The Goddess Fortuna Bestowing her Gifts

Entry

In the centre the naked goddess Fortuna stands on a sphere placed on a column decorated with an antique relief of a sacrifice. A white man pushes away a black man from his favoured position at her feet. The goddess scatters valuables to her own right – coins, a purse, a winged slide trombone, a lance, a tazza and a goblet. Below the lucky ones rejoice, while some gather up her gifts. At the base of the column are a cittern, lute and music scores. To her left are the unlucky ones bemoaning their fate beneath a burning castle on a hilly outcrop.

Although acquired as by the Dutch artist Adriaen Pietersz van de Venne (1589-1662) – an artist in whom the owner Daniel Francken (1838-1898) took a particular interest – and attributed by him to either of Adriaen’s sons, Hubert or Pieter,¹³ the present painting was assigned in the 1903 catalogue to an anonymous Dutch master. Only in 1992 was it correctly described as being Flemish, being then attributed to Cornelis de Baeilleur (sic) (active 1625-d. 1671). But the facial types seem not to be those of this Antwerp master.¹⁴ The artist would rather appear to be the same as that responsible for the paintings decorating the small cabinet acquired by the North Carolina Museum of Art in 1999.¹⁵ And indeed another painting by the same hand was on the New York market in 2014.¹⁶ The landscapes in these works appear to be by different collaborators.

It was Sutton who attributed the paintings decorating the cabinet to Simon Flocquet,¹⁷ by whom only one signed painting is so far known.¹⁸ In the Rijksmuseum painting, however, the landscape is differently handled, and the faces and bodies are more delicately rendered.¹⁹ The style is reminiscent perhaps of Adriaen van Stalbemt (1580-1662)²⁰ whereas in the paintings decorating the cabinet it is akin more to that associated with Willem van Herp (c. 1614-1677),²¹ who joined the guild three/four years after Flocquet. But Sutton’s proposal may well be correct. It seems best, as Sutton himself recognized, to qualify the attribution, especially as it is made on the basis of a comparison with only one painting. Hence the Rijksmuseum painting is given the same appellation, ‘attributed to Simon Flocquet’, while it is recognized that the landscape is the work of another hand.

Some details in the costumes suggest a date of execution of the present painting of about 1645. The flat, linen collars worn by the man comforting the woman, bottom right, and by the man grasping the legs of the goddess as well as their circular, buff-coloured hats appear in paintings by David Teniers II (1610-1690) of 1643 and 1644.²² The support of west German or Netherlandish oak would have been ready for use from 1628 or more plausibly from ten years later.

The composition bears some resemblance to the small, upright copper in the centre of the North Carolina cabinet showing the Triumph of Cupid, in which the god stands atop a column with prostrate humans beneath. Thematically related are the print by Jan Harmensz Muller (1571-1628) of 1590 after Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem (1562-1638),²³ and the painting by Frans Francken II (1581-1642) at Compiègne of circa 1615.²⁴ In fact the print must have been known to the artist as the gifts, scattered by Fortuna and the child on the mother’s shoulders, left, are directly derived from it.²⁵ The Francken also includes the motif of burning buildings on the unlucky right-hand side of the composition. The goddess is depicted, following convention, standing on a sphere, her veil billowing in the wind.²⁶

The configuration of a white man roughly disposing of a black man for a privileged place close to the goddess is, however, exceptional. This motif may display a particular social context. The contest would appear to be echoed by the hound warning off the swan in the foreground. Sources for these central components of the composition have not been identified.

Gregory Martin, 2022