Susanna and the Elders

Hendrik de Clerck ((?) Brussels c. 1560-70 - Brussels 1630)

Little is known about Hendrik de Clerck, chiefly credited today for the altarpieces he executed mainly for churches in Brussels following the iconoclasm of the 1570s. He is first heard of as the signatory to a statement made in Rome, concerning a domestic dispute, on 11 February 1587.² There it was stated that he had lived and worked in the house of the artist Frans van den Kasteele (Francesco da Castello, c. 1540-1621) for over a year. Van den Kasteele was from Brussels, and that De Clerck was lodging with him is evidence, albeit not strong, that he too may have been a native of that city.

Descamps placed his birth in 1570,³ a view which Laureyssens does not dismiss.⁴ But sixteen might seem improbably young to undertake a journey from the Netherlands to Rome. Thus the year of De Clerck’s birth is here calculated as between 1560 and 1570.⁵

There is no record of De Clerck’s apprenticeship. It seems generally agreed that he was not trained in Brussels. Descamps states that he was the pupil of Maerten de Vos (1532-1603), the leading artist in Antwerp and dean of the guild there in 1572. There is an affinity between their styles.

It is now known that De Clerck drew extensive views of Rome and made a journey south to Naples.⁶ That he established a reputation while in Italy is suggested by his work being collected by Cardinal Granvelle, statesman to the Habsburgs and notable art collector, who died in 1586.⁷ De Clerck’s reputation must have preceded him to Brussels, for he soon received a prestigious commission for an altarpiece for Onze-Lieve-Vrouwe-ter-Kapellekerk, a triptych, completed in 1590, which is his largest extant work measuring 302 by 212 cm overall.⁸

That he received official recognition during the governorship of Prince Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma and Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, who died in 1592, seems a possibility. Certainly he was appointed court painter by Farnese’s successor, Archduke Ernest (1553-1595), and was recommended in turn to his successor the Archduke Albert (1559-1621).⁹ De Clerck’s eminence was then such that he provided designs for the tableaux set up in Brussels as part of the decorations for the Joyous Entry of the Archduke Albert in 1596 and for those of Archduke Albert and Infanta Isabella in 1599.¹⁰

De Bie praises De Clerck’s work in both large and small formats.¹¹ Notable among the latter are those he executed in collaboration with Denis van Alsloot (1570-1626) of which some twenty-one are extant (e.g. SK-A-621).¹² Of his altarpieces, most noteworthy are perhaps those which he executed for Onze-Lieve-Vrouwe-ter-Kapellekerk. His last dated altarpiece for the Sint-Pieters-en-Guidokerk at Anderlecht was of 1628.¹³

In 1590, De Clerk had been elected ‘prince’ of Brussels chamber of rhetoric De Corenbloem; in the following year he married and fathered at least eight children two of whom became painters.¹⁴ In 1663 they sold some 350 of their father’s workshop drawings in 1663 to Baron Waldburg of Wolfegg.¹⁵

The artist’s last residence in Brussels was in the Nicolaysstraat; he was buried in the nearby Sint-Gorikskerk on 27 August 1630.

REFERENCES
Laureyssens in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., Basingstoke 1996, VII, pp. 413-14; Sapori in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, Munich/Leipzig 1983-, XIX, pp. 521-23