by Henk T. van Veen

During his visit to the Low Countries in 1667-1669, granprincipe Cosimo de'Medici was deeply impressed by the earnestness and piety of the Roman Catholic community. And when serious problems arose between the Dutch Catholics and Rome around the year 1700 Cosimo, now Grand Duke, felt called upon to mediate in the conflict.[1] In 1703 he sent one of his most astute diplomats, Marquis Carlo Rinuccini, to the Dutch Republic.

Rinuccini gave a vivid account of his sojourn in the Netherlands in a series of letters dealing with many issues besides religion.[2] He describes his meetings with celebrated and less celebrated personalities in the cultural world of the day. That he was also interested in artists is not surprising, for he came from an old Florentine family with a long tradition of collecting and patronizing art. He himself owned quite a considerable collection of paintings ,[3] and when his official duties took him to Rotterdam, he hastened to visit the studio of the famous Adriaen van der Werff. In a letter to Cosimo he described his meeting with the painter as follows.

"Sono stato anche a vedere dipingere un certo famoso Pittore, che qui si trova, e tira una pensione dal Serenissimo Elettor Palatino chiamato Vandervert, ed ha il suo ritratto nella galleria di Vostra Altezza Reale, come egli mi ha detto avendolo richiesto, che lo mandassi, se già non l'aveva mandato; certo che è un uomo grande, e non avrei difficoltà a dire, che è il migliore pittore che dipinga fuori d'Italia, e ciò non per altro se non perchè non s'é assuefatto a dipingere con le maniere nostre e ha seguitato solo gl'esempi che ha trovati nel suo paese. Al presente fa una Nativita per il Serenissimo Elettor Palatino che egli mi ha detto volere S.A. Elettore regalare alla Serenissima, e sarà una Bella galanteria; m'ha anche fatto vedere un ritratto cominciato a Dusseldorp del Serenissimo Signore Principe Gian Gastone, e se bene la testa non è ancora finita mi pare di poter conoscere, che l'abbia però perfettamente."[4]

"I went to see a certain famous painter who lives here and who receives a pension from the Elector Palatine. His name is Van der Werff, and his portrait hangs in the Galleria of your Royal Highness, as he told me himself when I asked him to send it, should he not have done so yet. He is certainly a great artist, and I find no difficulty in admitting that he is the best painter outside Italy. And that is so only because he has not taught himself to paint in our manner, but follows only the examples to be found in his own country. He is currently engaged on a 'Nativity' for the Elector Palatine, which the latter, so the artist tells me, wishes to present to his wife. It will certainly make a handsome gift. He has also shown me a portrait of Prince Giangastone, which he started when he was in Düsseldorf. And even though the head is not yet finished, I am sure that it will be a perfect likeness."

What is so striking in this brief account is that Rinuccini admires Van der Werff solely for perfecting the Dutch painterly tradition as represented by Gerard Dou and Frans van Mieris, of which, largely thanks to Cosimo, several handsome examples were to be seen in Florence. He does not seem to have had an eye for the "academic," international nature of Van der Werff's art — a characteristic of which the painter's fellow countrymen were very well aware.[5]

 

Furthermore, some comments could be made on the paintings mentioned by Rinuccini. First of all there is the self-portrait which, although Rinuccini was not entirely sure about it, was already hanging in Cosimo's gallery of  seIf-portraits (fig. 1). Together with the Judgment of Solomon (fig. 2) this self-portrait was the first commission with which the Elector Johann Wilhelm honored the artist in 1696.[6] Both paintings were intended for his father-in-law Cosimo, and both are now in the Uffizi.[7] The self-portrait has persistently been regarded in the literature as the repetition of the other, far more famous version in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (fig. 3).[8] Very recently it was again dismissed as a replica of the Amsterdam painting ,[9] in spite of the fact that Marco Chiarini established in 1979 that the exact reverse is the case. The Rijksmuseum portrait is actually a variation of the one in the Uffizi,[10] which was already in Florence in 1697, whereas the Amsterdam canvas is dated 1699.