DOCUMENTATION | Exhibitions: 1648 - War and Peace in Europe |
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| Essay Volumes > Tome II: Art and culture |
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ALISON M. KETTERING
Gerard ter Borch's Swearing of the Oath of Ratification of the Treaty of Münster as Historical Representation |
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Gerard ter Borch's Swearing of the Oath of Ratification of the Treaty of Münster is the "only really important depiction of a contemporary historical event from seventeenth-century Dutch art". In his 1959 monograph on Ter Borch, Sturla Gudlaugsson used these words to characterise the painting, as an eye-witness account of an event with extraordinary historical significance for the Dutch Republic. [1] Indeed, Dutch artists rarely took what might be called current events as their subject matter. When they did, they preferred to cast contemporary occurrences in terms of earlier events, most often from Biblical and Classical antiquity. In doing so, they could transform current experience into metaphor, representing not the literal event but its meaning and using allegorical allusions to make that meaning understandable. [2] Alternatively, and less frequently, they referred to contemporary events directly but very selectively, inserting historical details into conventional pictorial types - the city view, the seascape, or the group portrait. [3] This is what some scholars have argued when they have remarked that Ter Borch's Treaty of Münster was simply a group portrait. [4]
In this essay I would like to look afresh at Ter Borch's Treaty of Münster as a work of historical representation, questioning the distinction between a representation conceived as a history painting and one conceived "simply" as a group portrait. In the process I will examine the strategies by which Ter Borch, without resorting to obvious metaphor, made the meanings of his representation comprehensible. Ultimately, the essay will argue that this small-scale, minutely-rendered painting - a work produced at Ter Borch's own initiative - was intended to function primarily as preparation for an engraving.
I. The event
The event Ter Borch represented took place on 15 May 1648, the culmination of many years of negotiation in Münster that aimed both to bring an end to the Eighty Years' War (as the Dutch termed it) and to effect a "Perpetual Peace" throughout Europe. For the Dutch and Spanish delegations, this was the crowning moment of the separate peace that they had negotiated: the swearing of the oath of ratification for the treaty signed in Münster on 30 January 1648. [5] We are fortunate to have various accounts of the festivities that took place in and around the Münster Rathaus on 15 May. The Latin account published in May 1648 by the poet and jurist Dr. Johannes Cools, the "Tractatus Pacis", is the one often cited by art historians. [6] But since Cools achieved neither conscientious exactitude nor accessibility, for our purposes a more helpful description can be found in the "Verhael van de Nederlantsche vrede-handeling", based on diplomats' diaries, letters, and pamphlets, that the historian Lieuwe van Aitzema published in 1650. He describes the procession of carriages arriving at the Rathaus early in the morning, the "round table with a green velvet cover and velvet chairs" in the great hall, and then the ceremony itself. The delegates were led into the hall, where
Lord Brun [Antoine Brun] in an overly loud voice said in LatinY that the king, possessing intelligence and reports about the peace treaty, had accepted it with joy, and had ratified it within the appropriate interval of time, and [that] they, the Spanish plenipotentiaries, were ready to exchange [documents of ratification]; And congratulating them on account of the concluded peace, asked the [documents of] retification of theior High, Mighty Lords [The States General] were also ready to be exchanged; and their High, Mighty Lords, with reciprocal congratulations in Latin, responded that the treaty had been accepted with equal joy and had been ratified and was ready to be exchangedY [then] the chaplain of the Count of Peñaranda held a great book with a velvet cover in front of him [Peñaranda] and Lord Brun, which was the Gospels on which lay a silver cross, and then both Spanish plenipotentiaries arose and, touching the silver cross with their right hands, the Count of Peñaranda read out the oath in Spanish, and when he got to the words, "taking God as my judge", both men raised their right hands and kissed the cross, which is the most solemn part of the oath which was done in accordance with the order [of the oath]. Then the Count of Peñaranda asked whether the plenipotentiaries of the States GeneralY would like to swear the oath and give an "Aye" as answer; all stood up and stretching out their two foremost fingers, the oath was read in French by the Lord van Loenen [Barthold van Gent], and all [the Dutch] said the words "Ainsi m'aide Dieu" [so help me God]Y. The pieces of paper from their High, Mighty Lords were placed in a red velvet box, and [those] of the Spanish in a red velvet box with silver decoration. [7]
Ter Borch, a member of the entourage of the chief Spanish negotiator Count Peñaranda, personally witnessed the swearing of the oath of ratification. Of the art produced in Münster at the time, his painting was the only one to record the ceremony. To claim his presence at the event, Ter Borch made use of the conventional pictorial device of the self-portrait, placed at the very far left. Further anchoring the representation in actuality, Ter Borch took pains to describe the setting in the great hall in detail - the mid-day light streaming through the windows, the sixteenth-century woodwork of the stalls along the walls, the elaborate paneling behind the magistrates' benches at the rear, the candelabrum hanging above, and the foliage specially brought in for the occasion. Such localising, factual detail - unusually specific for Ter Borch - tied the setting to one particular place, the site of the historic occasion. For viewers, it guaranteed the truthfulness of the visual image. [8] Moreover, a subtle artlessness humanises the scene. The slightly asymmetrical arrangement of the participants, and the artist's off-centre viewing position relieve what otherwise might have been a lifeless formality.
To anyone familiar with Aitzema's written account, the sense of verisimilitude would have been further strengthened by various other details: the green velvet cloth and chair, the documents with their seals and the precious boxes on the table surface, and the gestures of the delegates - the six Netherlanders' raised fingers contrasting with the two Spanish representatives' outstretched hands on the cross and Gospels. All in all, we can assume that Ter Borch, like Aitzema, wished to convey specific factual information. But Ter Borch departed from actuality more significantly than most scholars have realised. The liberties he took were more subtle and meaningful than a few alterations necessitated by representing so large a group of people in an interior.
As Van de Waal commented long ago, an artist's description through pictorial means of a unique contemporary event was bound to be less comprehensible to his audience than a writer's description of the same unfamiliar event, especially in an epoch with no visual tradition of contemporary-history representation. [9] As if to recognise the differences between the viewers' experience of the pictorial representation and the readers' experience of the written accounts, Ter Borch imaginatively reconstructed the event. Realism was but one strategy among many for pictorially communicating the meanings of this historic occasion.
II. The Treaty of Münster in paintings
Before exploring Ter Borch's strategies further, it will be helpful to survey various other pictorial responses to the Treaty of Münster. These exemplify the repertory of approaches to historical representation among Ter Borch's contemporaries.
Taking a far different approach, Bartholomeus van der Helst executed a militia company group portrait to decorate the Voetboogdoelen (Crossbowmen's headquarters) in Amsterdam. [10] Van der Helst organised the work around one of the many celebrations held in Amsterdam and elsewhere in the month following the conclusion of the peace -the festive dinner held on 18 June 1648 at the Voetboogdoelen. A poem by Jan Vos appears within the painting, on a sheet attached to the drum jutting out of the centre of the composition. This text, alerting viewers to the "occasional" nature of the portrait, celebrates the Republic's triumph as well as the peace and reconciliation brought about by Münster. Vos focuses on an obvious motif in the painting, the prominently displayed ceremonial drinking horn held by Capt. Cornelis Witsen at the right. He concludes his poem with a reference to the "hooren van de Vreê" (horn of Peace), an image that overlaid the drinking horn as an attribute of the militia company's dedication to civic prosperity with a horn of Peace (and Plenty) associated specifically with the Peace of Münster. [11]
More effectively than this fairly obvious metaphor, the sheer pictorial abundance of the work expressed the overall theme of peace and prosperity: the richly-laden table, the lively movements of the life-size, aggressively three-dimensional figures, their foreground placement and emphatic foreshortening, the sharp light effects and bright colour. The pictorial convention of the festive, communal, militia company meal was so fixed in the public mind that contemporary viewers could have read the canvas as a particularly dramatic variation on a familiar representational pattern, here with the insertion of a few references to the Treaty of Münster. The portrait reinforces the point that artists and their patrons conceived of contemporary historical depiction in terms of conventional representational schemes (the normative), in this case, the militia portrait at the table. These same viewers might well have linked Van der Helst's bold pictorial language with the collective identity of Amsterdam's citizens at the hub of a mercantile empire, confident in even greater success now that peace had successfully been concluded. Amsterdam had everything to gain from the Treaty of Münster, a treaty for which the Holland representatives had struggled throughout the years of negotiation.
A clear precedent for memorialising a historic event in this way had been provided less than a decade before by the group portrait that Joachim von Sandrart painted for the great hall of the Kloveniersdoelen, Amsterdam. There, too, the allusions to the event - Marie de Medicis' entry into Amsterdam - were minimal. Sandrart pictured the members of Captain Cornelis Bicker's company gathered around a classic bust, which the lines on the document curling out from under its base reveal to be the marble portrait of the Queen Mother. [12] Even more restrained were the references to the Queen Mother's Entry in a quite separate group portrait by Thomas de Keyser, The Four Burgomasters of Amsterdam Receiving the News of Marie de Medicis' Arrival (1638). [13] I cite this representation because it likely served as an indirect forerunner to Ter Borch's later Treaty of Münster.
De Keyser's painting - sober in tone, seemingly factual in content, and small in size - served as a model for an identically-sized print that the Haarlem reproductive engraver Jonas Suyderhoef made of the composition. [14] The Latin inscription along the print's bottom edge alerted viewers to the event commemorated. [15] Without that written inscription, the group portrait would have carried little specific historical meaning. The engraving was widely enough distributed to have influenced many later Dutch regents' portraits. The print probably came to Ter Borch's attention, too, for during these years Ter Borch frequently looked to De Keyser's portraits as stimulus for his own. In 1648, ten years later, Ter Borch asked engraver Suyderhoef to reproduce his own Treaty of Münster in the same exacting manner. These two highly-worked engravings were quite unusual in the history of Dutch printmaking for the manner in which they depicted contemporary history. Though separated by a decade in time, and representing quite disparate historical events, both took a seemingly factual approach to depicting an event. Both chose representational patterns that implicitly emphasised the dignity of the assembled group, and through that dignified representation articulated the participants' service to city (in De Keyser's case ) and to Europe (in Ter Borch's).
Only one other painted response to the Treaty by a Dutch artist has survived, to my knowledge, Cornelis Beelt's Announcement of the Treaty of Münster in Haarlem. [16] Once again, a conventional formula provided the artist with his starting point: the representation of a town square. Beelt adapted the convention to fit the historical event, the official proclamation of the Peace to the Haarlem citizenry on 5 June 1648. In Haarlem, the authorities had a platform erected in front of the town hall from which they could make the announcement. At the far back, one can discover the crowd listening to the announcement. But the foreground is given over to stock figures forming a cross section of Dutch society, figures who enact their roles and display their dress and manners in the typical fashion of most town square scenes. All are joined together under friendly skies in an orderly composition that produces the image of a civilised society in which every member gains from the benefits of the Peace.
III. The Treaty of Münster in prints
Given the intensity of the pamphlet war generated by the Münster negotiations, it is understandable that the conclusion of the peace created some demand for pictorial responses in print. Some of these prints rendered historical occurrences in highly polemical ways. [17] A good example is the 1649 allegorical print that depicted a triumphal procession featuring the personification of Peace driven before the Binnenhof, the seat of the central government in The Hague. [18] Quickly and anonymously produced, the print recycled an allegory about Frederik Hendrik published nineteen years before. While retaining the specific Hague setting, the new print substituted Peace for the earlier figure of the Stadholder in the carriage. The resulting work trumpeted the Peace of Münster as beneficial for the entire Dutch Republic.
An example of an entirely different sort is the series of prints commissioned by the city of Amsterdam to memorialise its own elaborate local festivities after the conclusion of the peace. The prints schematically represented the Vertoningen or pageants that were performed during the summer of 1648 on the Dam, all connecting politics and art by means of a rich admixture of allegory. [19] The extent to which these allegorical prints documented the pageants is not clear.
This is not the place for an account of the development of "factual reportage" in prints. What can be observed here is that the factual approach gained the most headway in prints closely associated with written reports, whether literally accompanying a published written account or not. But even this "factual" type of print should be considered commemorative rather than documentary, as the political elements were simply more hidden than in the typical allegorical engraving.
Not surprisingly, such factual prints adhered to specific subject categories, and a specific repertory of representational patterns. Gallows scenes, battles, death scenes, arrivals and departures of famous people, processions, meetings of governing bodies, and announcements predominated among prints purporting to give a factual recording of an event. For our purposes, the last-named category has particular significance. Wenceslaus Hollar's Announcement of the Treaty of Münster in Antwerp, 5 June 1648 closely followed the representational scheme for proclamations before groups of citizens. [20] The Town Hall of Antwerp forms the backdrop for a crowd listening to town authorities as they read the announcement from a temporary stage in front of the building. Just as the authorities themselves followed a traditional ceremonial decorum for such proclamations, one generation after the next, Hollar adhered to the familiar representational scheme established by his predecessors, in particular the print rendering The Announcement of the Truce between Spain and the Northern Netherlands in Antwerp, 14 April 1609. [21] Nevertheless, Hollar's removal of the subplots in the earlier print (the fireworks) concentrated viewer attention on the massiveness and uniformity of the crowd, thereby strengthening the effect of solid citizen support for the Peace. The expansiveness of the Town Hall backdrop in the later print further reinforced the prevailing sense of order. Commemorating this same 5 June 1648 announcement - this time in Haarlem - on canvas, Cornelis Beelt probably drew inspiration from the town square scheme developed for his own medium of painting rather than from such proclamation prints as Hollar's. Though different in their likely geneses, Hollar's print and Beelt's painting equally celebrated place, specifically the town, as the appropriate political context for a representation extolling the treaty. It can be argued that the town, in the sense of the town of Amsterdam's own militia company as defender of the peace, provided a comparable framework for Van der Helst's celebration of the treaty.
Hollar's presence in Antwerp in 1648 is well documented. His attendance at the announcement of the Peace in the Grote Markt can only be guessed. But the execution of such a print hardly required the artist to witness the historical event himself. Historical veracity could be communicated to the viewing public first by the visual conventions for announcement scenes and secondarily by an inscription, in this case: "Actual Description (of the) Manner of publication of the PeaceY on a splendid stage in front of the Town Hall of AntwerpY on 5 June." [22]
Two broadsides depicting the ceremonies that took place in Münster on 15-16 May 1648 bring us closer to the core subject of this article. These broadsides were published, probably later in 1648, by the Amsterdam firms of Rombout van der Hoeye and Huych Allard. [23] Executed by anonymous artists, the prints demonstrate no personal experience of the events in Münster but rely instead on various published descriptions for their historical details. [24] Both present the table scene, the main event, as the centre of an ensemble of images composed of six small scenes of Münster, much as contemporary maps were framed by townscapes.
In Van der Hoeye's broadside, the better known of the two, the story begins on the left with the Dutch ambassadors greeting Münster city officials outside the Rathaus, then the arrival of Peñaranda's entourage, and the swearing of the oath by the Dutch delegation. On the right, the story picks up with the ambassadors from the two sides embracing one another after the ceremony, then a depiction of the theatre set up in the square outside, and finally the salvos fired there in honour of the Peace. The central scene depicts two diplomats, identified by process of elimination as Peñaranda and Brun, exchanging the signed documents with each other, with the Dutch looking on. Although the cross and the Gospels appear in full view, neither is incorporated into the rather inconsequential action. Not surprisingly, this central scene is the most conventional of all, as its prominent position encouraged it to be. The printmaker took for his starting point the traditional Haarlem and Amsterdam regents' portrait, a representational scheme featuring officials seated as a body around a table, unified in their service to their organisation. By framing the Münster scene according to this familiar pictorial pattern, the print could more easily communicate concepts of unity of purpose and service. The central scene also takes the most liberties. Despite the absence of two delegates - Godard van Reede, delegate from Utrecht (because of sickness) and Johan de Knuydt, delegate from Zeeland (because of political opposition) - from the actual ceremony, the print pointedly includes the full Dutch delegation of eight. To avoid any confusion, their names are listed at the right. [25] Moreover, the print sets the ten protagonists, along with a crowd of onlookers, in a lofty, vaguely classical-style hall that resembles the Antwerp Town Hall turned outside in. Over the pediment of the door can be seen a personification of Justice and at the left a large painting of The Last Judgement, neither of which decorated the actual Münster Rathaus. In contrast to Ter Borch's work, the broadside valued political didacticism over historical accuracy. It functioned less like the sober printed accounts of the event than like the pro-Peace pamphlets circulating at the time that argued for Dutch unity. Its political message was underscored by verses written by Jan Zoet. The most important of these proclaim the return of the "sweet brotherhood of cities," Love and Unity,while the peripheral quatrains celebrate the magnificentie of the occasion.
Allard's broadside, likewise six small scenes around a central table scene, demonstrates a similar approach, despite its reliance on slightly different source material. For example, the artist depicted the fountain of wine at the Count of Peñaranda's feast on 16 May, about which so many of the written descriptions exclaimed. In contrast to Van der Hoeye's print, Allard's devoted the central scene to the swearing of the oath, this time including only six Dutch delegates, each showing two fingers extended. But other aspects reveal how little historical accuracy mattered: the printmaker depicted the Spanish raising their hands, too. And he set the ceremony in an open-air loggia that derived from some pictorial source altogether unrelated to this event.
Of the two broadsides, Van der Hoeye's exhibited greater compositional readability and ideological clarity. Perhaps for this reason, it was used as a pictorial pattern for two very different sorts of objects. A medal, dated 1649, shows on one side a schematic version of Van der Hoeye's central scene and on the other side a version of the small scene from the lower left of the same broadside showing the Dutch swearing the oath. [26] The next year, a silver beaker produced by an Amsterdam firm, took Van der Hoeye's central image as its source for a scene that wraps around the whole vessel. [27]
IV. Ter Borch in Münster
Documentary evidence places Ter Borch (1617-81) in Münster in 1646, still relatively young and footloose. [28] A few years before, he had returned north from his travels in southern Europe and the Spanish Netherlands to no fixed place of work or residence in the Dutch Republic. Münster must have offered attractive prospects for him, as the gathering place for such a large number of potential patrons. Adriaen Pauw, one of the two delegates from Holland and West Friesland and long-time leader of the anti-Orange peace faction, was Ter Borch's first benefactor. In 1646, the artist received commissions from Pauw for miniature portraits of his wife Anna van Ruytenburgh and himself as well as for the rather grand canvas, The Arrival of Adriaen Pauw in Münster, one of the largest paintings in Ter Borch's oeuvre. It depicted Pauw's return to Münster for a second round of negotiations in the summer of 1646, accompanied by his wife and granddaughter. Executed as a variation on a princely entry, the painting might well have been designed to drive home a political point about Pauw's ambassadorial status in Münster. [29]
In light of Pauw's pro-Spanish political sympathies, Ter Borch probably enjoyed many possibilities for contact with the entourage of the Count of Peñaranda, leader of the Spanish delegation. In 1647, Ter Borch joined that very entourage. [30] This new arrangement offered Ter Borch more domestic stability and certainly greater artistic opportunities than residence with Pauw's delegation. Pauw made repeated trips back and forth from Holland, while Peñaranda remained in Münster all the years of the negotiations. [31] Furthermore, Peñaranda encouraged a high level of entertainment and cultural activity at his Münster residence, partly out of rivalry with the French delegation, partly out of traditional Spanish appreciation for style and splendour. True to form, the Count enlivened the letter he wrote King Philip IV describing the events surrounding the oath-swearing ceremony in mid-May 1648 with detailed references to the magnificence of the Spanish carriages, the fancy livery, the costly attire of the delegates, and the crowd of citizens cheering them on. [32] A related esteem for protocol may have contributed to the presentation of the gold chain and medal that Ter Borch's 18th-century biographer reported he received for his service to the Spanish ambassador. [33] A small miniature portrait of the Count is one of the sole works that can be linked definitively with Ter Borch's service. [34] But more commissions probably came his way, to judge by several unidentified painted portraits and by drawings of gentlemen tentatively identifiable as Spanish courtiers, all of which Ter Borch produced at this time. [35]
During his years with both delegations, Dutch and Spanish (1646-48), Ter Borch obtained additional desirable commissions, including a somewhat awkward, small-scale equestrian portrait of the Duc de Longueville, the principle French ambassador. [36] More successful were his miniature, bust-length portraits on copper of the delegate from Mainz, Count Hugo Eberhard Kratz von Scharfenstein, and of various members of the Dutch delegation. [37] The latter included Adriaen Clant van Stedum, the delegate from Groningen; Godart van Reede, from Utrecht; Caspar van Kinschot, a member of the Dutch delegation; the Dutch preacher Eleazer Lootius; and the Dutch delegation secretary Jacob van den Burgh. [38] Finely worked and detailed, these renderings were likely quite labour-intensive.
For both artist and sitter, small-scale portraits had distinct advantages. Under the studio conditions available to Ter Borch in Münster, such portraits could more easily be produced than large-scale paintings. More importantly, from his earliest years on, Ter Borch had preferred to work in het klein. Furthermore, his sitters could transport miniatures back home with less difficulty than life-size depictions. But the symbolic connotations of miniature portraits may have played a further role in these commissions, for this type of portrait had long been linked with international courts. [39]
Ter Borch's most serious competition came from the Flemish artist Anselm van Hulle (1601-74). [40] Although Van Hulle and Ter Borch both arrived in Münster in the same year, the Flemish artist enjoyed various advantages over Ter Borch: age and experience, an initial commission from the Stadholder Frederik Hendrik to portray the assembled diplomats, a sizeable atelier of assistants, and a rapid method of working. Van Hulle could produce life-size oil portraits, available at low prices, in a relatively short time. Copies of many of these soon found a place on the walls of both the town hall in Münster and in Osnabrück, as a variation on a princely compendium of illustrious individuals. Because of the demand for reproductions, Van Hulle prepared portrait sketches that could be engraved by various Antwerp printmakers. His series of delegates' portraits, Celeberrimi ad pacificandum christiani nominis orbem legatiY (which included engravings of the Dutch delegation), was published in Antwerp in 1648. Anthony van Dyck's impressive Iconographie, a comparable collection of engraved portraits of illustrious men that had appeared a short time before, must have served as inspiration. [41]
As for Ter Borch's portraits, a few were immediately engraved, probably at his own initiative. Each of the resulting prints measured about the same size as its corresponding miniature painting (in contrast to Van Hulle's presumably life-size models). [42] It is possible that Ter Borch entertained ideas of producing a modest gallery of his own. Indirectly connected with such an endeavour was Ter Borch's hands-on experience with Van Dyck's print project, ten years before. Ter Borch's very earliest portrait was a 1635-36 drawing that he made in London representing his step-uncle, the engraver Robert van Voerst, after a drawing by Van Dyck preparatory to the Iconographie. [43] Thus from his early years, Ter Borch worked with the notion of the portrait as a miniature representation of the esteemed and eminent. And through his step-uncle, a reproductive printmaker, he had learned the advantages of engraved distribution.
V. Ter Borch's Treaty of Münster
Ter Borch's independent portraits of ambassadors also served him well as preparation for the Treaty of Münster ensemble. He was able to integrate these busts into a remarkably coherent and effective rendering. Complicated rules of protocol determined the diplomats' arrangement around the table and perhaps even its shape - deliberately round rather than oblong. These were a given. Nevertheless, Ter Borch transformed the event in subtle ways in order to convey a particular notion of its historical significance. This was likely his own notion, for there is no evidence of a commission for the work.
Certainly he avoided the conventional table scene adopted for the broadsides and for Van der Helst's militia company celebrations. An earlier, perhaps the only earlier representation of a treaty in painting, The Signing of the Treaty of London in Somerset House, also chose the rather obvious compositional pattern of the table scene. [44] This life-size, anonymously-painted group portrait arranged the signatories for England seated in a row on the left side of the long table and those for Spain and the Spanish Netherlands seated in an equally static row on the right.
Of course, a table figured prominently in the ceremony at Münster, too. But in Ter Borch's painting, only the green colour of the cloth distinguishes the table, for otherwise it blends into the crowd of dark-coloured human forms. Dominating Ter Borch's composition is the curving, horizontal frieze created by these upright figures, a nearly isocephalic frieze of white faces atop upright bodies, most of which turn outward in ceremonial display. The blank foreground distances this array of figures from the viewer. No dog appears in that empty space, nor any participant-figure presented from the rear, a device used by other artists to create some transition with the viewer. The lateral movement of the composition is contained by the soldier wearing the colours of Münster on one side and the red-cloaked diplomat and brown-robed prior on the other. The classically-balanced effect of the composition is further reinforced by the vertical movement at the centre. Marking that centre is a tribunal flanked with flags before which stand representatives of the civil military force, outfitted for the occasion in gold brocade. In reality, a company of this size could never have fit into the small space available on the north side of the hall. Above them hovers the glowing candelabrum. The vertical alignment of candelabrum, tribunal, and militia combine to convey an old-fashioned regality, which echoes - albeit distantly - a royal presentation ceremony such as could have been seen in the Judgement of Solomon frieze adorning the carved chimney piece in the Münster Rathaus, and in any number of prints featuring audience chambers. [45]
Prints rendering great national assemblies were among the only other prototypes for representations of current events taking place in interior spaces. The prints of the Synod of Dordrecht, 1619, strictly symmetrical constructions, viewed from on high, come to mind. [46] Several later depictions of peace treaties adapted this same representational scheme. But many others followed Ter Borch's lead instead by presenting the participants in a kind of frieze, head on. Renderings of the Treaty of Nijmegen, 1678, offer good examples. [47]
By contrast with many of these, no leader dominates Ter Borch's assembly. Nor does any political allegiance or religious position hold sway. Rendered larger than actuality, the sculpted figure of the Virgin Mary at the front of the candelabrum functions not as a partisan image, but as a general benediction from above, shining her rays on all alike, Dutch and Spanish, Protestant and Catholic. The two sides are little distinguished from each other. Even the Spanish delegates' oft-mentioned finery is subdued to blend with Dutch dress. In the same spirit, time is collapsed. Restrained though it is, a narrative can be discerned: the Protestants (attentive to the Word) raising their hands while intoning the name of God and the Catholics (devoted to physical images) touching the cross and Gospels. [48] But, again, contrary to actuality, the two sides are represented taking the oath simultaneously, so that the differences in practice (remarked upon so often in the written descriptions) are not singled out but given a further measure of equivalence.
What results is a rendering of individual men bonded in idealised solidarity through their common concern for the success of the treaty, a treaty expected to guarantee a perpetual peace for the entirety of Europe. The even-handed rendering implies the importance of a freedom of conscience that is heterodox in nature. But political freedom - the independence of the Dutch Republic and the triumph of specific cities, ideas important in the broadsides, in Van der Helst's portrait, in Beelt's and Hollar's cityscapes - finds little accommodation here. Ter Borch's point of view is international and ecumenical rather than local and partisan.
The painting remained in the Ter Borch family in Deventer during Gerard's lifetime, thus accessible to very few. Houbraken contended it remained unsold because of its high price tag of fl 6,000. [49] More likely, Ter Borch may have set the unrealistic price in order to retain it as a memento of this famous event and his role as witness. It is possible, too, that Ter Borch's unusual choice of the mode of representation played a role in his decision to keep it to himself: his "factual" representation of a current-event subject in the medium of painting rather than print.
At least a century after Ter Borch's death, the painting did leave Deventer. In Paris, mid-nineteenth century, it sold easily several times for very high prices. No doubt the buyers, living in a different age, recognised it as a forerunner to those reconstructions of recent historical events that their French contemporaries were producing in great numbers. [50] Genre historique was the term the French used for such paintings - signifying scale (small), subject matter (current rather than antique), and approach (conscientious exactitude rather than heroic grandeur). Back in the 1640s, within the context of the abundant portrait activity in Münster, those Dutch viewers who did see Ter Borch's painting would likely have understood it as an unconventional group portrait, unconventional certainly for a painting.
But it is important to emphasise that initially the Treaty of Münster acquired its audience as a print, not as a painting. [51] Evidently, print distribution was Ter Borch's goal from the start. Soon after completing the painting in the summer of 1648, Ter Borch asked Suyderhoef to reproduce it in an engraving of the same size. The print was ready at least by 1650. [52] Suyderhoef's engraving remained largely faithful to Ter Borch, but added an array of physiognomies and textures, more varied and splendid than those now visible in the painting. It also added an inscription: "ICON EXACTISSIMA. QUA AD VIVUM EXPRIMITUR SOLENNIS CONVENTUS<Y>". (Most-exact image. Represented from life at the solemn assembly<Y>). [53] In my opinion, Ter Borch produced the painted Treaty of Münster as a highly elaborate, and thus highly unusual, preparatory study for this engraving, much as De Keyser's The Four Burgomasters of Amsterdam had been preparatory for an engraving by the same printmaker. [54]
Ultimately, Ter Borch produced something more than simply a group portrait or simply a record of a particularly momentous event. With its echoes of solemn, past ceremonies and its realist pictorial techniques, combined with an inscription proclaiming its historical veracity, the print acquired the status of a document of unquestionable authenticity, equal to a written account. But further, as an image of peace, unity, and tolerance, Ter Borch's invention embodied not only the exterior circumstances of the Truce of Münster, but also its essential significance.
FOOTNOTES
Acknowledgments: Warm thanks to Marloes Huiskamp, H. Perry Chapman and Ariane van Suchtelen for their assistance at various stages. The Research for this essay was conducted while I was a Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, Wassenaar, to whose staff I wich to express my sincere gratitude.
1. Gudlaugsson 1959, I, p. 64. See also Dohmann 1958, p. 269. Historians have treated it as a document, eg. Poelhekke 1948, p. 537, and Dickmann 1959, p. 469.
2. Waal 1952.
3. Goedde 1997.
4. See, for example, Blankert 1980-81, p. 20.
5. Israel 1982, p. 374. For the text of the treaty concluded on 30 January 1648, see Aitzema 1650, II, pp. 565-96; translated in: Rowen 1972, pp. 178-187.
6. Cools 1648, pp. 46-50. See Kat. London 1991, pp. 35-36; exhib. cat.. Münster 1988, cat. no. 77. Cools does mention the foliage visible at the back of the hall in the painting. My thanks to Ian Crawford for help translating the "Tractatus".
7. Aitzema, 1650, II, (cf. note 5), pp. 545-47. Gudlaugsson 1959, pp. 63-64, based his description on Aitzema's account (despite his reference to Cools's publication). For references to other accounts, see Poelhekke 1948, pp. 533-38, based on Peñaranda's correspondence and on various Vatican and Venetian sources; Dickmann 1959, pp. 468-70; Israel 1997a, pp. 101-103, based on Peñaranda's correspondence. My thanks to Gees van der Plaat for discussing Aitzema's history with me. In the painting the box of the Dutch appears at the left, the red and silver casket of the Spanish at the right; see exhib. cat. London 1991, no.896.
8. Goedde 1997, made this observation about seascapes, p 64.
9. Waal 1952, p. 12.
10. See exhib. cat.. Haarlem 1988, cat. no.189. Govaert Flinck's militia portrait for the same hall, Company of Capt. Joan Huydecoper van Maarseveen and Lt. Frans Oetgens van Waveren, is connected even more minimally with the Treaty of Münster (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, 1648-49). In the centre below is an illusionistically painted slip of paper with lines by Jan Vos, calling the captain as "first in eternal peace."
11. Tümpel 1988, p. 99.
12. Joachim von Sandrart The Company of Captain Cornelis Bicker waiting to welcome Marie de Medicis on her visit to Amsterdam, September 1638 (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, 1638); exhib. cat.. Haarlem 1988, fig.68.
13. Oil on panel, 28,5 x 38 cm, The Hague, Mauritshuis, on loan to Amsterdam, Amsterdam Historical Museum. See cat. Den Haag 1993, no.78.
14. The work possibly was commissioned by the messenger of the news, Cornelis van Davelaer, leader of the cavalcade that welcomed the Queen Mother, according to Adams 1985, II, pp. 377ff. She does not raise the question of whether the patron or the artist initiated the print. She mentions other examples of painted models for prints, note 110.
15. "EFFIGIES NOBILISSIMORUM ET AMPLISSIMORUMY REIP. AMSTELODAMENSIY DEDUXIT." See Adams 1985, III, p. 211.
16. It is always claimed that Cornelis Beelt (c.1630-before 1702) was active as an artist starting c.1660. But in light of the subject, it seems likelier that Beelt executed the painting c. 1650. Beelt produced several other representations of the same subject. "The proclamation of the Treaty of Münster on the Grote Markt in Antwerp", 1649, attributed sometimes to the Flemish artist Maximiliaen Pauwels, is similar in conception. See exhib. cat. Washington 1973-75, cat. no.13.
17. For an overview of earlier polemical prints, Tanis/Horst 1993.
18. Muller 1863, I, no. 1958, inscribed "Pax una triumphis innumeris potior" (hereafter FM). The earlier print is FM 1649. My thanks to Daniel Horst and Jan van der Waals for discussing prints relating to contemporary events with me.
19. FM 1951. See Snoep 1975, pp. 77-83. See also Smits-Veldt 1997.
20. FM 1949.
21. The foreground of the 1609 print (FM 1260) features men busy with fireworks displays whose billowing clouds of smoke upstage the solemn audience for the proclamation. An anonymous publisher in 1648 issued the same 1609 print, simply adding a new inscription appropriate for the later occasion, the announcement of the Treaty of Münster (exhib. cat.. Münster 1988, cat.no.170). As for the original 1609 print, it, too, followed an earlier print, "The proclamation of the installation of Isabella Clara Eugenia and Albert as regents", 1602, again a crowd scene set in front of the Antwerp Town Hall, in Bochius 1602, pp. 308-309. See Groenveld 1979, p. 132.
22. The cartouche at the bottom of the print: "Eygentlycke Afbeeldinghe ende Maniere van de publicatie van den Peys, tusschen syne Mayesteyt den Coninck van Spagnien, ende de Heeren Staeten Generael van de Vereenichde Nederlanden op eene Heerlycke Stellagie voor het Stadthuys van Antverpen, ter Presentie van de Heeren Schouteth, Amptman, Borghemeesters, Shepenen etc: ende een groote menichte van toehorders, den 5 Junij".
23. FM 1945a (Van der Hoeye, publisher, central scene only; FM 1945c (Van der Hoeye, central scene with six side scenes); FM 1946 (Huych Allard, publisher, central scene with six side scenes).
24. The source of information for Van der Hoeye's print was a news sheet such as the "Grondelick Verhael van ët gene tot Münster is voorgevallen, in het overleveren van de Artyckelen van de Vrede, met wat magnificentie het zelfde is gheschiet" (FM 1939), or the "Pvblicatie Van Den VredeY", Antwerp 1648. For the latter, Knuttel 1889, vol.I:2, no. 5732.
25. The simpler version of this scene, FM 1945a, also published by Van der Hoeye, consists of the central scene only, where only seven men sit at the table. This forces the viewer to read the figure handing the document to Peñeranda as Batholdt van Gent, leader of the Dutch delegation.
26. Exhib. cat.. Münster 1988a, cat. no.37. J.Swelinck, the designer of the medal, used FM 1945b or 1945c as his source of inspiration.
27. Exhib. cat.. Amsterdam 1984, cat. no. 42. In this case, the reduced version of Van der Hoeye's broadside was the source, FM 1945a, with seven Dutch delegates around the table and the eighth, presumably Barthold van Gent, as the figure handing a document to Peñaranda (Anton Brun is absent).
28. Gudlaugsson 1959-60, II, p.18 (Gudlaugsson's catalogue system is referred to here by G, as in G 57: "The Swearing of the Oath of Ratification of the Treaty of Münster", 1648). Gudlaugsson's assertion that Ter Borch arrived in 1645 is not based on very firm evidence. See Kettering 1988, I, p. 354.
29. Dickmann 1959, pp. 208ff; Galen 1988, cat.no.121, pp. 181-85; Israel 1997, pp. 96-97.
30. Gudlaugsson 1959-60, I, pp. 60-61; II, pp. 9-10, 18-20, 60-61.
31. Peñaranda arrived in summer 1645 and departed in summer 1648 for Brussels. See Duchhardt/Dethlefs/Queckenstadt 1996, pp. 202-203. For Pauw, see Gudlaugsson 1959-60, I, pp. 226-27. See also Israel 1982, pp. 359-61. In my opinion, Gudlaugsson's suggestion that Ter Borch must have accompanied Pauw back to The Hague in 1647 is without firm foundation, (Gudlaugsson 1959-60, I, p. 60; II, p. 84).
32. Poelhekke 1948, pp. 534-35.
33. Gudlaugsson 1959-60, II, p. 20, referring to a passage in Arnold Houbraken's "Life of Gerard ter Borch".
34. G 54. The Portrait of Four Franciscan Friars (Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, 1647-48) seems to have been closely associated with the Count, as well: likely the male nurses who cared for Peñaranda when he was ill.
35. The unidentified portraits include Gudlaugsson 1959-60, II, G 48, 52, and 53. For the drawings, see Kettering 1988, I, GJr 72-75 and vol.II, Appendix 10, 14, 15, 24 (especially), and 25. These were either preparatory to painted portraits or self-sufficient portrait drawings.
36. Henri II d'OrlÈans, Duc de Longueville, G 50.
37. G 55. See Duchhardt/Dethlefs/Queckenstedt 1996, p. 238.
38. For more information on these portraits, see Gudlaugsson 1959-60, II: Pauw, G 41; Adriaen Clant van Stedum, G 46; Godart van Reede, G 47; Caspar van Kinschot, G 51; the preacher Eleazer Lootius, G 44; and the Dutch secretary Jacob van den Burgh, G 49 (1646, P.Holsteyn after Ter Borch). On Ter Borch's Portrait of Godard van Reede, Heer van Nederhorst, see exhib. cat.. Maarssen 1996, cat.no.11; another version can be found in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
39. Schaffers-Bodenhausen 1993.
40. For a full study of Van Hulle's activity in Münster and Osnabrück, see Dethlefs 1996.
41. Dethlefs 1996, pp. 118-20.
42. Pauw (Pieter Holsteyn); Van Reede (S. van Lamsweerde, Utrecht, 1649); and Kinschot (Wenceslaus Hollar). Also P.Pontius's engraving after Ter Borch's portrait of Kratz von Scharfenstein. In one case the painted source for the engraving is lost; all that remains is the engraving by Holsteyn after Ter Borch's portrait of Jacob van den Burgh (see G 49, c. 1646). For additional commentary on these prints see Dethlefs 1996, pp. 140-42.
43. Kettering 1988, GJr 60. The drawing was based either on the preparatory drawing by Van Dyck that Van Voerst himself engraved for the "Iconographie" or possibly on another lost drawing by Van Dyck.
44. Groenveld 1979, p. 131.
45. Dethlefs 1996a, fig. 14. The chimney piece was destroyed in the Second World War. Maarten van Heemskerck's The Submission of Philip of Hessen before Charles V (Holl.535) is just one of the many prints featuring royal audience chambers.
46. FM 1337. See Groenveld 1985, p. 36.
47. Exhib. cat.. Nijmegen, 1978, cat. nos. 11, 16. Another example is Romeyn de Hooghe's engraving of William III taking the oath as Captain-general of the army, 1672, which took over Ter Borch's frieze-like composition, formalised it, and strengthened its ceremonial potential; Genders 1973, pp. 642-50, fig.13. See also Kaulbach 1997, on the ideological reasons for the iconographical change: the notion of the contractual basis of the new political order, conveyed by oath-taking.
48. Ridderikhoff/Nellen 1997.
49. Gudlaugsson 1959-60, I, pp. 67-68, citing Houbraken. By contrast, the large Portrait of the Magistrate of Deventer, Deventer, Town Hall, 1667 (G 205 ), earned Ter Borch fl 1,995. The Treaty of Münster took Ter Borch no longer than seven weeks to complete, for Fabio Chigi, the papal delegate, recorded seeing the pittura on 9 July. Dethlefs 1996, p. 166.
50.Exhib. cat.. London 1994, pp. 21-22. See also Marrinan 1988, pp. 22-25. As a measure of the painting's magnetism for the French, the old Ernest Meissonier made a special trip to Paris to see it (Gudlaugsson 1959-60, I, p. 68).
51. At least two painted copies are known today. One is the painted copy now in the Stadtmuseum, Münster (G 57b), with some changes in Ter Borch's features. See exhib. cat.. Münster 1988, p. 191. The painted copy in the Rijksmuseum (G 57a) added the sort of cravat fashionable later in the century.
52. Ter Borch offered the City of Kampen 23 engravings for fl 100 in December, 1650. Gudlaugsson 1959-60, II, p. 20.
53. "ICON EXACTISSIMA. QUA AD VIVUM EXPRIMITUR SOLENNIS CONVENTUS LEGATORUM PLENIPOTENTARIORUM HISPANIARUM REGIS PHILIPPI IV. ET ORDINUM/GENERALIUM FAEDERATI BELGII, QUI PACEM PERPETUAM PAULLO ANTE SANCITAM, EXTRADITIS UTRINQUE INSTRUMENTIS, IURAMENTO CONFIRMARUNT. MONASTERII WESTPHALORUM IN DOMO SENATORIA. ANNO CI) I) CXLVIII. IDIBUS MAII." The only other change is the substitution of "PAX OPTIMA RERUM" for Ter Borch's signature on the wall tablet. See Duchhardt 1996, p. 24.
54. Ter Borch's painting does contrast with De Keyser's modello in terms of detail and finish, however.
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