Object data
oil on canvas
support: height 57 cm × width 82 cm × thickness 3 cm (support incl. backboard)
outer size: height 65.6 cm × width 90.6 cm × depth 9.8 cm (support incl. transport frame)
Nicolaas van Eyck (II) (attributed to)
c. 1645
oil on canvas
support: height 57 cm × width 82 cm × thickness 3 cm (support incl. backboard)
outer size: height 65.6 cm × width 90.6 cm × depth 9.8 cm (support incl. transport frame)
…; the dealer P.C. Huybrechts, The Hague; from whom acquired by the museum as by David Teniers I, 18031
Object number: SK-A-619
Copyright: Public domain
Nicolaas van Eyck II (Antwerp 1617 - Antwerp 1679)
The extant oeuvre of Nicolaas van Eyck II2 – consisting chiefly in battle-pieces inspired by Peeter Snayers (1592-1667) – is small considering that his career spanned some thirty years in Antwerp. Baptized on 9 February 1617 in the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwerkerk, his exact date of death and place of burial are not recorded.3 Listed as pupil of Theodore Rombouts (1597-1637) in 1632/33, his enrolment as a master in the guild seems not have been registered, but must have happened by 1641/42 when he took on the first of two apprentices.4 In 1658 Nicolaas became captain of the Antwerp civic guard,5 and his most accomplished and ambitious extant painting is the Parade of the Civic Guard in the Place de Mier of 1673.6 His work and his standing as commander won a short mention by Cornelis de Bie in his Het gulden cabinet of 1662.7 His father – also Nicolaas, hence the appellation here as Nicolaas van Eyck II – seems to have practised painting as works by him of small value are listed in the record of the division of his collection of 1656, which contained no paintings by his homonymous son, but several by his eldest son, Gaspar, who specialised in sea battles.8 The younger Nicolaas followed his father both as artist and civic military commander.
REFERENCE
Beaujean in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, Munich/Leipzig 1983-, XXXV, pp. 521-22
Acquired as by David Teniers I (1582-1649) and then considered by Bredius to be by an anonymous Dutch artist, the present attribution to Nicolaas van Eyck II was suggested by a comparison with a reproduction of a comparable, signed work by this artist which appeared on the Viennese market in 1964.9 Van Eyck’s small, extant oeuvre seems not to be homogeneous, for a more statuesque treatment of the figures is evident in the equestrian portrait at Lille10 and the Riding School which appeared on the Cologne market in 2006.11 The present painting shares characteristics with both types. Thus, granted uncertainty about the make-up of Van Eyck’s oeuvre and the poor condition of the museum picture, it seems best to retain the qualified ascription (unintentionally to Van Eyck I) of the 1976 museum catalogue. It is noteworthy that a full attribution has been accepted by Van Maarseveen12 and Beaujean.13
The signed work with which the present work has been compared, has been identified as depicting the battle of Kallo which took place in 1638. This is improbable if only because the terrain is not shown as flat. Whether the skirmish depicted here can be identified is doubtful, although the point-blank engagement at a wooden footbridge over a narrow dike – an unusual but not unique battle-piece theme – may well not be imaginary. Visscher’s print of 1622 Skirmish near the Village of Ter Schilde provides a precedent.14
Of the infantry detachments involved, that on the left can be identified as Spanish as it fights under the Spanish army flag of the Burgundian red raguly saltire on a white field.15 The banner of the opposing troops is an unspecified red denoting perhaps no more than that an action is taking place.16 In a related painting, see below, the colour is yellow which may refer to the topmost colour of the ‘princes flag’,17 making the detachment part of the army of the United Provinces. Hostilities between the two armies continued in the campaigning seasons of the 1640s until two years prior to the treaty of Münster of 1648.18 The costumes in the Rijksmuseum painting do indeed suggest a date circa 1645.19 In these years the Spanish army of the Netherlands, however, also engaged with the French army.
In the comparable, signed battle-pieces referred to above, an infantry engagement at close range is depicted in the middle-ground, with the Spanish troops also deployed on the left. Seemingly the same engagement as takes place in the present work is shown in the middle-ground of a painting on the London market in 1985.20 This, judging from the colour reproduction, is also probably by Nicolaas van Eyck II. Here in the foreground Spanish infantry, lined up before a dike, repel a cavalry charge.
Gregory Martin, 2022
1809, p. 69, no. 297 (Teniers (de Oude) Het verbreken van het twaalf jarig bestand); 1903, p. 12, no. 115 (Anon. Dutch, 17th century, second half); 1976, p. 223, no. A 619 (attributed to Nicolaas I van Eyck)
G. Martin, 2022, 'attributed to Nicolaas van (II) Eyck, Infantry Skirmish in the Eighty Years War, c. 1645', in Flemish Paintings in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8404
(accessed 10 November 2024 20:36:37).