On Brabant Rubbish, Economic Competition, Artistic Rivalry, and the Growth of the Market for Paintings in the First Decades of the Seventeenth Century

Claes Janszn Visscher after the Master of the Small Landscapes Title print (from the series Regiuncule, et villae [...), 1612,

English translation of E. J. Sluijter, “Over Brabantse vodden, economische concurrentie, artistieke wedijver en de groei van de markt voor schilderijen in de eerste decennia van de zeventiende eeuw,” in Kunst voor de markt, ed. R. Falkenburg, J. de Jong, and B. Ramakers, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 50 (1999): 112-43. The text was translated by Jennifer Kilian and Katy Kist with footnotes translated by the author.

This essay presents observations on how and why the number of painters and the production of paintings in Holland increased so spectacularly around 1610.  It also discusses the technical changes, the economic competition, and the artistic emulation related to this increase. It is argued that the sudden wave of inexpensive paintings from Antwerp that flooded the Dutch art markets in the first years of the Twelve Years Truce – paintings which seem to have been bought avidly by immigrants from the Southern Netherlands in particular – functioned as a booster. Decorating the house with a variety of rather inexpensive paintings, something the immigrants were already familiar with, caught on with the native population. Second generation immigrants took advantage of this profitable gap in the market and competed with the imported works by producing paintings with similar techniques and subjects, but of a higher quality.

DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2009.1.2.4

Acknowledgements

The author would like to express particular gratitude to Neil De Marchi.  After my presentation of an earlier version of this paper at the conference Art for the Market (Middelburg, December 10-12, 1998), I had several fruitful discussions with him about this subject.  I am also grateful to Marion Boers-Goosens who allowed me to use data from the research for her dissertation “Schilders en de markt: Haarlem 1600-1635” (PhD diss., Leiden University, 2001).

Esaias van de Velde,  Winter Landscape, 1614,  Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
Fig. 1 Esaias van de Velde, Winter Landscape, 1614, oil on panel, 21 x 40.6 cm. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Esais van de Velde,  View of a Village, 1616,  Private collection, Germany
Fig. 2 Esais van de Velde, View of a Village, 1616, oil on panel, diameter 19 cm. Private collection, Germany (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Jacob Grimmer,  Landscape with Peasant Cottages: Autumn (from a,  Museum van Schone Kunsten, Budapest
Fig. 3 Jacob Grimmer, Landscape with Peasant Cottages: Autumn (from a series of the four seasons), oil on panel 35.5 x 59.5 cm. Museum van Schone Kunsten, Budapest (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Pieter Balten,  Landscape with Peasant Cottages, 1581,  Museum Bredius, The Hague
Fig. 4 Pieter Balten, Landscape with Peasant Cottages, 1581, oil on panel, diameter 23.5 cm. Museum Bredius, The Hague (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Johannes and Lucas van Doetecum after the Master of the Small Landscapes,  Landscape with View of a Village (from the seri, 1561,
Fig. 5a Johannes and Lucas van Doetecum after the Master of the Small Landscapes, Landscape with View of a Village (from the series Praediorum villiarum [...]), 1561, etching, 29.8 x 20.3 cm. (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Johannes and Lucas van Doetecum after the Master of the Small Landscapes,  Road by Peasant Cottages (from the series Prae, 1561,
Fig. 5b Johannes and Lucas van Doetecum after the Master of the Small Landscapes, Road by Peasant Cottages (from the series Praediorum villiarum [...]), 1561, etching, 29.8 x 20.2 cm. (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Johannes and Lucas van Doetecum after the Master of the Small Landscapes,  View of a Farmstead (from the series Praedioru, 1561,
Fig. 5c Johannes and Lucas van Doetecum after the Master of the Small Landscapes, View of a Farmstead (from the series Praediorum villiarum [...]), 1561, etching, 31.9 x 20.4 cm. (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Claes Janszn Visscher after the Master of the Small Landscapes Title print (from the series Regiuncule,  et villae [...), 1612,
Fig. 6a Claes Janszn Visscher after the Master of the Small Landscapes Title print (from the series Regiuncule, et villae [...), 1612, etching, 10.4 x 15.8 cm. (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Claes Janszn Visscher after the Master of the Small Landscapes,  Road by Peasant Cottages (from the series Regi, 1612,
Fig. 6b Claes Janszn Visscher after the Master of the Small Landscapes, Road by Peasant Cottages (from the series Regiuncule, et villae [...]), 1612, etching, 10.3 x 15.8 cm. (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Claes Janszn Visscher after the Master of the Small Landscapes,  View of a Village, with Church Tower (from the , 1612,
Fig. 6c Claes Janszn Visscher after the Master of the Small Landscapes, View of a Village, with Church Tower (from the series Regiuncule, et villae [...]), 1612, etching, 10.4 x 15.8 cm. (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Claes Janszn Visscher after the Master of the Small Landscapes,  View of a Farmstead (from the series Regiuncul, 1612,
Fig. 6d Claes Janszn Visscher after the Master of the Small Landscapes, View of a Farmstead (from the series Regiuncule, et villae [...]), 1612, etching, 10.3 x 15.9 cm. (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Claes Janszn Visscher,  The Chartreusian Monastery (from the series Fo,  ca. 1610,
Fig. 7a Claes Janszn Visscher, The Chartreusian Monastery (from the series Four Views outside Amsterdam), ca. 1610, etching, 5.6 x 9.7 cm. (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Claes Janszn Visscher,  Amsteldijk by Kostverloren (from the series Fo,  ca. 1610,
Fig. 7b Claes Janszn Visscher, Amsteldijk by Kostverloren (from the series Four Views outside Amsterdam), ca. 1610, etching, 5.6 x 9.7 cm. (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Claes Janszn Visscher,  The Road to Leiden (from the series Pleasant P,  ca. 1611-14,
Fig. 8a Claes Janszn Visscher, The Road to Leiden (from the series Pleasant Places [...]), ca. 1611-14, etching, 10.3 x 15.8 cm (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Claes Janszn Visscher,  Bleaching Fields by the Haarlemmerhout (from th,  ca. 1611-14,
Fig. 8b Claes Janszn Visscher, Bleaching Fields by the Haarlemmerhout (from the series Pleasant Places [...]), ca. 1611-14, etching 10.4 x 15.8 cm (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Claes Janszn Visscher, Bleaching Fields by the Dunes (from the series Pleasant Places [...]), ca. 1611-14, etching, 10.3 x 15.8 cm
Fig. 8c Claes Janszn Visscher, Bleaching Fields by the Dunes (from the series Pleasant Places [...]), ca. 1611-14, etching, 10.3 x 15.8 cm (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
  1. 1. Samuel van Hoogstraten, Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst (Rotterdam: Francois van Hoogstraeten, 1678), 237: “In ‘t begin deezer eeuw waeren de wanden in Holland noch zoo dicht niet met Schilderyen behangen, alsze tans wel zijn. Echter kroop dit gebruik dagelijx meer en meer in, ‘t welk zommige Schilders dapper aenporde om zich tot ras schilderen te gewennen, jae om alle daeg een stuck, ‘t zij kleyn of groot te vervaardigen.”

  2. 2. About the spectacular increase in the number of paintings produced, see Jan de Vries, “Art History,” in Art in History: History in Art, ed. David Freedberg and Jan de Vries (Santa Monica, Calif.: Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1991), 249-82. According to De Vries’s calculations, the number of active painters would have quadrupled between 1600 and 1620 (p. 273). See also Marten Jan Bok, Vraag en aanbod op de Nederlandse kunstmarkt, 1580-1700, (PhD diss., Utrecht University, 1994); John Michael Montias, Artists and Artisans in Delft: A Socio-economic Study of the Seventeenth Century, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 263-64; John Michael Montias, “Art Dealers in the Seventeenth-century Netherlands,” Simiolus 18 (1988): 244-53, esp. 245; and John Michael Montias, Le marché de l’art aux Pays-Bas, XVe-XVIIe siècles, (Paris: Flammarion, 1996), 93-100. About the increase in the possession of paintings, see Montias, Le marché, 71-72; and C. Willemijn Fock, “Kunstbezit in Leiden in de zeventiende eeuw,” in Het Rapenburg: Geschiedenis van een Leidse gracht, ed. Th. H. Lunsingh Scheurleer et al. (Leiden: Afdeling Geschidenis van de Kunstnijverheid Rjkuniversiteit, 1990), vol. 5a, 3-36, esp. 5-6.

  3. 3. Peter Mundy, The Travels of Peter Mundy in Europe and Asia, 1608-1667, vol. 4, Travels in Europe, 1639-47, ed. R. Carnac Temple (Cambridge: Hakluyt Society, 1925).

  4. 4. Quoted in Wilhelm Martin, Het leven en de werken van Gerrit Dou beschouwd met het schildersleven van zijn tijd (Leiden: S. C. van Doesburgh, 1901), 95-96.

  5. 5. About the stereotyping of seventeenth-century Dutchmen in general, see Marijke Meijer Drees, Andere landen, andere mensen: De beeldvorming van Holland versus Spanje en Engeland omstreeks 1650, (The Hague: SDU, 1997).

  6. 6. Dirck Raphaelsz. Camphuyzen, Stichtelycke rymen (Amsterdam, 1624) (quoted from the 1642 edition, p. 212); the quoted lines respectively: “‘t Malen! ey, wie kan dat wraken sonder al-gemeyn op-roer?”; “Van Graveren, trecken, malen hangt de heele Wer ‘lt aen een”; “‘t Malen is ‘t gewoone lockaes voor ‘t verseeuwerd hert vol keurs, / Dat in spijt van noodts behoeven ‘t gelt ontgoochelt uit den beurs, / ‘t Malen schijnt de saus van alles wat uyt menschen hersens spruyt.”

  7. 7. A. H. Kan, trans., De jeugd van Constantijn Huygens door hemzelf beschreven (Rotterdam: A. Donker, 1971), 66. Chris L. Heesakkers, trans., Constantijn Huygens: Mijn jeugd (Amsterdam: Querido, 1987), 72.

  8. 8. It is interesting that Huygens first praises the landscape painters and only then writes that the history painters of the Netherlands are no less talented. Kan, De jeugd, 73; and Heesakkers, Mijn jeugd, 78-79.

  9. 9. Ludovico Guicciardini, Descrittione di tutti paesi bassi (Antwerp, 1567), 97-100; a Dutch translation was published in 1612 (after earlier German and French translations). In his first sentence, Guicciardini sets the tone for the following one and a half centuries: “Since the art of making paintings is an excellent thing when it comes to profit and honour – not only in Antwerp and Mechelen is this craft of great importance, but also in the Netherlands as a whole – it seems to me fitting to mention here several of those in this country who have most given fame to the art by their inventions, of whom some are still alive and some have died” (Maer angehsien de conste der schilderyen een treffelijcken saecke is aengaende profijt ende eere, niet alleenlijck te Antwerpen ende te Mechelen, daer het een ambacht is seer groot van waerden, maar oock de gantsche Nederlanden door: soo dunckt my behoorlijck ende betaemlijck te wesen, hier ettelijcke te noemen vande ghene die in dese landen de conste meest hebben verbreyt ende verciert, waer af sommighe noch leeven ende somnmighe overleeden sijn). Ludovico Guicciardini, Beschrijvinghe van alle de Nederlanden (Amsterdam, 1612), 79. Hadrianus Junius, who wrote his book during the years 1565-70, begins his section on painters with the sentence: “Cognata literis res est Pictura, quae ars ut nobilis, Regibusque expetita, ita olim etiam in primum liberalium gradum recepta, & quos posteris tradere dignatur, nobilitans. In ea habet Batavia florentia aliqout ingenia, quae neque possum, neque debeo silentio praeterire.” Hadrianus Junius, Batavia (Leiden, 1588), 234-40.

  10. 10. Karel van Mander, Het leven der doorluchtighe Nederlantsche, en Hoogduytsche schilders, in Idem, Het schilder-boeck (Haarlem, 1604).The print series mentioned are Pictorum aliquot celebrium germaniae inferioris effigies, Hieronymus Cock (Antwerp, 1572) (four editions through 1600, the last one published by Theodoor Galle with the title Illustrium quos belgium habuit pictorum effigies), and Pictorum aliquot celebrium praecipue Germaniae inferioris effigies, Hendrick Hondius (The Hague, 1610). Concerning these series, see Hans-Joachim Raupp, Untersuchungen zu Künstlerbildnis und Künstlerdarstellung in den Niederlanden im 17. Jahrhundert (Hildesheim and New York: Olms, 1984), 18-45.

  11. 11. For Scribanius’s text, with translation and commentary, see Julius S. Held, “Carolus Scribanius’s Observations on Art in Antwerp,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 59 (1996): 174-204. Competition with painters from antiquity (and also with the Italians) is of central importance for Scribanius; almost all Antwerp painters discussed are compared with painters from antiquity whom they have supposedly surpassed.

  12. 12. In most city descriptions the painters are, apart from the learned men, the only group of “famous sons” included. J. Pontanus, Rerum et urbis Amstelodamensium Historiae (Amsterdam: Hondius, 1611); the Dutch edition was published three years later: Historische beschryvinghe der seer wijt beroemde coop-stadt Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 1614), 79-81 (Pontanus was a brother of the painter Pieter Isaacsz). Jan Orlers, Beschrijvinge der stad Leyden (Leiden, 1614), 259-76; second edition 1641, 352-80. Samuel Ampzing, Beschryvinge ende lof der stad Haerlem in Holland (Haarlem, 1628), 345-76. Theodoor Schrevelius, Harlemias, ofte, om beter te seggen, de eerste stichtinghe der stadt Haerlem (Haarlem, 1648), 359-91.

  13. 13. Schrevelius, Harlemias, 359: “It is nowadays still well known that for several centuries the very best painters have been raised in this city” (Ende dit is noch ten huydighe daghe by yder een bekent, dat d”alderbeste schilders voor eenige hondert iaren herwaarts, hier op gequeeckt zijn); Simon van Leeuwen, Korte Besgryving van het Lugdunum Batavorum, nu Leyden (Leiden, 1672), 188: “in this city the most famous painters and draughtsman of the whole country were born and raised” (zijn binnen dese Stad geboren, ende opgekweekt, de vermaarste Schilders ende Teyckenaars van het gantsche Land).

  14. 14. Held, “Carolus Scribanius,” 179, 192, 201, 203-4.

  15. 15. Ampzing, Beschryvinge, 345. See the excellent article by Huigen Leeflang, “Dutch Landscape: The Urban View; Haarlem and Its Environs in Literature and Art, 15th-17th Century,” Natuur en landschap in de nederlandse kunst 1500-1850, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 48 (1997): 53-115, esp. 80-84.

  16. 16. Kan, De jegud, 68; and Heesakkers, Mijn jeugd, 74.

  17. 17. For instance: De Gheyn (in his capacity as an engraver) vs Goltzius (69), Hoefnagels (in his capacity as a miniaturist) vs Oliver (69), Hoefnagels (in his capacity as a painter of flowers) vs Jan Breughel I and Bosschaert (70), De Gheyn challenging Torrentius (83-84); Goltzius vs Dürer and Lucas (72), Porcellis vs Vroom (72), Rubens vs the Italians in general (74), Van Mierevelt vs Ravesteyn (76), and finally Rembrandt, who surpasses all painters from Italy and antiquity (79).

  18. 18. For instance, see Fock, “Kunstbezit in Leiden,” 5.

  19. 19. In her dissertation Marion Boers-Goosens calculated on the basis of a variety of sources the number of painters active in Haarlem in the first decades: in 1605 there were seventeen painters within a population of 30,000 (works of ten painters are still known); in 1615 the number increased to thirty-six (we know works by twenty of those) out of 35,000; in 1625 there were fifty-four painters (works are still known by forty-five of those artists) out of 40,000 inhabitants. Finally, she calculated ninety painters active in Haarlem in 1635; of those at least seventy-nine were artist-painters (population ca. 42,000).Added 2008: See Marion E. W. Goosens, Schilders en de markt: Haarlem 1600-1635 (PhD diss., Leiden University, 2001).

  20. 20. See Montias, Le marché, 99.

  21. 21. In particular, see Bok, “Vraag en aanbod,” 95-96 and chapter 4, passim.

  22. 22. Thera Wijsenbeek-Olthuis, Het Lange Voorhout: Monumenten, mensen en macht (Zwolle and The Hague: Waanders, 1998), 82-86. She concludes that ownership of tapestries depended not so much on wealth as on social background. Even the less wealthy nobility owned tapestries, while rich burghers bought larger numbers of paintings.

  23. 23. With the nobility Wijsenbeek-Olthuis counted an average of 25 portraits and 17 paintings of other subjects; with the wealthy magistrates of The Hague, there was an average of 8 portraits and 33 paintings of other subjects. The well-to-do middle class shows a proportion of 3 portraits to 29 paintings of other subjects (based on 60 inventories, 20 for each group). Wijsenbeek-Olthuis, Lange Voorhout, 92-102.

  24. 24. Especially De Vries, “Art History,” 265: “the circumstances of the late sixteenth century enlarged the supply of painters by setting in motion a massive migration from Flanders to Holland; these circumstances increased the demand for paintings by establishing a cultural environment that converted art from a ‘public good’ (provided by state and church) to a ‘private good’ (acquired by individuals).” See also Bok, “Vraag en aanbod,” 97-98; Montias, Artists and Artisans, 73; and John Michael Montias, “Cost and Value in Seventeenth-century Dutch Art,” Art History 10 (1987): 455-66, esp. 459. See also Josua Bruyn, “A Turning Point in the History of Dutch Art,” in Dawn of the Golden Age: Northern Netherlandish Art 1580-1620, ed. Ger Luijten et al., exh. cat. (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, 1993), 112-21, esp. 119.

  25. 25. J. G. C. A. Briels, Vlaamse schilders in de Noordelijke Nederlanden in het begin van de gouden eeuw, 1585-1630 (Antwerp and Haarlem: Becht, 1987) and Briels, Vlaamse schilders en de dageraad van Hollands gouden eeuw, 1585-1630 (Antwerp: Mercatorfonds, 1998).

  26. 26. J. G. C. A. Briels, De zuidnederlandse immigratie in Amsterdam en Haarlem omstreeks 1572-1630 (PhD diss., Utrecht University, 1976) and Briels, Zuid-Nederlanders in de republiek, 1572-1630 (St. Niklaas: Danthe, 1985).

  27. 27. Marion Boers-Goosens concluded that this was very striking in Haarlem: between 1600 and 1605, the number of painters from the Southern Netherlands was still small (four out of nineteen) and was in terms of percentage not to be compared with other crafts (also see the following note). Of the large number of painters Briels mentions in Amsterdam – men who were entered as “painter” in documents, mostly when marrying – we know with certainty only a few that indeed worked as artist-painters; no works are known for most of them (Briels, “De zuidnederlandse immigratie,” 79-102; see also the biographies in Briels, Vlaamse schilders, 293-411). It is remarkable that of the living painters discussed by Van Mander, very few were immigrants from the Southern Netherlands (only Badens, Coninxloo, Vinckboons, and De Gheyn, and earlier, in the life of Hans Bol, he mentions Roelant and Jacques Savery). In his discussion of the older generation, by contrast, most of the painters were from the Southern Netherlands. The reason for this is certainly not that he ignored painters who specialized in specific genres, since he does discuss a large number of such painters from the older generation (such as Pieter Baltens, Hans Bol, Jacob Grimmer, Joos van Liere, Claes Molenaer, Gillis Mostart, the brothers Valckenborch, and Hendrick van Steenwijck, all of them working in the Southern Netherlands). Of the living painters Van Mander lists at the end of his account, only three out of fifteen have a Southern Netherlandish background: Cornelis van der Voort and Bernaert and Pouwels van Someren).

  28. 28. In the case of Haarlem, I rely on the data of Marion Boers-Goosens (Goosens, “Schilders en de markt”). For the increase of the number of painters in Amsterdam, see Bok, “Vraag en aanbod,” 99-104. Little can be said about Leiden painters; further research is needed. Added 2008: Piet Bakker (University of Amsterdam) is presently working on the Leiden art market.

  29. 29. According to the data of Marion Boers-Goosens, out of the nine painters in 1615 who had started their career after 1605 – they all began between 1610 and 1613 – eight had a Southern Netherlandish background. It is striking that, as of this moment, the data mostly concerns names that are still well known to us.

  30. 30. The inventories published by Duverger start only in 1600, but from these inventories – drawn up during the first ten years of the seventeenth century and the art works of which must have been assembled during the last decades of the sixteenth century – one gets a good impression of the nature and the number of paintings in such estates. E. Duverger, Antwerpse kunstinventarissen uit de zeventiende eeuw, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België1 (Brussels: Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, 1984).

  31. 31. See Briels, “De zuidnederlandse immigratie,” 52-53. Briels also mentions an interesting letter of 1608 from a French envoy who, responding to the obvious fear that many merchants and craftsmen from the Southern Netherlands would leave during the truce, wrote that this did not seem likely considering the freedom and the security they enjoyed in the republic. See also notes 68 and 70 below.

  32. 32. See the second petition of the Amsterdam dean and masters of the guild (D. O. Obreen, Archief van de Nederlandsche Kunstgeschiedenis [Rotterdam: Van Hengel and Eeltjes, 1880-81], vol. 3, 166-67). It is clear from this document that the paintings were auctioned by the use of “mijnen” (also called the “Dutch manner”: while the auctioneer called out descending prices, the buyer had to call “mine” at the price he was willing to pay). The petition states that it was unusual to sell goods in this way; it was current to do so only with sales of estates and further that “to auction art in this way [by “mijnen”] is detrimental to all good citizens and had never been in use; no commodities are ever sold in this way as well, except for estates”(de voorsz. maniere [het “mijnen”] van Const opveylinge allen goeden Ingesetenen deser Stede schadelyck, ende noyt in sulcke voegen in swanck is geweest, gemerckt oock geen Coopmanschappen hier ter Stede gewoon syn in sodanigen manieren vercoft te worden, als alleenlycken in erffhuysen). For three variants of the so-called Dutch way of selling by auction, see Neil De Marchi, “The Role of Dutch Auctions and Lotteries in Shaping the Art Market(s) of 17th century Holland,” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 28 (1995): 203-21, esp. 209. doi:10.1016/0167-2681(95)00032-1.  See also doi:10.2307/3046038. It is impossible to say which of the three methods was used in this instance. (Such methods are still in use with auctions of flowers, houses, and estates.)

  33. 33. Obreen, Archief, vol. 3, 164-65. Quoted passages: “door listich ende ongodlyck opdringen”; “zulcx datter een groote menichte Schilderyen tegenwoordich by haerluyden voorhanden is, omme mede alhier in manier als vooren vercoft te worden”; “gepractiseerde malitieuse openbaare opveylingen van Vreemdelingen die van daghe to daghe souden toenemen, in corten tyt dese Stede, jae het geheele Landt met vodden ende slechte leerkinderen werck, souden worden vervult”; “de goede burgerye alhier, die door den banck weynich kenisse van schilerye hebben, bedrogen [wordt]).”

  34. 34. J. C. Rammelman Elsevier, “Iets over de Leidsche schilders van 1610, in verband met het geslacht der Elsevieren,” Berigten van het historisch gezelschap te Utrecht 1, no. 2 (1846-48): 35-45, esp. 36-37. The painters did not get permission to establish a guild and first had to demonstrate what was usual in other cities. They presented the petition from Amsterdam quoted above, and the decision of the aldermen of Amsterdam, as well as a declaration from Delft, saying that since time immemorial only members of the guild of St. Luke were allowed to sell paintings, except at the annual fairs and weekly markets. However, they only received a regulation for one year in which it was stipulated that, apart from the annual fairs, only the burghers of Leiden were allowed to sell paintings without special permission of the burgomasters (the same regulation as in Amsterdam). A master’s thesis by Ed Romein discusses the exceptional situation in Leiden, where the painters received (partial) permission to establish a guild only in 1648. Added in 2008: part of this thesis has been published; Ed Romein, “Knollen en citroenen op de Leidse kunstmarkt: over de rol van kwalitiet in de opkomst van de Leidse fijnschilderstijl,” De Zeventiende Eeuw 17 (2001): 75-95.

  35. 35. Obreen, Archief, vol. 3, 166-67.

  36. 36. Ibid: “dickwils copyen voor principalen copende.” This document also mentioned that the paintings were auctioned by way of “mijnen”; see note 32 above.

  37. 37. Statute of January 1, 1617, mentioned by I. H. van Eeghen, “Het Amsterdamse Sint Lucasgilde in de zeventiende eeuw,” Jaarboek van het genootschap Amstelodamum 61 (1969): 65-102, esp. 90. Quoted passage: “sulcx dat het land hier meestendeel, met copyen ende andere slechte vodden wert gevult, tot spot van alle fraye liefhebbers ende merckelycke disreputatie van de Const.” In 1623, a new statute was issued with heavier fines, and in 1626 it was extended again with a regulation that one could only sell by auction in the houses of the sellers, or in the house of the warden, while a memorandum of all the paintings to be sold had to be submitted to the aldermen before the sale.

  38. 38. G. J. Hoogewerff, De geschiedenis van de St. Lucasgilden in Nederland (Amsterdam: P. N. van Kampen, 1947), 103, 162; Montias, Artists and Artisans, 71-73; and Hessel Miedema, “Kunstschilders, gilde en academie. Over het probleem van de emancipatie van de kunstschilders in de Noordelijke Nederlanden van de zestiende en zeventiende eeuw,” Oud Holland 101 (1987): 1-30, esp. 4. In Gouda, the petition of the glass painters and glassmakers had only partial success: the latter group alone was allowed a guild. It is remarkable that we do not hear of anything in Haarlem during this period. Were the old statutes still functioning satisfactorily, or were the painters less concerned about such auction sales? In a document of 1590 it was decreed that a non-guild-member could not sell paintings, except at annual fairs and weekly markets: in practice then, it was possible to sell one’s paintings every week. See Hessel Miedema, De archiefbescheiden van het St. Lukasgilde te Haarlem (Alphen aan den Rijn: Canaletto,1980), vol. 1, 59-60. For the controversy in Haarlem concerning auction sales in a later period, see Marion Boers [-Goosens], “Een nieuwe markt voor kunst. De expansie van de Haarlemse schilderijenmarkt in de eerste heflt van de zeventiende eeuw,” Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 50 (1999): 195-220.

  39. 39. Obreen, Archief, vol. 3, 165: “those salesmen, beginning to enjoy the profit, and for that reason endeavouring to continue this trade, try to assemble all the paintings they can get their hands on, in Antwerp as well as elsewhere in those regions” (voorsz. vercoopers nu aent profyt beginnende te verleckeren, ende oversulcx soeckende desen handel te continueren, met alle vlyt pogen zoo tot Antwerpen als elders in dien contryen, by een te raepen, al den Schilderyen die zyluyden kennen becomen).

  40. 40. De Marchi, “The Role of Dutch Auctions,” 206-12, took this literally and assumed that it concerned indeed rubbish, copies, and works of pupils. For that reason he applied Akerlof’s theory concerning the fear of “lemons” (a term from the trade in second-hand cars). However, apart from the fact that the market did not collapse but started to grow rapidly, the success of the auction sales and the probable expertise of the buyers (that is to say, the buyers at the sales mentioned below – we do not know if there were other illegal sales) point in another direction. For the problems concerning originals (“principalen”), copies, and the assessment of quality and value, see Neil de Marchi and Hans J. van Miegroet, “Pricing Invention: “Originals,” “Copies,” and Their Relative Value in Seventeenth-century Netherlandish Art Markets,” in Economics of the Arts: Selected Essays, ed. V. A. Ginsburgh and P.-M. Menge (Amsterdam andOxford: Elsevier 1996), 27-70.

  41. 41. Only the collector of the orphans chamber (for estates and voluntary sales [”willige verkopingen”]) and the warden of the town hall (for “executoriale verkopingen”) were allowed to conduct auction sales. Records of the “estates” organized by the orphans chamber have been preserved with some smaller and larger lacune for the period 1587-1638 (twenty-nine volumes). Besides that, one volume has been preserved of the “willige verkopingen” and that concerns the period 22/7/1608 to 3/6/1610 (WA 5073/966). Van Eeghen listed in a footnote (see Van Eeghen, “Het Amsterdamse St. Lucasgilde,” 85-86) all the sales with numerous paintings. The sales of estates start with that of Gillis van Coninxloo in 1607, and among the sales of the “willige verkopingen” we find a few large sales in 1608, 1609, and 1610. Van Eeghen assumes that two sales in the fall of 1608 provoked the petition of the dean and aldermen of the guild of St. Luke that followed shortly after (ibid., 89). The petition concerns auction sales requested by Johanna Artsen and Jacques van der Lamen, both from Antwerp and not citizens of Amsterdam (30/9/1608; ca. 69 paintings), and one requested three days later by Felix van Lun, who was also from Antwerp and not an Amsterdam citizen (2/10/1608; 85 paintings). Three weeks later, on October 29, 1608, and again in May 1609, there were sales at the request of Valerius van der Houven, described as a painter born in Antwerp (he was an Amsterdam citizen; 20 and 42 paintings respectively). On February 23, 1609, a sale (ca. 148 paintings) was organized by the widow of the recently deceased Hans van de Velde, the father of the painter Esaias van de Velde; Hans was also recorded as a painter and came from Antwerp. In March 1610 there was a sale requested by the painter Lucas Luce, born in Antwerp but an Amsterdam citizen as well (16/3/1610; ca. 140 paintings).

    It is probable that these sales (and this might also be the case with the sale of Pieter Loduwijcxs (23/2/1609, ca. 120 paintings) are the kind of sales referred to in the petition of 1613, in which it is mentioned that non-citizens have paintings sold by auction through citizens. In this period, the sales of estates do not always seem to have been what they were supposed to be. For instance, in 1607, an auction sale was held that was certainly not an estate; it included paintings by, among others, Crispiaen Colyn, Hans van Coninxloo, Barend van Someren, and Pouwels [Vredeman] de Vries – all of them painter/dealers with a Southern Netherlandish background (partly published in A. Bredius, Künstlerinventare (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1919), vol. 6, 2051-52). The huge sale of Crispiaen Colyn in 1612 (ca. 620 paintings [!], apart from prints and plaster casts) does not qualify as an estate sale either, as Colyn died in 1618 (published in Bredius, nstlerinventare, vol. 3, 1067-86). This is true as well for the sale of the painter Cornelis van der Voort of 1614 (Van der Voort died in 1625), also Southern Netherlandish by birth (published in Bredius, Künstlerinventare, vol. 4, 1173-77). In the case of the sale of Claes Rauwert (26/8/1612) one may also wonder if the paintings (ca. 430!) are all from his estate. Further research is necessary. For three auction sales of a somewhat later period, see J. M. Montias, “Trois ventes de tableaux aux enchères à Amsterdam vers 1620,” in Curiosité: Etudes d’histoire de l’art en l’honneur d’Antoine Schnapper, ed. O. Bonfait et al. (Paris: Flammarion, 1998), 285-95. Montias researched the buyers at those sales during the whole period for which records are preserved. At the 1999 CAA annual convention he gave a lecture about this research: “Auction Sales in Amsterdam 1597-1638.” (I am grateful for having been able to consult a manuscript of this lecture.) Added in 2008: Montias’s research has been published in J. M. Montias, Art at Auction in 17th Century Amsterdam (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2002).

  42. 42. In most of the sale records subjects are rarely mentioned; they are generally described as “1 piece of painting” (“1 stuck schilderij”) and indicated with a number or character. Only now and then is the name of a painter mentioned. An exception is the fascinating sale of Crispiaen Colyn in 1612 – by far the largest one, but with the lowest prices – in which all the paintings are indicated with a subject.

  43. 43. At the sale of Crispiaen Colyn (20/3/1612), in which most of the subjects were mentioned and which contained very cheap paintings, the prices of the history pieces were generally between one and five guilders (many even less than a guilder), with a few peaks: 41-17 [41 guilders 17 stivers] for an Image of Mary (“een Marienbeelt”), 48-0 for an Adulteress (“een overspelent vroutgen”), 56-0 for a “Susanna”, 63-0 for a “Crucifix,” 80-10 for a Crucifixion of Christ on Mount Calvary (“Cruysinge Christi, berg van Calvarien”). Flower and fruit still lifes (“bloempotten” and “fruytagien”) are generally about one guilder, but 17 guilders was paid for a flower piece by Jacques Savery. The kitchen pieces are mostly around four guilders, with peaks of 28 and 35 guilders. Most landscapes are less than ten guilders, but there are a few between 10 and 20 guilders, with peaks of 27 and 28 guilders (both with the name of Pieter Stalpaert) and 36 guilders (no name). The numerous “heads” (“tronies”) are mostly sold for less than one guilder. It is remarkable that in these sales, copies are explicitly mentioned several times (copies after Cornelis van Haerlem, Jan Bruegel, Abraham Bloemaert, Gillis Coignet and Pieter Gerritsz).

    In the more “expensive” sale organized by Cornelis van der Voort (1614), a sale in which many subjects and quite a number of names are also mentioned, the prices of landscapes vary between 8-5 to 59 guilders: most of them are between 15 and 40 guilders (the most expensive is without a name: of the eight works by De Momper, the prices vary between 14 and 47 guilders). The kitchen pieces (all of them anonymous) are between 16 and 57 guilders, while the history paintings vary greatly in price: there are several of less than 10 guilders (and that could also include a “Mars and Venus”), but most are between 10 and 30 guilders. However, there are a few very expensive paintings (205 for a “Banquet” by Dirck Barentsz. and 317 guilders for a “Banquet of the Gods”). Also very expensive was a cavalry battle (“bataille”) by Karel van Mander (221 guilders); although we also come across works of less than 10 guilders by the same artist. See, too, the following note. Further research about the prices at such auction sales is necessary.

  44. 44. In most of these sales we find inexpensive to very cheap paintings; of the ca. 500 paintings sold between September 1608 and May 1609, the majority went for less than 20 guilders. But there are always more expensive works as well. However, the general level of prices could vary per auction sale. At the sale of Johanna Artsen and Jacques van der Lamen (30/9/1608), most of the prices were between 10 and 20 guilders, with only a few below 5 guilders; some were more expensive, however, costing between 30 and 50 guilders. We find exactly the same pattern in the following sale of Felix van Lun (2/10/1608).

    Much cheaper were most of the works in the sales organized by Valerius van der Houven (29/10/1608 and 23/5/1609); most of the paintings went for less than 5 guilders, with a few exceptions between 20 and 50 guilders. The same holds for the sale of Pieter Loduwijcxs (24/2/1609), although the general level is a little higher, because more works were sold between 10 and 20 guilders.

    Even cheaper were the paintings of the one-day sale of the widow of Hans van de Velde (the father of Esaias) on 23/2/1609. The prices were mainly between 1 and 3 guilders; only a few went for more than 10 guilders (the highest was 31 guilders). At the huge sale of Crispiaen Colyn we may notice the same phenomenon: most of the paintings are less than 5 guilders (many even less than 1); out of the more than 600 paintings, only 25 commanded between 10 and 20 guilders, 10 between 20 and 50, and 3 above 50 (the most expensive was 80-10).

    Those sales are clearly different from that organized by Lucas Luce (16/3/1610); at that sale, most paintings went between 10 and 50 guilders – about as many between 10 and 20 as between 20 and 50. However, also in this case, there were many between 1 and 10 guilders, while 11 works were sold between 50 and 100 guilders, with peaks of 163, 180, and 232 guilders.

    We find the same pattern in the sale organized by Cornelis van der Voort (7/4/1614): quite a few works sold between 2 and 10 guilders, but many more between 10 and 20, and even more between 20 and 50 guilders. Thirteen paintings commanded even higher prices (the highest at 106, 142, 205, 221, and 317 guilders!) A special case is the sale of Claes Rauwaert, probably largely composed of the estate of the collector (and also dealer?) Jacob Rauwaert (published in Bredius, Künstlerinventare, vol. 5, 1734-48). It mostly comprises expensive works that were collected in the last decades of the sixteenth century: 28 lots went higher than 100 guilders (the highest 455 guilders!) and about 45 were sold for prices between 50 and100 guilders. However, even in this sale there were many pieces of less than 10 guilders (ca. 80 lots, among which were many roundels [”rondjes”] and small paintings representing firescapes [”brandjes”]). One wonders if those were also from the collection of Rauwaert – these inexpensive paintings might have been added to this sale.

  45. 45. We find many landscapes and still lifes of this price level in both the “expensive” and “cheap” sales.

  46. 46. The following are mentioned as painters, but they were certainly also active as dealers: Jan Basse (Rijsel 1572), Hans van Cleeff (Antwerp ca. 1570), Crispiaen Colyn (Mechelen 1574), David Colyns (Rotterdam 1582, son of Crispiaen), Hans van Coninxloo (Antwerp 1565), Lucas Luce (Antwerp 1575), Frans Kaersgieter (Belle 1573), Adriaen van Nieulandt (Antwerp 1586), Barent van Someren (Antwerp 1572), Anthony van de Velde (Antwerp 1557), Cornelis van der Voort (Antwerp 1576), Pouwels de Vries (Antwerp 1567); also the “antijcksnijder” Cornelis van der Bloocke (Mechelen 1569) and the goldsmith Pieter Coning (Antwerp 1578, father of Salomon Koninck) would have been active as dealers. Among the other regular buyers were undoubtedly many of Southern Netherlandish descent, for instance, the art lover and collector Hendrick van Os (Antwerp 1555/6; about him, see Bok, “Vraag en aanbod,” 69-72). Briels mentions a few other merchants and buyers from the Southern Netherlands that we find bidding in these sales; see Briels, “De Zuidnederlandse immigratie,” 106-12. Remarkably, men like Basse, Van Cleeff, Luce, and Van Someren, names we meet often in these sales, bought paintings in the cheapest category as well as very costly ones (the last ones by commission?).

  47. 47. Briels, De Zuidnederlandse immigratie, 46-52; and J. G. C. A. Briels, “Brabantse blaaskaak en Hollandse botmuil. Cultuurontwikkelingen in Holland in het begin van de Gouden Eeuw,” De zeventiende eeuw 1 (1985): 12-36. We find this strikingly phrased later by Gerard Brand in his Historie der Reformatie (1671), not as mockery or disapproval but as a historical fact: “The Brabanders and Flemish…brought splendor and costliness to the cities that housed them, enticing the natives to succumb to this vanity and also to opulence in meals and delicacies that in former days were unusual and unrespected in this country” (De Brabanders en Vlaemingen…brachten de pracht en kostelheit van klederen in de steden die hen herbergden, verleidende d’ingeborenen tot het misbruik derselve ijdelheit: ook tot d’overdaedt van maeltijden en lekkernijen, hier te lande eertijdts ongewoon en ongeacht). Quoted by Briels, “De Zuidnederlandse immigratie,” 49; and Briels, Zuid-Nederlanders, 33.

  48. 48. One of those who was cheated by Jerolimo is Otje Dickmuyl (Little Otto Fatface), an art dealer who had supplied him with a great number of good paintings to furnish the salon of his house “om een Sael te stofferen” (G. A. Bredero’s Spaanschen Brabander, ed. C. F. P. Stutterheim [Culemborg: Tjeenk Willink/Noorduijn, 1974], 306-7, r. 2050-65; see also Briels, “De Zuidnederlandse immigratie,” 106). Bredero, trained as a painter, would have been very familiar with this milieu of art dealers, as appears from the fact that he himself, “Garbrant Ariansz.,” was one of the buyers at the notorious sale of Johanna Artsen and Jacques van der Lamen in 1608 (see note 41 above,); this was noted by Van Eeghen, “Het Amsterdamse Sint Lucasgilde,” 89.

  49. 49. Among the paintings with names of artists (unfortunately only very few) in the above-mentioned sales, we find also very inexpensive works of well-known masters, often next to much more expensive works(especially from painters of Southern Netherlandish descent or training). For instance Jan Nagel (probably from Alkmaar, but Van Mander calls him a follower of the Antwerp painter Cornelis Molenaer; his work is mostly between 1 and 10 guilders, but can also command 44 guilders), Jacques Savery (Kortrijk 1565, as of 1585 in Haarlem, since 1589 in Amsterdam; almost all of his works realize 1 or 2 guilders), Pieter Stalpaert (Brussels 1572, since 1598 in Amsterdam; mostly between 25 and 50 guilders, but sometimes only 4 guilders). Karel van Mander probably worked for two different segments of the art market: the prices for his works are highly divergent; in the sale of Claes Rauwaert (26/8/1612) we find, for instance, 4 pieces of less than 10 guilders (one described as “a fire” of 4 guilders and 5 stivers), 11 between 10 and 20 guilders, and 5 between 20 and 50 guilders, among which another “fire” of 24 guilders and 5 stivers (the other works are not described). In the sale of Van der Voort (7/4/1614) a cavalry battle (“een bataille”), on the other hand, commanded 221 guilders!

  50. 50. The local artist, who sold his own works directly from his shop, would have had one important advantage over masters from elsewhere whose paintings one bought at sales and markets: the buyers did not have to be afraid that they were being cheated with copies. Considering the insinuations of the Amsterdam guild members, this must have been an ever-present fear. Those who liked to buy a good painting but had no special expertise would have been stimulated to buy paintings by living masters who worked in one’s own city. De Marchi argues that it was this uncertainty in particular that caused the growing importance of the role of expert art dealers, who could give some warranty of quality. See De Marchi, “The Role of Dutch Auctions,” 208-12.

  51. 51. Naturally, we also know these subjects from paintings of the second half of the sixteenth century that still exist, although it is remarkable that some types which turn up frequently in inventories and in sales are now virtually absent, such as the high numbers of “tronies” and the many inexpensive flower still lifes (“bloempotten”) and fruit still lifes (“fruytagien”).

  52. 52. Montias suggested that the impulse for process innovation “may have been primarily artistic rather than mercenary” (Montias, “Cost and Value,” 460). See also E. Melanie Gifford, “Esaias van de Velde’s Technical Innovations: Translating a Graphic Tradition into Paint,” in Painting Techniques: History, Materials and Studio Practice, ed. A. Roy and P. Smith, Contributions to the IIC Dublin Congress 7-11 September 1998(London, 1998), 145-49, who interprets the technical innovations of Esaias entirely as an artistic process.

  53. 53. Van Mander writes this of, for instance, Jacob Grimmer, Cornelis Molenaer (Schele Neel [Cross-eyed Neil]), and Joos van Liere (Van Mander, Het leven, fol. 256v and 257r); Orlers would write the same several decades later about Van Goyen (Orlers, Beschrijvinge der stad Leyden, 373). With regard to strategies of innovative behavior on a competitive art market, see Neil de Marchi and Hans J. van Miegroet, “Art, Value, and Market Practices in the Netherlands in the Seventeenth Century,” Art Bulletin 76 (1994): 451-64. See also Bok, “Vraag en aanbod,” 190. For the concept of “liefhebber” (lover of art), see Bok, “Vraag en aanbod,” 73-75.

  54. 54. See note 1 above.

  55. 55. For biographical data, see George Keyes, Esaias van de Velde, 1587-1630 (Doornspijk: Davaco, 1984), 18-26. Concerning the sale of “the widow…[not filled out] at the Sleutelbrugge,” who can be identified with Cathalyne van Schorle, widow of the then recently deceased Hans van de Velde, see note 41 above.

  56. 56. For a technical description of early work by Esaias (in some of these works he goes remarkably far in experimenting with a sober technique), see Gifford, “Esaias van de Velde’s Technical Innovations,” 146-48. For a description of Roelant Savery and Esaias van de Velde, see E. Melanie Gifford, “Jan van Goyen en de techniek van het naturalistische landschap,” in Jan van Goyen, ed. C. Vogelaar (Zwolle/Leiden: Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal, 1992), 71-74. We meet for instance in his early work with one thin layer of a light brown color applied as underpainting for the entire landscape, brushed over a quickly drawn sketch on a white ground. Over this underpainting the landscape is painted with thin browns, grays, and greens (Gifford, “Esaias van de Velde’s Technical Innovations,” 147). In other early works he applied several transparent “washed” tones (for instance grayish under trees, brownish under architecture) on a light-colored ground, over which the landscape was painted wet in wet (Gifford, “Jan van Goyen en de techniek,” 72-73). The figures were always painted after he finished the landscape and are not present in the underdrawing. Gifford also describes an experiment with black paint being rubbed in the (poplar) panel, which was then covered with a thin layer of paint through which the wood grain would intentionally remain visible (ibid., 147). I am grateful to Petria Noble of the Mauritshuis, with whom I scrutinized a painting by Esaias van de Velde, which was painted in more or less the same technique as indicated above.

  57. 57. See, for instance, Landscape with Castle Abtspoel (Keyes, Esaias van de Velde, cat. no. 18, colorplate X), a rather large canvas that was undoubtedly painted on commission. There certainly is no question of progressive or regressive stylistic development: in the same year we find small, quickly made, inexpensive works. Also late in his career he continued to work in these two manners (Gifford, “Jan van Goyen en de techniek,” 149).

  58. 58. Montias, “Cost and Value,” passim.

  59. 59. Van Mander, Het leven, 256v: “In eenen dag als men hem te voor wat had aengeleyt, maeckte hy een groot schoon Landtschap.” Van Mander begins this sentence by saying: “He worked in the manner of those who painted with water colors, without maulstick, and was miraculously quick, working for one or the other at a daily wage” (Hy wrocht op de Water-verwers maniere, sonder maelstock, en was wonder veerdigh, werckende voor d”een en d”ander in dagh-huyr). He added (following the quotation in the text): “and one paid him for a whole day one thaler, sometimes for a background or a ground seven stivers” (en men gaf hem van eenen heelen dagh eenen Daelder, t”somtijts voor een achter-uyt, ofte gronded seven stuyvers). He was very good-natured and was often imposed upon by other painters, Van Mander says. He was also poor because he drank. Van Mander mentions Jan Nagel as a follower who never equaled him as a landscape painter but was better in figures. Nagel is a painter whose name we meet in Amsterdam with lowly priced landscapes: in two sales of 1614 there were 12 pieces of between 12 stivers and 12 guilders, and one piece of 44 gulden (see Obreen, Archief, vol. 4, 47).

  60. 60. Also at the Amsterdam sales discussed above – in which very few names of artists are mentioned – his name turns up in the sale of Cornelis van der Voort on 7/4/1614 (with landscapes of 26 and 36 guilders respectively). A landscape with the monogram CM, representing the Good Samaritan, has always been attributed to him (Berlin, Staatliche Museen, 101.5 x 152.5 cm, the figures have been attributed to Maerten van Cleve); see H. G. Franz, Niederländische Landschaftsmalerei im Zeitalter des Manierismus (Graz: Akademische Druck-und Verlaganstalt, 1969), 238-42 and fig. 373, who describes it as being very “progressive” and anticipating later work by Hans Bol. However, in the catalogue of the Staatliche Museen of 1976 (cat. no. 706), the attribution is doubted, and it is suggested that the landscape dates from the early seventeenth century (judging from the reproduction, this seems to me highly unlikely). Miedema is sceptical about the attribution, since the monogram CM can stand for many artists; see Hessel Miedema, Karel van Mander: The Lives of the Illustrious Netherlandish and German Painters (Doornspijk: Davaco, 1997), vol. 4, 156-57.

  61. 61. Van Mander, Het leven, fol. 256v: “alle dinghen seer eyghentlijck het leven volghende, “tzy in huysen, verre Landtschap, oft voorgronden.”

  62. 62. Van Mander, Het leven, fol. 257r: ‘een seer goet Schilder van Landtschap, volghende seer de manier van Pieter Brueghel […] had oock verscheyden Landen besocht, en verscheyden ghesichten nae “tleven gedaen. Hy wrocht in Water en in Oly-verwe, op een schoon en veerdige maniere.” Luuk Pijl rightly remarked that one could easily make the mistake of placing this painting in Haarlem around 1625 if it had not been signed and dated (Luuk Pijl, “Over de chronologie van de schilderijen van Hercules Segers,” Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 13 [1995], 172-80, esp. 177). See also Albert Blankert, Museum Bredius: Catalogus van de schilderijen en tekeningen (Zwolle: Waanders, 1991), 45, who remarked that this little painting seem to be “a precursor of some works by Jan Brueghel and the ‘realistic’ landscapes that follow, by Jan van Goyen and Esajas van de Velde,” quoting Martin who already pointed out how extraordinary this landscape is. Strangely enough, this was not taken up by Keyes, who does not mention Pieter Balten in his monograph on Esaias van de Velde (Keyes, Esaias van de Velde). It is possible that the “Mr. Balten” mentioned in the St. Luke’s guild of The Hague at the end of the sixteenth century (Obreen, Archief, vol. 3, 286), is the same as this Pieter Balten from Antwerp.

  63. 63. The technique probably approaches that of many small landscapes by Esaias van de Velde (see note 56 above). The paint layer is so thin that the brushstrokes of the ground are also clearly visible. I am grateful to Petria Noble with whom I carefully analyzed a transparency of this stolen painting.

  64. 64. For De Momper, see Klaus Ertz, Josse de Momper de J. (1564-1635) (Freren: Luca Verlag, 1986). The paintings that are dated early in De Mompers career by Ertz seem to be most quickly and thinly painted. De Momper’s works turn up several times in the sales discussed above (prices between 14 and 40 guilders; see Obreen, Archief, vol. 6, 46). Montias even established that in Amsterdam inventories between 1620 and 1650 no painter was as often mentioned as De Momper; see John Michael Montias, “Works of Art in Seventeenth-century Amsterdam: An Analysis of Subjects and Attributions,” in Art in History, 331-72, esp. 364.

  65. 65. A long time ago Blankert referred to similar motifs in the works of Brabant predecessors, in particular in the work of Jan Brueghel, in his comments on Stechow’s book: Albert Blankert, “Stechow: addenda,” Simiolus 2 (1967/68): 108. See also Briels, “De Zuidnederlandse immigranten,” 91-93.

  66. 66. “Vele ende seer fraeye gheleghentheden […] gheconterfeyt naer dleven, ende meest rontom Antwerpen gheleghen sijnde.” The Latin title: Multifariarum casularum ruriumque lineamenta curiose ad vivum expressa. The title print of the second series: Praediorum villarum et rusticarum casularum icones elengantissimae ad vivum in aere deformatae. (In all cases, it is emphatically mentioned that they were made “from life.”) Both series are reproduced in R. van Bastelaer, Les estampes de Peter Bruegel l’ancien (Brussels: Van Oest, 1908). See the following note as well.

  67. 67. All twenty-five etchings by Visscher are reproduced in Hollstein, vol. 34, nos. 292-317. Seven prints of Cock’s second series were skipped: one comes from the first series (no. 316), and one is his own invention (no. 317). The inventor of the two series published by Cock is nowadays mostly named “Master of the Small Landscapes.” In the course of time Cornelis Cort, Hans Bol, Cornelis Massys, Cornelis van Dalen, Joos van Liere, and Hieronymus Cock himself have all been proposed as inventor. See, among others, Dutch Landscape: The Early years, Haarlem and Amsterdam 1590-1650, ed. C. Brown (London: National Gallery, 1986), 110-11; see also 18-19, for the impact of the series on painting in the Northern Netherlands, which was emphasized by many others as well.

  68. 68. A good example of nostalgia is found in a few lines by Jacob Duym (Jacob Duym, Het moordadich stuck van Balthasar Gerards, published in 1606; quoted by Briels, Vlaamse schilders in de Noordelijke Nederlanden, 436): “Farewell, beautiful Brabant, farewell Antwerp great, / Farewell beautiful city, where we earned great fortunes / From where we traded with all parts of the world, / Farewell lovely, pleasant country and lovely, beautiful rivers, /… / Farewell fine country where we thought we would die.” (Nu adieu Brabant schoon, adieu Antwerpen groot, / Adieu schoon stad, daer wy in wonnen schatten bloot, / Van waer den handel was op allerley quartieren, / Adieu soet lieflijck Land en soete fray rivieren, / … / Adieu schoon Land, daer wy al meynden in te sterven).

  69. 69. See, for the last two, Boudewijn Bakker and Huigen Leeflang, Nederland naar ‘t leven. Landschapsprenten uit de Gouden Eeuw (Zwolle/Amsterdam: Museum het Rembrandthuis, 1993), 54-57, with further references. The Amsterdam series was produced before Visscher published the copies of the “Small Landscapes,” and the drawings of the “Pleasant Places” (“Plaisante Plaetsen”) would have been made earlier as well. (The five drawings that we still know bear the date 1607). It is clear that Galle’s reissue must have been the direct source of inspiration. Although the compositions of Visscher’s drawings immediately become more open and different in character in several respects, there is great similarity in motifs and composition, especially in the four Amsterdam prints and Hollstein nos. 148 and 195. See also Luijten et al., Dawn of the Golden Age, 651-55. For a considerable number of such series, see also Catherine Levesque, Journey through Landscape in Seventeenth-century Holland (University Park, Pa.: Penn State Press, 1994).

  70. 70. In two laudatory poems on the city of Haarlem which Van Mander composed around 1596, we notice how he shows himself an ardent advocate of his new hometown and the pleasant surroundings of that city; see Leeflang, “Dutch Landscape: The Urban View,” 64-66. In Strijdt tegen onverstandt (in Den Nederduytschen Helicon; quoted by Briels, Vlaamse schilders in de Noordelijke Nederlanden, 436), Van Mander emphatically replaces nostalgia for the lost country with love for the new fatherland.

    Series like the Plaisante Plaetsen, in which local Haarlem traditions play a role, may have had a particular resonance for the contemporary viewer as well; for this, see especially the fine article by Leeflang. The recommendation “from life,” already inscribed emphatically on both title prints of the “Small Landscapes” (and about which Van Mander writes often when discussing the Antwerp landscape painters mentioned above), returns frequently on the title pages of print series after Visscher and Van de Velde. For the importance attached to representation “from life” and the implications thereof, see Boudewijn Bakker, “Nederland naar ‘t leven: een inleiding,” in Bakker and Leeflang, Nederland naar ‘t leven, .6-17; and Boudewijn Bakker, “Levenspelgrimage of vrome wandeling? Claes Janszoon Visscher en zijn serie Plaisante Plaetsen,” Oud Holland 107 (1993): 97-115. The connection with Calvinist thought that Bakker underlines should remind us of the fact that the immigrants were mostly Calvinist. This could endorse the supposition that in those circles in particular one would have been interested in local landscapes depicted “from life.”

  71. 71. See, for instance, Hessel Miedema, “Dageraard der gouden eeuw,” De Zeventiende Eeuw 10 (1994): 241-51, esp. 248: “a lay public…that did not pretend to know about paintings, or even to need any knowledge of it” (een lekenpubliek dat…niet pretendeerde er verstand van te hebben, of er zelfs verstand voor nodig te hebben).

  72. 72. Lawrence Goedde pointed out this phenomenon in connection with Goltzius’s drawing of landscapes around Haarlem in the first years of the seventeenth century, which seem to appear out of nothing; Lawrence O. Goedde, “Naturalism as Convention, Subject, Style, and Artistic Self-consciousness in Dutch Landscape,” in Looking at Seventeenth-century Dutch Art: Realism Reconsidered, ed. W. Franits (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 129-43 and 231-33.

  73. 73. Compare my argument with reference to the “simple” landscapes by Van Goyen, which must have appealed to an audience of connoisseurs as well: E. J. Sluijter, “Jan van Goyen als marktleider, virtuoos en vernieuwer,” in Jan van Goyen, 38-59, esp. 45-54. See also Goedde, “Naturalism as Convention,” 142-43.

  74. 74. “As he used to say, he had learned from his own lack of experience that nobody was qualified to judge the art of painting (with which one is nowadays confronted everywhere), who did not, in one way or another, learn from practice the basics of that art. He had noticed how important men, famous for their all-round education, made themselves ridiculous in the eyes of practitioners of the art by giving with great authority their opinion on the art of painting.” Kan, De jeugd, 65; and Heesakkers, Mijn jeugd, 70-71.

  75. 75. After having stated that, concerning all those painters, their fame should speak for itself, and that the fame of Van Poelenburch, Wttenbroeck, and Van Goyen truly is quite something, Huygens writes: “Instead of mentioning all, I will foreground only two of them: Jan Wildens and Esaias van de Velde and I would place them almost at the same level as Paulus Bril, also from the Netherlands, but deceased in Rome. One could even say that in terms of naturalness nothing lacks in the works of those exceptional painters, except for the warmth of the sun and the gentle breeze.” Kan, De jeugd, 73; and Heesakkers, Mijn jeugd, 79.

  76. 76. See Sluijter, “Jan van Goyen als markleider,” 38-39.

  77. 77. Orlers, Beschrijvinge der stad Leyden, 373. About Pieter de Neyn he also writes that his landscapes, which he “could make with great speed, were found appealing by art lovers and burghers” (met groote vaerdigheyd [snelheid] conde maecken, de Liefhebberes ende Burgeren zo aengenaem waren).

  78. 78. Kan, De jeugd, 66; and Heesakkers, Mijn jeugd., 72.

  79. 79. For the associations with the “neat” (“nette”) manner of painting with an illustrious, indigenous tradition, see E. J. Sluijter, De lof der schilderkunst: Over schilderijen van Gerrit Dou (1613-1675) en een traktaat van Philips Angel uit 1642 (Hilversum: Verloren, 1993), 56-65. Added 2008: English translation, E. J. Sluijter, “In Praise of the Art of Painting: On Paintings by Gerrit Dou and a Tretise by Philips Angel of 1642,” chapt. 7 in Seductress of Sight: Studies in Dutch Art of the Golden Age (Zwolle: Waanders, 2000).

  80. 80. “Hier sijn oock schilderijen bij meenichte te krijgen. Hebben hier teegenwoordich van de beste meesters woonen.” She continues by writing: “Last week there was a market here, which one calls the Lent Market, and I saw a great many fine pieces, and I had someone with me who knew about paintings, and at Pentecost there is again a market, because there is a market three times a year. Although some things might be better available with you [in Antwerp], the costs of transportation would not compensate this – apart from the fact that you would have the trouble of dragging everything in and out of ships which is a great nuisance” (Was hier verleede weeck mart, dat men noemt de Vaste Marckt, sach bij hoope fraye stucken, alsoo een bij mij hadt die daer kennis van heeft en te Pinsteren ist hier weer mart alsoo 3 mael “s jaers marckt is. En offschoon eenige dingen daer bij UL wat beter koop soude mogen sijn, neemt de onkosten vant overvoeren weer wech. Behalleven UL de moeiten heeft van tsleepen uit en in de scheepen daart ook seer mee versuckelt). I. H. van Eeghen, “Magdalena Stockmans,” Maandblad Amstelodamum 41 (1954): 137-41, esp. 140. Magdalena Stockmans was the widow of the rich merchant Isaac van der Voort. She had returned with her children from Naples (where she had lived for eleven years) shortly before and stayed in Antwerp. It is likely that she did not have the chance to bring many of her belongings on this long journey to the north. Her sister rented a house for her in Amsterdam and advised against buying furniture and paintings. It was self evident that paintings belonged among the very first things that had to be purchased!

List of Illustrations

Esaias van de Velde,  Winter Landscape, 1614,  Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
Fig. 1 Esaias van de Velde, Winter Landscape, 1614, oil on panel, 21 x 40.6 cm. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Esais van de Velde,  View of a Village, 1616,  Private collection, Germany
Fig. 2 Esais van de Velde, View of a Village, 1616, oil on panel, diameter 19 cm. Private collection, Germany (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Jacob Grimmer,  Landscape with Peasant Cottages: Autumn (from a,  Museum van Schone Kunsten, Budapest
Fig. 3 Jacob Grimmer, Landscape with Peasant Cottages: Autumn (from a series of the four seasons), oil on panel 35.5 x 59.5 cm. Museum van Schone Kunsten, Budapest (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Pieter Balten,  Landscape with Peasant Cottages, 1581,  Museum Bredius, The Hague
Fig. 4 Pieter Balten, Landscape with Peasant Cottages, 1581, oil on panel, diameter 23.5 cm. Museum Bredius, The Hague (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Johannes and Lucas van Doetecum after the Master of the Small Landscapes,  Landscape with View of a Village (from the seri, 1561,
Fig. 5a Johannes and Lucas van Doetecum after the Master of the Small Landscapes, Landscape with View of a Village (from the series Praediorum villiarum [...]), 1561, etching, 29.8 x 20.3 cm. (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Johannes and Lucas van Doetecum after the Master of the Small Landscapes,  Road by Peasant Cottages (from the series Prae, 1561,
Fig. 5b Johannes and Lucas van Doetecum after the Master of the Small Landscapes, Road by Peasant Cottages (from the series Praediorum villiarum [...]), 1561, etching, 29.8 x 20.2 cm. (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Johannes and Lucas van Doetecum after the Master of the Small Landscapes,  View of a Farmstead (from the series Praedioru, 1561,
Fig. 5c Johannes and Lucas van Doetecum after the Master of the Small Landscapes, View of a Farmstead (from the series Praediorum villiarum [...]), 1561, etching, 31.9 x 20.4 cm. (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Claes Janszn Visscher after the Master of the Small Landscapes Title print (from the series Regiuncule,  et villae [...), 1612,
Fig. 6a Claes Janszn Visscher after the Master of the Small Landscapes Title print (from the series Regiuncule, et villae [...), 1612, etching, 10.4 x 15.8 cm. (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Claes Janszn Visscher after the Master of the Small Landscapes,  Road by Peasant Cottages (from the series Regi, 1612,
Fig. 6b Claes Janszn Visscher after the Master of the Small Landscapes, Road by Peasant Cottages (from the series Regiuncule, et villae [...]), 1612, etching, 10.3 x 15.8 cm. (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Claes Janszn Visscher after the Master of the Small Landscapes,  View of a Village, with Church Tower (from the , 1612,
Fig. 6c Claes Janszn Visscher after the Master of the Small Landscapes, View of a Village, with Church Tower (from the series Regiuncule, et villae [...]), 1612, etching, 10.4 x 15.8 cm. (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Claes Janszn Visscher after the Master of the Small Landscapes,  View of a Farmstead (from the series Regiuncul, 1612,
Fig. 6d Claes Janszn Visscher after the Master of the Small Landscapes, View of a Farmstead (from the series Regiuncule, et villae [...]), 1612, etching, 10.3 x 15.9 cm. (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Claes Janszn Visscher,  The Chartreusian Monastery (from the series Fo,  ca. 1610,
Fig. 7a Claes Janszn Visscher, The Chartreusian Monastery (from the series Four Views outside Amsterdam), ca. 1610, etching, 5.6 x 9.7 cm. (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Claes Janszn Visscher,  Amsteldijk by Kostverloren (from the series Fo,  ca. 1610,
Fig. 7b Claes Janszn Visscher, Amsteldijk by Kostverloren (from the series Four Views outside Amsterdam), ca. 1610, etching, 5.6 x 9.7 cm. (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Claes Janszn Visscher,  The Road to Leiden (from the series Pleasant P,  ca. 1611-14,
Fig. 8a Claes Janszn Visscher, The Road to Leiden (from the series Pleasant Places [...]), ca. 1611-14, etching, 10.3 x 15.8 cm (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Claes Janszn Visscher,  Bleaching Fields by the Haarlemmerhout (from th,  ca. 1611-14,
Fig. 8b Claes Janszn Visscher, Bleaching Fields by the Haarlemmerhout (from the series Pleasant Places [...]), ca. 1611-14, etching 10.4 x 15.8 cm (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Claes Janszn Visscher, Bleaching Fields by the Dunes (from the series Pleasant Places [...]), ca. 1611-14, etching, 10.3 x 15.8 cm
Fig. 8c Claes Janszn Visscher, Bleaching Fields by the Dunes (from the series Pleasant Places [...]), ca. 1611-14, etching, 10.3 x 15.8 cm (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]

Footnotes

  1. 1. Samuel van Hoogstraten, Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst (Rotterdam: Francois van Hoogstraeten, 1678), 237: “In ‘t begin deezer eeuw waeren de wanden in Holland noch zoo dicht niet met Schilderyen behangen, alsze tans wel zijn. Echter kroop dit gebruik dagelijx meer en meer in, ‘t welk zommige Schilders dapper aenporde om zich tot ras schilderen te gewennen, jae om alle daeg een stuck, ‘t zij kleyn of groot te vervaardigen.”

  2. 2. About the spectacular increase in the number of paintings produced, see Jan de Vries, “Art History,” in Art in History: History in Art, ed. David Freedberg and Jan de Vries (Santa Monica, Calif.: Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1991), 249-82. According to De Vries’s calculations, the number of active painters would have quadrupled between 1600 and 1620 (p. 273). See also Marten Jan Bok, Vraag en aanbod op de Nederlandse kunstmarkt, 1580-1700, (PhD diss., Utrecht University, 1994); John Michael Montias, Artists and Artisans in Delft: A Socio-economic Study of the Seventeenth Century, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 263-64; John Michael Montias, “Art Dealers in the Seventeenth-century Netherlands,” Simiolus 18 (1988): 244-53, esp. 245; and John Michael Montias, Le marché de l’art aux Pays-Bas, XVe-XVIIe siècles, (Paris: Flammarion, 1996), 93-100. About the increase in the possession of paintings, see Montias, Le marché, 71-72; and C. Willemijn Fock, “Kunstbezit in Leiden in de zeventiende eeuw,” in Het Rapenburg: Geschiedenis van een Leidse gracht, ed. Th. H. Lunsingh Scheurleer et al. (Leiden: Afdeling Geschidenis van de Kunstnijverheid Rjkuniversiteit, 1990), vol. 5a, 3-36, esp. 5-6.

  3. 3. Peter Mundy, The Travels of Peter Mundy in Europe and Asia, 1608-1667, vol. 4, Travels in Europe, 1639-47, ed. R. Carnac Temple (Cambridge: Hakluyt Society, 1925).

  4. 4. Quoted in Wilhelm Martin, Het leven en de werken van Gerrit Dou beschouwd met het schildersleven van zijn tijd (Leiden: S. C. van Doesburgh, 1901), 95-96.

  5. 5. About the stereotyping of seventeenth-century Dutchmen in general, see Marijke Meijer Drees, Andere landen, andere mensen: De beeldvorming van Holland versus Spanje en Engeland omstreeks 1650, (The Hague: SDU, 1997).

  6. 6. Dirck Raphaelsz. Camphuyzen, Stichtelycke rymen (Amsterdam, 1624) (quoted from the 1642 edition, p. 212); the quoted lines respectively: “‘t Malen! ey, wie kan dat wraken sonder al-gemeyn op-roer?”; “Van Graveren, trecken, malen hangt de heele Wer ‘lt aen een”; “‘t Malen is ‘t gewoone lockaes voor ‘t verseeuwerd hert vol keurs, / Dat in spijt van noodts behoeven ‘t gelt ontgoochelt uit den beurs, / ‘t Malen schijnt de saus van alles wat uyt menschen hersens spruyt.”

  7. 7. A. H. Kan, trans., De jeugd van Constantijn Huygens door hemzelf beschreven (Rotterdam: A. Donker, 1971), 66. Chris L. Heesakkers, trans., Constantijn Huygens: Mijn jeugd (Amsterdam: Querido, 1987), 72.

  8. 8. It is interesting that Huygens first praises the landscape painters and only then writes that the history painters of the Netherlands are no less talented. Kan, De jeugd, 73; and Heesakkers, Mijn jeugd, 78-79.

  9. 9. Ludovico Guicciardini, Descrittione di tutti paesi bassi (Antwerp, 1567), 97-100; a Dutch translation was published in 1612 (after earlier German and French translations). In his first sentence, Guicciardini sets the tone for the following one and a half centuries: “Since the art of making paintings is an excellent thing when it comes to profit and honour – not only in Antwerp and Mechelen is this craft of great importance, but also in the Netherlands as a whole – it seems to me fitting to mention here several of those in this country who have most given fame to the art by their inventions, of whom some are still alive and some have died” (Maer angehsien de conste der schilderyen een treffelijcken saecke is aengaende profijt ende eere, niet alleenlijck te Antwerpen ende te Mechelen, daer het een ambacht is seer groot van waerden, maar oock de gantsche Nederlanden door: soo dunckt my behoorlijck ende betaemlijck te wesen, hier ettelijcke te noemen vande ghene die in dese landen de conste meest hebben verbreyt ende verciert, waer af sommighe noch leeven ende somnmighe overleeden sijn). Ludovico Guicciardini, Beschrijvinghe van alle de Nederlanden (Amsterdam, 1612), 79. Hadrianus Junius, who wrote his book during the years 1565-70, begins his section on painters with the sentence: “Cognata literis res est Pictura, quae ars ut nobilis, Regibusque expetita, ita olim etiam in primum liberalium gradum recepta, & quos posteris tradere dignatur, nobilitans. In ea habet Batavia florentia aliqout ingenia, quae neque possum, neque debeo silentio praeterire.” Hadrianus Junius, Batavia (Leiden, 1588), 234-40.

  10. 10. Karel van Mander, Het leven der doorluchtighe Nederlantsche, en Hoogduytsche schilders, in Idem, Het schilder-boeck (Haarlem, 1604).The print series mentioned are Pictorum aliquot celebrium germaniae inferioris effigies, Hieronymus Cock (Antwerp, 1572) (four editions through 1600, the last one published by Theodoor Galle with the title Illustrium quos belgium habuit pictorum effigies), and Pictorum aliquot celebrium praecipue Germaniae inferioris effigies, Hendrick Hondius (The Hague, 1610). Concerning these series, see Hans-Joachim Raupp, Untersuchungen zu Künstlerbildnis und Künstlerdarstellung in den Niederlanden im 17. Jahrhundert (Hildesheim and New York: Olms, 1984), 18-45.

  11. 11. For Scribanius’s text, with translation and commentary, see Julius S. Held, “Carolus Scribanius’s Observations on Art in Antwerp,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 59 (1996): 174-204. Competition with painters from antiquity (and also with the Italians) is of central importance for Scribanius; almost all Antwerp painters discussed are compared with painters from antiquity whom they have supposedly surpassed.

  12. 12. In most city descriptions the painters are, apart from the learned men, the only group of “famous sons” included. J. Pontanus, Rerum et urbis Amstelodamensium Historiae (Amsterdam: Hondius, 1611); the Dutch edition was published three years later: Historische beschryvinghe der seer wijt beroemde coop-stadt Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 1614), 79-81 (Pontanus was a brother of the painter Pieter Isaacsz). Jan Orlers, Beschrijvinge der stad Leyden (Leiden, 1614), 259-76; second edition 1641, 352-80. Samuel Ampzing, Beschryvinge ende lof der stad Haerlem in Holland (Haarlem, 1628), 345-76. Theodoor Schrevelius, Harlemias, ofte, om beter te seggen, de eerste stichtinghe der stadt Haerlem (Haarlem, 1648), 359-91.

  13. 13. Schrevelius, Harlemias, 359: “It is nowadays still well known that for several centuries the very best painters have been raised in this city” (Ende dit is noch ten huydighe daghe by yder een bekent, dat d”alderbeste schilders voor eenige hondert iaren herwaarts, hier op gequeeckt zijn); Simon van Leeuwen, Korte Besgryving van het Lugdunum Batavorum, nu Leyden (Leiden, 1672), 188: “in this city the most famous painters and draughtsman of the whole country were born and raised” (zijn binnen dese Stad geboren, ende opgekweekt, de vermaarste Schilders ende Teyckenaars van het gantsche Land).

  14. 14. Held, “Carolus Scribanius,” 179, 192, 201, 203-4.

  15. 15. Ampzing, Beschryvinge, 345. See the excellent article by Huigen Leeflang, “Dutch Landscape: The Urban View; Haarlem and Its Environs in Literature and Art, 15th-17th Century,” Natuur en landschap in de nederlandse kunst 1500-1850, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 48 (1997): 53-115, esp. 80-84.

  16. 16. Kan, De jegud, 68; and Heesakkers, Mijn jeugd, 74.

  17. 17. For instance: De Gheyn (in his capacity as an engraver) vs Goltzius (69), Hoefnagels (in his capacity as a miniaturist) vs Oliver (69), Hoefnagels (in his capacity as a painter of flowers) vs Jan Breughel I and Bosschaert (70), De Gheyn challenging Torrentius (83-84); Goltzius vs Dürer and Lucas (72), Porcellis vs Vroom (72), Rubens vs the Italians in general (74), Van Mierevelt vs Ravesteyn (76), and finally Rembrandt, who surpasses all painters from Italy and antiquity (79).

  18. 18. For instance, see Fock, “Kunstbezit in Leiden,” 5.

  19. 19. In her dissertation Marion Boers-Goosens calculated on the basis of a variety of sources the number of painters active in Haarlem in the first decades: in 1605 there were seventeen painters within a population of 30,000 (works of ten painters are still known); in 1615 the number increased to thirty-six (we know works by twenty of those) out of 35,000; in 1625 there were fifty-four painters (works are still known by forty-five of those artists) out of 40,000 inhabitants. Finally, she calculated ninety painters active in Haarlem in 1635; of those at least seventy-nine were artist-painters (population ca. 42,000).Added 2008: See Marion E. W. Goosens, Schilders en de markt: Haarlem 1600-1635 (PhD diss., Leiden University, 2001).

  20. 20. See Montias, Le marché, 99.

  21. 21. In particular, see Bok, “Vraag en aanbod,” 95-96 and chapter 4, passim.

  22. 22. Thera Wijsenbeek-Olthuis, Het Lange Voorhout: Monumenten, mensen en macht (Zwolle and The Hague: Waanders, 1998), 82-86. She concludes that ownership of tapestries depended not so much on wealth as on social background. Even the less wealthy nobility owned tapestries, while rich burghers bought larger numbers of paintings.

  23. 23. With the nobility Wijsenbeek-Olthuis counted an average of 25 portraits and 17 paintings of other subjects; with the wealthy magistrates of The Hague, there was an average of 8 portraits and 33 paintings of other subjects. The well-to-do middle class shows a proportion of 3 portraits to 29 paintings of other subjects (based on 60 inventories, 20 for each group). Wijsenbeek-Olthuis, Lange Voorhout, 92-102.

  24. 24. Especially De Vries, “Art History,” 265: “the circumstances of the late sixteenth century enlarged the supply of painters by setting in motion a massive migration from Flanders to Holland; these circumstances increased the demand for paintings by establishing a cultural environment that converted art from a ‘public good’ (provided by state and church) to a ‘private good’ (acquired by individuals).” See also Bok, “Vraag en aanbod,” 97-98; Montias, Artists and Artisans, 73; and John Michael Montias, “Cost and Value in Seventeenth-century Dutch Art,” Art History 10 (1987): 455-66, esp. 459. See also Josua Bruyn, “A Turning Point in the History of Dutch Art,” in Dawn of the Golden Age: Northern Netherlandish Art 1580-1620, ed. Ger Luijten et al., exh. cat. (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, 1993), 112-21, esp. 119.

  25. 25. J. G. C. A. Briels, Vlaamse schilders in de Noordelijke Nederlanden in het begin van de gouden eeuw, 1585-1630 (Antwerp and Haarlem: Becht, 1987) and Briels, Vlaamse schilders en de dageraad van Hollands gouden eeuw, 1585-1630 (Antwerp: Mercatorfonds, 1998).

  26. 26. J. G. C. A. Briels, De zuidnederlandse immigratie in Amsterdam en Haarlem omstreeks 1572-1630 (PhD diss., Utrecht University, 1976) and Briels, Zuid-Nederlanders in de republiek, 1572-1630 (St. Niklaas: Danthe, 1985).

  27. 27. Marion Boers-Goosens concluded that this was very striking in Haarlem: between 1600 and 1605, the number of painters from the Southern Netherlands was still small (four out of nineteen) and was in terms of percentage not to be compared with other crafts (also see the following note). Of the large number of painters Briels mentions in Amsterdam – men who were entered as “painter” in documents, mostly when marrying – we know with certainty only a few that indeed worked as artist-painters; no works are known for most of them (Briels, “De zuidnederlandse immigratie,” 79-102; see also the biographies in Briels, Vlaamse schilders, 293-411). It is remarkable that of the living painters discussed by Van Mander, very few were immigrants from the Southern Netherlands (only Badens, Coninxloo, Vinckboons, and De Gheyn, and earlier, in the life of Hans Bol, he mentions Roelant and Jacques Savery). In his discussion of the older generation, by contrast, most of the painters were from the Southern Netherlands. The reason for this is certainly not that he ignored painters who specialized in specific genres, since he does discuss a large number of such painters from the older generation (such as Pieter Baltens, Hans Bol, Jacob Grimmer, Joos van Liere, Claes Molenaer, Gillis Mostart, the brothers Valckenborch, and Hendrick van Steenwijck, all of them working in the Southern Netherlands). Of the living painters Van Mander lists at the end of his account, only three out of fifteen have a Southern Netherlandish background: Cornelis van der Voort and Bernaert and Pouwels van Someren).

  28. 28. In the case of Haarlem, I rely on the data of Marion Boers-Goosens (Goosens, “Schilders en de markt”). For the increase of the number of painters in Amsterdam, see Bok, “Vraag en aanbod,” 99-104. Little can be said about Leiden painters; further research is needed. Added 2008: Piet Bakker (University of Amsterdam) is presently working on the Leiden art market.

  29. 29. According to the data of Marion Boers-Goosens, out of the nine painters in 1615 who had started their career after 1605 – they all began between 1610 and 1613 – eight had a Southern Netherlandish background. It is striking that, as of this moment, the data mostly concerns names that are still well known to us.

  30. 30. The inventories published by Duverger start only in 1600, but from these inventories – drawn up during the first ten years of the seventeenth century and the art works of which must have been assembled during the last decades of the sixteenth century – one gets a good impression of the nature and the number of paintings in such estates. E. Duverger, Antwerpse kunstinventarissen uit de zeventiende eeuw, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België1 (Brussels: Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, 1984).

  31. 31. See Briels, “De zuidnederlandse immigratie,” 52-53. Briels also mentions an interesting letter of 1608 from a French envoy who, responding to the obvious fear that many merchants and craftsmen from the Southern Netherlands would leave during the truce, wrote that this did not seem likely considering the freedom and the security they enjoyed in the republic. See also notes 68 and 70 below.

  32. 32. See the second petition of the Amsterdam dean and masters of the guild (D. O. Obreen, Archief van de Nederlandsche Kunstgeschiedenis [Rotterdam: Van Hengel and Eeltjes, 1880-81], vol. 3, 166-67). It is clear from this document that the paintings were auctioned by the use of “mijnen” (also called the “Dutch manner”: while the auctioneer called out descending prices, the buyer had to call “mine” at the price he was willing to pay). The petition states that it was unusual to sell goods in this way; it was current to do so only with sales of estates and further that “to auction art in this way [by “mijnen”] is detrimental to all good citizens and had never been in use; no commodities are ever sold in this way as well, except for estates”(de voorsz. maniere [het “mijnen”] van Const opveylinge allen goeden Ingesetenen deser Stede schadelyck, ende noyt in sulcke voegen in swanck is geweest, gemerckt oock geen Coopmanschappen hier ter Stede gewoon syn in sodanigen manieren vercoft te worden, als alleenlycken in erffhuysen). For three variants of the so-called Dutch way of selling by auction, see Neil De Marchi, “The Role of Dutch Auctions and Lotteries in Shaping the Art Market(s) of 17th century Holland,” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 28 (1995): 203-21, esp. 209. doi:10.1016/0167-2681(95)00032-1.  See also doi:10.2307/3046038. It is impossible to say which of the three methods was used in this instance. (Such methods are still in use with auctions of flowers, houses, and estates.)

  33. 33. Obreen, Archief, vol. 3, 164-65. Quoted passages: “door listich ende ongodlyck opdringen”; “zulcx datter een groote menichte Schilderyen tegenwoordich by haerluyden voorhanden is, omme mede alhier in manier als vooren vercoft te worden”; “gepractiseerde malitieuse openbaare opveylingen van Vreemdelingen die van daghe to daghe souden toenemen, in corten tyt dese Stede, jae het geheele Landt met vodden ende slechte leerkinderen werck, souden worden vervult”; “de goede burgerye alhier, die door den banck weynich kenisse van schilerye hebben, bedrogen [wordt]).”

  34. 34. J. C. Rammelman Elsevier, “Iets over de Leidsche schilders van 1610, in verband met het geslacht der Elsevieren,” Berigten van het historisch gezelschap te Utrecht 1, no. 2 (1846-48): 35-45, esp. 36-37. The painters did not get permission to establish a guild and first had to demonstrate what was usual in other cities. They presented the petition from Amsterdam quoted above, and the decision of the aldermen of Amsterdam, as well as a declaration from Delft, saying that since time immemorial only members of the guild of St. Luke were allowed to sell paintings, except at the annual fairs and weekly markets. However, they only received a regulation for one year in which it was stipulated that, apart from the annual fairs, only the burghers of Leiden were allowed to sell paintings without special permission of the burgomasters (the same regulation as in Amsterdam). A master’s thesis by Ed Romein discusses the exceptional situation in Leiden, where the painters received (partial) permission to establish a guild only in 1648. Added in 2008: part of this thesis has been published; Ed Romein, “Knollen en citroenen op de Leidse kunstmarkt: over de rol van kwalitiet in de opkomst van de Leidse fijnschilderstijl,” De Zeventiende Eeuw 17 (2001): 75-95.

  35. 35. Obreen, Archief, vol. 3, 166-67.

  36. 36. Ibid: “dickwils copyen voor principalen copende.” This document also mentioned that the paintings were auctioned by way of “mijnen”; see note 32 above.

  37. 37. Statute of January 1, 1617, mentioned by I. H. van Eeghen, “Het Amsterdamse Sint Lucasgilde in de zeventiende eeuw,” Jaarboek van het genootschap Amstelodamum 61 (1969): 65-102, esp. 90. Quoted passage: “sulcx dat het land hier meestendeel, met copyen ende andere slechte vodden wert gevult, tot spot van alle fraye liefhebbers ende merckelycke disreputatie van de Const.” In 1623, a new statute was issued with heavier fines, and in 1626 it was extended again with a regulation that one could only sell by auction in the houses of the sellers, or in the house of the warden, while a memorandum of all the paintings to be sold had to be submitted to the aldermen before the sale.

  38. 38. G. J. Hoogewerff, De geschiedenis van de St. Lucasgilden in Nederland (Amsterdam: P. N. van Kampen, 1947), 103, 162; Montias, Artists and Artisans, 71-73; and Hessel Miedema, “Kunstschilders, gilde en academie. Over het probleem van de emancipatie van de kunstschilders in de Noordelijke Nederlanden van de zestiende en zeventiende eeuw,” Oud Holland 101 (1987): 1-30, esp. 4. In Gouda, the petition of the glass painters and glassmakers had only partial success: the latter group alone was allowed a guild. It is remarkable that we do not hear of anything in Haarlem during this period. Were the old statutes still functioning satisfactorily, or were the painters less concerned about such auction sales? In a document of 1590 it was decreed that a non-guild-member could not sell paintings, except at annual fairs and weekly markets: in practice then, it was possible to sell one’s paintings every week. See Hessel Miedema, De archiefbescheiden van het St. Lukasgilde te Haarlem (Alphen aan den Rijn: Canaletto,1980), vol. 1, 59-60. For the controversy in Haarlem concerning auction sales in a later period, see Marion Boers [-Goosens], “Een nieuwe markt voor kunst. De expansie van de Haarlemse schilderijenmarkt in de eerste heflt van de zeventiende eeuw,” Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 50 (1999): 195-220.

  39. 39. Obreen, Archief, vol. 3, 165: “those salesmen, beginning to enjoy the profit, and for that reason endeavouring to continue this trade, try to assemble all the paintings they can get their hands on, in Antwerp as well as elsewhere in those regions” (voorsz. vercoopers nu aent profyt beginnende te verleckeren, ende oversulcx soeckende desen handel te continueren, met alle vlyt pogen zoo tot Antwerpen als elders in dien contryen, by een te raepen, al den Schilderyen die zyluyden kennen becomen).

  40. 40. De Marchi, “The Role of Dutch Auctions,” 206-12, took this literally and assumed that it concerned indeed rubbish, copies, and works of pupils. For that reason he applied Akerlof’s theory concerning the fear of “lemons” (a term from the trade in second-hand cars). However, apart from the fact that the market did not collapse but started to grow rapidly, the success of the auction sales and the probable expertise of the buyers (that is to say, the buyers at the sales mentioned below – we do not know if there were other illegal sales) point in another direction. For the problems concerning originals (“principalen”), copies, and the assessment of quality and value, see Neil de Marchi and Hans J. van Miegroet, “Pricing Invention: “Originals,” “Copies,” and Their Relative Value in Seventeenth-century Netherlandish Art Markets,” in Economics of the Arts: Selected Essays, ed. V. A. Ginsburgh and P.-M. Menge (Amsterdam andOxford: Elsevier 1996), 27-70.

  41. 41. Only the collector of the orphans chamber (for estates and voluntary sales [”willige verkopingen”]) and the warden of the town hall (for “executoriale verkopingen”) were allowed to conduct auction sales. Records of the “estates” organized by the orphans chamber have been preserved with some smaller and larger lacune for the period 1587-1638 (twenty-nine volumes). Besides that, one volume has been preserved of the “willige verkopingen” and that concerns the period 22/7/1608 to 3/6/1610 (WA 5073/966). Van Eeghen listed in a footnote (see Van Eeghen, “Het Amsterdamse St. Lucasgilde,” 85-86) all the sales with numerous paintings. The sales of estates start with that of Gillis van Coninxloo in 1607, and among the sales of the “willige verkopingen” we find a few large sales in 1608, 1609, and 1610. Van Eeghen assumes that two sales in the fall of 1608 provoked the petition of the dean and aldermen of the guild of St. Luke that followed shortly after (ibid., 89). The petition concerns auction sales requested by Johanna Artsen and Jacques van der Lamen, both from Antwerp and not citizens of Amsterdam (30/9/1608; ca. 69 paintings), and one requested three days later by Felix van Lun, who was also from Antwerp and not an Amsterdam citizen (2/10/1608; 85 paintings). Three weeks later, on October 29, 1608, and again in May 1609, there were sales at the request of Valerius van der Houven, described as a painter born in Antwerp (he was an Amsterdam citizen; 20 and 42 paintings respectively). On February 23, 1609, a sale (ca. 148 paintings) was organized by the widow of the recently deceased Hans van de Velde, the father of the painter Esaias van de Velde; Hans was also recorded as a painter and came from Antwerp. In March 1610 there was a sale requested by the painter Lucas Luce, born in Antwerp but an Amsterdam citizen as well (16/3/1610; ca. 140 paintings).

    It is probable that these sales (and this might also be the case with the sale of Pieter Loduwijcxs (23/2/1609, ca. 120 paintings) are the kind of sales referred to in the petition of 1613, in which it is mentioned that non-citizens have paintings sold by auction through citizens. In this period, the sales of estates do not always seem to have been what they were supposed to be. For instance, in 1607, an auction sale was held that was certainly not an estate; it included paintings by, among others, Crispiaen Colyn, Hans van Coninxloo, Barend van Someren, and Pouwels [Vredeman] de Vries – all of them painter/dealers with a Southern Netherlandish background (partly published in A. Bredius, Künstlerinventare (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1919), vol. 6, 2051-52). The huge sale of Crispiaen Colyn in 1612 (ca. 620 paintings [!], apart from prints and plaster casts) does not qualify as an estate sale either, as Colyn died in 1618 (published in Bredius, nstlerinventare, vol. 3, 1067-86). This is true as well for the sale of the painter Cornelis van der Voort of 1614 (Van der Voort died in 1625), also Southern Netherlandish by birth (published in Bredius, Künstlerinventare, vol. 4, 1173-77). In the case of the sale of Claes Rauwert (26/8/1612) one may also wonder if the paintings (ca. 430!) are all from his estate. Further research is necessary. For three auction sales of a somewhat later period, see J. M. Montias, “Trois ventes de tableaux aux enchères à Amsterdam vers 1620,” in Curiosité: Etudes d’histoire de l’art en l’honneur d’Antoine Schnapper, ed. O. Bonfait et al. (Paris: Flammarion, 1998), 285-95. Montias researched the buyers at those sales during the whole period for which records are preserved. At the 1999 CAA annual convention he gave a lecture about this research: “Auction Sales in Amsterdam 1597-1638.” (I am grateful for having been able to consult a manuscript of this lecture.) Added in 2008: Montias’s research has been published in J. M. Montias, Art at Auction in 17th Century Amsterdam (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2002).

  42. 42. In most of the sale records subjects are rarely mentioned; they are generally described as “1 piece of painting” (“1 stuck schilderij”) and indicated with a number or character. Only now and then is the name of a painter mentioned. An exception is the fascinating sale of Crispiaen Colyn in 1612 – by far the largest one, but with the lowest prices – in which all the paintings are indicated with a subject.

  43. 43. At the sale of Crispiaen Colyn (20/3/1612), in which most of the subjects were mentioned and which contained very cheap paintings, the prices of the history pieces were generally between one and five guilders (many even less than a guilder), with a few peaks: 41-17 [41 guilders 17 stivers] for an Image of Mary (“een Marienbeelt”), 48-0 for an Adulteress (“een overspelent vroutgen”), 56-0 for a “Susanna”, 63-0 for a “Crucifix,” 80-10 for a Crucifixion of Christ on Mount Calvary (“Cruysinge Christi, berg van Calvarien”). Flower and fruit still lifes (“bloempotten” and “fruytagien”) are generally about one guilder, but 17 guilders was paid for a flower piece by Jacques Savery. The kitchen pieces are mostly around four guilders, with peaks of 28 and 35 guilders. Most landscapes are less than ten guilders, but there are a few between 10 and 20 guilders, with peaks of 27 and 28 guilders (both with the name of Pieter Stalpaert) and 36 guilders (no name). The numerous “heads” (“tronies”) are mostly sold for less than one guilder. It is remarkable that in these sales, copies are explicitly mentioned several times (copies after Cornelis van Haerlem, Jan Bruegel, Abraham Bloemaert, Gillis Coignet and Pieter Gerritsz).

    In the more “expensive” sale organized by Cornelis van der Voort (1614), a sale in which many subjects and quite a number of names are also mentioned, the prices of landscapes vary between 8-5 to 59 guilders: most of them are between 15 and 40 guilders (the most expensive is without a name: of the eight works by De Momper, the prices vary between 14 and 47 guilders). The kitchen pieces (all of them anonymous) are between 16 and 57 guilders, while the history paintings vary greatly in price: there are several of less than 10 guilders (and that could also include a “Mars and Venus”), but most are between 10 and 30 guilders. However, there are a few very expensive paintings (205 for a “Banquet” by Dirck Barentsz. and 317 guilders for a “Banquet of the Gods”). Also very expensive was a cavalry battle (“bataille”) by Karel van Mander (221 guilders); although we also come across works of less than 10 guilders by the same artist. See, too, the following note. Further research about the prices at such auction sales is necessary.

  44. 44. In most of these sales we find inexpensive to very cheap paintings; of the ca. 500 paintings sold between September 1608 and May 1609, the majority went for less than 20 guilders. But there are always more expensive works as well. However, the general level of prices could vary per auction sale. At the sale of Johanna Artsen and Jacques van der Lamen (30/9/1608), most of the prices were between 10 and 20 guilders, with only a few below 5 guilders; some were more expensive, however, costing between 30 and 50 guilders. We find exactly the same pattern in the following sale of Felix van Lun (2/10/1608).

    Much cheaper were most of the works in the sales organized by Valerius van der Houven (29/10/1608 and 23/5/1609); most of the paintings went for less than 5 guilders, with a few exceptions between 20 and 50 guilders. The same holds for the sale of Pieter Loduwijcxs (24/2/1609), although the general level is a little higher, because more works were sold between 10 and 20 guilders.

    Even cheaper were the paintings of the one-day sale of the widow of Hans van de Velde (the father of Esaias) on 23/2/1609. The prices were mainly between 1 and 3 guilders; only a few went for more than 10 guilders (the highest was 31 guilders). At the huge sale of Crispiaen Colyn we may notice the same phenomenon: most of the paintings are less than 5 guilders (many even less than 1); out of the more than 600 paintings, only 25 commanded between 10 and 20 guilders, 10 between 20 and 50, and 3 above 50 (the most expensive was 80-10).

    Those sales are clearly different from that organized by Lucas Luce (16/3/1610); at that sale, most paintings went between 10 and 50 guilders – about as many between 10 and 20 as between 20 and 50. However, also in this case, there were many between 1 and 10 guilders, while 11 works were sold between 50 and 100 guilders, with peaks of 163, 180, and 232 guilders.

    We find the same pattern in the sale organized by Cornelis van der Voort (7/4/1614): quite a few works sold between 2 and 10 guilders, but many more between 10 and 20, and even more between 20 and 50 guilders. Thirteen paintings commanded even higher prices (the highest at 106, 142, 205, 221, and 317 guilders!) A special case is the sale of Claes Rauwaert, probably largely composed of the estate of the collector (and also dealer?) Jacob Rauwaert (published in Bredius, Künstlerinventare, vol. 5, 1734-48). It mostly comprises expensive works that were collected in the last decades of the sixteenth century: 28 lots went higher than 100 guilders (the highest 455 guilders!) and about 45 were sold for prices between 50 and100 guilders. However, even in this sale there were many pieces of less than 10 guilders (ca. 80 lots, among which were many roundels [”rondjes”] and small paintings representing firescapes [”brandjes”]). One wonders if those were also from the collection of Rauwaert – these inexpensive paintings might have been added to this sale.

  45. 45. We find many landscapes and still lifes of this price level in both the “expensive” and “cheap” sales.

  46. 46. The following are mentioned as painters, but they were certainly also active as dealers: Jan Basse (Rijsel 1572), Hans van Cleeff (Antwerp ca. 1570), Crispiaen Colyn (Mechelen 1574), David Colyns (Rotterdam 1582, son of Crispiaen), Hans van Coninxloo (Antwerp 1565), Lucas Luce (Antwerp 1575), Frans Kaersgieter (Belle 1573), Adriaen van Nieulandt (Antwerp 1586), Barent van Someren (Antwerp 1572), Anthony van de Velde (Antwerp 1557), Cornelis van der Voort (Antwerp 1576), Pouwels de Vries (Antwerp 1567); also the “antijcksnijder” Cornelis van der Bloocke (Mechelen 1569) and the goldsmith Pieter Coning (Antwerp 1578, father of Salomon Koninck) would have been active as dealers. Among the other regular buyers were undoubtedly many of Southern Netherlandish descent, for instance, the art lover and collector Hendrick van Os (Antwerp 1555/6; about him, see Bok, “Vraag en aanbod,” 69-72). Briels mentions a few other merchants and buyers from the Southern Netherlands that we find bidding in these sales; see Briels, “De Zuidnederlandse immigratie,” 106-12. Remarkably, men like Basse, Van Cleeff, Luce, and Van Someren, names we meet often in these sales, bought paintings in the cheapest category as well as very costly ones (the last ones by commission?).

  47. 47. Briels, De Zuidnederlandse immigratie, 46-52; and J. G. C. A. Briels, “Brabantse blaaskaak en Hollandse botmuil. Cultuurontwikkelingen in Holland in het begin van de Gouden Eeuw,” De zeventiende eeuw 1 (1985): 12-36. We find this strikingly phrased later by Gerard Brand in his Historie der Reformatie (1671), not as mockery or disapproval but as a historical fact: “The Brabanders and Flemish…brought splendor and costliness to the cities that housed them, enticing the natives to succumb to this vanity and also to opulence in meals and delicacies that in former days were unusual and unrespected in this country” (De Brabanders en Vlaemingen…brachten de pracht en kostelheit van klederen in de steden die hen herbergden, verleidende d’ingeborenen tot het misbruik derselve ijdelheit: ook tot d’overdaedt van maeltijden en lekkernijen, hier te lande eertijdts ongewoon en ongeacht). Quoted by Briels, “De Zuidnederlandse immigratie,” 49; and Briels, Zuid-Nederlanders, 33.

  48. 48. One of those who was cheated by Jerolimo is Otje Dickmuyl (Little Otto Fatface), an art dealer who had supplied him with a great number of good paintings to furnish the salon of his house “om een Sael te stofferen” (G. A. Bredero’s Spaanschen Brabander, ed. C. F. P. Stutterheim [Culemborg: Tjeenk Willink/Noorduijn, 1974], 306-7, r. 2050-65; see also Briels, “De Zuidnederlandse immigratie,” 106). Bredero, trained as a painter, would have been very familiar with this milieu of art dealers, as appears from the fact that he himself, “Garbrant Ariansz.,” was one of the buyers at the notorious sale of Johanna Artsen and Jacques van der Lamen in 1608 (see note 41 above,); this was noted by Van Eeghen, “Het Amsterdamse Sint Lucasgilde,” 89.

  49. 49. Among the paintings with names of artists (unfortunately only very few) in the above-mentioned sales, we find also very inexpensive works of well-known masters, often next to much more expensive works(especially from painters of Southern Netherlandish descent or training). For instance Jan Nagel (probably from Alkmaar, but Van Mander calls him a follower of the Antwerp painter Cornelis Molenaer; his work is mostly between 1 and 10 guilders, but can also command 44 guilders), Jacques Savery (Kortrijk 1565, as of 1585 in Haarlem, since 1589 in Amsterdam; almost all of his works realize 1 or 2 guilders), Pieter Stalpaert (Brussels 1572, since 1598 in Amsterdam; mostly between 25 and 50 guilders, but sometimes only 4 guilders). Karel van Mander probably worked for two different segments of the art market: the prices for his works are highly divergent; in the sale of Claes Rauwaert (26/8/1612) we find, for instance, 4 pieces of less than 10 guilders (one described as “a fire” of 4 guilders and 5 stivers), 11 between 10 and 20 guilders, and 5 between 20 and 50 guilders, among which another “fire” of 24 guilders and 5 stivers (the other works are not described). In the sale of Van der Voort (7/4/1614) a cavalry battle (“een bataille”), on the other hand, commanded 221 guilders!

  50. 50. The local artist, who sold his own works directly from his shop, would have had one important advantage over masters from elsewhere whose paintings one bought at sales and markets: the buyers did not have to be afraid that they were being cheated with copies. Considering the insinuations of the Amsterdam guild members, this must have been an ever-present fear. Those who liked to buy a good painting but had no special expertise would have been stimulated to buy paintings by living masters who worked in one’s own city. De Marchi argues that it was this uncertainty in particular that caused the growing importance of the role of expert art dealers, who could give some warranty of quality. See De Marchi, “The Role of Dutch Auctions,” 208-12.

  51. 51. Naturally, we also know these subjects from paintings of the second half of the sixteenth century that still exist, although it is remarkable that some types which turn up frequently in inventories and in sales are now virtually absent, such as the high numbers of “tronies” and the many inexpensive flower still lifes (“bloempotten”) and fruit still lifes (“fruytagien”).

  52. 52. Montias suggested that the impulse for process innovation “may have been primarily artistic rather than mercenary” (Montias, “Cost and Value,” 460). See also E. Melanie Gifford, “Esaias van de Velde’s Technical Innovations: Translating a Graphic Tradition into Paint,” in Painting Techniques: History, Materials and Studio Practice, ed. A. Roy and P. Smith, Contributions to the IIC Dublin Congress 7-11 September 1998(London, 1998), 145-49, who interprets the technical innovations of Esaias entirely as an artistic process.

  53. 53. Van Mander writes this of, for instance, Jacob Grimmer, Cornelis Molenaer (Schele Neel [Cross-eyed Neil]), and Joos van Liere (Van Mander, Het leven, fol. 256v and 257r); Orlers would write the same several decades later about Van Goyen (Orlers, Beschrijvinge der stad Leyden, 373). With regard to strategies of innovative behavior on a competitive art market, see Neil de Marchi and Hans J. van Miegroet, “Art, Value, and Market Practices in the Netherlands in the Seventeenth Century,” Art Bulletin 76 (1994): 451-64. See also Bok, “Vraag en aanbod,” 190. For the concept of “liefhebber” (lover of art), see Bok, “Vraag en aanbod,” 73-75.

  54. 54. See note 1 above.

  55. 55. For biographical data, see George Keyes, Esaias van de Velde, 1587-1630 (Doornspijk: Davaco, 1984), 18-26. Concerning the sale of “the widow…[not filled out] at the Sleutelbrugge,” who can be identified with Cathalyne van Schorle, widow of the then recently deceased Hans van de Velde, see note 41 above.

  56. 56. For a technical description of early work by Esaias (in some of these works he goes remarkably far in experimenting with a sober technique), see Gifford, “Esaias van de Velde’s Technical Innovations,” 146-48. For a description of Roelant Savery and Esaias van de Velde, see E. Melanie Gifford, “Jan van Goyen en de techniek van het naturalistische landschap,” in Jan van Goyen, ed. C. Vogelaar (Zwolle/Leiden: Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal, 1992), 71-74. We meet for instance in his early work with one thin layer of a light brown color applied as underpainting for the entire landscape, brushed over a quickly drawn sketch on a white ground. Over this underpainting the landscape is painted with thin browns, grays, and greens (Gifford, “Esaias van de Velde’s Technical Innovations,” 147). In other early works he applied several transparent “washed” tones (for instance grayish under trees, brownish under architecture) on a light-colored ground, over which the landscape was painted wet in wet (Gifford, “Jan van Goyen en de techniek,” 72-73). The figures were always painted after he finished the landscape and are not present in the underdrawing. Gifford also describes an experiment with black paint being rubbed in the (poplar) panel, which was then covered with a thin layer of paint through which the wood grain would intentionally remain visible (ibid., 147). I am grateful to Petria Noble of the Mauritshuis, with whom I scrutinized a painting by Esaias van de Velde, which was painted in more or less the same technique as indicated above.

  57. 57. See, for instance, Landscape with Castle Abtspoel (Keyes, Esaias van de Velde, cat. no. 18, colorplate X), a rather large canvas that was undoubtedly painted on commission. There certainly is no question of progressive or regressive stylistic development: in the same year we find small, quickly made, inexpensive works. Also late in his career he continued to work in these two manners (Gifford, “Jan van Goyen en de techniek,” 149).

  58. 58. Montias, “Cost and Value,” passim.

  59. 59. Van Mander, Het leven, 256v: “In eenen dag als men hem te voor wat had aengeleyt, maeckte hy een groot schoon Landtschap.” Van Mander begins this sentence by saying: “He worked in the manner of those who painted with water colors, without maulstick, and was miraculously quick, working for one or the other at a daily wage” (Hy wrocht op de Water-verwers maniere, sonder maelstock, en was wonder veerdigh, werckende voor d”een en d”ander in dagh-huyr). He added (following the quotation in the text): “and one paid him for a whole day one thaler, sometimes for a background or a ground seven stivers” (en men gaf hem van eenen heelen dagh eenen Daelder, t”somtijts voor een achter-uyt, ofte gronded seven stuyvers). He was very good-natured and was often imposed upon by other painters, Van Mander says. He was also poor because he drank. Van Mander mentions Jan Nagel as a follower who never equaled him as a landscape painter but was better in figures. Nagel is a painter whose name we meet in Amsterdam with lowly priced landscapes: in two sales of 1614 there were 12 pieces of between 12 stivers and 12 guilders, and one piece of 44 gulden (see Obreen, Archief, vol. 4, 47).

  60. 60. Also at the Amsterdam sales discussed above – in which very few names of artists are mentioned – his name turns up in the sale of Cornelis van der Voort on 7/4/1614 (with landscapes of 26 and 36 guilders respectively). A landscape with the monogram CM, representing the Good Samaritan, has always been attributed to him (Berlin, Staatliche Museen, 101.5 x 152.5 cm, the figures have been attributed to Maerten van Cleve); see H. G. Franz, Niederländische Landschaftsmalerei im Zeitalter des Manierismus (Graz: Akademische Druck-und Verlaganstalt, 1969), 238-42 and fig. 373, who describes it as being very “progressive” and anticipating later work by Hans Bol. However, in the catalogue of the Staatliche Museen of 1976 (cat. no. 706), the attribution is doubted, and it is suggested that the landscape dates from the early seventeenth century (judging from the reproduction, this seems to me highly unlikely). Miedema is sceptical about the attribution, since the monogram CM can stand for many artists; see Hessel Miedema, Karel van Mander: The Lives of the Illustrious Netherlandish and German Painters (Doornspijk: Davaco, 1997), vol. 4, 156-57.

  61. 61. Van Mander, Het leven, fol. 256v: “alle dinghen seer eyghentlijck het leven volghende, “tzy in huysen, verre Landtschap, oft voorgronden.”

  62. 62. Van Mander, Het leven, fol. 257r: ‘een seer goet Schilder van Landtschap, volghende seer de manier van Pieter Brueghel […] had oock verscheyden Landen besocht, en verscheyden ghesichten nae “tleven gedaen. Hy wrocht in Water en in Oly-verwe, op een schoon en veerdige maniere.” Luuk Pijl rightly remarked that one could easily make the mistake of placing this painting in Haarlem around 1625 if it had not been signed and dated (Luuk Pijl, “Over de chronologie van de schilderijen van Hercules Segers,” Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 13 [1995], 172-80, esp. 177). See also Albert Blankert, Museum Bredius: Catalogus van de schilderijen en tekeningen (Zwolle: Waanders, 1991), 45, who remarked that this little painting seem to be “a precursor of some works by Jan Brueghel and the ‘realistic’ landscapes that follow, by Jan van Goyen and Esajas van de Velde,” quoting Martin who already pointed out how extraordinary this landscape is. Strangely enough, this was not taken up by Keyes, who does not mention Pieter Balten in his monograph on Esaias van de Velde (Keyes, Esaias van de Velde). It is possible that the “Mr. Balten” mentioned in the St. Luke’s guild of The Hague at the end of the sixteenth century (Obreen, Archief, vol. 3, 286), is the same as this Pieter Balten from Antwerp.

  63. 63. The technique probably approaches that of many small landscapes by Esaias van de Velde (see note 56 above). The paint layer is so thin that the brushstrokes of the ground are also clearly visible. I am grateful to Petria Noble with whom I carefully analyzed a transparency of this stolen painting.

  64. 64. For De Momper, see Klaus Ertz, Josse de Momper de J. (1564-1635) (Freren: Luca Verlag, 1986). The paintings that are dated early in De Mompers career by Ertz seem to be most quickly and thinly painted. De Momper’s works turn up several times in the sales discussed above (prices between 14 and 40 guilders; see Obreen, Archief, vol. 6, 46). Montias even established that in Amsterdam inventories between 1620 and 1650 no painter was as often mentioned as De Momper; see John Michael Montias, “Works of Art in Seventeenth-century Amsterdam: An Analysis of Subjects and Attributions,” in Art in History, 331-72, esp. 364.

  65. 65. A long time ago Blankert referred to similar motifs in the works of Brabant predecessors, in particular in the work of Jan Brueghel, in his comments on Stechow’s book: Albert Blankert, “Stechow: addenda,” Simiolus 2 (1967/68): 108. See also Briels, “De Zuidnederlandse immigranten,” 91-93.

  66. 66. “Vele ende seer fraeye gheleghentheden […] gheconterfeyt naer dleven, ende meest rontom Antwerpen gheleghen sijnde.” The Latin title: Multifariarum casularum ruriumque lineamenta curiose ad vivum expressa. The title print of the second series: Praediorum villarum et rusticarum casularum icones elengantissimae ad vivum in aere deformatae. (In all cases, it is emphatically mentioned that they were made “from life.”) Both series are reproduced in R. van Bastelaer, Les estampes de Peter Bruegel l’ancien (Brussels: Van Oest, 1908). See the following note as well.

  67. 67. All twenty-five etchings by Visscher are reproduced in Hollstein, vol. 34, nos. 292-317. Seven prints of Cock’s second series were skipped: one comes from the first series (no. 316), and one is his own invention (no. 317). The inventor of the two series published by Cock is nowadays mostly named “Master of the Small Landscapes.” In the course of time Cornelis Cort, Hans Bol, Cornelis Massys, Cornelis van Dalen, Joos van Liere, and Hieronymus Cock himself have all been proposed as inventor. See, among others, Dutch Landscape: The Early years, Haarlem and Amsterdam 1590-1650, ed. C. Brown (London: National Gallery, 1986), 110-11; see also 18-19, for the impact of the series on painting in the Northern Netherlands, which was emphasized by many others as well.

  68. 68. A good example of nostalgia is found in a few lines by Jacob Duym (Jacob Duym, Het moordadich stuck van Balthasar Gerards, published in 1606; quoted by Briels, Vlaamse schilders in de Noordelijke Nederlanden, 436): “Farewell, beautiful Brabant, farewell Antwerp great, / Farewell beautiful city, where we earned great fortunes / From where we traded with all parts of the world, / Farewell lovely, pleasant country and lovely, beautiful rivers, /… / Farewell fine country where we thought we would die.” (Nu adieu Brabant schoon, adieu Antwerpen groot, / Adieu schoon stad, daer wy in wonnen schatten bloot, / Van waer den handel was op allerley quartieren, / Adieu soet lieflijck Land en soete fray rivieren, / … / Adieu schoon Land, daer wy al meynden in te sterven).

  69. 69. See, for the last two, Boudewijn Bakker and Huigen Leeflang, Nederland naar ‘t leven. Landschapsprenten uit de Gouden Eeuw (Zwolle/Amsterdam: Museum het Rembrandthuis, 1993), 54-57, with further references. The Amsterdam series was produced before Visscher published the copies of the “Small Landscapes,” and the drawings of the “Pleasant Places” (“Plaisante Plaetsen”) would have been made earlier as well. (The five drawings that we still know bear the date 1607). It is clear that Galle’s reissue must have been the direct source of inspiration. Although the compositions of Visscher’s drawings immediately become more open and different in character in several respects, there is great similarity in motifs and composition, especially in the four Amsterdam prints and Hollstein nos. 148 and 195. See also Luijten et al., Dawn of the Golden Age, 651-55. For a considerable number of such series, see also Catherine Levesque, Journey through Landscape in Seventeenth-century Holland (University Park, Pa.: Penn State Press, 1994).

  70. 70. In two laudatory poems on the city of Haarlem which Van Mander composed around 1596, we notice how he shows himself an ardent advocate of his new hometown and the pleasant surroundings of that city; see Leeflang, “Dutch Landscape: The Urban View,” 64-66. In Strijdt tegen onverstandt (in Den Nederduytschen Helicon; quoted by Briels, Vlaamse schilders in de Noordelijke Nederlanden, 436), Van Mander emphatically replaces nostalgia for the lost country with love for the new fatherland.

    Series like the Plaisante Plaetsen, in which local Haarlem traditions play a role, may have had a particular resonance for the contemporary viewer as well; for this, see especially the fine article by Leeflang. The recommendation “from life,” already inscribed emphatically on both title prints of the “Small Landscapes” (and about which Van Mander writes often when discussing the Antwerp landscape painters mentioned above), returns frequently on the title pages of print series after Visscher and Van de Velde. For the importance attached to representation “from life” and the implications thereof, see Boudewijn Bakker, “Nederland naar ‘t leven: een inleiding,” in Bakker and Leeflang, Nederland naar ‘t leven, .6-17; and Boudewijn Bakker, “Levenspelgrimage of vrome wandeling? Claes Janszoon Visscher en zijn serie Plaisante Plaetsen,” Oud Holland 107 (1993): 97-115. The connection with Calvinist thought that Bakker underlines should remind us of the fact that the immigrants were mostly Calvinist. This could endorse the supposition that in those circles in particular one would have been interested in local landscapes depicted “from life.”

  71. 71. See, for instance, Hessel Miedema, “Dageraard der gouden eeuw,” De Zeventiende Eeuw 10 (1994): 241-51, esp. 248: “a lay public…that did not pretend to know about paintings, or even to need any knowledge of it” (een lekenpubliek dat…niet pretendeerde er verstand van te hebben, of er zelfs verstand voor nodig te hebben).

  72. 72. Lawrence Goedde pointed out this phenomenon in connection with Goltzius’s drawing of landscapes around Haarlem in the first years of the seventeenth century, which seem to appear out of nothing; Lawrence O. Goedde, “Naturalism as Convention, Subject, Style, and Artistic Self-consciousness in Dutch Landscape,” in Looking at Seventeenth-century Dutch Art: Realism Reconsidered, ed. W. Franits (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 129-43 and 231-33.

  73. 73. Compare my argument with reference to the “simple” landscapes by Van Goyen, which must have appealed to an audience of connoisseurs as well: E. J. Sluijter, “Jan van Goyen als marktleider, virtuoos en vernieuwer,” in Jan van Goyen, 38-59, esp. 45-54. See also Goedde, “Naturalism as Convention,” 142-43.

  74. 74. “As he used to say, he had learned from his own lack of experience that nobody was qualified to judge the art of painting (with which one is nowadays confronted everywhere), who did not, in one way or another, learn from practice the basics of that art. He had noticed how important men, famous for their all-round education, made themselves ridiculous in the eyes of practitioners of the art by giving with great authority their opinion on the art of painting.” Kan, De jeugd, 65; and Heesakkers, Mijn jeugd, 70-71.

  75. 75. After having stated that, concerning all those painters, their fame should speak for itself, and that the fame of Van Poelenburch, Wttenbroeck, and Van Goyen truly is quite something, Huygens writes: “Instead of mentioning all, I will foreground only two of them: Jan Wildens and Esaias van de Velde and I would place them almost at the same level as Paulus Bril, also from the Netherlands, but deceased in Rome. One could even say that in terms of naturalness nothing lacks in the works of those exceptional painters, except for the warmth of the sun and the gentle breeze.” Kan, De jeugd, 73; and Heesakkers, Mijn jeugd, 79.

  76. 76. See Sluijter, “Jan van Goyen als markleider,” 38-39.

  77. 77. Orlers, Beschrijvinge der stad Leyden, 373. About Pieter de Neyn he also writes that his landscapes, which he “could make with great speed, were found appealing by art lovers and burghers” (met groote vaerdigheyd [snelheid] conde maecken, de Liefhebberes ende Burgeren zo aengenaem waren).

  78. 78. Kan, De jeugd, 66; and Heesakkers, Mijn jeugd., 72.

  79. 79. For the associations with the “neat” (“nette”) manner of painting with an illustrious, indigenous tradition, see E. J. Sluijter, De lof der schilderkunst: Over schilderijen van Gerrit Dou (1613-1675) en een traktaat van Philips Angel uit 1642 (Hilversum: Verloren, 1993), 56-65. Added 2008: English translation, E. J. Sluijter, “In Praise of the Art of Painting: On Paintings by Gerrit Dou and a Tretise by Philips Angel of 1642,” chapt. 7 in Seductress of Sight: Studies in Dutch Art of the Golden Age (Zwolle: Waanders, 2000).

  80. 80. “Hier sijn oock schilderijen bij meenichte te krijgen. Hebben hier teegenwoordich van de beste meesters woonen.” She continues by writing: “Last week there was a market here, which one calls the Lent Market, and I saw a great many fine pieces, and I had someone with me who knew about paintings, and at Pentecost there is again a market, because there is a market three times a year. Although some things might be better available with you [in Antwerp], the costs of transportation would not compensate this – apart from the fact that you would have the trouble of dragging everything in and out of ships which is a great nuisance” (Was hier verleede weeck mart, dat men noemt de Vaste Marckt, sach bij hoope fraye stucken, alsoo een bij mij hadt die daer kennis van heeft en te Pinsteren ist hier weer mart alsoo 3 mael “s jaers marckt is. En offschoon eenige dingen daer bij UL wat beter koop soude mogen sijn, neemt de onkosten vant overvoeren weer wech. Behalleven UL de moeiten heeft van tsleepen uit en in de scheepen daart ook seer mee versuckelt). I. H. van Eeghen, “Magdalena Stockmans,” Maandblad Amstelodamum 41 (1954): 137-41, esp. 140. Magdalena Stockmans was the widow of the rich merchant Isaac van der Voort. She had returned with her children from Naples (where she had lived for eleven years) shortly before and stayed in Antwerp. It is likely that she did not have the chance to bring many of her belongings on this long journey to the north. Her sister rented a house for her in Amsterdam and advised against buying furniture and paintings. It was self evident that paintings belonged among the very first things that had to be purchased!

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Review: Peer Review (Double Blind)
DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2009.1.2.4
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Eric Jan Sluijter, "On Brabant Rubbish, Economic Competition, Artistic Rivalry, and the Growth of the Market for Paintings in the First Decades of the Seventeenth Century," Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 1:2 (Summer 2009) DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2009.1.2.4