RKD STUDIES

The wide variety of directions in Netherlandish art are reflected extensively in Hamburg painting.¹ The mannerist portrait style is represented by David Kindt (1580-1652).² His self-portrait in Hamburg [1] can well be compared to the influential portrait type of Cornelis Ketel.³ Other paintings close to his style, like the portrait of Gertrud Moller of 1618 (Hamburger Kunsthalle) [2], follow the work of Goltzius.⁴ Kindt is particularly conservative. The models he utilizes in the second and third decades of the 17th century, are now well over thirty years old. When he has to restore an old painting in the Jacobi Church in 1622, he surrounds the representation with arabesques deriving from a Goltzius print of 1593! In 1643 he paints a landscape with the Entry into Jerusalem [3] which holds on to the Coninxloo-style of days long gone by. Even for Hamburg this is quite old-fashioned.⁵

Also the perspective feats of Hans Vredeman de Vries found its emulators. Gabriel Engels (1592-1654)⁶ delivered such ‘artfully painted perspectives’ for the court in Gottorf, which are now lost [4].⁷ On the other hand, a comparable painting in the catholic church in Hamburg did survive.⁸ Jochim Ellerbrock (active 1609-1653) must have painted similarly, if such pictures in Danish castles are attributed to him correctly.⁹

Otto Wagenfeldt (c. 1610-1671/82) is the first painter in Hamburg, whose work completely shows the influence of Rembrandt. Although he still uses prints by Goltzius for his compositions, Rembrandt’s impact is revealed in the new, warm range of colours [5] and also in the painterly approach of his studies of old men, which are mostly done after Rembrandt’s etchings. It cannot be ruled out that he was in the Netherlands in the 1630s, although there is no archival evidence of such a visit. There or in Hamburg he must have become acquainted with works by Rubens, because the adoption of his forms [6] are even more numerous than his motifs derived from Dutch art [7].¹⁰

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Otto Wagenfeldt
The bird's-nest, probably c. 1650
Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle, inv./cat.nr. 244

We skip the unknown Evert Decker († 1647), who is mentioned as Wouwerman’s teacher,¹¹ a certain Johann Stumm (active 1647) [8], who is mentioned by Sandrart as a portrait painter,¹² Heinrich Dittmers (c. 1625-1677) and Andreas Magerstadt (active 1639-1652), who both were mainly active in Denmark,¹³ to dwell for a moment on Jacob Weyer (1623-1670).¹⁴

It is said that Weyer studied the works of Philips Wouwerman, who was only one year his senior, in Holland. But his cavalry battle scenes (Brunswick, Dessau) [9],¹⁵ sometimes comprising the subject of the Conversion of Paul, actually belong to an earlier phase. Esaias van de Velde, Palamedes Palamedesz en Benjamin Cuyp [10] are his real models, which also affect the works of the young Wouwerman. When we name Benjamin Cuyp here, we immediately think of Rembrandt’s colouring and dramatic chiaroscuro. Undoubtedly something of the essence of the young Rembrandt shines through in Weyers’ works, ‘although distorted and intensified by the gothic urge of mannerist expression’ (in translation).¹⁶ Also the young Jacob Weyer painted ‘Dutch pictures’.¹⁷

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Johann Stumm
A vanitas still-life with a skull, a candleholder and coins, 1640s
Paris, New York City, art dealer Haboldt & Co.

Matthias Scheits (c. 1625/30-c. 1700) on the other hand is not obsessed with this ‘urge’. He is more versatile and productive than Weyer and he uses his models more freely. He must have been in the Netherlands repeatedly, because he relates personally about Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Philip Wouwermans and Jacob Jordaens.¹⁸ The influence of the first two appears to be relatively modest, especially since ‘The bird's-nest’ and ‘Death’ (see above) have been given to the older Wagenfeldt.¹⁹ Admittedly his biblical scenes (Pommersfelden, Hamburg) [11-15] are still Rembrandtesque, but in a loose, fluffy way of an Aert de Gelder, to whom the Three men in the furnace in Pommerfelden was attributed once. The influence of Wouwerman does not particularly reveal itself in wild cavalry battles, but in the elegant and artful handling of the silk cloths in his genre paintings.

He had a particular interest in the late peasant paintings of Adriaen van Ostade and Dusart. In Raudnitz [Roudnice] castle are two peasant paintings, attributed to a ‘Matthias Scheuts’ [16]. If these are by the hand of our master, they show him as an imitator of an early Adriaen van Ostade (Anthonie Victorijns).²⁰

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Matthias Scheits
The conversion of the apostle Paul on his way to Damascus (Acts 9:1-9)
Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, inv./cat.nr. 569

Especially in his drawings he knows how to merge beautifully the natural observation with the technique and style of the indulgent Dutch. Scheits moves around freely and unbiased in the style of the old masters, without renouncing his natural disposition to capture daily life in a genre-like manner. He is clever enough is to seek advice from Anthony van Dyck about a distinguished portrait (Braunschweig)²¹ [19] and to look at Adriaen van de Velde and Hendrick Verschuring to draw horses [17-18]. His etchings certainly are no technical masterpieces. All his representations look somewhat provincial, by the way ̶ the faithful narrative will not hide the weaknesses and limited types. His son Andreas Scheits (1655-1735) distinguished himself mainly as a portrait painter. His sitters are painted in the smooth Rembrandt manner [20], which was maintained so skilfully by Balthasar Denner.²²

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Matthias Scheits
Peasants smoking in a barn
Roudnice (castle), private collection Roudnice Castle

Hamburg was not short of portrait painters, so that it was not really strange the Dutch held themselves back here.²³ Joachim Luhn (c. 1640-1717),²⁴ who was probably a pupil of Adriaen Backer (c. 1633-1684) in Rome, did catch a little of the Rembrandt tradition on the way. His portrait of the architect Hans Georg Hertel of 1672 (Braunschweig) [21]²⁵ is about at the level of a late Ferdinand Bol, while the smooth handling of paint in the family portrait (also Braunschweig) [22]²⁶ equals an Abraham van den Tempel and Jürgen Ovens. In biblical compositions, which originated towards the end of the century, he sticks to the model of Elliger and Italian artists.²⁷

Hans Hinrich Rundt (c. 1660-c. 1750), who was trained by Gerard de Lairesse (1641-1711), does not negate his teacher’s decorative style in his portraits [23].²⁸ The craftsman-like Elias Galli I (1650-1712/14), who visited Amsterdam in 1717 as a decorative painter from Holstein ²⁹ appears to connect more to the old Dutch painters [24]. A portrait in the Hamburger Kunsthalle (no. 362) is attributed to him [25].³⁰ Furthermore there is a signed and dated 16(82) work representing the Meßberg square in Hamburg in the Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte [26].³¹ From a Hermann Kamphusen († 1698) some portraits are preserved in prints [27]. To judge from these, it does not seem unlikely that he came from the Netherlands.³²

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Hans Hinrich Rundt
Portrait of Rudolph Augustus, Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg (1627-1704), 1699
Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, inv./cat.nr. B 110

About landscape painting there is not much to say. Johann Oswald Harms (1643-1708) occasionally uses motifs from Albert Meyering, who made drawings in Hamburg.³³ Johann Holst (active 1689-1728), who might be identical to I. von Holst who was mentioned in The Hague in 1701, paints more in the Flemish style of Boudewijns and Schoevaerts. Johann Georg Stuhr (c. 1640-1721) continues the tradition of Dutch marine painting in Hamburg, albeit with a tangible difference in quality [28-29].

The state of still-life painting in Hamburg is much better. A remarkable talent is Georg Hinz (1630/31-1688), who was active in Hamburg from 1665 until 1700.³⁴ His paintings were attributed wrongly to Ottomar Elliger I and Barend van der Meer.³⁵ It is likely that Elliger the Elder, who is documented in Hamburg at least from 1666, introduced him to the Dutch perception. The earliest paintings of Hinz show echoes of Dutch breakfast pieces like those of Pieter Claesz [30].³⁶ Hinz was skilled in the illusionistic presentation of cabinets of curiosity (Hamburg, Berlin) [31-32].³⁷ They are followed by still-lifes of luxuries in the style of Barend van der Meer and Willem Kalf.³⁸ Also Hinrich Stravius († 1690) loved to make illusionistic paintings.³⁹ His Hunting attributes (Hamburg) [33] hanging on a bright wall look as if they really hung there.⁴⁰ This type of illusionistic still-lives dispersed from the Netherlands all over Europe. The Hamburg painters may have copied it from Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts, who excelled in this genre and who did work here.⁴¹

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Georg Hinz
Breakfast still life
Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle

A pupil of Georg Hinz was Ernst Stuven (c. 1657-1712). He met Johannes Voorhout in 1675 and went with him to Amsterdam, where he led an adventurous life before he moved to Rotterdam.⁴² His paintings [34] are not inferior to those of other followers of Rachel Ruysch, who was his model.⁴³ His contemporaries Franz Werner von Tamm (1658-1724) and Christian Berentz (1658-1722) belonged to the Flemish-Italian followers of Mario Nuzzi (1603-1673). Only a few paintings by Berentz are preserved (Rome, Corsini [35]; Napels [36]; Hamburg). Two of them, the still-lifes dated 1680 and 1691 in Hamburg [37-38], are definitely treated in the Dutch way ̶ indeed more awkward than Barend van der Meer and Hinz, but in their manner all the same. Also Tamm’s work has two aspects: there are Dutch flower pieces à la Van Huijsum [39] and Flemish-Italian paintings in imitation of Jan Fijt, Adriaen van Utrecht and Abraham Brueghel [40]. Later on Tamm was called to Vienna, where the rulers of Liechtenstein acquired his paintings on different occasions.⁴⁴

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Christian Berentz
Hang watch
Rome, private collection Corsini (Rome), inv./cat.nr. 64