Introduction
Gitta Bertram, Britta Bode, Birgit U. Münch, Almut Pollmer-Schmidt, Friederike Schütt
Today, there is more Netherlandish art to be found in Germany than in any other country. Since the 17th century, Germany has been a major market for Dutch and Flemish paintings, drawings, and prints. Although this market has remained important, it reached its peak during the 18th century, when Netherlandish art was passionately collected at numerous courts and commercial centres. This focus on art from both the Northern and the Southern Netherlands can be observed in many important collections, such as, for instance, Schloss Weissenstein in Pommersfelden, residence of several prince-bishops of the Schönborn family, or Schloss Wilhemshöhe and the Gemäldegalerie in Kassel, dating back to Landgrave Wilhelm VIII (1682–1760). Wilhelm’s military career began in the early 1700s in the Netherlands, where he had been Governor of Breda and later of Maastricht, before becoming General of the Cavalry. Upon his return to Kassel in 1730, he began to collect paintings from the Netherlands and, among many others, managed to acquire 34 ‘Rembrandts.’ In Brunswick, it was Duke Anton Ulrich of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (1633–1714) who collected most of today’s art treasures and was fascinated by both large-format history paintings and genre paintings. He was an avid art collector and even at the age of 80 still travelled to the auction of the art collection of the governor Willem III of Orange in 1713.
Accordingly, Germany has had a long and unbroken tradition of great scholarship on Dutch and Flemish art, beginning with collectors and art critics such as, for example, Christian Ludwig von Hagedorn (1712–1718) and Wilhelm von Bode (1845–1929), as well as experts such as, for example, Wolfgang Stechow (1896–1974) or Horst Gerson (1907–1978).
This volume seeks to analyse the ways in which Netherlandish art was and is collected in the German speaking countries, and how this influenced not only scholarship but also the art market. The collected papers were presented at the international 2 day symposium organised by the RKD and ANKK: Collecting Dutch and Flemish Art in Germany 1600–1900, taking place in The Hague from 18 to 20 October 2018. Founded in 2008, the Arbeitskreis Niederländische Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte e. V. (ANKK) is the German Association for the Study of Netherlandish Art and Culture and as such offers an interdisciplinary platform for historians of art and culture from various professional backgrounds. Promoting the understanding of Dutch and Flemish art, architecture, and culture, the ANKK organizes international conferences, annual meetings, excursions, workshops, and study days for a new generation of researchers. In so doing, it provides a network for scholars of Dutch and Flemish art and culture in a German-speaking, as well as international, context.
In 2018, the RKD had just finished its project on cultural exchange between the Netherlands and Germany in their three-year project Gerson Digital: Germany. The foundation for this project was the pioneering publication by Horst Gerson (1907–1978), Ausbreitung und Nachwirkung der holländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts (Amsterdam 1983, ed. princ. Haarlem 1942), in which the circulation and imitation of Dutch paintings in Europe are treated by country. The symposium was the sequel to Masters of Mobility. Cultural Exchange between the Netherlands and Germany in the long 17th Century, a symposium held in 2017, our symposium and the contributions to this publication then focussed on the dispersal and afterlife of Netherlandish art in Germany, Austria, Bohemia and Silesia.
The first essay of this volume by Anne-Sophie Laruelle addresses the collecting of Netherlandish, mostly Flemish tapestries in Germany during the 16th century. Studying various important collections by German princes, she shows how Cranach’s woodcuts and Dürer’s engravings were used as designs for tapestries manufactured in Mechelen and Brussels for the German nobility.
The contributions of the following authors highlight the acquisition of art as a process within an international network of different participants: While Justus Lange contextualises the acquisitions of Landgrave Wilhelm VIII of Hessen-Kassel from an economic perspective, focussing mostly on the acquisition of a cabinet of 64 paintings from the Dutch art dealer Valerius Röver, Everard Korthals Altes quotes a little-known letter by the Dutch art dealer Gerard Hoet to the same client, which shows some of the criteria that art collectors used in the 18th century to assess paintings. Korthals Altes focusses on the small-sized Netherlandish paintings that were popular in the 18th century and came onto the (international) market in large numbers. He analyses the moment in which the structure of collections changes and ‘schools’ were introduced to organise both hanging and sales catalogues.
In turn, the collections showcase the prevalent canon of Dutch and Netherlandish Art at the time of their formation: This is also true for another notable German princely collection discussed by Gero Seelig, that of Christian Ludwig II (1683–1756), Duke of Mecklenburg. He describes the acquisitions drawing on both, a very good documentary basis and the fact that the Schwerin collection encapsulates a specific taste for Netherlandish art to this day. The author sketches the political, dynastic, and financial problems which led to Christian Ludwig’s appointment as Imperial Commissioner over Mecklenburg in 1732. This put him in a more powerful position which he wished to underscore by establishing an impressive art collection. To this end, Christian Ludwig regularly sent an agent to the important summer auctions in The Hague and Amsterdam and bought paintings from the stock of dealers and artists directly.
Within these courtly contexts, mobile artists acted as agents of both goods and taste: Jürgen Ovens, for instance, was the main supplier for the Dukes of Holstein-Gottorf. As Patrick Larsen shows, the ‘gentleman-painter’ and ‘gentleman-dealer’ owed this role as cultural mediator to his close ties with Rembrandt’s brother-in-law Gerrit Uylenburgh and his frequent travels back and forth to Amsterdam.
Other painters were instrumental for continuing the aesthetic preferences exemplified in Dutch and Flemish art: The Bohemian aristocrat Felix Sekerka von Sedcic, Count of Wrschowetz (1654–1720), who is the focal point of Claudia Hofstee’s contribution, not only added works by his contemporaries Johann Rudolf Bys and Johann Adalbert Angermeyer to his collection, but also commissioned them to create pendant pieces for paintings by celebrated artists of earlier generations. Later in the 18th century, Christian Seybold made it his trademark to emulate Old Masters and Rembrandt in particular. As Lilian Ruhe explicates, he even stylized his self-portraits after the renowned Old Master, in order to play a role in the contemporary discussions on art history led at the courts of Dresden and Vienna. With the late 18th century German painter Wilhelm Tischbein as its case study, Stefanie Rehm’s article deals with the historical development of connoisseurship. Using Tischbein’s memoir, she elaborates on the entertainment value of art collections and discusses the extant Wouwerman paintings depicting a Christian Knight which Tischbein might have seen in Amsterdam.
Coinciding with the new, Revolutionary (and later Revisionist) era following the societal changes in 1789, wealthy middle-class collectors became more and more important in Germany. The contribution by Julia Ellinghaus focusses on the Frankfurt confectioner Johann Valentin Prehn (1749–1821) with his extraordinary collection of more than 800 small-sized paintings. They were arranged in a Miniature Cabinet consisting of 32 foldable boxes. The ratio of Dutch and Flemish paintings to paintings from the German, Italian and French schools corresponds to other contemporary Frankfurt collections.
Stefan Bartilla introduces the physician, mineralogist and geographer Josef Hoser (1770‒1848), an avid art collector. His collection of 300 works of Flemish, Dutch and Central European art of the 17th and 18th centuries was the basis for the collection of the Society of Patriotic Friends of the Arts in Prague, which later became the National Gallery. The collection of Josef Hoser is a testimony of a historic canon of art and it is a bridge from the old masters to painters of the first half of 19th century, almost forgotten today.
We are very grateful to the many contributors to the symposium, especially those willing to publish their talks in this volume. Most importantly, however, we want to thank Rieke van Leeuwen for her support and her willingness to collaborate on both conference and publication.