The Defeated Spanish Garrison Leaving ’s-Hertogenbosch, 17 September 1629

Entry

This painting was attributed to Esaias van de Velde from its purchase by the museum in 1803 until Hofstede de Groot gave it to Henri Ambrosius Pacx in 1899.⁵ In the collection catalogue of 1903 it was attributed to Van Hillegaert, and that has never been doubted since. The style matches the artist’s signed works, this being particularly evident in the distinctive horses, the dogs with their relatively long legs, the soldiers’ numerous schematic lances, and the blue-green tints of the background. Van Hillegaert probably executed it within a few years of the victory at ’s-Hertogenbosch in 1629. He probably based the cartographic landscape on the maps of the siege published by Jacques Prempart in 1630,⁶ which enables the painting to be dated between 1630 and 1635.

In contrast to Van Hillegaert’s Siege of ’s-Hertogenbosch (SK-A-607), in which Frederik Hendrik and Ernst Casimir are depicted as triumphant commanders in the foreground, the focus here is on the panoramic landscape around the city, with the departing prelates and the Spanish garrison. On the dark, elevated foreground on the right are a few anonymous horsemen. Van Hillegaert would usually have placed the commanders here, but in this composition Frederik Hendrik and Ernst Casimir have been placed in a less prominent position beside the carriage in the left foreground at the head of the procession leaving the city. Seated in the carriage is a person with a fur-trimmed gown and hands clasped in prayer. It has been suggested that this is the wife of ’s-Hertogenbosch’s governor Van Grobbendonck.⁷ Another, more likely possibility is that it is Michael Ophovius (1571-1637), Bishop of ’s-Hertogenbosch, who signed the capitulation on 14 September 1629 and went into exile. The members of the various monastic orders gathered around the carriage also argue for this identification. The facial features of the individual are barely distinguishable, so comparison with known portraits of Ophovius is of no help.⁸ This individual, in any event, is a dignitary on the Spanish side who is being personally led out of the city by Frederik Hendrik and Ernst Casimir.

The cartographic nature of the panoramic landscape is reminiscent of works by Pieter Snayers, but Van Hillegaert opted for a more realistic perspective with a lower horizon.⁹ A Siege of ’s-Hertogenbosch in the Rijksmuseum by Van Hillegaert (SK-A-848) has the same, almost cartographic landscape, and was acquired by the museum in 1885 as the pendant of the present painting.¹⁰ Hofstede de Groot also viewed these paintings as pendants.¹¹ The dimensions of the two works differ slightly, though, the horizons are at different levels, and the figures are not quite the same size. Both works must therefore be regarded as separate visual records of the battle for ’s-Hertogenbosch.

Yvette Bruijnen, 2007

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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. 126.