4. Spanish Patrons of the Utrecht Caravaggisti in Italy
Michiko Fukaya1
From the 16th century on, many artists from the north visited Italy in order to see masterpieces from the Renaissance and classical antiquity for themselves. They also tried their luck and abilities there, but Rome did not always have a warm welcome for the newcomers. In his Schilder-boeck, Karel van Mander (1548-1606) gives a glimpse of the fiercely competitive Roman art world by taking a closer look at the case of Bartholomeus Spranger (1546-1611).According to him, the painter from the north suffered both from the malicious words Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) dripped into the Pope’s ear, and in general the from the poor financial return from public commissions such as altarpieces. And yet, among the many artists who visited Italy from the Netherlands in the first half of the 17th century, the Utrecht Caravaggisti, Gerard van Honthorst (1592-1656) in particular and Dirck van Baburen (1592/3-1624), had considerable success in the highly competitive milieu of the Eternal City. Their success left its mark on the written records. Take, for example, a well-known passage in the writings of the art collector, Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani (1564-1637). In the eleventh, namely second highest grade of painters who depicted subjects from life using delicate colours, he ranked Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), Jusepe de Ribera (1591-1652), ‘Gherardo’ (Gerard van Honthorst), ‘Enrico’ (Hendrick ter Brugghen) (1588-1629) and ‘Teodoro’ (Dirck van Baburen). 2
The degree of their success can also be judged from the impressive altarpieces by Van Baburen and Van Honthorst and their privileged location, the result of commissions from important churches in 1610s, not long after their arrival in the papal city.
Below I will be taking a look at their early Italian patrons, and examining the possible factors behind their remarkable achievements. The focus, perhaps surprisingly, is on the Spanish-ness of their commissions. For the first known patrons of Van Baburen and Van Honthorst in Rome were both Spaniards, and the works were related to Spanish religious institutions. No special attention has been paid to such a Spanish connection, although the fact that their first patrons were Spanish has been known from separate studies on both painters.3 It seems only logical to to connect these cases for their common cultural and political dimensions and to regard the Spanish-ness of their commissions as being the precondition for adorning the privileged churches with these artist’s works.
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Cover image
Gerard van Honthorst
Paul's ecstatic vision, c. 1618
Rome, Santa Maria della Vittoria (Rome)