Interior of a Gothic Church Looking East

Artist/Maker

DatesMade: Made 1604

Material / Technique

Dimensionsh x w x d: Mått 26,1 x 37,6 x 0,1 cm h x w x d: Ram 43 x 54 x 6 cm

Inventory numberNM 536

AcqusitionBequest 1863 marshal of the court Martin von Wahrendorff

Other titlesTitle (sv): Interiör av gotisk kyrka Title (en): Interior of a Gothic Church Looking East Title (en): Interior of a Gothic Church Looking East 1604

DescriptionCatalogue raisonné: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 142: Inscription (on memorial tablet at right): “1604” Technical notes: The painting’s support consists of a small sheet of copper, with a thickness of ±1.0 mm, with regularly cut edges. The plate is smoothly polished on the verso and shows no marks of its manufacture or personal coppersmith’s mark. The lower right corner is slightly dented. The support was prepared with a thin white ground (lead white in linseed oil?). Infrared reflectography revealed that the artist produced a very detailed and precise underdrawing for the construction of the interior and its perspectival system. A multitude of thin straight lines – later partially reinforced with the brush and brown or light yellow paint – define the general shapes of the piers, the pedestals and the receding tiled floor. Straight lines running from top to bottom indicate the width of the individual piers. These sharp vertical lines, as well as several horizontal ones and orthogonals that lead to the vanishing point (just to the right of the central opening in the choir screen) – their regularity suggesting that they were drawn with the aid of a ruler rather than free-hand – are clearly visible in the right foreground. Throughout the picture one also can make out numerous ‘construction’ lines. These lines are used to aid the design of the perspectival system, but often have no direct bearing on the shapes of the painted features: one such line determines the alignment of the apexes of the Gothic vaults along the ceiling of the nave. Paint is applied thinly in opaque and semi-transparent layers. There is an almost sculptural relief-like quality to the paint surface, due to the lack of absorption of excess paint by the inert copper support, created by the sharp painted lines delineating the contours of vertical architectural elements, such as the nave piers and attached colonnettes, and of the pointed arches, as well as the painted lines of the perspective construction system, the orthogonal and horizontal lines in the pattern of floor paving stones. The staffage figures were added after the execution of the architectural setting was completed: they were painted free-hand, over the architecture, their outlines occasionally reinforced with a fine brush in black or brown paint. A layer of slightly discoloured old varnish, encrusted with dirt, is present. Abrasion is moderate overall; some of the figures, in which the thin paint has become increasingly transparent with age, are slightly abraded. Retouching covers abrasion and losses of paint and ground layers along the edges, especially the right edge. A diagonal scratch through the paint and ground layers is visible on the lower left (from the window down through the figures below). The painting underwent conservation treatment in 1935. Provenance: Niklas Holterman, Forsby; Martin von Wahrendorff, Näsby; bequeathed by Martin von Wahrendorff to the KM in 1863, no. 24 (as anonymous master); KM 1861/67, no. 1224 Exhibited: Stockholm 1933, no. 34 (as Pieter Neeffs I). Bibliography: NM Cat. 1867, p. 38 (as Pieter Neeffs I); Sander IV, p. 119; Göthe 1887, p. 173 (as Pieter Neeffs I, the figures probably by Frans Francken II); Göthe 1893, p. 209; Jantzen 1910, p. 167 no. 325 (as Pieter Neefs I); NM Cat. 1958, p. 141 (as Pieter Neeffs I, the figures probably by Frans Francken II); Härting 1983, pp. 207, no. B 386 (as Pieter Neeffs, the figures possibly by Hieronymus Francken II); NM Cat. 1990, p. 250. (as Pieter Neeffs I, the figures by Frans Francken I); Bjurström 1992, p. 130; Babina 1995, p. 56 (as Pieter Neeffs I); Fusening 2005, pp. 144, 150 n. 9, fig. 3 (as Pieter Neeffs?); Howarth 2009, pp. 184 no. II. B 136, 304 n. 11 (as probably Hendrick van Steenwyck II). A view of the interior of a large and wide Gothic church or cathedral looking east, with three nave altars surmounted by paintings at the inner left-hand piers and one in a side chapel off the south aisle, painted from a fairly high viewpoint, to the right of centre. The high altar is visible through the choir screen. Twenty-eight staffage figures of visitors and priests are placed around the church, including an elegant gentleman accompanied by his dog giving alms to a beggar on the left, a lady doing the same to a beggar standing near the entrance, a lady wearing a mourning mantle conversing with a canon, and a fashionably dressed gentleman with a dog followed by two pages in the right foreground. A draped coffin can be seen in the nave before the choir screen, and funeral rites conducted by a priest appear to be taking place before the first nave altar on the left, where a group of worshippers, some wearing mourning mantles, have gathered to hear services. Suffused by sunlight streaming in through the windows on the north side of the nave, this church interior reveals an accomplished handling of light effects that structure the space and counteract the plunging single-point perspective. The overall tonality of the architecture is muted, ranging between shades of light yellow, grey and pink. Pieter Neeffs I is one of a small number of Antwerp artists who developed the church interior as a specialist subject, emulating Hendrick van Steenwyck I, a pioneer in the genre, and his namesake son, Hendrick II. The present work, however, dates from very early in the elder Neeffs’ career, before the birth of his son in 1620. The date – “1604” – inscribed on the memorial tablet suspended from the inner right-hand pier provides a terminus post quem for the execution of the architecture.1 To judge by the style of the fashionable costumes of the some of the church visitors – who were added after the architecture was already completed (see Technical Notes) – they were probably painted around that time or soon after. The figures are by a different hand, possibly that of Hieronymus Francken II, as suggested by Härting.2 Various members of the extended Francken family of figure specialists frequently painted the staffage in the works of the elder Neeffs, including those in his signed Church Interior of c. 1615/1616 in Madrid (Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza), in which some of the same figures recur.3 This staffage, which guides the viewer’s eye and lends interest to an otherwise bare interior, represents people from all walks of life – peasants, prosperous burghers and humble beggars. If the current attribution to Pieter Neeffs I is correct, this painting would be the earliest surviving example of a series of interior views of imaginary Gothic churches – all variations of the same basic formula – by the artist or his studio. Accomplished in its perspectival construction, the treatment of light and the carefully rendered details, the present picture adheres closely to the Antwerp tradition of architectural painting. Most impressive is the atmospheric effect of the nave and choir, and the delicate overall “creamy” tonality, with softness in the transitions between light and shade. By the standards of the Neeffs, the quality of execution of the architecture is quite high and the picture was accepted as a work of Pieter I by Jantzen (1910). Very little is known about the training and early oeuvre of the elder Neeffs.4 As pointed out by Fusenig (2005), who tentatively accepted Jantzen’s attribution, the rendering of the architecture in the Stockholm picture is very similar to the tightly controlled handling of his signed Church Interior in Dresden (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Gemälde - galerie Alte Meister).5 Inscribed with the date “1605” – four years before his admission to the Guild of St. Luke in 1609 as a fully fledged master – the Dresden picture has been considered as the starting point of Neeffs’ career. The execution of the architecture is also directly comparable to the Madrid Church Interior of c. 1615/1616. The Dresden and Madrid pictures, in turn, are strongly reminiscent of an architecture designed by Steenwyck II in two signed pictures of c. 1613/1615, Gothic Church Interior with Lattice Vaults in Brussels (Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts)6 and Large Church in Ogival Style with Three Naves in Cambrai (Musée des Beaux-Arts).7 Howarth (2009) recently reattributed the Stockholm painting to Steenwyck II – but with reservations – pointing to the resemblance of the overall composition to that of his signed Interior of a Church with Visitors in Paris (Musée du Louvre), a painting formerly ascribed to Neeffs.8 He further argued that the early date of 1604 renders an attribution to Neefs unlikely – although not impossible – as he was not yet an independent master at the time. Therefore, he considered it more likely that an unidentified original composition by Steenwyck was simply replicated in the present work, possibly by the elder Neeffs. Although little is known of the Steenwycks’ studio practice there is no doubt, according to Howarth, that Hendrick II supervised others painting in his style and that Neeffs’ presumed apprenticeship to the Steenwycks would have involved copying paintings by his master(s). This would agree with Fusenig’s belief that few, if any, of the church interiors attributed to Neeffs prior to 1615 can safely be treated as his sole work and that he did not develop his own independent style until after Steenwyck II had left Antwerp for London by 1617. Few of Neeffs’ views represent real churches. Throughout his career he stayed faithful to the subject of imaginary architecture with its artificially constructed spaces, central perspective and auxiliary staffage figures. Infrared reflectography examination of the painting revealed a detailed underdrawing beneath the paint layers, both of the perspective construction armature and the sharp linear definition of the architecture (see Technical Notes), thus providing helpful insights into the working methods of an architectural painter by whom few preparatory drawings on paper are known. The strong orthogonals converge at a vanishing point clearly marked to the right of the central opening in the choir screen. The perspectival construction conforms to that demonstrated by the influential theoretician, architect and engineer Hans Vredeman de Vries in his two-volume illustrated treatise Perspectives… (The Hague, 1604–1605), published around the time that Neefs was beginning his career.9 The present underdrawing, which closely resembles that discovered in the Madrid picture,10 strongly suggests that Neeffs developed his composition directly on the panel rather than transferring a construction drawing from a sheet of paper. Little is known about the contemporary appreciation of this genre, although paintings of church interiors are frequently depicted in contemporary views of collectors’ cabinets. Liedtke has drawn attention to the decorative aspects of Neeffs’ work, at the same time suggesting that the religious significance of the subject should not be underestimated, particularly in the case of pictures in which the figures are at worship or otherwise engage in church rituals.11 In the Stockholm painting, for example, what might be described as the narrower meaning to the picture centres on the behaviour of the figures who seem to be attending funeral services before a nave altar on the left. The funerary subject matter suggests that the work may have had a personal, devotional dimension as a memento mori. CF 1 The rest of the inscription on this tablet is now illegible, but it may have contained a prayer associated with the funerary rites that appear to be taking place before the nave altar on the left (cf. Madrid). 2 See Härting 1983, pp. 206–207, no. B 386; and Fusenig 2005, p. 150 n. 9 3 Oil on wood, 39.3 x 58.8 cm, signed by Pieter Neeffs I and dated twice, “1615” (on memorial tablet suspended from a nave pier, right) and “1616” (on aisle chapel pier, right), Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, inv. no. 1980.39; see Pita Andrade and Del Mar Borobia Guerrero 1992, pp. 416–417 (the figures possibly by Frans Francken II). Cf. the same style of costumes worn by the visitors in NM 536 and in the Madrid picture of c. 1615/1616, after which date there is a change in fashions. 4 See Fusenig 2005; and Howarth 2009, pp. 7–8. 5 Oil on wood, 36 x 53.5 cm, signed and dated “1605”, Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Gemäldegaleri Alte Meister, inv. no. 1183; see Jantzen 1910 (rev. ed. Brunswick 1979, pp. 40–41, no. 242; Cat. Dresden 1930, p. 143 no. 1183; and Fusenig 2005, pp. 143, 144, fig. 1. 6 Oil on copper, 37 x 56 cm, signed, and reportedly dated “1615”, Brussels, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts, inv. no. 2966; see most recently Howarth 2009, p. 154 no. II. B 25, illus. on p. 439. 7 Oil on wood, 91.5 x 122.5 cm, signed and dated “1613”, or possibly “1615”, Cambrai, Musée des Beaux-Arts, inv. P 46; see Howarth 2009, pp. 154–155, no. II. B 26, illus. on p. 439. 8 Oil on copper, 26 x 37 cm, signed “H V. S”. (the signature discovered during restoration 1989–1993), Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. no. 1867; see Catalogue sommaire illustré des peintures du Musée du Louvre, I, Ecoles flamande et hollandaise, Paris 1979, p. 132, illus.; and Howarth 2009, p. 162 no. II.B 54, repr. on p. 449. Jantzen (1910) believed that the Louvre painting was the work of Neeffs and, on the basis of the similarity between the two compositions, maintained that the Stockholm painting was also by Neeffs. Although few independent works by Steenwyck II dated before his father’s death in 1603 have survived, Van Mander (1604) speaks of Steenwyck II as already active in 1604 (p. 261v); see Howarth 2009, p. 8. A painting by Steenwyck of a church interior was purchased by Jan Brueghel I by March 6, 1609, but may well have been by the father; see Martin 1970, pp. 240–241. 9 Hendrick Hondius after Hans Vredeman de Vries, Perspectives…, The Hague 1604–1605, engravings, nos. 2 and 47. 10 See the infrared reflectogram mosaic published by Pita Andrade and Del Mar Borobia Guerrero 1992, fig. 3 (under no. 58). 11 Liedtke 1985, I, p. 133. [End]

Exhibited

Collection

MaterialOil paint, Copper (Metal)

TechniquePainting

Object category

External links