RKD STUDIES

In neighboring Silesia, Michael Willmann (1630-1706) surpassed every other artist in importance. He was in Amsterdam around 1650, where he took ‘the manner of painting of Jacob Backer, Rembrandt and others as an example’. Sandrart tells furthermore, that Willmann didn’t have enough money to enter a Dutch studio as an apprentice. He therefore started to travel, always trying to see everything in the way of famous paintings. Around 1653-1655 he stayed for some time in Prague and from there he established a relation with the abbot of Leubus. As the negotiations didn’t lead immediately to the desired result, he spent some time in Berlin before he finally settled in Silesia. The Great Elector didn’t lose sight of him completely, as he assigned him some more commissions in 1682 [1].¹

We do not know any pictures from Willmann’s Dutch period.² The pictures made in Prague are the earliest ones known to us, which are important to us, as they are the only ones in which the connection to Dutch art speaks clearly. Christ Healing the Paralytic in Bethesda from the Lobkowicz collection [2] is a painting in the style of Gerbrand van den Eeckhout and Christ carried by Angels [3] is a composition with the emotionality of a Bramer.³ There are also drawings in Bramer’s manner [4-8].⁴ The shapes are softer and more polished, as Willmann after all is an artist prone to ‘dissolution of form by chiaroscuro’. Small wonder that Tintoretto’s visions also stir him to imitation, although the distance in artistic personalities between the Silesian and the Venetian is more obvious. The paintings in the style of the painterly Rembrandt School do not come further than the humble beginnings.

1
Michael Willmann
Allegorical portrait of Friedrich Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg (1620-1688), dated 1682
Grunewald (Berlin), Jagdschloss Grunewald

2
Michael Willmann
Christ healing the paralytic at Capernaum, c. 1652-1653
Nelahozeves (Czechia), Roudnice (Hradec Králové), Prague, private collection Lobkowicz Collections

A wooded landscape of 1656, that holds on to the long past style of Coninxloo, stands out rather alone [9-10].⁵ Furthermore there is a landscape in the style of Hercules Seghers, Allard van Everdingen and Roelant Roghman [11].⁶

The abbot of Leubus wanted to test the skill of his new church painter and had him paint as a test a copy after Van Dyck’s Descent from the Cross in Ghendt, using an engraving as a model. Willmann painted the Descent so skilfully, that we have to assume, that he studied Van Dyck´s work in Flanders.⁷ But the documents do not mention any trip to Antwerp.

It didn’t end with this one Van Dyck copy. A Lamentation of Christ⁸ [12] followed, as well as Holy Family⁹ (both Kunstgewerbemuseum Breslau) and in the church in Weinberg in Leubus a whole series of Apostles after Van Dyck [13-16].⁹ That actually sealed his fate. The demands of his ecclesiastical patrons superseded the original Dutch-oriented manner of painting of the artist in favour of a more histrionic, effusive conception. However, Willmann tried to retain some of Rembrandt’s chiaroscuro and his stupendous light and to keep the brownish color scheme as much as possible, but the basic attitude towards the composition, and even the figure types themselves were turned towards the Flemish-Italian. He developed an extensive activity in Silesia and adorned many catholic churches and monasteries with altarpieces and ceiling paintings; around 1665 he himself converted to Roman Catholicism. In portraits, such as his Self-portrait in Breslau [17], he preserved the Dutch painting style much longer. In that respect he remained in a Rembrandt pupil, even at a time when Dutchmen such as Ferdinand Bol, Govaert Flinck and Nicolaes Maes already had taken different routes.

11
Michael Willmann
The holy Family on the flight into Egypt, c. 1685
Wrocław, Muzeum Narodowe we Wroclawiu, inv./cat.nr. 2658

12
and Johann Christoph Liška von Rottenwald (Ritter) Michael Willmann
The lamentation of Christ, c. 1705
Munich, Alte Pinakothek, inv./cat.nr. 13163

Furthermore the Dutch way in Breslau is represented by a portrait- and a still-life painter. Georg Scholtz II (1622-1677) painted some miniature portraits, from which we highlight the portrait of Christian Hofmann von Hofmannswaldau [18], that is so near Gerard ter Borch I.¹⁰ He also trained himself by copying Rembrandtesque heads.¹¹ The still-life painter Philipp Sauerland II (1677-1762) from Danzig painted animal pieces and still-lifes that hardly can be distinguished from the products of a half a century older generation (Christopher Paudiss, Henri de Fromentiou, Melchior d’Hondecoeter) [19-21].¹² Nothing is known about a stay in Holland. As he worked for several years in Berlin though, he may have studied numerous still-lifes in the electoral collection there. Let us remind ourselves finally, that the Dutch landscapist Johann Gottlieb Glauber, who we encountered twice in a short space of time, ended here in Breslau his restless life in 1703.

19
Philipp Sauerland (II)
Still life with dead rooster, onions and savoy cabbage
Wrocław, Schlesisches Museum der Bildenden Künste