USC Trojan Family Magazine - Winter 1998: Fisher Gallery: 17th Century Dutch and Flemish Art

A Golden Age for painting flourished in the Netherlands following the division of the country into north and south – roughly typified by Peter Paul Rubens in the Flemish Catholic south and Rembrandt van Rijn in the Dutch Protestant north.

1. Jan van Dalem, Family Group,
1643, OIL ON CANVAS,
48x73-1/2 IN.
Jan van Dalem was active in Antwerp (in present-day Belgium) from the 1630s to the 1650s. Primarily influenced by Anthony van Dyck and Peter Paul Rubens, he was well-known during the 17th century. Today, however, his paintings are very rare and only a few are definitely attributed to him. Among these is Fisher Gallery’s Family Group, signed and dated in the lower right hand corner.
What is particularly original about van Dalem’s painting is how he combines portraiture, genre activity and landscape in one scene. Coincidentally, that reflects the very elements which characterize the Elizabeth Holmes Fisher Collection.

Both Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger and Anthony van Dyck were Flemish artists who worked in England. Van Dyck, in particular, had a significant effect on the art in his adopted country.

2. Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger (attributed to), Portrait of a Lady,
1613, OIL ON PANEL 43x32-1/2 IN.
Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger (1561-1635) – son of Marcus Geerhaerts the Elder, a Flemish painter and engraver, and a pupil of Lucas de Herre – painted his Portrait of a Lady in the style then fashionable in England; but he is, according to Oliver Millar (The Treasure Houses of Britain: Five Hundred Years of Art Patronage and Collecting), “one of the few portrait painters who allowed his sitters to smile.”
When this painting was first acquired by Fisher Gallery it was thought to be of Lady Lucy Harington, Countess of Bedford. Even though the resemblance is not close enough to identify the sitter as the well-known Jacobean arts patron, it is nonetheless representative of Jacobean portraits. The mask-like, heavily painted face is characteristic of the portrayals of Queen Elizabeth I (who, along with Anne of Denmark and other European royalty, posed for Gheeraerts), as are the large ruff collar and cuffs. A contemporary historian, Edward Maeder of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, has noted that the collar – a wired linen, separated by drops of wax – was meant to set off the head of the wearer as the “seat of learning.”

3. Anthony van Dyck (attributed to), St. John the Evangelist,
1618-20, OIL ON PANEL, 30-1/4x24 IN.
Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641) – next to Rubens, the most important Flemish painter – was as a colorful a figure as any found in his own paintings.
A silk merchant’s son, he entered Rubens’ studio in 1617 and remained there as pupil and assistant for three years. Soon, his combination of talent, diligence and friendship with Rubens – who not only considered van Dyck his best pupil, but also took him into his house – brought him commissions of his own. To get out of Rubens’ shadow, van Dyck went to London, and then to Italy, where he studied the Italian masters. His triumphal return to Antwerp resulted in numerous church commissions and an appointment as court painter to Archduchess Isabella. In March 1632, he was called to England by King Charles I.
Van Dyck became the celebrated portraitist of the English court and aristocracy. His popularity required a large studio and his extravagance (five personal servants, for instance) required a steady flow of commissions. In the fewer than 10 years that he had to live, he painted 350 pictures – something on the order of one every 10 days. Not surprisingly, even though he worked feverishly, he also delegated some of the labor, sometimes only making a portrait sketch, painting in face and hands, and leaving the rest to be completed by his assistants.
Though St. John the Evangelist belongs to some of the very first of van Dyck’s works (the commissioned series Christ and His Apostles) and thus precedes his “busy time,” it is interesting that the hand holding the chalice has caused some dispute. According to a Fisher Gallery conservation report, it was originally lifted up as if exorcising the snake. Some critics consider the final version awkward; and it remains arguable whose hand repainted St. John’s.

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