2.4 Ovens’ Large Room with Art
Ovens did not only supply works of art to the Dukes, but was a collector himself as well. Houbraken paints a nice picture of Ovens as an art dealer in his biography of Johannes Voorhout (1647–1722/1723). In 1672, because of the unrest in the Republic, this artist went to Friedrichstadt, where his wife had friends. He soon made a name for himself and came into contact with Ovens, who showed him his ‘large room with art by the most esteemed masters, with which he did business at the courts […]’.1 Houbraken must have heard this story from Voorhout in person. No author on Ovens has wondered what other court(s) the biographer had in mind.2 It is here suggested that, next to Gottorf, Houbraken might have meant the Swedish court in Stockholm as well. Ovens attended the marriage of Princess Hedwig Eleonora of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf (1636–1715) with the Swedish King Karl X Gustav (1622–1660) in that city in 1654 and perhaps sold artworks to the court on that occasion.3
It is not known how Ovens built up his collection, but it must have taken him many years. The inventory compiled in 1691 – one year after the death of Ovens’ widow – is divided into 99 original items and 97 copies and thus gives us an idea of what Ovens had in his ‘large room’.4 More than half of the originals were by Ovens himself. He owned six paintings by Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641), works by Jacob Jordaens I (1593–1678), Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), Frans Snijders (1579–1657), Roelant Savery (1576–1639), Jan Lievens (1607–1674), Jacob Adriaensz. Backer (1608/9–1651), Pieter van Laer (1599–1642), Jan van Noordt (1623/4–1676/86), Philips Wouwerman (1619–1668), Parmigianino (1503–1540), Giorgione (1473/4–1510), and Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), amongst others. Gerson remarked that Ovens possessed a very sizeable painting collection of Dutch, Flemish and Italian works, in which only Rembrandt was not represented.5 Perhaps Ovens was not able to acquire a good Rembrandt, if he even tried to buy a painting by that master at all.
When we compare Ovens’ collection with Uylenburgh’s, it strikes us that Ovens owned a relatively large number of copies and that the standard of his works that were classified as ‘original’ was probably not as high as that of the Amsterdam art dealer. The large number of his own works clearly shows that Ovens was first and foremost an artist and in the second place a collector and dealer.6 Ovens’ role as an art dealer should not be overestimated: it certainly was not unusual for 17th-century artists to deal in works by other masters.7 Contrary to many of his colleagues, Ovens did not financially depend on his trade in art. Except for his earnings in the art trade, his wealth came from legacies, his marriage (his wife brought with her a dowry of no less than 60,000 Reichstaler), and his success as a painter.8 Furthermore, he owned a great deal of land around Tönning and Friedrichstadt.9
It seems likely that a significant proportion of Ovens’ collection came from Amsterdam. In Friedrichstadt, the artist must have had to rely on his contacts in the Dutch Republic. It is therefore obvious that some of the works of art will have come to him through Gerrit Uylenburgh. In all likelihood Ovens would, depending on the circumstances, sell paintings from his collection and try to obtain better pieces.10 Ovens’ paintings gave him not only personal enjoyment, but he also used them for promotional purposes: Duchess Mary Elisabeth paid him a visit in 1666.11 His collection was divided between his sons. Today, Jordaens’ large The arrest of Christ from the late 1650s in the Cleveland Museum of Art is the only known work that possibly hung on the wall in Ovens’ house [27].12
27
Jacques Jordaens
The arrest of Christ, late 1650s
Cleveland (Ohio), The Cleveland Museum of Art, inv./cat.nr. 1970.32
Notes
1 Houbraken 1718-1721, vol. 3 (1721), p. 225; Hofstede de Groot 1893, p. 93; Schmidt 1922, pp. 92–93, 95, 133; Lammertse 2006B, pp. 262–263; Köster 2017, pp. 29, 283, 347, Qu. VII.4.b. Unfortunately, no depiction of Ovens’ large room is known. We can imagine it will have resembled the sales room of the art dealer Jan Pietersz. Zomer (1641–1724), which was drawn by Pieter van den Berge (1659–1737) in c. 1710 (RKDimages 288802).
2 Horn 2000 does not deal with Houbraken’s remarks on Ovens’ art collection.
3 Gerson 1942/1983, pp. 212–213. Between 1654 and 1657, Ovens realised a series of three large paintings of the marriage (marriage (RKDimages 232236, RKDimages 307309 and RKDimages 232244).
4 Hampke 1896/97; Schmidt 1913A; Schmidt 1914A; Schmidt 1922, p. 61-68; Gerson 1942/1983, p. 214; Köster 2017, pp. 322–325, Qu. I.4.
5 Gerson 1942/1983, p. 214.
6 Lammertse 2006B, p. 263.
7 Schmidt 1922, p. 94; Köster 2017, p. 26.
8 Houbraken 1718-1721, vol. 3 (1721), p. 225 states Ovens had found his fortune as a portrait painter in Friedrichstadt, so that he also left much money. Later on, the biographer mentioned (under Ernst Stuven [c. 1657–1712]) ‘the shining advantages that the commendable portrait painter Jan [sic] Ovens had gathered’. See idem 1721, p. 372. Such remarks reinforce the assumption that Ovens did not earn the lion’s share of his income as an art agent.
9 Schmidt 1922, pp. 68–74; Lammertse 2006B, p. 262.
10 As the French physician and man of letters Samuel de Sorbière (1615–1670) mentioned: ‘The Dutch [merchants] sort of trade in art; they invest a lot of money in buying art, to get even more out of it. The good pictures are part of their estates, and there are few that cannot be sold or exchanged’. See Floerke 1905, p. 164. See also Schmidt 1922, p. 61.
11 LAS, Abt. 7, no. 4775, fol. 412, 29 June 1666; Köster 2017, p. 334, Qu. II.B.3, right column. On merchants’ homes and collections as cultural and intellectual entrepôts: Keblusek 2011.
12 This might be the Verrath Christi gantz Groß mit vielen Bildern von Jaques Jordans, mentioned under no. 60 in the inventory of Ovens’ widow (valued at 240 Mark): Hampke 1896/97, p. 469; Schmidt 1913A, p. 64; Schmidt 1914A, p. 42; Lurie 1972, pp. 67, 76, notes 4–5; Lurie 1982, p. 19; Köster 2017, p. 324. The Cleveland Betrayal, however, was only first mentioned in an inventory of the paintings at Gaunø Castle in Denmark in 1876, where it could have hung since Count Otto Thott (1703–1785) made it his residence in 1737. The work was acquired by the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1970. A large Betrayal by Jordaens was sold in Amsterdam in 1703 (no measurements and provenance provided) for 282 Guilders. Perhaps this is the painting that hung in Gaunø in 1876, and is in Cleveland now. See Lange 1876, pp. 43–44, no. 42; Hoet 1752, vol. 1, p. 69, no. 3.