The Judgement of Paris, 1615, Joachim Wtewael

Joachim Anthoniszoon Wtewael (; also known as Uytewael ) (1566 – 1 August 1638) was a Dutch

Mannerist Mannerism, which may also be known as Late Renaissance, is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Ita ...

painter and draughtsman, as well as a highly successful

flax Flax, also known as common flax or linseed, is a flowering plant, ''Linum usitatissimum'', in the family Linaceae. It is cultivated as a food and fiber crop in regions of the world with temperate climates. Textiles made from flax are known in ...

merchant, and town councillor of

Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the fourth-largest city and a municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, in the very centre of mainland Net ...

. Wtewael was one of the leading Dutch exponents of

Northern Mannerism Northern Mannerism is the form of Mannerism found in the visual arts north of the Alps in the 16th and early 17th centuries. Styles largely derived from Italian Mannerism were found in the Netherlands and elsewhere from around the mid-century, e ...

, and his distinctive and attractive style remained largely untouched by the naturalistic developments happening around him, "characterized by masterfully drawn, highly polished figures often set in poses".Slive, 13 Wtewael was trained in the style of late 16th-century Haarlem Mannerism and remained essentially faithful to it, despite painting well into the early period of

Dutch Golden Age painting Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history roughly spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) for Dutch independence. The new Dutch Republ ...

. Altogether he has left about a hundred paintings, as well as drawings and some stained glass he designed. He painted a mixture of large paintings on canvas, and tiny

cabinet painting A cabinet painting (or "cabinet picture") is a small painting, typically no larger than two feet (0.6 meters) in either dimension, but often much smaller. The term is especially used for paintings that show full-length figures or landscapes at a ...

s on copper plates, the latter the more numerous and typically the most distinctive. There is also a group of mid-sized paintings, often on

panel Panel may refer to: Arts and media Visual arts *Panel (comics), a single image in a comic book, comic strip or cartoon; also, a comic strip containing one such image *Panel painting, in art, either one element of a multi-element piece of art, ...

. In all these sizes he painted a mixture of conventional religious subjects and mythological ones, the latter with a strong erotic element. Especially in his works on copper he returns to the same subjects in several works, but varying the compositions. The Adoration of the Shepherds, Venus and Mars Surprised by Vulcan, and the Feast of the Gods as the wedding feasts of Cupid and Psyche, Peleus and Thetis, the latter often combined with the

Judgement of Paris Judgement (or US spelling judgment) is also known as ''adjudication'', which means the evaluation of evidence to make a decision. Judgement is also the ability to make considered decisions. The term has at least five distinct uses. Aristotle ...

, and Lot and His Daughters, are some examples of these favourite subjects. The first of these was painted in all sizes. Often the large paintings contain only a few figures, but the small and middle sized ones are extremely crowded compositions, the mythological ones typically including many nudes. In some works he also revived the kitchen scene subjects of

Pieter Aertsen Pieter Aertsen (1508 – 2 June 1575), called ''Lange Piet'' ("Tall Pete") because of his height, was a Dutch painter in the style of Northern Mannerism. He is credited with the invention of the monumental genre scene, which combines still life ...

from a half century before. According to

Seymour Slive Seymour Slive (September 15, 1920 – June 14, 2014) was an American art historian, who served as director of the Harvard Art Museums from 1975 to 1984. Slive was a scholar of Dutch art, specifically of the artists Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Jac ...

, "When well preserved his little pictures glow like gems". He was very prosperous as a merchant of flax (for the manufacture of

linen Linen () is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant. Linen is very strong, absorbent, and dries faster than cotton. Because of these properties, linen is comfortable to wear in hot weather and is valued for use in garments. It also ...

and

canvas Canvas is an extremely durable plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, shelters, as a support for oil painting and for other items for which sturdiness is required, as well as in such fashion objects as handbag ...

), which no doubt occupied much of his time, but was also famous as a painter in his own day, with his reputation reaching as far as

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

, where

Emperor Rudolf II Rudolf II (18 July 1552 – 20 January 1612) was Holy Roman Emperor (1576–1612), King of Hungary and Croatia (as Rudolf I, 1572–1608), King of Bohemia (1575–1608/1611) and Archduke of Austria (1576–1608). He was a member of the Hous ...

obtained his ''The Golden Age'' (now

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, New York). His large house on one of the main canals of Utrecht remains, though remodelled, and as well as family portraits the Utrecht museum has two very fine pieces of his furniture. He had several children, and seems to have stopped painting for almost the last decade of his life, perhaps influenced by the illness and death of his wife. Like his brother he was a city councillor; as a member of the main

Dutch Reformed Church The Dutch Reformed Church (, abbreviated NHK) was the largest Christian denomination in the Netherlands from the onset of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century until 1930. It was the original denomination of the Dutch Royal Family and ...

he was involved in the struggles with the

Remonstrants The Remonstrants (or the Remonstrant Brotherhood) is a Protestant movement that had split from the Dutch Reformed Church in the early 17th century. The early Remonstrants supported Jacobus Arminius, and after his death, continued to maintain hi ...

.Clifton, Helmus, & Wheelock, Introduction His best known work, and almost his largest, is the near life-size ''Perseus and Andromeda'' in the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the '' Venus de Milo''. A central ...

. Producing his highly finished small paintings was probably not very economic, and he was not short of money; his own pleasure and fame were probably his main motivations. His granddaughter still owned 30 of his paintings in 1669.Liedtke (2005), 93 Reflecting an increase of interest in Wtewael's art in recent decades, in 2015–16 ''Pleasure and Piety: The Art of Joachim Wtewael (1566–1638)'', the first major exhibition devoted solely to his work, showed in Utrecht, Washington DC and Houston, Texas.

Life

Wtewael was born and spent almost all of his life in

, where he died. He was the son of a glassmaker and glass painter who had settled in Utrecht in 1566. He began his career in Utrecht, according to

Carel van Mander Karel van Mander (I) or Carel van Mander I (May 1548 – 2 September 1606) was a Flemish painter, poet, art historian and art theoretician, who established himself in the Dutch Republic in the latter part of his life. He is mainly remembere ...

, as a glassmaker and glass engraver in his father's workshop. In 1586, he began four years of travelling and living in Italy and then France, the latter in the household of the bishop of St Malo, Charles de Bourgneuf de Cucé. His main Italian base was in

Padua Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the ...

, close to

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

, and his earliest works show awareness of the Second

School of Fontainebleau The School of Fontainbleau (french: École de Fontainebleau) (c. 1530 – c. 1610) refers to two periods of artistic production in France during the late Renaissance centered on the royal Palace of Fontainebleau that were crucial in forming the No ...

, which was probably the result of visiting there.Grove Returning to Utrecht in about 1590 (by 1592 at the latest), Wtewael established a workshop and joined the saddlemakers'

guild A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometim ...

(which in Utrecht then covered painters as well) as a painter and began producing paintings, drawings, engravings, and

stained glass Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

.National Gallery biography
Retrieved 16 November 2015 Later he was a founder member of the new Utrecht Guild of Saint Luke for the painters of Utrecht. He never lived elsewhere, and seems never to have travelled outside the Netherlands again. A gentlemanly contemporary in Utrecht, who might be thought in a good position to know the artist and his work, also praised very highly Wtewael's skill in sculpture, but no clear examples of this are known. He married Christina Wtewael van Halen (1568–1629), whose portrait of 1601 makes a pair with the self-portrait illustrated. In 1596 they had a son

Peter Wtewael Peter Wtewael (5 June 1596 – 16 January 1660) was a Dutch Golden Age painter. Biography Wtewael was born in Utrecht, son of the Dutch painter and engraver Joachim Wtewael and brother to the painter Johan Wtewael. their other son, Jan (1598–1652), may also have been a painter as, unlike Peter, he registered with the guild, in 1639 after his father's death.

Joachim von Sandrart Joachim von Sandrart (12 May 1606 – 14 October 1688) was a German Baroque art-historian and painter, active in Amsterdam during the Dutch Golden Age. He is most significant for his collection of biographies of Dutch and German artists the '' T ...

, visiting Utrecht in 1626, complained that Peter and his father neglected painting for the flax business. In the portraits by Joachim of his two sons, Peter is shown as a painter and Jan as a "humanist", carrying a book. Peter died a wealthy man in 1660, having remodelled the family house in 1639, the year after his father died. In the late 1620s Joachim painted portraits of both his sons, dated 1628, his daughter Eva (1607–1635, see gallery) and a pair of his other daughter and her husband Johan Pater, dated 1626. All of these are in Utrecht. Burial records suggest several other children died young, but their birthdates are unknown. Wtewael's dated paintings stretch from 1592 to 1628, taking him from the age of 26 to 62. He was on the town council in 1610 and was later awarded a seat for life by the

Stadtholder In the Low Countries, ''stadtholder'' ( nl, stadhouder ) was an office of steward, designated a medieval official and then a national leader. The ''stadtholder'' was the replacement of the duke or count of a province during the Burgundian and H ...

Maurice, Prince of Orange Maurice of Orange ( nl, Maurits van Oranje; 14 November 1567 – 23 April 1625) was ''stadtholder'' of all the provinces of the Dutch Republic except for Friesland from 1585 at the earliest until his death in 1625. Before he became Prince o ...

for his loyalty against the Remonstrants. However his brother was also rewarded in this way and Utrecht had a rule against more than one brother being on the council at any time. So he did not take up his seat until 1632, after his brother had died. Despite a reasonable amount of documentary records, the leading scholar of his work has written that "Wtewael the man is essentially inscrutable".

Style and reception

Development

He trained with the Haarlem Mannerist

Joos de Beer Joos de Beer (died 1591) was an Early Netherlandish Painting, painter from Utrecht. Biography According to Karel van Mander, he was a pupil in Antwerp of Frans Floris, who later returned to his native Utrecht and became the teacher of Abraham Bloe ...

, who also trained Abraham Bloemaert, also from Utrecht and born the same year as Wtewael. Bloemaert's later career in Utrecht contrasted strongly with Wtewael's in that he was an important teacher, with whom most of the

Utrecht Caravaggisti Utrecht Caravaggism ( nl, Utrechtse caravaggisten) refers to the work of a group of artists who were from, or had studied in, the Dutch city of Utrecht, and during their stay in Rome during the early seventeenth century had become distinctly infl ...

trained at least for a while. He also changed his style significantly, reflecting newer influences from Italy and the Netherlands itself. In contrast, apart from his son Peter, Wtewael had only three recorded painting apprentices, and was without any assistance for long intervals. They were probably little help in producing his small works on copper, and none of them become well-known.MacLaren, 502; Slive, 13–15; Clifton, Helmus, & Wheelock, Introduction Wtewael was thus one of the founding generation of Utrecht painting; previously the city had been a centre for sculpture, as befitted a city governed by its bishop, but not known for painting. While Wtewael's reputation may have been beneficial to other Utrecht painters, his own style remained too ''retardataire'' for him to have much influence on them. Wtewael's style remained largely unchanged, although his colours shifted from the acidic pastels of his earlier work to stronger shades after about 1615, and some influence from the style of

Caravaggio Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio, known as simply Caravaggio (, , ; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the final four years of h ...

can be detected in later works. The shift in his style can be seen in his largest painting, ''The Raising of Lazarus'' (158 x 208 cm) in

Lille Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the No ...

(illustrated in the gallery below), which though bought as a Spranger in 1900, shows a movement away from the more extreme poses and colours of the 1590s, and even from the drawing which may have been its

modello A modello (plural modelli), from Italian, is a preparatory study or model, usually at a smaller scale, for a work of art or architecture, especially one produced for the approval of the commissioning patron. The term gained currency in art circl ...

. In the painting he have moved away from the small heads and over-long legs typical of

Mannerism Mannerism, which may also be known as Late Renaissance, is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Ital ...

in both its Italian and Northern manifestations.

Portraits, religious subjects, and economics

In contrast, his few portraits are almost all of his family and are in a conventional and more realist style comparable to that of the leading Utrecht portraitist of his day, Paulus Moreelse (1571–1638), whose works must have been very familiar to Wtewael. The appearance of the whole family is only recorded in single formal portraits by Wtewael. He also painted a few half-length imaginary paintings of saints or gods, singly or in small groups, such as a set of the Four Evangelists that are now dispersed in various collections. The ''Bacchus'' in the gallery section was paired with a ''Ceres'', and perhaps a now lost ''Venus''; these may have been his last works, and show some influence from the Caravaggisti in the single large figures placed as though very close to the viewer. His biography by Carel van Mander says regretfully that his flax business occupied much of his time, and records examples of his pictures in the collections of two wealthy Dutch collectors. Many of Bloemaert's religious paintings were produced for the Catholic semi-secret ''

schuilkerk A clandestine church ( nl, schuilkerk), defined by historian Benjamin J. Kaplan as a "semi-clandestine church", is a house of worship used by religious minorities whose communal worship is tolerated by those of the majority faith on condition t ...

'' hidden churches of Utrecht, which had a large Catholic population who were not able to worship in public. There is no evidence, or suggestion by scholars, that Wtewael's religious paintings were produced for this market; instead they are assumed to have been for the houses of the wealthy, like his other works. Among his religious subjects, the ''Raising of Lazarus'', which he painted at least twice, was given a specifically Protestant interpretation by contemporary Protestants, as demonstrating the efficacy of '' sola gratia'', as well as ''

sola fide ''Justificatio sola fide'' (or simply ''sola fide''), meaning justification by faith alone, is a soteriological doctrine in Christian theology commonly held to distinguish the Lutheran and Reformed traditions of Protestantism, among others, fr ...

'' or "justification by faith alone", since Jesus' action in restoring Lazarus to life is presented in the Gospels as unrelated to anything Lazarus has done to deserve this.

Mythological paintings

The eroticism of his mythological works was daring for the time, and some of the small paintings were probably not displayed publicly, by their original collectors as much as later by museums. Two of the preparatory drawings for different painted versions of ''Mars and Venus Surprised'' were mutilated by later owners to remove parts of the lovers' bodies, and the

Mauritshuis The Mauritshuis (; en, Maurice House) is an art museum in The Hague, Netherlands. The museum houses the Royal Cabinet of Paintings which consists of 854 objects, mostly Dutch Golden Age paintings. The collection contains works by Johannes Verme ...

version, part of the founding royal gift, was not displayed in the 1920s, the contemporary explanation being that this was "to protect an immature public from itself". It remained in storage, and rather dirty, until the 1980s, when, after the

Getty Museum The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa. The Getty Center is located in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles and ...

acquired their version of the subject, it was cleaned and placed on display, soon joining touring selections of "masterworks" from the museum.Woodall, 41, 45–48, 52 The Getty version was itself kept in private collections in ways that meant it was not normally visible, which may partly explain its immaculate condition. Other works by Wtewael have also been changed by overpainting to hide erotic anatomical details. Wtewael had other means of creating a sensuous atmosphere, such as the suggestive pink mouths of large shells that often lie on the ground below nude females, as in the Louvre ''Andromeda'' or the National Gallery ''Judgement of Paris''. His depiction of erotic subjects are not simply tittilating, but like many such Dutch paintings, depicted subjects that allowed for moralistic interpretations. Anne Lowenthal, the most dedicated scholar of Wtewael, has analysed his several depictions of ''Lot and his Daughters'', dating from several periods of his career, and proposes that his treatments are designed to allude to various different possible interpretations of the biblical story, and to pose a "moral dilemma" for the viewer. His favourite subjects had all been used previously, especially in Mannerism, but his choices seem to show a deliberate avoidance of the most familiar, as in his preference for the ''Adoration of the Shepherds'' over the more common ''

Adoration of the Magi The Adoration of the Magi or Adoration of the Kings is the name traditionally given to the subject in the Nativity of Jesus in art in which the three Magi, represented as kings, especially in the West, having found Jesus by following a star, ...

''. About 30% of his paintings are of mythological subjects, historically an unusually large proportion even within Northern Mannerism, perhaps not exceeded before

Nicolas Poussin Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythological subjects painted for ...

. His treatments are not without realist elements; the furniture, metalware, and other props are often carefully depicted versions of the luxury products of his own day, and the faces of his Olympians often un-idealized and very Dutch-looking, so that the viewer "often has the sense of seeing flesh and blood figures in bizarre circumstances rather than fantasies tinged by observations from life". Dutch

art theory Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...

of the day recognised two "pictorial modes": "'realist' depiction ''naer het leven'' (from the life) and 'ideal' imitation ''uyt den geest'' (from the spirit or intellect)." These were respectively associated with "low" subjects and

history painting History painting is a genre in painting defined by its subject matter rather than any artistic style or specific period. History paintings depict a moment in a narrative story, most often (but not exclusively) Greek and Roman mythology and Bible ...

, but it was a characteristic feature of Wtewael's work to combine both in a single picture. Among his favourite subjects, the '' Feast of the Gods'', typically particularized as either the wedding of

Cupid and Psyche Cupid and Psyche is a story originally from ''Metamorphoses'' (also called '' The Golden Ass''), written in the 2nd century AD by Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis (or Platonicus). The tale concerns the overcoming of obstacles to the love between P ...

or that of

Peleus In Greek mythology, Peleus (; Ancient Greek: Πηλεύς ''Pēleus'') was a hero, king of Phthia, husband of Thetis and the father of their son Achilles. This myth was already known to the hearers of Homer in the late 8th century BC. Bi ...

and

Thetis Thetis (; grc-gre, Θέτις ), is a figure from Greek mythology with varying mythological roles. She mainly appears as a sea nymph, a goddess of water, or one of the 50 Nereids, daughters of the ancient sea god Nereus. When described as ...

, sometimes appeared in Italian Renaissance art, but became especially popular in Northern Mannerist painting. This seems to spring from a large

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an in ...

of 1587 by Hendrik Goltzius in

Haarlem Haarlem (; predecessor of ''Harlem'' in English) is a city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland. Haarlem is situated at the northern edge of the Randstad, one of the most populated metropoli ...

of a drawing by

Bartholomeus Spranger Bartholomeus Spranger or Bartholomaeus SprangerBartholomeus Spranger
at the Rijksmuseum The Rijksmuseum () is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history and is located in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough of Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the ...

) that Carel van Mander had brought back from Prague, where Spranger was court painter to Emperor Rudolf II. ''The Feast of the Gods at the Marriage of Cupid and Psyche'' was so large, at 16 7/8 x 33 5/8 in. (43 x 85.4 cm), that it was printed from three different plates. More than 80 figures are shown, placed up in the clouds over a world landscape that can be glimpsed below. The composition borrows from both

Raphael Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual ...

and

Giulio Romano Giulio Romano (, ; – 1 November 1546), is the acquired name of Giulio Pippi, who was an Italian painter and architect. He was a pupil of Raphael, and his stylistic deviations from High Renaissance classicism help define the sixteenth-cent ...

's versions. Among several other compositions of ''Feasts'', Wtewael produced a painted version of this, much smaller than the print or drawing, but still with dozens of figures (illustrated left). ''Mars and Venus Surprised'' came from

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom ...

, and was usually one of the scenes shown in illustrated editions. Wtewael's approach to this subject too can be traced back to Spranger and Goltzius, and a drawing of 1585 by the latter (now in the Getty Museum) is close to Wtewael's several compositions, with a scrum of figures hovering over an elaborate bed. Drawings by Bloemaert may also have had an influence.

Collections

The largest collection of his work, which includes a self-portrait (1601), and several other family portraits, is in the

Centraal Museum The Centraal Museum is the main museum in Utrecht, Netherlands, founded in 1838. The museum has a wide-ranging collection, mainly of works produced locally. The collection of the paintings by the Northern Mannerist Joachim Wtewael is by a lon ...

, Utrecht, who were given works that had remained in the family until recent decades. Several other Dutch, German, British and American museums have works, but many also remain in private collections. Some large zoomable images:
''Mars and Venus Surprised by Vulcan''
about 1606 – 1610, 20.3 x 15.5 cm (8 × 6 1/8 in.).

, Malibu
''The Holy Family with Saints and Angels''
c. 1606–1610, oil on copper, 19.8 x 15.5 cm,

Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza The Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum (in Spanish, the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (), named after its founder), or simply the Thyssen, is an art museum in Madrid, Spain, located near the Prado Museum on one of the city's main boulevards. I ...

, Madrid
''The Judgement of Paris''
1615,

National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director ...

, London

Gallery

Large paintings File:1595 Wtewael Die Sintflut anagoria.JPG, ''The Deluge'', 1595, 148 x 184.6 cm File:Joachim Anthonisz Wtewael - The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian'', 1600, 169 x 125 cm (66.6 x 49.3 in) File:Lille PdBA Wtewael lazare.JPG, ''Raising of Lazarus'', about 1600, his largest painting at 158 x 208 cm,

File:Joachim Wtewael - Portrait of Christina Wtewael van Halen (1568-1629) - Google Art Project.jpg, His wife, Christina Wtewael van Halen (1568-1629), 1601 File:A Kitchenmaid, by Joachim Anthonisz Wtewael.jpg, ''A Kitchenmaid, in the background Jesus in the house of Mary and Martha'', 1620–25. Close to works by

, 103 x 72 cm File:Joachim Wtewael - Portrait of Eva Wtewael (1607-1635) - Google Art Project.jpg, His daughter Eva Wtewael (1607-1635), 1628, shown

needlework Needlework is decorative sewing and textile arts handicrafts. Anything that uses a needle for construction can be called needlework. Needlework may include related textile crafts such as crochet, worked with a hook, or tatting, worked wi ...

ing, not typical for a portrait of a wealthy woman File:Joachem Wtewael - Cephalus and Procris (The Death of Procris).jpg, ''Cephalus and Procris'' (The Death of

Procris In Greek mythology, Procris ( grc, Πρόκρις, ''gen''.: Πρόκριδος) was an Athenian princess as the third daughter of Erechtheus, king of Athens and his wife, Praxithea, daughter of Phrasimus and Diogeneia. Homer mentions her in ...

) File:Joachim Wtewael Bacchus.jpg, ''

Bacchus In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; grc, wikt:Διόνυσος, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstas ...

'', about 1628, one of his last works Smaller paintings File:Joachim Wtewael - The Adoration of the Shepherds - Google Art Project.jpg, '' Adoration of the Shepherds'', 1598, 8.67 x 10.7 cm (3.41 x 4.21 in) File:Joachem Wtewael - Venus en Mars verrast door Vulcanus.jpg, ''Mars and Venus Surprised by the Gods'',

version, 1601 File:Joachim Wtewael - Annunciation to the Shepherds - Google Art Project.jpg, ''

Annunciation to the Shepherds The annunciation to the shepherds is an episode in the Nativity of Jesus described in the Bible in Luke 2, in which angels tell a group of shepherds about the birth of Jesus. It is a common subject of Christian art and of Christmas carols. Bibl ...

'', 1606, on canvas, unusually for such a small work. 16.83 x 13.59 cm (6.63 x 5.35 in) File:Joachim Wtewael - The Judgment of Paris - WGA25906.jpg, ''Judgment of Paris'', c. 1605 File:WeddingPeleusThetisWtewael.jpg, ''The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis'', 1612 File:Moses Striking the Rock.jpg, ''Moses Striking the Rock'', 1624, 44.6 × 66.7 cm (17.6 × 26.3 in) File:1630 Wtewael Lot and His Daughters anagoria.JPG, '' Lot and His Daughters'', a late work File:Wtewael Sine Cerere.jpg, ''

Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus ''Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus'', ( Latin, 'Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus freezes') or ''Sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus'', is a quotation from the Roman comedian Terence (c. 195/185 – c. 159 BC) that became a proverb in the Earl ...

'',

, Ceres and

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...

, oil on copper, 10.5 x 8.6 cm.lot notes

Sotheby's Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...

, New York. Sale "Important Old Master Paintings Including European Works of Art", 24 Jan 2008, Lot 3

Notes

References

* Bull, Malcolm, ''The Mirror of the Gods, How Renaissance Artists Rediscovered the Pagan Gods'', Oxford UP, 2005, * Clifton, J.; Helmus, L. & Wheelock Jr. A. (2015) ''Pleasure and Piety: The Art of Joachim Wtewael'',

Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial ...

* * "Grove": Lowenthal, Anne W. (1988), "Wtewael, Joachim (1566-1638)" in ''The Oxford Dictionary of Art'', Chilvers, Ian and Osborne, Harold (editors), online ed. Oxford University Press, Oxford, England. (), online edition. Retrieved 20 April 2015 * Liedtke, Walter (1992), entry in "Masterworks from the Musée Des Beaux-arts, Lille", 1992, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, , 9780870996498
google books
* * Lowenthal, Anne W. (1988), "Lot and His daughters as Moral Dilemma", in ''The Age of Rembrandt: Studies in Seventeenth-century Dutch Painting'', Volume 3 of ''Papers in Art History from the Pennsylvania State University'', eds. Roland E. Fleischer, Susan Scott Munshower, 1988, Penn State Press, , 9780915773022
google books
* Lowenthal, Anne W. (1995) ''Joachom Wtewal: Mars and Venus Surprised by Vulcan''. J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, California.
google books, full view
*

Neil MacLaren Neil is a masculine name of Gaelic and Irish origin. The name is an anglicisation of the Irish ''Niall'' which is of disputed derivation. The Irish name may be derived from words meaning "cloud", "passionate", "victory", "honour" or "champion".. ...

, ''The Dutch School, 1600–1800, Volume I'', 1991, National Gallery Catalogues'', National Gallery, London, * Slive, Seymour, ''Dutch Painting, 1600–1800'', Yale UP, 1995, * Woodall, Joanna, "Wtewael's ''Perseus and Andromeda'': looking for love in early seventeenth-century Dutch painting", in ''Manifestations of Venus: Art and Sexuality'', The Barber Institute's critical perspectives in art history series, 2000, Manchester University Press, eds. Katie Scott, Caroline Arscott, , 9780719055225
google books

External links

RKD database, with most of Wtewael's paintings
Joachim Anthonisz Wtewael, "The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis," 1612
Video from the Clark Art Institute, 2.29 minutes
Video ''Liefde & Lust , De kunst van Joachim Wtewael (1566–1638)''
from the Centraal Museum Utrecht, on the exhibition, 3.38 minutes (in Dutch, but video useful)
10 paintings in the Uk
from BBC's "Your Paintings" site

Dutch and Flemish paintings from the Hermitage
an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (PDF), with material on Wtewael (cat. no. 34)
Joachim Wtewael
at The National Gallery
Joachim Wtewael
at PubHist {{DEFAULTSORT:Wtewael, Joachim Anthonisz 1566 births 1638 deaths Dutch draughtsmen Dutch engravers Dutch Mannerist painters Artists from Utrecht Dutch Golden Age painters Dutch male painters Glass engravers Dutch stained glass artists and manufacturers Painters from Utrecht Dutch businesspeople Municipal councillors of Utrecht (city) Dutch glass artists