Rembrandt and Samuel van Hoogstraten: Collecting, Presence, and Esteem in the Habsburg Patrimonial Lands and Collections
Sabine Pénot
‘Come, behold Hochstraet!’: Samuel van Hoogstraten’s Self-Portraits and Rembrandt
Volker Manuth
Reflecting on the Visible World
Celeste Brusati
‘Art cannot attain any perfection unless one … is guided by unerring rules of instruction.’
Van Hoogstraten’s Estimation of Rembrandt as a Teacher
Jonathan Bikker
History Painting
Volker Manuth
From Rembrandt’s nae ’t leven to Van Hoogstraten’s zichtbaere werelt
David de Witt
Rembrandt and Samuel van Hoogstraten and their Passion for Illusions
Leonore van Sloten
Precious Props. Rembrandt’s Strategic Use of Fashion Accessories in his Portraits
Marieke de Winkel
Gold
Marieke de Winkel
Rembrandt’s A Woman in Bed (Sarah Awaiting Tobias): Ambiguity and Illusion
Christian Tico Seifert
Samuel van Hoogstraten and the Central European Scientists of Sight: Astronomy, Jesuit Optics, Perspective Technique
Paolo Sanvito
Samuel van Hoogstraten’s Illusionistic Paintings for Emperor Ferdinand III –Two Case Studies
Erma Hermens and Sabine Pénot in collaboration with Eva Götz, Elke Oberthaler, and Ina Slama
Sabine Pénot
Rembrandt – Hoogstraten. Colour and Illusion: An Introduction
Deception can become a proof of existence. While often credited to René Descartes, this realization in fact long predates him. As Wolfgang Kemp has pointed out, it was Augustine who was the first to note: ‘For if I am deceived, I am. For he who is not, cannot be deceived; and if I am deceived, by this same token I am.’ 1
In the present volume, Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn ( fig. 1 ) and his work are explored from the perspective of his most important and exceptionally innovative pupil Samuel van Hoogstraten (see fig. 25 ). In 1678, near the end of his life, Van Hoogstraten published his opus magnum, the Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst: anders de zichtbaere werelt (Introduction to the Academy of Painting; or, The Visible World) , one of the most ambitious treatises on painting published in the Dutch Republic during the seventeenth century ( fig. 2 ). There he reflects upon his time in Rembrandt’s studio, giving us unique insights into the great master’s work, his workshop practice, training methods, and approaches to art theory. This extraordinary connection between the two artists
occupies a permanent place in the Rembrandt literature. In the early 1990s, Ernst van de Wetering began to interpret the Inleyding as a source for understanding Rembrandt’s art. 2
Van Hoogstraten’s multi-faceted oeuvre attests to the influences of his teacher Rembrandt, but also to his competitive spirit and the independent paths taken by his talented pupil. For his part, Rembrandt reacted to impulses supplied by his pupil Van Hoog straten. The concept of aemulatio or contest be tween artists is fundamental to seventeenthcentury Dutch art. A native of Dordrecht, Van Hoogstraten, who was always out to compete with his con temporaries, 3 would probably have relished the idea of being measured retrospectively against his erstwhile master.
From the multiplicity of possible themes relating to the two artists, the chosen focus will highlight two essential aspects of their oeuvre: colour and illusion. These determine the choice of works and the focus of the essays. The selected paintings simultaneously afford a comprehensive overview of the creative oeuvre of both artists and offers the
Hoogstraten, Feigned Letter-Rack Painting (detail from fig. 72), 1666/78, canvas, 63 × 79 cm. Staatliche
Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, inv. 2620
possible.6 This led to the making of three-dimensional images, suggesting – or even creating (see fig. 119 ) –specific effects of movement and sound.
The seventeenth-century fascination with illusion is not without parallel in our own times and would seem to be a timeless phenomenon. Thus, when contemplating an ‘eye-deceiving still life’ (see figs. 11, 72 ) today we still have the rarefied feeling of having a similar experience as the individuals for whom they were originally intended – like none other than Emperor Ferdinand III. Today the experiential-critical intellect is awake to the commonplace nature of sense deception. Especially at a time in which virtual reality and AI-generated worlds of imagery are becoming ever more ubiquitous, the encounter with the seventeenth-century originals that – even though inspired by technical achievements – were created wholly by the human hand is more fascinating than ever before.
Wolfgang Kemp’s recent publication entitled Die ehrbaren Täuscher. Rembrandt und Descartes im Jahr 1641 [The Honourable Deceivers: Rembrandt and Descartes in the Year 1641] has demonstrated the topicality of the themes explored here. 7 The cover of his book, which deals with the subject of illusion in the work of Rembrandt and Descartes with a focus on hyper mimetic motifs in seventeenthcentury Dutch painting, shows Rembrandt’s Girl in a Picture Frame (see fig. 79 ), which we have also chosen for the cover of the present catalogue.
QUESTIONS OF ATTRIBUTION
What constitutes a work by Rembrandt today, ten years after publication of the final volume of Ernst van de Wetering’s Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings ? Like every Rembrandt collection, that of Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum has been subject to fluctuating attributions over the course of time. In preparation for the present exhibition, the works attributed to Rembrandt in the Picture Gallery have been analysed with state-of-the-art technology. These investigative procedures on the paintings are the result of interdisciplinary collaboration: colleagues from the University of Antwerp and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, were enlisted
for highly specialized analyses, 8 and a new evaluation of the attributions and datings was conducted in exchange with internationally renowned Rembrandt experts. Paintings by Samuel van Hoogstraten were also investigated with the aim of achieving a better understanding of the commonalities and differences in painting technique.
The restoration of the pendant portraits of a married couple (see figs. 88, 89 ), the Prophetess Anna (see fig. 20 ), and the so-called Small SelfPortrait (see fig. 21 ) 9 yielded new findings in respect of their attribution. Revised attributions and new datings have been included in the present volume. This is particularly pertinent in the case of the Portrait of a Woman (see fig. 89 ) from the pair of portraits of a married couple, here presented as a work by Rembrandt and his studio, 10 and the Prophetess Anna , published in this volume as a work by Rembrandt with reworkings by his studio. 11 The X-ray and infrared images clarify a complex creative process in various stages, revealing early changes in the composition.
Of particular interest for our chosen focus are the illusionistic effects in the above-mentioned portraits of a married couple, effects that can be compared to those in the Portrait of Joris de Caullery ( fig. 4 ) and the Portrait of a Clergyman ( fig. 5 ). Rembrandt’s Titus van Rijn, the Artist’s Son, Reading (see fig. 19 ), classified by Van de Wetering as a study in light, 12 is a telling example of the decisive impact of lighting on the plasticity of the rendering. Equally effective is the use of light in the Prophetess Anna . The light concentrates the viewer’s attention on the red-rimmed eyes of the elderly prophetess with her slightly open, sunken mouth. The incidence of light captures the decisive moment when this otherwise decontextualized figure recognizes the infant Redeemer. The fine painterly quality of the face, the psychological moment, and the impactful lighting all speak in favour of an attribution to Rembrandt. The identity of the painter who carried out the final reworking of the composition is the subject of current research. The painting is contrasted with the HalfLength Portrait of a Man in Oriental Costume (fig. 6),
In 1647 he returned to Dordrecht, where he is thought to have founded a painting school. Amongst his apprentices were his younger brother Jan van Hoogstraten and most likely Nicolaes Maes (1634–1693) and Jacobus Leveck (1634–1675). Samuel van Hoogstraten also belonged to the Dordtse Dichtschool (school of poetry), a group of Dordrechters who found mutual inspiration in writing poems.
1648
On 16 May 1651 Van Hoogstraten left Dordrecht to embark on a study tour via Germany to Vienna. In the Inleyding he gives a verse account of this journey and his arrival in Vienna on 23 June 1651
Very soon he was granted an audience with Emperor Ferdinand III, which took place on 6 August 1651. Van Hoogstraten presented three of his paintings, amongst them an illusionistic still life which particularly fascinated the emperor and earned the artist a reward in the form of the imperial gold chain and medal of honour. For a time he was active as a painter at the Habsburg court in Vienna where he further experimented with illusionism, particularly in the Inner Courtyard of the Vienna Hofburg in a Feigned Picture Frame – a customized trompe l’oeil for the emperor (see fig. 119). Van Hoogstraten’s success with the emperor brought him an increasing number of aristocratic patrons who were interested in this genre. One such example is the work marked ‘12 Feber 1655’ and ‘Wie[n]’ held by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (see fig. 31).
Around 1648 Hendrickje Stoffelsdr. Jegers (1623 or 1626–1663) had taken over the position of housekeeper and nursemaid. Hendrickje became Rembrandt’s new lover in succession to Geertje, and his last partner. They had one daughter, Cornelia (1651/52 or 1654–1678).
In 1652 he travelled to Italy, visiting various regions. During his stay in Rome he joined the Bentvueghels artists’ group, taking the name Batavier. In 1653/54 he spent time in Regensburg, where Ferdinand III had convened the Imperial Diet.
The 1640s were also a period of intensive activity for Rembrandt as a teacher. Amongst his pupils was Samuel van Hoogstraten, who trained at the same time as Carel Fabritius (1622–1654).
From the mid-1640s onwards Rembrandt took his interest in illusionism to further stages of development. In paintings such as his Woman in Bed (see fig. 104 ), he blurs the border between the pictorial and the viewer’s space and abandons any fine, intricate painting, which suggests that such works were conceived with a view to being hung in certain specific places.
On 19 May 1654 his brother Jan van Hoogstraten died at age of 24 in their shared apartment near Schottentor city gate. In memory of his brother, Samuel van Hoogstraten had a marble tombstone erected in the (no longer existing) cloister of the Minorite church. On the basis of documentary descriptions of Van Hoogstraten’s pupil Arnold Houbraken (1660–1719), the gravestone is associated with the one seen in Van Hoogstraten’s Allegory of Time and Eternity of 1665/75 (see fig. 53). In allegorical scenes like these, he demonstrates his knowledge of complex iconographies and moves towards classicism and thus away from Rembrandt’s teachings.
Samuel van Hoogstraten appears to have returned to Dordrecht at the end of 1655 or beginning of 1656 On 22 May 1656, having passed the requisite exam, he was received into the Mint of Holland, which was located in Dordrecht. In the same year he became a member of the fraternity of the Romeinen, consisting of artists and moneyed persons who had travelled to Rome.
On 18 June 1656 he married Sara Balen (?–1678), who had left the local Mennonite congregation, from which Van Hoogstraten was therefore excluded on 17 September 1656 . At the beginning of the following year, they both became members of the Dutch Reformed Church. They never had children.
In 1657 Hoogstraten painted his first group portrait of the Masters and Wardens of the Mint of Holland , portraying himself in the middle of the second row. In 1659 he was appointed Provost of the Mint, an honorary post with certain tax benefits. In a later group portrait (see fig. 87 ) he positioned himself prominently in the first row, proudly displaying his imperial medal of honour.
From c.1651 to c.1658 Titus was an apprentice under his father, who was fond of using him as a model, for instance in the light study held at the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna (see fig. 19 ).
In 1653 Rembrandt fell into financial difficulties and in 1655 he sold a part of his art collection at the De Keyserskroon inn. In 1656 he filed for insolvency at the High Court of The Hague, following which his property was documented in an inventory and sold at public auction. Even so he was unable to pay his debts, and on 1 February 1658 the house on Sint Antoniesbreestraat was sold. Rembrandt and his family moved into rented accommodation on Rozengracht.
There, in 1658 , Hendrickje, in association with Titus, founded a firm that through the sale of paintings, prints, and objets d’art was intended to safeguard her future as an unmarried woman.
Five years later Hendrickje died, most likely during an outbreak of plague; she was buried in the Westerkerk, Amsterdam, on 24 July 1663
Sabine Pénot
Rembrandt and Samuel van
Hoogstraten: Collecting, Presence, and Esteem in the Habsburg Patrimonial Lands and Collections
Hoogstraten. A follower of Rembrandt and a good portraitist / also felicitous in still subjects / exceedingly powerful in the elevation and nat uralization of his work / has recommended himself in Vienna / with many portraits and other things: of which similar examples and evidence may be seen in the gallery. 1
(Joachim von Sandrart)
While Rembrandt is now recognized as one of the world’s most important and highly regarded artists, his pupil Samuel van Hoogstraten is much less well known. However, with his illusionistic art he became renowned at the Habsburg court in Vienna as the first artist whose painting had been capable of deceiving Emperor Ferdinand III’s senses. 2
In contrast to Rembrandt, who it would seem never left the Netherlands, Van Hoogstraten travelled extensively throughout Europe and was active for many years abroad. His most important sojourn outside the Netherlands was arguably the one he spent in Vienna. Soon after arriving, the highly ambitious Van Hoogstraten, not quite 25 years
old, was granted an audience with Emperor Ferdinand III that was to constitute a turning point in his career. Many years later at the very end of his life, he refers to this glorious episode in his treatise on painting and magnum opus, the Inleyding . The story of Van Hoogstraten’s success at the court of Vienna was further propagated in the writings of his pupil Arnold Houbraken and fellow artist Joachim von Sandrart.
Today the Picture Gallery of the Kunsthisto risches Museum holds a particularly important collection of Rembrandts that has been assembled over the centuries, together with major works by Van Hoogstraten. The present essay explores the question of when and how these paintings entered the collection, and what other works by these two artists were held in Habsburg, Austrian, and Bohemian private collections since the seventeenth century. 3
During Van Hoogstraten’s two sojourns in Vienna –and as part of the imperial retinue in Regensburg –between 1651 and 1655/56 (with one interruption when he travelled to Italy in 1652 and stayed in
16
Hoogstraten, Perspective Box with Views of the Interior of a Dutch House , 1655/60, wood, W 58 cm, H 88 cm, D 60.5 cm. London, The National Gallery, inv. NG3832
16a
Detail from fig. 16, ‘Lucri Causa’ (‘for reasons of profit’)
treasurer Dionysio Miseroni was to receive “220 florins, 14 crowns to furnish the gallery with pictures”, while in December 1660 there are instructions as to what was to be undertaken in respect of “the conservation and cleaning of those paintings”’.47 Since the meeting of the electors started in autumn, a connection is plausible.48 If Ferdinand himself had Van Hoogstraten’s paintings taken to Prague in 1652,49 the location of the Inner Courtyard of the Vienna Hofburg would be all the more significant in respect of the esteem in which it was held by the emperor.
SUCCESS AT COURT AND ENSUING PORTRAIT COMMISSIONS
Houbraken points out that at his audience Van Hoog straten received recognition from the court as a whole. The genre of ‘eye-deceivers’ 50 was subsequently praised by patrons within the orbit of the
imperial court, as attested by the provenance of the paintings at Kromeˇrˇíž (1653/54; fig. 15 ) and the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts ( fig. 13) , which were executed for aristocratic clients. The Academy painting from the Sinzendorf Collection was arguably commissioned by Count Georg Ludwig von Sinzendorf (see below). The trompe-l’oeil cabinet doors (Kromeˇrˇíž) were painted for Johann Cunibert von Wenzelsberg, who was court quartermaster in Vienna, provider of imperial lodgings, and art consultant and feudatory of Karl von Liechtenstein-Kastelkorn, and who possessed a large art collection.
In the Inleyding Van Hoogstraten refers to the genre of portrait painting as a source of income. In keeping with this, in his London Perspective Box (fig. 16) he positions a portrait painter beside a crowned putto with sceptre and cornucopia from which pours a torrent of sacks with coins. Beside this
Rembrandt, Titus van Rijn, the Artist’s Son, Reading , c.1658, canvas, 71.5 × 64.5 cm.
Kunsthistorisches
Museum Vienna, Picture Gallery, inv. 410
field of Flemish and Dutch works, which predominate by far in the collection, reflecting also the situation in the fine arts market: ‘This is explained not only by the collector’s personal taste but also by the situation in the art market: Italian paintings were regarded as extremely expensive, whereas Netherlandish paintings, thanks to the active agency of Flemish dealers, could be purchased relatively easily and at more favourable prices.’ 80
A painting by Rembrandt is also among the works: ‘No. 100 A panel by Reinbrandt, an old German man with a woman and a child lying in a wicker basket beside her, quite estimable, at 50 thalers’.81 The valuation of the scene – probably an unrecognized Holy Family – is on the low side, which also corresponds to other paintings by Rembrandt on offer at the Vienna branch of the Antwerp art dealers Forchouldt. Only a few works by Rembrandt are recorded there, with tronies predominating, and the prices are set low. By contrast, there are large numbers of Flemish-style works by Dutch artists, mainly genre and rural scenes, for example by Adriaen van Ostade.
In 1679 Prince Karl Eusebius von Liechtenstein bought Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait with Plumed Hat 82 Four other paintings had been offered for sale to the prince in 1673, but no purchase is attested.83 A further work, at the time attributed to Rembrandt, was offered to the Liechtensteins, but not purchased at this time: ‘No. 70 Diana with several hounds by Rennbrandt’.84 Interestingly, seventeenth-century AustroBohemian collections already contain copies of paintings by Rembrandt. Count Humprecht Jan Czernin von Chudenitz, 85 for example, purchased two copies of Rembrandt for his collection between 1664 and 1669, that is, during the master’s lifetime: one of the Man in Oriental Costume (Chatsworth), 86 and one painted by Willem Drost after a portrait of Titus. Czernin acquired the first copy in Venice, the second later on in Prague. 87 The collection of Prince Paul Esterházy contained a late seventeenth-century copy after Rembrandt, albeit in this case after an etching, the First Oriental Head of 1635.
In the seventeenth century there were probably more paintings by Van Hoogstraten than by Rembrandt in Austria and Bohemia. Rembrandt’s pupil enjoyed great popularity in imperial court
circles, bringing him numerous prominent commissions. Rembrandt by contrast was not to the taste of Ferdinand III and Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, but was nevertheless represented as an important master with one or two examples in their collections. In the Viennese art trade, which stood under Flemish influence, his paintings were not strongly represented. Rembrandt’s printed graphic work on the other hand was evidently highly popular and played a fundamental role in the dissemination of his oeuvre. It also found its way into still-life depictions, for example in Johannes de Cordua’s Vanitas Still Life on the Death of Emperor Ferdinand III ( fig. 18 ). 88
THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES: THE HEIGHT OF REMBRANDT HOLDINGS IN VIENNA
The tide turned in the eighteenth century, when the majority of the Kunsthistorisches Museum’s Rembrandt paintings were purchased for the imperial collection, with aristocratic collections being no less assiduous in acquiring works by the master. Under Emperor Charles VI there were already seven paintings attributed to Rembrandt in the Stallburg, which are recorded in the first two illustrated volumes of the Storffer inventory as being distributed between various rooms. The Astrologer from Leopold Wilhelm’s collection, here titled ‘Philosopher’, was integrated into the hang. Of these works attributed to Rembrandt, just two are today regarded as being by the artist’s own hand: Titus ( fig. 19 ) and the so-called Large SelfPortrait (see fig. 28 ), both of which are verifiable in the imperial collection from 1720.
In the second half of the eighteenth century, under Joseph II, four further paintings by Rembrandt were acquired and/or brought to Vienna. The Prophetess Anna ( fig. 20 ) was taken to Vienna from the palace at Pressburg in 1772; in the inventory of 1772 the panel is recorded under the number 15 as ‘An old woman, Rembrand’s mother’. Rembrandt’s paired Portrait of a Man and Portrait of a Woman (see figs. 88, 89 ), and the so-called Small Self-Portrait ( fig. 21 ) are recorded in the
Volker Manuth
‘Come, behold Hochstraet!’ 1 Samuel van Hoogstraten’s Self-Portraits and Rembrandt
For a long time, one of the salient characteristics of self-portraits was their integration in religious contexts. When making their own likenesses, artists did so in subordination to divine providence and in the sure hope of salvation at the Last Judgement. 2 This natural association and subordination in the light of an all-determining faith started to dissolve in the early modern period. From then on, artists began to make their own personalities and artistry more central to their works, as evinced by sixteenthcentury examples of both integrated and autonomous self-portraits by Ghiberti, Mantegna, Dürer, Raphael, Titian, Catharina van Hemessen, Sofonisba Anguissola, and many other painters and sculptors. While this also holds true for many seventeenthcentury artists on both sides of the Alps, no other painter before (and only a few after) Rembrandt deliberately made themselves a subject of their own art with such frequency as he did. If one disregards all the works where attribution is in any way insecure, around seventy self-portraits by him have been preserved in the form of paintings, drawings, and etchings, created over a period of approximately
forty years. 3 The possible reasons for this have been the subject of intense and wide-ranging debate. It is undisputed that self-portraits also played an important role in the oeuvre of several of Rembrandt’s pupils, including Govert Flinck, Ferdinand Bol, and Samuel van Hoogstraten. The following essay will attempt to provide answers to the question of function in the self-portraits of Van Hoogstraten in comparison with those of his teacher Rembrandt and to explore the correspondences and differences related to form and content.
It is unsurprising that Van Hoogstraten’s preoccupation with the self-portrait first manifests itself after he moved from Dordrecht to Amsterdam to train in Rembrandt’s workshop. The earliest surviving examples date from the time around 1644/45. Possibly the first is the undated pen-andink drawing held by the Fondation Custodia in Paris ( fig. 22 ). 4 Marked at a much later date with the name of the artist, it shows a young boy with pen and inkpot in an open window writing or drawing on sheets of paper lying in front of him. He has interrupted
