Object data
oil on copper
support: height 28.9 cm × width 34.5 cm
outer size: depth 4.5 cm (support incl. frame)
Philips Wouwerman
c. 1655 - 1656
oil on copper
support: height 28.9 cm × width 34.5 cm
outer size: depth 4.5 cm (support incl. frame)
Support The rolled copper plate is approx. 0.1 cm thick.
Preparatory layers The single, thin, greyish ground extends up to the edges of the support. It consists of white and small 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. The composition was built up in only one or two layers on top of the ground, with the figures added over the landscape. A cross-section shows that the blue sky was applied in one layer consisting of white and small deep blue pigment particles. The sky, the building and the landscape in the middle ground were painted opaquely, whereas the dark landscape in the foreground is semi-transparent. The paint surface is smooth, with slight impasto in the foliage of the trees. There is some open brushwork in the sky.
Ige Verslype, 2022
Good. The reverse has small and seemingly stable areas of partial delamination of the copper, maybe due to an irregularity rolled into the copper plate. Remnants of an old, slightly discoloured overpaint are present in the upper left corner of the sky.
...; ? collection Peeter Antoon Wellens, Antwerp, first half of the 18th century;1...; sale, Jacomo de Wit, Antwerp (auction house not known), 15 May 1741, no. 116 (‘Een Herte Jagtje [...], h. 1 v., br. 1 v. 2 d. [28.7 x 33.9 cm]’), fl. 245,2 to the dealer Willem Lormier;3 his collection4 (possibly Br. 1 v. 1 en een vierde d., h. 11 d. [28.7 x 34.7 cm] P.’);5 his wife;6 ? her sale, The Hague (A. Franken), 4 July 1763 sqq., no. 334 (‘Een Harte Jagtje [...] P. breet 1 voet 1¼ duim hoog 11 duim [28.7 x 34.7 cm]’), fl. 1,010, to De Winter;7...; collection Nicolaas Nieuhoff;8 his posthumous sale, Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 14 April 1777 sqq., no. 243 (‘Hoog 11½, en breed 13½ duim [29.5 x 34.7 cm]. Kp. Een ongemeen fraay landschap, alwaar ter regte zyde, op den voorgrond een afgedreven hart, door eenige honden, wordt aangevallen, eenige heeren en dames te paard, met spiesen, en al blazende op ’t jagthooren, schynen zig te haasten, om den aanval der honden te zien, terwyl eenige andere mannen en landlieden, komen aanlopen met stokken, om ’t beest te helpen vangen; op den derden grond vertoont zig eene bergagtige hoogte, waarop een oud kasteel, van onder met eenige muuren, die met ronde bogen gemetseld, en door eenige gaten doorzigtig zyn, omtogen, en op verscheiden plaatsen, met loof, klimop, en ruigte bewassen is, waar aan volgen eenige huizingen, en een weg met geboomte; ter linke zyde, een oude, en half ingevallene steenen brug, die met eenige houten planken, en leuning wat gerepareerd schynt, en waarop eenige beeldjes zyn, onder dezelve een waterval, stromende ’t zelve over en tusschen eenige groote brokken steenen, waar voor een mannetje, met een steek net staat te visschen; in ’t verschiet een aangenaam landschap, met gebouwen, bergen en boomen [...]’), fl. 1,995, to Adriaan Leonard van Heteren (1724-1800), The Hague;9 his third cousin and godson, Adriaan Leonard van Heteren Gevers (1794-1866), Rotterdam (‘Tableau d’une rare beauté dans le quel des dames et des cavaliers à cheval suivent la chasse de cerf; on voit dans le lointain les ruïnes d’un vieux chateau (cuivre, h 11½ l 13½ [30 x 35.2 cm])’);10 from whom, with 136 other paintings (known as ‘Kabinet van Heteren Gevers’), fl. 100,000, to the museum, by decree of Louis Napoleon, King of Holland, and through the mediation of his father, Dirk Cornelis Gevers (1763-1839), 8 June 180911
Object number: SK-A-480
Copyright: Public domain
Philips Wouwerman (Haarlem 1619 - Haarlem 1668)
Philips Wouwerman was baptized in Haarlem on 24 May 1619 as a son of the history painter Pouwels Joostensz, who was probably his teacher. De Bie says that he was a pupil of Frans Hals, although their work has nothing in common. An apprenticeship with Pieter Cornelisz Verbeeck is suspected on stylistic grounds. Another important influence was Pieter van Laer, who was also Haarlem-born and bred. It is known from notes made by the artist Matthias Scheits that Wouwerman, who came from a Reformed family, fled to Hamburg in 1638 in order to marry the Catholic Anna Pietersdr van Broeckhoff. He stayed there for a while, working in the studio of the history painter Evert Decker, but two years later he is again documented in his native Haarlem, where he remained for the rest of his life.
Wouwerman’s earliest dated painting is Military Encampment with Soldiers Gambling of 1639.12 He joined the Haarlem Guild of St Luke in 1640, being elected to the office of warden in 1646, and from 1642 and 1651 he served in the St George Civic Guard. Wouwerman made several history pieces with religious subjects for Catholic patrons. It is clear from various sources that he was a prosperous man. Houbraken mentions that he had important patrons from the very beginning of his career, and was able to give his daughter a dowry of 20,000 guilders. He supplemented his income by speculating on the property market and dealing in art. However, there are also indications that he suffered periods of poverty. For example, he is said to have painted his Miracle of St Hubert in 1660 for the clandestine Sint-Bernarduskerk in Haarlem in thanks for the financial support he had received from the parish priest. He remained productive to the end of his life, with his last dated picture, Grey Standing in a Stable,13 being executed in the year of his death. He died on 19 May 1668 and was buried in the Nieuwe Kerk in Haarlem four days later. Paintings by or belonging to him were sold at auction on 7 May 1670, a few months after the decease of his wife.
Wouwerman gained fame as a painter of horses, and specialized in landscapes with riders, ranging from battle scenes and army camps to hunting parties, horse fairs and stables. He also supplied the figures in landscapes by other Haarlem artists like Jacob van Ruisdael, Jan Wijnants and Cornelis Decker. His many pupils included Nicolaes Ficke (c. 1620/23-before 1702), Emanuel Murant (1622-c. 1700), Simon Dubois (1632-1708) and Anthonie de Haen (1640/41-in or before 1675). He may also have taught his younger brothers Pieter (1623-1682) and Jan (1629-1666). Wouwerman’s work, which in the eighteenth century fetched some of the highest prices for paintings from the Dutch Golden Age, was imitated by countless others.
Gerdien Wuestman, 2022
References
T. Schrevelius, Harlemias, Haarlem 1648, p. 384; 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. 281-82; A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, II, Amsterdam 1719, pp. 70-75, 102; R. van Eynden and A. van der Willigen, Geschiedenis der vaderlandsche schilderkunst, sedert de helft der XVIII eeuw, I, Haarlem 1816, pp. 404-06; A. van der Willigen, Geschiedkundige aanteekeningen over Haarlemsche schilders en andere beoefenaren van de beeldende kunsten, voorafgegaan door eene korte geschiedenis van het schilders- of St. Lucas Gild aldaar, Haarlem 1866, pp. 241-44; C.J. Gonnet, ‘De schilders Pouwels, Pieter en Steven Wouwerman’, in F.D.O. Obreen, Archief voor Nederlandsche kunstgeschiedenis: Verzameling van meerendeels onuitgegeven berichten en mededeelingen betreffende Nederlandsche schilders, plaatsnijders, beeldhouwers, bouwmeesters, juweliers, goud- en zilverdrijvers [enz.], VII, Rotterdam 1888-90, pp. 118-26; C. Hofstede de Groot, ‘Die Malerfamilie Wouwerman’, Kunstchronik, N.S. 2 (1890-91), cols. 1-5; A. Lichtwark, Matthias Scheits, als Schilderer des Hamburger Lebens, 1650-1700, Hamburg 1899, pp. 43-44; S. Kalff, ‘De gebroeders Wouwerman’, Elsevier’s Geïllustreerd Maandschrift 30 (1920), pp. 96-103; U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XXXVI, Leipzig 1947, pp. 265-68; H. Miedema, De archiefbescheiden van het St. Lucasgilde te Haarlem, 1497-1798, II, Alphen aan den Rijn 1980, p. 1211; F.J. Duparc, ‘Philips Wouwerman, 1619-1668’, Oud Holland 107 (1993), pp. 257-86; B. Schumacher, Philips Wouwerman (1619-1668): The Horse Painter of the Golden Age, I, Doornspijk 2006, pp. 13-21, 25-38; I. van Thiel-Stroman, ‘Biographies 15th-17th Century’, in P. Biesboer et al., Painting in Haarlem 1500-1850: The Collection of the Frans Hals Museum, coll. cat. Haarlem 2006, pp. 99-363, esp. pp. 357-61
Almost one-fifth of Philips Wouwerman’s surviving oeuvre consists of hunting scenes, the game being stags, hares, boars and birds.14 In this painting the hunting party is more staffage than main subject, for the prime focus is on the crowded imaginary landscape in the foreground. The building on the hill on the right has been identified as the remains of Rijnsburg Abbey, north-west of Leiden.15 The ruins, which were a popular subject with seventeenth-century artists, are here seen from the south-west as they were in 1650-60. What is striking, and unusual for Wouwerman, is the amount of care he lavished on their detailing.
This picture is sometimes mentioned in the same breath as the Rijksmuseum’s Falcon Hunt (formerly called The Heron Hunt), which is also on copper.16 Stylistically, though, they are different, as the execution of the present Stag Hunt is harsher and cooler. Some 15 paintings on copper by Wouwerman are known, most of them made after circa 1655.17 Schumacher dates The Stag Hunt to around 1655-56, a period in which the artist’s landscapes increasingly have a cool, silvery light and Italianate elements, and in which Mannerist motifs like the wooden bridge seen from below are more frequent.18
There is a red chalk drawing of this composition in Hamburg with an inscription on the back,19 which reads in translation: ‘A sketch by Philips Wouwerman of the kind he was in the habit of sending to the elderly P. van Bloemen in Antwerp for the purpose of having a painting made after it, if the composition was considered pleasing. The painting after this sketch used to be with Lord Burgomaster Wellens of Antwerp, and was then in the cabinet of the widow Lormier in The Hague.’20 Although that sheet is probably not autograph and the inscription not contemporary, this text provides a very interesting clue as to Wouwerman’s possible involvement in the production of copies in Antwerp. The only documented, painted one of the present scene, made by a member of the Van Bredael family of artists in that city, is probably of a later date.21 What is interesting in this context is that the Antwerp art dealer Jacomo de Wit, who owned the Rijksmuseum picture until 1741, signed a contract with Jan Frans and Joseph van Bredael in 1706 for copying works of Wouwerman.22 A free, drawn version of The Stag Hunt from 1849 by Hermanus Everhardus Rademaker was auctioned in Amsterdam.23
Gerdien Wuestman, 2022
See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements
J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, I, London 1829, p. 219, no. 63, p. 332, no. 449; ibid., IX, 1842, pp. 311-12, no. 215; C. Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, II, Esslingen/Paris 1908, p. 439, no. 614; B. Schumacher, Philips Wouwerman (1619-1668): The Horse Painter of the Golden Age, I, Doornspijk 2006, pp. 33, 68-69, 228, no. A147, with earlier literature
1809, p. 83, no. 352; 1843, p. 71, no. 362 (‘in good condition’); 1853, p. 31, no. 334 (fl. 2,000); 1858, p. 166, no. 368; 1880, p. 190, no. 1650; 1887, p. 193, no. 1650; 1903, p. 304, no. 2712; 1934, p. 342, no. 2712; 1960, p. 347, no. 2712; 1976, p. 615, no. A 480
Gerdien Wuestman, 2022, 'Philips Wouwerman, The Stag Hunt, c. 1655 - 1656', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6594
(accessed 21 September 2024 04:42:19).