by Gregor J.M. Weber

The large lunettes in the corridor of Amsterdam Town Hall were decorated with scenes of the Batavian uprising of 69 BC because that event was seen as an antique parallel to the rebellion of the Netherlands against Spanish rule. In 1659 Govert Flinck was commissioned to execute the entire project, but as he died not much later - in 1660 - the work was shared out between Rembrandt, Lievens and Jordaens. Rembrandt's The Conspiracy of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis was removed soon afterwards - for reasons still not fully explained - and replaced with one by Jurriaen Ovens. Lievens, in his painting dated 1661, depicts the Caninefate warriors, whom Claudius Civilis, leader of the Batavians, had been able to win over before the attack (fig. 1).[1] Amongst them, Brinio stood out by his courage and noble descent, so his followers raised him upon a shield and proclaimed him general.[2]

by Ben Broos

The following is the result of sheer coincidence. On 11 July 1989 the Mauritshuis received a photograph of a drawing belonging to the Fundaçao Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon. It was accompanied by a letter from the curator, Manuela Fidalgo, asking if we could identify the artist. Representing Tarquinius and Lucretia in black chalk on yellow-brown paper, the sheet measures 41.3 x 36 cm. Neither the drawing's provenance nor the date the Gulbenkian acquired it are known.

by J. van Tatenhove

Little is known about the seventeenth-century Haarlem painter Frans de Jongh. Houbraken, the first author to mention him, notes in passing that he was one of Jan de Groot's teachers. De Groot, he informs us, was apprenticed to Adriaen van Ostade in 1666, and "finally [to] Frans de Jong of Haarlem". Van der Willigen reports in 1870: "I have found in my notes on the [Haarlem] guild of St Luke that he was born in Haarlem, and that he was the son of a sister of A. van Ostade and the latter's pupil. He is mentioned as an excellent history painter. He was buried in the New Church on 15 January 1705. " Wurzbach lists a pair of pendants by De Jongh in Copenhagen, which he describes as being in the style of Salvator Rosa, and notes that one is signed "f.de.Jongh". One depicts Jason and the Dragon, the other Cadmus and the Dragon. In addition, Thieme-Becker refer to a sheet at the printroom in Leiden, which is a drawing by Taco Hajo Jelgersma after a self-portrait by De Jongh. Beneath this portrait in a roundel, which shows De Jongh wearing a bearskin hat, is a tablet with the following inscription:

by Guido Jansen

Thierry Beherman's monograph on the Dordrecht artist Godfried Schalcken (1643-1706) appeared posthumously in 1988. One of the merits of this book, which I found otherwise somewhat disappointing, is the attention it devotes at long last to Schalcken's works on paper, undoubtedly the least known aspect of this prolific artist's oeuvre. Only Rudolf Juynboll had previously published a few of the artist's drawings, almost half a century earlier. Beherman managed to assemble a small corpus, just over 30 sheets, some executed with pen and ink, others with red or black chalk.

by Shirley K. Bennett

Nicolaes Berchem (1620-1683), also known as Claes Berchem, was one of the most productive and popular Dutch artists of the seventeenth century. Son of the Haarlem still-life painter, Pieter Claesz., Berchem studied under a variety of masters, including Jan van Goyen, Claes Moeyaert, Pieter de Grebber, Jan Wils and Jan Baptist Weenix. This training may account for the versatility Berchem displayed in his selection of subject matter, compositional arrangement and style. His extant oeuvre comprises more than 850 paintings, 500 drawings and 50 etchings. The majority of these works are Italianate landscapes populated with shepherdesses, herdsmen and animals, which Berchem bathed in a golden light that has been as pleasing to successive generations as to his own. Berchem is also appreciated for mythological and allegorical works. He is less well known for his religious paintings and drawings, which comprise only a small part of his oeuvre. Perhaps because of their relative scarcity, the religious works have been little studied. This is especially true of the drawings. Generally executed in pen and brown ink with brown wash, or in black chalk, at times highlighted with red, some are mere sketches, while others are detailed renderings. Although the purpose of these drawings remains elusive in most cases, a few were probably preliminary sketches for paintings. Among the pen-and-ink drawings, some are indented and were models for prints.

by Robert Schillemans

In volume four of his Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schiller, Werner Sumowski examines the work of the Amsterdam painter of Antwerp origin, Carel van Savoy (ca. 1621-1665). Before leaving his native city, Van Savoy studied with Jan Cossiers (1600-1671), two of whose large paintings are recorded in churches in the Northern Netherlands. Van Savoy registered as a burgher of Amsterdam in 1649, and that same year married Catharina Wandelman, the daughter of an Amsterdam merchant. His small extant oeuvre comprises only a dozen portraits and history pieces, although an Amsterdam inventory also lists an allegory by him.

by Paul Huys Janssen

In 1913 George Cuny, an archivist in Gdansk, published all the information he had collected on the painter Laurence Neter as part of his research on artists who had worked in the city. Neter was actually from the town of Elblag, some 50 kilometers from Gdansk, and must have been born there around 1600/1604. Cuny deduced this approximate year of birth from the fact that a certain "Lorens Neter" was admitted to the "classis germanica inferior" of Elblag's gymnasium on 28 September 1612.

by Christina J.A. Wansink

In 1989 Alan Chong published two pictures preserved in the Dordrechts Museum as pendants by Jacob Gerritsz. Cuyp: a Paul purchased in 1987 and a Peter on loan to the museum since 1935. The aim of the present article is to complement his contribution.

by Michiel Plomp

In George S. Keyes's pioneering article of 1976 on the Haarlem marine painter Pieter Mulier the Elder (ca. 1600-1670) the artist's drawings were also studied seriously for the first time. Not one had been known prior to that date, and even the 12 sheets published by Keyes all lacked a signature or any kind of annotation, so they remained no more than attributions. The recent discovery of a drawing bearing Mulier's monogram now confirms Keyes's attributions and enables us to elaborate on his findings. Moreover, unlike any other known work by Mulier, it bears a very precise date. Furthermore, there are two previously unknown sheets which can now also be added to Mulier's small oeuvre as a draftsman.

by Peter C. Sutton

The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota Florida owns a three-quarter length painting of The Holy Family in which the smiling Virgin holds the child in her lap and Joseph appears in the shadows at the upper left. The painting is not only in problematic condition but also presents special problems of attribution. When it was sold in New York in 1930 and later acquired by the circus magnate, John Ringling, it was attributed to the Rembrandt pupil Govaert Flinck (1615-1660). However in 1949 William A. Suida thoughtfully reassigned it to the history painter Leendert van der Cooghen (1610-1681), which brought the discussion of its author into the circle of the Haarlem Classicists. Observing that S.J. Gudlagsson had noted on the photograph mount at the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie that a false signature of G. Flinck had been painted above an original signature of which only the letters "de G..." could still be deciphered (and which now are no longer visible), Franklin W. Robinson tentatively reassigned the work in 1980 to either Van der Cooghen or that leader of the Haarlem Classicists, Pieter de Grebber (c. 1600-1653).