Some notes by Ernst Brinck (1582-1649) on painters, collectors and exceptional art

Abstract

This article focuses on the Harderwijk regent Ernst Brinck (1582-1649) who owned an extensive cabinet of curiosities and a library full of valuable books. His exceptionally wide range of interests is also evident from surviving notebooks of his in the Harderwijk archives. The entries they contain show that Brinck visited other collectors and viewed their cabinets. It goes without saying that interesting information was exchanged during these encounters, which Brinck noted in his booklets. It can be found scattered there among all kinds of other topics. Around 1645, Brinck classified some of these notes under the heading ‘De picturis eximiis, et [rebus] quae concernunt picturas’ (Of exceptional paintings and [all manner of things] that concern the art of painting) and ‘Van eenige treflicke Conststucken’ (Of several excellent works of art). Twenty-two previously unpublished anecdotal statements can be found in these categories. Examples include the average cost of the civic guard portraits in the Great Hall of the Arquebusiers Company (Doelenzaal) in Amsterdam (no. 6); the wealthy collector Pieter Spiering and his art books (no. 12): the obscene paintings of Torrentius (no. 7); Rubens’ earnings for the cycle of paintings on the life of Marie de’ Medici, queen of France, in Paris (no. 8); the Brazilian paintings commissioned by John Maurice of Nassau and painted by Jacob van Campen, which Brinck saw at the artist’s estate near Amersfoort (no. 5); and the wooden prayer nut, now in the Abegg-Stiftung, Switzerland (no. 19). In one of the booklets, hidden among other notes, Brinck penned an entry on Rembrandt’s Hundred guilder print that would have fitted very well in his list on exceptional art, but is absent there. Brinck wrote that Rembrandt had sold a print with the subject ‘Let the children come to me’ (Matthew 19: 13-15) for a hundred guilders. The note establishes that Rembrandt himself sold the print for that amount, in 1648 or 1649.