Willem Panneels (Aachen (?) c. 1600 – 1634 Baden Baden)

This fascinating, unpublished drawing is an archetypal illustration of the working method and graphic style of the little-known Flemish artist Willem Panneels. The drawing depicts Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, as infants passing a flower between them, and likely provides a record of a lost drawing by Panneels’ master, Peter Paul Rubens. The figurative group is derived from a colossal Roman marble, The River Tiber with Romulus and Remus, which is now at the Musée du Louvre but was copied by Rubens circa 1606 while in its former location at Rome, in the Cortile Belvedere. Rubens recommended the figurative group in his theoretical notebook as a perfect example of children’s figures. Variations on the theme feature in no less than two further drawings, five paintings, and two oil sketches all of which are attributed to Rubens or to his workshop. This reuse of the same figurative group would suggest that the workshop relied on a common model by the hand of the master. Panneels, as a trusted studio assistant, would have had access to this drawing and thus produced the present work as a record to store within his own visual archive, the so-called ‘Rubens’ cantoor’. Recently discovered, this drawing once belonged to a celebrated group of drawings by Panneels, known as the ‘Rubens’ cantoor’. What remains of this group of drawings is now held at the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen and comprises some 463 sheets. These drawings are predominately executed in red or black chalks and date to the mid-to-late 1620s. The sheets comprise of copies after works by Rubens, Anthony Van Dyck, and the works in Rubens’ own cantoor: a physical repository akin to an archive, in which drawings, sketches and modelli were kept.

 

Ambiguity concerning the group’s origins and attribution gave rise to the somewhat misleading appellation, ‘Rubens’ cantoor’, in the 19^th century. The numbers inscribed on many of the ‘Rubens’ cantoor’drawings indicate that the surviving sheets constitute as little as a quarter of Panneels’ original archive. In spite of these evident losses, the present drawing is extremely rare as it represents one of the only known survivals outside of the principal group in Copenhagen. Several distinguishing characteristics confirm the present drawing’s origins in the ‘Rubens’ cantoor’. As Jesper Svenningsen has observed, in addition to the distinctive handling of red chalk and the recording of one of Rubens’ own compositions, there are three material signs on the Copenhagen drawings which indicate a cantoor provenance. Firstly, there is the irregular shape of the drawing. Trimming was a common practice in drawings from the cantoor, as can be seen from various sheets in Copenhagen, such as the drawing after the Laocoon, which is based on a Rubens drawing now at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan. Secondly, there is the presence of glue marks or paint stains on the verso. Svenningsen suggests that these marks, seen along the edges and versos of many cantoor drawings, may have been used by Panneels to classify the drawings or to denote ownership. Thirdly, there is the inscription on the verso. It is thanks to these inscriptions, many of which are written in an encrypted code, that Gustav Falck was able to prove that the inscriptions and the drawings, which had until 1919 been classified as anonymous copies, were indeed by Panneels. Svenningsen analysed the numbers inscribed on 176 of the Copenhagen drawings and reconstructed the system by which the archive was organised. Drawings were broadly organized according to visually related motifs, as opposed to subject matter, and classified into groups, such as ‘Heads’, ‘Animals’, and ‘Limbs’. Here, the inscription on the verso of the rotating figure to the left is undoubtedly in Panneels’ hand. The number, 221, places the drawing among Svenningsen’s group: ‘Figures falling or moving’.

 

Very little is known about Panneels’ personal life. He was born around 1600 in Aachen or Antwerp, and until his arrival in Rubens' workshop circa 1624 no information about him is known. He began working for Rubens as an engraver, and by the late 1620s he had become a leading studio assistant. When Rubens returned to Italy in 1628, Panneels was entrusted with the care of Rubens’ studio and property, which gave rise to the popular myth that the drawings of the ‘Rubens’ cantoor’ were copied in secret during the master’s absence. This theory has been largely dismissed by modern scholars as an amusing anecdote, however, and Panneels’ drawings are now viewed as a rare survival of the kind of personal archive legitimately built up by workshop apprentices during the 17^th century. The Copenhagen group also provides crucial insight into how Rubens’ own archive would likely have been arranged. When Panneels left Rubens’ workshop in 1630, he travelled to Cologne, Baden and Frankfurt am Main. In 1631 he stayed in Mainz, where he worked for the prince-bishop Anselm Casimir Wambold von Umstadt. In 1632 he travelled on to Strasbourg and after that date the historical record goes silent. It is assumed that he died in Baden-Baden around 1634.