The Battle of Nördlingen (1634)
Artist/Maker
Material / Technique
Dimensionsh x w: Mått 155 x 193 cm h x w x d: Ram 176 x 215 x 13 cm
Inventory numberNM 277
AcqusitionTransferred 1866 from Kongl. Museum
Other titlesTitle (sv): Slaget vid Nördlingen (1634) I Title (en): The Battle of Nördlingen (1634)
DescriptionCatalogue raisonné: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 178: Technical notes: The painting’s support consists of two pieces of fine, densely woven, plain weave fabric, with an identical thread count of 15 vertical and 12–14 horizontal threads/cm, sewn together with a vertical seam near centre. The original fabric support has been lined twice, with a loosely woven piece of fabric followed by a newer relining canvas. The original tacking edges have been removed on all sides and the painting mounted on a non-original strainer at the tacking edges of the relining canvas. Cusping is visible along the right and bottom edges only. The fabric support was prepared with a thinly and smoothly applied white ground. Paint is generally applied quite thinly in opaque and semi-transparent layers with slight impastos in the lights. The area of the sky and clouds is painted more thickly, with much admixture of lead white, over an opaque, cool grey underpaint; the foreground landscape, extending across the bottom half of the painting, is painted over a thin, semi-transparent, light brown underpaint. Translucent green top glazes were employed in the foreground landscape. Few pentimenti during the painting process are visible to the naked eye: the tall spear of the foot soldier seen from the back standing next to the mounted officer in the lower right-hand foreground has been shifted from a position slightly further to the left. The small-scale figures of troops on the battlefield in the middle ground and background seem to have been executed freehand over the landscape without prior drawing (but cf. no. 180), as were the cityscape on the right and the rows of small trees dotting the distant fields. The group of comparatively larger figures in the lower right-hand foreground were held in reserve when the surrounding areas of the landscape and small-scale figures in the middle distance were executed; the hat and right arm of the mounted officer were then painted over the surrounding landscape. A layer of old varnish is present, slightly discoloured and unevenly cleaned. Abrasion is moderate overall. Retouching covers losses of the paint and ground layers along the edges. A series of vertical cracks in the paint and ground layers throughout the painting may have resulted from rolling of the canvas. The top half of the painting, including the area of the sky and the background battlefield with its multitude of tiny figures of soldiers, is very well preserved, with hardly any retouching. Areas of retouching occur throughout the bottom half of the painting, covering numerous small losses of paint here. The painting underwent conservation treatment in 1837, 1875 and 1966 Provenance: Possibly brought back from Cassel around 1766 by Johan Arckenholtz; purchased 1770 by Fredrik Adolf; KM 1804, no. 148 (as Pieter Meulener); KM 1816, no. 584. Exhibited: Stockholm 1966, no. 94; Münster/ Osnabrück 1998/1999, no. 1099 (as Pieter Meulener); Stockholm 2010, no. 79. Bibliography: NM Cat. 1867, p. 18 (as Pieter Meulener); Sander IV, pp. 72–73; Göthe 1887, pp. 150–151; Göthe 1893, pp. 188–189; Göthe 1910, pp. 213–215; Granberg 1911–1913, I, p. 32; Granberg 1929–1931, III, p. 29; NM Cat. 1958, p. 122 (as Pieter Meulener); Legrand 1963, pp. 211–212, fig. 86 (as Pieter Meulener); Danielsson 1972, pp. 13–52 (as Peter Snayers); NM Cat. 1990, p. 218 (as Pieter Meulener); Pfaffenbichler 1997, pp. 64–65, fig. 78 (as Pieter Meulener); Engerisser and Hrniík 2009, figs. 19, 20, 22 and 31. On 6 September 1634 the Swedish army and allied Protestant forces suffered their greatest defeat of the Thirty Years’ War at Nördlingen in south-western Germany.1 Following the murder of General Albrecht von Wallenstein (b. 1583) in February of 1634, King Ferdinand of Hungary, the son of Emperor Ferdinand II, had taken over the supreme command of the Imperial- Bavarian army. In the summer of 1634, he moved upwards along the Danube with his main army, reconquering Regensburg and Donauwörth, finally also attempting to take Nördlingen, which was occupied by a Swedish garrison. As the city was of great strategic importance for the control over the Swabian Imperial region, the Swedish commanders Gustav Horn and Bernhard von Weimar decided to launch an attack on the besiegers. But before the joint armies reached Nördlingen, the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Austria, cousin of the heir, joined the Imperial troops with his 15,000 men. The Catholic troops numbered some 35,000 men, significantly superior to the approximately 25,000 of the advancing Swedish troops. This was reflected in the battle, which began with Swedish attacks at dawn on September 6th by the hills of Nördlingen. However, the superior position of the Imperial troops quickly made itself felt, the Swedes panicked, and many were slaughtered while attempting to flee – all in all they suffered some 12,000 losses. The overwhelming victory of the Imperial troops at Nördlingen finally moved the majority of the Imperial estates to accede to the Peace of Prague, concluded between the Emperor and electoral Saxony a year later, on 30 May 1635, which triggered France’s entry into the war. This painting is one of a set of three panoramic battlefield scenes, which celebrate the overwhelming victory of the Catholic troops at the Battle of Nördlingen, and were previously attributed to the little-known Antwerp artist Pieter Meulener. While the present picture shows the early stages of the battle on 6 September 1634, no. 179 documents the earlier meeting of King Ferdinand and the Cardinal-Infante at Reimlingen, south of the beleaguered town of Nördlingen, on 2 September, four days before the joint Catholic troops reached the battlefield, and no. 180 depicts a successful cavalry charge led by the two Ferdinands. In all three large canvases a topographically and historically accurate picture of the battlefield is attempted – undoubtedly derived from military topographical maps like to those on which Matthäus Merian later modelled his Theatrum Europeum (1662)2 – presented as if on a map unrolled before the viewer. All attention is directed towards the vast landscape backdrops, which produces a strong contrast with the narrow strip of shadowed foreground, viewed in normal perspective and functioning as a repoussoir, where the military activity is shown in anecdotal detail. The bottom half of the present picture, thus, depicts a sweeping view overlooking the hills of Schönfeld and Adelsberg, where the Catholic troops are shown readying themselves for battle, while the upper half records in some detail the actual battle by the hills of Allbuch and Häselberg. On the right is the silhouette of the besieged town of Nördlingen. Throughout the set of three paintings the Swedes and their allies are identified by yellow or blue sashes and yellow standards, the Catholic troops by red sashes and standards. Although less emphatically analytical-topographical and more atmospheric than some other examples, the composition of these paintings, with their rather oldfashioned steeply rising backgrounds viewed in bird’s eye perspective, is quite typical of Snayers’ works.3 This compositional formula strongly influenced the later work of Meulener, who may have been Snayers’ pupil, and whose works are sometimes mistaken for those of his reputed master. Meulener, however, does not quite attain the degree of narrative vividness of his master, or the latter’s effortless depiction of the movement of horses and riders. As the visual record of a military success, pictures like these had documentary value and were undoubtly commissioned by the victorious side. As two of the pictures seem to glorify the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand (see nos. 179–180), the newly appointed regent of the Spanish Netherlands (1634–1641), whom Snayers served as court painter, Danielsson (1972) suggested that the set may have been commissioned by him. CF 1 For the historical facts see most recently Engerisser and Hrncˇirˇik 2009. 2 See Pfaffenbichler 1997, pp. 59, 63. 3 Cf., for example, Snayers’ The Battle of Thionville (1639) (oil on canvas, 197 x 266 cm), Brussels, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts, inv. no.1832; for which see a photograph on file at the RKD, The Hague. Also, his Battle of Callo (1638) (oil on wood, 92 x 122 cm), Brussels, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts, inv. no. 117383 B; for which see Cat.1949, no. 429.[End]
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