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Catalogue raisonné: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 63: 

Technical notes: The painting’s support is an oak
panel (±0.6–0.8 cm thick) constructed of four horizontal,
butt-joined, radial boards with horizontal grain. Bevel-
ling occurs along the left and right edges on the verso.
The lower corners are slightly dented. The verso of the
panel has been painted a dull yellow-green over a white
ground layer that may be original. Dendrochronological
examination has determined a felling date for the tree
between c. 1621 and 1631. The wood originates 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 1629 or later.

Paint is applied thinly over a pale cream-coloured
ground, with impastos in the whites, the flesh tones,
clouds and frothing waves. Infrared reflectography
revealed an extensive dark underdrawing in a dry medium,
probably black chalk, a loosely executed compositional
sketch that has also become partially visible to the
naked eye due to the increasing transparency of the paint
layers. This underdrawing indicates the various features
of the background landscape, including the clouds, and
delineates the contours and modelling of the figures –
using curved parallel hatching in the limbs – their facial
features, coiffures and draperies (Fig. 1), as well as the
overall pattern of light and shade – using sweeping lines
of broad parallel hatching – throughout the foreground
groups of figures and animals. Except for some of the
more carefully drawn principal figures, the underdrawing
was often not followed exactly in the final painting, so
that there are numerous observable changes between the
drawing and painting. For example, in the sea-nymph
straddling a fish-like creature on the right, whose drawn
profile and chest differ from the painted version. The
small-scale figure of Juno and her peacock-drawn carriage
in the sky at the upper left were very sketchily
underdrawn, but the figures in the middle ground on the
right were painted directly over the landscape without
prior drawing.

Numerous small retouches occur throughout the sky,
in the riverbank at the lower left and along a short horizontal
scratch through the paint layers at the lower lefthand
side. The painting underwent conservation treatment
in 1977.

Provenance: Lovisa Ulrika 1760, no. 272 (as “the Triumph
of Thetis, painted by Rubens”); Gustav III 1792,
no. 123 (as Rubens); KM 1795, no. 44; KM 1816,
no.689).

Exhibited: Stockholm 1977, no. 77.

Bibliography: NM Cat. 1867, p. 44 (as by Rubens);
Sander I, p. 103, II, p. 113; Göthe 1887, p. 230 (as circle
of Rubens); Göthe 1893, pp. 283–284 (as circle of
Rubens); Göthe 1910, pp. 309–310 (as circle of Rubens);
NM Cat. 1958, p. 74 (as by Frans Francken II); Härting
1983, cat. no. B223 (attribution to Frans Francken II
rejected); NM Cat. 1990, p. 136.

The sea-nymph Amphitrite fled from the persistent
wooing of Neptune, in classical mythology the god
who ruled the sea and its inhabitants, but he sent dolphins
after her which succeeded in persuading her to
return to become his bride. Amphitrite is here shown
beside a confident Neptune holding his trident, his
seaweed-covered locks streaming in the wind, as they
ride in a cockle-shell chariot drawn by sea-horses, or
hippocampi, which have the hind-parts of a fish. The
draperies of the bridal couple billow behind them, as
Amphitrite affectionately tugs at Neptune’s flowing
beard. Their chariot is surrounded by an exuberant
retinue that includes a rotund figure of Bacchus, the
god of wine and fertility, wreathed with vine leaves,
who offers a toast to the happy couple, while carried
aloft by two horned satyrs. Tritons blow their conchshells
and Nereids frolic in the waves near a rocky
shore where, in a large cave, preparations are under
way for the wedding banquet. In the sky above, at the
upper left, the goddess Juno, protectress of women, of
marriage and childbirth, appears in a burst of light, her
chariot drawn by a pair of peacocks.

This painting, which carries an old attribution to
Rubens, was subsequently reassigned, in 1958, to the
Antwerp history painter Frans Francken II. Francken
II and his workshop developed and popularized the
theme depicted here in a series of cabinet-sized pictures
beginning in the first decade of the 17th century.1
For natural reasons the subject of the “Triumph of
Neptune and Amphitrite” – which is not mentioned in
the classical literary sources – became an increasingly
popular one among art collectors in the seafaring town
of Antwerp in the 17th century.2 In general composition,
and in the iconography, the scene as represented
in the Nationalmuseum painting indeed adheres rather
closely in its particulars to that developed by the
Francken studio, as seen, for example, in a painting
now at Kromériž (Schlossgalerie).3 However, Härting
(1983) firmly rejected the attribution of the painting
to Francken I or his circle, arguing instead that the figure
style is closer to that of Hendrick van Balen II and,
further, that the inclusion of Bacchus in the scene
points in the same direction.4 In our view, the same
hand responsible for the Nationalmuseum painting
can be recognized in two paintings with similar Rubenesque
figures in Dresden (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister)5 and formerly in
Evanston, Illinois (present whereabouts unknown),6
both variations on the same theme, employing a
slightly different cast of characters. The latter painting
includes not only a similar figure of Bacchus, but also a
nearly identical Juno in her chariot at the upper left.
The Dresden and Evanston pictures have both been
attributed to the Antwerp history painter Abraham
van Diepenbeeck, a rather eclectic follower of Rubens,
who worked for a time, in the late 1620s and 1630s,
making preparatory drawings for prints after the master’s
paintings. Several of the Nereids seen from the
back in profiles perdues in the present painting recur in
similar twisting poses in drawings by the artist as, for
example, his Diana and Actaeon in Paris (Institut néerlandais,
Fondation Custodia, Coll. Frits Lugt).7 It is
not surprising, given Van Diepenbeeck’s close association
with the Rubens studio, that all three paintings
contain references to Rubens’ work. They also show
borrowings from popular reproductive prints after
Italian Renaissance masters. Thus, the pose of
Amphitrite was modelled after that of the sea-nymph
Galatea in the engraving of The Triumph of Galatea
(c. 1515) by Marcantonio Raimondi after Raphael,8
while Bacchus was inspired either by the drunken god,
straddling an ass and supported by satyrs, in Marcantonio’s
engraving after Raphael or Giulio Romano,
The Procession of Silenus,9 or the same figure in Mantegna’s
engraving Bacchanal with Silenus (B.20; 1470s),10
which may also have been the source for the fat nude
figure seen from behind in the immediate foreground.
This thinly painted, sketch-like picture on a wood
panel dated by recent dendrochronological examination
to around 1629 (see Technical Notes), seems stylistically
and technically related to Van Diepenbeeck’s
work of the early 1630s, especially his oil sketches such
as the Conversion of St. Paul of c. 1633/1634 in Munich
(Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen Alte Pina ko -
thek), a modello for stained glass in St. Paul’s Cathedral
at Antwerp.11
CF

1 See Härting 1989, pp. 97–113, 310–314 nos. 276–296, figs. 88–91, colour
pl. 20.
2 See ibid, esp. pp. 100ff.
3 Oil on wood, 55 x 73 cm, signed “Do ffranck IN”, Kromériž, Schlossgalerie,
inv. no. 031; see ibid, p. 311 no. 279, illus.
4 Härting 1983, no. B223, citing the following examples in Ertz 1979, nos.
230, 231, 359.
5 Oil on wood, 51 x 74 cm, Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, inv. no. 1016; see Cat. Dresden 1912, p.
105 no. 1016 (as Abraham van Diepenbeeck); Not in Hairs (1977) or
Steadman (1982). Cf. a second picture of the same theme at Dresden that
includes the chariot of Juno; see Cat. Dresden 1912, p. 105 no. 1003 (as
circle of Rubens); and Cat. Dresden 1930, no. 1003 (as circle of Rubens).
6 Oil on wood, 51.7 x 77.2 cm, Evanston, Illinois, Coll. Louis Pomerantz,
1964; see a photograph on file at the RKD, The Hague (as Abraham van
Diepenbeeck). Not in Hairs (1977) or Steadman (1982).
7 Pen and brown ink and wash, heightened with white, 98 x 160 mm, Paris,
Institut Néerlandais, Fondation Custodia, Coll. Frits Lugt; for which see
London/Paris/Bern/Brussels 1972, pp. 29–30 no. 21, pl. 70.
8 See Geneva 1984, pp. 66–68 no. 82, illus.; and The Illus. Bartsch, vol. 27
no. 350, illus. on p. 47.
9 See The Illus. Bartsch, vol. 26.
10 See The Illustrated Bartsch, vol. 25, pp. 93–95 and 96 no. 240. It may be
noted that both of these figures from Mantegna’s print recur among the
damned in Rubens’ so-called Large Last Judgment of c. 1621 in Munich,
Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen Alte Pinakothek, inv. no. 320; for
which see Renger 2002, pp. 330–333. Drawings by Rubens or his assistants
after Mantegna’s print may even have been available to Van Diepenbeeck
during his close association with the studio after 1627. Cf., for
example, Paris, Musée du Louvre, Département des arts graphiques,
Cabinet de dessins, inv. no. 20.178; see Burchard and d’Hulst 1963, no.
67 (as Rubens).
11 Oil on wood, 46 x 36 cm, Munich, Bayerische Gemäldesammlungen Alte
Pinakothek, inv. no. 1222 (as “Rubens’ School”); for which see Steadman
1982, pp. 9, 85–86 no. 5, fig. 7; and s’-Hertogenbosch 2000, p. 66, fig. 39.[End]

Neptunus och Amfitrite