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拍品专文
Hitherto unrecorded, this sheet is part of one of the most fascinating series of drawings in Dutch art around 1600. In allegorical fashion and fanciful style, it depicts the revolt of the Northern Netherlands against the Habsburg rule of King Philip II of Spain, which resulted in the division of the Low Countries into two parts, and to the creation of the Dutch Republic. Its author, Joachim Wtewael, was one of the most celebrated artists active in Utrecht at the time, as well a successful businessman and civic-minded local politician. A recent assessment of his drawings has emphasized their high quality and rarity, but also the existence of a large number of replicas that may have originated in his workshop or immediate circle (see S. Alsteens, ‘Wtewael as Draftsman’, in Pleasure and Piety. The Art of Joachim Wtewael, exhib. cat., Utrecht, Centraal Museum, Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, and Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, 2015-2016, pp. 49-59). Both in terms of date and numbers, the series stands at the core of Wtewael’s drawn œuvre, of which no more than thirty sheets may have survived (ibid., p. 59).
The signature and the outstanding quality of the newly identified drawing leave no doubt over its authenticity. The drawing is not only carefully finished, but also richly varied in execution, from the delicately applied washes modelling the face of the mounted general to the marked contrast of the woman’s outstretched hand against the lighter and more summarily sketched battle scene in the background. Compared to Wtewael’s earlier drawings, the ‘figures [in the series] have gained in monumentality, and the compositions in balance and naturalness’ (Alsteens, op. cit., p. 53), but they also display the playfulness typical of what is known as Dutch Mannerism. The balletic swagger of the soldiers at left, the elegance of the horse, and the theatrical pose of the central figure, together with a winning mix of realism (as in the depiction of the horse’s body) and artificiality, are characteristic of Wtewael’s best works as painter or print designer.
The series illustrating the Dutch Revolt, of which the rich and entirely original iconography has been explored by Elizabeth McGrath in an article of 1975 (‘A Netherlandish History by Joachim Wtewael’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXXVIII, 1975, pp. 182-217), was long thought to have been made as a model for a set of engravings that were never executed. However, the recent discovery of a document by Marten Jan Bok has made it clear that the drawings were, in fact, designs for glass paintings (see Z. van Ruyven-Zeman, Stained Glass in the Netherlands before 1795, Amsterdam and The Hague, 2011, I, pp. 248-252). Commissioned in 1610 by the States General to commemorate negotiations held that same year, the glass panels were installed by 1612 in the very room where those negotiations took place, on the first floor of the town hall of Woerden, west of Utrecht. While the panels have been destroyed, probably at the end of the eighteenth century, the building and the room itself have been preserved, and with it the twelve windows (each one divided into two lights) in which the panels after Wtewael’s designs once were mounted.
With the newly discovered sheet presented here, fourteen compositions related to the series are known, of which all but one survive in autograph versions, most of them signed and numbered (for a recent discussion, see W.W. Robinson in Drawings from the Age of Bruegel, Rubens, and Rembrandt. Highlights from the Collection of the Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, Mass., 2016, pp. 327-329, under no. 100). One of these, the only other one remaining in private hands (Maida and George Abrams Collection), is dated 1612, and is the scene closing the series, with a depiction of the Truce concluded in 1609, later known as the Twelve Years’ Truce. Six of the original drawings are at the Albertina, Vienna; two in the Centraal Museum, Utrecht; and one each at the Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
The exact number of panels installed in Woerden is not known; the most detailed contemporary account describes the room as decorated ‘with elegant pictures [on glass] of the wars of the Netherlanders designed by Joachim Wtewael’ (‘elegantibus picturis bellorum Belgicorum ex inventione Joachimi vten Walii ornati’; see Van Ruyven-Zeman, op. cit., p. 248). It has been assumed that there was one in each of the twelve windows, which would mean that two of Wtewael’s compositions were not used. Whether that was the case with the sheet under discussion is unclear; it is not numbered in the composition itself, as are many of the other drawings, although it does bear a number ‘12’ in the drawing’s lower right margin. The scene depicted in the drawing comes towards the end of the narrative of the series, representing the Dutch maiden, or Belgica, leading the Dutch to war against the Spanish army. The general on the horse can be identified as the Prince of Orange, possibly William the Silent (1533-1584), whose leadership and courage was critical in the early stages of the revolt and laid the foundation for what would become one of the first modern republics in the Western World. The awareness of the Dutch of the significance of the events in which they were taking part, even as they were still unfolding, is directly reflected in Wtewael’s designs, which remain one of the earliest and most original visual comments on a major chapter in European history.
The signature and the outstanding quality of the newly identified drawing leave no doubt over its authenticity. The drawing is not only carefully finished, but also richly varied in execution, from the delicately applied washes modelling the face of the mounted general to the marked contrast of the woman’s outstretched hand against the lighter and more summarily sketched battle scene in the background. Compared to Wtewael’s earlier drawings, the ‘figures [in the series] have gained in monumentality, and the compositions in balance and naturalness’ (Alsteens, op. cit., p. 53), but they also display the playfulness typical of what is known as Dutch Mannerism. The balletic swagger of the soldiers at left, the elegance of the horse, and the theatrical pose of the central figure, together with a winning mix of realism (as in the depiction of the horse’s body) and artificiality, are characteristic of Wtewael’s best works as painter or print designer.
The series illustrating the Dutch Revolt, of which the rich and entirely original iconography has been explored by Elizabeth McGrath in an article of 1975 (‘A Netherlandish History by Joachim Wtewael’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXXVIII, 1975, pp. 182-217), was long thought to have been made as a model for a set of engravings that were never executed. However, the recent discovery of a document by Marten Jan Bok has made it clear that the drawings were, in fact, designs for glass paintings (see Z. van Ruyven-Zeman, Stained Glass in the Netherlands before 1795, Amsterdam and The Hague, 2011, I, pp. 248-252). Commissioned in 1610 by the States General to commemorate negotiations held that same year, the glass panels were installed by 1612 in the very room where those negotiations took place, on the first floor of the town hall of Woerden, west of Utrecht. While the panels have been destroyed, probably at the end of the eighteenth century, the building and the room itself have been preserved, and with it the twelve windows (each one divided into two lights) in which the panels after Wtewael’s designs once were mounted.
With the newly discovered sheet presented here, fourteen compositions related to the series are known, of which all but one survive in autograph versions, most of them signed and numbered (for a recent discussion, see W.W. Robinson in Drawings from the Age of Bruegel, Rubens, and Rembrandt. Highlights from the Collection of the Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, Mass., 2016, pp. 327-329, under no. 100). One of these, the only other one remaining in private hands (Maida and George Abrams Collection), is dated 1612, and is the scene closing the series, with a depiction of the Truce concluded in 1609, later known as the Twelve Years’ Truce. Six of the original drawings are at the Albertina, Vienna; two in the Centraal Museum, Utrecht; and one each at the Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
The exact number of panels installed in Woerden is not known; the most detailed contemporary account describes the room as decorated ‘with elegant pictures [on glass] of the wars of the Netherlanders designed by Joachim Wtewael’ (‘elegantibus picturis bellorum Belgicorum ex inventione Joachimi vten Walii ornati’; see Van Ruyven-Zeman, op. cit., p. 248). It has been assumed that there was one in each of the twelve windows, which would mean that two of Wtewael’s compositions were not used. Whether that was the case with the sheet under discussion is unclear; it is not numbered in the composition itself, as are many of the other drawings, although it does bear a number ‘12’ in the drawing’s lower right margin. The scene depicted in the drawing comes towards the end of the narrative of the series, representing the Dutch maiden, or Belgica, leading the Dutch to war against the Spanish army. The general on the horse can be identified as the Prince of Orange, possibly William the Silent (1533-1584), whose leadership and courage was critical in the early stages of the revolt and laid the foundation for what would become one of the first modern republics in the Western World. The awareness of the Dutch of the significance of the events in which they were taking part, even as they were still unfolding, is directly reflected in Wtewael’s designs, which remain one of the earliest and most original visual comments on a major chapter in European history.