Object data
oil on panel
support: height 123.3 cm × width 104.9 cm
outer size: height 149 cm × width 130 cm × depth 10 cm (support incl. frame)
Joos de Pape
Venus and Adonis
1629
Inscriptions
- signature and date, bottom right: JOOS / D / PAPE FZ / 1629
- mark, on the reverse, branded: coat of arms of the city of Antwerp
Scientific examination and reports
- X-radiography: RMA, nos. 1877/1-3, 6 April 2009
- infrared reflectography: A. Krekeler / I. Verslype, RMA, 16 November 2009
- technical report: I. Verslype / A. Krekeler, RMA, 16 November 2009
Conservation
- G. Tauber, 2002: a join reglued
- G. Boevé-Jones, 2007: cleaned, retouched and revarnished (advised by T. Dibbits and M. Zeldenrust)
Provenance
…; Galerie Brummer, Paris;1…; presented to the museum by a group of members of the Vereniging Rembrandt, 1922; on loan to the Noordbrabants Museum, ’s-Hertogenbosch, since 2002
Object number: SK-A-2961
Credit line: Gift of the Leden van de Vereniging Rembrandt
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Joos de Pape (Oudenaarde c. 1606/07 - Rome 1645/46)
A little-known painter, draughtsman and engraver, Joos (also Josse, Joost or Joducus) de Pape was born in Oudenaarde, the son of Simon de Pape I (1585-1636).2 Registered as an apprentice in the Antwerp guild of St Luke in 1618/19, he became a master in 1627/28.3 He travelled to Italy and is next recorded as a participant in a meeting of the guild of St Luke in Rome on 2 September 1635.4 He was recorded as living in the Via Babuino, and acted as provisore of the Brotherhood of San Giuliano.5 He worked for the Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani, providing drawings after antique sculpture for the engraver and made two prints after Annibale Carracci. He continued also to practice painting. It was reported on 21 January 1646 that he had died.6
REFERENCES
D. Bodart, Les peintres des Pays-Bas méridionaux et de la principauté de Liège à Rome au XVIIème siècle, 2 vols., Brussels/Rome 1970, I, pp. 140-41, and II, p. 55
Entry
Ovid, Metamorphoses 10:529-559, tells how Venus, the goddess of love, lay with her beloved mortal, Adonis, the son of Myrrha and her own father King Cinyras, and told him the tale of Atalanta and Hippomenes, so as to turn him against hunting ‘bold’ creatures.7
Painted on an approved Antwerp oak support of four pieces of differently prepared timber, in the year after Joos de Pape became a master in the Antwerp guild, this is the only extant signed painting by the artist. It is not known who his master had been, but his manner of painting obviously owes much to Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), although the idiom of Gaspar de Crayer (1584-1669) seems also to have been influential.8 It has to be said that the similarity of the formulation of the two right legs in particular, and the poses of the protagonists in general are evidence that De Pape was not an artist of the first rank. However, the absence of Adonis’s left foot and truncated strap of the horn can be explained by likely losses of the support.
Although omitting Cupid, De Pape accurately conveyed Ovid’s story as illustrated, for instance, in Philip Galle’s (1537-1612) print after Anthonie Blocklandt (1533/34-1583).9 His immediate source of inspiration was probably Antonio Tempesta’s (1555-1630) print in his Metamorphoseon ... Ovidianarum of 1606.10 The spear, hound and hunting horn identify the male protagonist, emphasize his love of the chase and places the account more in the tradition of Titian’s (c. 1488-1576) interpretation of the story that has recently been expounded by Penny.11
Technical photographs show that a different composition was first begun on the support and then abandoned. Visible in X-radiographs in the right middle ground on a small scale are the legs of two seated soldiers in Roman-style costumes. Presumably this first subject was very probably intended by De Pape to be from the antique; but there is no means of knowing as yet what it was to be.
Gregory Martin, 2022
Literature
U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 33 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XXVI, p. 218
Collection catalogues
1934, p. 218, no. 1833a (as Joos de Paepe); 1976, p. 434, no. A 2961 (as Joos de Paepe)
Citation
G. Martin, 2022, 'Joos de Pape, Venus and Adonis, 1629', in Flemish Paintings in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.4922
(accessed 17 February 2025 07:46:24).