historians of netherlandish art NEWSLETTER AND REVIEW OF BOOKS Dedicated to the Study of Netherlandish, German and Franco-Flemish Art and Architecture, 1350-1750 Vol. 23, No. 2 www.hnanews.org November 2006 A Newly Discovered Rubens at the Getty Peter Paul Rubens, The Calydonian Boar Hunt (c. 1611-1612) Oil on panel, 59 × 90.2 cm. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (Courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Museum) HNA Newsletter, Vol. 23, No. 2, November 2006 1 From the President In Memoriam I begin this brief editorial on a sad note: I recently learned of the death this past July of our colleague, Cynthia Lawrence, after an extremely lengthy and exhausting battle with cancer. To those of us who knew her, we fondly remember a first-rate scholar and, more importantly, a first-rate person who enriched the lives of all of us who were fortunate enough to have befriended her. She will be sorely missed. Please be sure to read the obituary that our colleague, Barbara Haeger, prepared especially for this issue of the Newsletter. I have recently returned to teaching and administrative duties here at Syracuse University after having enjoyed a sabbatical during the 2005-06 academic year. Despite the added work loads and constraints on my already limited time, this re-entry into academe has been thoroughly enjoyable. Instead of spending the entire year myopically focused on the topic of my own research – Hendrick ter Brugghen – my renewed responsibilities have forced me to think in much broader terms about our discipline, more specifically, about the various fields in which our membership curates, teaches, and writes. There is certainly much happening this fall in terms of symposia, new Cynthia Lawrence publications, and exhibitions. But for our organization, all of this 1946-2006 activity will culminate in our sixth quadrennial conference in Baltimore and Washington D.C. in early November. In fact, by the Cynthia Lawrence died on July 26 after a long and heroic time you receive this Newsletter, this conference will be only days struggle against cancer. She endured debilitating health problems away. Thanks to the talents and efforts of Quint Gregory and Aneta with quiet fortitude and refused to allow the disease to limit her Georgievska-Shine, along with those of the Conference Program activities. She and her husband, David, took every opportunity to Committee, our gathering promises to be highly stimulating and travel – returning to favorite cities (Leuven, Antwerp, Amsterdam) informative. It will provide many opportunities to hear papers on and exploring new locales, most recently Kyoto, Beijing and fascinating topics, to participate in thought-provoking workshops, and Macao. Nor did she allow her illness to impinge upon her total simply to enjoy one another’s company since many miles (and even commitment to pursuing her research and to sharing her ideas with oceans) normally separate us. Lastly, we will all have the privilege of others. Until 2004, Cynthia continued to teach, and she remained viewing the major exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, Prayers an active and productive scholar. Nothing is a greater testimony to and Portraits; Unfolding the Netherlandish Diptych, before it opens Cynthia’s commitment and amazing strength and courage than the officially to the public. I am quite excited about all of these prospects publication of two major articles this year, one of which appeared and look forward to seeing all of you very soon. posthumously: “Confronting Heresy in Post-Tridentine Antwerp. Coercion and Reconciliation as Opposing Strategies in Rubens’ Wayne Franits Real Presence of the Holy Sacrament,” Netherlands Yearbook for Syracuse University History of Art / Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, vol. 55, 2004 (2006), and “Rubens and De Rincón in Valladolid: A Reconsideration of Rubens’s First Spanish Sojourn and a New Source for the Antwerp Raising of the Cross,” in: Munuscula Amicorum. Contributions on Rubens and His Colleagues in Honour of Hans Vlieghe, ed. by Katlijne Van der Stighelen, Turnhout, 2006. Cynthia, who received her BA from Oberlin and her MA and PhD from the University of Chicago (1978) and who taught for several years at Rutgers, was a professor in the Department of Art History at Temple University when she retired in 2004. Her fields of study embraced both painting and sculpture in both Flanders and The Netherlands. Cynthia was a scholar of rare breadth. At the same time, her work was solidly founded upon archival evidence and a meticulous examination of a vast array of sources, which earned her widespread recognition and a host of awards. The latter included the University of Chicago Baroque Studies Prize, numerous research fellowships from Temple University and Rutgers, as well as a grant from the American Council of Learned Societies and a Belgian American Educational Foundation Advanced Fellowship. Cynthia is perhaps most well known for her exemplary study on the genesis of Rubens’s Raising of the Cross (“Before The Raising of the Cross: The Origins of Rubens’s Earliest Antwerp Altarpieces,” The Art Bulletin,1999), which provides real insight 2 HNA Newsletter, Vol. 23, No. 2, November 2006 HNA News into Rubens’s process of invention, while contributing significantly to our understanding of Antwerp’s religious climate and the HNA at CAA physical environment for which the work was created. That she was unable to complete her book-length study on the Raising of the New York, February 14-17, 2007 Cross constitutes a serious loss to the field. As was revealed in her Session numerous conference papers on the painting and on St. Walburgis, The HNA-sponsored session is chaired by Ann Adams and the church for which it was created, the book promised to be a Elizabeth Honig. The topic is: The Presence of History, the Persis- fascinating examination of the altarpiece in light of a range of tence of Time. See the CAA website for more information. meditational and liturgical practices as well as in the context of its location within St. Walburgis, a church, whose construction, she convincingly argued, evoked sacred sites in Rome and Jerusalem. Reception Her hypothesis that the church was the site of virtual pilgrimages All members are invited to the HNA reception at the CAA focused on the choir, which represented Calvary, was effectively Conference in New York, Friday, February 16, 2007, 5:30-7:30 pm, and inventively supported by her exploration of the rich history of Syracuse University’s Lubin House, 11 East 61 Street (a short walk the Burcht, St. Walburgis’s parish. from the Hilton Hotel). Along with her book Flemish Baroque Commemorative Monuments 1566-1700, which established her as a leading authority on Flemish sculpture of the period, Cynthia produced numerous illuminating and impeccably researched articles (her Personalia footnotes are invariably mines of valuable information, ideas, and sources) on Counter-Reformation painting and sculpture in the Al Acres has been appointed assistant professor of art history at Southern Netherlands. Her scholarship, however, is much more Georgetown University, Washington DC. wide-ranging, encompassing studies on seventeenth-century Dutch Marcia Allentuck was elected to the Royal Society of Literature painting and the role of women in the arts in the early modern era. (Great Britain). Examples of her publications in these areas are her insightful book Odilia Bonebakker was awarded a Metropolitan Museum of Art Gerrit Adriaensz. Berckheyde (1638-1698): Haarlem Cityscape Fellowship for 2006-2007. Painter (Doornspijk, 1991) and her contributions to a collection of papers delivered at a symposium that she organized at Temple Amy Buono (UC Santa Barbara) is a Paul Mellon Predoctoral University. The resulting book, Women and Art in Early Modern Fellow in residence at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Europe: Patrons, Collectors and Connoisseurs (Penn State 1997), Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington. Her topic is: Plumed which she edited, earned an honorable mention from the Society for Identities and Feathered Performances: Tupinambá Interculture in the Study of Early Modern Women for books published in that Early Modern Brazil and Europe. year. Among Cynthia’s articles, one of the most fascinating is her Julien Chapuis, Associate Curator in the Department of compelling study of the monuments of naval heroes commissioned Medieval Art at The Cloisters at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, by the States General in the Dutch Republic to foster as sense of has been promoted to Curator. patria and to inculcate patriotic virtues, a study that also examines Amy Golahny the evolution of the church tomb into the secular memorial (Lycoming College) holds an Ailsa Mellon Bruce (“Hendrick de Keyser’s Heemskerk monument: the origins of the Visiting Senior Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the cult and iconography of Dutch naval heroes,” Simiolus, 1992). Here Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, for fall 2006. Her Rembrandt and Italy again we can only regret that she was not able to complete the still subject is: . larger project she had envisioned on the subject of state-sponsored Christopher Heuer was appointed Lecturer and Mellon Fellow sculpture dealing with national identity. in the History of Art at Columbia University (as of 2005). In addition to being an exemplary scholar, Cynthia was an Lynn Jacobs (University of Arkansas) received an NEH extremely helpful and generous colleague. She shared her insights Fellowship for 2006-2007 for work on her book on triptychs. and her voluminous bibliographies freely and regularly offered Kathryn Rudy has been appointed Keeper of Illuminated constructive criticism in discussions following papers at the many Manuscripts at the Royal Library in The Hague, replacing Anne national and international conferences she attended. She was Korteweg, who will retire in March 2007. particularly helpful to me when I began doing research on Rubens.