Tuesday, October 26, 2021

Willem de Poorter (Painted Narratives in Haarlem)

Willem de Poorter
Solomon and the Queen of Sheba
ca. 1630
oil on panel
Leiden Collection, New York

Willem de Poorter
Solomon and the Queen of Sheba
before 1668
oil on panel
Mount Edgecumbe House, Cornwall

Willem de Poorter
Idolatry of King Solomon
ca. 1630-48
oil on panel
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Willem de Poorter
Mercury and Proserpina
ca. 1633-48
oil on panel
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Willem de Poorter
Artemisia receives the Ashes of Mausolus
before 1668
oil on panel
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence

Willem de Poorter
Lucretia among her Maids, with Tarquin approaching
1633
oil on panel
Musée des Augustins de Toulouse

Willem de Poorter
The Gold-Weigher
ca. 1637
oil on panel
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh

Willem de Poorter
St Paul and St Barnabas at Lystra
1636
oil on panel
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Willem de Poorter
Allegory of Peace
(Peace crowned by Minerva)

1643
oil on panel
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Willem de Poorter
Vanitas Allegory
before 1668
oil on panel
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

Willem de Poorter
Vanitas Still Life
1636
oil on panel
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Willem de Poorter
Josiah burning the Bones at Bethel
ca. 1635-45
drawing
British Museum

Willem de Poorter
Stoning of St Stephen
before 1668
drawing
Harvard Art Museums

Willem de Poorter
Study of Draped Figure
before 1668
drawing
Kupferstich-Kabinett, Dresden

"Willem de Poorter (1608-1668), the son of a Flemish émigré, was likely born in Haarlem.  The circumstances of his training are not clear.  It is often proposed that he studied with Rembrandt van Rijn in Leiden, about 1629-30.  That training, however, may have occurred in Amsterdam as late as the mid-1630s, thereby constituting not a student-pupil relationship so much as a mid-career supervision.  By 1633 De Poorter's name appears in the Haarlem city archives, where he is listed as a member of the Guild of Saint Luke by 1635.  . . .  According to Arnold Houbraken, De Poorter was a specialist of history and still-life painting, though only a few of the latter survive.  Today he is best known for his religious and mythological works, some of which bear stylistic affinities to the early work of Rembrandt as well as to that of Rembrandt's teacher, Pieter Lastman.  Like Rembrandt and Lastman, De Poorter set his scenes in large, dark interiors with a central grouping of figures differentiated through animated expression and pose.  . . .  His smooth manner of execution, figure types, and use of bright localized colors against a monochrome background are [also] closely reminiscent of the works of Hendrik Gerritsz Pot and Pieter de Grebber."

– from a biographical sketch at the Leiden Collection, New York

Willem de Poorter
Portrait of a Young Man
1634
oil on panel
St John's College, University of Oxford