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Willem II van Nieulandt (Antwerp 1584 - 1635 Amsterdam) after Sebastiaen Vrancx (Antwerp 1573 - 1647)
Een Smederij (A Forge)
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. RP-P-OB-4175.
Sebastiaen Vrancx (Antwerp 1573 - 1647)
The Forge
pen and brush in brown, over black chalk, on laid paper
180 x 240 mm
Sebastiaen Vrancx was born in Antwerp in 1573. After his training in the workshop of Adam van Noort, who also taught several other leading Antwerp painters, such as Peter Paul...
Sebastiaen Vrancx was born in Antwerp in 1573. After his training in the workshop of Adam van Noort, who also taught several other leading Antwerp painters, such as Peter Paul Rubens and Hendrick van Balen, he travelled to Italy around 1597, where, in Treviso, he met his countryman and fellow painter Ludovico Pozzoserrato (born Lodewijk Toeput), who greatly influenced him. After his return to Antwerp, he registered as a member of the guild of St Luke in 1600 and he became its dean in 1612. He taught several students, such as the well-known cavalry painter Pieter Snayers. In 1613 he became an officer of the Antwerp civic guard and he was promoted to captain in 1621. Vrancx was also an avid fencer. Influenced by these (para)military experiences, he specialized in paintings depicting cavalry and battle scenes and robberies, which make up over half his known oeuvre and for which he is best known today.
However, research has shown that Vrancx successfully pursued other activities as well. Not only was Vrancx an engraver, he was also a leading member of De Violieren, the well-known Antwerp Chamber of Rhetoric for which he created a beautiful heraldic shield in collaboration with his fellow members Jan I Brueghel, Hendrick van Balen and Frans II Francken. The shield is still kept in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Antwerp today. Sebastiaen Vrancx was also a respected writer who wrote several plays, none of which, sadly, have been preserved. It is probably in this context that his work on a series of over sixty drawings illustrating scenes from Virgil's Aeneid - of which he possibly also made a new translation into Dutch - must be seen.
Besides battle scenes, Vrancx painted cityscapes, (winter) landscapes and several series of the seasons and the months of the year. More recently, he has also emerged as a painter of allegories and genre scenes featuring cats and monkeys. Architecture was another of Vrancx’ interests, as can be seen in several of his drawings and paintings. In short, far from being a ‘one-trick-pony’ as has been said in the past, he was actually quite a versatile artist.
The present work is the original study for a print, made by Willem van Nieulandt II (1582-1635), titled Een Smederij ('The Forge'). Although the print's original design was credited to Willem's teacher Paul Bril (1554-1626) when the print was published, as were the other etchings in the series, this was false in several instances. The reason behind the credit to Bril for those works which were not based on his drawings may in fact have been a subtle marketing ploy by the younger artist to attract attention off the back of his mentor's fame and reputation; or, alternatively, it may have indicated that van Nieulandt wished to express that the subjects and compositions were derived from Bril's teaching. Recent research has revealed that a number of Van Nieulandt's prints from this series were in fact based on drawings by Sebastian Vrancx, a fellow student of Bril's in Rome, with this sheet a newly- discovered and hitherto unpublished example from that group.
