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Love in the Kunstkamer Additions to the Work of Guillam Van Haecht (1593-7637)

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Love in the Kunstkamer Additions to the Work of Guillam Van Haecht (1593-7637) 17TH CENTURY PAINTIN The emergenceon the art market in 7992of a new kunstkamerpainting related to the work of Jan Bruegel the Elder and Frans Franckenthe Youngerwas the occasionfor an article in Tablenuon the contribution of those prominent Antwerp artists to the fascinatinggenre of painted galleries.'The present article is inspired by the continued non-emergenceof two kunstkamerpaintings by their younger colleagueGuillam (also known as Willem or Guillaume) van Haecht. (SeeNote on a Name.) LOVE IN THE KUNSTKAMER ADDITIONS TO THE WORK OF GUILLAM VAN HAECHT (1593-7637) Gary Schwartz heads destroy works of art and scientific instruments. ForJulius Held The message seems clear: I lthough the two works art is honored by serious .l_L to which I allude have people of high moral and been referred to in passing intellectual calibre, while in the art-historical litera- those who are antagonistic ture, one of them has never to it or engage in icono- been reproduced before, clasm are morons. Francken and the other only once, in sometimes goes further in a l93o Berlin auction catà- elevating the status of art. logue. This is all the more In a painting entitled PlcÍu- amazing considering the ra Sancta, Christ himself high and growing estima- stands model to a woman tion enjoyed by van Haecht. personifying the art of sa- In her book of 7957, Les cred painting.l peintresflamnnds de cnbinets In the second halÍ oÍ the d'amateur, S. Speth-Holter- 1610s the genre originated hoff wrote oÍ him: 'il est sans conteste ORBITA PROBITÁTIS by Francken was picked up by an o1- le meilleur des peintres de Cabinets ÁD cHRISïi Ii\,tITÁTtONÊ,M der painter of higher social standing YT.RID:CO CFlRIsTIAN O d'Amateurs et, après plus de trois S VDSERVIENS. than the craftsmanlike Francken, Jan cents ans, ses teuvres n'ont rien perdu Bruegel (1568-1625),son of the great de leur attrait ni de leur éclat.' Yet, Pieter Bruegel. Bruegel was a favorite discussion of van Haecht has been of Archduchess Isabella,who with her concentrated entirely on two of his husband Albert of Austria ruled the paintings: The kunstknmer of Cornelis Southern Netherlands from their court oan der Geest in the Rubens House, in Brussels. In 1,677 and 1618 he Antwerp, and The studio of Apelles in adopted the idiom oÍ the kunstknmer the Mauritshuis, The Hague. The time painting in a series oÍ the Five Senses has come to publish all five known painted, in collaboration with Pieter kunstksmerpaintings by van Haecht, Paul Rubens (1577-7640), for Albert albeit in summary and preliminary and Isabella. Like Francken, Bruegel form.' The importance of studying the too assigned positive and negative entire group will become plain be1ow. Christian moral messages to the com- Only in this way does it emerge that binations of objects in the kunstkamer. all five share a common theme, which The aliegorical Íigure of Sight, for I have dubbed 'Iove in the kunstkamer' example, is shown studying an edify- and that all or nearly all conspicuously ing painting of Christ curing the blind, feature paintings that were famously ..--__!ffi while behind her is an admonishing fit for royalty. ChriÊiui- m*m ille image of the blind leading the blind.' The genre oÍ kunstkamerpainting There is however one new deoarture came into being in Antwerp in the first in his approach. Whereas for Franc->> decadeof the seventeenthcentury. The word kunstkamerreÍers both to the dis- play rooms of art and antiquities for mainly to the noble purpose of recon- 1. Altar of St. Gummarus,Lier, St. Gummaruskerk, which Antwerp was famous, and to ciling modern scienceand philosophy Theinsides of the zaingszuere repaintedby Guillam the paintings which evoke collections with Catholic faith.3 In spaces hung oan Haecht in L626-27.(Photo: AIb. Bequet,Lier) of that type, even those which are with paintings and filled with col- partiy or completely invented. In the lectors' objectsof all kinds, students oÍ 2. Title pageof l. Daztid,5.1., Orbita probitatis, in hands of its Íirst and most frequent cosmology debate the mysteries of cre- VeridicusChristianus, Antzoerp 1603. The imitation practitioner, Frans Francken the ation. In several of these paintings, by of Christ is expressedthrough the actiztity of Younger (7587-1642), it was devoted way of contÍast, figures with asses' painting. (Photo:Daaid Freedberg,Neu York) ZTH CENTURY PAINTINC l. Guillam aan llaecht, The kunst- kamer of Cornelis ken the paintings within his paintings was confirmed once more around 1619 grandfather Godevaard van Haecht, oan der Geest, were mainly included on account of with a collaboration between Ian who moved to Antwerp from the vil- signed G.tr. Haecht their motif, and in most caseswere in- Bruegel and Frans Francken cele- Iage of Nijlen in 1510 or 1511, was a and dated 1628. vented by the artist to suit the oc- brating the Antwerp guild of St. Luke cabinetmaker. Godevaard's descen- Undocumented. casion, the paintings in Bruegel's se- and making use of paintings from the dants climbed higher up the hierarchy Panel, 700 x 730 ries - especially in The senseoí Sight archducal collection.' By 1620, then, of the arts, practicing sculpture, paint- cm. Antzuerp, Het (Madrid, Prado) - reÍer to existing the genre of kunstkamer painting had ing and poetry. The family married Rubenshuis. works of art, mainly by Rubens. Since become a prominent Antwerp special- into other Antwero clans in the related The inscription on a view of the archducal palace in ty, with Íar more specific overtones Íields oÍ printmaking and publishing, the lintel - Vizte Brussels is built into the scene, and than most genres. The medium had a the Liesaerts and Grapheuses, while I'Esprit - refers to since several of the objects are def- message. Kunstkamerpaintings tended several van Haechts and their in-laws the name of the initely known to have belonged to to convey the notion that the arts - also dealt in art. A notable distinction collector (Geest = the archdukes, Marcel De Maeyer con- especially painting - were an eminent- of the van Haechts is that, in the Esprit). The cluded quite reasonably that the ly praiseworthy pursuit, morally and words of the Antwero archivist who caraings aboae the painting as a whole is an evocation intellectually as well as aesthetically; has reconstructed thèir history, the Iintel emblematize and glorification of the collection of that Antwerp artists were suited as family was 'contaminated' with the the same thought. the archdukes.n none others to satisfy the desires of Lutheran form of Protestantism.t (This The doae of the The series was such a successthat in discriminating patrons and collectors; does not seem to be true of Guillam.) HoIy Spirit oaer- 1618 the city government of Antwerp and that both of these truths were de- The neak of artistic success in the fa- comes the skull of decided to do it over again lightly, monstratedby the patronagebestowed mrlv was reached bv (,uillam's father death. with yet another added twist. Jan on Antwerp painters by Archduke Al- Tobias van Haecht (1561-1631;also Bruegel was commissioned to create a bert and Isabella, who were famous known, from his own time on, as Ver- two-painting series of the five senses throughout Europe for their uncom- haecht). With his wild mountain to present to the archdukes, in which nrnmicino niofrr landscapesand paintings oÍ the tower the paintings within Sight and Smell Like Frans Francken and Jan Bruegel, of Babel he became one of the more would be painted by twelve difÍerent Guillam van Haecht too was born recognizable and respected artists in Antwerp masters! The association of into the kind of Antwerp dynasty of Antwerr: after iconoclasm. As the first kunstkamer painting with the artists artists to whom such a messagewouid teacheràf Rubens,to whom he was re- of Antwerp and with the archdukes have particular appeal. His great- lated by his first marriage, he shared 44 indirectly in the spectacular rise of his half an 'ame' oÍ Rhine wine. Frans impact, contributing greatly toward 4. Detail of fig.3. pupil's reputation after 1600. Francken had inserted a portrait of the apotheosis oÍ Matsys as the guid- The motto which Guillam, Tobias's third son, was van der Geest among the bystanders at ing spirit of the Antwerp School. In Cornelis aan iler baptized on November 7, 7593. His the miracle.r3 this role he was honored with two mo- Geest had canted mother, Susanna van Mockenborch, Van der Geest's sponsorship of nographs - by Franchoys Fickaert in on the tomb of died when he was not yet two years the restoration of a sixteenth-century 1648 and Alexander van Fornenbergh Quentin Matsys old, after giving birth to a daughter monument of Netherlandish art was in 1658 - which were incunabula of the utas: "Connubial named after her. A year later his father not an isolated incident. Whereas most historiography of art.'s Ioae turned a was remarried to Esther Pamphi, by patrons of the arts prefer to attach Temperamentally, Guillam van Ha- blacksmith into whom he was to have two more child- their names to new commissions,van echt was comfortable with this secon- Apelles." Matsys ren. We have no reason to doubt (but der Geest was equally open to the dary and adulatory relation to artistic became a painter no document to prove) that Guillam less glamorous need to repair and creation. He may have been the first to please his studied painting with his father. What maintain older structures and objects.'n painter to concentrate nearly exclu- >) belooeil wife. is documented is his participation in His most striking deed oÍ this kind art dealing in partnership with Tobias.
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