Catalogue entry no. 95 by William W. Robinson:
Maerten de Vos was the predominant history painter in Antwerp during the last third of the sixteenth century. He traveled to Italy in the 1550s, and his work remained indebted to Venetian and Roman art as well as to the example of Netherlandish “Romanists,” such as Frans Floris, Michiel Coxcie (1982.50), and Maarten van Heemskerck (1994.155). His career peaked in the 1590s, when he fulfilled several commissions for altarpieces from resurgent Catholic institutions in Antwerp.
De Vos was also the most prolific designer of prints of his generation. From the 1570s to 1590s, he helped fuel the flourishing print publishing business in Antwerp, providing some 1,600 compositions reproduced by specialist engravers. About five hundred drawings have survived, most of them models for prints. Most of the engravings after his designs consist of series of biblical narratives, lives of the saints, and other devotional subjects, but he also furnished drawings with mythological, historical, allegorical, and satirical themes.
The Harvard work was the model for Asia in a suite of Four Continents engraved by Julius Goltzius and published by Johannes Baptista Vrints. The outlines of the composition are incised for transfer to the plate and the print reproduces the image in reverse (Fig. 1). The function of the brown ink framing lines within the image in the drawing is not clear. Perhaps De Vos or Goltzius considered reducing the composition at the top and sides, but in the end decided to reproduce the full extent of the model in the print. The captions to the engravings credit De Vos as designer. Three of the four drawings for this set have been identified. In addition to the present work, there is the model for Africa in the Stedelijk Prentenkabinet, Antwerp, and that for America was with the Paris art dealer Emmanuel Moatti in 1994. The drawing for Europe has not come to light.
The female figures personifying the continents ride on chariots pulled by beasts associated with their respective regions. A pair of camels draws Asia’s cart across a landscape that includes a turbaned shepherd with his flock, two elephants, a giraffe, and opposing armies engaged in battle. Scenes of combat also occur in the backgrounds of Europe and America. According to Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia, Asia wears a rich costume embellished with gold and pearls to evoke the wealth of that continent and the splendid clothing worn by its inhabitants, while the incense burner stands for “the sweet and fragrant liquors, minerals, and spices produced in various parts of Asia.”
None of the prints or any of their three models bear dates. Although certainly produced no later than 1595, the year Goltzius died, the series probably dates from the 1580s. Two other Asia drawings by De Vos are securely datable to 1588 and 1594. They closely resemble each other, but differ in several respects from the Harvard version. The dated 1588 composition relates to a suite of Four Continents engraved by Adriaen Collaert (Fig. 2). While the landscape shares several features with the background of the Harvard drawing—a giraffe, camels, elephants, a castle on a hill, and clashing armies—here Asia does not ride in a chariot, but sits on a kneeling camel. The drawing of 1594 belongs to a large group of studies by De Vos for the decorations erected for the entry into Antwerp of Archduke Ernst of Austria in June of that year. In it, Asia also sits on the back of a kneeling camel, and her pose and costume clearly derive from the 1588 study. The dress of the figure in the Harvard sheet is less elaborate and the pose less fluid and dynamic than in the other two compositions, so the Harvard work is most likely earlier than the 1588 drawing.
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