Cornelis Schut | Galerie Lowet de Wotrenge

'slechte voden [en] luttel werck'

On June 8 1643, the Lisbon-based art dealer André de Saintes wrote to his colleague in Antwerp, Guillermo Forchoudt: 'De stucken die ick ontboden heb moeten van Schut wesen. Ick wil die van anders niemant hebben. […] Synt my geen slechte voden daer ick vele gelts aen sal verlisen.' ('The pieces I have summoned must be by Schut. I want them from no-one else. […] Don't send me bad rags (i.e. canvases) on which I will lose a lot of money.') Upon receipt of the paintings however, de Saintes was not happy, as he wrote to Forchoudt on August 20 of the same year: 'De doecken van Sr Schut vinde dier, asloo luttel werck in hebben […]' ('The canvases by Sr Schut [I] find expensive, and also not worked enough […]') An art dealer complaining - how little has changed.

Managing contemporary artists seems always to have been a challenge. Therefore, when asked why I prefer dealing in old masters, I have often joked that dead artists are much less of a hassle. As a dealer, you buy and sell their work, end of story. However, even then, work by some artists seems to 'find' you more often than that by others. Over time, these artists become, in a way, part of the DNA of the gallery. An artist who has 'found' me in this way at various stages throughout my dealing career is the Antwerp baroque artist Cornelis Schut (1597 - 1655) whose work de Saintes was so eager to acquire. When the idea dawned on me a few years ago to organize a solo show on a Flemish old master - something rarely seen in a commercial gallery - Schut was therefore the obvious choice. For years I patiently collected all I could, read up on the artist and did research of my own. This exhibition is the culmination of those efforts, and Schut, who was an interesting figure as well as a versatile and very gifted draughtsman, proved himself a great subject for a monographic exhibition (his first ever, coincidentally.)

Of course, I would have loved to include even more works, such as tapestries (for which he sometimes produced designs) or more large-scale paintings, but I hope my efforts, however humble, have done him at least some justice. I am grateful to the private collectors as well as to the Rubenshuis who generously agreed to loan some key works, as well as to the authors of the catalogue accompanying the exhibition. Their erudition far exceeds mine, and I count myself lucky to have had them by my side in this endeavour. It has been my great pleasure to collect, research and present the following works. I hope you will derive at least as much pleasure from looking at them.

Tyr Baudouin
The early adventures of Bread Bags

Cornelis Schut was born in Antwerp in 1597. Little is known about him until his mention in the liggeren (ledger) as a member of the Guild of St Luke in 1618. It is not known where he received his first training, but there can be little doubt he worked in Rubens' workshop for some time, as the latter's influence on his work is obvious in his earliest known extant works. After becoming a master, Schut spent about a decade abroad, travelling and studying. From 1624 until '27 he is documented in Rome, where he lived in the 'casa de' pittori fiamenghi' on the Strada Margutta and joined the notorious society of Northern artists known as the Bentvueghels. His 'bentnaam' was 'Brootsaken' (Bread Bags), although sadly we do not know to what he owed this humourous nickname.

After an altercation in a tavern which left a man - probably a fellow member of the bent called Joos wt den Haech ('Schotsche Trommel') - dead, Schut was arrested and imprisoned. Initially convicted to life in the galleys, his sentence was soon commuted to exile for life; on 18 October 1627 he received a full pardon at the bequest of the Accademia di San Luca di Roma. These traumatizing events led Schut to leave Rome for Florence, where he is documented working for the Medici tapestry works in 1628. Soon afterwards, the artist returned to Antwerp, where he married Catharina Geenssins in 1631.
Boreas abducting Orithyia, etching on laid paper.

In the shadow of Rubens ?

Amongst the works presented here, the print depicting Boreas abducting Orithyia is the one where the influence of Rubens is most obvious, as Schut based the central group of Boreas and Orithyia on a composition by Rubens, painted ca. 1620 and now kept in the Akademie in Vienna (inv. no. 626).

Like so many of his contemporaries in early seventeenth-century Antwerp, artistically Schut has for a long time been seen as a follower of Rubens first and foremost. As we shall see however, his oeuvre is a highly original and idiosyncratic body of work, which owes at least as much - if not more - to the art of the many Italian artists he encountered and studied during his time in Bologna, Rome and Florence, as it does to the work of his most famous compatriot.
Judith and Holofernes, oil on copper

Painting for the market and on commission

After his return from Italy, Schut and his wife settled somewhere in the parish of the Sint-Jacob's Church (where their three children were baptised) and the painter started working hard, eager to establish a successful career. By 1633 he was already able to take on pupils and hire assistants. Schut probably painted his Judith and Holofernes soon after his return from Italy; a small copper, it was likely painted for the market, without a specific client in mind.

Before he made his name as a painter, Schut also supported himself by supplying designs to engravers, which enabled him to make some important international contacts. In 1634 he was asked by Rubens to participate in providing the decorations for the Joyous Entry of the Infante Ferdinand into Antwerp, and was given the responsibility for painting The Stage of Welcome, one of the principal decorations. Later, Schut was also heavily involved in Prince Ferdinand's Joyous Entry into Ghent. His in-laws, who were rather well off, also supported him: his Pieta, for instance, for which the picture in the exhibition is the modello, was commissioned by his sister-in-law Maria Geenssins.

With his painting of the The Virgin and Child adored by Saints, commissioned by the Jesuits to decorate the high altar of their church in Antwerp (now the St Carolus Borromeus Church), Schut joined the ranks of the city's most important artists. Many other commissions for altarpieces would follow, at home as well as abroad. Both the modello for The Circumcision and the drawing for The Death of Saint Gertrude were preparatory works for precisely such commissions.
The Holy Family

Ranging from large-scale paintings made on commission for grand altars to small (and cheap) devotional prints intended for a wider audience, Schut revisited the iconography of the Virgin and Child and that of the Holy Family throughout his career. The Holy Family with the Infant St John is a rare extant example of one of Schut's designs for a small devotional print, which could have formed part of a series with several other prints. The oil sketch for The Return of the Holy Family, which can be dated ca. 1635, is a beautiful example of how Schut combined both Italian and Flemish influences in his work.
Schut as a designer

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.
- Cornelis Schut (Antwerp 1597 - 1655), Scipio Africanus arriving at Carthage
- Cornelis Schut (Antwerp 1597 - 1655), The Seven Liberal Arts
MODELLI & PRIMI PENSIERI

On November 3, 1645 the notary Ambrosius Sebille wrote up an appraisal of Schut's paintings and other possessions. The detailed inventory of his holdings which was attached included 'seven boeken van wit pampier dienende omme daerinne te teeckenen met eenige teekeningen daerinne' ['seven books of white paper for the purpose of drawing therein, within them some drawings']. Clearly Schut was a prolific draughtsman, although until recently only few drawings by him were known. This changed just over a decade ago when a cache of drawings by his hand was rediscovered in a French private collection, allowing us to understand and appreciate the artist more fully. Among these drawings were numerous designs for engravings, paintings and the occasional tapestry, but also quite a few freely executed 'primi pensieri' which do not seem to have any relation to another known work. These compositions, which are very appealing to modern eyes, give us a rare insight into the mind and creative process of the artist, and may be counted among his best work.
ART FOR ALL: The prints

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.
Printed paintings
Capricci, mythology and small devotional prints
Schut's artistic legacy

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.