Gerard Uylenburgh's Italian Paintings

Abstract

The unsuccessful attempt of the painter-dealer Gerard Uylenburgh in the summer of 1671 to sell a group of mainly Italian paintings for 30,000 guilders to Friedrich Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg in Berlin, evoked much clamour in the Dutch art world. While the Elector kept some sculptures and a Head of St John by Ribera, the other paintings were returned to Amsterdam. Houbraken relates that Uylenburgh the most important dealer in Italian paintings in Holland did not want to take them back.1 The following spring, Hendrick Fromantiou, the Dutch court painter, counsellor and representative of the Elector in Berlin (and a former pupil of Uylenburgh, for whom he had worked as a copyist), accompanied the paintings back to Amsterdam. In Holland, he recruited support for his opinion that the Uylenburgh paintings were copies worth little or nothing. Uylenburgh enlisted others to sign a more favourable opinion on behalf of his paintings. Between 12 and 23 May 1672, more than fifty painters gave expert testimony a charge ota decharge regarding the authenticity and value of these works, and Uylenburgh's list with attributions and estimates. At least twenty-four artists, among them Johannes Vermeer, sided with Fromantiou,2 whereas thirty-one gave a verdict in favour of all, or at least some, of Uylenburgh's paintings.3 In a letter of 23 May 1672 to Gerardt Bernard von Polnitz an officer in the army of Brandenburg and married to Leonora, a natural daughter of Prince Maurits Constantijn Huygens the Elder declared that the paintings sent back to Amsterdam could not be dismissed as copies, and that toutes [peintures] ont este avouees originales, par longues annees in the famous collection of Gerard and Jan Reynst in Amsterdam. According to Huygens, Uylenburgh's persecution by the Elector's court painter, Fromantiou, was unmerited.4 Uylenburgh's mobilization of forces and the support he received did not have the desired effect. The sale of the paintings to Berlin was definitely cancelled, and Uylenburgh had no other choice but to sell them publicly in Amsterdam on 23 February 1673. To boost the sale he mounted a publicity campaign that consisted of the publication of poems written for the occasion by Vondel and Antonides.5 However, his reputation had suffered, and the economic situation in Holland was not flourishing as a result of the war with France. Shortly afterwards, in March 1675, Uylenburgh went bankrupt. Although the story is well known from what has been written by Houbraken, by Bredius in this journal, and by others, until now the paintings have aroused less interest than the case itself and the Dutch artists involved. A fresh look at the paintings that were the subject of so much controversy makes it possible to gain some information as to their identity and appearance. What follows is a series of entries on the individual paintings. Each entry starts with the title, judgements and other information given in two lists of the paintings.