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3.13 Echoes of Dutch art in the 18th century

Echoes of Dutch art in the 18th century1a

The history of the influence of Dutch art ends with its decline, and its causes were the same ones that also underlie stylistic developments in Denmark. With Jacques d’Agar (1640-1715) [i], who came to Denmark in 1684, and with Benoît Le Coffre (1672-1722, in Denmark in 1696)1 [i], courtly French art arrived and replaced the realistic Netherlandish oriented and schooled portraiture of the 17th century. The first signs of French influence began to take hold during the reign of Frederick III (ruled 1648-1670). The Danish Johann Georg Ziesenis (1716-1776),2 was a capable portraitist of the 18th century, whose Dutch stay of 1768 in no way led to a pursuit of Dutch features along 17th-century lines [i][i].

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Jacques d' Agar, Portrait of Christian V, king of Denmark and Norway (1646-1699)

Jacques d' Agar
Portrait of Christian V, king of Denmark and Norway (1646-1699) (1783 - 1790)
oil paint / canvas, 121,5 x 101 cm
The National Museum of History Frederiksborg Castle, Hillerød, no. A 7074


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Benoît Le Coffre, The five senses, after 1696

Benoît Le Coffre
The five senses after 1696
oil paint / canvas, 76 x 92 cm
SMK - National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, no. KMS8665


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Johann Georg Ziesenis, Portrait of Stadholder Willem V (1748-1806)., c. 1768-1769

Johann Georg Ziesenis
Portrait of Stadholder Willem V (1748-1806). c. 1768-1769
oil paint / canvas, 141 x 101 cm
Koninklijk Kabinet van Schilderijen Mauritshuis, The Hague, no. 462


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Johann Georg Ziesenis, Portrait of Wilhelmina van Pruisen (1751-1820), c. 1768-1769

Johann Georg Ziesenis
Portrait of Wilhelmina van Pruisen (1751-1820) c. 1768-1769
oil paint / canvas, 141 x 101 cm
Koninklijk Kabinet van Schilderijen Mauritshuis, The Hague, no. 463


According to Madsen, Peter Cramer (1726-1782) was the first Danish artist whose paintings show true Danish characteristics. It is remarkable, however, that in an attempt to overcome French taste he practiced copying Teniers and the Dutch [i][i][i]. In other words, the realism of the Dutch was once more pressed into service, this time to help a young artist find himself. The genre pictures of Cramer’s last years [i] are reminiscent of French painters working in a Dutch style, such as Drolling, Lépicié and Chardin.

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Peter Cramer, Kitchen interior

Peter Cramer
Kitchen interior (1740 - 1782)
oil paint, 33 x 27 cm
Copenhagen (Rasmussen), 1971-12-07 - 1971-12-16, no. 71


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Peter Cramer, Winter landscape by night, 1770s

Peter Cramer
Winter landscape by night 1770s
oil paint / canvas, 61,5 x 78 cm
SMK - National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, no. KMS6404


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Peter Cramer, Polish soldier

Peter Cramer
Polish soldier (1740 - 1782)
oil paint / panel, 23,8 x 17,2 cm
lower right :  Cramer
London (England) ( Manson & Woods Christie), 1987-05-08, no. 50


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Peter Cramer, Man smoking a pipe in an interior

Peter Cramer
Man smoking a pipe in an interior (1775 - 1782)
oil paint / panel, 19,5 x 13,5 cm
on the back :  P. Cramer
SMK - National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, no. KMS6154


The work of Jens Juel (1745-1802) [i] disintegrates both stylistically and iconographically into two halves, portraits that are painted with French elegance and flower pieces in the style of Rachel Ruysch and Abraham Mignon, which often betray his Dutch schooling.3 Especially the early pictures (in Hamburg) show this clearly [i][i][i]. On occasion, he also painted pendants to Dutch still lifes (Copenhagen 449) [i][i]. The first landscapes also seem to incorporate reminiscences of the ‘old Dutchmen’ (Aert van der Neer) [i],4 which are soon lost, while the landscapes by Christian August Lorentzen (1746-1828) persistently cling to the late Dutch landscape style of Griffier-Saftleven [i][i].5

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Jens Juel, Selfportrait of Jens Juel (1745-1802), 1780s

Jens Juel
Selfportrait of Jens Juel (1745-1802) 1780s
black and white chalk / paper, 382 x 256 mm
SMK - The Royal Collection of Graphic Art, Copenhagen, no. KKS4738


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Jens Juel, Flower still-life, 1764

Jens Juel
Flower still-life 1764
oil paint / canvas, 52,5 x 39 cm
lower left :  I. Iuel pinx
Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, no. 450


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Jens Juel, Flower still-life, dated 1764

Jens Juel
Flower still-life dated 1764
oil paint / canvas, 52,5 x 39 cm
lower left :  I. Iuel pinx 1764
Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, no. 451


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Jens Juel, Flower still-life, dated 1764

Jens Juel
Flower still-life dated 1764
oil paint / canvas, 52 x 38 cm
lower left :  I. Iuel: pinxit Hamburg 1764
Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, no. 452


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Anonymous, Still life with shells and blue anemones, after c. 1660

Anonymous
Still life with shells and blue anemones after c. 1660
oil paint / panel, 23,5 x 17,5 cm
SMK - National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, no. KMSsp568


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Jens Juel, An apple, Caville rouge, and other fruits, dated 1791

Jens Juel
An apple, Caville rouge, and other fruits dated 1791
oil paint / panel, 23 x 17,5 cm
SMK - National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, no. KMSsp870


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Jens Juel, Nocturnal view on the Binnenalster in Hamburg, dated 1764

Jens Juel
Nocturnal view on the Binnenalster in Hamburg dated 1764
oil paint / panel (oak), 29,9 x 38,5 cm
lower right :  J. Juel fecit 1764
Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, no. 453


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Christian August Lorentzen, View of Drammen in Norway, 1790s

Christian August Lorentzen
View of Drammen in Norway 1790s
oil paint / canvas, 61 x 73,5 cm
SMK - National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, no. KMS920


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Christian August Lorentzen, View from Tøyen

Christian August Lorentzen
View from Tøyen (1790 - 1799)
oil paint / unknown, 39 x 55 cm
Oslo Museum, Oslo


As young man, the famous Asmus Jacob Carstens (1754-1798) stood in admiration before Ovens’ historical paintings, and he also closely studied the old Dutchmen of the Moltke collection. In the Judith by the 25-year old painter, a picture in the taste of Schalcken, we encounter the result of his pursuit of a painterly style [i][i].6 However, the Classicist Carstens soon headed off in other directions. We do not have a second painting of this kind by him.

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Asmus Jacob Carstens, Judith and her maidservant are led to Holofernes' tent, dated 1779

Asmus Jacob Carstens
Judith and her maidservant are led to Holofernes' tent dated 1779
oil paint / panel, 81 x 60 cm
lower right :  A. J. Carstens pinx. 1779
Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum Hannover, Hannover, no. PNM 524


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Godefridus Schalcken, Salome with the head of Saint John the Baptist

Godefridus Schalcken
Salome with the head of Saint John the Baptist (1656 - 1706)
oil paint / canvas, 114 x 83 cm
Galerie Bruno Meissner, Zurich/Zollikon


It is therefore in landscapes and still lifes that reminiscences of Dutch models are most likely to occur, even when artists such as Nicholas Thomas Dall (active 1757-1776) lean to the English school [i].7 The flower painter Claudius Ditlev Fritzsch (1765-1841), who came from Kiel to become a student at the Copenhagen academy, relied entirely on Dutch traditions [i]. As with many German painters, we observe in his case as well that the Mignon-Huijsum models become rigid and hard through simplification, so that one believes oneself faced by ‘modern’ pictures by Bosschaert or Savery. Many other flower painters of the 19th century, such as Johan Laurentz Jensen (1800-1856) [i] and Otto Didrik Ottesen (1816-1892) [i], reached back to models by Van Huijsum [i][i], the uncrowned king of flower painting of all times.8

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Nicholas Thomas Dall, An extensive landscape with figures and cattle, dated 1768

Nicholas Thomas Dall
An extensive landscape with figures and cattle dated 1768
oil paint / canvas, 66 x 113,7 cm
London (England) ( Manson & Woods Christie), 1990-05-18, no. 286


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Claudius Ditlev Fritzsch, A basket with flowers, dated 1808

Claudius Ditlev Fritzsch
A basket with flowers dated 1808
oil paint / canvas, 90 x 77 cm
SMK - National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, no. KMS272


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Johan Laurentz Jensen, Flower still-life, dated 1827

Johan Laurentz Jensen
Flower still-life dated 1827
oil paint / canvas, 35,8 x 43,4 cm
lower right :  J.L. Jensen. 1827.
London (England) (Christie's), 2009-07-08, no. 199


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Otto Didrik Ottesen, Flowers in a terracotta vase in a niche, dated 1869

Otto Didrik Ottesen
Flowers in a terracotta vase in a niche dated 1869
oil paint / panel, 77 x 57 cm
SMK - National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, no. KMS865


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Otto Didrik Ottesen  after Jan van Huijsum, Flower still-life in a terracotta vase and a bird's nest on a marble ledge, c. 1855-1856

Otto Didrik Ottesen  after Jan van Huijsum
Flower still-life in a terracotta vase and a bird's nest on a marble ledge c. 1855-1856
oil paint / canvas, 21 x 19 cm
lower left :  skitzeret kopi efter v. Huysum. O.D. Ottesen
Copenhagen (Bruun Rasmussen), 1998-12-01 - 1998-12-02, no. 291


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Jan van Huijsum, Flower still-life with terracotta vase, c. 1723

Jan van Huijsum
Flower still-life with terracotta vase c. 1723
oil paint / panel (oak), 39 x 32 cm
lower left :  Jan Van Huysum fecit
Private collection


We close the line of non-contemporary admirers of things Dutch with [Christian] David Gebauer (1777-1831), a student of Lorentzen. Though he came from Silesia, he was almost continuously active in Copenhagen. He took his horses from Wouwermans [i] and cows from Cuyp and Potter [i], and used them to compose skillfully idyllic pictures, although ‘he studied museums more than nature’ (pictures in Copenhagen).

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Christian David Gebauer, Two hunters on horseback

Christian David Gebauer
Two hunters on horseback (1800 - 1831)
oil paint / canvas, 14 x 26 cm
SMK - National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, no. KMS796


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Christian David Gebauer, A cattle piece, 1820s

Christian David Gebauer
A cattle piece 1820s
oil paint / canvas, 22,5 x 28 cm
SMK - National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, no. KMS725


 


[1a]

[Van Leeuwen 2015] For the importance of Dutch painting of the 17th century for Danish painting of the 18th and 19th century, see Rønberg 1997, Monrad 2001 and Rønberg et al. 2001.

[1]

[Van Leeuwen 2015] Le Coffre was Danish, , but his father was a French immigrant (the stucco worker Claude Le Coffre). Bendix was trained in Paris. See Grandjean 1984.

[2]

[Van Leeuwen 2015] On Ziesenis, see Schrader 1995.

[3]

[Van Leeuwen 2015] As far as is known, Juel never visited the Dutch Republic. He may have come by his ‘Dutch training’ mainly in Hamburg from 1760 to 1766. His Self Portrait  of c. 1764, which originated in Hamburg, was presumably inspired by Dutch painters of artifical light scenes such as Gerard van Honthorst (Saur 1992, vol. 78 [2013], p. 443). On Jens Juel, see Poulsen 1991.

[4]

[Van Leeuwen 2015] Juel also copied after Allard van Everdingen (RKDimages 257324), see Poulsen 1991, vol. 1, p. 219, no. 826; vol. 2, p. 530, no. 826, ill.

[5]

[Van Leeuwen 2015] Lorentzen visited the Northern Netherlands, Antwerp and Paris, where he studied and copied Dutch 17th-century paintings (Saur 1992-, vol. 85 [2005], p. 304).

[6]

[Gerson 1942/1983] Painting of 1779 in Hannover. See Dorner 1927-1928.

[7]

[Van Leeuwen 2015] At first Dall was primarily a theater painter and active in the royal opera house in Copenhagen. Only after he had settled in England (c. 1757) did he begin to paint landscapes (Saur 1992-, vol. 23 [1999], p. 514; Weilbach 1994-2000).

[8]

[Van Leeuwen 2015] Jensen was taught to emulate Van Huijsum by Cornelis van Spaendonck in the porcelain factory in Sevres. Ottesen made his copy in smaller format after Van Huijsum during his stay in Dresden in 1855 or 1856.

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