the Cheapside Cross, London, in 1643, to the 2017 campaign to bring down Confederate statues in Memphis. The chapters interweave incidents of image-breaking with reflections on how effectively these acts have been commemorated, curated or transformed into contemporary art. In each case study, 222

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Boldrick explores the physical and symbolic violence inflicted upon the figurative and often highly anthropomorphised works of art: one seventeenth-century tract, The Downe-fall of Dagon, imagined the Cheapside Cross narrating its agonies in the first person. In the wake of iconoclasm, Boldrick traces how surviving fragments were recuperated, relocated, recontextualised and even reanimated over successive generations. For example, the toppling of the statue of George III was commemorated in a painting by Johannes Oertel, Pulling down the statue of King George III, New York City (1852–53; New-York Historical Society), and was also re-enacted for a film that plays on a continuous loop in the Philadelphia Museum of the American Revolution. The study of iconoclasm has proliferated in recent years, and Boldrick acknowledges her debt to the landmark work of Dario Gamboni, as well as such specialists as Margaret Aston and Wendy Bellion. Although her case studies may not offer much new empirical research, they do have a different target, in seeking to question the hesitance of museums to address these histories within their interpretation of collections. At times, she alleges, this reticence is tantamount to new forms of erasure. Here Boldrick seeks to vindicate her contribution to Art under Attack: Histories of British Iconoclasm, the muddled 2013 exhibition at Tate Britain, and return to its thesis that iconoclasm should be regarded as not simply destructive but generative. Approaching Bruno Latour’s notion of ‘iconoclash’, in which the visual sign is not so much negated as transformed, Boldrick asks us to consider what new meanings might emerge out of acts of vandalism – such as the cleaver marks hacked into the Rokeby Venus by Mary Richardson in 1914. Boldrick also reflects on the practice of Kate Davis (b.1977), notably her Reversibility series (2011–ongoing), in which the artist juxtaposes the attack on the Rokeby Venus with a suffragette pamphlet found in Glasgow Museums, which has also been defaced. Boldrick sees in iconoclasm a way of testing fundamental assumptions about value, and even wonders whether Richardson herself merits relabelling as a proto-performance artist. In its chronological range the book offers a provocative introduction to some key conceptual issues, although a tension exists between a more archaeological approach, evident in chapters about the

fate of medieval sculpture, and the later case studies, where materiality plays second fiddle to questions of context, power and identity. The elasticity in her use of the term ‘iconoclasm’ is problematic: for example, can it really be applied to the removal of artefacts from display or the act of cataloguing them incorrectly? In addition, Boldrick’s unwillingness to countenance the role of bigotry, mental illness, greed and self-promotion in driving attacks on works of art – think of the senseless doodling on Rothko’s Black on Maroon (1958) at Tate Modern in 2012 – is frustrating and misleading. While Iconoclasm and the Museum calls for more empirical research into the degradation suffered by objects in the past (to which few curators would object), Boldrick also insinuates a more controversial set of claims about the interpretative, creative and even reparatory potential lurking in forms of imagebreaking, past and present. The two strands do not sit easily together. That said, the questions posed by the book are enormously topical. The author’s sophisticated treatment of contemporary art practice in chapter 5 speaks eloquently to current debates raging around public memorials. Michael Rakowitz (b.1973), Titus Kaphar (b.1976) and Hew Locke (b.1959) encourage us to think beyond the dichotomy of either defending or dismantling statues of contentious historical personalities. Boldrick reveals how each of these artists foregrounds experiences of loss (what Rakowitz calls ‘unbuilding’), transforming material substances and surfaces, or embracing forms of adaptation and amendment, thereby blurring the line between homage and critique. In such works as Kaphar’s ghostly Monumental Inversions: George Washington (2016), the painful contradictions inherent in the personality of the subject, and his legacy, are captured in a composition of burnt wood and hollow glass, in which Washington, on horseback, appears as a ghostly and incomplete silhouette. It neatly illuminates one of Boldrick’s favoured metaphors, that iconoclastic acts ‘sit in the shadows of artworks [. . .] stories waiting to be remembered by the institutions entrusted with their care’ (p.19). 1 See T. Barber and S. Boldrick, eds: exh. cat. Art under Attack: Histories of British Iconoclasm, London (Tate Britain) 2013. 2 See B. Latour: ‘What is iconoclash? Or is there a world beyond the image wars?’, in idem and P. Weibel, eds: exh. cat. Iconoclash: Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion and Art, Karlsruhe (Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie) 2002.

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Christian Theuerkauff (1936–2021) For many years Deputy Director of the sculpture collection at the Bode Museum, Berlin, and honorary professor at the city’s Free University, Christian Theuerkauff was a leading scholar of Baroque ivories, whose expert connoisseurship and archival research definitively shaped our understanding of many of the outstanding sculptors in the medium. by marjorie trusted

hristian theuerkauff, who died in Berlin on 7th October 2021 at the age of eighty-five, was the doyen of Baroque ivory studies. Renowned for his pre-eminence in his field and for his hugely impressive publication record, he was also unstintingly generous and hospitable to friends and colleagues. His long and productive scholarly life, as well as his kindness and humanity, can be no more than outlined here. But those who knew him will remember how his meticulous intellectual endeavours were inextricably combined with his creative, thoughtful and deeply humane personality. Theuerkauff was born in Königsberg in Prussia (now Kaliningrad in Russia) on 19th July 1936. The eldest child of Johannes Theuerkauff, a member of the local consistory church council, and his wife, Erna née Laubrinus, he grew up during the Second World War and lived through the era when Germany was divided. He attended school in Königsberg until 1943, when he was evacuated to Borna near Leipzig in Saxony, where he lived until 1947. Later his family moved north to Wilhelmshaven and he attended the high school in Bremen until 1956, specialising in the arts and humanities. He matriculated at the University of Kiel, where he continued to concentrate on the arts, initially the study of German and English, before specialising in the history of art. From the summer term of 1957 Christian was a student at the Albert-Ludwig University at Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden, where he read history of art, archaeology and prehistoric studies. He was awarded a scholarship to read for his doctorate in Vienna in the winter term of 1960–61. In 1963 Christian was employed as a trainee at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg. This was his first full-time post in a museum, although he had already published a catalogue of the ivories in the museum at Klosterneuburg in 1962, while he was still a doctoral student. He was then awarded a grant to catalogue the sculpture in the Hamburg museum from 1963 to 1965. This catalogue was published in 1977, co-written with Lise Lotte Möller. Chrisian’s first permanent curatorial job was as a research assistant at the Kunstmuseum in Düsseldorf, where he was based from 1965 to 1969. In October 1969 he was appointed Curator of the Sculpture Collections in West Berlin at Dahlem. The Berlin sculpture collections were at that time split between East and West, most of the large-scale sculpture being housed in the Bode Museum on Museum Island, beyond the Berlin Wall, whereas the small-scale sculptures were kept at Dahlem. When the sculpture holdings in Berlin were reunited in 1990, Christian was promoted to Chief Curator of what was now a much larger collection. He subsequently became Deputy Director of the sculpture collection at the Bode Museum (with which the Dahlem collections had been merged) and the Museum of Byzantine Art. In 1991 he was made an honorary professor of the Free University in Berlin and regularly taught students at the Bode Museum. He retired in 2001, but his enthusiasm for his subject and his unrivalled experience in handling ivories meant that he generously

Christian Theuerkauff, photographed in 2010 by Hiltrud Jehle.

continued to give his expertise freely. He was always happy to discuss questions of attribution and wider issues of art historical interest. One of Christian’s first articles appeared in The Burlington Magazine in 1962: a characteristically erudite contribution on a signed ivory tankard by Ignaz Elhafen (1658–before 1715),1 the Austrian sculptor who was the subject of his monographic doctoral thesis. As is true of Christian’s later publications, this article, and indeed his thesis, has remained a vitally important work of reference for all those working on baroque ivories. Christian wrote and published prolifically, his articles often exploring the work of individual artists, teasing out their styles and sources of inspiration, and at the same time examining the patronage they enjoyed and their cultural contexts. He used the tools of connoisseurship sensitively and perceptively: constantly handling, closely observing and comparing works of art. Many of his articles are weighty discussions, more like short books, the non-fiction equivalent of novellas. One such seminal early publication is an extended piece dating from 1973, effectively a catalogue raisonné, of the œuvre of a major ivory sculptor known then only as the Master B.G. Years later this sculptor was identified as Balthasar Griessmann (c.1620–1706). Christian’s hypotheses about the artist and his work, as set out in his article, including his thoughts about Griessmann’s origins and the likely dates of specific pieces, were validated by this much later archival discovery. Individual sculptors whom Christian likewise studied attentively and whose work he published include Adam Lenckhardt, Francis van Bossuit, David Heschler and Johann Christoph Ludwig Lücke, as well as countless others. None of these artists had been given such patient and intelligent the burlington magazine | 164 | february 2022

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attention before Christian focused on them, piecing together primary archival research with acute observations and appreciation. Such articles opened up new avenues of research for others; Christian always welcomed new scholars in the field, generously sharing information with them, whether by correspondence or in person. He particularly encouraged and nurtured younger scholars and those embarking in the field. Christian’s articles appeared in a wide range of periodicals in Germany, Austria, Britain and the United States from the early 1960s up to the first decade of the twenty-first century, meaning they reached innumerable students and scholars in the world of baroque sculpture over several generations. Additionally he contributed to exhibition catalogues, coedited a Festschrift for Peter Bloch in 1990 and perhaps most importantly published and contributed to key catalogues of museum collections, such as that of the baroque ivories in Berlin (1986).2 In 1980 the collector and benefactor Reiner Winkler (1925–2020) commissioned Christian to compile the catalogue of his baroque ivories, the first volume of which appeared in 1984, the second one ten years later, by which time the Winkler collection had expanded. This later volume with its many new catalogue entries also enabled Christian to include addenda to the first volume with his own later discoveries. It was a typical sign of his conscientiousness that he wished to correct and edit his own research when necessary, although such addenda did not in any way detract from the superb scholarship of the first volume. A bibliography of Christian’s publications compiled by Regine Marth, assisted by Daniela Hoffmann, can be found in the Festschrift published in his honour in 2011, on the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday.3 The bibliography is a telling indication of his abundant productivity, totalling just under two hundred entries. The Festschrift itself, with almost thirty essays by an impressive array of expert international contributors, and a

tabula gratulatoria of nearly one hundred names, testifies to the number of scholars and sculpture enthusiasts who wanted to express their admiration for Christian. The Festschrift originated in the International Ivories Group founded by Jutta Kappel and the present author in 2009, a group that both Winkler and Christian supported. Those who knew Christian were grateful recipients of his handwritten letters (he did not favour emails), which, penned in his tiny writing, were often embellished with beautiful spidery coloured drawings, sometimes of flowers or landscapes, sometimes of Venetian scenes. Christian and his family adored Venice, which they visited frequently. Christian had married Anna-Elisabeth Liederwald, an expert on glass, notably Venetian glass, in 1963. Those who had the good fortune to visit them at home in their large apartment in Argentinische Allee in Berlin were warmly received, with smiles, good food and delightful conversation that was both intellectual and empathetic, like Christian himself. In his later years Christian became sadly unwell and could no longer entertain his friends as he might have wished. But he was affectionately supported by his family, and his vast scholarship is a fitting monument to the profound knowledge and understanding he had of his subject. The lines chosen for the card announcing his death were from the Book of Genesis: ‘Haltet mich nicht auf, denn Gott hat Gnade zu meiner Reise gegeben’ – ‘Do not detain me, now that God has granted success to my journey’. The author is grateful to Charles Avery, Friederike Börsch-Supan, Hiltrud Jehle, Hans-Ulrich Kessler and Regine Marth for their kind assistance. 1 C. Theuerkauff: ‘A signed ivory tankard by Ignaz Elhafen’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 104 (1962), pp.288–91. 2 The catalogue was reviewed by Richard H. Randall, Jr in this Magazine, 129 (1987), pp.33–34. 3 R. Marth and M. Trusted, eds: Festschrift für Christian Theuerkauff. Sculpture Studies in Honour of Christian Theuerkauff, Munich 2011.

among this month’s contributors Francis Ames-Lewis is Emeritus Professor of History of Art at Birkbeck, University of London. Sara Ayres is currently working on a critical edition of the 1669 diary of Prince George of Denmark’s visit to England and the Restoration court. Sally Beazley-Long is an independent art historian. Martin Biddle excavated Nonsuch Palace in the summer of 1959 in his first year reading archaeology as an undergraduate at Pembroke College, Cambridge. Rosalind P. Blakesley is Professor of Russian and European Art and a Fellow of Pembroke College at the University of Cambridge.

Jan Dumolyn is a senior lecturer in medieval history at Ghent University (the Henri Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies).

Ward Leloup is a PhD student at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (HOST Research Group) and Ghent University (Henri Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies).

Mathijs Speecke is a PhD student and research assistant at Ghent University (the Henri Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies).

Mark Evans is a Senior Honorary Research Fellow of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Sylvie Lhermite-King is a Paris-based antique dealer specialising in works of art of the Renaissance and baroque periods and an expert for Venetian and façon de Venise glass at Drouot auction house.

Thomas Stammers is Associate Professor of Modern European Cultural History at Durham University.

Ivan Gaskell is Professor of Cultural History and Museum Studies at Bard Graduate Center, New York. Maryl B. Gensheimer is Associate Professor of Roman Art and Archaeology and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the University of Maryland. Lars Hendrikman is former curator of old masters, Bonnefanten, Maastricht.

Ella Hendriks is Professor of Conservation Keith Christiansen is Curator Emeritus at and Restoration of Moveable Cultural the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Heritage at the University of Amsterdam. Lynne Cooke is Senior Curator, Special Clare Hornsby is an art historian and Projects in Modern Art, National Gallery research fellow at the British School at Rome. of Art, Washington. Susan Frances Jones is a specialist in Anne Delvingt is an independent Northern European art of the late researcher of European Caravaggism. She medieval and Renaissance periods. She is currently writing the catalogue raisonné is currently teaching at the New College of the Antwerp painter Gerard Seghers. of the Humanities, London.

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Philip McEvansoneya is a lecturer in the History of Art at Trinity College Dublin. Toon de Meester is a local historian who specialises in the history of medieval Bruges and its houses. Tom Nickson is Senior Lecturer in Medieval Art and Architecture at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London. Camilla Pietrabissa is a postdoctoral research fellow at IUAV University, Venice. Colin Rhodes is Distinguished Professor and Xiaoxiang Scholar at the Academy of Fine Arts, Hunan Normal University. Robert Skwirblies is research assistant at Technische Universität, Berlin.

Richard Stemp is an independent art historian. Anne Swartz is a Professor of Art History at the Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah GA. Marjorie Trusted (aka Holly Trusted) is Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Her publications include Baroque and Later Ivories (2013). Richard West is an independent scholar. Christopher White’s last book on the artist, The Intimate Rembrandt, will be published in the spring. Paul Williamson is Keeper Emeritus and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and an Honorary Research Fellow at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London.

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