RKD STUDIES

The Dutch and Flemish moved of course preferably to the capital of the country, as opportunities to earn money were greatest there. But the ‘provinces’ are not all together neglected. Adriaen Bloemaert (after 1609-1666) e.g. was employed by the Benedictine Order in Salzburg after his Italian journey. His paintings are still to be found there in the present day university building [1-2].¹ That it is a painter from Utrecht should not surprise us, when we consider the shared faith with Catholic Austria. The local landscape artists went mainly to Italy, where they studied Poussin and Salvator Rosa. That is also true for Anton Faistenberger I (1663-1708) [3], although there are also landscapes by him in the style of Berchem [4].²

Of Ulrich Glantschnigg (1661-1722) we know some ‘grotesque conversation pieces in the taste of the Dutch school’ [5],³ which on the other hand are more connected with the Northern Italians, or with the Swiss Clipper-Todeschini respectively, than with the Dutch masters themselves.⁴

3
Anton Faistenberger (I)
Landscape after a thunderstorm
Vienna, Österreichische Galerie Belvedere

In Bohemia there are not many traces of Dutch influence. What Wenzel Hollar (1607-1677) learned in the Netherlands, was not very fruitful for his home country, as he left Bohemia prematurely to go and work in England. The period of 1636 till 1644, that was so eventful for the development of Dutch art, he spent in Holland.⁵ It is not exceptional that he copied some compositions by Rembrandt [6-7].⁶ It is remarkable, however, that his drawing style [8-9] was largely influenced by the landscape draftsmen Jan van de Velde II and Willem Buytewech.⁷

Since the days of Roelant Savery hardly any Dutch landscapist made it to Bohemia. Only in 1698/99 we find Johann Gottlieb Glauber (1656-1703) there.⁸ About the same time Justus van den Nypoort (1646/9-after 1698) from Utrecht came to this country and to Olomouc from Vienna. He etched a series of 33 views of Kremsier [10].⁹ In these years a local landscape art awakens, that harks back to Savery and the Flemish artists of the beginning of the century. Johann Jakob Hartmann (before 1658-after 1736) and Wenzel Lorenz Reiner (1689-1743) belong to it. The former trained himself mainly on the example of Jan Brueghel I [11-14], while the latter, whose activity already belongs to the 18th century, also assimilated the style of the Italianate Dutchmen [15-16].¹⁰ The Antwerp painter Jan Pieter van Bredael II (1683-1735) was in Prague in 1706, where he worked for Prince Eugene. He also contributed to the dissemination of the Dutch-bucolic landscape style with his pictures painted in the manner of Berchem.

8
Wenzel Hollar
View of the Zuiderkerk, Amsterdam, from the Northwest, dated 1634
Manchester, John Rylands University Library (The University of Manchester Library)

Much that seems to go back on Dutch influence at first glance, can be explained by the artistic correlation with Venice. This is so with Karel Škréta (1610-1674), who Houbraken already counts to the ‘Bent’ [17-18].¹¹ Fetti and Strozzi had been more important for his development than the Dutch masters of the Bent. His pupil Tobias Pock (1609-1683) from Konstanz, who settled in Vienna in 1640, derived in his courtly paintings many individual traits from the Dutch-Venetian genre painters à la mode [19].¹² Occasionally he fell back on Elsheimer and the Mannerists. A conversation piece in the style of Batholomeus van Bassen and Frans Francken II (Munich, Depot) is attributed to Johann Michael Bretschneider (1656-1729), who worked in Prague and Vienna [20-22]. The work is indistinguishable from the Netherlandish paintings of this group.¹³

Mattheus Terwesten (1670-1757) had been in Prague temporarily¹⁴ and Philipp Christian Bentum (c. 1690-after 1757), who came from the Netherlands, worked in Bohemia and Silesia for a longer period [23-25].¹⁵ Terwesten no longer is a pure exponent of Dutch painting, and Bentum even less so. His Roman schooling defines his style.

19
Tobias Pock
Self portrait of Tobias Pock (1609-1683) with his family, c. 1669-1670
Prague, Národní Galerie v Praze, inv./cat.nr. O 17229

With the still-life painters we are more lucky. Let us keep in mind that Rudolf II already acquired a flower piece and a book with flowers and animals by De Gheyn and that his court painter Roelant Savery also was a skillful flower painter. The Savery tradition revives at the end of the century in landscape painting as well as in still-life. The best example for this is Johann Adalbert Angermeyer (1674-1740),¹⁶ who was taught by the Flemish schooled Swiss painter Johann Rudolf Bys (1660-1738) [26-27]. Naturally, his technique is that of the late flower- and fruit painters like Jan van Huijsum and Abraham Mignon, but his compositions do not transcend the simple facts of Balthasar van der Ast and Roelant Savery [28-30].¹⁷ Apart from these flower paintings he also painted some hunting still-lifes in the ‘deceptive manner’ against a light backdrop, which he adopted from the specialists Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts, Fromentiou, Ferguson and others [31-32].¹⁸

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Johann Adalbert Angermeyer
Bouquet of flowers in a vase with animals, dated 1704
Vienna, private collection Liechtenstein - The Princely Collections, inv./cat.nr. FE 787

Maximilian Pfeiler (documented 1683-1721) [35-36] and Johann Caspar Hirschely (1697/8-1743) [37-38] continued the school of Angermeyer. Futhermore Pfeiler had been in Italy, where he got acquainted with the conception of the Neapolitan still-life [39].¹⁹

The Fleming J. Bouttats [40-43] is said to have painted in the manner of Melchior d’Hondecoeter in Prague c. 1700.²⁰

39
Johann Caspar Hirschely
Vanitas still life in a landscape, dated 1727
Liberec, Regional Art Gallery in Liberec, inv./cat.nr. 76