Aemulatio

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Aemulatio Imitation, emulation and invention in Netherlandish art from 1500 to 1800Essays in honor of Eric Jan Sluijter

Waanders Publishers, Zwolle

Editors:

Anton W.A. Boschloo

Jacquelyn N. Coutré

Stephanie S. Dickey

Nicolette C. Sluijter-Seijffert

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Preface

F i o n a H e a l y

Terminus: Crossing Boundaries in Maarten van Heemskerck’s Saint Luke Painting the Madonna in Haarlem

K o e n r a a d J o n c k h e e r e

Nudity on the Market: Some Thoughts on the Market and Innovations in Sixteenth-Century Antwerp

B o u d e w i j n B a k k e r

Au vif - naar ‘t leven - ad vivum: The Medieval Origin of a Humanist Concept

I l j a M . Ve l d m a n

A Display of Ambitions: Isaac Duchemin’s Portrait of Jan van der Noot

M a r i o n B o e r s - G o o s e n s

Paintings in Sixteenth-Century Wealthy Interiors: Two Case Studies M i a M . M o c h i z u k i

Seductress of Site: The Nagasaki Madonna of the Snow

H u i g e n L e e f l a n g

‘Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus’ ‘after’ Bartholomeus Spranger: An Early Parody of Style

B a r b a r a H a e g e r

Rubens’ Singular Tribute to Adam Elsheimer

L y c k l e d e V r i e s

Painterly Chaos: The Choice of Subject Matter in Dutch Art

E r n s t va n d e We t e r i n g

Subordinating Colour to Light and Shadow: Rembrandt’s Fatal Choice?

Wi l l i a m Wo r t h B r a c k e n

‘So as to give birth to your own inventions, too’: Rembrandt Transforming Annibale

8

10

25

37

53

66

77

89

103

116

126

138

Contents

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E d d y d e J o n g h

Van Campen’s ‘White’ versus Lievens’ ‘Black’

A n n J e n s e n A d a m s

Aemulatio of Taste: Thomas de Keyser and the New Classicism of the 1630s

H . P e r r y C h a p m a n

Rembrandt and Caravaggio: A Question of Emulation? H e n k va n O s

The Painter as a Competitive Reader

Th i j s We s t s t e i j n

Karel van Mander and Francisco Pacheco

A r j a n d e K o o m e n

Titus, Titian and Tante Titia: On Rembrandt and Onomastics

S t e p h a n i e S . D i c k e y

Saskia as Glycera: Rembrandt’s Emulation of an Antique Prototype

A l i s o n M . K e t t e r i n g

Rembrandt and the Male Nude

S u s a n D o n a h u e K u r e t s k y

Rembrandt’s Cat

A l b e r t B l a n k e r t

Rapen Again: Notes on Aemulatio and Plagiarism in Dutch Painting

M a r g r i e t va n E i k e m a H o m m e s

‘As though it had been done by just one Master’: Unity and Diversity in the Oranjezaal, Huis ten Bosch

Wa lt e r L i e d t k e

Van Dyck’s ‘Infl uence’ in the Dutch Republic

A m y G o l a h n y

Rembrandt’s Callisto Bathing: Unusual But Not Unique

C e l e s t e B r u s a t i

Painting at the Threshold: Competition and Conversation in Perspective

153

167

182

195

208

224

233

248

263

277

288

304

318

326

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M a r t e n J a n B o k

Van Goyen as Burgher of Delft? Jan Steen and the Moralistic Mode

F r a u k e L a a r m a n n

Abraham and the Angels

R o n n i B a e r

Dou’s Nudes

E l m e r K o l f i n

Omphalos Mundi: The Pictorial Tradition of the Theme of Amsterdam and the Four Continents, circa 1600-1665

F r a n s G r i j z e n h o u t

Michiel van Musscher and Bartholomeus van der Helst: Theft of Honour or Creative Imitation?

A d r i a a n E . Wa i b o e r

A Clean Competition: Some Hypotheses on Vermeer’s Lost Gentleman Washing His Hands

E m i l i e E . S . G o r d e n k e r

Standing at the Crossroad: Arnold Houbraken on the Career of Jan de Baen

A n n a Tu m m e r s

The Painter Versus His Critics: Willem van Nijmegen’s Defense of his Art

J a c q u e l y n N . C o u t r é

‘Schoenmaaker blyft by uw leest’: On a Case of Emulation in Gerard de Lairesse’s Groot Schilderboek

C h a r l e s D u m a s

Improving Old Master Drawings by Aert Schouman (1710-1792)

Bibliography of Eric Jan SluijterPhoto CreditsIndexColor platesColofon

342

358

371

382

393

407

419

429

442

454

471

474

476

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Preface

Eric Jan Sluijter is a remarkably versatile art historian, both in his approach to art and

in his choice of themes. Testifying to this are his explorations of style and pictorial

tradition, his theoretical and iconological studies, as well as those on the reconstruction

of the history of houses on Rapenburg Canal in Leiden, and the social and cultural

position of their occupants, and fi nally on the painter and the dynamics of the art

market, themes that all require different approaches. The many subjects he has examined

include metamorphoses and other mythological themes in painting and the graphic arts,

self-portraits, Leiden fi jnschilders, eighteenth-century Dutch painters, Netherlandish

artists in England, and artists, such as Hendrick Goltzius, Jan van Goyen, Gerrit Dou,

Johannes Vermeer and - naturally - Rembrandt. Yet no matter how great the variety of

topics and approaches, they all bear the stamp of the author’s specifi c work method. This

is determined by Eric Jan’s own distinctive practice of the history of art, which consists

of detailed, precise and scrupulously documented research set against the background of

broadly formulated questions based on an extensive knowledge of the matter at hand. In

this he has signifi cantly enriched the study of Netherlandish art, not only through the

stimulating effect of his publications, but also through many years of dedicated teaching.

The concepts of imitation, emulation and invention have occupied an important place

in Eric Jan’s wide-ranging publications, as well as his lectures, since the beginning of the

1990s. These interrelated concepts have been chosen as the theme of this festschrift. Every

artist engaged in the creative process fi nds himself in a fi eld of tension between imitation,

emulation and invention, for consciously or not he will always want to measure up to his

predecessors and contemporaries. This applies both to artists wishing to locate themselves

in a tradition, evidencing admiration for their predecessors, and those seeking to distance

themselves from them. It is therefore a central theme in the history of art, one, moreover,

that affords a host of perspectives. For this reason it was perfectly suited for a festschrift

affording a platform to authors with widely divergent art historical points of departure

and practice.

By entitling this book Aemulatio, we acknowledge not only our central theme, but also

the ways in which so many colleagues and students over the years have been encouraged to

emulate Eric Jan’s example of inspiring scholarship. In establishing such a cohesive theme,

we have also posed a challenge for our authors that is not always required of contributors

to a festschrift. Together, their creative and insightful responses to this challenge have

produced a comprehensive overview of an essential topic in the history of Netherlandish

art. While some studies address instances of direct exchange within Dutch and Flemish art

of the early modern era, many range farther afi eld, tracing Netherlandish artists’ relations

with the classical past and with contemporaries from Spain and Italy to Japan. Some

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articles work out new aspects of subjects on which Eric Jan has also published: nudes by

Dou, male nudes by Rembrandt, a follow up on the Steen discussion. Rembrandt fi gures

strongly in ten essays, of which ‘Rembrandt’s Cat’ is a very special contribution. There

are also more theoretical essays, besides - naturally - an article about Amsterdam and even

one about a no longer extant painting by Vermeer. Southern Netherlandish art is also

examined in essays on Maarten van Heemskerck, Rubens, and Van Dyck.

Taken in any sequence, these essays invite the reader to join in a rich and thought-

provoking discourse. In addition to the many explicit examples of imitation and

emulation, other more implicit, not immediately perceptible, forms of emulation are

presented that lend themselves equally well to discussion and refl ection. To mention just

one: did Rembrandt actively compete with Caravaggio, and if so how should this form

of emulation be defi ned and what is its meaning? Precisely with this combination of

studies with detailed comparisons and others in which the reader is presented with more

hypothetical relationships in the light of aemulatio, supplemented with more general

considerations, the editors hope to do justice to the range and signifi cance of the art

historical research of the scholar and teacher this festschrift honors.

This book owes its existence to the contributions of a variety of authors. They include

students and colleagues, mostly from the Netherlands and the United States; they are all

specialists in Netherlandish art and, above all, good friends of Eric Jan.

The editors

The editors would like to thank the individuals and institutions who have contributed

fi nancially to the publication of this book: Otto Naumann, Johnny van Haeften, Tom

Kaplan, Salomon Lilian, the Netherland-America Foundation, the American Friends of

the Mauritshuis and the Stichting Charema - Fonds voor Geschiedenis en Kunst. We are

also grateful for the help of Jennifer Kilian and Katy Kist, translators, Marijke Tolsma for

helping with the Index, Carijn Oomkens and Peter van der Ploeg of Waanders Publishers

and the designer Frank de Wit.

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Among the images discussed by Eric Jan Sluijter in Seductress of Sight is

Jan Saenredam’s (1597-1665) engraving of 1616 after Hendrick Goltzius’

(1558-1617) Allegory of Visus and the Art of Painting (fi g. 1).1 This print

shows an elderly bespectacled artist painting a naked woman who can be

identifi ed as Venus, but also Visus, the personifi cation of Sight. Unlike

earlier interpretations that saw the print as Goltzius’ condemnation of

the inappropriate application of the sense of sight by artists, Sluijter

persuasively demonstrates that the composition’s multifarious elements

in fact add up to an overwhelming affi rmation of the positive importance

of sight for the artist.2 The bird’s head crowning the easel, hitherto

overlooked as a purely decorative feature, is identifi ed by Sluijter as a

phoenix, and as such a personal reference to Goltzius, who according to

Karel van Mander (1548-1606) was known as ‘a phoenix with golden

pens’.3 Sluijter convincingly links the easel to the elaborately constructed

example in Maarten van Heemskerck’s (1498-1574) Saint Luke Painting

the Madonna, presented in 1532 to Haarlem’s Guild of Saint Luke and

hung in St. Bavo’s on the north-west crossing pier where the guild had its

altar (fi g. 2, color plate 1).4 Goltzius greatly admired this painting, and it is

entirely plausible that his own transportation of emblematic meaning onto

such an ordinary piece of artistic equipment was a deliberate emulation

of the older master’s depiction of the male head on Saint Luke’s easel.5

He must, one presumes, have recognised that Van Heemskerck used the

easel to convey a particular message, though what Goltzius believed that

to be is not recorded, and of course need not necessarily have been the

same meaning that Van Heemskerck intended; however, as will be shown

below, there are indications in Goltzius’ oeuvre which suggest he did

indeed understand Van Heemskerck’s intentions.6 Van Heemskerck’s Saint

Luke has received considerable scholarly attention, much of which has

Terminus: Crossing Boundaries in Maarten van Heemskerck’s Saint Luke Painting the Madonna in HaarlemF i o n a H e a l y

1

Jan Saenredam after Hendrick

Goltzius, Allegory of Visus

and the Art of Painting, 1616,

engraving, 245 x 187 mm,

British Museum, Department

of Prints and Drawings,

London

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centred on the role of the male fi gure crowned with a wreath on the very

right, thought by Van Mander to have Van Heemskerck’s features and to

represent a ‘sort of poet’;7 the easel and its possible signifi cance had have

by contrast attracted surprisingly little interest. Admittedly, the painting’s

early date makes such an undertaking diffi cult and any identifi cation

more tentative than usual since those tools that normally facilitate such a

task, notably emblems but also other textual and visual material, had by

1532 not yet been consolidated into widely available books. Nonetheless,

the composition does provide clues to an identifi cation of the male head,

which in turn permits refl ection on its possible relevance for the painting.

Around 1650 Salomon de Bray (1597-1664) made two drawn copies of

the Saint Luke. Beautifully executed in pencil and red chalk, one drawing

reproduces the entire composition,8 the other just the right half (fi g. 3).9

The detailed and faithful nature of this latter copy makes it particularly

useful when describing the easel. The panel on which the patron saint of

painters portrays the Virgin and Child rests on an easel which is crowned

by the bust of a long-haired bearded male while the two front legs and

2

Maarten van Heemskerck,

Saint Luke Painting the

Madonna, 1532, oil on oak

panel, 168 x 235 cm, Frans

Hals Museum, Haarlem

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connecting stretcher are decorated with stylised acanthus leaves; the third,

back leg is unadorned. The man is youngish, with full cheeks and sharply

defi ned features that are all the more prominent given the intended di sotto

in su perspective of the viewer. He stares, open-mouthed and wide-eyed,

over the head of the painter-evangelist. His locks of hair and parted beard

frame each side of the apex of the easel; a fl amboyant bushel of hair covers

his ear and the end of the band of elaborately moulded acanthus leaves

that masks the line where hair and forehead meet.

This head is not simply an addition but rather forms an integral part

of the easel itself, which is carved entirely from stone - as indeed are

all furnishings in the painting. While conforming in overall shape and

basic construction to typical wooden easels, Van Heemskerck went

to considerable trouble to devise a complex structure to replace the

3

Salomon de Bray after

Maarten van Heemskerck,

Saint Luke Painting the

Madonna, (detail of right

half), c. 1650, drawing, black

and red chalk, 417 x 316 mm,

Collection Frits Lugt, Institut

Néerlandais, Paris

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simple stretchers that normally connect the upper and lower parts of

the ‘triangular’ support formed by an easel’s two front legs. The front is

basically a shaft, solid just below the head but hollowed out and cut away

lower down so that the two sides can form legs, here carved to resemble

those of goats. The transition is hidden by a large acanthus leaf and the

concave inner part richly ornamented with foliage that continues up

the shaft to the top of the triangle formed by the parted beard. To my

knowledge, this easel is in its material, form and execution quite unique. A

survey of depictions of painters at work confi rms that easels merely served a

practical purpose and were considered unworthy of any form of adornment

apart from the odd simply carved scroll or rosette at the apex.10 In addition

to the easel in Goltzius’ Allegory of Visus, the only other example known to

me that is decorated with a symbol that may have some meaning within

the overall context of the image is Lancelot Blondeel’s (1498-1561) Saint

Luke Painting the Madonna of 1545.11 The top of that wooden easel is

more intricately carved than usual and crowned by the head of an angel - a

possible allusion to the divine inspiration behind Saint Luke’s task.

The attention Van Heemskerck lavished on his easel surely implies it

had a function and meaning beyond its everyday purpose as a tool in an

artist’s studio. Its visual dominance suggests a symbolic signifi cance, yet

even Van Mander ignored it in his detailed discussion of the Saint Luke.

In more modern studies, if dealt with at all, it is usually the head rather

than the entire easel that is mentioned. Grosshans refers to a ‘bearded

head’, though other authors might conceivably have arrived at their

identifi cation on the basis of the goat legs: ‘the mask of a satyr’ (Klein), a

‘Dionysus head’ (Kraut) or ‘reminiscent of a faun’ (Biesboer and Köhler).12

Sluijter implicitly acknowledges the atypical construction of the easel

when he identifi es the head as a herm, as does Scheick, who alone supplies

an interpretation when he refers to the easel as an ‘Apollo headed herm-

pilaster with carved fi g-leaves (alluding to the Apollo-like Son of God’s

healing of humanity’s Adamic shame)’, an identifi cation that follows the

- unconvincing - proposal that Van Heemskerck had modelled the head on

the Apollo Belvedere.13 The key to the identifi cation of the head is indeed

the easel, which both Scheick and Sluijter correctly see as resembling a

herm. But not just any herm, for Van Heemskerck refers, I suggest, to a

very specifi c one - Terminus.

Terminus is the name of the Roman god who supposedly resided in the

stones marking the boundaries of property; these stones were the subject

of annual celebrations, the Terminalia, held each year on 23 February and

described in Ovid’s Fasti (II, 639-684).14 More a personifi cation than a

deity with a higher calling, Terminus rarely appeared in human form in

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art.15 He is, however, ever-present in an architectural feature: the ‘terminal

fi gure’ is a bust- or half-length fi gure in human form, with or without

arms, with a base (pillar, pilaster, pedestal etc.) and closely related to the

herm statue, a shaft surmounted by a bust or head, which in ancient

Greece usually depicted Hermes and had male genitals carved on the shaft

front.16 Van Heemskerck’s elaborate rendition of the lower structure of the

easel and his choice of stone as its material is central to the identifi cation of

the head as that of Terminus. While stone accords with Van Heemskerck’s

overall aesthetic concept for the painting, it renders the easel immovable

and therefore totally impractical for an artist, but all the more suitable

for a god whose origin lay in stone and whose credo was: I yield to none.17

This refers to Terminus’ refusal to leave the new temple erected on the

Capitol and dedicated to Jupiter, with the result that his stone or altar

remained untouched under a specially constructed opening to the sky.

Van Heemskerck’s unique depiction on the side of Saint Luke’s seat of the

Evangelist holding on for dear life to the bull, his symbol, unquestionably

invited viewers to recall Jupiter’s rape of Europa. Panofsky and others

concluded that this vignette reproduces the myth’s interpretation in the

Ovide moralisé where Europa is deemed to represent the human soul and

the bull Christ.18 Be that as it may, the unmistakable allusion to Jupiter

as opposed to the placid bull that normally accompanies and identifi es

the Evangelist may have been intended as a visual nod in the direction of

Terminus.19 Equally, the stylised foliage so prominently decorating the

bottom of Van Heemskerck’s easel may have served to further trigger the

association with Terminus, who after all resided in fi elds, a location alluded

to in many sixteenth-century depictions showing clumps of grass growing

around the stone base.20

That an artist living in Haarlem in the early 1530s knew what

physical attributes were appropriate for a god of boundaries is not all

that surprising given that Terminus had by then very much entered the

consciousness of early modern Europe through one of its most famous

fi gures - Erasmus of Rotterdam. While in Rome in 1509, Erasmus received

the gift of a gold ring with an antique carnelian stone engraved with

the bust of a bearded man on a block of stone, who was subsequently

identifi ed - incorrectly as it happens - as Terminus.21 Erasmus adopted

the god as his personal emblem, and between 1513 and 1519 had a seal

made showing a now beardless god with his name inscribed on the block

and framed by his credo: Cedo nulli – ‘I yield to none’.22 In 1519 Quinten

Massijs (1465/66-1530) designed a portrait medallion of Erasmus and on

the reverse Terminus, young and in profi le, his name on the base, with the

slightly adapted motto: Concedo Nulli – ‘I concede to none’ (fi g. 4).23 Hans

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Holbein the Younger’s (1497/98-1543) elaborate set of images includes a

1525 stained glass window showing Terminus as a half-fi gure herm in an

extensive landscape and framed by an elaborate architectural structure,24

a slightly adapted version of the deity alone is recorded in a painting

in Cleveland,25 and fi nally, around 1538/40, the woodcut Erasmus ‘im

Gehäus’ showing the scholar standing in a richly adorned arch (Gehäus),

his right hand resting on the head of Terminus, this time older and slightly

bearded.26 The scholar’s association with the pagan god was so well known

that gifts bearing depictions of or references to Terminus were dispatched

throughout Europe, either to or from Erasmus.27 Though conjectural, it is

conceivable that Van Heemskerck was familiar with at least some of these

images, in particular Massijs’ medal and Erasmus’ seal. What is certain

is that interest in Terminus was widespread in the early decades of the

century, so much so that by 1546 he was included in Alciati’s infl uential

book of emblems.28 Although fewer images of Terminus were in circulation

before Van Heemskerck painted his Saint Luke, he could nevertheless have

been informed of the god’s basic iconography and role, especially in view

of his fascination with all things related to the ancient world, an interest

which brought him into contact with a learned circle of acquaintances.

One visual precedent Van Heemskerck could have been familiar with

is Marcantonio Raimondi’s (c. 1480-c. 1534) Il Morbetto or The Plague

(fi g. 5).29 To be sure, the name Terminus is nowhere cited, but the herm’s

position at the transition point between interior and exterior, night and

day, surely suffi ces to identify him as the god of boundaries. Not only

4

Quinten Massijs, Portrait

Medallion of Erasmus

(obverse) and Terminus

(reverse), 1519, bronze,

diameter 10.5 cm, Victoria and

Albert Museum, London

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