RKD STUDIES

We return to 17th century and go to the remote Prussian residence of Königsberg [now Kaliningrad, Russia], where we also find artists with a Netherlandish training. A Cranach tradition in portraiture persisted here until about 1600, and was breached for the first time by painters who were attuned to the Netherlands. In the neighbouring Danzig [now Gdańsk ], for example, Anton Möller (c.1563/65-1611), who probably painted in Königsberg as well [1].¹ Here a certain Daniel Rose († 1639/40) was active as a court painter since 1602.² His portraits [2] follow the Dutch type established by Cornelis Ketel (1548-1616). In 1624 Christoph Singknecht, allegedly a Dutchman, decorated the former townhall in Löbenicht.³

Four years later Mathias Czwiczek was appointed as a court painter and soon he was sent for a year to Holland ‘to improve his art’.⁴ He connects to Rose, but his portraits are already much more free and realistic. As we have seen already above,⁵ they can be compared most closely to the works of Honthorst and are also slightly reminiscent of Abraham Wuchters. The East-Prussian poet Simon Dach, who sang Czwiczek’s praise, did not observe his work properly when he cited Goltzius, Spranger and Rubens [sic] as his examples, since he really was a step further. ⁶ Czwiczek’s assistant and apprentice Gabriel Wietzell was appointed as a court painter in 1641.⁷

Michael (1630-1706) and Peter Willmann († 1665), of whom we will speak in another place,⁸ stayed here temporarily, and at the end of the century the Leiden Justus van Bentum (1670-1727) [3], who also worked at other German courts, moved to Königsberg. There in the east Dietrich Ernst André (c. 1680-c. 1734)⁹ who became his pupil, accompanied him on his trips for 12 years. Even in André’s works the Dutch training still is visible [4-6].¹⁰

3
Justus van Bentum
An old money-lender reading by candle-light
Munich, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, inv./cat.nr. 5587

4
Dietrich Ernst Andreae
Self-portrait of Dietrich Ernst Andreae (c. 1680-1734) in green dressing gown, between 1717-1719
Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, inv./cat.nr. 636

At the other courts in Northern Germany the artistic life awakened much later. In Mecklenburg Daniel Block (1580-1660) must have been active [7]. His father hailed from Utrecht. He is thought to have painted a genealogical tree of the Mecklenburg dukes and was ̶ according to Sandrart ̶ more of a courtier than a painter. ¹¹ Of his three painting sons we highlight Benjamin von Block (1631-1689), who already worked for the Mecklenburgers in 1647.¹² Later this artist moved on to smaller courts like Halle-Magdenburg and Dresden; he even reached Vienna and Hungary and also travelled to Italy.

The art-loving Christian Ludwig von Mecklenburg-Schwerin favoured ̶ in accordance with the taste of his time ̶ the finely executed paintings of a Herman van der Mijn (1684-1741), who probably came to his court around 1735.¹³ He also acquired two paintings by Jan van Huijsum when he visited him in Holland in 1744 [8-9].¹⁴ With these two artist’s names we have arrived quite some way into the 18th century. Which occasion lured Johannes Withoos (1656-1687/8) [10] to the court of the Duke of Sachsen-Lauenburg in 1685, and what he painted for him, is unknown. He cannot have been there long, since he died in Amsterdam in 1688 or shortly before.¹⁵

7
Daniel Block
Equestrian portrait of Johann Albrecht II, Duke of Mecklenburg, 1635
Warsaw, Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, inv./cat.nr. M.Ob.2079