Feigned Sculpted Bust of the Blessed Hieronymus Werdanus Set in a Feigned Stone Cartouche, Decorated with a Swag and Two Bunches of Flowers

? Commissioned by friar Antoon (1648-84), David Teniers’s II son, for the Franciscan friary in Mechelen¹¹J.B. Descamps, La vie des peintres flamands, allemands et hollandois, avec des portraits, 4 vols., Paris 1753-64, II, 1754, p. 158; for Teniers’s son Antoon, see P. Rombouts and T. van Lerius, De Liggeren en andere historische archieven der Antwerpsche Sint Lucasgilde, ondere zinspreuk: ‘Wt Ionsten Versaemt’, 2 vols., Antwerp/The Hague 1864-76 (reprint Amsterdam 1961), II, p. 385; Vlieghe in Nationaal Biografisch Woordenboek, Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten, 21- vols., Brussels 1964-, IV, p. 810; and S. Schoutens, Kunstschilders beeldhouwers en bouwkundigen der minderbroedersorde in België, Antwerp 1903, p. 13, note 1. Margret Klinge kindly provided his date of baptism, and his date of death (1684) in Mechelen; see also H. Vlieghe, David Teniers (1610-1690): A Biography, Turnhout 2011, p. 18. Antoon’s role in the commission is also repeated in the Nieuwen Verlichter der Konst-Schilders, Vernisseurs, Vergulders en Marmelaers, Ghent 1788, II, p. 243. to be displayed as one in a series of nineteen on the pillars of its church as part of the feast of thanksgiving for the beatification of the martyrs of Gorcum, 9-16 July 1676;²²‘De Minderbroeders...hadden hunne kercke seer verciert: aen de pilaren waeren gestelt de afbeldtsels van de xix. Martelaeren seer wel geschildert door David Teniers den jongen, omset met bloermen cransen door G.Gysaert... see [J.P.van Goethem],Twee hondert jaerigen jubel-galm opheldert door jouffrouw J.P.V.G..., 1772’, quoted in R. Tepe, Oog in Oog met de Martelaren van Gorcum , exh. cat. Gorcum (Gorcums Museum) 2012, under no. 4. See also H. Vlieghe, David Teniers (1610-1690): A Biography, Turnhout 2011, p. 123, note 116. the series was subsequently divided with the Franciscans in Leuven; the Mechelen friary was suppressed in 1796;³³M. Verjans O.F.M., ‘Het Cultuurleven te Mechelen’, in R. Foncke, E. Buskens and L. Lebeer, Mechelen de Heerlijke, Mechelen 1947, pp. 633-51, p. 636; L. Godenne, Malines jadis & aujourd’hui, Malines 1908, p. 388. perhaps sold by the Mechelen Franciscan friars, Mechelen (Laureys), 5 September 1811⁴⁴S. Schoutens, Kunstschilders beeldhouwers en bouwkundigen der minderbroedersorde in België, Antwerp 1903, p. 13; H. Vlieghe, David Teniers (1610-1690): A Biography, Turnhout 2011, pp. 123-24, note 119; R. Tepe, Oog in Oog met de Martelaren van Gorcum, exh. cat. (Gorcum) Gorcums Museum 2012, under no. 4. or in a sale by the Order, Mechelen, 5 October 1824;⁵⁵S. Schoutens, Kunstschilders beeldhouwers en bouwkundigen der minderbroedersorde in België, Antwerp 1903, p. 13; H. Vlieghe, David Teniers (1610-1690): A Biography, Turnhout 2011, pp. 123-24, note 119; R. Tepe, Oog in Oog met de Martelaren van Gorcum, exh. cat. (Gorcum) Gorcums Museum 2012, under no. 4. Roy Tepe, in his email 28 October 2017, kindly drew attention to later sales of paintings from the series: Mechelen (Elst), 10 April 1837, nos. 141, 152, 272, 276, 309, and anonymous sale, London (Christie’s), 1 March 1839, no. 108 and from Belgium, Mlle. Dusart (†) sale, Mechelen (Le Roy), 6 June 1854, no. 133. These were of martyrs Petrus Ascanus and Nicasius Hezius respectively; the paintings were subsequently in sales at Christie’s in 1963 and Budapest in 2011, see below....; sale, Comte Andor de Festetics de Tolna (1843-1930, Szelestic castle, near Szombathely, Hungary), Amsterdam (C.F. Roos), 22 January 1884 sqq., no. 58, fl. 230, to the museum⁶⁶NHA, ARS, Kop, inv. 39, pp. 342-43, no. 11 (3 March 1884); the lot was knocked down for fl. 200 to de Vries (whose name is inscribed on the reverse of the frame); information as to auction price from Roy Tepe, email 23 October 2017.

ObjectNumber: SK-A-800

This work jointly signed by Wouter Gysaerts and David Teniers II (1610-1690) was one of a series of nineteen portraying the so-called martyrs of Gorcum. Seven others are extant, offered in recent anonymous sales: two in London at Christie’s in 1963 and 1971, three on the Paris art market, 1994; one in Budapest in 2011, and another in London (Bonham’s) in 2015.⁹⁹Sale, London (Christie’s), 24 May 1963, no. 112; and 16 July 1971, no. 82; three on the Paris art market, 1994; Budapest (Nagyházi), 6 December 2011, no. 45; London (Bonham’s), 28 October 2015, no. 140. The updated list was kindly provided by Roy Tepe, e-mail 2 July 2017. Tepe, author of Oog in oog met de martelaren van Gorcum, exh. cat. Gorcums Museum 2012, is thanked for his help in compiling this entry. The configuration of the cartouches and arrangement of the flowers differ in each.

No other signed works by Gysaerts are known. He used the Latin form for his Christian name in this signature preceded by an ‘F’ for Frater and succeeded by ‘MIN’ for Minor. The series appears to be the only instance in which Teniers collaborated in this type of devotional painting, which had probably been developed by Daniel Seghers (1590-1661) in Antwerp from the late 1630s.¹⁰¹⁰M.-L. Hairs, Les peintres flamands de fleurs au XVIIe siècle, 2 vols., Brussels 1985 (ed. princ. Paris/Brussels 1955), p. 137.

From the evidence of Seghers’s catalogue of his output, it appears that he extended his speciality of flower still lifes to cartouches supplied to him together with a central motif filling the picture niche.¹¹¹¹W. Couvreur, ‘Daniel Seghers’ inventaris van door hem geschilderde bloemstukken’, Gentse Bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschiedenis den de Oudheidkunde 20 (1967), pp. 87-158, esp. p. 91. Whether this came to be normal practice is difficult to establish as there exist cartouches decorated with flowers in which the central portion has not been filled in.¹²¹²For instance, the pictures in Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, no. 1912; H.W. Keiser, Gemäldegalerie Oldenburg Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Munich 1966, p. 73; and anonymous sale, London (Christie’s), 13 December 1996, no. 309, signed and dated 1643. It seems likely that the cartouche was itself normally the work of an anonymous specialist, and this was probably the case in the present work. It is to be assumed that Teniers executed the feigned bust in the niche of the cartouche that was supplied to him and then passed the canvas to Gysaerts, who was presumably active in the friary in Mechelen.

As stated in the Provenance, Descamps recorded that Teniers painted the nineteen martyrs of Gorcum at the request of his son (i.e. Antoon, baptized on 12 June 1648), who was indeed a member of the Mechelen friary;¹³¹³J.B. Descamps, La vie des peintres flamands, allemands et hollandois, avec des portraits, 4 vols., Paris 1753-64, II, p. 158. Schoutens quotes Methode curieuse et facile pour la connaissance des tableaux et sculptures, Amsterdam 1772, which gives an early account of the commission, see S. Schoutens, Kunstschilders beeldhouwers en bouwkundigen der minderbroedersorde in België, Antwerp 1903, p. 12. The series was partly to be seen in the provinciaelskamer in the friary, with some others in the friary at Leuven. Vlieghe elaborated on the identification of the Rijksmuseum picture with this commission.¹⁴¹⁴Hans Vlieghe’s letter of 30 September 1982 (object file RMA); see also H. Vlieghe, David Teniers (1610-1690): A Biography, Turnhout 2011, p. 75 and notes 115-121. Hairs in 1955 first associated the present painting with the commission described by Descamps, see M.-L. Hairs, Les peintres flamands de fleurs au XVIIe siècle, 2 vols., Brussels 1985 (ed. princ. Paris/Brussels 1955). The names inscribed on the feigned busts are among those of the Franciscan friars hanged on the orders of Guillaume de la Marck, Lord of Lumey, leader of the Calvinist Sea Beggars (Watergeuzen), in a barn of a sacked monastery outside Den Briel on 9 July 1572.¹⁵¹⁵For a full account see P. Guérin, Les petits bollandistes: vies des saints d’ancien et du nouveau testament … d’après Le Père Giry, 17 vols., Paris 1878, VIII, pp. 196-219. Eight other Catholic clerics were also executed for refusing to renounce the authority of the pope and the doctrine of the real presence in the Eucharist. The gruesome events, that began with the capture of the citadel of Gorcum, in which the friars and religious had taken refuge on 26 June 1572, were recounted by Rutger, the nephew of the guardian of the Franciscan friary and a witness to the early events, to his brother Willem van Est (Guglielmus Estius), whose Historiae Martyrum Gorcomiensium … 1572 was published in Douai in 1603.¹⁶¹⁶The most recent edition, also annotated, is Wilhelm Estius, Geschichte der Martyrer von Gorcum, edited by C. and P. Barthold, Fohren-Linden 2013, as pointed out by Roy Tepe, e-mail 28 October 2017.

Hearings for the canonisation of the nineteen began in 1619 in the southern Netherlands.¹⁷¹⁷R. Tepe, Oog in oog met de martelaren van Gorcum, exh. cat. (Gorcum) Gorcums Museum 2012, pp. 21-22. On 24 November 1675 Pope Clement X celebrated the martyrs’ beatification in Rome.¹⁸¹⁸P. Guérin, Les petits Bollandistes: vies des saints d’ancien et du nouveau testament … d’après Le Père Giry, 17 vols., Paris 1878, VIII, p. 219. Long before, in 1615, their bones had been exhumed and taken to Brussels, from where they were distributed among Franciscan friaries in the southern Netherlands one of which was that in Mechelen.¹⁹¹⁹P. Guérin, Les petits bollandistes: vies des saints d’ancien et du nouveau testament … d’après Le Père Giry, 17 vols., Paris 1878, VIII, p. 219. In the museum painting the sitter’s name in the inscription is preceded by a ‘B’ for Beatus, for the martyrs were not canonised until 1867 and therefore until then bore the title ‘blessed’. As the series was installed on 9 July 1676, it can be safely concluded that it was executed in the first half of that year.²⁰²⁰An announcement of the feast celebrating the beatification is dated Brussels 1676; R. Tepe, Oog in oog met de martelaren van Gorcum, exh. cat. (Gorcum) Gorcums Museum 2012, p. 23, fig. 8, reproduces the frontispiece.

Hieronymus, whose sculpted bust Teniers depicted in the present painting, wears a friar’s habit and a noose about his neck (as do five of the other friars in the paintings listed above) in reference to the manner of his execution. Van Est described him as a native of Weert in the county of Horne and stated that he was about fifty at the time of his death. He was known as the pilgrim or knight of Jerusalem because of his previous service in the Franciscan friary in the Holy City, whence he had returned to his native town by 1549.²¹²¹G. Estius, Historiae Martyrum Gorcomiensum … qui profide catholia …inferfecti sunt … 1572, Leuven 1668, p. 308. He was appointed vicarius (vicar) at Gorcum in 1570.²²²²R. Tepe, Oog in oog met de martelaren van Gorcum, exh. cat. (Gorcum) Gorcums Museum 2012, under no 4. As his nickname of knight suggests, he may have been a member of a noble family whose coat of arms is on the socle. The arms (rendered in grisaille) – De gueules à la croix d’argent, cantonné de quatre croisettes pattées du même – are those of the Vercleren or Van der Cleren family of Brabant.²³²³J.-B. Rietstap, Armorial Générale, 2 vols., Gouda 1884-87, II, p. 987; V. Rolland (ed.), Armoiries des familles contenues dans l’Armorial général de J.-B. Rieststap (sic), 6 vols., Paris, VI, pl. XCIII. Roy Tepe, e-mail 2 July 2017, rejects the identification of the coat of arms claiming that it is a simplified rendering of the Jerusalem cross and would therefore refer to Weert’s sojourn in the Holy City.

Van Est recorded that Hieronymus was especially close to the guardian of the friary. His defiance was demonstrated by his kicking the Calvinist minister who exhorted him to renounce his faith as he mounted the ladder to the makeshift gallows. The prototype used by Teniers to render his features has not been identified; it may have been the engraving of circa 1617-18 by Jacob Matham I (1571-1631), although there the face is fuller and the tonsure is complete.²⁴²⁴L. Widerkehr and H. Leeflang, The New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings, and Woodcuts, 1450-1700: Jacob Matham, 3 vols., Ouderkerk aan de IJssel 2007-08, I, p. 245, no. 124; for early depictions of the martyrs and Matham’s prototypes, see R. Tepe, Oog in oog met de martelaren van Gorcum, exh. cat. (Gorcum) Gorcums Museum 2012, p. 12.

Gregory Martin, 2022

Vlieghe in Nationaal Biografisch Woordenboek, Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten, 21- vols., Brussels 1964-, IV, p. 817; H. Vlieghe, David Teniers (1610-1690): A Biography, Turnhout 2011, p. 75; R. Tepe, Oog in Oog met de Martelaren van Gorcum, exh. cat. Gorcum (Gorcums Museum) 2012, no. 4

1886, p. 106, no. 472e; 1891, p. 54, no. 419; 1903, p. 109, no. 1006; 1976, p. 251, no. A 800; 1992, p. 55, no. A 800

G. Martin, 2022, 'Wouter Gysaerts and David (II) Teniers, Feigned Sculpted Bust of the Blessed Hieronymus Werdanus Set in a Feigned Stone Cartouche, Decorated with a Swag and Two Bunches of Flowers, 1676 - before 1676-07', in Flemish Paintings in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8491