The Defeated Spanish Garrison Leaving ’s-Hertogenbosch, 17 September 1629

The plain-weave canvas support has been lined. Cusping is visible on all sides. The ground layer, visible in the abraded areas, is whitish. The painting is smoothly executed with visible brushstrokes in foreground and figures. The painter may have allowed the weave of the canvas to show through in transparently painted areas, such as the marshy land on the left.

Fair. There are several discoloured areas of retouching, while the varnish is irregular and has discoloured considerably. There is a restored, stable tear of 5 cm in the sky on the right.

...; purchased by Everardus Temminck, for the museum, 11 August 1803;¹¹Moes/Van Biema 1909, pp. 63-64. entered the museum, 22 December 1808²²Moes/Van Biema 1909, p. 217.

ObjectNumber: SK-A-435

This painting was attributed to Esaias van de Velde from its purchase by the museum in 1803 until Hofstede de Groot gave it to Henri Ambrosius Pacx in 1899.⁵⁵Hofstede de Groot 1899a, p. 166. In the collection catalogue of 1903 it was attributed to Van Hillegaert, and that has never been doubted since. The style matches the artist’s signed works, this being particularly evident in the distinctive horses, the dogs with their relatively long legs, the soldiers’ numerous schematic lances, and the blue-green tints of the background. Van Hillegaert probably executed it within a few years of the victory at ’s-Hertogenbosch in 1629. He probably based the cartographic landscape on the maps of the siege published by Jacques Prempart in 1630,⁶⁶’s-Hertogenbosch 1979, pp. 71-84, nos. 28-37, pp. 90-91, no. 42. which enables the painting to be dated between 1630 and 1635.

In contrast to Van Hillegaert’s Siege of ’s-Hertogenbosch (SK-A-607), in which Frederik Hendrik and Ernst Casimir are depicted as triumphant commanders in the foreground, the focus here is on the panoramic landscape around the city, with the departing prelates and the Spanish garrison. On the dark, elevated foreground on the right are a few anonymous horsemen. Van Hillegaert would usually have placed the commanders here, but in this composition Frederik Hendrik and Ernst Casimir have been placed in a less prominent position beside the carriage in the left foreground at the head of the procession leaving the city. Seated in the carriage is a person with a fur-trimmed gown and hands clasped in prayer. It has been suggested that this is the wife of ’s-Hertogenbosch’s governor Van Grobbendonck.⁷⁷Van Maarseveen in Delft 1998, p. 288. Another, more likely possibility is that it is Michael Ophovius (1571-1637), Bishop of ’s-Hertogenbosch, who signed the capitulation on 14 September 1629 and went into exile. The members of the various monastic orders gathered around the carriage also argue for this identification. The facial features of the individual are barely distinguishable, so comparison with known portraits of Ophovius is of no help.⁸⁸Such portraits are known from Rubens’s circle, among others; see ’s-Hertogenbosch 1990, pp. 278-81, nos. 173-75. This individual, in any event, is a dignitary on the Spanish side who is being personally led out of the city by Frederik Hendrik and Ernst Casimir.

The cartographic nature of the panoramic landscape is reminiscent of works by Pieter Snayers, but Van Hillegaert opted for a more realistic perspective with a lower horizon.⁹⁹For Snayers’s work see Van Maarseveen 1998a, pp. 77-79. A Siege of ’s-Hertogenbosch in the Rijksmuseum by Van Hillegaert (SK-A-848) has the same, almost cartographic landscape, and was acquired by the museum in 1885 as the pendant of the present painting.¹⁰¹⁰RANH, ARS, IS, inv. 165, no. 316 (4 February 1885). With thanks to Ellinoor Bergvelt for supplying this information. Hofstede de Groot also viewed these paintings as pendants.¹¹¹¹Hofstede de Groot 1899a, pp. 165-66. The dimensions of the two works differ slightly, though, the horizons are at different levels, and the figures are not quite the same size. Both works must therefore be regarded as separate visual records of the battle for ’s-Hertogenbosch.

Yvette Bruijnen, 2007

See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements

This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 126.

Hofstede de Groot 1899a, pp. 165-66 (as Henri Ambrosius Pacx); Huiskamp in Münster-Osnabrück 1998, p. 353, no. 1002; Van Maarseveen in Delft 1998, pp. 288-89, no. 66

1809, p. 72, no. 313 (as Esaias van de Velde); 1858, p. 191, no. 428 (as Anonymous); 1880, pp. 310-11, no. 362 (as Esaias van de Velde); 1887, p. 174, no. 1491 (as Esaias van de Velde); 1903, p. 127, no. 1182; 1934, p. 130, no. 1182; 1960, p. 135, no. 1182; 1976, p. 276, no. A 435; 1992, p. 57, no. A 435; 2007, no. 126

Y. Bruijnen, 2007, 'Pauwels van Hillegaert, The Defeated Spanish Garrison Leaving ’s-Hertogenbosch, 17 September 1629, c. 1630 - c. 1635', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8686