RKD STUDIES

Painting in Nuremberg presents the same picture as art in Frankfurt. Here we also have a local tradition that is affected by Flemish and Dutch artists in the beginning of the 17th century.¹ Incidentally, we meet again some Frankfurter acquaintances in Nuremberg. Already in the 16th century Nicolas de Neufchâtel (1527-after 1573) from Hainaut had introduced Flemish portrait painting in the city of Nuremberg [1].² Lorenz Strauch (1554-1636) took on this direction [2], while the works of his son Georg Strauch (1613-1675) reveal distinct Dutch characteristics [3-5].³ The already mentioned Matthäus Merian II worked for some time in Nuremberg in the second half of the 1640s [6-7].⁴

3
Georg Strauch
Portrait of an unknown woman, dated 1664
Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, inv./cat.nr. Gm1454

The little known Georg Walch (active 1632-1654) once made an engraving after a painting of Pieter de Bloot [8],⁵ while his elder fellow citizen Conrad Ammon (1575-after 1623) used the popular print after Abraham Bloemaert's The Love of Gods [9] for the composition of a painting [10].⁶ Paul Juvenel I (1579-1643), whose landscapes essentially are based on Flemish painters and Elsheimer [11], also painted church interiors after the Steenwijck’s recipe, who settled in Frankfurt [12]. Bartholomäus Wittig (c. 1614-1684) favoured genre paintings with candlelight, that he derived from Wolfgang Heimbach and the Dutch [13-14].⁷

8
Georg Walch after Andries Both
The poor painter and his family
London (England), British Museum, inv./cat.nr. 1876,0510.573

Most important for the German-Dutch relations however is the artist Joachim von Sandrart I (1606-1688)[15].⁸ We already encountered him in many towns in Germany, Holland and Italy without taking time to consider his painted work as a whole. Sandrart became a pupil of Gerard van Honthorst in 1623. Here in Utrecht he also met Rubens, who generously praised his Diogenes.⁹ Enriched with what he learned in Utrecht he started to travel in 1627. After a short visit to England he went to Italy, where he stayed for seven years. Both here and there he stayed in close contact with the circle of Dutch painters. In Rome he was a close friend of Pieter van Laer (1599-in or after 1642) and it was he, who sent for the Dutch engravers Cornelis Bloemaert,Theodor Matham and Reinier van Persijn from Paris to work of the publication on the gallery of Marquess Guistiniano.¹⁰

15
studio of Joachim von Sandrart (I) after Joachim von Sandrart (I)
Self-portrait, after 1644
Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, inv./cat.nr. 1763

Therefore it is not surprising to find him again in Amsterdam between 1637 and 1642, this time as a celebrated and popular portrait painter. His best known work from this time is The company of Captain Cornelis Bicker and Lieutenant Frederick van Banchem, waiting to welcome Maria de' Medici, dowager queen of France, September 1638, that was intended – as was Rembrandt’s Nightwatch ̶ for the large room of the Kloveniersdoelen (Amsterdam) [16]. This portrait and others from this period are related to the works of the Rembrandt pupils (Govert Flinck and Jacob Backer), who belonged to the same generation. He strove for the elegance of Bartholomeus van der Helst, which he did not fully achieve, but he also stayed true to his Utrecht training.

During his second stay in Holland he started to work on his series of the 12 months (now in Schleissheim), that he finished in Munich in 1642/44 [17-28]. In these paintings the echoes of the Utrecht school can be traced, albeit in the classicist form of someone like Hendrick Bloemaert (compare fig. 24/77).¹¹

16
Joachim von Sandrart (I)
The company of Captain Cornelis Bicker and Lieutenant Frederick van Banchem, waiting to welcome Maria de' Medici, dowager queen of France, September 1638, 1640
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv./cat.nr. SK-C-393

Since c. 1643-1645 Sandrart lived on his estate Stockau [29] and in Munich. In 1670 he sold Stockau to Baron Franz von Mayer († 1699) and went to Augsburg.¹² Finally in 1674 he remarried to a lady from Nuremberg, where he lived until his death in 1688. He painted many things all over Southern Germany [and Austria]:¹³ there are works by his hand in Bamberg [30], Eichstädt [31], Würzburg [32], Regensburg [33], Linz, Lambach, Salzburg and Vienna, where he was called by Emperor Ferdinand III in 1651 to paint the imperial family.

Sandrart not only absorbed the Dutch way to design a composition, but also mastered the fluent Dutch painting technique. However, it is not suprising that he copied motifs from Rubens in large altarpieces (for example in Lambach [34]). Even the memories of Van Dyck and Titian that awakened again a late work (The Upbringing of Jupiter, Nuremberg [35]) were nothing unusual at the time. More striking is that the Flemish influence also becomes manifest in some of his late portraits, although they do not show a completely Flemish character, but a peculiar mix of styles. This style transformation can be observed in the works of all German artists who were trained in Holland ̶ in some more, in others less. In the protestant North in the 1660s Jürgen Ovens painted Flemish-like church paintings, Christopher Paudiss radically changes his style in Southern Germany and also Michael Willmann's Silesian works are anything but simple, biblical pictures of the Rembrandt school.

Sandrart’s own collection encompassed not only paintings by Rubens, Van Dyck and other Flemish artists, but also works by Pieter van Laer, Jan Asselijn, Cornelis van Poelenburch, Jan Both, Jacob Marrel, Willem van Bemmel and possibly by Johann Liss, whom he met in Venice. Most of them later ended up in the collection of Franz von Mayer in Munich and Stockau; others were sold in Amsterdam. Finally we would not have done justice to the importance of Sandrart if we would not pay attention to his Teutschen Akademie (1675).¹⁴ This publication has been an important source for our research throughout Europe and has contributed much to make Netherlandish art and Netherlandish artists known in Germany.

29
Joachim von Sandrart (I)
Mansion and estate of Stockau at Paar river in former duchy of Palatinate-Neuburg, nowadays a part of Bavaria, 1675
The Hague, KB nationale bibliotheek (Den Haag)

A nephew of Joachim von Sandrart, Jakob von Sandrart (1630-1708), who in old literature is always confused with his famous uncle, was an engraver and draughtsman [36]. From about 1640, he dwelt a while in Holland for his education. In 1656 he settled down in Nuremberg, where he was active as an art dealer and engraver.

Another nephew of Joachim, Johann von Sandrart (1627-1699) painted a Passion series in the small church of Idstein in the Taunus, together with his uncle and the Flemish artist Michael Angelo Immenraet (1621-1683) [37-38].¹⁵ Nothing is left here of any Dutch training. The models, the compositions and even the technique derive from the Southern Netherlands and Rubens was the godfather here.¹⁶

36
Bernhard Vogel (1683-1737) after Johann Leonhard Hirschmann
Double portrait of Jakob von Sandrart (1630-1708) and Regina Christina Eimmart (1636-1708), 1708-1716
Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, inv./cat.nr. II 4745

Lastly we mention the engraver Caspar Luyken (1672-1708), who worked in Nuremberg between 1689 and 1705 [39], and the portrait painter Johann Kupezky (1666/7-1740), with whom we will deal in another chapter, developed a fruitful activity here from the early 1720s on [40].¹⁷