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Catalogue 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]

Horatiernas intåg i Rom