COUWENBERGH, Christiaen van

This drawing is a folio of the Abrams Album (named after the donor) in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Utrecht Caravaggists, to whom Van Couwenbergh belonged, took up the drawing pen only for very special projects, for example, a book produced for a festive occasion, such as a friendship album of which the Abrams Album is an example. Diana by Van Couwenbergh is the only known drawing by the artist.

It is assumed that the painting is an allegory of Taste, and it belonged to a series representing the five senses.

The panel is signed lower left in monogram CB.F.

This painting was purchased by the city of Dordrecht in 1632 and installed in the meeting room of the town hall.

The two main figures and the general arrangement of the interior in Van Couwenbergh’s picture are based upon an engraving of about 1613 by the Haarlem artist Jacob Matham (1571-1631) after Rubens’s large panel Samson and Delilah in the National Gallery, London. Van Couwenbergh referred to engravings after Rubens on several occasions. His father, Gillis, was an engraver and art dealer as well as a silversmith in Delft, so that the painter probably had access to a large stock of prints. Rubens’s tour of the northern Netherlands in July 1627 - he visited Delft and was honoured at a banquet given by Van Honthorst in Utrecht - and the Flemish master’s stature at the Dutch court must also have made an impression upon the young history painter, whose work in the 1620s was mostly confined to amusing genre scenes.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 12 minutes):

George Frideric Handel: Samson, Part 1 Sinfonia, recitative and chorus

In this painting the history painter Van Couwenbergh illustrated an episode from an unidentified story. A white man sits at the foot of a bed holding a black woman on his lap. Both are naked.�The woman looks frightened and is putting up a violent struggle. The man casts an amused glance at his companion on the left, who is naked but for a loincloth which he holds in place with one hand. He points at the woman and grins in our direction , as if sharing a joke with us. A third young man lifts his hands to the sky in surprise or dismay. He is a minor character, possibly a servant, and the only person who is fully dressed. A chamberpot stands on a triangular stool beside the bed.

Christian van Couwenbergh was a Delft artist who visited Italy and returned to his native city in 1625 as an uneven Caravaggist. He received commissions from Stadholder Frederik Hendrik, Prince of Orange.

A ripe young woman stands in a doorway holding a tapestry aside with the back if her hand. She carries a basket overflowing with fruit, quite as her bodice seems about to spill its abundant contents. Although the woman presumably is entering the room in which the viewer finds himself (that he is male need not be debated), it also seems that she has paused in the doorway, inviting him to withdraw to a private space.

The painting has also be said to represent Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit. While classical and even biblical references often served as pretexts for including sexy pictures in the seventeenth century collections, there are few works for which such a claim is less convincing. Van Couwenbergh’s canvas is an exceptionally straightforward version of a type of painting that first flourished in Utrecht during the 1620s and became popular in court circles at The Hague between about 1635 and 1650. Gerard van Honthorst and Paulus Moreelse often painted courtesans dressed as shepherdess, a bird in the hand or an offer of fruit may recall Venus, Eve, Pomona, or some other ancient prototype, but the costumes, with tantalizingly low necklines, and the blond tresses framing Dutch faces must have made contemporary viewers feel right at home.