Monday, February 29, 2016

Flemish paintings, 17th century

Hans III Jordaens
Art Gallery
ca. 1620
Metropolitan Museum of Art
(Gift of Louisine Havemeyer)

Hans III Jordaens
Art Gallery
ca. 1630
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Hans III Jordaens (1590-1643) of Antwerp made both a drawing (now in New York) and a painting (now in Vienna) of the same spacious room set up as a Flemish art gallery. In the spirit of floor-to-ceiling picture-hanging, a group of Flemish pictures from the faraway 17th century appears below. Most are from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

Denis van Alsloot
Winter Landscape
1610
Louvre

Jan Philips van Thielen
Rose & Tulip in a Glass Vase
1650s
National Gallery of Art (U.S.)

Gerard Seghers
Resurrection
ca. 1620
Louvre

Jan Brueghel the Elder
River Landscape
1607
National Gallery of Art (U.S.)

Peter Paul Rubens
Agrippina & Germanicus
ca. 1614
National Gallery of Art (U.S.)

Peter Paul Rubens
Marchesa Brigida Spinola Doria
1606
National Gallery of Art (U.S.)

Peter Paul Rubens
Fall of Phaeton
ca. 1604-05
National Gallery of Art (U.S.)

Anthony van Dyck
Lady with a Fan
ca. 1628
National Gallery of Art (U.S.)

Anthony van Dyck
Henri II de Lorraine
ca. 1634
National Gallery of Art (U.S.)

Anthony van Dyck
Queen Henrietta Maria  with Sir Jeffrey Hudson & Marmoset
1633
National Gallery of Art (U.S.)

Anthony van Dyck
Genoese Noblewoman and son
ca. 1626
National Gallery of Art (U.S.)

Anthony van Dyck
Catherine Howard, Lady d'Aubigny
ca. 1638
National Gallery of Art (U.S.)

Sunday, February 28, 2016

Frans Francken II, 17th century

Frans Francken II
Art Room
1636
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

According to the well-known English philosopher of knowledge and culture Francis Bacon (1561-1626), a learned gentleman should have a "goodly huge cabinet, wherein whatsoever the hand of man by exquisite art or engine hath made rare in stuff, form or motion; whatsoever singularity chance and the shuffle of things hath produced; whatsoever Nature hath wrought in things that want life and may be kept; shall be sorted and included." 

Frans Francken II
Picture Gallery
17th century
private collection

Frans Francken II (1581-1642) is the best-remembered individual from a dynasty of Flemish painters that extended across four generations. His range was wide, from the consciously gorgeous, picture-packed interiors of Flemish fellow-citizens and connoisseurs, to outdoor scenes of revelry, to holy narratives set within elevated landscape-visions.

Frans Francken II
 A Visit to the Art Dealer
17th century
Hallwyl Museum

Frans Francken II
Supper with Burgomaster Rockox
1630-35
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Frans Francken II
The Prodigal Son with Courtesans
17th century
private collection

Frans Francken II
Arcadia - Pastoral Landscape
1626-32
private collection

Frans Francken II
The Golden Age
17th century
private collection

Frans Francken II
Witches' Sabbath
17th century
private collection

Frans Francken II
Triumph of Neptune & Amphitrite
17th century
Prado

Frans Francken II
Tower of Babel
17th century
Prado

Frans Francken II
Jacob's Ladder
17th century
Prado

Frans Francken II & Jan Wildens
Mercury & Herse
ca. 1635
Prado

Saturday, February 27, 2016

Spanish picture collecting, 1630s

Peter Snayers
Philip IV Hunting
ca. 1636-38
Prado

Édouard Manet
Philip IV after Velázquez
1860
etching
British Museum

The abundant world of painted images commemorating the features and wardrobe of Philip IV of Spain (1605-1665) has already been explored here. Above, I add Manet's etching of 1860, a deliberately rough copy of and tribute to Philip IV in Hunting Dress, the well-known informal portrait of 1633 by Diego Velázquez (1599-1660).  A whole series of earlier posts also looked at collecting patterns and projects among the many hundreds of paintings acquired in the 1630s for Philip's greater pleasure and glory (here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here). The present group was commissioned and painted specifically for the Spanish royal palace expansions of the 1630s  

Antonio Arias Fernández
Emperor Charles V & King Philip II
1639-40
Prado

The double portrait immediately above of Emperor Charles V (1500-1558) and his son King Philip II (1527-1598) was a posthumous memorial painted several decades after both were dead. 


Juan Andrés Rizi
Don Tiburcio de Redín
1635
Prado

Jusepe de Ribera
Allegorical Combat of Women
1636
Prado

Giovanni Romanelli
Gladiators with Wooden Swords
c. 1635-40
Prado

Alonso Cano
Miracle of the Well
1638-40
Prado

Flemish painter
Landscape
1630s
Prado

Salomon Koninck
A Philosopher
1635
Prado

Pietro Beato
Two Philosophers
1630s
Prado

Immediately above, a pair of paintings depicting Philosophers at their mental labors. The bent-back and sat-upon volumes seem intended to signify these intangible exertions, elevated above the gross tangible world paper, ink, and vellum. Apparently these terrible heaps, these still-life arrangements of abused books, did not distress the eyes of a seventeenth-century audience. Yet they very much do distress mine.

Francisco Collantes
The Vision of Ezekiel  The Resurrection of the Flesh
1630
Prado

Cesare Fracanzano
Luchadores
ca. 1637
Prado

Cesare Fracanzano
Drunken Silenus
1630s
Prado

Frans Snyders
Aquatic Birds with Ermines
1630s
Prado

Frans Snyders
Young Woman with Fruit
ca. 1633
Prado

Andrea Vaccaro
San Gennaro protecting Naples
ca. 1635
Prado

I am grateful for the beautiful reproductions made available by Museo del Prado.

Friday, February 26, 2016

Guirnaldas, 17th century

attributed to Hendrik van Balen
Garland with Cybele and the Seasons
ca. 1615
Prado

The tradition of painted floral garlands or guirnaldas, most often surrounding a small image from Christian iconography or pagan mythology, was essentially a Flemish export that reached its most elaborate fulfillment in Baroque-age Spain.

Hendrik van Balen (central image) and Jan Brueghel the Elder (garland)
Madonna and Child with Garland
ca. 1621
Prado

Giulio Cesare Procaccini (central image) and Jan Brueghel the Elder (garland)
Madonna and Child with Garland
ca. 1619
Prado

Bartolomé Pérez
St Anthony of Padua and Christ Child with Garland
ca. 1689
Prado

Bartolomé Pérez
St Camillus de Lellis with Garland
17th century
Prado

Bartolomé Pérez
St Teresa de Jesús with Garland
ca. 1676
Prado

Andries Bosmans
Madonna and Child and St. Anne with Garland
17th century
Prado

Nicolaes van Veerendael
Blessed Virgin with Garland
ca. 1640-60
Prado

Pieter Brueghel the Younger
Adoration of the Magi with Garland
17th century
Prado

Catarina II Ykens
Landscape Vignette with Garland
17th century
Prado

Cornelis Schut (central image) and Daniel Seghers (Garland)
Madonna and Child with Garland
17th century
Prado

Cornelis Schut (central image) and Daniel Seghers (Garland)
Madonna and Child and St John the Baptist with Garland
17th century
Prado

Daniel Seghers
Garland of Roses
17th century
Prado

Juan de Arellano
Landscape Vignette with Garland
1652
Prado

I am grateful for the beautiful reproductions made available by Museo del Prado.