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However, the works of the Danzig painter Daniel Schultz (c. 1615-1683), who alternated between working in Poland and Danzig, are almost astonishingly Dutch [1]. He received his first instruction from his uncle, Daniel Schultz (†1646), who had done some manneristically conceived pictures for Ladislaus IV.¹ Schultz was probably in the Northern Netherlands in the late forties to study superior painting at its source. An early drawing, Apollo and the Muses [2] (the ostensibly fragmentary state of which has had scholars wracking their brains unnecessarily), is nothing other than a copy of an engraving by Hendrick Goltzius [3].² However, he need not have travelled to the Northern Netherlands to become acquainted with Goltzius’ print!

1
Daniel Schultz
Portrait of a young man, possibly a self-portrait of Daniel Schultz (1615-1683), second half 1640s
Warsaw, Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, inv./cat.nr. MP 2447 (d. 233128)

Schultz’s portraits of Danzig burghers show him at the height of his powers. His Portrait of Constantia von Holten (Danzig) [4], which dates from the 1670s, still shows the sober, relaxed pose that we know from the Rembrandt School, though of course the execution reveals that the painter belonged to the generation of Bartholomeus van der Helst and Caspar Netscher.³ A family portrait of a Tartar nobleman, painted around 1655 (Zarskoje-Selo) [5],⁴ is even closer in execution to the Rembrandt School, Jan Victors in this instance. Thanks to his thorough Dutch schooling, Schultz excelled over all of his Danzig contemporaries.⁵

In addition to his portraits, to which we add the 1677 Portrait of Johannes Hevelius (1611-1687) (Danzig, Municipal Library) as a late example [6] ,⁶ Schultz created a commissioned altarpiece of 1675 for Saint-Germain-des-Près, where Ladislaus lies buried, as well as battle pieces for his successor, which have been lost.⁷

The animal still lifes (Schwerin [now Gdańsk, ed.] and Stockholm) [7-9] which have probably rightly been attributed to him, reveal more of a dependence on the Flemings, whereas a bird still life in a Bremen private collection [10] conforms to works by [Elias and Jan] Vonck, Willem van Aelst, or Hendrik de Fromentiou, which enjoyed international recognition.⁸

The Danzig artist Andreas Stech (c. 1635-1697) continued the Dutch tradition in Danzig.⁹ As he did not travel abroad, he must have modeled his work on the example of Schultz and other Dutch paintings in Danzig collections. His Self Portrait (Danzig, Stadtmuseum) [11] is again in the style of Rembrandt and may best be compared to works by Jacob Adriaensz. Backer. He probably executed the work before dated portraits of the 70s and 80s, in which a Flemish-French elegance, as we know it from late Maes and Weenix portraits, becomes discernible. In addition, we can determine that the Dutch sobriety and sound painterly conception last longer with Schultz, as well as with Stech, than in the Dutch Republic itself, which was more open to French influence. What we here deem to be of positive value could from another point of view be called provincial backwardness. A good example of Stech’s portraiture is Captain with a Coin (Danzig) [12]. A small masterpiece is Promenade before the Tower of Danzig [13], of which the small-scaled portraits deserve to be compared with Gerard ter Borch the Younger and Thomas de Keyser, while the handling of the Captain is more Rembrantesque, in the sense of Samuel van Hoogstraten.¹⁰

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Daniel Schultz
Three foxes fighting over a dead pigeon, 1660 (dated)
Gdańsk, Muzeum Narodowe w Gdańsku, inv./cat.nr. SD/356/M

We also know of a few flower pieces by Stech [14-16]. They used to be wrongly attributed to Ottomar Elliger the Elder, which does give a good indication of their style. They are generally more sober and rougher than their models and, once again, one might be inclined to relate them to Dutch developments of a few decades before and to date them earlier. It is nevertheless incorrect to constantly want to compare Danzig painting to Dutch art. The former had its own national character, which favored sober and linear qualities over rich and painterly ones.

Stech also rendered illustrations for the botanical books of Johannes Hevelius [17-18], whose portrait Schultz had painted, and of Jacob Breyn [19].¹¹ It was probably under Stech’s direction that the two daughters of Breyn and Frau Gralath carried out the drawings of insects.

In 1671 Stech received a commission for the interior decoration of the Cistercian church of Pelplin [20-22]. The grisaille preparatory studies are kept in the museum in Danzig [23-24].¹² As was customary with ecclesiastical commissions, Andreas Stech turned to Flemish art for inspiration.¹³

Compared to Schultz and Stech the other portraitists lose in significance. Nevertheless, we should mention Bartholomäus Strobel (1591-after 1650) [25],¹⁴ an artist from Thorn who was active as a portraitist and church painter between 1639 and 1648,¹⁵ because he introduced his Dutch colleague Gillis Schagen (1616-1668) to King Ladislaus IV, for whom Schagen must have worked for a while [26].¹⁶