5.3 Brussels Artists and the Accademia di San Luca
By the 1630s, Duquesnoy, Cousin, and Spierincks were active in the Accademia di San Luca [14]. Duquesnoy joined in 1630 and Cousin in 1638.1 Spierincks, though never documented as an accademico, supported the institution by paying dues as a non-member in 1634 and 1635 to support the rebuilding of the Academy’s church of Santi Luca e Martina.2 He occasionally took on other responsibilities, such as acting as a representative of the Fiamminghi at a meeting in September 1635.3 Duquesnoy and Cousin also took on various other roles; Duquesnoy served as a stimatore dei scultori (appraiser of sculpture) in 1633 and 1634, and Cousin was chosen along with four other members – including fellow accademico Nicholas Poussin – to visit the sick and incarcerated at a meeting on 28 May 1645.4 These artists’ decision to join the Academy came years after having established themselves in Rome. Membership in the Academy was by no means a necessity (especially as a foreigner) to work in Rome — Dutch and Flemish artists did so freely for the open market with small, cheap pictures — but these Brussels artists evidently felt that there were benefits and status associated with being part of the institution.5 A combination of factors likely contributed to their participation: artistic interests, commitment to the practice of drawing, and the study of the antique, as well as more practically, because membership in the Academy benefitted their position and reputation with papal and princely patrons—not to mention that it was an indication of their own artistic success.
And yet, their decision is notable given the climate of the 1630s and 1640s, during which time the relationship between members of the Netherlandish community and the Academy was contentious.6 Since its founding in 1593, the Accademia di San Luca held a commanding position in Rome’s artistic life, and sought to exert its influence over the professional, religious and daily lives of the city’s artists — however little this amounted to in reality.7 In practice, this took form in payments of the tassa (tax), initially in the guise of alms, as well as a duty paid on the stima (an estimate performed by a commission of the academy).8 While all artists had been expected to pay alms to the academy in order to practice their art since the turn of the century, which many Netherlanders had been able to avoid,9 a papal brief issued by Pope Urban VIII in 1633 gave the Academy the right to collect a mandatory annual tax from artists residing in Rome.10 The tax was primarily directed at artists involved in trading paintings in a shop.11 The majority of Dutch and Flemish artists, who were hit hardest by the tax, still refused to pay, and a general meeting held in 1636 to try and reconcile tensions between the two sides amounted to nothing.12
From what can be gathered from the surviving records, only a few Northern artists continued to pay, namely those who would have been less affected by the tax because they worked primarily on commission.13 Spierincks, as already mentioned, made contributions in 1634 and 1635, and Duquesnoy not only continued to pay, but overpaid by contributing at least twice the amount expected of academicians.14 The situation reached a turning point in October 1646, when Cousin, together with Michael Sweerts, newly arrived from Brussels, was put in charge of collecting overdue funds from the Netherlanders.15 On October 7 they collected 9.20 scudi, a modest amount, but notable as the first collective payment made in years.16
This episode is striking for several reasons. Sweerts, whose work in Rome demonstrated an intense engagement with the principles espoused by the Academy appears to have been thrown into the middle of the ‘conflict’ as soon as he arrived in the city. Though there is no evidence that he was ever an official member, he was evidently deemed suitable to take on a reconciliatory and supportive role.17 His sympathetic position towards the Academy would become evident in the number of paintings he executed in the late 1640s and early 1650s depicting artists at work in the Roman landscape and in the studio [15-16]. These works demonstrate Sweerts’ familiarity with contemporary attitudes towards artistic instruction, including the importance of drawing after the antique and from the nude model.18 But how can we explain his involvement at this particular moment: had Cousin offered Sweerts a welcoming hand, as Duquesnoy had done years earlier, by introducing him to the Accademia di San Luca and giving him this opportunity?
The latter seems to have been the case. In the mid-1640s, Cousin worked for the Pamphilj family, executing a series of small-scale devotional works on copper for Pope Innocent X.19 By 1651, Sweerts, too, was employed in various capacities by the papal nephew, Prince Camillo Pamphilj (1622-1666), including involvement in an academy in the Pamphilj palace. In late 1651 and early 1652, Camillo made payments to two male models who posed regularly in what was described as the ‘Accademia de Pittori,’ or ‘Academy of Painters.’20 This remarkable notation suggests that Camillo opened his palace to give artists the opportunity to draw from the live model, encouraging an environment for renewed artistic practice and discourse.
The years of the Pamphili academy overlap with Cousin’s tenure as principe of the Accademia di San Luca, the position he held from late 1651 to 1653.21 Cousin, who was later praised for being ‘a man of valor and of optimum sentiments towards the Academy’, had made great efforts during his tenure to support the institution’s teaching activities, which were then in decline.22 The ‘Accademia dei Pittori’ was a term often used in contemporary documents to describe the Accademia di San Luca, which suggests that the drawing sessions held in Camillo’s palace were intended to provide members and associates of the Academy with a proper place to draw.23 In light of the dynamics among this group of Brussels artists since Cousin’s arrival in Rome in 1626, should the ‘Academy of Painters’ be understood as a fulfillment of Cousin and Sweerts’ intertwining artistic, academic, and professional pursuits?
14
Pierfrancesco Alberti
Academy of painters
New York City, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
15
Michael Sweerts
Roman street scene with a a young artist drawing Bernini's "Neptune and Triton", c. 1646-1648
Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, inv./cat.nr. 2358
16
Michael Sweerts
A Painter's Studio
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv./cat.nr. SK-A-1957
Notes
1 Duquesnoy appears as a member in 1630, 1632, 1633, and 1636. Hoogewerff 1913, p. 123; Boudon-Machuel 2005, p. 99-101.
2 Hoogewerff 1913, p. 127. He also appears in the Accademia’s records: p. 48, 49, 51, 53.
3 Hoogewerff 1913, p. 48; Hoogewerff 1926, p. 133.
4 Cousin visited the sick in 1647 as well. Hoogewerff 1913, p. 57; Boudon-Machuel 2005, p. 99-100. On these roles in the Accademia: Grossi/Trani 2009.
5 Cavazzini 2008, p. 43-48. Their membership was not unprecedented: a small number of Netherlandish artists had joined the Academy since the turn of the seventeenth century, including, most notably, Wenzel Coebegher, Theodoor van Loon, and Paul Bril.
6 Hoogewerff 1926; Janssens 2001.
7 The Academy had assumed the duties of the Universitas Picturae ac Miniaturae, the painters and illuminators guild, and the congregazione, the religious organization associated with the church and its confraternity. Central to its mission was the academy for the training and education of young artists. Cavazzini 2008, p. 43-48; Lukehart 2009.
8 Janssens 2001, p. 77-78; Grossi/Trani 2009.
9 The Netherlanders benefitted from a privilege granted by Pope Paul III and Pope Sixtus V in the sixteenth century that exempted inhabitants of the Via del Babuino, Via Margutta, and Via Sistina, those districts largely home to foreign artists, from paying for a license. Hoogewerff 1952, p. 63.
10 Hoogewerff 1913, p. 91-94; Janssens 2001, p. 80-81.
11 Cavazzini 2008, p. 44-45. I would like to thank Patrizia Cavazzini for kindly discussing the meaning and context of these payments with me.
12 Hoogewerff 1913, p. 96-98, 141; Janssens 2001.
13 The history of payments by the Netherlanders to the Accademia is complex, not least of which because of the lack of records or gaps in records that exist for these years. This has contributed to Hoogewerff’s and other scholars’ characterization that there was only an acrimonious relationship between them. An excellent summary is in Janssens 2001, p. 77-82.
14 Hoogewerff 1913, p. 46, 95, 113-114; Thompson 1997, p. 237, 448-449. A document from the year 1635–36 states that the academy ‘had not received anything from the Fiamminghi; only una piastra from signor Francesco, sculptor: sc. 1,06 [scudi]’. Una piastra amounted to at least twice the contribution expected of academicians, and more than four times that for Netherlandish artists. Spierincks’ case is interesting; his involvement with the Flemish tailor and art dealer Cristiano Stringherlandt, discussed above, as well as Pieter Visscher—both of whom owned paintings by the artist—may have put him in a difficult position to become a member of the Academy. Cavazzini 2008, p. 143 suggests that Spierincks may have been in Stringherlandt’s employ.
15 When Sweerts arrived in Rome in 1646, he settled in Santa Maria del Popolo along the Via Margutta.
16 Hoogewerff 1913, p. 46, 57; Yeager-Crasselt 2015, p. 67-68.
17 In later sources, Sweerts’ name appears alternatively as an ‘accademico’ or ‘aggregato’. A fuller discussion of these terms and Sweerts’ possible involvement with the Academy appears in Yeager-Crasselt 2015, p. 56.
18 Yeager-Crasselt 2015.
19 Montagu 1985, p. 86-87; Yeager-Crasselt 2015, p. 79.
20 Yeager-Crasselt 2015, p. 87-90, 121, Appendix 1.
21 Hoogewerff 1913, p. 58, 61.
22 Cipriani/Valeriani 1988, p. 179. The document describes how, after the death of the previous principe, Giovanni Battista Soria in 1650, Alessandro Algardi, along with other academicians, had elected Luigi Gentile ‘huomo di valore e di ottimi sentimenti verso l’Accademia, dal quale con non poca fatica riunita la robba e gli Accademici in un angolo della chiesa à tetto, a pena capace di essa robba; dove si conserve per lungo tempo senza poter esercitare altri studij per l’angustia del luogo, facendo solo qualche cong. ne nell’incominciata Chiesa per ristaurare in parte I Danni passati.’ He was committed to reviving the institution’s pedagogical aims, outlining plans at a meeting of 3 October 1652 for keeping the studios open in the summer and winter so that the giovani could ‘exercise themselves in conformity with the usual practices of the Accademia di San Luca.’ ‘In luogo dove meglio parerà alli Signori Accademia nella quale li detti Giovani possano essercitassi conforme al solito di essa Accademia di San Luca.’ This latter document, from the minute book of the academy, or Liber Academiae Sancti Lucae, from the years 1634-74, is partially transcribed in Thompson 1997, p. 465n71.
23 My thanks to Patrizia Cavazzini for bringing this to my attention. Cavazzini 2009-2010, p. 82.