Cornelis van Poelenburch

Poelenburgh, Cornelis van
Poelenburg, Cornelis van

Dutch, 1594/1595 - 1667

Cornelis van Poelenburch, one of the most important of the first generation of Dutch Italianates, was born in Utrecht in the winter of 1594–1595.[1] His father, Simon van Poelenburch (d. 1596), was a canon of the Utrecht cathedral chapter. By 1610 Poelenburch was apprenticed to Bloemaert, Abraham, a leading Utrecht mannerist.[2] He was also influenced by the Amsterdam Pre-Rembrandtists, Jan (1581–1631) and Jacob Pynas (c. 1592–after 1650). After completing his training, he traveled to Rome, where he is first recorded in 1617. In Rome he was inspired by the paintings of fellow northerners Elsheimer, Adam and Bril, Paul, as well as by Raphael and antique sculpture.

Poelenburch’s small-scale paintings of arcadian, biblical, or mythological subjects, which featured figures in an Italianate landscape, often with Roman ruins, were much admired by Cosimo II de’ Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and in 1620–1621 Poelenburch lived in Florence and worked for the duke. After returning to Rome, Poelenburch helped found the Schildersbent, an unofficial group of Netherlandish artists in Rome whose members were known as Bentveughels (birds of a feather). His fellow members gave him the nickname “Satiro” (Satyr).

In the mid-1620s Poelenburch returned to Utrecht, where he married Jacomina van Steenre two years later. He had an extremely successful career, and his small religious and mythological scenes were avidly sought after by both courtly patrons and private collectors in Utrecht and beyond. The inventory of the Utrecht collector Willem Vincent, Baron van Wittenhorst (d. 1674), for example, indicates that he owned at least fifty-five of the master’s paintings.[3] Poelenburch served as hoofdman and deken of the local painters’ society, and often collaborated with other artists, including Both, Jan.

In the spring of 1627 the States of Utrecht acquired one of Poelenburch’s paintings and presented it to the Prince of Orange, Frederik Hendrik, as a gift for his consort Amalia van Solms. Poelenburch subsequently worked in The Hague, both for the court of the Prince of Orange and for the court of the exiled King and Queen of Bohemia, Frederik and Elizabeth.[4] In 1637 Poelenburch was appointed court painter to King Charles I, and he lived in London between 1637 and 1641. After he returned to Utrecht he was quite wealthy and acquired a number of properties, which allowed him to develop a large workshop. Among his many pupils was Johan van Haensbergen (1642–1705).

[1] See M. J. Bok, “The Date of Cornelis van Poelenburch’s Birth,” Hoogsteder-Naumann Mercury 2 (1985): 9–11. Poelenburch is recorded as being six years of age in the treasury ledger for the city of Utrecht on January 21, 1601.

[2] Arnold Houbraken, De Groote Schouburgh der Nederlantsche Konstschilders en Schilderessen. 3 vols. (The Hague, 1753; reprint: Amsterdam, 1976), 1:129. 

[3] M. J. Bok in Joaneath A. Spicer and Lynn Federle Orr, Masters of Light: Dutch Painters in Utrecht during the Golden Age (Baltimore, 1997), 387.

[4] The States of Utrecht purchased Poelenburch’s Banquet of the Gods on Earth now in Anhaltische Gemäldegalerie Schloss Georgium, Dessau, inv. no. 801.

 

 

Explore Selected Works

In a landscape with ruins overgrown with plants, a bearded, old man greets a kneeling young woman and boy near the lower right corner in this horizontal painting. At least seven people move through the landscape beyond, and everyone has light skin and is barefoot. In the trio to the lower right, the man stands facing our right in profile. He has a steel-gray beard and hair, a prominent nose, and his mouth is closed. He wears a thistle-purple tunic under a scarlet-red cloak. He looks down at the woman, and he holds out his right hand, closer to us, toward her. In front of him, to our right, the woman kneels facing our left with her arms spread, as she looks toward the man’s extended hand. She wears a sapphire-blue dress with white sleeves, and honey-brown fabric wraps over one shoulder and around her waist. The boy next to her holds a bundle of sticks with both arms. He has dark hair and wears a brown robe over a plum-purple tunic. The landscape around them has some scrubby green growth along the dirt ground. One column holding up a crumbling entablature rises near us, up along the left edge of the composition. Plants grow over more ruins to our right, which are nestled against a rocky hill a short distance away. In the field between the ruins, a woman wearing a rose-pink robe carries a bundle balanced on her head while other men, wearing coral red, topaz blue, or golden yellow walk, through the landscape. In the distance, there are green hills, slate-blue mountains, and more ruins. The sky is pale yellow near the horizon and changes to lapis blue above, with light gray and white clouds.
Cornelis van Poelenburch, The Prophet Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath, c. 1630, oil on panel, Gift of Joseph F. McCrindle in honor of John Thomas Rowe, Jr., 2004.101.2

The Prophet Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath

Cornelis van Poelenburch · c. 1630 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  2004.101.2

A tightly packed crowd of about two dozen men and women surges out of a fortified stone ruin in this horizontal painting. The building fills the right half of the composition and extends off the top edge. Shrubs and vegetation grow on fragments of architecture that loom behind the crowd. Near the front of the crowd, a man wearing a lilac-purple robe kneels, bracing the crossbeam of a wooden cross over one shoulder. He wears a ring of thorns on his head, and he looks back over his shoulder so his face turns to us. His fingers are interlaced over the crossbeam, which is tied with rope. A muscled, bare-chested man wearing ruby-red, knee-length britches and an ax tied around his waist pulls the rope. A woman wearing a blue dress, yellow robe, and white veil holds out a piece of white fabric to our right. Just beyond the cross, two men walk with their hands tied behind their back, their heads down. They are nude except for gray cloths tied across their hips. To our right in the crowd, a woman wearing a white head covering and rose-pink dress under a voluminous, azure-blue robe stands with her fingers interlaced. A second woman, in slate blue, stands next to her, looking at and pointing to her. The other men in the crowd wear turbans, feathered caps, or are bareheaded. Some wear tunics and some are bare chested. Two men on horseback bring up the rear of the crowd, under the tall rectangular doorway leading into the building. A man wearing armor rides a rearing, brown and white dappled horse in front of the crowd, to our left. Four men walk farther along the path where it disappears behind another fragment of a building, also overgrown with plants. More people, painted ghostly white, walk along the path where it curves into the deep distance between rolling hills. A grove with bushes, palm trees, and trees with rounded canopies grows in the distance to our right. White and flint-gray clouds roll across the pale blue sky above.
Cornelis van Poelenburch, Christ Carrying the Cross, early 1620s, oil on copper, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, 2007.49.1

Christ Carrying the Cross

Cornelis van Poelenburch · early 1620s · oil on copper ·  Accession ID  2007.49.1

Bibliography

1753

  • Houbraken, Arnold. De Groote Schouburgh der Nederlantsche Konstschilders en Schilderessen. 3 vols. in 1. The Hague, 1753 (Reprint: Amsterdam, 1976): 1:128-130.

1925

  • Sandrart, Joachim von. Joachim von Sandrarts Academie der Bau-, Bild, -und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675. Leben der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister. Edited by Alfred R. Peltzer. Abridged ed. Munich, 1925: 175, 179 (portrait).

1971

  • Bie, Cornelis de. Het gulden cabinet van de edel vry schilderconst. Edited by Gerard Lemmens. Reprint of Antwerp, 1661/1662. Soest, 1971: 257.

1984

  • Sluijter-Seijffert, Nicolette C. "Cornelis van Poelenburch (ca. 1593-1667)." Ph. D. dissertation, Rijksuniversiteit Leiden, 1984.

1997

  • Bok, Marten Jan. "Biographies." In Masters of Light: Dutch Painters in Utrecht during the Golden Age. Edited by Joaneath A. Spicer and Lynn Federle Orr. Exh. cat. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore; National Gallery, London. New Haven, 1997: 387-388.

2002

  • Harwood, Laurie B., Anne Charlotte Steland, and Christopher Brown. Inspired by Italy: Dutch landscape painting 1600-1700. London, 2002: 19–20, 36, 46–47, 75–83.