The Legates of Alexander the Great Investing the Gardener Abdalonymus with the Insignia of the Kingship of Sidon

c. 1645 - c. 1650

Object data

oil on panel

support: height 54.6 cm × width 75.8 cm
outer size: depth 6.5 cm (support incl. frame)

Inscriptions

signature, bottom left (N and K ligated): NKn […]

Technical notes

Support The single, horizontally grained plank of Spanish cedar (Cedrela odorata) is approx. 1 cm thick. The right edge has been trimmed, the left one partly. The reverse is bevelled on all sides.
Preparatory layers The single, warm, medium grey ground extends up to the edges of the support. It was applied with markedly horizontal brushwork, which is most clearly visible with infrared photography. The ground consists of (primarily translucent, some opaque) white pigment particles, light orangey earths and large black pigment particles.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the edges of the support. A thin, fluid, dark initial lay-in made with dilute transparent browns established the contours and modelling of the landscape, fortress walls, turrets and figures. This undermodelling has remained visible in many places, for example the flesh tones, where it serves as shadows of the final forms. The composition was built up from the back to the front and from dark to light, using some reserves. The castle turret in the far background, however, and many of the figures in the background and middle ground were almost completely applied over the sky and landscape. The illuminated flesh tones were composed of thin, blended light ochre-coloured and pink paints. Many adjustments (now visible to the naked eye) were made to the contours of the elements left in reserve in the final stage, for example the brownish-yellow garment worn by Abdalonymus, the second figure from the left. The upper layers are creamy and medium rich with visible fluid brushstrokes.
Gwen Tauber, 2022

Scientific examination and reports

infrared photography: G. Tauber, RMA, 29 October 2009
paint samples: G. Tauber, RMA, nos. SK-A-1458/1-2, 29 October 2009
technical report: G. Tauber, RMA, 29 October 2009

Condition

Fair. Five short, medium and longer cracks run in the direction of the grain where the panel was trimmed on the left. Three of them were closed. A small part of the upper left corner of the support is lost. Small chip-losses are apparent along the trimmed edges. Much abrasion and also increased transparency can be found in all the thinly covered areas. Local alligator cracks are present in most lighter-coloured paints where these were applied over the dark underpaint, for instance above Abdalonymus’s raised hand. Numerous black crater-like holes and protrusions are visible throughout the paint surface, primarily in horizontal patterns. Stereomicroscopy showed profuse white craters and protrusions in all light areas.

Conservation

H. Plagge, 1961: restored

Provenance

…; ? lottery held by Jan de Bondt, Wijk bij Duurstede, 9 May 1649, no. 126 (‘Een stuck van Knipper synde ‘‘t’ principael van Addolonibus’’’), estimated at fl. 100;¹…; collection Dr Abraham Bredius (1855-1946), The Hague, c. 1880;² by whom donated to the museum, 24 April 1888³

Object number: SK-A-1458

Credit line: Gift of A. Bredius, The Hague

The artist

Nicolaes Knupfer (Leipzig c. 1609 - Utrecht 1655)

Nicolaes Knupfer’s precise date of birth is unknown, but a contract of April 1639 mentions that he was about 30 years old, so it must have been around 1609. Although no baptismal certificate has been found, a variety of documents and biographical sources indicate that Leipzig was his native city. The inscription on his self-portrait engraved by Pieter de Jode and published by J. Meijssens in 1649 states that his first teacher was Emanuel Nysen or Nysse, who was active in Leipzig. Knupfer then moved to Magdeburg, where he worked as a brush maker and painter. According to De Bie he was 26 when he left for Utrecht, but that may have been based on the incorrect assumption that he was born in 1603. According to some contemporary biographical annotations he became an assistant in Abraham Bloemaert’s studio in 1630, but he is not registered in Utrecht for the first time until 1637, when he enrolled in the guild as an independent master for an annual period. In the same year Simon de Passe employed Knupfer, Abraham Bloemaert, Gerard van Honthorst and Jan van Bijlert to produce 84 drawings of episodes from Danish history for King Christian IV. That was followed in 1639 by a commission for three paintings by Knupfer for the banqueting hall in Cronberg Castle.⁴

On 7 November 1640 the artist married Cornelia Back, the daughter of a grain merchant. She died in July 1643, and Kramm suggests that Knupfer then spent some time in The Hague, but there is no evidence of this. Nor are there any documents testifying to Jan Steen’s apprenticeship to him in the early 1640s, but formal parallels between their works show that there were close ties between them, at the very least. In 1647 Pieter Crijnsen Volmarijn paid 72 guilders for a year’s tuition from Knupfer, and Ary de Vois was probably his pupil in the 1640s as well.

Although Knupfer had already been active as an artist for some time, his earliest dated painting, Jupiter and Mercury with Philemon and Baucis, on which he collaborated with Abraham van Cuylenborch and Jacob de Heusch, only is from 1643.⁵ It is also known that he worked together with Jan Both and Jan Baptist Weenix. His last dated picture, Allegorical Portrait with St Cecilia, is from 1655, the year of his death.⁶ He was buried in the Geertekerk in Utrecht on 15 October.

Knupfer mainly owes his fame to his often idiosyncratic religious and literary history scenes and to sometimes obscure allegorical subjects. He worked chiefly on small panels in a loose, sketchy style that remained fairly consistent his whole life long. Evidence of his success takes the form of expensive purchases by the Utrecht collectors Johan Schade and Baron Willem Vincent van Wyttenhorst. Von Sandrart reports that his paintings were also sought after by kings and princes.

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2022

References
J. Meyssens, Image de divers hommes d’esprit sublime qui par leur art et science debvrovent vivre eternellement et des quels la lovange et renommée faict estonner le monde, Antwerp 1649 (unpag.); C. de Bie, Het gulden cabinet van de edel vrij schilder const, inhoudende den lof vande vermarste schilders, architecte, beldthowers ende plaetsnijders van deze eeuw, Antwerp 1662, pp. 115-16; J. von Sandrart, Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675: Leben der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister, ed. A.R. Peltzer, Munich 1925 (ed. princ. Nuremberg 1675), p. 177; A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, I, Amsterdam 1718, pp. 233-34; C. Kramm, De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, beeldhouwers, graveurs en bouwmeesters: Van den vroegsten tot op onzen tijd, III, Amsterdam 1859, p. 882; S. Muller, Schilders-vereenigingen te Utrecht: Bescheiden uit het Gemeente-Archief, Utrecht 1880, p. 123; A, Bredius, ‘Het schildersregister van Jan Sysmus, Stads-Doctor van Amsterdam’, Oud Holland 8 (1890), pp. 1-17, 217-34, 297-313, esp. p. 304; Schneider in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XXI, Leipzig 1927, pp. 37-39; G. Brinkhuis, ‘Nieuwe gegevens over den kunstschilder Nicolaus Knupfer’, Jaarboekje van Oud-Utrecht 12 (1935), pp. 110-16; C. Willnau, ‘Die Herkunft des Nicolaus Knupfer’, Familiengeschichtliche Blätter 33 (1935), no. 1 (unpag.); C. Willnau, ‘Neue Urkunden über Nicolaus Knupfer’, Familiengeschichtliche Blätter 34 (1936), no. 9, pp. 265-66; J.I. Kuznetzow, ‘Nikolaus Knupfer (1603?-1655)’, Oud Holland 88 (1974), pp. 169-219; P. Huys Janssen, ‘Philip Sandrart en Nicolaus Knupfer: Een briefbestelling uit 1639 te Utrecht’, Oud Holland 103 (1989), pp. 152-54; Bok in J.A. Spicer and L.F. Orr (eds.), Masters of Light: Dutch Painters in Utrecht during the Golden Age, exh. cat. San Francisco (Fine Arts Museum)/Baltimore (The Walters Art Gallery)/London (The National Gallery) 1997-98, pp. 383-84; J. Saxton, Nicolaus Knupfer: An Original Artist: Monograph and Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings and Drawings, Doornspijk 2005, pp. 29-46, 47-52 (documents); Wegener in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, LXXXI, Munich/Leipzig 2014, p. 51

Entry

Nicolaes Knupfer was often highly creative in the choice of subjects for his history paintings, a number of which are based on rather obscure texts. The present theme of the gardener Abdalonymus invested with the insignia of the kingship of Sidon has rarely been depicted in art.⁷ Given its unique nature, this is very probably the ‘piece by Knupfer, being the original of Abdalonymus’ that was raffled by Jan de Bondt at a lottery in Wijk bij Duurstede in May 1649 as one of the works with the highest estimates.⁸

The story is told by Quintus Curtius Rufus in his Historiae Alexandri Magni Macedonis, an important classical source for the life of Alexander the Great. In 1613 a Dutch translation was published by Adriaen Gerritsz in Delft as Hoog-beroemde historie van t’leven ende de daden van Alexander de Groote. In book IV there is a description of how the town of Sidon surrendered to Alexander, who allowed his friend and general Hephaestion to choose the new ruler. He offered the crown to two leading citizens with whom he was lodging, but they refused it, saying that the throne could only be occupied by someone of blue blood.⁹ Abdalonymus was a distant relative of the royal house of Sidon but because he was so honest he had been sidelined by the previous corrupt regime and was now living in poverty as a gardener on the city outskirts. The men found him there, weeding, and said: ‘These garments which you see in my hands […] must now replace these dirty rags of yours. Wash from your body its perpetual coating of mud and earth. You must now assume the disposition of a king and carry your characteristic moderation with you into the estate which you merit.’¹⁰ The disbelieving Abdalonymus eventually accepted the purple and gold cloak that was hung around his shoulders as the sign of his new status.

The tablet with the word ‘Sidoon’ in the city wall removes all doubt that this is the event painted by Knupfer. The man on the right could be Hephaestion. Saxton suggested that because Abdalonymus was a model of refinement and humanity the tale is an admonition to be moderate in one’s behaviour, particularly if one is elevated to wealth from poverty.¹¹ Stories from Roman history were frequently depicted in the seventeenth century because of the moral example of the protagonists. Just as representations of Lucretia or Scipio served as exempla virtutis,¹² so the portrayal of Abdalonymus in Knupfer’s work encourage the viewer to pursue continentia.

A drawing of the same subject monogrammed by Knupfer may have been made in preparation for the painting.¹³ There is an annotation on the back of the sheet stating that it was bought from the artist’s estate on 10 April 1656. However, there are major differences between the two compositions, so the sketch was not an immediate preliminary study but should be seen as an experiment in establishing the correct psychological relationships between the figures. By elevating Abdalonymus from the kneeling position he has in the drawing Knupfer stresses not his humility but his regained dignity. The two men beside him humbly honour the new king.

The support is made from Cedrela odorata (Spanish cedar or cigar-box cedar), and since there is no dendrochronology for that wood it cannot be of help to determine when the panel was most probably ready for use. The muted palette and bright touches of colour in the clothing are typical of paintings by Knupfer assigned to the second half of the 1640s, but the obscure sequence of his works makes a more precise dating impossible. The theatrical gestures, the concern for the narrative power of the secondary figures, and the bowing man seen from the back are devices that Knupfer employed on other occasions to focus attention on the protagonist.¹⁴ A similar composition with a diagonal dividing the picture surface in two is seen in a history piece in a private collection in The Hague.¹⁵ What is most striking, though, is that the artist was extraordinarily inventive and varied in the choice of subjects and designs of his history pieces, and that this one stands apart in his extant oeuvre.

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2022

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

L. Mesnard, ‘Un tableau du peintre hollandais Nic. Knupfer’, La Chronique des arts et de la curiosité 1890, no. 6, p. 46; J.I. Kuznetzow, ‘Nikolaus Knupfer (1603?-1655)’, Oud Holland 88 (1974), pp. 169-219, esp. pp. 179, 197, no. 100; J. Saxton, Nicolaus Knupfer: An Original Artist: Monograph and Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings and Drawings, Doornspijk 2005, pp. 73, 61, 147-48, no. 53, with earlier literature

Collection catalogues

1891, pp. 94-95, no. 781a (as The Envoys of the Roman Populace Telling Cincinnatus that he Has Been Created Consul of Rome); 1903, p. 149, no. 1359 (as Delegates of the Roman Populace Informing Cincinnatus that he Has Been Awarded the Dignity of Consul); 1934, p. 156, no. 1359; 1960, p. 163, no. 1359; 1976, p. 323, no. A 1458

Citation

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2022, 'Nicolaes Knupfer, The Legates of Alexander the Great Investing the Gardener Abdalonymus with the Insignia of the Kingship of Sidon, c. 1645 - 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.12051

(accessed 14 November 2024 18:54:30).