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Home , Baldassare Castiglione, Joachim von Sandrart, Teutsche Academie

RETHINKING 'S

Stephanie S. Dickey, Queen’s University

While the intellectual and artistic advances of the resonated throughout seventeenth-century Europe, their specific effects varied in degree and quality as imported ideas mixed and melded with indigenous traditions. In the Dutch , an established penchant for careful study and naturalistic rendering of observed reality competed against the classicist valorization of ideal beauty based on mathematical abstraction and standards set by the sculptors of ancient Greece and . While it has become clear that classicism did manage to infiltrate Dutch aesthetics, and to gain increasing power as the seventeenth century progressed, the defining “Dutchness” of Dutch art remains rooted in the talent of artists such as Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals and Steen for perspicacious observation of physical nature – what Samuel van Hoogstraten (1678) called “de zichtbare werelt” – and of human nature: the inward passions and states of mind that motivate human action and behavior.1 The philosophical and even political implications of the interaction between realism and idealism in Dutch art are complex, and have been much analysed. This article takes a more practical view by asking the question: what impact did Italian Renaissance precedent have on the daily experience of artists in the , and on their ability to compete in the marketplace?2 I will suggest an answer to this question by examining one well-known case: the encounter of Rembrandt van Rijn with Italian works collected and traded by dealers and connoisseurs in . Although Rembrandt never left the Netherlands, emulation and adaptation of Italian precedents can be traced throughout his career. As I have recently argued, one of his earliest and most audacious self-portraits may depend in part upon a self-portrait attributed to the Venetian master Giorgione.3 Later, a number of his treatments of themes from the life of Christ reflect admiration for Leonardo’s Last Supper (), known to him only through reproductive prints.4 For the present discussion, however, I will focus on an event that took place in 2

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1639, when Rembrandt was nearing the peak of his career as a portraitist and history painter in Amsterdam: his attendance at the estate auction of the collector Lucas van Uffelen. This event is familiar to all Rembrandt scholars, but its practical consequences have, in my view, been undervalued.

In 1515, painted a portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, diplomat, poet and author of Il Cortegiano (The Book of the ) (Paris, ). The became known to artists and connoisseurs in northern Europe by a variety of means, including a painted copy by and a print after , to be discussed below (see fig. 3).5 As analyzed by John Shearman, the composition and vantage point of the portrait emphasize the amicable relations between sitter and artist. Castiglione is seated quietly in a wooden chair, and the viewer is positioned as if seated beside him, perhaps in conversation.6 This sense of intimacy is acknowledged in a poem written by Castiglione himself about the painting. The poet speaks in the voice of his wife Ippolita, who consoles herself while he is away from home by turning to the portrait as a surrogate for her absent husband: "I make tender approaches to it, I smile, I joke or speak, just as if it could give me an answer. By an acknowledgment and a nod it seems to me often to want to say something, and to speak with your voice... Your son [two-year- old Camillo] recognizes his father and greets him with childish talk." This poem deploys a number of conventions frequently used by seventeenth-century authors when writing in praise of portraiture, such as the likeness so true that it lacks only speech, and the ability of the lifelike portrait to cheat distance and even death. These themes remain common in portrait epigrams throughout the early modern period.7 Castiglione's Book of the Courtier, published in 1527 and numerous subsequent editions, draws an insightful picture of the intellectually and socially competitive atmosphere of life in the urban courts of High Renaissance . In this context, as described by Castiglione, sprezzatura, the conduct of one's activities with apparently effortless grace, was a desired attribute of both personal bearing and vocational skill. According to Castiglione's introduction, his literary project of describing this sophisticated milieu is analogous to the painter’s art; the result is "a painted portrait of the 3

Rethinking Rembrandt’s Renaissance court of , prepared not by Raphael or , but by an ignoble artist."8 Thus, the equation of painting and authorship, and the implicit competition between the two, infuse the historical context of Raphael’s portrait, an artful likeness not only of the man portrayed, but also of his rapport with the artist, his friend and fellow scholar.9 Yet, competition on a more personal, less intellectual, and, indeed, occasionally even violently physical plane also informed the careers of Raphael and his fellow artists, most notably Michelangelo, his constant rival for commissions in Rome.10 While discussions of the concept of competition in art frequently focus on theoretical issues such as the debate over the relative merits of painting and sculpture (paragone), it is important to recognize that artists vied with one another as professionals seeking recognition in a competitive marketplace. The motivations for this competition went beyond creative rivalry or pure love of art: in most cases, it was more likely prompted by the practical need to attract the attention and approval of prominent connoisseurs. In Renaissance Italy, the approbation of powerful patrons led to major commissions. In the more entrepreneurial culture of the Dutch Republic, circumstances were different: artists painted more often for the open market than in response to specific requests. Yet, clearly, the necessity of appealing to the tastes of influential art lovers (kunstliefhebbers11) remained essential. And in Rembrandt’s Amsterdam, the more sophisticated of those art lovers who collected contemporary Dutch art also took an interest in , both Northern and Italian, from preceding centuries. The collection of the brothers Gerard and Jan Reynst, for instance, included works attributed to Raphael, Bassano, , Lorenzo Lotto, , and Veronese.12 Elements of personal self-fashioning and aesthetic rivalry have consistently colored interpretations not only of Raphael's portrait of Castiglione, but also of its impact on the work of Rembrandt van Rijn. A specific connection with two self-portraits by Rembrandt, an etching of 1639 and related painting of 1640, was noted by Hofstede de Groot in the early 20th century and has been mentioned in innumerable publications since then.13 The similarity in pose and format between the sedate figure of the poet and Rembrandt’s dignified self-representation is more than coincidental, as confirmed by the existence of a sketch drawn by Rembrandt when the Castiglione came up for auction in 4

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Amsterdam on 9 April 1639, as part of the estate of Lucas van Uffelen (fig. 1). Rembrandt’s etched self-portrait, signed and dated 1639, must have followed by only a few weeks or months (Fig. 2). In an influential article of 1969, Eddy de Jongh suggested that Rembrandt's emulation of this portrait of a famous author by the renowned Raphael pits his own skill against that of his Italian predecessor, but also, by transforming the portrait of a poet into the self-portrait of an artist, stakes a claim for the superiority of painting over poetry.14 His argument is strengthened by the fact that a second conjunction of famous painter and literary subject factors into the equation. Titian's Man in Blue, now in the National Gallery in , was thought by Rembrandt's contemporaries to represent the legendary poet Ludovico Ariosto; it was identified as such in a print after Joachim von Sandrart (Fig. 4). In the 1630s, Titian’s painting was in the collection of Alphonso Lopez, a Portuguese Jewish entrepreneur resident in Amsterdam as agent for the French crown. At the Van Uffelen sale in 1639, Lopez also purchased Raphael’s Portrait of Castiglione. This is recorded with some disgruntlement by Joachim von Sandrart, who was also present at the sale and tried to purchase the Castiglione for himself.15 At the time of his attendance at the Van Uffelen sale, Alphonso Lopez’ collection already included at least one early work by Rembrandt, Balaam and his Ass (1626, Paris, Musée Cognac-Jay), which he probably purchased on an earlier trip to the Netherlands. It has been assumed that this prior contact gave Rembrandt the opportunity to continue the acquaintance and to visit Lopez in his home, where Rembrandt could have seen both of the Italian portraits, as well as other paintings of potential interest.16 This explains why, as De Jongh rightly argued, the format and demeanor of Titian's painting play even more closely into Rembrandt's self-portraits than those of Raphael. There is, for instance, an immediate drop in temperature, as the benign collegiality of Castiglione is replaced by a frosty hauteur and a stone ledge blocks our access to the sitter, both aspects adapted by Rembrandt. At the same time, as several scholars (including the present writer) have demonstrated, the format, pose and costume adopted in these two works synthesize the example set by Raphael and Titian with an established tradition of portraits of northern artists that included self-portraits by Albrecht Dürer as well as numerous printed artist 5

Rethinking Rembrandt’s Renaissance portraits in a similar format, published in series by , Hendrick Hondius and others. Rembrandt’s familiarity with these graphic antecedents probably explains why, despite his evident admiration for Titian as a painter, he initially responded to the events of 1639 by producing a self-portrait print (fig. 2).17 Rembrandt’s etching of 1639 and painting of 1640 constitute a singularly assertive declaration of personal dignity and self-confidence in a career encompassing dozens of self-portraits in a variety of media. Clearly, Rembrandt viewed this project as an important opportunity for self-definition, as well as self-promotion, at a pivotal moment in his career. What has been insufficiently emphasized, in my view, is the essentially practical, entrepreneurial calculation that must have informed this decision, taken in response not only to inspiring antecedents of the past, but to competitive pressures in the present. Again, the initial choice of the print medium (capable of being reproduced and widely circulated) is significant here, as is the format of Rembrandt’s sketch after the Castiglione, to which we will return shortly. As we have already seen, Rembrandt was not the only witness at the Van Uffelen sale to produce a graphic response. Joachim von Sandrart, underbidder for the Castiglione, commissioned a reproductive engraver, Renier van Persijn, to produce prints after three paintings in the Lopez collection, including both the Castiglione and Titian’s Man in Blue (identified as a portrait of Ariosto), to which he added dedicatory and interpretive inscriptions (fig. 3, 4). The differences between this project and Rembrandt’s etched self-portrait exemplify vastly divergent aspects of the market for prints in Rembrandt’s milieu. While Rembrandt’s etching is an original and personal work of art, presented without inscription (apart from the artist’s signature and date) as an expressive image open to the interpretation of the viewer, a far larger proportion of the market consisted of inscribed, reproductive prints like Persijn’s. Often commissioned by commercial publishers, these prints were the product of collaboration among a number of agents: the original artist (with or, as in this case, without his cooperation), a draftsman (in this case, Sandrart) who transposes the original image to a format suitable for engraving, the printmaker, the publisher, and the author of one or more added inscriptions. In this case, as I have discussed elsewhere, Sandrart used the inscriptions to 6

CANADIAN JOURNAL OF NETHERLANDIC STUDIES display his own sophistication as a connoisseur of art and literature, and to curry favor with patrons including Lopez. For instance, he glosses the portrait of Ariosto with a eulogy by the Dutch humanist Caspar Barlaeus, demonstrating (in a far more obvious manner than Rembrandt’s self-portrait) his appreciation for the renowned Italian poet.18 The multivalent significance of inscribed texts on prints is only just beginning to be recognized, and deserves further study. In my own research, I am particularly interested in the ways in which texts operate to guide viewer response.19 Even the most objective information can be inflected with political or didactic connotations, which are often presumed to attach to the image itself. What problematizes this assumption is the fact that inscribed texts can seldom be attributed to the designer of the image, but were often generated independently, sometimes at a substantial distance of time or context from the original work. In most cases, they were appended by interested parties, such as the publisher, who might select a relevant literary quote (such as a Bible passage) or commission a poet to compose an interpretive response. Personal interpretations might also be added to individual impressions of prints by hand. For instance, the best-known poem about a work by Rembrandt is the quatrain in which responds to Rembrandt’s portrayal of the Mennonite minister Cornelis Anslo by urging him to “paint Cornelis’ voice”. This poem was never engraved with Rembrandt’s etching of 1641, but was published separately in 1644 and inscribed by a calligrapher in pen and ink on several individual impressions of the etching.20 An important case that has only recently attracted attention is a poem by H.F. Waterloos, a member of the circle of literati in Amsterdam that also included Rembrandt’s patron Jan Six. Waterloos’ devotional response written in ink on a single impression of Rembrandt’s Christ Healing the Sick (famously known as The Hundred Guilder Print), now in the Bibliothêque Nationale in Paris, remained otherwise unpublished. In his recent monograph on Rembrandt, Gary Schwartz imputes anti-Semitic sentiment to a passage of the poem in which Waterloos contrasts the Pharisees’ cruel treatment of Jesus with the adoration felt for him by modern Christians. According to Schwartz, this suggests that Rembrandt himself expressed anti-Semitic views in the print. However, Waterloos’ poem was never engraved on Rembrandt’s copperplate. It is one of a number of highly personal responses 7

Rethinking Rembrandt’s Renaissance to Rembrandt’s work, responses whose nature and form were outside the artist’s control. Whether Rembrandt knew that his imagery would provoke such a response remains moot.21 In many cases, the same skepticism should be applied to official inscriptions engraved and published with a printed image. As copperplates passed from one publisher to another, inscriptions were often altered. Thus, even if the image itself remained exactly the same, the meaning that the viewer was expected to infer from it might change. This circumstance offers a warning that highly specific iconographic interpretation of most images should be approached with caution. Meaning, as reception theorists have long recognized, is the unstable product of artistic intent and viewer response. What inscriptions convey to us, more than the artist’s intent, is a glimpse of the (often variable) meanings that visual images might inspire in the eyes of contemporary viewers. In the case of Sandrart’s prints, the intriguing aspect of the inscriptions, and what is significant for the present discussion, is the way in which they contextualize the paintings by Raphael and Titian as commodities of significant market value, encountered on the auction block and in the private collection of Alphonso Lopez. As portraits, these works function as historical records of the likenesses of great poets from the past. As examples of skillful painting, they are often discussed as aesthetic models for Rembrandt and his contemporaries. But for Sandrart (who, after all, nearly purchased the Castiglione himself) they are less important as role models from the past than as material objects whose monetary and aesthetic value in present time confer prestige on those who own and appreciate them.22 In the seventeenth century, whole collections, such as those of Vincenzo Giustiniani in Rome and the Reynst brothers in Amsterdam, were commemorated in this way, through “paper galleries” of reproductive engravings. By this means, the works of art reproduced, from antique sculpture to sixteenth-century painting, were recontextualized as material possessions. Their re-presentation as components of a collection identifies them not only as works of artistic genius or historical importance, but as evidence of the owner's intellect, sophistication, good taste, or wealth.23 8

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The story of Sandrart’s engravings – which may also have played a role in stimulating Rembrandt’s etched and painted self-portraits -- illustrates the material and market context within which Rembrandt and his contemporaries in Amsterdam gained exposure to Renaissance antecedents. While many seventeenth-century northern artists traveled to Italy (although Rembrandt did not) and collected prints and drawings after Italian Renaissance masters, they were equally likely to encounter salient examples on the market, through auctions, dealers or access to private collections. Rembrandt’s presence at the Van Uffelen sale is justified less by his status as a painter than by his documented activity as a collector of art and buyer at several other auctions in the 1630s. While he certainly mined his collection for ideas for his own works, it is likely that he also treated some of these purchases as investments and objects for re-sale.24 Also relevant here is a comment attributed to Rembrandt as an arrogant youth in Leiden, when he attracted the notice of Constantijn Huygens, secretary to Stadholder Frederik Hendrik and one of the most important connoisseurs of his generation. In his manuscript autobiography, written around 1629, Huygens makes a case for the young Rembrandt and his Leiden colleague Jan Lievens as Holland's answer to the great artists of Italy and even to the legendary ancient masters Apelles and Parrhasios. Amazed at Rembrandt's talents as a narrative history painter, Huygens is convinced that "to heap the laurels of Greece and Italy on the Dutch" [will be possible through] "the achievement of a Dutchman who has never ventured outside the walls of his native city". Within a few years, Rembrandt did, of course, leave Leiden for the wider opportunities of Amsterdam. But, as far as we know, he never left the Netherlands. And for Huygens, a classically- educated international traveler and seasoned connoisseur, this was the artist’s principal fault: "hitherto, neither [Rembrandt nor Lievens] has found it necessary to spend a few months traveling through Italy. ... How I would welcome their acquaintance with Raphael and Michelangelo, the feasting of their eyes on the creations of such gigantic spirits! How quickly they would surpass them all, giving the Italians due cause to come to Holland. ... [However,] they claim to be in the bloom of youth and wish to profit from it: they have no time to waste on foreign travel. Moreover, [they claim that] the best Italian paintings of the genre most appreciated and collected these days by kings and princes north of the 9

Rethinking Rembrandt’s Renaissance

Alps are to be found outside Italy. What is scattered around in that country, and only to be traced by dint of considerable effort, can be found in surfeit here." Interestingly, Huygens does not entirely dispute this claim, stating that "the validity of this excuse is a moot point".25 Among Rembrandt scholars, this quotation is usually cited as evidence of Rembrandt's creative independence, or linked with the classicist critique circulated after Rembrandt's death by authors such as , Andries Pels, and Joachim von Sandrart, by whom Rembrandt was chastised for ignoring the principles set by Italian and classical art, and even specifically by Raphael.26 What is significant for the present discussion, however, is the practical nature of Rembrandt’s attitude. It seems clear that Rembrandt and Lievens, as young artists just establishing their careers, were already in the habit of seeking out works of art on the market as objects of study, and were well aware that Italian Renaissance masterpieces could be found in local collections. It is also worth considering how the reliance on such local sources might condition the Dutch artists’ understanding of, and response to, the achievements of masters such as Raphael and Titian. For connoisseurs of today, it would seem impossible to grasp their achievements without considering monumental commissions that have necessarily remained in their original locations, such as Raphael’s frescoes for the Vatican Stanze in Rome, or Titian’s Madonna of the Family (Church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, ). Indeed, many early modern connoisseurs felt the same way, and by the middle of the seventeenth century, the "grand tour" across the Alps to Italy became a necessity for cultivated artists and gentleman from the north.27 Rembrandt had the benefit of studying with two artists, Jacob van Swanenburgh in Leiden and Pieter Lastman in Amsterdam, who had both spent considerable time in Italy and returned with anecdotes and sketches to share. As noted earlier, he also relied on reproductive engravings, like the ones through which he became acquainted with Leonardo’s Milanese fresco, The Last Supper. These small, linear, black-and-white images convey only a partial sense of the grand, colorful works they reproduce. Nevertheless, as Huygens tells it, Rembrandt and Lievens seemed totally unconcerned with what they would miss by not seeing the canonical monuments of Italy with their own eyes. Indeed, they had no patience for the tedious traipsing from palazzo to church that was, and still is, required to 10

CANADIAN JOURNAL OF NETHERLANDIC STUDIES see the great frescoes, altarpieces and sculptures in situ. At home, they could find a readily available surfeit of examples, thanks to the steady trade in Italian objects for sale on the Dutch art market. Tellingly, Rembrandt and Lievens considered local sources sufficient because they were comprised "of the genre most appreciated and collected these days by kings and princes". This element of Huygens’ statement is usually overlooked, but contributes significantly to the point I want to make about the practical circumstances, and market influence, of Italian art for Dutch painters like Rembrandt. It stands to reason that relatively small, portable objects, like the portraits by Raphael and Titian, were the elements of Italian artistic production that lent themselves most readily to export and to private collecting and display. Indeed, Amsterdam collections that included Italian art, like that of the Reynst brothers on the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam, were dominated by such works.28 At occasions such as the Van Uffelen sale, these are the examples to which Dutch artists like Rembrandt were most often exposed. And, indeed, relatively small- scale works such as these half-length portraits were far more suited to display in the narrow townhouses of Amsterdam burghers than the gigantic altarpieces and historical compositions displayed in the palaces of Venice and Rome. To the extent that Rembrandt and Lievens cared about Italian art at all -- and certainly their work shows evidence of this -- what these pragmatic, hardworking young artists were interested in seeing, studying and emulating was not, pace Huygens, what would feed their artistic souls, but what would sell. No city in the Dutch Republic, and perhaps none in northern Europe, supported a livelier market in art and other luxury goods than the metropolis of Amsterdam. As the century progressed, the upwardly mobile citizens of Holland, especially the successful merchants and traders of the Dutch Republic’s mercantile capital, began to acquire the tastes and budgets of princes, even buying up titled estates and surrounding themselves with portraits of ancestors, real or imaginary. Statistical research also shows that, as family collections became established, filling up available space for display, the percentage of modern or newly purchased works of art declined against a rising percentage of inherited, older pieces. While provincial buyers purchased mostly Dutch 11

Rethinking Rembrandt’s Renaissance art, in Amsterdam, the cultural capital of the Republic, a particularly sophisticated clientele built collections that also included paintings by Flemish and Italian Renaissance masters, antique sculpture, curious metalwork, and exotic naturalia.29 Thus, Rembrandt and his contemporaries in Amsterdam operated in a complex and highly competitive market. In 1637, the merchant and art collector Lucas van Uffelen returned to Amsterdam, his childhood home, from Venice, where he had lived for many years. Literary references suggest that the impressive art collection he brought along included not only "old masters" such as Raphael and Titian but also modern paintings by artists such as Van Dyck, Rubens, Ribera, Domenichino, Poussin, and possibly Rembrandt.30 Following his death in 1638, the collection was disbursed at auction in two sales, the second of which took place on April 9, 1639. Raphael's Castiglione must have been one of the most expensive lots, for it fetched the impressive sum of 3500 guilders, as noted both in Von Sandrart’s account and on Rembrandt’s sketch after the painting (fig. 1). To put this in perspective, we can estimate that such a sum was ten times as much as Rembrandt and other talented artists of his generation might expect to earn for a similar work. Portrait prices were calculated not only according to the artist’s skill and fame, but by factors such as size, format, and complexity. The most Rembrandt ever received for a portrait of a single figure was 500 guilders, as referenced in a document probably related to a full-length portrait painted in 1639. Only a few other prominent portraitists, such as Bartholomeus van der Helst, earned similar fees, while lesser artists were lucky to make one-fifth that sum.31 The Van Uffelen sale took place at the collector’s home on the Keizersgracht, in a neighborhood rich with art lovers. According to a diary entry by Arnout van Buchell, who visited the Reynst collection on the Keizersgracht in September 1639, Gerard Reynst attended the Van Uffelen sale, where he purchased a painting by Titian.32 If Rembrandt was there, he must certainly have rubbed elbows with some of the most important collectors and art dealers in the city, such as Marten Kretzer and Johannes de Renialme, who dealt in works by Vermeer as well as Rembrandt.33 For Rembrandt, Sandrart, and their fellow artists, such occasions provided important opportunities not only to pick up 12

CANADIAN JOURNAL OF NETHERLANDIC STUDIES ideas from the works on display, but also to assess the market and hobnob with collectors, establishing connections that might lead to potential sales. With this context in mind, I will conclude this essay with a closer look at Rembrandt's pen-and-ink sketch after the Castiglione, now in the Albertina in Vienna (fig. 1). This drawing is usually described as a preliminary indication that Rembrandt decided, as soon as he saw the painting, to turn it into a self-portrait. The evidence for this is his adjustment of Castiglione's hat so that it tilts at a rakish angle, more akin to the way he usually wore his own, as seen in the etching of 1639 (fig. 2). In fact, I think there is a practical explanation for this: if the Castiglione is observed from a sharp angle, a similar distortion occurs. This distortion matches the vantage point of someone looking at it from fairly close up, slightly below and well off to the right. While it is possible that Rembrandt was unconcerned with accuracy in this case, or even sketched the painting from memory, it is tempting to think that his quick notation captures the painting as he actually saw it from his seat in the auction room. More important, and frequently overlooked, is the inscription that surrounds the figure. Rembrandt offers a telling commentary on the image by “framing” it with words. No other drawing known from his hand is treated in this manner. To the left, his inscription reads (in phonetically-spelled Dutch): "the count Baldassare Castiglione by Raphael”, to the right: "sold for 3500 guilders", and below: "the whole collection of Lucas van Nuffeleen [again misspelled] sold for 59,456 guilders in 1639." These notations make clear that what really captured his attention about the Castiglione was not just the names of artist and sitter (which, given his phonetic spelling, he may only have known by hearsay), but even more, the high prices paid for the portrait and for the whole of Van Uffelen's collection. Here, Rembrandt is looking with the eyes of a merchant as well as an artist. This attitude is reinforced by his reference to the collection as "de heele cargesoen”, meaning a cargo or shipment of salable goods. According to John Michael Montias, the extraordinarily high result must have made the Van Uffelen sale the major event of the auction season.34 Rembrandt, as collector, dealer, and artist, would have recognized its significance. He may well have focused on the Castiglione because it was 13

Rethinking Rembrandt’s Renaissance one of the most expensive items at the sale. As an artist, he may also have been painfully aware that his own portraits would never fetch such a price. Rembrandt may well have approached Raphael's portrait of Castiglione as an aesthetic model and as the likeness of an historical figure whose name he knew -- or had been told – was significant. But more urgently, he saw it as a valuable commodity. Collectors who were purchasing "old master" paintings like this one were paying far higher prices than they did for similar works by modern Dutch artists like himself. No wonder, then, that he determined to show, through creative emulation in his self-portraits, that he could rival and even surpass such precious objects from the past, taking up Huygens’ challenge to make the art of Holland equal to that of Italy. To stake this claim in the medium of etching may have been, as we have seen, a direct response to a graphic tradition (and perhaps even to Sandrart's reproductive prints), but it was also good business, since prints could circulate widely, thereby spreading the artist’s message and his fame. Indeed, there is evidence that Rembrandt’s etchings were widely appreciated in Italy and elsewhere in Europe, and were better known abroad than his paintings.35 In 1660, the painter Guercino is known to have remarked to their mutual patron, the Sicilian nobleman Don Antonio Ruffo, “I have seen various works of [Rembrandt’s] in print … They are very beautifully executed … so that one can assume that his work in colour will likewise be entirely exquisite and perfect. I sincerely esteem him as a great virtuoso.”36 Thus, by nine years before his death, Rembrandt had succeeded in meeting the challenges set for him by Huygens and by the competitive presence of Italian masterworks on the art market in Amsterdam.

List of Illustrations

1. Rembrandt after Raphael, Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, drawing, pen and brown ink with traces of white bodycolour, with inscriptions in the artist’s hand, Vienna, Albertina

2. Rembrandt, Self-Portrait leaning on a Stone Sill, etching, second state, 1639, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

3. Renier van Persijn after Joachim von Sandrart after Raphael, Portrait of 14

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Baldassare Castiglione, engraving, undated (ca. 1640?), Amsterdam, , Rijksprentenkabinet

4. Renier van Persijn after Joachim von Sandrart after Titian, Man in Blue (“Ariosto”), engraving, undated (ca. 1640?), Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Rijksprentenkabinet

Notes

1 On classicism in Dutch art, see recently Jeroen Giltaij and Friso Lammertse, eds., Dutch Classicism, exh. cat., Museum Boijmans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 1999. Samuel van Hoogstraten, Inleyding tot de Hooge Schoole der Schilderkonst, anders de zichtbaere werelt, 1678 (reprint, Doornspijk, 1969), is analyzed by Celeste Brusati, Artifice and Illusion: The Art and Writing of Samuel van Hoogstraten, Chicago 1995, and most recently M.A. Weststeijn, De zichtbare werelt: Samuel van Hoogstratens kunsttheorie en de legitimering van de schilderkonst, Amsterdam 2005.

2 An earlier version of this paper was presented as a lecture at Syracuse University in November 2004. The topic expands upon ideas discussed in my book, Rembrandt: Portraits in Print, Amsterdam/Philadelphia 2004.

3 Stephanie S. Dickey, Rembrandt Face to Face, Indianapolis 2006, examines the precedents and context for Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait in Gorget and Cap, ca. 1629-30, now in the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

4 Essential evidence for Rembrandt’s interest in Leonardo’s Last Supper is a red chalk drawing after a print of the painting now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York; see Walter Liedtke et al., Rembrandt/Not Rembrandt in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 1995, no. 56; E. Haverkamp-Begemann, ed., The Robert Lehman Collection, Vol. VII. Fifteenth-Eighteenth Century European Drawings, New York/Princeton 1999. From Giovanni Pietro da Birago’s print after Leonardo, Rembrandt copied the lively dog in the lower right corner of his sketch. For general studies of Rembrandt’s relationship to Italy, see Kenneth Clark, Rembrandt and the Italian Renaissance, London 1966, and the forthcoming study by Amy Golahny.

5 For Rubens’ copy (London, Courtauld Institute), see Jeffrey M. Muller, Rubens: The Artist as Collector, Princeton 1989, pp. 16, 110, Cat. 78.

6 John Shearman, Only Connect…, Art and the Spectator in the Italian Renaissance, Princeton 1992, p. 135. 15

Rethinking Rembrandt’s Renaissance

7 See, i.a., Shearman 1992, p. 136; Robert W. Hanning, “Castiglione’s Verbal Portrait: Structures and Strategies,” in Robert W. Hanning and David Rosand, eds., Castiglione: The Ideal and the Real in Renaissance Culture, New Haven/London 1983, pp. 131-143. For this tradition and its relation to poems about portraits by Rembrandt, see Dickey 2004.

8 Cited by John Pope-Hennessy, Raphael, New York 1970, p. 14.

9 Shearman 1992, p. 132, discusses their relationship, describing an excursion to Tivoli taken together by Raphael, Castiglione, Cardinal Bembo, and other mutual friends.

10 As noted by Pope-Hennessy 1970, p. 30, was threatened with assassination by one of Raphael’s followers for criticizing Raphael's work. Legend has it that Pietro Torregiano, provoked by Michelangelo’s rude critique of his work, broke the sculptor’s nose with a mallet (see Paul Barolsky, Michelangelo’s Nose: A Myth and its Maker, University Park, Pa., 1990).

11 The importance of liefhebbers for Rembrandt and his contemporaries is stressed in recent writings by Ernst van de Wetering, e.g. Rembrandt: The Painter at Work, Amsterdam 1997, and “The Multiple Functions of Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits,” in Christopher White and Quentin Buvelot, eds., Rembrandt by Himself, exh cat., London/The Hague/New Haven 1999, pp. 22-27.

12 See, i.a., Frits Lugt, “Italiaansche kunstwerken in Nederlandsche verzamelingen van vroeger tijd,” Oud Holland 53 (1936), pp. 97-135; Anne-Marie Logan, The Cabinet of the Brothers Gerard and Jan Reynst, Amsterdam/Oxford/New York 1979; E.H. van den Berghe, “Italiaanse schilderijen in Amsterdam in de zeventiende eeuw,” Jaarboek Amstelodamum 84 (1992), pp. 21-40; Bert W. Meijer, “Italian paintings in 17th-century Holland. Art market, art works and art collections,” in Max Seidel, ed., L’Europa e l’arte italiana, Venice 2000, pp. 377-418.

13 C. H[ofstede] d[e] G[root], “Een schets van Rembrandt naar Rafael,” Oud Holland 9 (1891), p. 72. See Dickey 2004, pp. 97-104, for further references.

14 E. de Jongh, “The Spur of Wit: Rembrandt’s Response to an Italian Challenge,” Delta, Summer 1969, pp. 49-67. This argument applies to both the etching of 1639 and the painted Self-Portrait at Age 34, 1640, London, National Gallery (see, i.a., White and Buvelot eds. 1999, Cat. 54). 16

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15 Joachim von Sandrart, der edlen Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey Künste, 1675, pp. 326, 417. (Modern edition, A.R. Peltzer, ed., Munich 1925)

16 See Dickey 2004, pp. 90-91.

17 For the balancing of northern and Italian antecedents in Rembrandt’s etching of 1639 and painting of 1640, see especially H. Perry Chapman, Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits: A Study in Seventeenth-Century Identity, Princeton 1990, pp. 69-78; White and Buvelot, eds., 1999, cat. 53-54; Dickey 2004, pp. 89-103 (building on the author’s PhD thesis, “Prints, Portraits and Patronage in Rembrandt’s Work around 1640”, New York University, 1994). The most recent in-depth study of Rembrandt’s self-portraits is Ernst van de Wetering et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, Vol. 4, The Self-Portraits, Dordrecht 2005.

18 Sandrart must have commissioned this poem from Barlaeus, whom he worked with on other projects and portrayed in another series of reproductive prints commemorating leading authors of Amsterdam; see, i.a., Karel Porteman, ed., Joachim von Sandrart, Joost van den Vondel, Caspar Barlaeus, De Maanden van het Jaar, Wommelgem 1987. Persijn’s print after the Castiglione is dedicated to Alphonso Lopez, the print after Titian’s Man in Blue to the burgomaster Johan Maximilian zum Jungen (portrayed by Sandrart in a painting of 1636, Frankfurt, Historisches Museum), and a print after Titian’s Flora (, Uffizi) to Sandrart’s cousin, the printmaker and diplomat Michel LeBlon.

19 Stephanie S. Dickey, “Inscriptions and the Reception of Rembrandt’s Etchings,” in M. Roscam Abbing, ed., Rembrandt 2006. Vol. II. Essays, Leiden 2006, pp. 137-154.

20 The implications of Vondel’s quatrain were first analyzed by Jan Emmens, “Ay Rembrandt maal Cornelis stem,” Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 7 (1956), pp. 133- 165. It is still not clear whether Vondel was inspired by Rembrandt’s etching of 1641, the related double portrait of Anslo and his wife painted in the same year (Berlin, Gemäldegalerie), or the preparatory drawings that contributed to both works (London, British Museum, and Paris, Louvre). Vondel may simply have been prompted by his memories of the preacher’s oratorical skills. As a poet, he was also experienced in the rhetorical convention of the speaking likeness. See further Dickey 2004, pp. 45-62, with additional references.

21 Gary Schwartz, The Rembrandt Book, New York 2006, pp. 324-326; Dickey, “Inscriptions,” 2006, pp. 142-145. 17

Rethinking Rembrandt’s Renaissance

22 See Dickey 2004, p. 103.

23 On the Reynst collection, see Logan 1979; Van den Bergh 1992. In the early 1630s, Giustiniani’s “paper museum” was supervised by Joachim von Sandrart; for a fascinating account of Giustiniani and his milieu, see Elizabeth Cropper and Charles Dempsey, , Friendship and the Love of Painting, Princeton 1996.

24 Rembrandt’s possessions, including a substantial collection of paintings and prints, were inventoried at the time of his bankruptcy in 1656; Walter Strauss ed., The Rembrandt Documents, New York 1979, Doc. 1656/12; for auction purchases, see Doc. 1635/1, 1637/2, 1637/3, 1637/5, 1637/6; for the context of his purchases, see J. Michael Montias, Art at Auction in Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2002. On Rembrandt’s collection, see also Bob van den Boogert, ed., Rembrandt’s Treasures, Amsterdam 1999.

25 Translation (one of several in recent publications) taken from E. van de Wetering, B. Schnackenburg, et al., Mystery of the Young Rembrandt, exh. cat., Rembrandthuis, Amsterdam/Staatliche Gemäldegalerie, Kassel 2002, pp. 398-399. Huygens’ comments have been associated with the events of 1639, e.g., by Logan 1979 and Van den Berghe 1992, p. 21.

26 Sandrart 1675, p. 326, accuses Rembrandt of ignoring a variety of academic rules, including the example of Raphael’s draughtsmanship. For Rembrandt’s reception, the most useful survey is still Seymour Slive, Rembrandt and his Critics 1630-1730, The Hague 1953.

27 See Anna Frank-van Westrienen, De Groote Tour. Tekening van de educatiereis der Nederlanders in de zeventiende eeuw, Amsterdam 1983.

28 The Reynst collection is reconstructed by Logan 1979.

29 See, i.a., Montias 2002; Marten Jan Bok, “The rise of Amsterdam as a cultural centre: the market for paintings, 1580-1680,” in Patrick O’Brien et al., eds., Urban Achievement in Early Modern Europe. Golden Ages in Antwerp, Amsterdam and London, Cambridge/London 2001, pp. 186-209.

30 Van den Berghe 1992, p. 24; Dickey 2004, pp. 97-98. 18

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31 The patrician Andries De Graeff disputed Rembrandt’s price of fl. 500 for a full-length portrait of him, possibly the Standing Man, dated 1639, now in Kassel; Strauss 1979, Doc. 1659/21. Prices and other factors in the Dutch art market were explored in the publications of J. Michael Montias, e.g., “Cost and Value in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art,” Art History 10 (1987), 455-466; Montias 2002.

32 Van den Berghe 1992, p. 25.

33 See Montias 2002, pp. 130-143 (re Joannes de Renialme, see n. 36 below), and idem., Artists and Artisans in Delft, Princeton 1982; idem., “Art dealers in the seventeenth- century Netherlands,” Simiolus 18 (1988), pp. 244-256.

34 Montias 2002, p. 16; Dickey 2004, p. 97.

35 See Stephanie S. Dickey, “Thoughts on the Market for Rembrandt’s Portrait Etchings,” in Amy Golahny, Mia Mochizuki and Lisa Vergara eds., In His Milieu: Essays on Netherlandish Art in Memory of John Michael Montias, Amsterdam 2007, pp. 149-164, esp. 150, with further references.

36 Letter of 13 June 1660 from Guercino in to Ruffo in Messina; transcription and English translation, Strauss et al. 1979, Doc. 1660/7, p. 457. Ruffo had asked Guercino for a painting to hang with Rembrandt’s Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer (now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). On Rembrandt’s work for this patron, see, i.a., Jeroen Giltaij, Ruffo en Rembrandt: over een Siciliaanse verzamelaar in de zeventiende eeuw die drie schilderijen bij Rembrandt bestelde, Zutphen 1999. Meanwhile, the painted self-portrait of 1640 may have spent some time on the Keizersgracht in the collection of the art dealer Johannes de Renialme (Strauss 1979, Doc. 1657/2; Chapman 1990, p. 69; Dickey 2004, p. 99); Gary Schwartz, Rembrandt, his Life, his Paintings, New York 1985, pp. 214-215, suggested that Rembrandt painted it for Alphonso Lopez himself, perhaps hoping through him to make sales to and the French court. 19

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