Saturday, March 31, 2018

Mediterranean Seaports by Johannes Lingelbach

Johannes Lingelbach
Mediterranean harbour scene
1669
oil on canvas
Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, Frankfurt

Johannes Lingelbach
Italian seaport with classical ruins and statue of Neptune
1670
oil on canvas
Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

Johannes Lingelbach
Harbour scene with classical statue of Mercury
1667
oil on canvas
John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida

"According to Houbraken, Johannes Lingelbach left Amsterdam and went to France in 1642, and it was another two years before he went to Rome, 'where he practised his art with dedication and industry until the year 1650, when on the 8th of May, on Sunday, he left Rome on his journey home through Germany, and in June arrived back in Amsterdam in good health'.  . . .  There are signed and dated paintings by Lingelbach from almost every year after his return.  In the backgrounds to these works he frequently used compositions or motifs from Rome and other places in Italy, which he will have taken from his own drawings . . . subjects he used include the Piazza Navona, the Piazza del Popolo and the Piazza Colonna in Rome, and places in Genoa and Livorno.  . . .  Aside from the drawings referred to above, and a few figure and animal studies, Lingelbach almost exclusively drew Mediterranean harbour views with oriental merchants and porters, who load, unload or rest."  

Johannes Lingelbach
Port scene
before 1674
oil on canvas, mounted on panel
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Johannes Lingelbach
Italian harbour with fortified tower
ca. 1650-74
oil on canvas
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Johannes Lingelbach
Italian harbour with fortified tower
1664
oil on canvas
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Johannes Lingelbach
Harbour scene with statue of Neptune
1668
oil on panel
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut

Johannes Lingelbach
Study for harbour scene
ca. 1670
drawing
British Museum

Johannes Lingelbach
Figures at quayside
before 1674
drawing-
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Johannes Lingelbach
Harbour with classical buildings and statue of Neptune
ca. 1660-74
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Johannes Lingelbach
Eastern seaport with classical architecture
1644-74
drawing
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Johannes Lingelbach
Eastern seaport
1644-74
drawing
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Johannes Lingelbach
Mediterranean port scene
before 1674
drawing
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Johannes Lingelbach
Italian seaport
ca. 1670
drawing
British Museum

Johannes Lingelbach
Italian or Levantine seaport
before 1674
drawing with watercolor
British Museum

"The harbour and coastal views [Lingelbach] drew are all virtually identical in composition and character.  Groups of standing and seated figures are placed quite prominently in the picture plane against a background of ships and buildings on the waterfront.  The foreground is given dark accents with a brush, the figures in the middle distance are in sun or in shade, and the background is, as usual, lighter in tone.  Three drawings with a signature in italics have been worked out in watercolour [as above], but whether this was done by Lingelbach himself is questionable.  . . .  'Improving' and working up old drawings was a fairly common practice in the 18th century, and the three drawings by Lingelbach that have been 'finished' in watercolour probably suffered this fate."

– Peter Schatborn, from the catalogue of a 2001 exhibition at the Rijksmuseum, published in English as Drawn to Warmth: 17th-century Dutch artists in Italy, translated by Lynne Richards

More Scenes (mainly Italian) by Thomas Wijck

Thomas Wijck
Italians in a cloister court
before 1677
oil on canvas
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Thomas Wijck
Almsgiving
before 1677
oil on canvas
Philadelphia Museum of Art

"Given the lack of dated works by Thomas Wyck [or Wijck], it is difficult to establish which paintings he executed in Rome, since even after his return to the Netherlands he painted Dutch Italianate themes, using black chalk and wash drawings done from life in Rome, a large number of which have survived.  It is likely that the paintings most directly reflecting the work of northern artists active in Rome ca. 1640 and those depicting the city's landscape with the greatest sense of immediacy and realism date from his Roman period and the years shortly thereafter.  . . .  Wyck presented a 'backstreet' view of Rome, bereft of the great Classical and Renaissance monuments that were the main focus of attention for other Dutch Italianates and, more especially, for their northern clientele.  It  is rarely possible to identify specific locations in his works, but despite or perhaps because of this, Wyck's views of the city, undoubtedly composed in the studio according to specific structural principles, seem more convincing and more realistic than those created by the Italianate artists of the second half of the 17th century."  

– text from notes by Sphinx Fine Art, London (2012)

Thomas Wijck
Piazza by moonlight
ca. 1650-60
drawing
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Thomas Wijck
Mediterranean port scene
before 1677
drawing
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Thomas Wijck
Italian landscape
before 1677
drawing
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Thomas Wijck
Landscape with tower
before 1677
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Thomas Wijck
Study of Roman ruins
before 1677
drawing
British Museum

Thomas Wijck
Italian palazzo
before 1677
drawing
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Thomas Wijck
View of Palazzo Contarini del Bonvolo, Venice
before 1677
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Thomas Wijck
Interior of ruined building
before 1677
drawing
British Museum

Thomas Wijck
Study of interior with woman by a window
before 1677
drawing
British Museum

Thomas Wijck
Kitchen interior
before 1677
drawing
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

The sequence of interior views below appears to have been derived from northern rather than southern European models.

Thomas Wijck
Interior with unshuttered window
before 1677
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Thomas Wijck
Interior with open window
before 1677
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Thomas Wijck
Workshop interior
before 1677
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Friday, March 30, 2018

Italian Courtyards and Houses by Thomas Wijck

Thomas Wijck
Italian courtyard with well
ca. 1644-53
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Thomas Wijck
Italian courtyard with fountain
before 1677
drawing
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Thomas Wijck
Italian courtyard with well
before 1677
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

"The earliest known work by Thomas Wijck (or Wyck) is an unsigned but dated drawing from 1643.  . . .  By then he had already completed his pupillage with Adriaen van Ostade, whose style left clear traces, particularly in the busy and vigorous use of the pen.  Wijck's name appears for the first time in the books of the Guild of St Luke in Haarlem in 1642.  He is not recorded in Haarlem in the period from the year of his marriage, 1644, until 1653, when a sister of his died.  He could have been in Italy during this time, like Jan Baptist Weenix, who also set out for Italy after he had got married.  . . . The 1643 drawing with an Italian motif, which was made in the Netherlands, is an indication that Wijck was already choosing Mediterranean subjects.  He was following in the footsteps of Pieter van Laer, who had returned to Haarlem in 1639.  A trip to Italy would have provided Wijck with a wealth of similar subjects that he could use in drawings and paintings.  The locations he drew were not so much classical monuments and ruins as simple houses and courtyards which he could use as the settings for the ordinary people in his paintings.  Other artists from the north were also drawing undistinguished buildings during this period." 

– Peter Schatborn, from the catalogue of a 2001 exhibition at the Rijksmuseum, published in English as Drawn to Warmth: 17th-century Dutch artists in Italy, translated by Lynne Richards

Thomas Wijck
Italian courtyard with stairs
before 1677
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Thomas Wijck
Italian courtyard with stairs
ca. 1644-53
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Thomas Wijck
Italian courtyard
ca. 1644-53
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Thomas Wijck
Italian courtyard
before 1677
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Thomas Wijck
Well in Italian courtyard
before 1677
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Thomas Wijck
Italian building with well and staircase
before 1677
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Thomas Wijck
Dwelling in Italian ruin
before 1677
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Thomas Wijck
Italian street scene with houses
before 1677
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Thomas Wijck
Italian street scene with ruins
ca. 1644-53
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Thomas Wijck
Ripa Grande, Rome
before 1677
drawing
British Museum

Thomas Wijck
Italian houses and lime kiln
before 1677
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

In the drawing directly above the low building at rear with sloping roof is a lime kiln, where limestone in various forms would have been burned to produce quicklime for building mortar.  In Italian cities throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance a common and easily accessible source of limestone for burning was the quarried marble from Roman ruins and statuary.  It could even be said that the urban landscape of Imperial Rome largely disappeared by gradual incineration within such obscure sheds as this neighborhood lime kiln. 

Jan Baptist Weenix and son Jan Weenix

Jan Baptist Weenix
Ruins in Rome
before 1660
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Jan Baptist Weenix
Roman ruins in a wooded landscape
before 1660
drawing
Harvard Art Museums

Jan Baptist Weenix
Landscape with ruins
before 1660
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

"In 1639,when he was 18, Jan Baptist Weenix married Josina, the daughter of the landscape painter Gillis d'Hondecoeter.  . . .  On 30 October 1642 Weenix had a will drawn up.  It appears from this document that he was leaving his wife and 14-month-old son behind, 'having determined to travel to Italy to practise his art'.  According to the story recounted by Houbraken, he originally sneaked away surreptitiously but was fetched back from Rotterdam by his wife.  He then took proper leave of his family, promising to stay away no longer than four months.  He was gone for four years, probably because of the success he achieved in Rome.  For some considerable time Weenix had as his patron Cardinal Camillo Pamphili, 'who helped him into the service of Pope Innocent, for whom he made a large work'.  He is mentioned for the first time in the Pamphili archives in 12 January 1645 and for the last time on 28 July 1646, usually in connection with payments for paintings.  It appears from these references that in 1646 Weenix probably produced paintings for a villa near the Pancras Gate belonging to Camillo and Giovanni Battista Pamphili.  The latter had become Pope Innocent X in 1644.  Weenix, who spoke very quickly, was given the nickname Ratel (Rattle) by the Bentvueghels, the club of Netherlandish artists in Rome." 

attributed to Jan Baptist Weenix
Ponte Rotto in Rome
before 1660
drawing
British Museum

Jan Baptist Weenix
Modern dwellings built into ruins
before 1660
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Jan Baptist Weenix
Rocky landscape
before 1660
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Jan Baptist Weenix
Italian landscape with town on a hill and waterfall
before 1660
drawing
British Museum

Jan Baptist Weenix
Landscape with trees and wagon
before 1660
drawing
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Jan Baptist Weenix
Landscape with goatherd reclining by a cascade
before 1660
drawing
British Museum

Jan Baptist Weenix
Scene with Roman church
ca. 1647-59
etching
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

"The distinction between the father's drawings [Jan Baptist Weenix, 1621-1660/61] and those by the son [Jan Weenix, 1640-1719] has not been clearly established.  Jan will almost certainly have inherited his father's studio property on his death in 1660/61 and may have used his father's materials." 

– Peter Schatborn, from the catalogue of a 2001 exhibition at the Rijksmuseum, published in English as Drawn to Warmth: 17th-century Dutch artists in Italy, translated by Lynne Richards

Below, several drawings of Roman sites attributed to the son, almost certainly based on sketches or other works his father brought home from the Italian sojourn of the 1640s. 

Jan Weenix
Roman arch with Corinthian columns
ca. 1655-1719
drawing
British Museum

Jan Weenix
Ruins of Roman building
ca. 1655-1719
drawing
British Museum

Jan Weenix
Roman archway at the entrance of a street
ca. 1655-1719
drawing
British Museum

Jan Weenix
View of Italian buildings on a slope above a river
ca. 1655-1719
drawing
British Museum