Beskrivning: Se även beskrivning i den engelska versionen
 

Catalogue raisonné: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 179:

Provenance: Johan Arckenholtz; purchased 1770 by
Fredrik Adolf; KM 1804, no. 148; KM 1816, no. 584.

Exhibited: Munich 1980, no. 717 (as Peter Snayers?);
Münster/Osnabrück 1998/1999, no. 1100 (as Pieter
Meulener).

Bibliography: NM Cat. 1867, p. 18 (as Pieter Meulener);
Sander IV, pp. 72–73; Göthe 1887, pp. 150–151 (as
Pieter Meulener); 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
Pieter Snayers); NM Cat. 1990, p. 218; Pfaffenbichler
(1995), pp. 64–65, fig. 79.

This painting depicts the unification of the Spanish
with the Imperial troops during the period of the
Thirty Years’ War, an event that occurred four days
before the Battle of Nördlingen (6 September 1634),
in which the joint Catholic troops defeated the
Swedish army and the German Protestant princes
allied with them.

Even while the regent of the Spanish Netherlands,
the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, was still alive, the
Spanish king Philip IV had designated his younger
brother, the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Austria, to
be her successor. Destined for ecclesiastical office,
Ferdinand was named archbishop of Toledo and a cardinal
at the age of ten. His true talents, however, were
in the military arena. In April of 1633, he set out with
a fleet from Barcelona and headed to Genoa. In Upper
Italy he began to gather together troops to accompany
him across the Alps to the Netherlands. Although the
news of the Infanta’s death on 1 December 1633 suggested
the wisdom of quick departure, the Cardinal-
Infante did not cross the Alps until the summer of the
following year. Uniting his troops with those of the
Imperial-Bavarian army, which was under the command
of his cousin, King Ferdinand of Hungary, the
two commanders met on 2 September 1634 at Reimlingen,
south of the beleaguered town of Nördlingen –
the scene depicted in the present painting. Snayers
places the meeting of the Cardinal-Infante with his
cousin in the middle distance of the painting. The two
commanders have dismounted from their steeds and
are shown embracing one another. Both are surrounded
by their respective entourage: the King’s extends
into the background on the right, while the Cardinal-
Infante is shown slightly separated from his entourage
on the left – except for his second-in-command,
Diego Felipe de Guzmán – and is seen as the principal
figure. In the background various troop formations
are depicted. The present painting is chronologically
the first in the set of three paintings (nos. 179–180)
celebrating the overwhelming victory of the Imperial-
Catholic troops at Nördlingen.
CF
[End]

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Peter Snayers | Slaget vid Nördlingen II | Nationalmuseum