PEPIJN, Marten - b. 1575 Antwerpen, d. ~1643 Antwerpen - WGA

PEPIJN, Marten

(b. 1575 Antwerpen, d. ~1643 Antwerpen)

Flemish painter. His years of apprenticeship are obscure, but in 1600 he became a master in the Antwerp Guild of St Luke. The following year he married Maria Huybrechts, with whom he had five children. One son became a painter, as did his daughter Katherine Pepijn (1619-1668), who painted portraits of clerics in the style of Rubens and van Dyck. Between 1602 and 1628 Marten Pepijn took on eight apprentices. His portrait was painted by van Dyck (1632; Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp). It was suggested that Pepijn had travelled to Italy and that Rubens, who viewed him as a rival, was pleased to see him go; this tale is unlikely in view of the inequality of talent and because the two men were friends.

Two signed and dated altarpieces by Pepijn (both Antwerp, St Elisabeth Gasthuis), the triptych of St Elizabeth of Hungary (1623) and the triptych of St Augustine (1626), as well as the Crossing of the Red Sea (1626; Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp) and St Norbert (1637; Antwerp Cathedral) all reveal an old-fashioned style, with stiff poses reminiscent of 16th-century sculpture. The influence of Ambrosius Francken the Elder is marked. A striking feature of Pepijn’s oeuvre is its strong quality of portraiture (e.g. St Bernard and the Duke of Aquitaine; Valenciennes, Musée des Beaux-Arts).

Crossing of the Red Sea

Marten Pepijn became a master in Antwerp in 1600. However, works ascribed to him with certainty and dated, particularly large-sized religious pictures, are only known from the 1620s onwards. His detailed narrative style, and his realistic, sometimes even caricaturistic characterization of figures are recognizably similar to the style of Amdrosius Francken, so that there are grounds for assuming that he was trained in Francken’s prestigious studio. But at the same time he also incorporated motifs which are clearly derived from Rubens.

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St Norbert

Marten Pepijn (also spelled Pepyn), an artist at Antwerp painted in a style faithful to the humanists of the preceding generation.

St Norbert played a special part in Antwerp ecclesiastical history. In 1124 he overcame the heretic Tanchelm at Antwerp and made the chapel of Our Lady from which the Cathedral was to evolve, the city’s parish church. As one might expect, the pious story does not tally entirely with historical reality. Norbert is customarily portrayed as an archbishop or abbot. His attribute is a monstrance containing the Host, as he defended the Eucharist against Tanchelm’s disbelief.

The saint is dressed here in the habit of the Norbertine or Premonstratensian Order, of which he was the founder. He kneels before a monstrance. A sanctuary lamp - an oil lamp that has to be kept burning by the Holy Sacrament (the consecrated wafers) - is suspended in front of a curtain. The olive branch in the background symbolizes Norbert’s message of peace.

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The Ball at the Court

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Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints

In this painting the enthroned Virgin and Child are adorned by Sts Lawrence and Martha.

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