JOHN MICHAEL MONTIAS This book exploits a trove of original documents that have survived on the auctions organized by the Orphan Chamber of Amsterdam in the first half of the seventeenth century. For the first time, the names of some 2000 buyers of works of art at auction in the 29 extant notebooks of the Chamber have been systematically analyzed. On the basis of archival research, data have been assembled on the occupation of these buyers (most of whom were merchants), their origin (Southern Netherlands, Holland, and other), their religion, their year of birth, their date of marriage, the taxes they paid and other indicators of their wealth. Buyers were found to cluster in groups, not only by extended family but by occupation, religion (Remonstrants, Counter-Remonstrants) and avocation (amateurs of tulips and of porcelain, members of Chambers Art at Auction in of Rhetoricians, and so forth). The subjects of the works of art they bought and the artists to which they were attributed are also analyzed. The second part of the book on “Selected Buyers”, is devoted to art dealers who bought at auction and four to buyers who had special connections with artists, including principally Rembrandt. As a whole, the book offers a penetrating insight into the culture of the Amsterdam elite in the seventeenth century. In Art at Auction in 17th Century Amsterdam Montias has created a richly patterned panorama of the interactions between artists, art lovers and art dealers who were active in one of Europe’s most JOHN MICHAEL th Century Amsterdam important art scenes of the 17th century. ERNST VAN DE WETERING MONTIAS REMBRANDT RESEARCH PROJECT John Michael Montias (1928) was trained as Artat an economist (Ph.D. Columbia University, 1958). In the first part of his career, he specialized in the comparison of economic in Auction systems. Since 1975, he has devoted most of his research to the art market in the seven- www.aup.nl teenth century Netherlands. th Century Amsterdam University Press Amsterdam Amsterdam University Press MONTIAS 24-09-2002 14:10 Pagina 1 art at auction in 17th century amsterdam MONTIAS 24-09-2002 14:10 Pagina 2 Cover illustration: Andries Both, A Painter’s Studio or Store Room, British Museum, London Cover design: Kok Korpershoek, Amsterdam Lay-out: Het Steen Typografie, Maarssen isbn 90 5356 591 4 nur 654 © Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, 2002 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of this book. MONTIAS 24-09-2002 14:10 Pagina 3 Art at Auction in 17 th Century Amsterdam john michael montias Amsterdam University Press MONTIAS 24-09-2002 14:10 Pagina 4 For my wife Marie Agnes Montias MONTIAS 24-09-2002 14:10 Pagina 5 Table of Contents Acknowledgements 7 Archival References 8 Monetary Equivalents 8 Notice 8 Part I - The Auctions Introduction 11 01 Orphan Chamber Auctions in Amsterdam 15 02 How Auction Sales of the Orphan Chamber Were Conducted 20 03 Extant Records of Auction Sales in Chronological Perspective 27 04 Aggregate Statistics of Sales and the Owners of Goods Sold 33 05 The Buyers at Auction Sales 41 06 The Wealth of Buyers 52 07 Clusters of Private Buyers 57 08 Remonstrants and Counter-Remonstrants 77 09 What Did They Buy and at What Prices? 87 10 Attributions 93 11 Echoes 100 12 Concluding Words on Auctions 108 Part II - Profiles of Selected Buyers Introduction 113 13 Art Dealers I: Artists and Merchants in the Trade 114 14 Art Dealers II: Johannes de Renialme 130 15 Art Dealers III: The Story of a Merchant Who Thought He Could Sell Paintings to a King 144 MONTIAS 24-09-2002 14:10 Pagina 6 16 Art Collectors and Painters I: Rubens’s Promise to Hans Thijsz. 153 17 Art Collectors and Painters II: Jacob Swalmius and Rembrandt 164 18 Art Collectors and Painters III: Marten van den Broeck and Rembrandt’s Losses at Sea 180 19 Art Collectors and Painters IV: Jan van Maerlen and His Extended Family 188 20 Art Collectors and Painters V: Jean le Bleu, François Venant and Rembrandt’s “Feast of Belshazzar” 204 21 A Collector with Connections to Major Cultural Figures: Robbert van der Hoeve and the “Muiden Circle” 209 22 What Santa Claus Brought to the Youth of Amsterdam 220 23 When Sellers and Buyers Were Related: Elbert and Cornelis Symonsz. Pool, Jeltge Claes, and Pieter Claesz. Codde 226 24 A Collector Who Held On to His Purchase for Over Fifty Years 234 25 An Afterword on Mentalités 243 Bibliography 249 Published Sources 251 Notes 259 MONTIAS 24-09-2002 14:10 Pagina 7 Acknowledgements It is a pleasure to look back on the numerous letters, e-mail exchanges, and conversa- tions that I have had over the years with my friends and colleagues about the contents of this book. They all added to my knowledge or corrected mistakes I had made. I mention Marten Jan Bok first because, in addition to his frequent help, he encour- aged me to write a book about auctions of works of art in Amsterdam, at a time when I had just begun to collect sales inventories for my database.1 I am also grateful to him for helping me in the finishing stages of publishing this book, with checking informa- tion, with the collection of illustrations, and with other matters to which I was not able to attend. Paul Crenshaw read the latest version of the book in typescript and gave me the benefit of his perceptive comments. Albert Blankert, Alan Chong, Neil DeMarchi, Amy Golahny, Anne Goldgar, Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann, Walter Liedtke, Otto Naumann, Gary Schwartz, and Michael Zell commented on individ- ual chapters, some of which were published elsewhere. Jeroen van Meerwijk con- tributed to my research on notarial inventories and made a special investigation at my request of the court cases involving the art dealer Johannes de Renialme in the Rijksarchief in The Hague. S. Middelhoek and Wout Spies helped with my genealog- ical research on the Van Maerlen and Van Soldt families (Chapter 19) and on Rob- bert van der Hoeve (Chapter 21). In the last stages of revision, Louisa Ruby of the Frick Art Reference Library answered many questions about my database on Ams- terdam inventories, to which, due to a computer breakdown, I no longer had access. David Smith of CUADRA Associates gave me his patient, unstinting, and efficient help with my software problems and with the development of my databank on Ams- terdam auction sales and inventories. Suzanne Bogman and Chantal Nicolaes of Am- sterdam University Press, who carefully copy-edited the typescript, helped to guide the book to its completion. I am grateful to them all. John Michael Montias New Haven, June 2002 7 MONTIAS 24-09-2002 14:10 Pagina 8 References to Archival Sources The archival references in this book, unless otherwise specified, are to manuscript sources preserved in the Municipal Archives of Amsterdam (Gemeentearchief Am- sterdam, abbreviated GAA, but generally omitted). Within the GAA, I make use exclusively of three archives: notarial (abbreviated NA), Orphan Chamber (Weeskamer, abbreviated WK) and Bankruptcy Chamber (Desolate Boedelskamer, abbreviated DBK). Monetary Equivalents 17th century prices and values, throughout this book, are either expressed in gulden (abbreviated ƒ), stuivers (20 to the gulden, abbreviated st.), and penningen (16 to the stuiver, abbreviated pen.), or in Flemish pounds (6 gulden to a pound). Prices are usually expressed as in the following example: ƒ 10: 5: 3. This should be read as 10 gulden, 5 stuivers, 3 penningen. In some tables, to save space, the stuivers have been converted to fractions of a gulden, rounded off to the second decimal. Thus, ƒ 10.26 is equal to ƒ 10: 5: 3. Occasional reference is also made to schellingen, worth 6 st. and to rijksdaalders (or rycxdaelders), worth 2 ƒ 10 st. It is useful to remember that a semi-skilled carpenter was paid about 1 gulden a day and that a typical merchant’s house in Amsterdam cost anywhere from ƒ 5,000 to 13,000 ƒ (which was the price for which Rembrandt bought his large house on the Breestraat). Notice A reasonable attempt has been made to write the proper names in this book in a con- sistent manner. This means choosing one variant of each name as it was written in the 17th century and sticking through it. This standard has not systematically been achieved. However, the main variants of the “standard spelling” have been inserted in the index in parentheses wherever such minor inconsistencies have been detected. 8 john michael montias MONTIAS 24-09-2002 14:10 Pagina 9 Part I The Auctions MONTIAS 24-09-2002 14:10 Pagina 10 MONTIAS 24-09-2002 14:10 Pagina 11 Introduction In the economic development of Western Europe, urbanization, markets, and the commercialization of art followed parallel trends. In the course of time, when mar- kets became fairly developed, auctions of general merchandise and of art works emerged –in ancient Rome, in early 15th century Venice,2 in 16th century Antwerp and Amsterdam3– as a quick and efficient way to dispose of goods. Amsterdam in the late 16th and 17th centuries was primarily a trading city. Almost everyone had things to sell, from the master craftsman to the merchant engaged in in- ternational trade. Already from the mid-1580s, after Antwerp had fallen to Spanish troops and its port on the Scheldt had been blocked by the Dutch insurgents in their war of liberation against Spain, Amsterdam had become the premier emporium and entrepôt of Europe, the place where merchants in the rest of Europe could most con- veniently and economically purchase all manner of staples, from cannon shot to mer- cury.