RKD STUDIES

Charles’s interest in art stretched even further afield. In 1629 he was already in possession of three paintings by Rembrandt (1606/7- 1669) (perhaps just two, and one painting by Jan Lievens [1607-1674]), which is all the more astonishing, given that his collection comprised almost exclusively 16th century Italian paintings. Sir Robert Kerr (1578-1654), Lord Ancrum, who had been sent to Holland on a special mission in 1629, delivered them to the king as a gift.¹ The three paintings were: Student at a Peat Fire (lost; Orlers describes a painting of this kind in Lievens’s oeuvre),² The Old Woman [1] (Rembrandt’s mother, now in Windsor Castle) and the self-portrait that appeared in English art dealer circles in 1930 (Bredius 12) [2].³ This was the first documented instance of the existence of paintings by Rembrandt outside his native country. No doubt many other works will have followed in the course of the century, especially drawings and etchings, to say nothing of the major purchases made in the 18th century. Charles I owned other paintings attributed to Rembrandt, while the Duke of Buckingham had works by both Rembrandt and Govert Flinck.⁴

A great deal has been written about whether Rembrandt was ever in England himself and many arguments have been waged over the issue. Hofstede de Groot was in possession of a drawing Rembrandt made of St. Albans Cathedral [3]. There is also a panorama of London in Berlin [4] (Hofstede de Groot 170; a copy? in Vienna [5].) and a view of Windsor Castle dated 1640 in Vienna [6], so it has been assumed that ggdrawings is a matter of dispute (Woldemar von Seidlitz, Gustav Falck, Frits Lugt et al.), as is the assumption that all these works were studies after nature (Ursula Hoff).⁵ These sceptics have recently been joined by Dr. Welcker, who has set out fresh arguments to reinforce his view that all the drawings (with the exception of the work in Berlin, which is a copy) were made by Flinck, whose self-portrait he discovered in a sketch on the back of a page from an English housekeeping book [7], thus making it very likely that Flinck was in England.⁶

1
Rembrandt or Jan Lievens
An old woman, c. 1629-1631
Great Britain, private collection The Royal Collection, inv./cat.nr. RCIN 405000

2
Rembrandt studio of Rembrandt and possibly Isaac de Jouderville
Self Portrait, 1630-1631
Liverpool (England), Walker Art Gallery, inv./cat.nr. 1011

Account must be taken, nevertheless, of the famous note by the engraver and diarist, George Vertue (1684- 1756). He was informed of the portrait of a sea captain which was inscribed ‘Rembrandt f. York 1662/1’.⁷ In view of the major commissions Rembrandt was executing at that time (Staalmeesters , Claudius Civilis, works for Ruffo) it is generally considered unlikely that Rembrandt would have travelled to England, unless we are of the opinion – as is Ursula Hoff– that both views of London now in Berlin and Vienna arose then and the double dating of the Staalmeesters and the difficulties with Ruffo are taken as an indication that work on these paintings was interrupted by Rembrandt’s temporary absence from Amsterdam. We are not in a position to adduce anything new on this matter. Under no circumstances did Rembrandt belong to the group of Dutch portraitists working in England whom we referred to at the beginning of this chapter.

The two portraits of Johannes Elison and his wife, which come from a collection in Yarmouth [8-9], have also been linked to Rembrandt’s supposed travels.⁸ However, we know that both portraits were painted in Amsterdam in 1634 and that they soon came into the possession of the family of the Reverend Elison, who lived in Norwich, or his brother-in-law; they were subsequently handed down as family heirlooms up to the middle of the 19th century. This is a delightful instance, at all events, of the existence of Dutch art in England.⁹

7
Govert Flinck
Portrait of a painter, c. 1643
Leiden, Prentenkabinet van de Universiteit (Leiden), inv./cat.nr. AW 387

Rembrandt’s style was exported to England not only via works of his own (as well as works after him!), which found their way into English collections, but also by his pupils. However, most of these students were very often quick to disown their mentor when they were abroad. The best example of such a change of style, apart from that of the aforementioned Jan Lievens, is provided by the two Knellers, whose paintings in England show no vestiges of any training by Rembrandt.¹⁰ We know of two portrait etchings of the Englishman Sir William Waller and of Elisabeth Stuart, made in 1643 and 1649 by Peter Rottermondt (active 1632–1645) [10-11] who, although he did not study under Rembrandt, was nonetheless greatly influenced by his style.¹¹ However, these works offer no conclusive proof that Rottermondt was ever in England, particularly since the portrait of Waller was made after a painting by Cornelis Jonson van Ceulen I, who by that time had already returned to Holland.¹² The German artist Johann Ulrich Mayr (1630-1704), who studied under Rembrandt around 1650 and was subsequently a pupil of Jacques Jordaens, is also said to have been active in England as a portraitist.

Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627-1678) was in London between 1662 and 1666.¹³ Needless to say he painted portraits, although the only one we know of at the moment is that of Thomas Godfrey made in 1663 (collection of Sir Bryan Godfrey-Faussett) – a good Dutch portrait in rich brown tones [12].¹⁴ Hoogstraten’s activities extended beyond portrait painting, however. As was the case at the court in Vienna, he endeavoured to delight his clients with trompe l’oeil still lifes. George Vertue made a note of a painting of this kind with English almanacs at an auction in 1730.¹⁵ Very popular, too, were his pictures of arcaded galleries, corridors and similar feats of perspective, the deceptive foreshortenings of which he rendered with consummate skill. Sir John Finch had himself portrayed in a peristyle of this kind [13], and the well-known picture of the Mauritshuis (lent to Dordrecht) [14] is perhaps a companion piece; the lady on it may be his sister.¹⁶ Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) saw a picture of this kind in an English collection in 1663 and such images can still be found in England to this day (fig. 25/104) [15-16].¹⁷ The versatile Hoogstraten was one of the foremost artists in the group of Rembrandt’s students in England.

12
Samuel van Hoogstraten
Portrait of Thomas Godfrey of Burton Aleph (?-1690), dated 1663
London (England), private collection Bryan Godfrey-Faussett

Reference was made in London at about the same time to Abraham van den Hecken (c. 1615-after 1655), a Fleming whose long stay in Holland led to him to adopt Rembrandt’s style of painting.¹⁸ That Jürgen Ovens (1623-1678) spent some time in England is not completely out of the question. Indeed, it is striking how many of his pictures were sold in 1684 together with the collection of the Earl of Arundel. In 1659 Ovens made a portrait of Colonel Hutchinson and his family which, in the view of Harry Schmidt, could only have been painted in England [17]. Whatever the case, it is clear that Ovens had close connections with English collectors.¹⁹ If the young Jacob de Wet II (1641/2-1697), who came to Schotland as a painter at the behest of James II, really did retain something of the style of his father and teacher, he could be recorded here as the last in the series of successors to Rembrandt [18].²⁰

This enumeration of Rembrandt’s students has taken us well beyond the reign of Charles I and so we must now turn our attention to the Dutch artists active in Britain in the second half of the 17th century, insofar as they were not portraitists. There were a large number of them and they were of much greater significance than their fellow Dutch portraitists, since the latter were soon engulfed by English portrait painters. The Dutch artists introduced models in the fields of landscape, marine, still life and genre painting on which English painters of the 18th century were able to build. Around the turn of the century we come across a number of interesting transitional masters, whom we will consider together a little later on. Seascapes will serve as a bridge for that purpose.²¹

17
Jürgen Ovens
Portrait of a family, 1659 (dated)
London (England), Munich, art dealer Konrad O. Bernheimer