came drawing from clay and plaster models. Finally he reached the , artists such as these, with their international polish and last step, drawing from life and, most importantly, the human fig­ knowledge of foreign culture, could have a strong influence on the 3 ure. I This was the official, theoretical course of study. In practice, it local artistic community. Michiel van Miereveld, for example, who was certainly not that rigid. It is interesting that in the middle of the had never been in Italy, started his career with Mannerist history century in , along with the traditional master-pupil course of pieces that show Italian influence (see fig. 39); only later on would study, there existed some sort of class in which a number of boys he make his move into the field in which he is now most famous, learned how to draw. The almost-seventy-year-old Cornelis Daemen portraiture. We know of two prints with historical subjects from Van Rietwijck (1589/90-1660) ran a school where boys probably going Miereveld's early period: Jesus and the Samaritan Woman and Judith into any craft occupation could get basic training in the art of draw­ with the Head ofHoloftrnes. Although they were described at length in ing. I+ It is rather unlikely that these students ever drew after a nude 1604 by the biographer of northern artists Karel van Mander, these 6 model. This, however, did happen in Delft, as we know from a rather prints curiously enough have not been identified. I amusing document. A notarial deposition of 1652 has come down to During the first decades of the seventeenth century the journey to us in which witnesses testified that the petitioner had been accused Italy was still of paramount importance, especially for history paint­ of letting herself be painted naked and that she had earned quite a ers such as the Delft artists Adriaen Cornelisz Linschoten (ca. 1608- bit of money by doing so. IS 1677), Leonaert Bramer (1596-1674), Pieter Anthonisz Groenewegen (ca. 16oo-1658?), and possibly Christiaen van Couwenbergh (1604- 1667).17 Bramer and Groenewegen were among the founding mem­ Historical Subjects bers of the , as the members of the Schildersbent- an In addition to the Flemish impact on the art of the northern association of Netherlandish artists in -called themselves. in the early seventeenth century, there was also a strong Other Delft artists who visited Italy were Pieter van Bronckhorst Italian influence. One traveled to Rome to see the remains of classi­ (1588-1661), Cornelis de Man (r621-1706), and Willem van Aelst cal antiquity and to admire the masterpieces of the Renaissance. (1627-1683 or later). Some of these travelers became involved in the Many Dutch painters set out on the journey south, among them sev­ life of the country and were deeply influenced by its art. According eral Delft artists, including in the sixteenth century, for example, to the early-eighteenth-century biographer , Hubert Jacobsz Grimani (1562/63-1631), Willem Danielsz van Linschoten studied for two years with the famous Neapolitan Tetrode, and Abraham Apersz van der Houve (1576-1621). Their painter Jusepe de Ribera. Bramer, who stayed thirteen years in Italy, work-the little of it that remains-is strongly Mannerist. Back in came back to Delft an accomplished painter of frescoes. Willem van

Fig. 183. Leonaert Bramer, The Betrayal ofChrist, 1637. Brush and black ink, gray and black wash with black chalk on prepared gray paper, 8 x roX. in. (20.3 x 27.3 em). Private collection, New York

174 VERMEER AND THE DELFT SCHOOL