The room is simple but quite elegant in style, with windows looking out upon a garden. The walls are entirely hung with greenish leather on which the designs—chimaeras and children grouped around vases and pillars—are in gold. The chimney-piece is of black marble supported by red marble pillars, and the firedogs are brass. On the right is a sideboard of light polished oak, and opposite a table with a rich Oriental carpet for a cover. Upon the leather chairs are cushions embroidered with flowers. Two pictures hang on the walls, and a third is above the chimney-piece. In the foreground, there are two ladies engaged in friendly conversation, while three children are playing with a puppy. The mother of the latter, a white spaniel marked with red, anxiously watches this second group.
In the sale inventory of Rubens’s house in 1707 there is mention of the gilded leather that decorated one of the sitting-rooms.
Plate XXIIIa.—Spinet, by Ruckers.
STEINERT COLLECTION, YALE UNIVERSITY, U.S.A.
This interior in general style and arrangement resembles a painting by Barthol. van Bassen, in the Rijks Museum, Amsterdam, reproduced on Plate [XXIV]. This represents a large hall or dining-room of the beginning of the seventeenth century. The floor is tessellated or tiled; and facing the spectator is a monumental chimney-piece supported by columns. Two superb andirons are placed in the fireplace, but the absence of logs and the fireback show that the time is spring or summer. The mantelpiece is surmounted by a niche containing a figure, and above the broken pediment is a cartouche flanked by reclining figures in the Renaissance style. On either side of the chimney-piece stands a chair of the new style with square back and square seat. The square seat and back of velvet or stamped leather—it is not clear what the covering is—is put on by means of large brass-headed nails. The heavy legs are connected by stretchers. These chairs are similar to the one on Plate [XXVIII]; but in the latter the stretchers are double. On either side of the chimney-piece is a door. One of these is open and shows an inner room containing an upholstered bed. The doors are very decorative with heavy entablatures supported on columns and decorated with swags of drapery on the panels. On the right is a colossal buffet or sideboard, the pillars being caryatides, and behind these is a half-hexagon cupboard. Busts and vases adorn the top. Below is a fine salver, evidently in the style of Collaert (see Plates XXI and XXII). A very ornate doorway leads into an adjoining apartment; it is ornamented with caryatides and decorated with elaborate carving. Opposite to this is an open portal that seems to be the entrance from the garden, or courtyard. This door is supported by Corinthian columns. Three large and narrow windows give abundant light. Their panes are small. The room is hung with gilt leather and above the moulding are three landscapes in simple frames. A picture—The Sacrifice of Abraham—stands over the sideboard and a landscape over the door on the right. A long, low bench is placed under the window, on which a gallant is lounging. The chair occupied by the lady with her back to us is a survival of the one shown in Fig. 9, and also generally resembles those in Plates XXVI and XLII and XLVI; a favourite type of chair with the artists of the seventeenth century. The group in the foreground are sitting on stools. The wine-cooler is also worth noting. There are a number of pets in the room—dogs, cats, a monkey and a long-tailed parrot over the door. The compartment ceiling—an extraordinary combination of octagons, hexagons and crosses—should be noticed.
Although Rubens did not know it, Antwerp received a fatal blow to her prosperity at the very moment he settled there. In the truce with Holland concluded in 1609, the Archduke Albert neglected to stipulate for the free navigation of the Scheldt; this enabled Amsterdam to develop her own commerce at the expense of her rival. The effects soon appeared. Seven years later, the English ambassador, Rubens’s friend, describes Antwerp as “magna civitas, magna solitudo, for in the whole time we spent there I could never set my eyes on the whole length of a street upon forty persons at once: I never saw coach nor saw man on horseback. In many places, grass grows in the streets, yet the buildings are all kept in reparation ... splendida paupertas, fair and miserable.”
As if in compensation for the loss of her commercial supremacy, Antwerp saw the dawn of an art of which Rubens was the originator and most brilliant representative.
The pupils of Rubens did not confine themselves to painting and ornamental design. They were often practical carvers also. Only a month before his death, Rubens wrote a testimonial for Louis Faydherbe, stating that this pupil had lived with him for three years and had made great progress in painting and carving, excelling especially in ivory carving. He therefore exhorts nobles and magistracies to encourage him to settle among them and embellish their dwellings with his works. Thus we see how the style Rubens extended.
Plate XXIV.—Interior, by Barthol van Bassen (Seventeenth Century).
RIJKS MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM.
Fig. 28: Flemish Andiron (Sixteenth Century); Fig. 29: Dinanderie, double Candlestick; Fig. 30: Dinanderie, single Candlestick.