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3.1 34 Rembrandts for Kassel
... orks by Rembrandt and was bought for the total sum of 40,000 guilders.7 It was the highest price paid for a collection in the Netherlands in the 18th century.8 On the basis of a simple calculation, each Rembrandt would have cost 625 guilders. Was this a reasonable price for a Rembrandt? Following Koenraad Jonckheere’s database, the average price for a Rembrandt in an auction between 1676–1739 was 140 guilders.9 Within the 124 works analyzed by him, the lowest price was 0 guilders for unsold pa...
... his elder brother Friedrich (1676-1751) who himself became King of Sweden after his marriage to princess Ulrika Eleonora (1688-1741) while keeping his position as the ruling landgrave of Hessen-Kassel. Was the first Rembrandt painting in Kassel in the cabinet of his father maybe in fact acquired by Wilhelm? Either way, after 1730 he incorporated a good number of works of his father’s collection into his own picture gallery, including the Rembrandt.24 It was not until the death of Friedrich in 1751 that Wilhelm became Landgrave of Hessen-Kassel. This point is important because until then, considerable sums (around 225,000 thaler or 450,000 guilders) had been sent to Sweden every year. The total income of the state from taxes and subsidies was 1,450,000 thaler; about 16 % of the state money was sent to Wilhelm’s brother in Stockholm.25 Although these numbers are only estimations, they do indicate that Wilhelm's new position as reigning landgrave from 1751 onwards enabled him to spend even more money on art. In a letter from May 1751 to Baron Häckel, Wilhelm complained (in translation): ‘I have to deal with so many things, to acquire and pay so much that I do not know where to turn my head’.26 Obviously, it is not by chance that the most expensive Rembrandts — as far as we know — entered Wilhelm’s collection in 1752: The Holy Family with the Curtain cost 735 guilders and the full-length Portrait of Andries de Graeff 1,100 guilders.27...
... r a portrait by another artist already in Wilhelm’s possession: Anthony van Dyck’s Portrait of Lucas van Uffelen, today in New York [8].31 Other works offered by Rutgers also meant to be pendants to paintings that Wilhelm already had in his collection. The contact between dealer and collector followed a clear strategy.32 With this tactic, Rutgers was able to sell several paintings to the landgrave. It is not unconceivable that he added the 5 guilders that he had lost with the transfer of Rembrandt’s Portrait of Jan Harmensz. Krul to another acquisition....
Notes
... 263–278. ...
... is of prices of Rembrandt paintings covering a larger period of time: Carpreau 2017, pp. 63–68. ...
... iari), 250 (Rocca) and 298 (Trevisani). Weber et al. 2006, p. 46...
... s 2003B, pp. 34–56. Korthals Altes 2003A, pp. 126-148. ...
... ische Biografie [15 April 2021]. On Freesen: AKL, vol.44 (2005), p. 328. ...
... ...
... 26 https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436253 [14 November 2021]. ...
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... le cas de Prague au xviie et xviiie siècles, Paris 1996...
... l'oeuvre de Rembrandt, Paris 1751...
... ischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, Haarlem 1942 (ed. Amsterdam 1983)...
... son Digital: Denmark. Dutch and Flemish painting in European perspective...
... is Gersaint, marchand d’art sur le Pont Notre-Dame, Seyssel 2002...
... a pilgrimage to the Holy Land’, Journal of Historical Geography 33 (2007), pp. 489-513...
... isabeth von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf, geb. von Sachsen, als Förderin von Kunst und Kultur’, in: K. Baumann et a...
... is Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin 1996...
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... issance Germany, Charlottesville 2012...
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... : Regesten aus in- und ausländischen Archiven mit Ausnahme d...
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... ische Wittenberg. Residenz und Stadt, Petersberg 2020...
... Meyer, B. Savoy (eds.), The Museum is open. Towards a transnational history of Museums 1750–1940, Berlin 2013, pp. 61–76...
... iques et religieux, Geneva (Musées d'art et d'histoire de la Ville de Genève) 2019...
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... Ist auch allzeit gewesen Weisheit und Kunst geneigt : Ottheinrich von der Pfalz’, in: D. Syndram (ed.), Lu...
... eger Bombeck’, in: G. Frank and M. Weigel (eds), Reformation und Bildnis. Bildpropaganda im Zeitalter der Glaubensstreitigkeiten, Regensburg...
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... er Oost ofte Portugaels Indien, 1579–1592, 5 vols., The Hague 1910–1939, vol. 3 (1934), pp. 249–268...
... isse der Werke hiesiger und anderer Künstler [...], Frankfurt 1790...
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6.3 Emulating Rubens, Van Dyck, ‘Spagnoletto’ and Rembrandt
... he Princes of Liechtenstein, for example, a Tronie of a Girl constitutes a contemporary variation on Rubens’s study of a girl, commonly referred to as the portrait of his daughter Clara Serena [11-12].21 They share striking similarities in physiognomy, which manifest themselves mainly in the shape of the eyes, mouth and nose. On the o...
... pose and gestures, albeit with some variation. The reason why he picked Van Loon’s portrait is probably mainly semantic in nature: ‘Loon’ in Dutch means the same as the German ‘Lohn’ (wages or reward), i.e. the medal, which is the pivotal motif in the portrait. This programmatic inventiveness is something we encounter frequently in Seybold’s paintings....
... is a paragon of the brutal degeneration that seems to ensue at all human levels in old age: his face stricken with the fear of death, this man gives the impression that, even with the last of his waning strength, he still wants to negotiate with his Creator about what will await him in the Hereafter. He is depicted with vanitas symbols, an hourglass and a skull, and he seems all too aware of his inevitable end. Stylistically, the painting is closely related to a half-length figure of an old man in the collection of Schloss Ludwigsburg near Stuttgart.26...
... f Seybold’s self-portraits show a dramatic Caravaggesque chiaroscuro, which is also characteristic of many of Rembrandt’s works. The theatrical application of artificial light and the dimensions of the face in relation to the size of the composition are also typical of a youthful self-portrait by Seybold in Budapest [25]. These characteristics nevertheless also exemplify the tronie painter....
... istly ductus. Relatively early on, several prominent collections acquired some of his self-portraits in oil – or works that passed for paintings by his hand at the time –, including, for example, the Uffizi, Florence, in 1676, the Electoral Collection in Düsseldorf before 1719, and the Royal Colle...
... t with a Scarf from 1633 and his Double Portrait with Saskia from 1636 [31-32]. Seybold’s position as an academy painter and unofficial court painter, as well as his connection to his client and Prince Eugene’s close friend, Count Gustav Adolph von Gotter (1692-1762) [33], will have granted the painter access to this celebrated collection of Rembrandt prints. Eugen’s Rembrandt collection was eventually acquired by Count Heinrich von Brühl (1700-1763) in 1743 for the Royal Collection in Dresden. Brühl and Seybold probably crossed paths in 1745, when Seybold was appointed court painter in Dresden....
... portraits – seemingly free handling of brushwork in the parts outside the face. By virtue of the fact that the shades of light blue and green are not always invisibly blended, this piece even approaches the art of (French) pastel painters. However, the capriciously shaped headgear is comparable to the one worn by Rembrandt in, for example, his self-portrait in Vienna [29-30]. The play of light along Seybold’s right jaw line – a subtle stripe of light reflection applied to the cheek alongside the contour – resembles the same detail in Sandrart’s engraving of Rembrandt’s portrait [35]; the overall lighting introduces a reference to Rembrandt in an otherwise rococo-like stylised portrait. The streak of light, which glaringly illuminates only a section of his forehead through a gap in the rim of his hat, is an inventive visual device which he employed in the aforementioned self-portrait that long passed for a work by Denner [9], and also in several tronies, for example in a tronie of a boy in the Belvedere, Vienna [38]. Perhaps this device should be regarded as Seybold’s interpretation of what Gersaint remarked about Rembrandt’s lighting ‘des effets d’une lumiere [sic] accidentelle’.30...
... vergent styles while showing his awareness of the pictorial source.Seybold’s Self-Portrait in Bamberg [41] shows a concept of light distribution which also reminds of Rembrandt. Only one part of his face is flooded with light, but the eye socket of the illuminated side is shrouded in shadow. His cloak and shirt seem to be quoted from both Sandrart’s print and Rembrandt’s Double portrait that formed the basis for Gersaint’s frontispiece portrait. Both the light on Seybold’s face and his headgear seem to depend heavily on the latter Rembrandt print....
Notes
... la quelle est attachée une médaille, qu’il tient d’une main. Cette marque de distinction lui fut donnée par le Prince Joseph-Venceslas de Liechtenstein pour lui témoigner la satisfaction que lui avoient donnée les deux tableaux’. ...
... , L. Ruhe, Christian Seybold (1695-1768) en zijn ‘gehistorieerde’ portretten van jong en oud, Nijmegen 200...
... ...
... ainters in Kupezky’s circle, this portrait, which was still re...
... issenstein, Pommerfelden. ...
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... ischen Diplomaten aus dem Zeitalter der Romantik, part III, Das Syndicat, Hamburg 1928...
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... e Artium Studia Minora Facultatis Philosphicae Univversitatis Brunensis F 52 (2008), pp. 55–88...
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... tion of Taste in Dutch and Flemish Golden Age Painting 1642-20...
... ischen Gemählde-Sammlung in Cassel, Kassel 1783...
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... istorických památek král. Hlav Města Prahy porádají, Prague 1913...
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10.4 German, Austrian and Bohemian Paintings
... Grund which is in fact based on a painting by Andries Both (1611–1642) [22-23]. The second group consists of 24 paintings by the landscape painter Christian Hilfgott Brand (1694‒1756) [24] who re-interpreted the Dutch tradition in a picturesque, freely painted rococo manner, and ten paintings by his son Johann Christian Brand (1722‒1795), who served as director of the Academy in Vienna.39...
... because, in his view, affiliation to a school was not determined by place of birth.44 In addition, for Hoser, the Netherlandish masters and their successors of the 18th century had set an aesthetic standard. Accordingly, he assessed two counterparts then attributed to Johann Conrad Seekatz (1719–1768) in his catalogue of 1846 in the following way [28]: they are ‘full of life and truth, correctly drawn, excellently arranged and coloured; as well as by the most diligent execution worthy to be placed at te side the best Netherlandish paintings, and to serve today’s genre painters as a model’ (in translation).45 Hoser does not seem to have seen an epochal shift in painting around 1800, as we usually do today. His taste was conservative and orientated towards the past. Josef Hoser's collection is a testament to a now historic canon of art, providing a bridge from the old masters to today's almost forgotten painters of the first half of the 19th century....
Notes
... er 1846, pp. 29–33; Johann Christian Brand, Hoser 1846, pp. ...
... e other print is an aquatint from 1798 by Friedrich Christian Reinermann (1764–1835). ...
... 2004, pp. 176–188. I thank Heidrun Ludwig for the justified remark, that Hoser’s attribution of the paintings to Johann Conrad Seekatz is not correct. ...
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4.2 Acquiring Art
... spent 9.000 guilders for only 16 paintings. This was in The Hague at the auction on 11 August 1733 of the collection of the late Adriaan Bout (1663-1733). It was there that the German prince spent more than on any other occasion and, as contemporaries judged, ‘carried off the crown of Dutch painting’ to his remote German abode. The most important lot was Frans van Mieris' Duet of 1658 [1] for which he invested the enormous sum of 3000 guilders....
... tainly the case, and the ducal apartment in Schwerin castle was later restructured to allow for a sequence of ceremonial rooms including the gallery, that was similar in function though far less sumptuous in scale compared to the Munich residence or castles of other monarchs.13 While this must have been one goal of collecting, another one was the performative act of acquiring itself. By spending so much money on few, small, and precious works of art, Christian Ludwig could leave a mark in the minds of his equals and their surroundings. In fact, Philip van Dijk, the rich painter-dealer who was often bidding for Willem Carl Hendrik Friso, the later stadholder Willem IV,14 approached Christian Ludwig in 1739 and offered to bid for him in some important upcoming auctions.15 The duke of Mecklenburg had apparently made his point; he was counted among the great collectors....
... till counted among the important items in the collection. On the other hand, many of the works arriving from this source were acquisitions Waerdigh made from Hamburg auctions on behalf of the duke so that Waerdigh was in fact acting as an agent not as a dealer. Balthasar Pahmann, a German gentleman-dealer based in The Hague who had already been seminal for Christian Ludwig’s involvement in the Bout sale, also started to send paintings to Schwerin for the duke to choose from. He supplied for instance an excellent but so far anonymous painting from the 1630s [10], the Lovers in a Landscape by David Vinckboons [11], and a rare tronie by Philips Wouwerman [12]....
... rted in 1745 at the latest. Compared to Waerdigh's articles, the paintings Morell sold to Schwerin were much more significant, like for instance the only Jacob Jordaens in the collection, his enigmatic Night Vision [14], but also works by Jan Brueghel the Elder [15], Simon de Vlieger [16], Jan Asselijn [17]and Gerard ter Borch [18]....
... services of Christian Ludwig, but we find him as an important companion of the duke's trip to Paris in 1726 already. This was the trip when the duke first met Jean-Baptiste Oudry [20] and long before he would come to power. Van Hafften married the daughter of another courtier of the duke's in 1728, and in 1737 he became postmaster in Rostock. Even while holding this office, he would still be sent to the Netherlands to acquire artworks for the collection of the duke. Thus, through many years his importance for the expanding collection was second only to that of the duke himself and of his son, the hereditary prince Friedrich [21].19...
... made for the duke was not accepted21 and scathed van Hafften for this disappointment.22 From the correspondence we know of contacts with Jacob de Wit in Amsterdam and with Jan van Gool [26] and Philip van Dijk [27] in The Hague. Still, it is not clear whether the Arcadian Landscape by van Gool in Schwerin was bought directly from the artist or came through other channels [28]. In the 1730s and 1740s contacts to Dresden included exchanges with the Elector’s and Polish King’s court painters Alexander Thiele [29] and Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich [30] resulting in the acquisition of large convolutes of their work in Schwerin [31-33]....
Notes
... n Korthals Altes 2003A, p. 183, note 24. Cf. the list of Hamburg auction catalogues in the same repo...
... iscussion see my forthcoming article. ...
... n who on 3 august 1746 referred to the paintings sale by 'Herr von Schönborn a couple of years ago in Amsterdam' (Landeshauptarchiv Schwerin, 2.12-1/26 Acta aulica, VI. Angebote und Erwerbungen, Nr. 110 (Pahmann), fol. 28, fol. 123). I therefore stick with the old identification even though it is not clear ...
... lig 2007. Comments on the collections by visitors are only preserved from later time...
... aler: Korthals Altes 2003, p. 126-148. ...
... 26 Acta aulica, VI. Angebote und Erwerbungen, Nr. 65 (van Hafften), fol. 133 and fol. 139. ...
... is particular transaction see Seelig 2012; for Morell in general see North 2012. ...
... is secretary in Hamburg that on Fridays, letters would run only three days to Amsterdam; see letter by Albert Ranfft to the ...
... 26, fig. 12. ...
... 26 Acta aulica, VI. Angebote und Erwerbungen, Nr. 110 (Pahmann), fol. 103: According to Pahmann, Frans van Mieris the Young...
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2.2 Ovens and Gerrit Uylenburgh in the Gottorf Account Books
... n Boelema de Stomme (1611–1644) [7], Maerten Stoop (1618–1647) [8], Pieter Potter (1597/1600–1652) [9], Jan Coelenbier (c. 1610–1680) [10], and a work by Jan Brueghel I (1568–1625), Hendrick van Balen I (1573–1632) and Hans Rottenhammer I (1564–1625) [11], undoubtedly entered the collection in the time of Frederick III. The River Landscape by Coelenbier, who was one of Hendrick Uylenburgh’s financiers in 1640, might be one of the paintings acquired through Uylenburgh with Ovens acting as an intermediary.Two weeks later, on 26 June 1655, a ‘Dutch painter by the name of Davidt Uhlenburg’ was paid 74 Reichstaler for prints and ‘engraved pictures’ supplied to the Duchess Mary Elisabeth (1610–1684), Frederick III’s wife.21 The inscription of the name ‘Davidt’ was probably an error, and the recipient would have been Gerrit or one of his brothers.22 It seems likely that these were not two separate shipments, and that Gerrit Uylenburgh stayed with Ovens in Schleswig-Holstein for this short interval.As he had done in the 1650s, after his return to Schleswig-Holstein Ovens again supplied works of art to the court in Gottorf. On 5 January 1665 he received 71 Reichstaler ‘on behalf of Gerrit Uylenburgh’ for ‘rare books’ – probably late medieval breviaries – and engravings for the library of Duke Christian Albrecht.23 Ovens had apparently acted as an intermediary in the transaction. On the same day he was paid 130 Reichstaler himself for four frames or ‘Contrafaiethramen aus Ambsterdam’.24...
... , slate and glass, for which he was paid 248 Guilders and 3 Stuivers (103 Reichstaler and 19 Schilling) on 15 June 1663.28 The amounts above will have included a certain commission Ovens calculated; no information about rates and percentages is known....
Notes
... market: Bok 1994; Bok 2008; Kaiser/North et al. 2017; Dickey/...
... - / platen’; Schmidt 1922, p. 95; Lammertse 2006B, pp. 258, 260; Köster 2017, p. 304, note 195, p. 332, Qu. II.B.1.1652,...
... 1922, pp. 95, 118–119, no. 2 [with slight errors]. The work, however, is a copy after Rubens: in his bill, Ovens noted that he had painted it for the Duke. See LAS, Abt. 7, no. 6504, fol. 1r–2v, 20 December 1654; Köster 2017, pp. 38, 326, Qu. II.A.2, middle and right column. ...
... d Marmorne Bildtnußen’; Schmidt 1922, p. 95; Lammertse 2006B, p. 260; Köster 2017, p. 25, 332, Qu. II.B.1.1654, middle column. The...
... 0; Schmidt 1922, pp. 93, 95; Lammertse 2006B, p. 260; Köster 2017, pp. 25, 332, Qu. II.B.1.1655, m...
... 26 June 1655; Schmidt 1916, pp. 281–282; Schmidt 1917, p. 90; Schmidt 1922, p. 93; Köster 2017, pp. 25, 334, Qu. II.B.3, m...
... 260. On 17 January 1657, he appears as ‘Gerdt Uhlenburg’ in the Husum account books, whereby Gerdt is a variant of Gerhardt an...
... . 93; Lammertse 2006A, p. 63, 79; Lammertse 2006B, pp. 232, 263; Köster 2017, pp. 25, 332–333, Qu. II.B.1.1665, right co...
... 26. On the cultural influence of Mary Elisabeth on the Gottorf court: Greinert 2017. With the financial means availab...
... ...
... p. 91; Schmidt 1922, pp. 36–37; Lammertse 2006B, p. 262; Köster 2017, p. 334, Qu. II.B.3, right column. ...
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3.3 1750 – The Decisive Year
... (1659–1722) (858 guilders), who was particularly loved by collectors at the time. From this perspective, the sum of 40,000 guilders seems to have been too high. If we add up all the average prices of the painters included in the Röver cabinet, the value comes to about 11,000 guilders. However, this does not take into account the individual characteristics of the artworks, such as authenticity, availability on the market, conservation or dimensions. Considering the maximum prices the cabinet would have had a value of around 71,000 guilders. From this point of view, the acquisition seems rather like a bargain. Wilhelm’s advisers Hoet and Slingelandt had valued the collection at 33,000 guilders and tried to buy it for 35,000-36,000 guilders, but Röver's widow, Cornelia van der Dussen (1689-1762), insisted on the sum of 40,000 guilders, which the landgrave was eventually willing to pay....
... nd of the best manners of this master. Some are painted in the rough, thickly applied manner, while others are as fine as hardly seems possible for a Gerard Dou and Mieris’.46 Apparently, Wilhelm was aware of Rembrandt’s different manners and wanted to have them all represented in his collection. He also wrote to Slingelandt enthusiastically: ‘The Rembrandts and most of the pieces by other famous masters are so true, capital and magnificent that I not only made such an accomplished acquisition, but I readily agree that it is very rare to be able to achieve anything so exquisite and perfect’.47 Although these acquisitions were quite a coup, Wilhelm was not yet satisfied. In or around 1751, four more ‘Rembrandts’ were acquired, among them a Tronie of an Old Man Looking Down [17] that was bought from Count Francesco Algarotti in Venice together with nine other paintings for the sum of 2,110 ducats. Together with a lost work by Ribera, Rembrandt's painting cost 100 ducats (200 guilders), so Wilhelm paid probably 100 guilders for each of them.48...
Notes
... e, mais je conviens volontiers qu’il est bien rare de pouvoir faire parvenir à quelque chose si exquis et achevé.’, Herzog 1969, p. 27. ...
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3.2 Subsidies for Art?
... t shows a palette hanging on a nail, brushes, various newspapers and a poem dedicated to Wilhelm which reflects over Pictura being driven out by War: ‘Pictura wanted to hang up her art / And threw her palette and brush with anger to the floor / [...] Because War and Sword expel the arts […]’. It culminates with the verses directed towards Pictura: ‘Go to Prince Wilhelm Landgrave of Hessen / He has a lot of respect for you art / And therefore he is not your enemy’.37...
... by Rembrandt in his collection and may have been looking for other works, especially by Italian artists. The same year, he acquired four Italian paintings at the aforementioned auction of of Theodoor Wilkens’ (c. 1690-1748) in Amsterdam. With these acquisitions, his taste for late Italian Baroque and early Rococo painting emerged....
Notes
... tem Ansehn sey ! Irene hört ihr zu bey dem gerechten Klagen Und legte dem Endschluß ein billig Urtheil bey Doch Pallas trat hervor / und sprach: Bist du vertrieben / Und findest auf der Welt nicht mehr ein Freyheits-Ort? So weiß ich doch noch eins / da man dich schon wird lieben: Geh zu Prin...
... ist so tieff in die Mahler liebhaberey, als seyn kann, welches mich eben nicht übell freuet, weil dadurch meine Col...