Jan Lievens

Allegory of Peace

1652

Inscriptions

  • monogram and date, bottom centre, on the scabbard:I.L. / 1652.

Technical notes

Support The support consists of six pieces of what appears to be similar plain-weave canvas, and has been wax-resin lined. It is composed of four horizontal strips (approx. 20, 84.5, 110.5, 6 cm x approx. 165 cm) and two vertical ones on the left and right (approx. 28 and 15 cm wide). All tacking edges have been preserved, though those at the bottom and on the right have been trimmed slightly. No cusping appears to be present.
Preparatory layers The double ground, which is similar on all pieces of canvas, extends up to the tacking edges. Both layers contain comparable mixtures of various brown pigments, with some white, dark red, orange-red and black pigment particles.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye, infrared photography or infrared reflectography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the tacking edges. A first sketch indicating the composition was made in a dark brown or black paint. It shows through in the shadows of some of the flesh colours, for instance in the neck of the Pax figure seated in the middle, and is also visible in infrared images. Cross-sections reveal a complex build-up of up to seven or eight layers of paint. The lit and shadowed areas of the flesh colours were smoothly blended. The shadows were often accentuated with a translucent brown paint, which continues over the contours locally, softening the outlines and giving them a somewhat blurred look. The clothing was executed loosely, especially Pax’s white dress and red drapery, in which loose, wet-in-wet, zigzag highlights and shadows were added over a mid-tone. Drips of what appears to be original paint are visible in the yellow dress of the woman behind the helmeted Minerva and in the lower right corner of the composition. The paint layers are dense and smooth, with impasto used for highlights. Infrared reflectography revealed that some of the contours indicated in the initial sketch were not exactly followed. Minerva’s right shin, for example, was placed slightly further to the right, as was the profile of the woman behind her. Other outlines were adjusted in the final painting stages, as is visible with the naked eye, for instance in the area just above the putto with the olive branch at the top left, where the initial, broader version of the right hip and thigh shows through.
Ige Verslype, Esther van Duijn, 2025

Scientific examination and reports

  • infrared photography: I. Verslype, RMA, 7 januari 2010
  • paint samples: I. Verslype, RMA, nos. SK-A-612/1-6, 7 januari 2010
  • technical report: I. Verslype, RMA, 7 januari 2010
  • infrared reflectography: A. Wallert, RMA, 14 februari 2013
  • paint samples: A. Wallert, RMA, nos. 220/1-10, 14 februari 2013

Literature scientific examination and reports

E. van Rietschoten et al., ‘Painting by the Rules of Art: The Groot Schilderboek on Technique: Lievens and De Lairesse compared’, in A. Wallert (ed.), Painting Techniques: History, Materials and Studio Practice, Amsterdam 2016, pp. 138-44, esp. pp. 141-42

Condition

Fair. The paint has been flattened by lining and some moating of impasto has occurred. A distinct, wide craquelure and abrasion are visible throughout, most clearly along the seams. Small areas of retouching can be seen overall, especially over the seams. The putto in the upper left corner has been overpainted for the most part, as have larger areas along the right edge. Alligator cracks are apparent in the darker areas. The thick varnish is irregular and has severely yellowed.

Conservation

  • L. Hoogstede, 2008: retouchings adjusted and revarnished

Provenance

...; ? probate inventory, Jan Lievens, Amsterdam, 3 July 1674 (‘Een groot stuck de Vrede’; fl. 100);1A. Bredius, Künstler-Inventare, I, The Hague 1915, p. 187, no. 1....; transferred from the Ministry of Finance, Spinhuissteeg, Amsterdam, to the museum, 18772NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 160, no. 153 (28 May 1877, no. 52); NHA, ARM, Kop., inv. 39, p. 235, nos. 34 (1 June 1877), 35 (1 June 1877).

ObjectNumber: SK-A-612

The artist

Biography

Jan Lievens (Leiden 1607 - Amsterdam 1674)

According to the account published by the Leiden burgomaster and town chronicler Jan Jansz Orlers in 1641, Jan Lievens was born on 24 October 1607 in Leiden. His parents were Lieven Hendricxz, an embroiderer, and Machtelt Jansdr van Noortsant. When he was 8, his father apprenticed him to the Leiden artist Joris van Schooten, ‘from whom he learned the principles of both drawing and painting’.3Taken from the translation by Ruth Koenig of Huygens’s autobiographical fragment in C. Vogelaar et al., Rembrandt & Lievens in Leiden: ‘Een jong en edel schildersduo’/Rembrandt & Lievens in Leiden: ‘A Pair of Young and Noble Painters’, exh. cat. Leiden (Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal) 1991-92, p. 138. About two years later, in 1617 or 1618, the child prodigy was sent to study with Pieter Lastman in Amsterdam. Upon his return to Leiden at the age of 12 Lievens set up a studio in his father’s house. Although not documented and not mentioned by Orlers, the style of his early works suggests that Lievens probably also spent some time in Utrecht and possibly Antwerp in the early 1620s. Indeed, instead of the small-scale, multi-figure histories for which Lastman is well known, Lievens’s early output consists primarily of broadly rendered, large-scale compositions with only one or a few half-length figures, shown life-size or larger than life. Lievens’s choice of biblical, allegorical and genre subjects in the 1620s also reflects the influence of the Utrecht Caravaggisti, Gerard van Honthorst, Hendrick ter Brugghen and Dirck van Baburen, as well as that of the great Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens. In addition to history and genre pieces, the young Leiden artist executed tronies, still lifes and portraits in this period, and became a talented printmaker. As his earliest signed and dated painting is from 1629,4Capuchin Monk Praying, Monteviot House, Jedburgh, Scotland, Marquess of Lothian Collection; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, p. 1877. the chronology of the first decade of his output has been, and still is, open to debate.

Lievens began working closely with Rembrandt after the latter arrived back in Leiden around 1625 from a six-month apprenticeship with Lastman in Amsterdam. While the notion that the two shared a studio in Leiden is not supported by the early accounts of their careers – in fact, Orlers explicitly states that Rembrandt ‘decided to engage in and practice the art of painting entirely on his own’ after his return – Lievens and Rembrandt often treated the same subject matter, for example Samson and Delilah, the raising of Lazarus and Christ on the Cross.5For Lievens’s Samson and Delilah of c. 1626-27 in the Rijksmuseum see SK-A-1627. Rembrandt’s version of 1628 is in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie; illustrated in J. Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, I, The Hague/Boston/London 1982, p. 250. For another one of the subject from c. 1626-27 attributed to Rembrandt by the present author, see SK-A-4096. Lievens’s 1631 Raising of Lazarus is in the Brighton Museum & Art Gallery; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, p. 1832. Rembrandt’s painting of the subject of c. 1630-31 is now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; illustrated in J. Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, I, The Hague/Boston/London 1982, p. 294. Lievens’s 1631 Christ on the Cross is in Nancy, Musée des Beaux-Arts; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, p. 1884. Rembrandt’s version from the same year is in the Le Mas-d’Agenais parish church; illustrated in J. Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, I, The Hague/Boston/London 1982, p. 338. The fijnschilders style that the two artists developed together in the second half of the 1620s was already making it difficult for appraisers and connoisseurs to differentiate their hands during their lifetimes. Lievens’s early work was much sought after, at first by Leiden patrons, including his earliest biographer, Orlers. In 1628, Lievens and Rembrandt were visited in their respective studios by the stadholder’s secretary, Constantijn Huygens, the most powerful cultural broker in the Dutch Republic. Lievens ingratiated himself with Huygens by requesting to paint his likeness,6SK-A-1467. and soon thereafter the court in The Hague began to acquire his work and offer him commissions. Some of Lievens’s pictures were also acquired by Sir Robert Kerr, representative of the English crown in The Hague, and in 1631 the exiled king of Bohemia, Frederick V, and his consort Elizabeth, a sister of King Charles I of England, commissioned Lievens to portray their son Prince Charles Louis, who was studying in Leiden at the time.7Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, p. 1825.

In February 1632, Lievens moved to London where, according to Orlers, he painted portraits of King Charles I and his family, as well as various lords. Those works have not survived and little is known about Lievens’s output and career during his English period, which lasted until 1635. It was perhaps Anthony van Dyck’s return to England in the spring of 1635 that prompted Lievens to leave for Antwerp, where he registered as a member of the Guild of St Luke in that year and acquired citizenship in December 1640. In 1638, he married Susanna de Nole, daughter of the sculptor Andries Colijns de Nole. His father-in-law’s connections may have helped Lievens secure the commissions for two large altarpieces for the Jesuit churches in Antwerp and Brussels.8The Holy Family, Antwerp, St Charles Borromeo Church; W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, p. 1843. The Visitation painted for the Jesuit church in Brussels is now in Paris, Musée du Louvre; illustrated in ibid., p. 1835. Also in this period Lievens carried out a commission for Stadholder Frederik Hendrik and painted a monumental Magnanimity of Scipio for the council chamber of Leiden Town Hall, for which he was paid 1,500 guilders and awarded a gold medal.9The commission from Frederik Hendrik is only known from Orlers’s account. The Magnanimity of Scipio, executed between 1639 and 1641, was destroyed by fire in 1929; illustrated in A.K. Wheelock Jr, ‘Jan Lievens: Bringing New Light to an Old Master’, in A.K. Wheelock Jr et al., Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered, exh. cat. Washington (National Gallery of Art)/Milwaukee (Milwaukee Art Museum)/Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 2008-09, pp. 1-27, esp. p. 17, fig. 19. Besides history pieces, Lievens executed tronies and genre scenes during his Antwerp period, and branched out in the field of painting to produce landscapes and in the graphic arts into the medium of the woodcut. He completely abandoned his early style in favour of one heavily indebted to Adriaen Brouwer, Van Dyck and Rubens.

In 1644, Lievens moved with his wife and child to Amsterdam, where he first rented a room as either living or studio space from the artist couple Jan Miense Molenaer and Judith Leyster. Susanna de Nole died shortly afterward and Lievens married Cornelia de Bray, daughter of an Amsterdam notary, in 1648. Probably in the same year, he was commissioned to paint one of the works, The Five Muses, for the cycle of allegories commemorating the life of Frederik Hendrik in the Oranjezaal (Orange Hall) in Huis ten Bosch, which was completed in 1650.10In situ; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, p. 1845. Frederik Hendrik and Amalia van Solms’s eldest daughter Louise Henriette married the Elector of Brandenburg, Friedrich Wilhelm von Hohenzollern, in 1646. In 1652, Lievens was invited to contribute to the decorations of their country seat, Schloss Oranienburg near Berlin. He moved there in 1653 and executed a large portrait historié of the couple as well as mythological scenes.11The portrait historié (Stiftung Preussische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg, Jagdschloss Grunewald) is illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, p. 1847. For the other decorations of Schloss Oranienburg see G. Bartoschek, Gemälde aus dem Schloss Oranienburg, exh. cat. Oranienburg (Kreismuseum Oberhavel) 1978. See also the entry on SK-A-612.

Lievens returned to the Dutch Republic and resided in The Hague from 1654 until March 1659 at the latest. In 1656, he was involved in setting up Confrerie Pictura, a new painters’ confraternity that broke away from the local Guild of St Luke. Lievens received several important private and public commissions in these years, not only in The Hague but also in Amsterdam. For example, he was commissioned in 1655 to execute a large overmantel of Quintus Fabius Maximus and his Son for the burgomasters’ chamber of Amsterdam Town Hall, for which he was paid 1,500 guilders.12In situ; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, p. 1850. Although he remained a non-resident member of the Confrerie Pictura in The Hague in 1660-61, Lievens moved back to Amsterdam by March 1659, probably with an eye to securing the commission for the series of eight monumental paintings for the lunettes of the Burgerzaal (Citizens’ Hall) in the Town Hall. After Govert Flinck, who had been awarded that project, died in 1660 before being able to execute them, Lievens was given the task of painting one of the lunettes, Brinio Raised on a Shield, for which he earned 1,200 guilders.13In situ; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, p. 1852. Another important assignment in the 1660s was for an enormous Mars (Allegory of War) for Pieter Post’s newly constructed Statenzaal, the assembly room of the States of Holland and West Friesland in the Binnenhof in The Hague.14In situ; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, p. 1886. Lievens completed this canvas in 1664 and in the same year set off for Cleves, probably in the hope of being selected to work on the decorations of Johan Maurits of Nassau’s newly renovated Schwanenburg Castle, another architectural project based on designs by Pieter Post. Lievens’s sojourn in Cleves is veiled in mystery and it is only known that by the spring of 1666 he was back in Amsterdam, where he remained until 1669. He spent the last five years of his life constantly on the move, living alternately in The Hague, Leiden and Amsterdam. Due at least in part to non-payments by some of his patrons, which was exacerbated by the economic malaise brought on by the Third Anglo-Dutch War (1672-74), Lievens experienced financial problems during much of his later career and died in poverty in Amsterdam in June 1674.

Throughout his career Lievens had several pupils, none of whom became significant artists in their own right. It was probably as early as his Leiden period that he instructed his younger brother Dirk (c. 1612-1650), who is known to have executed a few portraits around 1640. The otherwise obscure Hans van den Wijngaerde, who trained with Lievens in Antwerp for six years beginning in 1636, is his earliest documented pupil. According to Houbraken, who does not specify where the apprenticeship took place, Hendrik Schoock (1630-1707) from Utrecht was with Lievens after having studied with Abraham Bloemaert and before going on to Jan Davidsz de Heem. Based on Schoock’s date of birth, this would have been either in Antwerp, where De Heem was also active, or in Amsterdam shortly after Lievens moved there in 1644. In 1662, Erick van den Weerelt (1648-1715) was apprenticed by the Amsterdam Civic Orphanage to Lievens for a period of three years. The contract was extended for another three years in 1665. Lievens’s use of student help to execute some of his works is documented. According to his own testimony, his eldest son, Jan Andrea (1644-1680), painted the 1666 Geographer, an overmantel in the Gemeenlandshuis of the Rijnland polder board in Leiden, after his father’s design and with his assistance.15In situ; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, p. 1887. He is also recorded in Lievens’s studio in Amsterdam in 1669 together with two Jewish assistants, Aron de Chavez (c. 1647-1705) and Jacob Cardoso Ribero (c. 1643-?), and a wealthy amateur, Jonas Witsen (1647-1675). Lievens’s last documented pupil was Dionys Godijn (c. 1652/57-after c. 1682), whose father apprenticed him to the master in The Hague for a period of two years beginning in 1670.

From contemporary sources it appears that Lievens was rather arrogant. Huygens detected this personality defect even in the youthful artist: ‘My only objection is his stubbornness, which derives from an excess of self-confidence’.16Taken from the translation by Ruth Koenig in C. Vogelaar et al., Rembrandt & Lievens in Leiden: ‘Een jong en edel schildersduo’/Rembrandt & Lievens in Leiden: ‘A Pair of Young and Noble Painters’, exh. cat. Leiden (Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal) 1991-92, pp. 132-34. Judging from a remark made by Sir Robert Kerr in a 1654 letter to his son, Lievens retained a sense of excessive self-esteem in his maturity as well: ‘[he] has so high a conceit of himself that he thinks there is none to be compared with him in all Germany, Holland, nor the rest of the seventeen provinces.’17Quoted in H. Schneider and R.E.O. Ekkart, Jan Lievens: Sein Leben und seine Werke, Amsterdam 1973, p. 303.

Jonathan Bikker, 2025

References
J.J. Orlers, Beschrijving der stad Leyden, Leiden 1641, pp. 375-77; P. Angel, Lof der Schilderkonst, Leiden 1642 – trans. M. Hoyle and annot. H. Miedema, ‘Philips Angel, Praise of Painting’, Simiolus 24 (1996), pp. 227-58, esp. pp. 245-46; J. von Sandrart, Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675: Leben der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister, ed. A.R. Peltzer, Munich 1925 (ed. princ. Nuremberg 1675), p. 186; A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, I, Amsterdam 1718, pp. 212, 296-301; P. Rombouts and T. van Lerius, De Liggeren en andere historische archieven der Antwerpsche Sint Lucasgilde, onder zinspreuk ‘Wt jonsten versaemt’, II, Antwerp/The Hague 1876, pp. 61, 69, 139; F.J.P. van den Branden, Geschiedenis der Antwerpsche schilderschool, Antwerp 1883, pp. 863-66; J.A. Worp, ‘Constantijn Huygens over de schilders van zijn tijd’, Oud Holland 9 (1891), pp. 106-36, esp. pp. 125-31; E.W. Moes, ‘Jan Lievens’, Leids Jaarboekje 4 (1907), pp. 136-64; A. Bredius, Künstler-Inventare, I, The Hague 1915, pp. 186-227; Schneider in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XXIII, Leipzig 1929, pp. 214-15; H. Schneider, Jan Lievens: Sein Leben und seine Werke, Haarlem 1932, pp. 1-10, 277-85, 289-303; W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, pp. 1764-72; J. Bruyn, ‘Review of W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986’, Oud Holland 102 (1988), pp. 322-33, esp. pp. 327-28; E. Duverger, Antwerpse kunstinventarissen uit de zeventiende eeuw, IV, Brussels 1989, p. 224, no. 1034; R. de Jager, ‘Meester, leerjongen, leertijd: Een analyse van zeventiende-eeuwse Noord-Nederlandse leerlingcontracten van kunstschilders, goud- en zilversmeden’, Oud Holland 104 (1990), pp. 69-111, esp. pp. 74, 98-99, doc. nos. 11, 12, 15, p. 102, doc. no. 31; P.J.M. de Baar and I.W.L. Moerman, ‘Rembrandt van Rijn en Jan Lievens, inwoners van Leiden’, in C. Vogelaar et al., Rembrandt & Lievens in Leiden: ‘Een jong en edel schildersduo’/Rembrandt & Lievens in Leiden: ‘A Pair of Young and Noble Painters’, exh. cat. Leiden (Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal) 1991-92, pp. 24-38; E. Duverger, Antwerpse kunstinventarissen uit de zeventiende eeuw, V, Brussels 1991, pp. 100-01; Domela Nieuwenhuis in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, XIX, New York 1996, pp. 347-50; J.G.C.A. Briels, Vlaamse schilders en de dageraad van Hollands Gouden Eeuw 1585-1630, Antwerp 1997, pp. 352-53; A.K. Wheelock Jr, ‘Jan Lievens: Bringing New Light to an Old Master’, in A.K. Wheelock Jr et al., Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered, exh. cat. Washington (National Gallery of Art)/Milwaukee (Milwaukee Art Museum)/Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 2008-09, pp. 1-27

Entry

In this allegorical representation by Jan Lievens of 1652, Pax (Peace) is depicted as a young woman in a white gown and red cloth holding an olive branch in her right hand. Identifiable by her plumed helmet, Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, places a laurel wreath on Pax’s head, while a scowling Mars, the god of war, lies shackled at her feet. His impotence is underscored by a putto beating the war drum on the right and by two others on the left playing with the very chains that bind him. Yet more putti hover in the air holding an olive branch, a floral wreath and a bouquet of flowers. Two women on the right carry large cornucopia, filled literally with the fruits of peace.18The iconography of the painting was first elucidated in J.W. Kaiser, Beschrijving der schilderijen van het Rijksmuseum te Amsterdam, met historische aanteekeningen en facsimilés der naamteekens, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1880, pp. 186-87.

Peter Paul Rubens employed similar iconography, but with a more energetic composition, for his Minerva Protects Pax from Mars painted in 1629-30 as a gift for Charles I of England.19London, The National Gallery. The iconographic precedent set by Rubens’s painting is pointed out by DeWitt in A.K. Wheelock Jr et al., Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered, exh. cat. Washington (National Gallery of Art)/Milwaukee (Milwaukee Art Museum)/Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 2008-09, p. 174. Stylistically, however, Lievens’s Allegory of Peace is indebted to both Rubens and Anthony van Dyck. The clear and bold colouring, the shimmering fabrics and elegant figure style could have been derived from either artist’s work. Minerva shown in profile and the putto seen from behind were probably inspired by the Rubens of 1629-30. The very dark complexion Lievens gave his Mars was also used by Rubens and Van Dyck for their male figures. The latter’s unique contribution to Lievens’s manner, as evidenced in the present allegory, is their sfumato treatment. In this respect, Van Dyck’s 1629 Rinaldo and Armida, also in the collection of Charles I during Lievens’s English period,20Baltimore Museum of Art. For this painting see S.J. Barnes et al., Van Dyck: A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, New Haven/London 2004, pp. 294-95, no. III. 61 (ill.). and his Amaryllis and Mirtillo of around 1632, which Lievens could have seen in the stadholder’s collection in The Hague,21Pommersfelden, Schloss Weissenstein, Graf von Schönborn Collection. For this painting see S.J. Barnes et al., Van Dyck: A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, New Haven/London 2004, pp. 293-94, no. III. 60 (ill.). probably served as the models. The brilliant azure sky in Allegory of Peace was perhaps also borrowed from Van Dyck’s Amaryllis and Mirtillo.

As Lievens’s painting is dated 1652, the peace celebrated here is probably the one concluded by the signing of the Treaty of Münster in 1648. The size of the canvas as well as its subject indicate that it was a commission. As Pax has a contemporary hairstyle and clothing it seems likely that she was intended as a portrait historié. It has been suggested that she is Countess Louise Henriette of Nassau, the eldest daughter of Frederik Hendrik and Amalia van Solms, and from 7 December 1646 the consort of Friedrich Wilhelm von Hohenzollern, Elector of Brandenburg from 1640 until his death in 1688.22This identification was first suggested by Jacob in R. Klessmann (ed.), Jan Lievens: Ein Maler im Schatten Rembrandts, exh. cat. Braunschweig (Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum) 1979, pp. 110, 112. In 1650, Lievens executed The Five Muses, one of the works in the cycle of allegories in the Oranjezaal (Orange Hall) in Huis ten Bosch in The Hague ordered by Amalia van Solms to commemorate Frederik Hendrik’s life.23In situ; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, p. 1845. He also produced a number of pictures in 1653 and 1654, including a portrait historié of Friedrich Wilhelm and Louise Henriette as Mars and Venus,24Stiftung Preussische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg, Jagdschloss Grunewald; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, p. 1847. for the couple’s country seat, Schloss Oranienburg near Berlin. In 1654, he was appointed the elector’s court painter. Work on Schloss Oranienburg had begun in 1651 and from 1652 onwards a number of artists, mostly Dutch, contributed paintings for its decoration.25For those decorations see G. Bartoschek, Gemälde aus dem Schloss Oranienburg, exh. cat. Oranienburg (Kreismuseum Oberhavel) 1978. Lievens’s Allegory of Peace may have been among them. Taking a certain amount of idealization into account, the figure of Pax, with her sharp nose, small mouth and rounded chin, does resemble Louise Henriette as we know her from other portraits, such as Lievens’s aforementioned Mars and Venus. The present allegory, however, may also be identical with ‘Een groot stuck de Vrede’ listed in the inventory drawn up after Lievens’s death in 1674.26See Provenance. If the present picture was indeed commissioned for Schloss Oranienburg and was the one later itemized in Lievens’s posthumous inventory, it may have been rejected by Louise Henriette and Friedrich Wilhelm. Unfortunately, the only certainty regarding the provenance of the Allegory of Peace is that is was transferred to the Rijksmuseum from the offices of the Ministry of Finance in Spinhuissteeg, Amsterdam, in 1877.27See Provenance.

Jonathan Bikker, 2025

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

H. Schneider, Jan Lievens: Sein Leben und seine Werke, Haarlem 1932, pp. 65, 120, no. 115; Jacob in R. Klessmann (ed.), Jan Lievens: Ein Maler im Schatten Rembrandts, exh. cat. Braunschweig (Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum) 1979, pp. 110-13, no. 37; W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, p. 1786, no. 1207, with earlier literature; DeWitt in A.K. Wheelock Jr et al., Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered, exh. cat. Washington (National Gallery of Art)/Milwaukee (Milwaukee Art Museum)/Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 2008-09, p. 174, no. 49

Collection catalogues

1880, pp. 186-87, no. 199; 1887, p. 104, no. 873; 1903, p. 161, no. 1459; 1934, p. 167, no. 1459; 1960, p. 176, no. 1459; 1976, p. 347, no. A 612

Citation

Jonathan Bikker, 2025, 'Jan Lievens, Allegory of Peace, 1652', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6951

(accessed 6 June 2025 10:40:10).

Footnotes

  • 1A. Bredius, Künstler-Inventare, I, The Hague 1915, p. 187, no. 1.
  • 2NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 160, no. 153 (28 May 1877, no. 52); NHA, ARM, Kop., inv. 39, p. 235, nos. 34 (1 June 1877), 35 (1 June 1877).
  • 3Taken from the translation by Ruth Koenig of Huygens’s autobiographical fragment in C. Vogelaar et al., Rembrandt & Lievens in Leiden: ‘Een jong en edel schildersduo’/Rembrandt & Lievens in Leiden: ‘A Pair of Young and Noble Painters’, exh. cat. Leiden (Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal) 1991-92, p. 138.
  • 4Capuchin Monk Praying, Monteviot House, Jedburgh, Scotland, Marquess of Lothian Collection; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, p. 1877.
  • 5For Lievens’s Samson and Delilah of c. 1626-27 in the Rijksmuseum see SK-A-1627. Rembrandt’s version of 1628 is in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie; illustrated in J. Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, I, The Hague/Boston/London 1982, p. 250. For another one of the subject from c. 1626-27 attributed to Rembrandt by the present author, see SK-A-4096. Lievens’s 1631 Raising of Lazarus is in the Brighton Museum & Art Gallery; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, p. 1832. Rembrandt’s painting of the subject of c. 1630-31 is now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; illustrated in J. Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, I, The Hague/Boston/London 1982, p. 294. Lievens’s 1631 Christ on the Cross is in Nancy, Musée des Beaux-Arts; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, p. 1884. Rembrandt’s version from the same year is in the Le Mas-d’Agenais parish church; illustrated in J. Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, I, The Hague/Boston/London 1982, p. 338.
  • 6SK-A-1467.
  • 7Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, p. 1825.
  • 8The Holy Family, Antwerp, St Charles Borromeo Church; W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, p. 1843. The Visitation painted for the Jesuit church in Brussels is now in Paris, Musée du Louvre; illustrated in ibid., p. 1835.
  • 9The commission from Frederik Hendrik is only known from Orlers’s account. The Magnanimity of Scipio, executed between 1639 and 1641, was destroyed by fire in 1929; illustrated in A.K. Wheelock Jr, ‘Jan Lievens: Bringing New Light to an Old Master’, in A.K. Wheelock Jr et al., Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered, exh. cat. Washington (National Gallery of Art)/Milwaukee (Milwaukee Art Museum)/Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 2008-09, pp. 1-27, esp. p. 17, fig. 19.
  • 10In situ; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, p. 1845.
  • 11The portrait historié (Stiftung Preussische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg, Jagdschloss Grunewald) is illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, p. 1847. For the other decorations of Schloss Oranienburg see G. Bartoschek, Gemälde aus dem Schloss Oranienburg, exh. cat. Oranienburg (Kreismuseum Oberhavel) 1978. See also the entry on SK-A-612.
  • 12In situ; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, p. 1850.
  • 13In situ; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, p. 1852.
  • 14In situ; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, p. 1886.
  • 15In situ; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, p. 1887.
  • 16Taken from the translation by Ruth Koenig in C. Vogelaar et al., Rembrandt & Lievens in Leiden: ‘Een jong en edel schildersduo’/Rembrandt & Lievens in Leiden: ‘A Pair of Young and Noble Painters’, exh. cat. Leiden (Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal) 1991-92, pp. 132-34.
  • 17Quoted in H. Schneider and R.E.O. Ekkart, Jan Lievens: Sein Leben und seine Werke, Amsterdam 1973, p. 303.
  • 18The iconography of the painting was first elucidated in J.W. Kaiser, Beschrijving der schilderijen van het Rijksmuseum te Amsterdam, met historische aanteekeningen en facsimilés der naamteekens, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1880, pp. 186-87.
  • 19London, The National Gallery. The iconographic precedent set by Rubens’s painting is pointed out by DeWitt in A.K. Wheelock Jr et al., Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered, exh. cat. Washington (National Gallery of Art)/Milwaukee (Milwaukee Art Museum)/Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 2008-09, p. 174.
  • 20Baltimore Museum of Art. For this painting see S.J. Barnes et al., Van Dyck: A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, New Haven/London 2004, pp. 294-95, no. III. 61 (ill.).
  • 21Pommersfelden, Schloss Weissenstein, Graf von Schönborn Collection. For this painting see S.J. Barnes et al., Van Dyck: A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, New Haven/London 2004, pp. 293-94, no. III. 60 (ill.).
  • 22This identification was first suggested by Jacob in R. Klessmann (ed.), Jan Lievens: Ein Maler im Schatten Rembrandts, exh. cat. Braunschweig (Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum) 1979, pp. 110, 112.
  • 23In situ; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, p. 1845.
  • 24Stiftung Preussische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg, Jagdschloss Grunewald; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, III, Landau/Pfalz 1986, p. 1847.
  • 25For those decorations see G. Bartoschek, Gemälde aus dem Schloss Oranienburg, exh. cat. Oranienburg (Kreismuseum Oberhavel) 1978.
  • 26See Provenance.
  • 27See Provenance.