1994.141: King Nebuchadnezzar Besieging Jerusalem

Frans Pourbus the Elder first studied with his father, Pieter Pourbus (1523–1584), a Bruges painter of biblical pictures and portraits. From about 1564, he was completing his training in Antwerp with Frans Floris I (1519/20–1570), the leading artist in the Netherlands during the middle of the sixteenth century.¹ Karel van Mander, who met Pourbus around 1566, greatly admired his paintings and regarded him as the finest journeyman to emerge from Floris’s large workshop. “He made many beautiful and prominent works,” wrote Van Mander, “and outstandingly good portraits in which he had a particularly beautiful and pleasant method and manner of working.”²

Pourbus’s earliest dated pictures are from 1567 and 1568.³ In a career of less than fifteen years, he created a substantial oeuvre of portraits, altarpieces, and religious narratives that justifies Van Mander’s high opinion of his paintings.⁴ Only six drawings can be attributed to him. Three are signed, and three bear old, presumably reliable inscriptions of the artist’s name.⁵ All are strikingly different from each other in their handling, subjects, functions, and choices of media. If we add to those few surviving sheets the lost or unidentified black-chalk study of the Duke of Alençon cited in Pourbus’s estate inventory,⁶ we are confronted with a disparate and lamentably incomplete representation of his draftsmanship.

The Harvard drawing is a mature work by Pourbus, produced in the year before his death at the age of thirty-five or thirty-six. The autograph monogram and date, as well as its fully resolved design and tidy execution, indicate that it is very likely a finished work of art intended for sale or a gift to a collector or patron.⁷ Another finished composition by the artist from the same year, Christ Blessing the Little Children (Fig. 1), is identically monogrammed and dated, but carried out in brown ink and brown wash and in a different technique, which was inspired by Venetian models.⁸

In several respects, the Harvard drawing is a characteristic work of the Floris circle. Its upright oval format and composition dominated by a single figure seated before a landscape occur in engravings designed by Floris.⁹ The combination of two shades of reddish brown wash and white opaque watercolor, which lends a pictorial flair to the drawing, is also found in a drawing by Floris, and impressions of two chiaroscuro woodcuts after his design are printed with reddish brown or pink tone blocks.¹⁰ Pourbus’s application of highlights in white opaque watercolor on the contours of forms, as well as in the interior modeling, also derives from finished drawings by Floris and other artists in his circle, although Pourbus’s handling is more refined than that of his teacher.¹¹

When the drawing first came to light on the art market in 1972, it was already entitled King Nebuchadnezzar Besieging Jerusalem, but there is no record of when or why the subject was identified as such.¹² The Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar II conquered the city in 599–97 BCE and again in 586 BCE, when it was destroyed and the temple burned (II Kings 25:1–17). While Pourbus’s drawing probably does represent Nebuchadnezzar as the conqueror of Jerusalem, it is a rare—or even unique—illustration of the subject from the period. The few sixteenth-century Netherlandish images of Nebuchadnezzar illustrate other biblical texts, and most depict the Babylonian king with a long, full beard.¹³ Yet neither his facial hair nor the Roman battle dress disqualifies him as the subject of the Harvard drawing. Prints published in Antwerp in 1585 in Gerard de Jode’s Thesaurus sacrarum historiarum veteris testamenti depict ancient Near Eastern rulers from various cultures dressed as Roman warriors.¹⁴ An engraving published by De Jode after a design attributed to Jan Snellinck features King Zedekiah, the defeated Jewish ruler of Jerusalem when it was taken by Nebuchadnezzar (Fig. 2).¹⁵ Looking very much like the figure in the Harvard composition, he stands before the burning city, his scepter on the ground, while on the road below he and other captives are led away. In Pourbus’s drawing, the same figure type and costume may well stand for Zedekiah’s antagonist, Nebuchadnezzar. It has been conjectured that the Harvard drawing and other images of the Babylonian king from the 1560s, ’70s, and ’80s should be interpreted as “disguised criticism of Spanish rule” that equates the Babylonian king’s oppression of the Jews with the mistreatment by agents of the Habsburg monarchy of their subjects in the Netherlands.¹⁶

Notes

¹ Carl van de Velde, “Nieuwe gegevens en inzichten over het werk van Frans Pourbus de Oudere,” Gentse bijdragen tot de kunstgeschiedenis, vol. 25 (1979–80): 124–57, pp. 125–26; Carl van de Velde, “Frans Pourbus the Elder and the Diffusion of the Style of Frans Floris in the Southern Netherlands,” Die Malerei Antwerpens—Gattungen, Meister, Wirkungen; Studien zur Flämischen Kunst des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts. Internationales Kolloquium Wien 1993 (Cologne, 1994): 10–17, pp. 11–12; Karel van Mander and Hessel Miedema, ed., The Lives of the Illustrious Netherlandish and German Painters, from the First Edition of the Schilder-boeck (1603–04) (Doornspijk, Netherlands, 1994–99), vol. 4, pp. 169–73, Paul Huvenne in Maximiliaan P.J. Martens, ed., Bruges and the Renaissance: Memling to Pourbus (Bruges: Memlingmuseum—Oud-Sint-Janshospitaal, 1998), p. 248; Paul Huvenne, “Frans Pourbus (I),” in Jane Turner, ed., The Dictionary of Art (New York, 1996), vol. 25, p. 382.

² Van Mander/Miedema, vol. 1, p. 289, and vol. 4, pp. 169–73.

³ Van de Velde (1979–80), p. 126; Van Mander/Miedema, vol. 4, p. 170.

⁴ Van de Velde (1979–80), pp. 124–44; Van de Velde (1994), pp. 11–13; Van Mander/Miedema, vol. 4, pp. 169–73; Paul Huvenne in Martens, p. 248, and Huvenne in Turner, p. 382. Only a few of Pourbus’s designs were reproduced as prints, including these: two scenes from the life of Saint Paul engraved by Johannes Sadeler, 1580 (Hollstein, vol. 21, nos. 334 and 335, pp. 139–40); two versions of Susanna and the Elders, one by Raphael Sadeler published in 1582 (Hollstein, vol. 21, no. 11, p. 216), another published by Crispin van de Passe in 1612 (Hollstein, vol. 15, no. 59, p. 134); an allegorical image, Humana Complexio, 1579, engraved by Johannes Wierix (Hollstein, vol. 66, no. 1841, pp. 196–97); and a portrait of Frans Floris, engraved by Johannes Wierix after a drawing in the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg (see n. 5 below), in the 1572 series Pictorum Aliquot Celebrium Praecipuae Germaniae Inferioris Effigies (Hollstein, vol. 67, no. 2034, p. 171).

⁵ In addition to the Harvard work, the following drawings are signed or plausibly given to Frans Pourbus the Elder: The Flood, signed or inscribed with the artist’s name in an early hand (London, British Museum, SL,5237.59; see Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann, “Frans Pourbus the Elder as Draughtsman,” Miscellanea I. Q. van Regteren Altena, Amsterdam, 1969, pp. 65–66, repr. p. 282, fig. 1; Blaise Ducos, Frans Pourbus le Jeune [1569–1622], Dijon, 2011, p. 27); “It Is All Hay” bears an inscription that repeats a partially truncated older inscription and date, francisco pourbus fecit in antwen 1575 (New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, 1961.65.9; Haverkamp-Begemann, pp. 65–66, repr. p. 282, fig. 3; Suzanne Boorsch in Suzanne Boorsch, John Marciari, et al., Master Drawings from the Yale University Art Gallery, Sarasota, FL: John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art; Austin, TX: Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art; New Haven, CT: Yale University Art Gallery, 2006, cat. 17, pp. 78–80, repr. p. 79; Ducos, p. 27); Classicizing Heads, inscribed in an old hand Francois Pourbus van brugge, (Vienna, Albertina Museum, 7967; Haverkamp-Begemann, p. 65, repr. p. 282, fig. 2; Ducos, p. 27, repr. 3); Portrait of Frans Floris, signed F. POURBUS FE., engraved 1572 by Johannes Wierix (Saint Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum, OP 23810; Alexei Larionov, Ot gotiki k man’erizmu: Niderlandskie risunki XV–XVI vekov v sobranii Gosudarstvennogo Ermitaza: Katalog vystavki, [From Gothic to Mannerism: Early Netherlandish Drawing in the State Hermitage: Exhibition Catalogue.] St. Petersburg, Russia: State Hermitage Museum, 2010, cat. 63, pp. 314–17 and 362–63 [English summary], repr. p. 315; Jan Piet Filedt Kok, ed. Charles Dumas and Volker Manuth, “De vroegste gegraveerde schildersportretten uit 1572,” in Face Book: Studies on Dutch and Flemish Portraiture of the 16th–18th Centuries; Liber Amicorum Presented to Rudolf E. O. Ekkart, Leiden and The Hague, 2012, pp. 67–74., p. 72, fig. 6; and see n. 4 above); Christ Blessing the Little Children, signed and dated F P 1580 (Saint Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum, OP 5060; Larionov, cat. 62, pp. 311–13 and p. 362 [English summary], repr. p. 311). Pourbus’s estate inventory lists a portrait study in charcoal on paper of the Duke of Alençon, presumably made from life with the intention of using it for a painted portrait (Van de Velde [1979–80], pp. 146– 47 and 156: “Item een ander conterfeytsel, metter colen gemaect op pampier, van d’ucq d’Alençon”). A drawing of men and women dining and making music outdoors, which Haverkamp-Begemann tentatively attributed to Pourbus, was assigned by Karel Boon to Jan Snellink (Frits Lugt Collection, Fondation Custodia, Paris, 7350A; Karel G. Boon, The Netherlandish and German Drawings of the XVth and XVIth Centuries of the Frits Lugt Collection, Paris, 1992, vol. 1, cat. 186, pp. 331–32, and repr. vol. 3, pl. 204).

⁶ See n. 5 above.

⁷ Infrared analysis confirms that the monogram and date are almost certainly in the same ink as that used in the drawing.

⁸ Frans Pourbus the Elder, Christ Blessing the Little Children (Fig. 1). Brown ink, brown wash. 229 × 223 mm. Saint Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum, OP 5060; Larionov, cat. 62, pp. 311–13. Larionov noted the influence of Venetian drawings.

⁹ For the oval format, see, for example, Cornelis Cort after Frans Floris, The Pastoral Gods, 1565; Edward Wouk in New Hollstein, Frans Floris, part 2, nos. 96–101, pp. 77–86. Single figures in complex poses in front of a landscape appear in a series by Cort after Floris, The Pastoral Goddesses and Nymphs, 1564 (idem, nos. 102–9, pp. 87–104), and the same artist’s series after Floris, The Virtues (idem, nos. 85– 92, pp. 53–65).

¹⁰ See Floris’s drawing Saint John the Evangelist in Boiling Oil; Van de Velde (1975), vol. 1, cat. T 30, pp. 365–66, repr. vol. 2, pl. 129. Chiaroscuro woodcuts after Floris or from his circle that are printed in reddish brown or pink include Nancy Bialler, Chiaroscuro Woodcuts: Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617) and His Time (Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum; Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1992), cats. 3b and 4, pp. 35–39.

¹¹ For example, see the drawings by Frans Floris, A Group of Men in Ancient Clothing and The Sense of Touch (Van de Velde [1975], vol. 1, cats. T 42 and T 46, pp. 375–76 and 378–79, repr. vol. 2, pls. 141 and 145), and Crispijn van den Broeck, Battle of Trasimeno (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999.162; Thomas Ketelsen, Oliver Hahn, and Petra Kuhlmann-Hodick, eds., Zeichnen im Zeitalter Bruegels: Die niederländischen Zeichnungen des 16. Jahrhunderts im Dresdner Kupferstich-Kabinett; Beiträge zu einer Typologie, Cologne, 2011, 201, nos. C 1966–56 and C 1966–57, pp. 192–93).

¹² Bernard Houthakker C. V. Gallery, Master Drawings Exhibited by Bernard Houthakker 1972, cat. 38, n.p.

¹³ An example from the circle of Frans Floris is the chiaroscuro woodcut by Adriaen Thomasz. Key, Nebuchadnezzar Casting the Children of Israel into the Fiery Furnace; Bialler, cat. 8, pp. 51–53. Others include a series of prints etched by Hans Liefrinck I after designs by Lambert van Noort; Zsuzsanna van Ruyven-Zeman, Lambert van Noort: Inventor (Brussels, 1995), cats. P.II.1–P.II.8, pp. 140–41, repr. pls. P.II.1– P.II.8. An exception to this iconographic convention occurs on the left wing of the Resurrection triptych of circa 1530 by Pieter Coecke van Aelst, where Nebuchadnezzar is depicted with a short beard and wearing the kind of crown he sports in the Harvard drawing. See Elizabeth Cleland with Maryan W. Ainsworth, Stijn Alsteens, and Nadine M. Orenstein, Grand Design: Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Renaissance Tapestry (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2014), cat. 9, pp. 65–69.

¹⁴ In addition to the work illustrated in Figure 2 (see n. 15 below), the Persian king Artaxerxes I is dressed much like the figure in Pourbus’s drawing and wears a similar beard; Hans Mielke, “Antwerpener Graphik in der 2. Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts: Der Thesaurus veteris et novi Testamenti des Gerard de Jode und seine Künstler,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, vol. 38, no. 1 (1975): 29–83, cat. 30, p. 80.

¹⁵ Unidentified engraver, after Jan Snellinck(?), King Zedekiah (Fig. 2). Engraving from Gerard de Jode, Thesaurus sacrarum historiarum veteris testamenti, 1585; 1643 version published by Claes Jansz. Visscher II, engraving, 218 × 284 mm, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, RP-P-1904-3501; Mielke, under cat. 39, p. 81, repr. pl. 8.

¹⁶ Koenraad Jonckheere, Antwerp Art after Iconoclasm: Experiments in Decorum, 1566–1585 (Brussels and New Haven, Connecticut, 2012), pp. 53–54 and 61–62.