Vertumnus and Pomona
| Reference: | S30316 |
| Author | Jaen P. SAENREDAM |
| Year: | 1605 |
| Measures: | 356 x 471 mm |
€3,500.00
| Reference: | S30316 |
| Author | Jaen P. SAENREDAM |
| Year: | 1605 |
| Measures: | 356 x 471 mm |
€3,500.00
Description
Engraving, 1605, dated in the right corner and lettered below right "A. Bloemaert inue, / J.Saenredam sculp. / et excu". After Abraham Bloemaert.
Magnificient example, in the first state of four, printed on contemporary laid paper with unidentified watermark, trimmed at copperplate, some expert reapirs at the back, generallly in very good condition.
This work is the result of the successful collaboration of the Dutch Mannerist painter Abraham Bloemart and Jan Saenredam.
Produced only two years before Saenredam’s death, it reflects the delicate handling apparent in his late work. Here he replace his earlier exuberant, swelling lines, derived from his association with Hendrick Goltzius in Haarlem, with finer, more varied lines which produce richer contrasts of tone and texture.
Bloemart’s design emphasizes the full curves of the goddess’s elongated nude body; this nudity is atypical of later Dutch representation of the myth, though here it must be due to the delight northern mannerists took in the representation of the naked human body.
Henkel suggests that Bloemart’s arrangement of god and goddess derived from the engraving by Antonio Tempesta of the same subject. However, the earliest known date of the Tempesta series is 1606, one year after Saeredam’s print.
Whether Tempesta’s series influenced the 1589 prints of The Metamorphoseos by H. Goltzius, and therefore predate the Saenredam engraving in still open.
Hellerstedt cosiders the possibility of an alternative prototype for both Tempesta and Bloemaert, maybe the depiction of Vertumnus and Pomona by Bernard Salomon included in a popular 1557 illustrated edition of The Metamorphoses.
The association of the myth with gardens and vegetation is emphasized in the design. Pomona, who holds a pruning knife, is surrounded by the fruits of her labor. Lush fruits hang from overhead branches while dense vines with vegetables fill the foreground.
The garden location is indicated by the lightly engraved trellis at the rear. The choice of fruits is not arbitrary, for the huge gourds, squash, apples, and grapes all reach maturity in autumn; Pomona is often shown with Bacchus as the god and goddess of that season.
In addition, the heavily-laden grapevine which encircles the elm tree behind the goddess is no without meaning; Vertumnus specifically refers to it as a metaphor for the necessity of love. The young lovers who embrace under the trees behind the god suggests that Vertumnus’s arguments will soon win over the reluctant Pomona.
A great example of this important work.
Ex collection William Sharp (Lugt 2650).
Literature
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Hollstein 87.I/IV ; Bartsch III.228.27 Hellerstedt, Garden of Earthly Delight, n.9
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Jaen P. SAENREDAM (Zaandam 1565 - Assendelft 1607)
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Jan Pieterszoon Saenredam (1565 – 6 April 1607) was a Dutch Northern Mannerist painter, printmaker in engraving, and cartographer, and father of the painter of church interiors, Pieter Jansz Saenredam. He is noted for the many allegorical images he created from classical mythology and the Bible. Saenredam was born in Zaandam. As an orphan Jan lived with his uncle, Pieter de Jongh, a bailiff in Assendelft who first sent him to learn basket weaving as a profession. Being an apt student, he was taught reading and writing, but astonished his teachers when he proved already so accomplished in this that he decorated his texts with curled decorations. An example of his penmanship could once be seen on display at Assum House near Heemskerk (residence of the Lord of Assendelft), which was his copywork of the ten commandments. Despite a decision that he follow a career in a trade or farming, he showed such artistic talent that he started as an apprentice cartographer. His first map is dated 1589 and is of the province of Holland, which could be seen in the city book of Guiccardijn (referring to a 1593 work by Lodovico Guicciardini called The Description of the Low Countries). He was visited by a lawyer called Spoorwater tot Assendelft, who convinced his guardian to let him apply his gift, and thus young Saenredam was sent to learn drawing from Hendrick Goltzius in Haarlem, where he became a master at the age of 24 (in 1589).
After working for some time with Goltzius, he encountered the almost inevitable professional rivalry and jealousy, prompting his departure to work in Amsterdam for two years. He then returned to Assendelft where he married and set up his own workshop. His first engraving was of the 12 apostles after a drawing by Karel van Mander. He produced prints after Goltzius, Abraham Bloemaert, Cornelis van Haarlem, Polidoro da Caravaggio, and his own invention. He made over 170 plates of which the last one was a history of Diana and Callisto by Paulus Moreelse in 1606.
Two plates he was working on, after drawings by Bartholomeus Spranger and Willem Thibaut, were finished later by Jacob Matham.
According to the Rijksmuseum, he returned in 1595 from Amsterdam to Assendelft, where he married Anna Pauwelsdochter. Jan left his wife a sizeable estate as a result of lucrative investments in the Dutch East India Company. He died of typhus on April 6, 1607 and was buried in the choir of the Saint Adolphus church at Assendelft, with the gravestone inscription Ioannis Saenredam Sculptoris celeberrimi.
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Literature
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Hollstein 87.I/IV ; Bartsch III.228.27 Hellerstedt, Garden of Earthly Delight, n.9
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Jaen P. SAENREDAM (Zaandam 1565 - Assendelft 1607)
|
Jan Pieterszoon Saenredam (1565 – 6 April 1607) was a Dutch Northern Mannerist painter, printmaker in engraving, and cartographer, and father of the painter of church interiors, Pieter Jansz Saenredam. He is noted for the many allegorical images he created from classical mythology and the Bible. Saenredam was born in Zaandam. As an orphan Jan lived with his uncle, Pieter de Jongh, a bailiff in Assendelft who first sent him to learn basket weaving as a profession. Being an apt student, he was taught reading and writing, but astonished his teachers when he proved already so accomplished in this that he decorated his texts with curled decorations. An example of his penmanship could once be seen on display at Assum House near Heemskerk (residence of the Lord of Assendelft), which was his copywork of the ten commandments. Despite a decision that he follow a career in a trade or farming, he showed such artistic talent that he started as an apprentice cartographer. His first map is dated 1589 and is of the province of Holland, which could be seen in the city book of Guiccardijn (referring to a 1593 work by Lodovico Guicciardini called The Description of the Low Countries). He was visited by a lawyer called Spoorwater tot Assendelft, who convinced his guardian to let him apply his gift, and thus young Saenredam was sent to learn drawing from Hendrick Goltzius in Haarlem, where he became a master at the age of 24 (in 1589).
After working for some time with Goltzius, he encountered the almost inevitable professional rivalry and jealousy, prompting his departure to work in Amsterdam for two years. He then returned to Assendelft where he married and set up his own workshop. His first engraving was of the 12 apostles after a drawing by Karel van Mander. He produced prints after Goltzius, Abraham Bloemaert, Cornelis van Haarlem, Polidoro da Caravaggio, and his own invention. He made over 170 plates of which the last one was a history of Diana and Callisto by Paulus Moreelse in 1606.
Two plates he was working on, after drawings by Bartholomeus Spranger and Willem Thibaut, were finished later by Jacob Matham.
According to the Rijksmuseum, he returned in 1595 from Amsterdam to Assendelft, where he married Anna Pauwelsdochter. Jan left his wife a sizeable estate as a result of lucrative investments in the Dutch East India Company. He died of typhus on April 6, 1607 and was buried in the choir of the Saint Adolphus church at Assendelft, with the gravestone inscription Ioannis Saenredam Sculptoris celeberrimi.
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