Dutch Golden Age 17th century

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In 2007 I was asked to do a series of five full-colour illustrations (42 x 28 cm), which were to be used for educational purposes for children.

These pictures were to be part of a so-called "teaching-chest" entitled "Discovering the Golden Age!" and were printed on a 60 x 40 cm size.

Each of the illustrations had to depict a theme of this Dutch Golden Age. These are:

the Siege of a Dutch town by the Spaniards, the VOC, a Master-painters studio, Scientifical discoveries and Merchants and beggars, with which I'll start off.

Is this an existing market-place of an existing Dutch town? Not really, but the town-hall in the centre of the picture looks like the one of Haarlem and some of the church-towers and building-façades remind us of Amsterdam.

To depict the group of people at the left-hand side of the picture I used elements from paintings by Jan Steen, Jacob Ochterveld and Bartholomeus van der Helst, all well-known and very succesfull painters at the time.

In the background we can see the usual hustle and bustle of a 17th century marketplace, complete with oriëntal merchants, as we can also see on contemporary paintings by Gerrit Berckheyde and Johannes Lingelbach.

The regentesk figure in the front is grafted upon the portrait of Jan Six by Rembrandt.

The second illustration was the siege of a Dutch town by the Spaniards.

I depicted the siege of the town of Alkmaar by the Spaniards in 1573, which is widely known as the event "where Victory began" (for the Dutch of course).

In the 16th century the Low Countries were owned through inheritance by the Spanish Crown. The towns of Northern Holland, like Amsterdam, Haarlem, Alkmaar en Hoorn, which were fast develloping, very rich and strategically important, revolted. This became the Eighty Years war or the "Revolt"(de Opstand), as we now know it. From "Alkmaar" on, the Spaniards gradually lost more and more of their influence and power in Holland.

In 1581 came into existance the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, which develloped with great speed into a maritime worldpower, which eventually caused the Dutch Golden Age (as it is called) in the 17th century.

Officially peace with Spain was reached only in 1648 with the peace treaty of Münster.

For this picture I carefully looked at "Het beleg van Alkmaar" (the siege of Alkmaar), a painting by Pieter Adriaensz. Cluyt from AD 1580.

But I turned around the perspective 180˚.
Where Cluyt offers us a detailed view in and from the Spanish camp, I preferred to show a view from the ramparts of the town.
Although in my picture there are clear references to the city of Alkmaar, such as the church and the coat of arms over the gate, I must confess that I stretched reality a bit; therefore this town may stand for any other Dutch town during the spanish occupation.

Alkmaar was the first town to withstand the Spaniards, and on October 8th, 1573 "Victory begins at Alkmaar", as the saying goes.

In the bastion on the foreground we see the commander in chief of Alkmaar, one of the first "Water-Beggars" Jacob Cabeliau. On his lefthandside I depicted his right hand Nicolaas Ruychaver.

In the distance they see how the water approaches the town after the Governor of the Northern Quarter Diederik Sonoy had the dykes of the Zuiderzee pierced and the floodgates opened.

This caused the Spaniards to retreat, because they didn't like to get wet feet.

By the way, the bridges towards such city-gates were always made of wood, so in times of war and siege the defenders of the city simply chopped them to pieces.

The subject for the third illustration was the VOC and its trade overseas. The VOC - United East-India Company - can be regarded as the first multinational.

I wanted to express the power of this company by emphasizing the size of its ships.

Therefore I chose a scene in which one of those vessels laid at anchor on the roads of the Dutch colony of Batavia (nowadays Jakarta in Indonesia) roundabout AD 1650, just when the crewmaster of Batavia returns to town after inspection of the ship, its crew and its cargo.

In those days Batavia was the most important transhipment harbour of the VOC. Small unloading-vessels are coming alongside to transport the goods to the various warehouses in town. Natives are offering the crewmembers fresh fruit.

The only way in which the warehouses could be reached was through a dredged and with dams protected fairway and a specially digged channel to the city's water-gate.

Because of silting up Batavia slowly but surely came to lie further and further away from the sea and through time the pier at the northern side of town reached as far as 2 kilometers into the sea.

As a reference for this picture I used a painting by Adam Willaerts from AD 1649 from the collection of the National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam and for the small vessels I looked at an anonymous engraving "'t Inkomen van de haven van Batavia" ("Entering the harbour of Batavia") from "Gedenkwaerdige zee- en lantreize" ("Memorable sea- and landvoyages") by Joan Nieuhof from AD 1682.

The ship is modeled after the replica of the "VOC-retourschip" (returnship) Batavia, which was built on the Batavia-shipyard in the Dutch city of Lelystad in 1985-1995 and that can still be visited there.

The subject of the fourth illustration of this series was "Scientifical discoveries".

One of the more important exponents of 17th-century science in the Netherlands was Anthoni van Leeuwenhoek. He was skilful in making microscopes and had at his disposal - by far - the best lenses of his time.

Here we see Anthoni looking through one of his selfmade microscopes with singular lens, studying his "kleijne diertgens" (little animals).

In the foreground , between all kinds of volumes, there are drawings of them, made by van Leeuwenhoek himself. We can also see a copy of the first scientifical periodical of the world the "Philosofical Transactions" published by the Royal Society of London, in which he made his observations public on March 25, 1677. This was announced on the cover of this magazine.

Van Leeuwenhoek was stimulated to publish his findings by no less a person than the great Dutch statesman and poet Constantijn Huygens (painting), who in his turn was a great admirer of the English pioneer of natural science Sir Francis Bacon.

A precursor of Van Leeuwenhoek was Cornelis Drebbel from Alkmaar, who among others invented the microscope (left) and the submarine (drawing beneath the magazine).

Furthermore we can see several instruments refering to the overseas trade, as well as the "japonse rok" ("japanese gown"), kind of an imitated Japanese kimono, here worn by Anthoni and which was very much fashionable in those days.

All of his discoveries were made in his study in Delft. He hardly ever left his hometown.

Through the open window we can see part of a house also painted by Johannes Vermeer in 1675 ("het Straatje", Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam).

For the physiques of Anthoni I carefully looked at the portrait of van Leeuwenhoek made by Johannes Verkolje in 1686, ten years after his breakthrough.

In the background beneath the painting I added some food; a tribute to the beautiful 17th-century still life paintings by e.g. Floris van Dijck, Pieter Claesz and Willem Claesz Heda.

The last illustration of the Golden Age series had to depict a master painter's studio.

Because I could choose from such a vast array of succesful and famous 17th-century painters I decided to draw the studio of a fictitious master painter.

Here he is just showing his progress on a painting to his customer, a rich merchant.

The interior of the studio is borrowed from an etching by Adriaen van Ostade entitled "de schilder" (the painter) from the Rijksprentenkabinet (Printroom of the Rijksmuseum) in Amsterdam.

And furthermore I looked carefully to a number of other contemporary paintings with the same subject, by e.g. Vermeer, Pieter Codde, Frans van Mieris the Elder, Michiel van Musscher en Jacob Ochterveld.

At the righthand side of the picture two apprentices are preparing materials to paint. One of them is grinding pigments and the other is making brushes.

There, where formerly portraits were commissioned exclusively by the nobility and the clergy, in the 17th century portraiture soared very high because of the growth of the wealth of the dutch merchants and gentry. Above the staircase we can see an example of this artform. It's a self-portrait by one of the most succesful artists of his time, Ferdinand Bol, who was an apprentice of Rembrandt.

Just like Van Leeuwenhoek from the earlier post, this artist is wearing a "japonse rok" as well.

And as a bonus I'd like to add another picture of a 17th century painter, but in this case it is Rembrandt himself working in his "schildercaemer" in his premises at the Jodenbreestraat in Amsterdam, nowadays the "Rembrandthuis".

I was commissioned to do this illustration a couple of years later than the other ones and by another client. This one was made in 2011.

I had to depict lots of historical accurate items in this picture, such as the easel, the cloth over the model for the correct lighting, the apprentices, his wife Saskia van Uylenburgh, bringing in refreshments, a map with etchings, all kinds of naturalia and plaster models like feet and sculls and many things more. And last but not least of course his model Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburgh of the "Nachtwacht", which turned out to be Rembrandt's most famous painting.