PHILIPS WOUWERMAN - Johnny van Haeften

PHILIPS WOUWERMAN
(1619 – Haarlem - 1668)
The Nobleman Don Juan greeting two Gypsies: an episode from Het
Spaens Heydinnetje (The Spanish Heathen).
Signed in monogram, lower left on a stone: PH.W (PH in ligature)
Oil on canvas, 15 ¾ x 17 7/8 ins. (40 x 45.5 cm)
Provenance:
Henry Temple, 2nd Viscount Palmerston (1739-1802), Broadlands
Nr. Romsey 1773
By descent to The Rt. Hon. Earl Mountbatten of Burma (19001979), Broadlands, Hampshire
Sale Sotheby’s, London, 9 December 1992, lot 132 as ”Follower of
Philips Wouwerman”
With Johnny Van Haeften Limited, London, 1992
With Noortman Master Paintings, Maastricht, 1993
Private collection, Germany, until 2014
Literature:
Hofstede de Groot, A catalogue raisonné…, London, 1909, vol. II,
p. 602, no. 1050 (collection A.E.M. Ashley, Broadlands)
Catalogue Noortman 1993, no. 34 (illustrated) as “Philips
Wouwerman”
B. Schumacher, Philips Wouwerman: The Horse Painter of the
Golden Age, Doornspijk, 2006, I, pp. 424, no. B72; II, plate 579
(as doubtful, but not seen by her)
CS0254
Philips Wouwerman was the greatest Dutch painter of equestrian scenes. He specialised in
small cabinet paintings in which horses feature prominently. He developed a wide repertoire
of themes which gave him the opportunity to showcase his virtuosity in rendering horses.
Although his career was relatively short, he was highly successful and died a rich man.
Unusually for Wouwerman, the subject of this little painting is taken from contemporary
literature. The scene may be recognised as an episode from Het Spaens Heydinnetje (The
Spanish Heathen), a poem published by the celebrated writer and moralist Jacob Cats in 1637,
with illustrations by Adriaen van de Venne. Cats’s poem was in its turn an adaptation in
verse of Miguel de Cervantes’s novella, La Gitanilla di Madril, which was published in Madrid
in 1613 and subsequently translated into Dutch in 1643. The story evidently enjoyed
something of a vogue around this time as evidenced by stage adaptations produced in 1643 and
1644i, as well as depictions of the story by several other seventeenth-century artistsii.
Cats’s poem tells the story of a Spanish girl of noble birth who was kidnapped when very
young by the gypsy woman Majombe and raised by gypsies. They called her Pretiose and she
grew into a beautiful young woman. As time passed she gained a reputation for her fine
singing and dancing, as well as for her gift for fortune-telling. One day, having become
separated from his companions while out hunting, the nobleman Don Juan came upon her
singing and making garlands of flowers, and was instantly smitten. Eventually, after many
twists and turns of the story, Pretiose was reunited with her parents and married Don Juan.
In this little painting, Wouwerman depicts the moment when Don Juan encounters Pretiose for
the first time. She is seated on a bank by the roadside with the old gypsy Majombe. He greets
her by doffing his hat and is evidently enthralled by her: she blushes and looks away to avoid
his piercing gaze. The older woman regards him with suspicion. Such details as the garland of
flowers and the greyhounds correspond closely to Cats’s text. Wouwerman treated this
subject again in a small panel which is now in a private collection (Fig. 1). The same episode
is portrayed in that painting, but the composition is reversed so that the two women appear on
the right-hand side of the picture and Don Juan is seen from behind. Another version of the
present composition, with significant differences in the details, is in The Nelson-Atkins
Museum of Art, in Kansas City, but its authorship has been doubtediii.
Both the present painting and the one in the Mauritshuis can be dated to around 1646, early in
Wouwerman’s career. It is generally not easy to establish a chronology for Wouwerman’s
work since he dated only a relatively small number of his paintings. However, as luck would
have it, the year 1646 is one of the best documented of his career, thanks to the existence of
four dated paintingsiv. We can therefore recognise in this painting such characteristic features
of this period as the low vantage point, diagonally structured composition and subdued palette.
Also typical is the concentration on just a few animals and human figures, seen from close
quarters on a rising foreground. The view to the far distance is thus largely obscured and our
attention is focused on the foreground action. The device of a partially-obscured figure – here,
the dog appearing over the brow of the hill - which serves as an indication of the rise and fall of
the land, also occurs quite often in the artist’s early work. Lastly, the monogram PH.W with
which the artist signed this painting is consistent with a date around 1646, since this form of
monogram was in use between 1642 and 1646: subsequently, Wouwerman lengthened his
monogram to PHILS. W.
Fig. 1. Philips Wouwerman, “Het Spaens Heydinnetje” (“The Spanish Heathen”),
signed in monogram, on panel, 35.5 x 34 5 cm, private collection.
The eldest son of the painter Pauwels Joostsz. Wouwerman, Philips was baptised in Haarlem
on 24 May 1619. His younger brothers, Pieter and Johannes, also became artists and painted in
the style of Philips. Wouwerman probably took his first instruction in painting from his father.
According to Cornelis de Bie, he subsequently became a pupil of Frans Hals, but there is no
trace of Hals’s influence in his work. In 1638, against the wishes of his family, Wouwerman
travelled to Hamburg to marry a Catholic girl named Annetje Pietersdr. van Broeckhof. While
in Hamburg, he worked briefly in the studio of the German history painter, Evert Decker. By
1640, he had returned to Haarlem where he joined the guild. In 1646 he served as a member of
the guild’s executive committee (as vinder or agent). He seems to have remained in Haarlem
for the rest of his life. He died on 19 May 1668 and was buried in the Nieuwe Kerk in
Haarlem. His wife survived him by less than two years and was interred in St. Bavo’s Church
on 24 January 1670.
Though he lived to be only forty-eight years old, Wouwerman was one of the most successful
and prolific artists of the Dutch Golden Age and around a thousand works bear his name. He
occasionally painted staffage in the landscapes of Jacob van Ruisdael, Jan Wijnants and
Cornelis Decker. He had numerous pupils and followers and died a wealthy man, leaving a
substantial inheritance to his three sons and four daughters. During the eighteenth century, he
became one of the most highly esteemed Dutch painters in Europe: no princely collection was
complete without one of his paintings.
P.M.
i
Stage adaptations by Mattheus Tengnagel in 1643 and Catharina Verwers Dusart in 1644.
See: I. Gaskell, “Transformations of Cervantes” “La Gitanilla” in Dutch Art”, Journal of the
Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 45 (1982), pp. 263-270
iii
B. Schumacher, Philips Wouwerman: The Horse Painter of the Golden Age, Doornspijk, 2006, vol. I, p, 465m
cat. no. C179a, vol. II, plate 684.
iv
Philips Wouwerman Peasants outside an Inn, signed PHILS. W. and dated 1646, canvas, 53 x 75 cm,
Manchester, Manchester Art Gallery, Bequest of Mr. & Mrs. Edgar Assheton-Bennett, 1979; Horseman at Rest,
signed PHILS. W. and dated 1646, Leipzig, Museum der bildenden Künste; Cavalry Battle, 1646, canvas, 139 x
190 cm, The National Gallery, London and The Farrier, 1646, panel, 43.3 x 35 cm, formerly with Johnny Van
Haeften, London.
ii