Two Pictures by Beijeren, and Two by Seghers.—Another famous Flowers is that by Abraham van Beijeren (1620 or 1621-75), which was acquired at the Van Pappelendam sale in Amsterdam in 1889. A fine Fish and Lobster by the same painter should also be studied. The visitor will perhaps notice as he passes two pictures by Daniel Seghers (1590-1661), one a garland of flowers around a statuette of the Virgin; the other, a garland of flowers around the bust of William III. The bust was a later addition.
Other Painters belonging to the Same Group.—An interesting and curious work is Shells, by Balthasar van der Ast (?-1656). There is also a still life (1644) by Pieter Claez. To this group should be added Pieter Roestraeten (1627-1700), famous for his great vases of gold and silver, bas-reliefs, musical instruments, etc., which he designed with precision. He spent most of his time in London, where he was injured in the Great Fire (1666). Belonging to the same group are Pieter de Ring and Willem Kalf, whom we shall see in the Rijks, and the strange Christoffel Pierson, whose specialty was still life (particularly the attributes of the chase) and portraits. His works are very rare; but a peculiar combination of portraiture and still life hangs in The Hague Gallery, representing the pastor of the Protestant Church at Hoorn, Joris Goethals, and noticeable for the number of hunting implements and objects hanging on the wall. Though sombre and monotonous in tone, his touch and drawing are masterly. He thoroughly understood composition and distributed lights and shadows with skill. Pierson was turned aside from painting historical subjects and portraits by the success of Leemens, a painter of dead game, guns, etc., and speedily surpassed his model.
Jan van Os, Georgius Jacobus Johannes van Os, and Marie Margrita van Os we shall see in the Rijks.
Portrait of Rubens's Second Wife.—Although Holland is not the land where we can study Rubens (1577-1640) in all his greatness, yet the Amsterdam Gallery and more particularly The Hague Gallery possess some splendid pictures by his hand. In the latter hang the portraits of his two wives. That of his second wife, the buxom Helena, whom he married on December 6, 1630, and who bore him five children, is a masterpiece of the first rank; certainly an entirely individual work of the artist's later period.
Much of Rubens's Work done by his Pupils.—Thus we immediately come to the question: What has the master himself and what have his pupils done on it? No master has left behind him a larger amount of painted surface of canvas and wood; but how unequal is the artistic value of all this material! We know how that happened. Overwhelmed with pressing orders and surrounded by a large throng of sometimes very able pupils, he often only made a sketch, leaving the chief work to his best pupils, and finally adding a few corrections; perhaps here or there a head or a figure that particularly interested him. Rubens made no secret of this fact; he often openly acknowledged what he and what his scholars had done on a work.
Dr. Sperling's Visit to Rubens's Studio.—An eye-witness, the Danish physician, Otto Sperling, who visited Rubens's studio in 1621, describes the master as walking up and down in his vast hall among his many pupils, making remarks and going over a picture here and there finally with a few brush-strokes. The Doctor jocularly adds: "It is supposed that everything is the work of Rubens, by which this man has amassed enormous wealth, and has been rewarded by kings and princes with great gifts and many jewels."
His Pupils not very often allowed to assist him in Portraits.—One should remember that this assistance of his pupils was generally confined to his greater historical pictures and church pieces; but the portraits that Rubens painted are not always entirely the work of his hand. Sometimes an order for a portrait was repeated, and his students made the replica of a well-known personality. Rubens painted portraits of small dimensions and then left them to be enlarged by able pupils; but he himself added the final touches.
Dr. Bredius on the Portraits of Rubens's Two Wives.—"Even in the case of the portrait of one of his wives, we are not quite sure whether the work is exclusively his own. There exist such a marvellous number of these portraits, and, moreover, of such varied artistic value, that we must at last conclude that the family and friends of these ladies, who belonged to the best families in Antwerp, all ordered portraits from Rubens, who painted some of them entirely and others only in part.
"While, for example, the present portrait of Rubens's first wife, Isabella Brandt, whom he married in 1609, betrays the master's own hand in the head and in part of the costume, the hands look to me to be so extraordinarily like Van Dijck's work that I ask myself whether the latter (about 1618) might not have had some part in this portrait. On the other hand, the portrait of Helena Fourment, whom he married in 1630 (Isabella Brandt died in 1626) is handled with such a gush, although very rapidly and with such geniality that hardly anybody would say that this spirited portrait is not all his own.
"What flesh! what brilliance! what glow of color! what virtuosity in the painting of the details and the material! What life streams from this warm, youthful, proud wife upon her husband!"