Going Dutch: How England Plundered Holland's Glory

by Lisa Jardine

31 W.N. Sainsbury (ed.), Original Unpublished Papers illustrative of the Life of Sir Peter Paul Rubens, as an artist and diplomatist, preserved in H.M. State Paper Office (London: Bradbury & Evans, 1859), p.27.

  32 Ibid., p.39.

  33 Ibid., p.45.

  34 Muller, ‘Rubens’s museum’, p.575.

  35 Sainsbury, Original Unpublished Papers, p.38.

  36 See Bachrach, Sir Constantine Huygens, p.142. See also S. Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (London: Collins, 1987), p.258.

  37 R. Hill, ‘Ambassadors and art collecting in early Stuart Britain: The parallel careers of William Trumbull and Sir Dudley Carleton, 1609–1625’, Journal of the History of Collections 15 (2003), 211–28; 216.

  38 A.G.H. Bachrach, Sir Constantine Huygens and Britain, 1 (Leiden and Oxford: Brill and Oxford University Press, 1962), pp.110–11.

  39 SP 84/85/176 Mytens to Carleton, London, 18 August 1618, cit. R. Hill, ‘Sir Dudley Carleton and his relations with Dutch artists 1616–1632’, 255–74; 268; (SP 84/86/103).

  40 P. McEvansoneya, ‘The sequestration and dispersal of the Buckingham collection’, Journal of the History of Collections 8 (1996), 133–54.

  41 See Keblusek and Zijlmans, Princely Display.

  42 According to Schama it was in the course of this art-buying spree that Huygens discovered Jan Lievens and Rembrandt as Protestant, Dutch Republic artists whose virtuosity matched that of the Catholic, Spanish-sympathising Rubens.

  43 See S. Groenveld, ‘Frederick Henry and his entourage: A brief political biography’, in van der Ploeg and Vermeeren, Princely Patrons, pp.18–33; 30–1.

  5: Auction, Exchange, Traffic and Trickle-Down

  1 J. Thurloe, A collection of the state papers of John Thurloe, Esq; secretary, first, to the Council of State, and afterwards to the two Protectors, Oliver and Richard Cromwell. In seven volumes…To which is prefixed, the life of Mr. Thurloe…By Thomas Birch, 7 vols, Vol. 1 (London, 1742), pp.182–3.

  2 See J. Brown, ‘The Sale of the Century’, in Kings and Connoisseurs: Collecting Art in Seventeenth-Century Europe (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), pp.59–94.

  3 See A.G.H. Bachrach and R.G. Collmer (eds), Lodewijk Huygens: The English Journal 1651–1652 (Leiden: Brill, 1982), p.61

  4 J.M. Montias, ‘Art dealers in the seventeenth-century Netherlands’, Simiolus 0.18 (1988), 244–56; 245. See also J.M. Montias, Art at Auction in Seventeenth Century Amsterdam (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2002); J.M. Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu: A Web of Social History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989); E.A. Honig, Painting and the Market in Early Modern Antwerp (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998).

  5 For more on the Duartes see below, Chapter 7.

  6 Diary of John Evelyn.

  7 Montias, ‘Art dealers in the seventeenth-century Netherlands’, p.245.

  8 Montias, Art at Auction, pp.234–42.

  9 Honig, Painting and the Market, p.195.

  10 S. Slive, ‘Art historians and art critics – II: Huygens on Rembrandt’, Burlington Magazine 94 (1952), 260–4; 261.

  11 I am placing the Lievens painting around 1625, in spite of the opinions of art historians. Held gives the date as 1629. The Rijksmuseum website gives 1626–27. A recent PhD dissertation on Lievens dates it at 1628–29: L. De Witt, Evolution and Ambition in the Career of Jan Lievens (1607–1674) (University of Maryland PhD, 2006). I place it a couple of years earlier for a number of reasons. Huygens says he was particularly melancholic at the time Lievens painted his portrait (see below), and his demeanour and dress as depicted resemble Dutch mourning paintings of the same period. He appears to wear a mourning ring around his neck. Huygens’s father died in 1624, and the Stadholder Maurits died in 1625. Huygens would have been doubly in mourning for these two highly significant losses. In late 1625 he was appointed secretary to the new Stadholder Frederik Hendrik. This would have been an appropriate occasion for a portrait.

  12 Once again, this specific account by Huygens justifies his having his portrait painted in spite of his being in a period of mourning, since it places the onus for proceeding with the painting immediately on Lievens.

  13 Pieters, ‘Among ancient men: Petrarch, Machiavelli, Sidney and Huygens’, in Speaking with the Dead: Explorations in Literature and History (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), p.41.

  14 Ibid.

  15 For the most recent account of Lievens’s career, see L. De Witt, Evolution and Ambition in the Career of Jan Lievens (1607–1674), unpublished PhD, University of Maryland, College Park (2006), especially Chapter 2, ‘Lievens in England, 1632–1635’.

  16 Ibid., p.110. Reproduced in Princely Patrons, p.170.

  17 Cit. De Witt, Evolution and Ambition, p.118.

  18 Ibid., p.123.

  19 Ibid., pp.121–2.

  20 M.R. Toynbee, ‘Adriaen Hanneman and the English court in exile’, Burlington Magazine 92 (1950), 73–80. See also M.R. Toynbee, ‘Some early portraits of Princess Mary, daughter of Charles I’, Burlington Magazine 82 (1943), 100–3.

  21 A. Sumner, ‘Hanneman, Adriaen (c.1604–1671)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/12215, accessed 19 February 2007].

  22 BL Add. MS 16174: ‘Proposal to the parliament of Sir Balthazar Gerbier, knt., Peter Lely and George Geldorp concerning the representing in oil, pictures of all the memorable achievements since the parliament’s first sitting’, c.1651.

  23 D. Dethloff, ‘Lely, Sir Peter (1618–1680)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com.catalogue.ulrls.lon.ac.uk:80/view/article/16419, accessed 2 April 2007].

  24 C. Hofstede de Groot, Die Urkunden uber Rembrandt (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1906).

  25 Cited in F. Scholten, ‘François Dieussart, Constantijn Huygens, and the classical ideal in funerary sculpture’, Simiolus 25 (1997), 303–28; 309.

  26 See full account in A.-M.S. Logan, The ‘Cabinet’ of the Brothers Gerard and Jan Reynst (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1979), pp.75–86.

  27 For a concise account of this dispute see Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu, pp.207–9.

  28 See D. Mahon, ‘Notes on the “Dutch Gift” to Charles II: 1’, Burlington Magazine 91 (1949), 303–5; ‘Notes on the “Dutch Gift” to Charles II: 2’, Burlington Magazine 91 (1949), 349–50; ‘Notes on the “Dutch Gift” to Charles II: 3’, Burlington Magazine 92 (1950), 12–18.

  29 Cit. G. Schwartz and M.J. Bok, Pieter Saenredam: The Painter and His Time (London: Thames & Hudson, 1990), p.206.

  30 H. Macandrew and K. Andrews, ‘A Saenredam and a Seurat for Edinburgh’, Burlington Magazine 124 (1982), 752–5; 755.

  31 Schwartz and Bok, Pieter Saenredam, p.128; pp.149–54.

  32 Mariët Westermann, ‘Vermeer and the interior imagination’, in Vermeer and the Dutch Interior (Madrid, 2003), p.225.

  33 John Michael Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu: A Web of Social History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989).

  34 Diary of John Evelyn 3, p.262.

  35 See R. van Leeuwen (ed.), Paintings from England: William III and the Royal Collections (The Hague: Mauritshuis & SDU Publishers, 1988), p.79.

  36 Mrs Burnett, wife of Gilbert, in 1707. Cit. C.D. van Strien, British Travellers in Holland during the Stuart Period: Edward Browne and John Locke as Tourists in the United Provinces (Leiden: Brill, 1993), p.153.

  37 R. van Leeuwen (ed.), Paintings from England: William III and the Royal Collections (The Hague: SDU Publishers, 1988), pp.78–80.

  38 J. Israel, ‘The United Provinces of the Netherlands: The Courts of the House of Orange’, in J. Adamson (ed.), The Princely Courts of Europe 1500–1750 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999), pp.119–140; p.136.

  39 Van Leeuwen, Paintings from England, pp.21–2.

  6: Double Portraits

  1 For an interesting account of Schu
rmann’s artistic activities see E.A. Honig, ‘The art of being “artistic”: Dutch women’s creative practices in the 17th century’, Woman’s Art Journal 22 (2001–02), 31–9.

  2 See below.

  3 5 August 1642. Worp, letter 3092.

  4 For details of Susanna’s background see J.S. Held, ‘Constantijn Huygens and Susanna van Baerle: a hitherto unknown portrait’, Art Bulletin 73 (1991), 653–68; 659–60.

  5 Cit. ibid., p.661.

  6 C.D. Andriesse, trans. S. Miedema, Huygens: The Man behind the Principle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p.51. See also E. Keesing, ‘Wanneer was wie de heer van Zeelhem?’, De zeventiende eeuw 9 (1993), 63–5.

  7 Davidson and van der Weel, A Selection of the Poems of Sir Constantijn Huygens, p.101.

  8 Ibid., p.109.

  9 For a poetic analysis of their relationship, as evidenced by Huygens’s ‘Daghwerck’, see R.L. Colie, ‘Some Thankfulnesse to Constantine,’ A Study of English Influence upon the Early Works of Constantijn Huygens (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1956).

  10 See L. Roth (ed.), Correspondence of Descartes and Constantyn Huygens 1635–1647 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1926), pp.37–8.

  11 Ibid., 29 March 1637, p.43.

  12 J.S. Held, ‘Constantijn Huygens and Susanna van Baerle: a hitherto unknown portrait’, Art Bulletin 73 (1991), 653–68.

  13 The American-born Dutch art historian Gary Schwartz spearheaded the campaign to return the painting to the Dutch. See Schwartz’s account of the discovery, in Loekie Schwartz’s Dutch translation, in Het Financieele Dagblad, Amsterdam, 15 January 2005.

  14 Held, ‘Constantijn Huygens and Susanna van Baerle’, p.658, footnote 20.

  15 Ibid., p.664 (my translation).

  16 Ibid.

  17 See above, Chapter 3.

  18 Held, ‘Constantijn Huygens and Susanna van Baerle’, p.665.

  19 On the three poems see F. Noske, ‘Two unpaired hands holding a music sheet: A recently discovered portrait of Constantijn Huygens and Susanna van Baerle’, Tijdschrift van de Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis 42 (1992), 131–40.

  20 See ibid.

  21 Ibid., p.138.

  22 On Huygens and the theorbo see R. Spencer, ‘Chitarrone, theorbo and archlute’, Early Music 4 (1976), 407–23; 413. See also L. Sayce, ‘Continuo lutes in 17th-and 18th-century England’, Early Music 23 (1995), 666–84.

  23 For Marnix’s influence on William see L. Jardine, The Awful End of William the Silent.

  24 6 June 1652. Worp, letter 5230.

  25 See Huygens to Mevr. Morgan. Worp, letter 3239.

  26 J.A. Worp (ed.), De gedichten van Constantijn Huygens, naar zijn handschrift uitgegeven, 9 vols (Groningen, 1892–99), Vol. 4, pp.53–4: the poem was later retitled ‘Een minnaer aen een weduwe op een mugge-net hem bij haer vereert’.

  27 D. de Wilhem to Huygens, The Hague, 1 August 1646. Worp, letter 4417.

  28 Huygens to Mevr. A. Morgan. D. de Wilhem to Huygens, The Hague, 1 August 1646. Worp, letter 4417.

  28 Huygens to Mevr. A. Morgan, Worp, letter 4438.

  29 See Edward M. Furgol, ‘Morgan, Sir Charles (1575/6–1643)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com.catalogue.ulrls. lon.ac.uk:80/view/article/19217, accessed 7 April 2007].

  30 To Lady Strickland, 2 October 1654. Worp, letter 5370.

  31 Huygens to Amalia van Solms, 3 August 1654. Worp, letter 5363.

  32 6 June 1652. Worp, letter 5230.

  33 See P. Geyl, ‘Frederick Henry of Orange and King Charles I’, English Historical Review 38 (1923), 355–83; 364.

  34 Utricia Ogle (1616–74) was the daughter of Sir John Ogle and Elizabeth de Vries. She married captain Sir William Swann in 1645.

  35 See J.A. Worp, ‘Nog eens Utricia Ogle en de muzikale correspondentie van Huygens’, Tijdschrift der Vereeniging voor Noord-Nederlands Muziekgeschiedenis 5 (1896), 129–36.

  36 24 January 1647. Worp, letter 4527.

  37 On Lanier’s career in the household of Charles I see J. Brotton, The Sale of the Late King’s Goods (London: Macmillan, 2006).

  38 20 January 1654. Worp, letter 5324.

  39 ‘Hofwijk’, lines 413–18. P. Davidson and A. van der Weel (eds and trans.), A Selection of the Poems of Sir Constantijn Huygens (1596–1687) (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1996), p.143.

  40 See J.A. Worp, ‘Nog eens Utricia Ogle en de muzikale correspondentie van Huygens’, Tijdschrift der Vereeniging voor Noord-Nederlands Muziekgeschiedenis 5 (1896), 129–36.

  41 J.P. Vander Motten, Sir William Killigrew (1606–1695): His Life and Dramatic Works (Gent: Universa, 1980), pp.22–7. F. Blom (ed.), Constantijn Huygens: Mijn Leven verteld aan mijn Kinderen, 2 vols (Amsterdam: Prometheus/Bert Bakker, 2003), 1: pp.124–6; 2: pp.216–18.

  42 Blom, Constantijn Huygens: Mijn Leven 1, p.124. I can find no evidence, aside from Contantijn Huygens’s letters to her, for how Lady Killigrew came to know Dutch. But see Elizabeth of Bohemia’s letter confirming that English noblewomen were learning Dutch at this time (Nadine Akkerman, personal communication).

  43 Elizabeth of Bohemia to Sir Thomas Roe, The Hague, 24/14 June 1639. I am grateful to Nadine Akkerman for this reference.

  44 1630. Worp, letter 566.

  45 20/30 April 1671. Worp, letter 6794.

  46 18 March 1646. Worp, letter 4295.

  47 Lanier to Huygens, 3 April 1646. Worp, letter 4304.

  48 The Life of the Honourable Robert Boyle by Thomas Birch, MA and FRS, London: Printed for A. Millar, over-against Catharine-Street in the Strand MDCCXLIV. (This later appears as the first part of Vol. I of the Wo r k s.) For Francis’s marriage, see p.34.

  49 Lords Journal: ‘Boyle et al – pass to go to Holland, 22. Car. 1 viii 468 a. “Ordered, That Mr. Boyle and his Wife shall have a pass to go in to Holland; carrying with them Servants, and such Necessaries as are fit for his Journey.”’

  50 See Birch, Life of Boyle. Birch adds the footnote: ‘Mr. Boyle’s letter to Mr. Marcombes, dated from London, Febr. 22, 1647–8, in which he mentions his intentions of setting out for Holland the next day.’

  51 Charlotte’s birth date is generally given as ‘around 1650’, since the actual birth took place discreetly, and her status as a royal bastard was not made public till many years later.

  52 J.P. Vander Motten, ‘Thomas Killigrew’s “lost years”, 1655–1660’, Neophilologus 82 (1998), 311–34.

  53 See above for the marital disgrace of Thomas’s sister, Francis Boyle’s wife.

  54 J.P. Vander Motten, ‘Killigrew, Thomas (1612–1683)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [www.oxforddnb.com.catalogue.ulrls. lon.ac.uk:80/view/article/15538, accessed 8 April 2007].

  55 Endymion Porter, who we are told actually found the house for the Cavendishes, was an agent involved in numerous art purchases made in the Low Countries on behalf of noble English clients. He was certainly well known to Huygens, and had served in the same capacity in purchases for the Dutch Stadholder. Huygens mentions Margaret Cavendish in a letter to Utricia Swann in 1653, when he has not yet met her in person.

  56 4/14 October, 1655. Worp, De briefwisseling van Constantijn Huygens (1608–1687), 5, 244–5, letter 5432.

  7: Consorts of Viols, Theorbos and Anglo–Dutch Voices

  1 B. van Beneden, ‘Introduction’, in B. van Beneden and Nora de Poorter (eds), Royalist Refugees: William and Margaret Cavendish in the Rubens House 1648–1660 (Antwerp: Rubenshuis & Rubenianum, 2006), p.10.

  2 I. van Damme, ‘A city in transition: Antwerp after 1648’, in ibid., pp.55–62; 58.

  3 See P. Major, ‘A Church in exile: Anglican survival and resistance in Antwerp, 1650–53’ (in press).

  4 On Jews and Jewish practice in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century, see the many articles by J.I. Israel, particularly those in Studia Rosenthaliana.

  5 On the Duarte family and its art collections see Edgar Samuel, ‘The disposal of Diego D
uarte’s Stock of Paintings 1692–1697’, Jaarboek Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kusten-Antwerpen (1976); ‘Manuel Levy Duarte (1631–1714): An Amsterdam Merchant Jeweller and his Trade with London’, Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England XXVII, 11–31. See also G. Dogaer, Jaarboek Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kusten-Antwerpen (1971), for the 1683 inventory of the Duarte picture collection.

  6 See entry for Gaspar Duarte on the website of the Joods Historische Museum of Amsterdam: http://www.jhm.nl/.

  7 ‘Anvers, ce 24e de Mars 1641’. Gaspar Duarte to Huygens. Worp, letter 2677.

  8 J. Duarte to Huygens, 7 April 1641. Worp, letter 2686.

  9 G.F. Duarte to Huygens, 21 April 1641. Worp, letter 2677.

  10 G.F. Duarte to Huygens, 9 May 1641. Worp, letter 2703.

  11 I owe this connection to Nadine Akkerman, who is editing the letters of Elizabeth of Bohemia, for whom Wicquefort also worked.

  12 £9 sterling = 100 Dutch guilders.

  13 See Marika Keblusek, ‘Mary, princess royal (1631–1660)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com.catalogue.ulrls. lon.ac.uk:80/view/article/18252, accessed 9 April 2007].

  14 See below, Chapter 8.

  15 See G. Dogaer, ‘De inventaris der schilderijen van Diego Duarte’, Jaarboek van het Koninklijk Museum voor schone Kunsten Antwerpen (1971), 195–221; 203.

  16 21 July 1648. Worp, letter 4845. On Huygens and the de Barres, see J. Tiersot, ‘Une famille de musiciens français au XVIIe siècle les de Barre. III. Les enfants de Pierre. Anne de la Barre. chez Huygens’, Revue de musicologie 9 (1928), 1–11; 7.

  17 31 July 1648. Worp, letter 4850.

  18 Tiersot, ‘Une famille de musiciens français’, pp.7–9 (not in Worp).

  19 30 January 1653. Worp, letter 5271.

  20 C. Huygens, ‘Dessein de l’entrée du ballet presenté à la reine de Boheme à la Haye’, in Huygens, Otiorum libri sex (The Hague, 1625), pp.49–54.

  21 Cit. M. Keblusek, ‘“A divertissiment of little plays”: Theater aan de Haagse hoven van Elizabeth van Bohemen en Mary Stuart’, in J. de Jongste, J. Roding and B. Thijs (eds), Vermaak van de elite in de vroegmoderne tijd (Hilversum: Verloren, 1999), pp.190–202; 198.