Joos de Pape

Venus and Adonis

1629

Inscriptions

  • signature and date, bottom right:JOOS / D / PAPE FZ / 1629
  • mark, on the reverse, branded: coat of arms of the city of Antwerp

Scientific examination and reports

  • X-radiography: RMA, nos. 1877/1-3, 6 april 2009
  • infrared reflectography: A. Krekeler / I. Verslype, RMA, 16 november 2009
  • technical report: I. Verslype / A. Krekeler, RMA, 16 november 2009

Conservation

  • G. Tauber, 2002: a join reglued
  • G. Boevé-Jones, 2007: cleaned, retouched and revarnished (advised by T. Dibbits and M. Zeldenrust)

Provenance

…; Galerie Brummer, Paris;1Seal on the reverse. Also see Catalogus Schilderkunst, Oude Meesters, Antwerp (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten) 1988, under no. 885.…; presented to the museum by a group of members of the Vereniging Rembrandt, 1922; on loan to the Noordbrabants Museum, ’s-Hertogenbosch, since 2002

ObjectNumber: SK-A-2961

Credit line: Gift of the Leden van de Vereniging Rembrandt

The artist

Biography

Joos de Pape (Oudenaarde c. 1606/07 - Rome 1645/46)

A little-known painter, draughtsman and engraver, Joos (also Josse, Joost or Joducus) de Pape was born in Oudenaarde, the son of Simon de Pape I (1585-1636).2His testimony of 1641, G.J. Hoogewerff, Bescheiden in Italië omtrent Nederlandsche kunstenaars en geleerden, 2 vols., The Hague 1913, II, p. 141. The year of Joos’s birth is calculated on the supposition that he became a free master at the age of twenty-one after an apprenticeship of about nine years. Registered as an apprentice in the Antwerp guild of St Luke in 1618/19, he became a master in 1627/28.3P. 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), I, pp. 550, 650, 658. He travelled to Italy and is next recorded as a participant in a meeting of the guild of St Luke in Rome on 2 September 1635.4G.J. Hoogewerff, Bescheiden in Italië omtrent Nederlandsche kunstenaars en geleerden, 2 vols., The Hague 1913, II, pp. 47-48. He was recorded as living in the Via Babuino, and acted as provisore of the Brotherhood of San Giuliano.5G.J. Hoogewerff, Bescheiden in Italië omtrent Nederlandsche kunstenaars en geleerden, 2 vols., The Hague 1913, II, pp. 97, 157. He worked for the Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani, providing drawings after antique sculpture for the engraver and made two prints after Annibale Carracci. He continued also to practice painting. It was reported on 21 January 1646 that he had died.6G.J. Hoogewerff, Bescheiden in Italië omtrent Nederlandsche kunstenaars en geleerden, 2 vols., The Hague 1913, II, p. 717.

REFERENCES
D. Bodart, Les peintres des Pays-Bas méridionaux et de la principauté de Liège à Rome au XVIIème siècle, 2 vols., Brussels/Rome 1970, I, pp. 140-41, and II, p. 55

Entry

Ovid, Metamorphoses 10:529-559, tells how Venus, the goddess of love, lay with her beloved mortal, Adonis, the son of Myrrha and her own father King Cinyras, and told him the tale of Atalanta and Hippomenes, so as to turn him against hunting ‘bold’ creatures.7Ovid, Metamorphoses, with an English translation by F. Justus Miller, revised by G.P. Goold, 2 vols., Cambridge (Mass.)/London 1994 (ed. princ. 1916), II, 9-15, pp. 102-03.

Painted on an approved Antwerp oak support of four pieces of differently prepared timber, in the year after Joos de Pape became a master in the Antwerp guild, this is the only extant signed painting by the artist. It is not known who his master had been, but his manner of painting obviously owes much to Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), although the idiom of Gaspar de Crayer (1584-1669) seems also to have been influential.8Cf. the face of Venus with that of the Virgin in De Crayer’s Adoration of the Magi at Kortrijk; H. Vlieghe, Gaspar de Crayer: Sa vie et ses oeuvres, 2 vols., Brussels 1972, I, no. A6; and the head of Adonis with that of Saint Quentin in the Martyrdom of St. Quentin at Lenninck Sint Quentin; Ibid., no. A12. It has to be said that the similarity of the formulation of the two right legs in particular, and the poses of the protagonists in general are evidence that De Pape was not an artist of the first rank. However, the absence of Adonis’s left foot and truncated strap of the horn can be explained by likely losses of the support.

Although omitting Cupid, De Pape accurately conveyed Ovid’s story as illustrated, for instance, in Philip Galle’s (1537-1612) print after Anthonie Blocklandt (1533/34-1583).9M. Sellink and M. Leesberg, The New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, 1450-1700: P. Galle, 4 vols., Rotterdam 2001, III, p. 98, no. 402; De Pape is more restrained than this visualisation of the scene and closer in spirit to Cornelis van Haarlem’s treatment; P.J.J. van Thiel, Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem 1562-1638: A Monograph and Catalogue Raisonné, Doornspijk 1999, nos. 166-168, 169. His immediate source of inspiration was probably Antonio Tempesta’s (1555-1630) print in his Metamorphoseon ... Ovidianarum of 1606.10W.L. Strauss (ed.), The Illustrated Bartsch, New York 1978-, XXXVI, p. 57, no. 733. The spear, hound and hunting horn identify the male protagonist, emphasize his love of the chase and places the account more in the tradition of Titian’s (c. 1488-1576) interpretation of the story that has recently been expounded by Penny.11N. Penny, National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth-Century Italian Paintings, II: Venice, 1540-1600, London/New Haven (Conn.) 2008, pp. 286-88.

Technical photographs show that a different composition was first begun on the support and then abandoned. Visible in X-radiographs in the right middle ground on a small scale are the legs of two seated soldiers in Roman-style costumes. Presumably this first subject was very probably intended by De Pape to be from the antique; but there is no means of knowing as yet what it was to be.

Gregory Martin, 2022

Literature

U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 33 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XXVI, p. 218

Collection catalogues

1934, p. 218, no. 1833a (as Joos de Paepe); 1976, p. 434, no. A 2961 (as Joos de Paepe)

Citation

G. Martin, 2022, 'Joos de Pape, Venus and Adonis, 1629', in Flemish Paintings in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.4922

(accessed 12 July 2025 14:07:42).

Footnotes

  • 1Seal on the reverse. Also see Catalogus Schilderkunst, Oude Meesters, Antwerp (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten) 1988, under no. 885.
  • 2His testimony of 1641, G.J. Hoogewerff, Bescheiden in Italië omtrent Nederlandsche kunstenaars en geleerden, 2 vols., The Hague 1913, II, p. 141. The year of Joos’s birth is calculated on the supposition that he became a free master at the age of twenty-one after an apprenticeship of about nine years.
  • 3P. 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), I, pp. 550, 650, 658.
  • 4G.J. Hoogewerff, Bescheiden in Italië omtrent Nederlandsche kunstenaars en geleerden, 2 vols., The Hague 1913, II, pp. 47-48.
  • 5G.J. Hoogewerff, Bescheiden in Italië omtrent Nederlandsche kunstenaars en geleerden, 2 vols., The Hague 1913, II, pp. 97, 157.
  • 6G.J. Hoogewerff, Bescheiden in Italië omtrent Nederlandsche kunstenaars en geleerden, 2 vols., The Hague 1913, II, p. 717.
  • 7Ovid, Metamorphoses, with an English translation by F. Justus Miller, revised by G.P. Goold, 2 vols., Cambridge (Mass.)/London 1994 (ed. princ. 1916), II, 9-15, pp. 102-03.
  • 8Cf. the face of Venus with that of the Virgin in De Crayer’s Adoration of the Magi at Kortrijk; H. Vlieghe, Gaspar de Crayer: Sa vie et ses oeuvres, 2 vols., Brussels 1972, I, no. A6; and the head of Adonis with that of Saint Quentin in the Martyrdom of St. Quentin at Lenninck Sint Quentin; Ibid., no. A12.
  • 9M. Sellink and M. Leesberg, The New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, 1450-1700: P. Galle, 4 vols., Rotterdam 2001, III, p. 98, no. 402; De Pape is more restrained than this visualisation of the scene and closer in spirit to Cornelis van Haarlem’s treatment; P.J.J. van Thiel, Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem 1562-1638: A Monograph and Catalogue Raisonné, Doornspijk 1999, nos. 166-168, 169.
  • 10W.L. Strauss (ed.), The Illustrated Bartsch, New York 1978-, XXXVI, p. 57, no. 733.
  • 11N. Penny, National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth-Century Italian Paintings, II: Venice, 1540-1600, London/New Haven (Conn.) 2008, pp. 286-88.