Philips Wouwerman

For the World War II cargo ship, see MV Philips Wouwerman.

Philips Wouwerman
Cavalry Battle in front of a Burning Mill by Philip Wouwerman (1660s) Oil on canvas, 54.5 x 66.5 cm. Gemäldegalerie, Dresden
Born	24 May 1619(1619-05-24) Haarlem
Died	19 May 1668(1668-05-19) (aged 48) Haarlem
Nationality	Dutch
Field	Painting

Philips Wouwerman (also Wouwermans) (24 May 1619 (baptized) – 19 May 1668) was a Dutch painter of hunting, landscape and battle scenes.

Life and Work

Philips Wouwerman was one of the most versatile and prolific artists of the Dutch Golden Age. Embedded in the artistic environment and tradition of his home town of Haarlem, Wouwerman made an important and highly influential contribution to the canon of seventeenth-century Dutch painting. His pictures were in demand during his lifetime, but evenmore sought after in the 18th century. Throughout Europe, formerly princely art collections like in Dresden and St. Petersburg still bear witness to this widespread and great admiration of Wouwerman's elegant and picturesque refined works of art.

Born in Haarlem in 1619, the son of a now altogether obscure painter named Pouwels Joostsz. Wouwerman, little is known about the artistic schooling of Wouwerman. According to Cornelis de Bie, he studied with Frans Hals (1581/85-1666), but the particular style of Hals didn't leave a footmark on his oeuvre. Apart from a short stay in Hamburg at the end of the 1630es, Wouwerman seemed to have lived in Haarlem during his whole artistic career and died as a well-respected member of the community at the age of 48. He joined the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke in 1640 and here took on several official posts in the years to come.^[1] At an early age, Wouwerman married Anna Pietersz. van Broeckhoff with whom he had ten children. Seven of them survived and, after the death of their mother in 1670, accepted a substantial inheritance. Wouwerman also worked as an estate agent in his home town, as many documents in Haarlem archives mentioned the artist in this context.

Wouwerman started his artistic career with simple depictions of everyday life in the tradition of the bamboccianti by Pieter van Laer (1592/99-after 1642). Over the next thirty years he developed an individual style, treating a wide range of subjects from genre and landscape to military and religious scenes (equestrian scenes, hunting and hawking parties, landscapes with travellers, cavalry battles and military encampments, peasants festivities etc.). Yet his skills are legendary as regards the depiction of horses of all breeds seen in motion, and the masterpieces from his best period (around 1650-1660) are of indisputably high quality, beautifully combining imaginary southern landscapes and a typically Dutch atmosphere. Wouwerman's fine paintings - displaying delicate, subdued colours, a cool atmosphere and a wealth of witty, anecdotal details. He died in Haarlem.

The first retrospective exhibition of Philips Wouwerman's work took place in Kassel, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, and in The Hague, The Royal Picture Gallers Mauritshuis, 2009/2010

Output

About 800 pictures were listed in John Smith's Catalogue raisonné (1829/1842) as the work of Philip Wouwerman. In Hofstede de Groot's enlarged Catalogue (1908) the number exceeds to 1200. In Birgit Schumacher's recently published Catalogue raisonné (2006), only about 570 pictures were listed as authentic works, as many of the pictures mentioned by Hofstede de Groot were actually painted by countless followers and imitators all over Europe. Jan and Pieter Wouwerman, the younger brothers of Philips, were often regarded as close followers whose pictures seemed to have been frequently attributed to Philips. And indeed, the oeuvre of Pieter (1623–1682) clearly manifests the influence of Philips with regard to the range of subjects, but regarding the artistic style, Pieter had quite one of his own. And Jan (1629–1666) was a rather autonomous landscape painter. Out of the countless followers, some of the most gifted artists working in Wouwerman's style are worth mentioning: Jan van Huchtenburgh (1647–1733), the brothers Jan Frans (1683–1750) and Joseph (1688–1739) van Bredael as well as Carel van Falens (1683–1733).

His registered pupils were Johannes van der Bent, Hendrick Berckman, Eduard Dubois, Nicolas Ficke, Barent Gael, Anthony de Haen, Emanuel Murant, Matthias Scheits, Kort Withold, and his brothers.^[1]

Selected Works

• The White Horse, panel, 43.9 x 37.6 cm, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum
• Horse and Dismounted Rider, panel, 32.3 x 36.2 cm, 1646, Leipzig, Museum der bildenden Künste
• Landscape with River and Bathers, canvas, 59 x 82 cm, Vaduz-Vienna, The Collections of the Prince of Liechtenstein
• Festive Peasants in an Extensive Landscape, canvas, 70 x 112 cm, 1653, Minneapolis, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts
• Winter Landscape with Wooden Bridge, panel, 28.5 x 36.5 cm, Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Gemäldegalerie
• A Horse Stable, canvas, 47 x 67 cm, London, The National Gallery
• The Apple Grey at a Blacksmith, panel, 34.4. x 38.3 cm, Kassel, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister
• Riding School and Watering Place, canvas, 82.5 x 127 cm, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum
• Departure for the Hunt, panel, 45 x 64 cm, Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister
• Landscape with a Hawking Party, canvas, 76 x 105 cm, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado
• Battle at a Mountainous Fortress, canvas, 69 x 82 cm, Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister
• Cavalry at a Sutler's Booth, panel, 49.5 x 44.4 cm, London, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II., Buckingham Palace
• Lady and Gentleman at a Harbour, canvas, 51 x 71.3 cm, St Petersburg, The State Hermitage
• The Ascension of Christ, canvas, 85 x 68 cm, Brunswick, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum

Literature

• Philips Wouwerman (1619-1668). Exhibition Catalogue, Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel/ Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague, 2009/2010, ISBN 978 90 400 8592 5
• Birgit Schumacher, Philips Wouwerman. The Horse Painter of the Golden Age, Davaco Publishers, Doornspijk 2006, ISBN 90 70288 67 2
• Frederik J. Duparc, "Philips Wouwerman, 1619-1668", in: Oud Holland, 1993, vol. 107, no. 3, pp. 257–286
• Birgit Schumacher, Studien zu Werk und Wirkung Philips Wouwermans', Diss. Munich 1989
• Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, vol. 2, Esslingen and Paris 1908 (Reprint: Teaneck, NJ: Somerset House, 1976; A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, vol. 2)
• John Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, vol. 1, pp. 199–412 and vol. 9, pp. 137–233, London 1829 and 1842

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Philips Wouwerman in the RKD

•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Wouwerman, Philip". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

External links

Media related to Philips Wouwerman at Wikimedia Commons

• www.wouwerman.org Works by Philips Wouwerman
• www.birgitschumacher.com Information on the catalogue raisonné of the paintings by Philips Wouwerman
• Works and literature

Persondata
Name	Wouwerman, Philips
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	24 May 1619
Place of birth	Haarlem
Date of death	19 May 1668
Place of death	Haarlem