Putti with a Wreath of Flowers

c. 1650

Object data

oil on canvas

support: diameter 133.2 cm
outer size: depth 6.5 cm (support incl. frame)

Technical notes

The lined canvas has a seam in the middle and has a moderately fine, plain weave. The paint is smoothly applied, with brushstrokes visible in the putti’s hair only.

Scientific examination and reports

technical report: L. Sozzani, RMA, 3 June 2002

Condition

Fair. There is a considerable amount of abrasion, especially in the sky.

Conservation

E. Bosshard, 1971: complete restoration
W. Hesterman, 1971: complete restoration

Provenance

...; from the dealer, P. Velona, Florence, fl. 6,750, to the museum, as a gift from the Fotocommissie, 1970

Object number: SK-A-4171

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Stichting tot Bevordering van de Belangen van het Rijksmuseum

The artist

Gerard van Honthorst (Utrecht 1592 - Utrecht 1656)

Gerard van Honthorst was born in Utrecht on 4 November 1592 into a family of artists. His father, Herman Gerritsz van Honthorst, was a decorative painter and probably his first teacher. According to Von Sandrart and Houbraken, Honthorst trained with Abraham Bloemaert. When exactly he went to Italy is not known; a drawn copy after Caravaggio’s Martyrdom of St Peter in the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo is dated 1616,¹ indicating that he was in Rome by that year. His first documented painting, The Beheading of St John the Baptist, was executed for the Church of Santa Maria della Scala in 1617-18.² Such Caravaggesque night scenes, which often include artificial sources of illumination, garnered Honthorst the nickname ‘Gherardo delle Notti’ in Italy. Among his Roman patrons were the Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani, in whose house Honthorst lived, and Cardinal Scipione Borghese.

A few months after his return to Utrecht in 1620, Honthorst married Sophia Coopmans. He joined the Guild of St Luke there and set up his own workshop. Von Sandrart, one of his apprentices in the 1620s, informs us that Honthorst had as many as 25 pupils at a time, from each of whom he received the sizable tuition fee of 100 guilders a year. With the exception of 1627, Honthorst served as dean of the guild between 1625 and 1630. It was also in the mid-1620s that he received his first commission from the court of Frederik Hendrik in The Hague.³ A commission from the British ambassador in The Hague, Sir Dudley Carleton, for Lord Arundel came as early as 1620⁴ and eventually led to the invitation from Charles I to work on Banqueting House in Whitehall in 1628.⁵ Honthorst returned to the United Provinces the same year, but continued to work for the English court in the years to come. In 1630 he became court painter to the exiled King and Queen of Bohemia, Frederick V and Elizabeth, in The Hague. Honthorst also painted numerous portraits of the Stadholder and his wife, Amalia van Solms, and took part in the decoration of, among others, the palaces Honselaarsdijk, Huis ter Nieuburch (1636-39) and Huis ten Bosch (1649-50). In order to accommodate his work in The Hague, he set up a second workshop there in 1637 and joined the guild, serving as dean in 1640. Also in 1637, he became the principal artist to decorate the Banqueting Hall in Kronborg Castle for King Christian IV of Denmark. Honthorst was, perhaps, the most internationally successful Dutch artist of his time. Despite, or possibly as a result of this success, his late style was criticized as ‘stiff ’ and ‘slick’ (‘stijve gladdicheyt’) and he was esteemed a ‘much less great master than themselves’ (‘beaucoup moins grand maistre qu’eux’) by his fellow artists working on the Oranjezaal.⁶ He died on 27 April 1656 and was buried in the Catharijnekerk in Utrecht.

Jonathan Bikker, 2007

References
Mancini c. 1620, fol. 86 (Judson/Ekkart 1999, p. 47); Von Sandrart 1675 (1925), pp. 22, 102, 172-74; Houbraken I, 1718, pp. 149-50; Braun 1966, pp. 7-59, 340-88 (documents); Bok in Utrecht-Braunschweig 1986, pp. 276-79; Bok in San Francisco etc. 1997, pp. 382-83; Judson/Ekkart 1999, pp. XXXIII-XXXIV, 1-24

Entry

Flying putti figure in numerous works by Honthorst as accessories. They are to be found on their own holding the monograms of King Christian IV, his parents and his wives in four ceiling paintings executed by Honthorst and his workshop for Kronborg Castle in 1635.⁷ The similarities, including the pyramidal compositions, between these paintings and the Rijksmuseum tondo are obvious. The two putti holding bows and arrows in this painting appear in another one for Kronborg Castle, The First Meeting of The Agenes and Chariclea, also from 1635.⁸ Reznicek argued that this painting was executed after the present picture, which he dated to around 1630.⁹ Basing his judgement on the robustness of the putti, Judson preferred a date of around 1640.¹⁰ However, an even later date, c. 1650, seems most appropriate, as the slick execution of these little cherubs, their broad faces and even broader bellies, and especially their stylized hair and facial features, compare best with the putti in two works in the Oranjezaal from 1649 and 1650: Allegory of Louise Henriette of Orange Leading the Elector of Brandenburg to Their Royal Highnesses and Allegory of the Marriage of Frederik Hendrik and Amalia van Solms.¹¹ Shortcomings such as the overly thick contour lines and the awkwardly articulated anatomies support Judson’s conclusion that the present painting was executed by Honthorst’s assistants. Such shortcomings, however, are also present in the Oranjezaal works. Putti with a Wreath of Flowers was, perhaps, executed by the same assistants around the same time as the Oranjezaal, using the design for the Kronborg Castle work.

Given the many decorations Honthorst executed for their palaces, Reznicek suggested that the Rijksmuseum tondo was perhaps executed for the House of Orange.¹² Another possibility entertained by Reznicek was that the tondo is a rare example for the first half of the 17th century of a ceiling decoration for a non-aristocratic home.¹³

The bows and arrows and the floral wreath suggest an amorous iconography.

Jonathan Bikker, 2007

See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements

This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 145.

Literature

Reznicek 1972, pp. 179-81; Judson/Ekkart 1999, p. 132, no. 146

Collection catalogues

1976, p. 286, no. A 4171; 2007, no. 145

Citation

J. Bikker, 2007, 'workshop of Gerard van Honthorst, Putti with a Wreath of Flowers, c. 1650', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.10138

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