Object data
oil on panel
support: height 35.2 cm × width 41 cm × thickness 1.5 cm
outer size: depth 9.5 cm (support incl. frame)
Philips Wouwerman
An Army Camp
c. 1662 - c. 1664
Inscriptions
- signature, with monogram, bottom left (letters of first name ligated): PHils . W
Technical notes
Support The single, horizontally grained oak plank is approx. 0.6 cm thick at the top and approx. 1.3 cm at the bottom. The top edge has been trimmed slightly. Thin wooden strips at the bottom and on the left (0.5 cm) and a broader one on the right (1.2 cm) were added at a later date. The reverse is bevelled on all sides and has regularly spaced saw marks. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1642. The panel could have been ready for use by 1651, but a date in or after 1661 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The single, thin, off-white ground extends up to the edges of the support. It consists of mostly white pigment particles and a little earth pigment.
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, leaving some of the figures and animals in reserve. A cross-section shows that the blue sky was applied in two layers: the first being a light greyish blue consisting of finely ground, translucent glassy particles and white pigment particles, followed by a thin blue layer containing white and deep blue pigments. The paint surface is smooth, with some slight impasto applied with small brushstrokes in the background on the left and in the highlights of the clothing and faces.
Ige Verslype, 2022
Scientific examination and reports
- infrared photography: I. Verslype, RMA, 2 November 2007
- paint samples: I. Verslype, RMA, nos. SK-A-484/1-2, 6 November 2007
- technical report: I. Verslype, RMA, 6 November 2007
- dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 9 September 2008
Condition
Fair. The paint surface shows a greyish haze in the blues of the shirt of the man standing to the right of the white horse and the coat of the man sitting next to him. The greenish background on the left appears whitish, and the impasted parts have turned almost white. The varnish is discoloured.
Conservation
- H. Heijdenrijk, 1905: repaired
Provenance
...; collection Jean-Baptiste Pierre Lebrun (1748-1813), Paris;1...; ? sale [Henderson et al.], London (Christie’s), 2 (3) May 1802 sqq., no. 101 (‘Le Vivandiers, lately from the collection of Le Brun’), bought in at £34 13s;2 sale, Henderson et al., London (Christie’s), 22 December 1806, no. 24 (‘The established Picture called Les Vivandiers, a Halt of Cavalry at Tents in a Camp; a Work of the first Reputation, engraved by Vischer, by Tessier, and latterly in the Le Brun collection, by Le Bas, where it was Sold for a large Sum. [...] the Engraving by Vischer was transmitted with the Picture, and the Gallery of Le Brun will be produced to refer to’), bought in, possibly at 34 gns;3 ? sale, John Sweetman, Esq., Dublin (J.D. Herbert), 1 December 1817 sqq., no. 15 (‘The established Picture called Les Vevandiers. -A Halt of Cavalry at Tents.- [...] engraved by Vischer, by Tessier and by Le Bas, while in the Le Brun collection, out of which it was sold for a very large sum.[...] The engraving by Vischer goes along with the Picture’), 70 gns, to Marrable, Dublin;4...; sold for 200 gns by the dealer John Smith, London;5...; sale, John Smith (1781-1855, London), London (Christie’s), 20 February 1824 sqq. (‘A Halt of Cavalry at a Sutler’s Booth, and Figures dancing in the half distance, exquisitely finished. This picture is engraved in the Le Brun Cabinet, and also by Visscher’), £157 10s, to Emmerson;6...; from the dealer C.F. Roos, Amsterdam, fl. 8,100, to Leendert Dupper Willemsz (1799-1870), Dordrecht, 1856;7 by whom bequeathed to the museum, with 63 other paintings, 12 April 18708
Object number: SK-A-484
Credit line: Dupper Wzn. Bequest, Dordrecht
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
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 1639.9 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,10 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
Entry
An army camp, the subject of Philips Wouwerman’s earliest dated painting of 1639,11 was a popular theme in seventeenth-century art.12 These ‘halted armies’, as they were called at the time, gave the artist the opportunity to depict a varied and anecdotal staffage of soldiers drinking, dicing, or talking and dancing with women in a decor of huts and tents where children and dogs are also wandering around.
The subject was adopted in the 1620s on some considerable scale by, among others, Esaias van de Velde in The Hague and Palamedes Palamedesz in Delft. Wouwerman may have been inspired by the work of fellow Haarlem artists like Jan Martszen II and Abraham Verhoeve,13 although the etchings of the Frenchman Jacques Callot should also be mentioned, specifically two series that he published in the 1630s, Les petites misères de la guerre and Les grands misères de la guerre.14
Wouwerman produced several dozen army camps.15 Many of them follow a standard pattern of a large tent in the foreground which is cut off on the left or right by the edge of the picture, with the central scene in front of it. Sometimes there are a few more tents in the background. One striking feature of these compositions is the diagonal line formed by the flagpole on the foremost tent and the group of figures near it. In many cases the artist placed an eye-catching white horse in the centre or just off to one side. All of these elements can be seen in this painting in the Rijksmuseum, making it a representative sample of the genre.
The wreath of leaves and the tankard hanging from the ridge pole of the tent in the foreground, and the flagon and signboard on the flagpole of the one behind it demonstrate that this is a scene of the work done by sutlers and camp followers who travelled with the army selling food and beverage to the troops. On the right some of them are drinking with soldiers, and on the left others are dancing and making music.16 As in most of Wouwerman’s army camps, the emphasis is on the genre element, with the landscape playing only a minor role. Schumacher dated this carefully structured, well-organized composition to the first half of the 1660s,17 and this is supported by the dendrochronological findings.18
The present picture is one of the best-known army camps by Wouwerman. In the seventeenth century it was one of four such reproduced in print by Jan de Visscher (fig. a),19 again in 1776 by G. Texier as part of a Galerie Lebrun publication,20 and then a century later by William Unger. No fewer than nine painted copies are documented, some of which show the scene reversed left for right and were thus made after one of the prints.21
Schumacher has suggested that this panel was in the collection of the Spanish king Charles III around 1770, because the composition appears in several tapestries made that year in Madrid after cartoons by Guillermo Anglois.22 However, it is more likely that these were a free reworking of De Visscher’s print, as Anglois often used graphic models for his designs, that were imbued with the style of Wouwerman and David Teniers II when the royal factory was supervised by the court painter Anton Raphael Mengs in the 1760s.
Gerdien Wuestman, 2022
See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements
Literature
J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, I, London 1829, p. 336, no. 463; C. Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, II, Esslingen/Paris 1908, pp. 523-24, no. 843; B. Schumacher, Philips Wouwerman (1619-1668): The Horse Painter of the Golden Age, I, Doornspijk 2006, p. 286, no. A287
Collection catalogues
1870, pp. 251-52, no. LIX; 1880, p. 349, no. 408; 1887, p. 193, no. 1647; 1903, p. 303, no. 2709; 1934, p. 323, no. 2709; 1976, p. 615, no. A 484
Citation
Gerdien Wuestman, 2022, 'Philips Wouwerman, An Army Camp, c. 1662 - c. 1664', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6827
(accessed 24 November 2024 11:59:41).