Cornelis Schut: Pittore Fiammingo

During his time in Florence in 1627-28, Schut had designed various tapestry cycles for the Arazzeria Medicea, the Medici tapestry factory established by Cosimo I de Medici in 1546. Interestingly, an inventory of the Arazzeria from 1637 mentions  a cartoon painted by Schut for a tapestry depicting Scipio Africanus, which may very well be related to our drawing. After his return to Antwerp, Schut still occasionally produced designs for tapestries, the most famous of which was a series of the Seven Liberal Arts, which can be dated to the late 1640's. Interestingly, a silver platter and ewer crafted by the silversmith Theodoor de Rasier which was owned by Rubens depicts a scene of Susanna and the Elders which has been connected to a print by Schut, suggesting he may have been involved in its design as well. 

In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Flanders, even as religious and wordly authorities liberally commissioned important artworks to heighten their prestige at great expense while wealthy elites greedily indulged in the highly fashionable art of collecting, enjoyment and ownership of art was not limited to the lucky few. Even those less fortunate could - and did - decorate their walls with art, as was noted by astonished foreign visitors. Even in the humblest of homes they regularly encountered prints, as can indeed be seen in seventeenth-century interior scenes by genre painters like David II Teniers.

The medium of print provided a quick and easy way to produce and distribute copies of popular compositions. Prints could easily travel far and wide, and thus had the potential to disseminate the work of an artist across borders and even worldwide, as can be attested by the influence of Flemish painters on 17th- and 18th-century Latin-American artists, for instance. Artists like Rubens had their compositions engraved by others to further their brand name, while also making their art accessible to a wider range of people. After all, a print could be had for (sometimes relatively) modest sums. 

Schut, being the only real Antwerp 'peintre-graveur' of the first half of the seventeenth century, engraved many of his works himself, although he also employed and trained several engravers. He produced reproductions of his paintings (this probably includes his Sine Baccho et Cerere friget Venus, although the painting is lost) but also made smaller prints, such as a series of devotional works, a series of capricci featuring frolicking putti engaged in a wide range of activities and a range of mythological prints.  

On April 29 1655, after a productive career and a busy family life (he remarried in 1638 after the death of his first wife, and went on to have four more children), Schut passed away just weeks before his 58th birthday. The inventory of his artistic material, which was written up in 1664, lists thousands of works on paper and many dozens of copper print plates, attesting to the furious activity of this prolific artist. By that time, Antwerp had ceased to be the artistic center (especially for painting) it had been before, although its churches and private collections continued to provide ample proof of the genius of its many gifted artistic sons of the first half of the seventeenth century. Work by Schut could be admired in many of Antwerp's churches, including the cathedral, and was avidly collected for a long period, as many inventories and auction catalogues attest.

This assured that Schut's artistic legacy lived on, and he continued to be greatly appreciated as an artist until the nineteenth century, when he became largely forgotten by the larger public. (Although ironically, it was precisely at this moment that many of the sources on his life and work were published.) It wasn't until the 1970's that art-historical interest in the artist picked up again, and it is thanks to the efforts of great scholars such as Hans Vlieghe, Gertrude Wilmers and Bert Schepers that we now know as much as we do about the work and life of the artist. Happily, Schut is now being reintroduced to a wider audience too: recently I was pleased  to see two grand altarpieces by the master hanging in the van Dyck room at the newly renovated KMSKA in Antwerp, where other works by the artist can still be seen in many places. I do invite you to go see them all, and further (re)discover the art of Cornelis Schut.