Abstract
By tradition, the promising young artists of the Netherlands rounded off their education with a trip to the art centers of Italy.1 Honthorst’s itinerary has not yet been mapped out, but by studying the available documents, we know of several routes customarily taken by the young painters. Van Mander says that Hendrick Goltzius sailed from Amsterdam to Hamburg and then went overland to Rome, stopping at Munich, Venice, Bologna and Florence.2 Honthorst might also have crossed the Alps by way of the St. Gotthard Pass, as did his fellow-townsman Hendrick Terbrugghen on his return to Utrecht in 1614.3 Another possible route was to travel through France, possibly visiting Paris, and then taking a boat from Marseilles, landing at Livorno, Naples or Rome.
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References
J. J. Dodt van Flensberg, “Heyndrick Terbrugghen,” Berigten van het Historisch Genootschap te Utrecht, I (1846), 135.
G. J. Hoogewerff [“De Werken van Gerard Honthorst te Rome,” Onze Kunst, XXXI (1917), 42.] suggests that perhaps Honthorst was also in Venice.
M. E. Houtzager, “Opmerkingen over HetWerkvan HendrickTerbrugghen,” Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, VI, 1955, p. 149, writes that Professor Hoogewerff has told her of a Young Singer by Honthorst executed in 1609. She goes on to say that this Honthorst painting is the same composition as Terbrugghen’s signed and dated picture in the Museum in Gothenburg. Professor Hoogewerff has informed me that Miss Houtzager has misunderstood him and that he knows of no picture by Honthorst from 1609.
J. G. van Gelder, “Honthorstiana,” Kunsthistorische Mededelingen van het Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, I(1946), 57.
Ibid., p. 50, fig. 5. Hoogewerff (Ibid., p. 88f.) writes that the Mocking of Christ in Santa Maria della Concezione, Rome, was executed by Honthorst ca. 1614-16, however, in a letter recently received from Prof. Hoogewerff, he states that he no longer accepts the Santa Maria della Concezione picture, but that it is a copy replacing the original which was removed at an unknown date to a new cloister, used as a summer residence for young seminary students, somewhere in the mountains. The painting in Santa Maria della Goncezione was cleaned around 1938, according to Hoogewerff, and it was at this time that he and others realized that it was a copy.
R. Longhi [“Caravaggio en de Nederlanden,” Paragone, XXXIII (1952), 56] also does not accept this painting. The author has been unable to trace the present location of the original painting.
Roberto Longhi (F. Zeri, La Galleria Spada, Florence, 1954, p. 89, no. 289, fig. 108) attributes the Sta. Maria in Aquiro paintings to an unknown follower of Honthorst, the same painter who executed the Taking of Christ in the Galleria Spada, Rome. The author can see little connection between the Spada painting and those in Sta. Maria in Aquiro and has placed the Spada picture in the group attributed to Grijn Hendricksz. Volmarijn [J. R. Judson, “Possible Additions to Crijn Hendricksz Volmarijn,” Oud-Holland (Mededelingen R. K. D.), LXX (1955), 184ff., fig. 7].
After having dated The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist in 1618 on stylistic grounds, Miss Eve Borsook later informed me that this date was further justified through documents which she had found in the State Archives in Rome. See E. Borsook, “Documents Concerning the Artistic Associates of Santa Maria della Scala in Rome,” The Burlington Magazine, XCVI (1954), 271.
A. von Schneider [“Eine Vorzeichnung Honthorsts zu der ‘Befreiung Petri’ des Kaiser Friedrich-Museums,” Berliner Museen, Berichte aus den Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, XLIX (1928), 113ff.] has attributed to Honthorst a drawing of The Liberation of Saint Peter, formerly in the Kupferstichkabinet, Dresden, which had previously been given to Abraham Bloemaert. Von Schneider believes that it is a preliminary study for the Berlin painting. The authorship of the drawing is debatable, but one cannot eliminate it from this study. The angel pushing the door open and rushing into the scene with one arm extended and a shaft of light entering the scene on a diagonal are motifs original with Honthorst. The composition is cluttered with extra figures and symbols of the prison which do not coincide with Honthorst’s inclination (ca. 1618–1620) toward simplification. The abnormally-long arm of the angel, the decorative and complicated pattern of his drapery and the filling of the scene with figures and objects which crowd and cramp the picture are all characteristics which do not look forward but which point to the retardataire style of the mannerists. If Honthorst executed this drawing, he must have completed it early in his career. The drawing might, however, be a pastiche combining Honthorst’s figures and ideas with those of Domenichino and Raphael.
The style of the Berlin Liberation indicates that it was completed several years after the Dresden drawing which I do not think was executed by Honthorst. The drawing has certain elements which originated in Domenichino’s 1604 Liberation of Saint Peter in San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome: the well-defined spatial area of the cell, the soldier sleeping on his feet in the background and St. Peter seated on the floor looking up in astonishment at the angel. Actually, both the drawing and the painting by Domenichino follow a direct line of development originating in Raphael’s Liberation of Saint Peter in the Vatican’s Stanza d’Eliodoro.
These statements help to prove that Honthorst was still in Rome in 1620 and did not have a studio in Florence as suggested by W. Suida, “Savoldo’s Paintings in the S. H. Kress Collection,” The Art Quarterly, XV, no. 2 (1952), 169 and Hoogewerff, op. cit., 1917, p. 144, note 3.
Prints of party scenes are known to have been in the North prior to the beginning of the seventeenth century. Joos van Winghe’s Dinner Party engraved by Jan Sadeler ca. 1588 might be considered as a precedent for Honthorst’s party scenes with candlelight. For illustrations of the print, the drawing for the print and the painting see the excellent article by R.-A. D’Hulst, “Nieuwe Gegevens omtrent Joos van Winghe als Schilder en Tekenaar,” Bulletin Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten, IV (1955), 239ff., figs. 1, 2, 4. There is also a Dinner Party designed by Goltzius and engraved by Jan Saenredam, which is lighted by candles and in which there is a very minute treatment of details. The composition is entirely different from Honthorst’s, but perhaps he could have received some stimulation from a print like this. In the Goltzius print there are candles blocked by human forms and a glow is cast behind the heads and into the faces of several of the participants as in Honthorst’s party in the Uffizi.
There are several paintings in the North known to have been completed early in the sixteenth century which have the same spirit as we find in the Honthorst dinner party. Lucas van Leyden executed three such paintings: The Card Players of ca. 1530 now in the Collection of the Earl of Pembroke at Wilton House; The Chess Game, formerly Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin; The Card Players, Ältere Pinakothek, Munich (For illustrations see M. Friedländer, Die Altniederländische Malerei, Leiden, X, 1934, p. 95. plates 75, 76, 77.). All depict a group of people gathered around a table intent on gaming. The figures are pushed close to the surface of the canvas and cut at the waist. This type of composition was not entirely new to the seventeenth century, but the methods of such artists as Caravaggio and his followers were the unique aspects which attracted Honthorst.
G. van Mander, op. cit., fol. 206, informs us that Geertgen attained fame during his lifetime and that Albrecht Dürer visited his studio in Haarlem. Van Mander’s statement must be scrutinized quite closely as he is not entirely reliable in his biographies (See E. Panofsky, Albrecht Dürer, I, 1943, p. 23.). There is no mention of a visit with Geertgen in the everyday account kept by Dürer on his 1520–1521 journey. As Panofsky points out, we must either discard van Mander’s story or assume that Dürer visited the Netherlands in 1490-91.
G. Richa, Notizie istoriche delle chiese Florentine, IX, part 1, 1761, p. 323f.
Mentioned in the will of September 19, 1617 left by Lodovicus Finsonius in Amsterdam [See A. Bredius, “lets over... Pieter Finson,” Oud-Holland, XXXVI (1918), 198f.].
R. Longhi, “La Notte del Rubens a Fermo,” Vita Artistica, X (1927), 191ff., pl. I. Mistakenly, a late 19th century guidebook attributed the painting to Honthorst (F. Raffaelli, Guida artistica di Fermo, 1879), but Longhi has rightly restored the altarpiece to Rubens.
An oil sketch of this subject is in Leningrad, and van Puyvelde states that it is probably a copy of a painting that Rubens executed ca. 1615 which is based upon the Fermo work (See L. van Puyvelde, Les Esquisses de Rubens, Bâle, 1940, p. 65, pl. I.).
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Judson, J.R. (1959). Honthorst in Italy. In: Gerrit van Honthorst. Utrechtse Bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschiedenis. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-6195-6_2
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