The Horatii Entering Rome
Artist/Maker
DatesMade: Made c. 1609 - 1611
Material / Technique
Dimensionsh x w: Mått 67 x 109 cm h x w x d: Ram 82 x 124 x 5 cm
Inventory numberNM 6844
AcqusitionPurchase 1989 Sara and Johan Emil Graumann Fund
Other titlesTitle (sv): Horatiernas intåg i Rom Title (en): The Horatii Entering Rome
DescriptionCatalogue raisonné: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 197: Inscription (in an old hand on the verso): “Stalbent” Technical notes: The painting’s support is a cradled oak panel, which has a slight convex warp across the grain, and consists of a single radial board with a distinctive wood grain structure, horizontal but with a big upward arc at the left. Bevelling occurs along all four edges on the verso. Unpainted borders are present along the right and, partially, the left edges, respectively c. 0.4 cm and 0.2 cm wide. Dendrochronological examination and analysis have determined a felling date for the tree between c. 1584 and 1600. The wood originates from the region of Western Germany/the Netherlands. Under the assumption of a median of 17 sapwood rings and a minimum of 2 years of seasoning of the wood, the most plausible date for the use of the panel would be 1596 or later. The verso of the support bears the monogram “RB”, of an as yet unidentified (Antwerp?) panel maker or joiner punched into the wood, and consisting of a large “R” with a smaller letter “B” between the legs.1 The preparatory layers consist of a thin off-white and-white striped blouse was lowered to expose more of her naked chest; the left foreleg of the white horse in the right foreground was initially painted as less bent at the knee and in a position slightly higher than the present one; the small dog in the centre foreground was initially outlined with a fine brush in white, over the green soil, to the right of its present position; additional tiny figures, a woman seated on a stone with her back turned and two running figures were outlined with the brush but never painted in the middle distance on the right. The painting is generally in excellent condition, apart from some coarse retouches confined to the sky and lefthand architecture, with only moderate abrasion and much of the brilliant colour scheme and the meticulous detail preserved intact. The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since entering the collections in 1989. Provenance: Probably Claes Grill and Anna Johanna Grill, Torstensonska palatset, Stockholm, until 1778 (inv.1778/3:707); probably by inheritance to Anna Johanna Peill and Henrik Wilhelm Peill, Stockholm, 1778–1801 (inv. c. 1797 ); probably by purchase to Adolph Ulric Grill and Anna Johanna Grill, Söderfors bruk, 1801; probably by purchase to Pehr Adolph Tamm and Johanna Charlotta Tamm, Österby bruk, 1810 (inv. c. 1840); Cat.1841, no.13, as (“Anon., En historisk Scen?”); by inheritance to the heirs of Pehr Adolph Tamm, Österby bruk, 1856; by inheritance to Hugo Tamm and Thèrése Antoinette Lizinka Tamm, Fånö, 1876 (inv. 1876, lot 3, no. 88, as “Anon./School of Francken: Horatii intåg i Rom? Många fig.”). Sale, Bukowskis, Stockholm, 1 November 1989, lot 396; acquired in 1989. Exhibited: Stockholm 2010, no. 95. Bibliography: Rollin 1841, no. 13 (as anonymous, En historisk Scen?); Granberg 1929–1931, II, pp. 128, 130, 132 n. 33 (as Frans Francken II), 232; NM Bulletin 14, no. 1 (1990): pp. 6, 8 n.1, 9; NM Cat. 1990, p. 184 (as Hans Jordaens III); Tamm 2008, pp. 26, 72–73 no. 8, 144 (as Hans Jordaens III). This painting depicts a subject from Roman history as told by Livy (The Early History of Rome, I: 23–26). When a quarrel between the peoples of Rome and Alba threatened to lead to war, it was agreed to settle the issue by combat between three representatives from each side, from the Roman family of the Horatii and from the opposing Curiatii. At the end, only one man, Horatius, was left alive and Rome was declared the victor. On discovering afterwards that his sister had been betrothed to one of the Curiatii, he slew her (Livy I: 25–26), the scene depicted here. He was tried and found guilty, but reprieved after an appeal by his father. Although seldom treated, the theme is found in 16th and 17th-century painting of Italy and northern Europe. Most commonly represented is the scene of the Horatii, symbols of ancient Roman valour, depicted before the fight in the act of taking the sacrificial oath. Formerly ascribed to the Antwerp painter Hans Jor- daens III, a follower of Frans Francken II, the painting is here reattributed to the Antwerp artist Adriaen van Stalbemt (or Stalbent), following a tentative suggestion by Härting.2 There is a general resemblance to the style of the Francken school, for example in the elegant dance-like movements of some of the Roman soldiers and women, and the eyes that look like pressed-in black buttons. However, the new attribution is borne out by close stylistic analysis of the painting, as well as an old inscription, “Stalbent”, recently discovered on the verso of the panel. Stalbemt’s name was first associated by Andrews3 with several stylistically related paintings – none of them signed, and all except one at one time ascribed to the German artist Adam Elsheimer – grouped around the Frankfurt Paul and Barnabas at Lystra (Frankfurt a.M., Städelsches Kunstinstitut). They include a version of the story of Il Contento (Basle, Kunstmuseum), of which Elsheimer’s prototype is in the National Gallery of Scotland, Tamar Being Led to the Stake (present whereabouts unknown), and two scenes depicting the Israelites Building the Tabernacle (Exodus 35 & 36), one formerly in the Barberini Collection at Rome and the other in Pommersfelden (Coll. Graf von Schönborn). The Lystra painting, later ascribed to Elsheimer, carried a mid-18th-century attribution to Stalbemt.4 To these may be added the signed Drunkenness of Bacchus (Paris, Coll. M. Haim-Gairac), in which the figures resemble those of the early Elsheimer-influenced group discussed by Andrews, while the landscape background is derived from the Mediterranean seascapes of Paul Bril. This group, if accepted as early works by Stalbemt, reveal him to be a figure painter of some stature. The close relationship of the present picture to the Lystra, Il Contento, and the two Tabernacle scenes is clear: here we find the same rows of figures of even height, the contrived poses, the identical somewhat stereotyped figures and facial features, with a preference for heads in profiles perdues, and men and children with a full head of curly hair. In all these paintings we recognize a characteristic hardness in the composition as a whole and in the rendering of details (draperies, physiognomies), a preference for the decorative embellishments of the robes, as well as the rather staid architectural background. We also see the emergence of something like a formula: the repoussoir figures at the sides, some standing, some seated, looking into the picture or grouped in pairs. The Israelite woman sewing in the foreground of the Barberini painting and the woman in a low-cut dress on the right are closely related to the female mourners and right-hand repoussoir figure in the Stockholm painting, while the bearded, turbaned patriarchs resemble those in the crowd on the left. Stalbemt might have been looking at print sources for some of his figures: the Roman matron carrying a child on the right might have been inspired by similar figures in an engraving depicting a Roman sacrificial procession previously attributed to Cornelis Cort (after Lambert Lombard), a possible source of inspiration also for Elsheimer,5 while the soldier mounted on a white steed in the foreground might be derived from an Italian print such as the St. George Killing the Dragon by Enea Vico (after Giulio Clovio).6 A chronology of Stalbemt’s work is impossible to establish without further dated paintings and documents. Härting suggested that the Pommersfelden Tabernacle picture, which carries the personal mark of the Antwerp coppersmith Peter Stas and the date “1609” on the verso of the copperplate, must date to shortly after 1609.7 The paintings grouped around the Frankfurt Lystra, some of which might have been painted before 1609, show such a close awareness of Elsheimer’s work that it seems inconceivable that Stalbemt should not have had knowledge of the master’s Roman works. As Andrews and others have suggested, paintings such as the Lystra and the Barberini Tabernacle scene may well depend on lost Elsheimer prototypes, standing in the same free relationship to these as the Basle Il Contento vis-à-vis Elsheimer’s original in Edinburgh.8 Following Elsheimer, Stalbemt puts the horizon very low, confines the view into the distance to one half of the picture, and contrives on the other side a setting in which the group of figures, even if crowded into a corner and set off against a dark background, stands out clearly. The atmosphere, the concentration of static figures, the richly ornamented oriental robes and turbans, the relationship of the figures to the landscape, could not have been conceived without Elsheimer’s example. The figure groupings of this painting, on the other hand, appear somewhat more complex and dynamic than those of the Lystra and Il Contento pictures, placing it slightly later in the artist’s career, but well before the Madrid Triumph of David of 1618–19 (Museo del Prado), a collaborative painting co-signed with Pieter Brueghel II. As the sources deny that Stalbemt ever went to Italy, Andrews suggested that the artist might have obtained knowledge of Elsheimer’s works through an intermediary such as the Flemish Elsheimer-follower David Teniers I, who in 1605 returned to Antwerp from Rome, where he seems to have worked for a time in the master’s studio. Stalbemt might well have had knowledge of works such as Teniers’ Paul and Barnabas at Lystra (London art market in 1992) that freely borrows motifs from Elsheimer’s designs for Il Contento.9 According to Andrews, this would account for the overloaded compositions of Stalbemt, very much like those of Teniers I, and would also provide a terminus post quem for the group of early works. Direct experience of Elsheimer’s works does, however, not have to be entirely ruled out, as paintings by Elsheimer are known to have been in Antwerp collections in the early 17th century.10 CF 1 This early panel-maker’s, or joiner’s, mark has been found on the verso of three more panels, the Nymphs Filling a Horn of Plenty (The Hague, Mauritshuis, inv. no. 234, oil on oak, 67.5 x 107.0 cm, attributed to Jan Brueghel I and a follower of Rubens, and two works by Abraham Govaerts, the Forest Landscape with Gypsy Women (The Hague, Mauritshuis, inv. no. 45, oil on oak, 62.5 x 101.0 cm), signed and dated 1612, and the signed Landscape with Hunters Resting (Göttingen, Kunstslgn. der Universität, inv. no. 73, oil on oak, 64 x 101.0 cm). Each of these panels consists, like NM 6844, of a single oak board with a distinctive wood grain featuring not the usual tidy horizontal structure, but a big upwards arc at the right. X-ray photographs and dendrochronological examination demonstrate that the three oak boards in The Hague and Göttingen must have come from the same tree, and Jørgen Wadum has suggested that this might also be true for NM 6844, which has a similar wood grain structure. However, the results of the dendrochronological examination of NM 6844 definitively rule out this possibility: the last heartwood ring of the board was formed in 1577, rather than 1599 as in the two Mauritshuis panels, and the wood originates from the region of Western Germany/The Netherlands, rather than the Baltic region. See the report by Peter Klein dated 28 June 1999 in the NM curatorial files. See also B. Broos and Jørgen Wadum, “Four Panels from One Tree”, Mauritshuis in Focus 6, no. 1 (1993), pp. 13–16; and Jørgen Wadum, “Recent Discoveries on Antwerp Panel Maker’s Marks”, Technologia Artis 3 (1993), pp. 96–100. 2 See a letter by Ursula Härting dated 1 May 1991 in the NM curatorial files. 3 Andrews, “A Pseudo-Elsheimer Group: Adriaen van Stalbemt as Figure Painter”, The Burlington Magazine 115, no. 842 (May 1973): 301–306, figs. 44–55. For Stalbemt’s later works, see Härting, “Adriaen van Stalbemt als Figurenmaler”, Oud-Holland 95 (1981): pp. 3–15. 4 Andrews, p. 302, n. 8, 9, 10. 5 Cornelis Cort (rejected) after Lambert Lombard, Roman Procession, Hollstein, vol.V, nos. 190, 191; The New Hollstein, under Cort, no. R 34. See also Edinburgh/London/Frankfurt 2006, under no. 25 (Il Contento). 6 Enea Vico after Giulio Clovio, St. George Killing the Dragon, The Illustrated Bartsch, vol. 30, no. 12 (286). 7 Härting 1981, p. 13 n. 10. 8 Andrews 1973, p. 306 and n. 26, citing earlier studies by H. Weizäcker, Adam Elsheimer, der Maler von Frankfurt II. Beschreibende Verzeichnisse und geschichtliche Quellen aus dem Nachlass H. Möhle, Berlin 1952, at p. 9, and Malcolm Waddingham, “Elsheimer Revised”, The Burlington Magazine 114 (September 1972): pp. 600–611, at p. 602, n. 13. 9 Panel, 54 x 81, sold, London, Sotheby’s, 1 April 1992, lot 34; see Duverger/ Vlieghe 1971, pp. 44, 77, fig. 30, and Edinburgh/London/Frankfurt 2006, under no. 25. 10 See Edinburgh/London/Frankfurt 2006, under nos. 18, 27, 29. [End]
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TechniquePainting
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