Beskrivning: Under trettioåriga kriget miste flera miljoner människor livet. Magdeburg drabbades särskilt hårt. Katolska trupper brände staden 1631 och av 36 000 invånare överlevde endast 6 000. I målningen syns kanoner riktade mot staden och kejsarens trupper med dragna lansar är på väg mot stadsmuren. Till höger i bild finns befälhavarna. De är mer detaljerat återgivna och ljuset koncentreras kring dem.
 

Res. Katalogtext: Se även beskrivning i den engelska versionen
 

Description: Millions of people lost their lives during the Thirty Years’ War. Magdeburg suffered particularly hard. Catholic troops burned the city in 1631, and out of 36,000 inhabitants only 6,000 survived. In the painting, cannons aimed at the city can be seen, and the imperial troops with raised lances are moving towards the city walls. The commanders are on the right side of the painting. They are more detailed, and the light is concentrated on them.

Catalogue raisonné: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 135:

Technical notes: The support consists of a panel of
oak made of three boards joined together. Dendro -
chronological examination and analysis has determined a
felling date for the tree between c. 1634 and 1644. The
wood originated from the Baltic region. Under the
assumption of a median of 15 sapwood rings and a minimum
of 2 years for seasoning of the wood, the most
plausible date for use of the panel would be 1642 or later.
On the verso there is non-original opaque grey oil paint
layer unevenly applied. The preparation probably consists
of a white ground that has been applied thickly and
evenly to cover the structure of the support completely.
The ground is covered by a thin, grey, ”streaky” imprimatura.
No underdrawing has been found.

A thin paint layer covers the preparation of the support
entirely. The paint layer is opaque in parts and
semi-transparent in execution. All the figures and architectural
details have been painted over the foreground
and background. There are small impasto areas in highlights
and in details of the figures. The palette consists
mainly of earth colours and traces of red (probably
cinnabar), yellow, white and blue pigments.
The faces are rendered simply with few brushstrokes
and their shapes only implied. The figures in the background
have been painted thinly and become transparent
through the years. The painting is in poor condition. It
underwent conservation treatment in 1948, 1956 and
1979.

Provenance: Coll. Holterman-Wahrendorff;
bequeathed by Martin von Wahrendorff in 1863; KM
1861, no. 1219.

Exhibited: Munich 1980, no. 646; Stockholm 2010, no.
78.
Bibliography: Sander IV, p. 119, no. 19; Göthe 1887,
p. 152; Göthe 1893, p. 190; Granberg 1911, p. 32, no.
131; NM Cat. 1958, p. 123; Legrand 1963, p. 211; NM
Cat. 1990, p. 218.

During the Thirty Years War Magdeburg had been
occupied by Albrecht von Wallenstein in 1626 and in
1629 he again set siege to the city for 28 weeks before
being succeeded by Gottfried Heinrich von Pappenheim,
who was joined by Johann Tserclaes Tilly in
1631. At that time the commander of the city was an
officer dispatched by Gustaf II Adolf named Dietrich
von Falkenberg. Under Tilly’s leadership the city was
stormed in May 1631 and as a result the city was set on
fire and 30,000 of the total population of 36,000 killed.
Only the cathedral, the Church of Our Lady, and about
130 buildings could be saved. Only a year later, in 1632,
Magdeburg was reoccupied by the Swedes after a long
siege, and the city’s defences reinforced. In 1636 the city
was ceded by the Swedes to the Imperial forces and the
Saxons and as a result of the Peace of Westphalia in
1648 the city, which had been an archbishopric, became
a secular duchy and eventually part of Brandenburg on
the death of its last administrator in 1680. Pieter Meulener’s
painting, signed and dated in 1650, depicts the
Siege of Magdeburg in 1631 after the siege. Several of
the city’s most important historical buildings are visible
in the background. In the foreground to the right we
can see the Imperial artillery next to the river Elbe
under a banner with the two-headed Imperial eagle and
the light picks out Tilly and Pappenheim, the commanders,
rendered in greater detail and on a larger
scale. To the extreme right soldiers are portrayed next
to cannons whose barrels are aimed at the city, there are
cannonballs on the ground, a number of cavalrymen
with raised lances are riding across the river to the other
bank to join battle, while in the middle ground foot soldiers
are crossing one of Magdeburg’s central bridges to
storm its powerful defensive walls. In reality Pappenheim’s
attack on the city took place at dawn and not in
moonlight as depicted here. It is possible that the artist
has chosen a night scene to intensify the dramatic effect
of moonlight and flames against the dark sky. The
buildings, some of them on fire, are not all accurately
positioned but depict nevertheless several of the very
important features of the city such as its defensive wall,
the Cathedral and the church of St. John. There are
works by Meulener, who only painted battle scenes, that
are dated between 1642 and 1654. In some of them,
among them a battle scene in the collections in Brun -
swick, the influence of Jan Baptiste van der Meieren can
be seen, while others show greater resemblances to
Peter Snayers’ battle scenes. The palette used by the
latter, however, is usually lighter and brighter than
Meulener’s. Unlike Snayers, Meulener did not paint
panoramic battle scenes. Instead, his battles and fighting
soldiers are placed in the foreground, as in this
painting of the Siege of Magdeburg in 1631 in the
Nationalmuseum’s collections. In connection with the
work on this catalogue, the three paintings of the Battle
of Nördlingen previously ascribed to both Meulener
and to Peter Snayers have now been attributed to the
latter on compositional, technical and stylistic grounds
(see nos. 178, 179 and 180).

The few works that have been signed by Meulener
include, in addition to the Nationalmuseum’s painting
of the Siege of Magdeburg, two battle scenes in the
Prado in Madrid dated 1644 (inv. no. 1448 and 1449),
one in the Brunswick museum of art from 1646 (inv.
no. 545) and also one work in the collections of
Galerie Nostitz in Prague from 1650 (inv. no. 291).
Legrand’s account of Meulener’s oeuvre also lists a
number of works that belonged to Swedish collections
in 1963, three of them in private ownership1 and one
in the art collection of Stockholm University.2
KS

1 The three works in private ownership belonged in 1963 to Allan Petterson in
Uppsala, Count von Rosen in Stockholm and Baron W. Schwerin in Skarhult.
Legrand also mentions two works that were sold at Christie’s in London on 29
June 1951 with a provenance from Harewood House. See Legrand, p. 211.
2 See Karling 1978, no. 110, p. 228 (as Peter Snayers but possibly by Meulener).
[End]

Utforska konstnärer och föremål som finns i Nationalmuseums samlingar.

Explore the artists and artworks of Nationalmuseum Sweden.

Peeter Meulener | Magdeburgs belägring (1631) | Nationalmuseum

Peeter Meulener | The Siege of Magdeburg (1631) | Nationalmuseum

Foto: Erik Cornelius / Nationalmuseum 2009