Caspar Netscher
A Woman Feeding a Parrot, with a Page
Netherlands/Holland (1666)
Oil on Panel, 45.7 × 36.2 cm.
medievalpoc reblogged
Masters of Bezborodko workshop, Master of the Brussels Hours
Initial G: Christ Among Doctors
Holland (c. 1490)
Illuminated Manuscript, 100 x 65 mm.
Illuminated Manuscript Collection, Princeton University Library, Garrett 53.
William Cornelisz
Family Group (detail)
Holland (c. 1631)
Oil on Panel, 56.5 cm × 73.4 cm.
Caspar Luyken
Kangxi (king of China)
Holland (1698)
Etching; Print on paper; 172 x 112 mm.
Jan Mijtens
Portrait of Margaretha van Raephorst with Servant (detail)
Holland (c. 1650)
Oil on Canvas, 135 × 105cm.
1800s Week!
skemono submitted to medievalpoc:
The above is a two-page illustration in the weekly news magazine London Illustrated News in 1888. It commemorates the 200-year anniversary of the Glorious Revolution, when William of Orange invaded England with Dutch forces and overthrew James II. Specifically, the image is supposed to depict the march into Exeter on November 9, 1688.
The following is from a broadside published just a week after William’s entrance into Exeter, describing the events. It was republished mostly verbatim in John Whittle’s An Exact Diary of the Late Expedition of His Illustrious Highness, the Prince of Orange a year later.
A True and Exact Relation of the Prince of Orange, His Publick Entrance Into Exeter
Since the foundation of Monarchy, Imperial Orations or the triumphs of the Cæsars, in the Manner, Grandeur and magnificence of their most sumptuous cavalcades, there was never any that exceeded this of the most Illustrious Hero the Prince of Orange his Entrance into Exeter, which was in manner and form following:
1. The Right Honourable the Earl of Macclesfield with 200 horse, the most part of which were English Gentlemen, Richly mounted on Flanders Steeds, manag’d and us’d to war in Headpieces, Back and Brest, Bright Armour.
2. 200 Blacks brought from the plantations of the Netherlands in America, Imbroyder’d Caps lined with white Fur and plumes of white Feathers to attend the Horse.
3. 200 Finlanders or Laplanders in Bear Skins taken from the Wild Beasts they had slain, the common Habbit of that cold Climat, with black Armour and Broad Flaming Swords.
…
The “plantations of the Netherlands in America” would be the Dutch colony of Surinam.
"The Revolution of 1688: William III Entering Exeter". London Illustrated News, November 3, 1888.
Aelbert Cuyp
The Baptism of the Eunuch
Holland (c. 1653)
Oil on canvas, 117 x 171 cm.
Anglesey Abbey, The Fairhaven Collection
[source]
Jan Steen
The Wrath of Ahasuerus
Holland (c. 1671)
Oil on Canvas, 167 x 129 cm.
King Ahasuerus rises in fury as his wife Esther reveals the treachery of his chief minister Haman, who cringes to the left.
According to Bible, Haman plotted to massacre the Jews in the Persian empire. Queen Esther summoned the two men to a banquet where she revealed the plot and her own Jewish identity. The King’s violent reaction overthrows a vase and a peacock pie – symbol of Haman’s fallen pride.
Jan Steen is better known for his exuberant scenes of peasant life, full of humour. Even in a biblical story, a love of melodramatic drama and colourful detail shines through.
Aelbert Cuyp
A Senior Merchant of the Dutch East India Company, Jacob Mathieusen and his Wife
Holland (c. 1640s)
Oil on Canvas, 138 x 208 cm.
Rembrandt van Rijn
The Toilet of Bathsheba
Holland (1643)
Oil on Wood, 57.2 x 76.2 cm.
Also of note: this painting has deteriorated badly, as is the case with several of Rembrandt's paintings because of certain varnishes used. A 1763 etching of the painting can be used to discern some of the details that have been obscured by time:
Hey! Since you're answering asks, I've had this tiny thing that's been bugging me for some time. In our history book (Palmer, Colton and Kramer) there's a picture of Rembrandt's 'Study of Two Black Heads'. The description ends with: "Rembrandt, though he never traveled more than 30 miles from his native Leyden, painted all types of people who streamed into the NLs, including these two men who had to cope with the strange European world into which they had been cast." Do you know more about (c)
(c) this painting or these two men? I always felt like it was a bit strange of the writers to assume these men were ‘completely new to Europe’ or anything. I was hoping you could bring some more perspective! (I get it if you have more important things to do though, haha.)
Hmmmm. I actually have no idea which work you’re talking about.
I mean, besides the silly remark about how he “never moved more than 30 miles away from Leiden”, because Amsterdam is 25 miles from Leiden. (and AFAIK it’s actually “Leiden”) So that right there is meant to invoke some kid of assumed provincial attitude on the part of Rembrandt or something, when he spent a huge chunk of his professional career in a bustling metropolis that was home to many of the greatest painters of that era. I mean, he had Grand Dukes from Italy (Cosimo III de’ Medici) coming to visit him in his house when he was in town.
I could give you more about the two men if I actually had the painting to look at, but as I said, I can’t seem to find anything on it. And I looked through 2 databases.
inkedtobringyouback
I have found it here, and here again on Wikipedia. Apparently the title gets changed everywhere from ‘two young africans’ to ‘two negroes’ to ‘twee moren’ (Dutch for ‘two moors’). And I am really glad you mentioned that about Leiden (I am Dutch, I know the proper spelling but the book changes lots of names of places), I had not come to my mind that he was trying to invoke a provincial attitude! That information makes that last sentence even stranger.
Yeahhhh, I just had a mini-rant about the titles.
I also mentioned that the description here says a lot more about people who write textbooks than it does about Rembrandt, Dutch cities, or the people in the painting. :|
Thanks for your perspective, too, because the mental disconnect there like Lieden/Amsterdam is/was some kind of small, backwards country town is really baffling, unless of course you're trying to Other the everloving crap out of a painting of two Black people.
Memnon Reviving at Sunrise
France/Netherlands (1733)
Tempel der Zanggodinnen.
Dutch Art: Mythology and the Aethiopes, or Ethiopians by Esther Schruder, Art Historian and Curator:
Although Biblical stories and mythological scenes are classified as history paintings, their content has a different import. Eroticism generally plays a major role in the representation of mythological stories which also offer greater opportunity for allusion and double entendre.
The mythological tales depicted in art during the sixteenth and seventeenth century derived from the classics, the works written by ancient Greeks and Romans, who called all black Africans Aethiopes, or Ethiopians. These classical authors, who were much read by artists in the Netherlands, accorded several Ethiopians a role in their stories.
The beautiful Andromeda, for example, nearly always portrayed as white, was actually Ethiopian in origin.
The Greek poet Homer (c. 800 – c. 750 BC) endowed the Ethiopians with a fabulous, almost supernatural status: he wrote that they came from the East, the land of the sun, were guiltless and fought under their king Memnon on the side of the Trojans in the Trojan War.
Almost certainly Homer did not know the exact location of Ethiopia.The Roman writer Pliny the Elder (AD 23 – 79) was also interested in the Ethiopians whom he described as a handsome race, the tallest people known, with skin burned by the sun and frizzy hair. He believed that Ethiopia lay in Nubia.
Later generations were better able to locate the country.
During the lifetime of the Greek writer Heliodorus of Emesa (third century AD) there was lively contact between the Greeks and Romans and ancient Ethiopia, which was also known as Aksum. Heliodorus was partly inspired by these relations to write a romantic tale he called Aethiopica, featuring a black Ethiopian royal couple, a white Andromeda and a white Ethiopian princess. The book was rediscovered centuries later and translated into French in 1547. In 1610 this was followed by a Dutch translation entitled De Moorenlandtsche gheschiedenissen, which enjoyed great, but brief, popularity.
Gerbrand Adriansz Bredero (1585 –1618) wrote a poem in praise of the book and school master David Beck (1594 –1634) noted in his journal, Spiegel van mijn leven, from 1624, that he was reading De Moorenlandtsche gheschiedenissen. Thus the classics formed a source of inspiration for sixteenth and seventeenth-century artists, some of whom included black Ethiopians in their images.
[source]
Rembrandt van Rijn
Christ Presented to the People
Lieden, Holland (c. 1655)
Drypoint on japan paper; second state of eight, 38.4 x 44.9 cm.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
[x]
Master of the Dark Eyes workshop, Marciana Group, van Ommeren of Guelders
Initial R: Adoration Scene in Margins
Holland (c. 1500)
Illuminated Manuscript, 55 x 50 mm.(miniature); 130 x 100 mm. (full page)
Princeton University Library, Illuminated Manuscript Collection, Garrett 57.
Among three Magi, the youngest, black Magus, with sword at waist, holds gold vessel, and the middle-aged bearded Magus, wearing garment with ermine collar, holds salt cellar (?) with horn, both wearing crowns and hats, stand behind the eldest, bearded Magus, wearing garment with ermine collar, holding crown in right hand, beside gold vessel on ground, kneeling before nude Christ Child, cross-projecting nimbus, opening His hands, seated on lap of Virgin Mary, rays as nimbus, seated on ground, flanked above by two flying angels. Margins decorated with full, segmented borders of foliate and floreate ornament, including violas and gold strawberries.
Master of the Dark Eyes workshop, Marciana Group, van Ommeren of Guelders
The Magi Before Herod the Great
Holland (c. 1500)
Illuminated Manuscript, 55 x 50 mm.(miniature); 130 x 100 mm. (full page)
Princeton University Library, Illuminated Manuscript Collection, Garrett 57.
Magi: before Herod the Great -- Flanked by two attendants, one wearing hat, holding open book with two straps, and the other wearing garment with ermine collar, Herod the Great, wearing crown on hat, and garment with ermine collar, holding scepter in right hand, seated on throne, faces the eldest of three crowned Magi, rays as nimbus (?), white-haired and bearded, wearing ermine lined hat, with staff or scepter in left hand over left shoulder, extending right hand toward the kin. He is accompanied by two crowned Magi, the youngest as black, holding scepter. To right, male figure, wearing wrapped headgear, with sword in scabbard at waist, holds halberd, standing behind the Magi. Scene in room with two windows.
[mod note]
AUUUUGHHHH