Adam van Vianen (1568– 1627) was a leading silversmith of the early

Dutch Golden Age The Dutch Golden Age ( nl, Gouden Eeuw ) was a period in the history of the Netherlands, roughly spanning the era from 1588 (the birth of the Dutch Republic) to 1672 (the Rampjaar, "Disaster Year"), in which Dutch trade, science, and Dutch art, ...

, who trained as an engraver and was also a medallist. Unlike his brother Paul van Vianen, he spent little time away from his native

Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city and a List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, pro ...

. Together they developed the

auricular style The auricular style or lobate style (Dutch: ''Kwabstijl'', German: ''Ohrmuschelstil'') is a style of ornamental decoration, mainly found in Northern Europe in the first half of the 17th century, bridging Northern Mannerism and the Baroque. The ...

which bridges the gap between

Northern Mannerist Northern Mannerism is the form of Mannerism found in the visual arts north of the Alps in the 16th and early 17th centuries. Styles largely derived from Italian Mannerism were found in the Netherlands and elsewhere from around the mid-century, es ...

and

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

ornament.

Biography

Van Vianen was born and died in Utrecht. He was the oldest son of Willem Eerstensz. van Vianen, the brother of Paulus Willemsz. van Vianen and the father of Christian van Vianen. He probably trained with a local goldsmith, learning

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a Burin (engraving), burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or Glass engraving, glass ...

, as most goldsmiths did. A handful of prints can be identified as his, including two portraits and a map of Utrecht. His earliest surviving piece of silver is a standing cup of 1594, now in the

Hermitage Museum The State Hermitage Museum ( rus, Государственный Эрмитаж, r=Gosudarstvennyj Ermitaž, p=ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)ɨj ɪrmʲɪˈtaʂ, links=no) is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is the list of ...

. On 12 October 1593, he married Aeltgen Verhorst, with whom he had a son. After his wife's death, he married Catharina van Wapenveldt, with whom he had three children. He is believed to have died on 25 or 26 August 1627. Adam van Vianen's son

Christiaen van Vianen Christiaen van Vianen (1598 – 1671) was a Dutch silversmith and draughtsman. He was the son of Adam van Vianen and worked in his father's auricular style as a silversmith and designer, also working in Germany and England. In 1630 he moved to ...

was considered to be his father's equal in skill, according to

Joachim von Sandrart Joachim von Sandrart (12 May 1606 – 14 October 1688) was a German Baroque art-historian and painter, active in Amsterdam during the Dutch Golden Age. He is most significant for his collection of biographies of Dutch and German artists the ''Te ...

. He became known along with his brother for the

of cartilaginous arabesques in baroque art. According to some, Paulus designed them and Adam transformed them into three-dimensional objects.

Memorial ewer of 1614

Adam van Vianen - Memorial Gilded Ewer for Amsterdam Guild in Memory of his Brother BK-1976-75

Especially important is a gilded ewer of 1614 in the

Rijksmuseum The Rijksmuseum () is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history and is located in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough of Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the St ...

. This is "a strikingly original work that is largely abstract and completely sculptural in its conception", and was commissioned by the Amsterdam goldsmiths' guild to commemorate the death of Paul in 1613, despite neither brother living in Amsterdam or being a member of the guild. The piece became famous and appears in several

Dutch Golden Age painting Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history roughly spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) for Dutch independence. The new Dutch Republ ...

s, both

still life A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, m ...

s and

history painting History painting is a genre in painting defined by its subject matter rather than any artistic style or specific period. History paintings depict a moment in a narrative story, most often (but not exclusively) Greek and Roman mythology and Bible ...

s, "no doubt in part because its bizarre form allowed it to pass as an object from an ancient and foreign land", and so useful for

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...

scenes and the like. According to James Trilling, it "is one of the very few ornamental works that deserve recognition as art-historical turning points. Van Vianen's breakthrough was the introduction of inchoate or indeterminate form, which paved the way for both Rococo and modernist ornament." It was raised by a lengthy process of chasing from a single sheet of silver, and chasing was the main technique used in auricular silver.Schroder in

Oxford Art Online Oxford Art Online is an Oxford University Press online gateway into art research, which was launched in 2008. It provides access to several online art reference works, including Grove Art Online (originally published in 1996 in a print version, ''T ...

, "Adam van Vianen" Adam van Vianen - Plaque with the Wedding of Peleus and Thetis - Walters 542399

Biography

Memorial ewer of 1614

References

Further reading