RKD STUDIES

Flemish high Baroque is mainly found in the Warsaw and Poznań collections. Except for a single Rubens-and-workshop Virgin and Child in Wilanów Palace [1]¹ there are unfortunately no more works by the ‘Prince of Painters’ in Poland nowadays. Of the three greatest artists of the Flemish Golden Age, it is only Jacob Jordaens whose works are relatively numerous in Polish collections. The National Museum in Warsaw possesses a magnificent early Holy Family with Saint John the Baptist, His Parents and Angels of about 1617 [2] and a modello for the Triumph of Prince Frederik Hendrik of Orange [3],² commissioned by Amalia van Solms, the widow of the Stadholder, for Huis ten Bosch in The Hague. The composition of the Warsaw sketch, one of three extant (the other two are in Brussels and Antwerp), is the closest to the final work in the Orange Hall, which was signed and dated by Jordaens in 1652. His other autograph works are in the Łazienki and Wilanów Palaces and in Gdańsk [4-5].

There are some excellent paintings from the Antwerp circle of Rubens, such as Abraham Janssens’ Ecce Homo and Lamentation [6-7], or Jan Boeckhorst’s Achilles among the Daughters of Lycomedes, exhibited in the National Museum in Warsaw as well [8].

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Jacques Jordaens
Study of a child, c. 1626
Gdańsk, Muzeum Narodowe w Gdańsku, inv./cat.nr. MNG/SD/331/M

A couple of other storia paintings representing the Flemish Golden Age in Polish collections should be also mentioned here: Frans II Francken’s Fortune in the Wawel Castle [9], Pieter van Lint’s Penitent Mary Magdalen in Warsaw Castle [10] and another piece attributed to this artist, a grand composition, Saint Elisabeth of Hungary Praying for Conversion of Berthold von Leinbach in the National Museum in Warsaw [11];³ the Adoration of the Magi by Cornelis Schut in the Porczyński Foundation [12]⁴ and a monumental Christ at the Pond of Bethesda, now attributed to Artus Wollfort, in Poznań [13].

Portraiture is represented by works such as a splendid full-figure Warsaw image of Marie Louise Gonzaga, the future Polish queen, by Justus van Egmont [14], a charming Portrait of a Lady in the manner of Anthony van Dyck in the Princes Czartoryski Museum [15], and A Boy with a Dog and a Hat in the manner of Cornelis de Vos in the National Museum in Kraków [16]. Also worth mentioning are: a very interesting Family Group in a Garden, painted by Jan II van Kessel in Madrid in 1672 [17], and Jacob Ferdinand Voet’s Duke Orazio Archinto [18] (both in the National Museum in Warsaw) and the latter’s Philippe, Chevalier de Vendôme in the Porczyński Foundation [19].

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Cornelis Schut (I)
The adoration of the magi, dated 1652
Warsaw, Muzeum Kolekcji im. Jana Pawla II

The lesser, decorative genres of Flemish baroque painting are represented by works by artists such as Frans Snijders (an early Kitchen from ca. 1608 in Warsaw [20] and a magnificent Boar Hunt in Poznań [21]), Paul de Vos, David de Coninck and Daniel Seghers. Of the latter, two flower compositions are worth mentioning: one with an illusionist relief portrait of Nicolas Poussin in Warsaw [22], and another containing a similar image of the Holy Family in Poznań [23]. Impressive panoramic vista with The Temptation of Christ, signed and dated 1663 by Philips Augustin Immenraet, in the Porczyński Foundation [24], is one of the most attractive examples of the mature Flemish landscape in Polish collections.⁵ Numerous Flemish Golden Age paintings from public collections in Warsaw, Gdańsk, Kraków and Wrocław were presented at a big exhibition in the National Museums in Warsaw and Gdańsk in 2007-2008.⁶

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Frans Snijders
Stil Life with a Deer
Łódź, Muzeum Sztuki w Lodzi, inv./cat.nr. MS/SO/M/143