Adriaen van Utrecht (

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

, 12 January 1599 – 1652) was a Flemish painter known mainly for his sumptuous banquet

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

s, game and fruit still lifes, fruit garlands, market and kitchen scenes and depictions of live poultry in farmyards. His paintings, especially the hunting and game pieces, show the influence of

Frans Snyders Frans Snyders or Frans Snijders (11 November 1579, Antwerp – 19 August 1657, Antwerp) was a Flemish painter of animals, hunting scenes, market scenes and still lifes. He was one of the earliest specialist animaliers and he is credited with ...

. The two artists are considered the main inventors of the genre of the pronkstillevens, i.e. still lifes that emphasized abundance by depicting a diversity of objects, fruits, flowers and dead game, often together with living people and animals.Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms: Pronkstilleven
/ref> Van Utrecht also painted a number of flower still lifes. He was a regular collaborator with leading Antwerp painters who had been pupils or assistants of

Peter Paul Rubens Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque traditi ...

, such as

Jacob Jordaens Jacob (Jacques) Jordaens (19 May 1593 – 18 October 1678) was a Flemish painter, draughtsman and tapestry designer known for his history paintings, genre scenes and portraits. After Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, he was the leading F ...

David Teniers the Younger David Teniers the Younger or David Teniers II (bapt. 15 December 1610 – 25 April 1690) was a Flemish Baroque painter, printmaker, draughtsman, miniaturist painter, staffage painter, copyist and art curator. He was an extremely versatile art ...

Erasmus Quellinus II Erasmus Quellinus the Younger or Erasmus Quellinus II (1607–1678) was a Flemish painter, engraver, draughtsman and tapestry designer who worked in various genres including history, portrait, allegorical, battle and animal paintings. He was a ...

Gerard Seghers Gerard SeghersGerard Seghers
at the

Theodoor Rombouts,

Abraham van Diepenbeeck Abraham van Diepenbeeck (9 May 1596 (baptised) – between May and September 1675) was Dutch painter of the Flemish School. Biography Van Diepenbeeck was baptised in 's-Hertogenbosch. After having received a classical education, he becam ...

and

Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert (1613 – 23 January 1654) was a Dutch Republic-born Flemish Baroque painter. Biography Willeboirts Bosschaert was born in Bergen op Zoom, where his Catholic family had moved in the late sixteenth century. He moved ...

Life

Adriaen van Utrecht was born in Antwerp as the son of Abel van Utrecht en Anne Huybrecht. In 1614 he became a pupil of Herman de Neyt, a painter and art dealer who owned an extensive art collection. After completing his apprenticeship with de Neyt, he travelled to France, Germany and Italy, where he worked for the local courts. He returned to Antwerp in 1625 following his father's death in the preceding year and he became a free master of the local

Guild of Saint Luke The Guild of Saint Luke was the most common name for a city guild for painters and other artists in early modern Europe, especially in the Low Countries. They were named in honor of the Evangelist Luke, the patron saint of artists, who was ident ...

.F. J. Van den Branden, 'Geschiedenis der Antwerpsche schilderschool', 2 vols (Antwerp, 1883), pp. 1082–1084 Adriaen van Utrecht
at the

Netherlands Institute for Art History The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: RKD-Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center i ...

At the wedding of his sister Catharina and the painter

Simon de Vos Simon de Vos (20 October 1603 in Antwerp – 15 October 1676 in Antwerp) was a Flemish painter, draughtsman and art collector. He started his career making small-format cabinet pictures of genre scenes, in particular of Caravaggesque merry co ...

in 1628, he met Constancia van Nieulandt (or 'van Nieuwlandt'), the 17-year-old daughter of the painter and poet

Willem van Nieulandt II Willem or Guiliam van Nieulandt, sometimes Nieuwelandt (1584–1635) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, engraver, poet and playwright from Antwerp. Biography His father Adrien van Nieulandt the elder was born to a family of artists of Flemish orig ...

. The following year van Utrecht married Constancia. The couple had 13 children. Constantia became a painter and poet in her own right. She is believed to have shared the work in her husband's studio and may have painted partial or entire copies and variations of her husband's work. A still life with fruit fully signed by Constancia van Utrecht and dated 1647 is entirely in the manner of her husband.F Meijer, ''Some Flower paintings by Adriaen van Utrecht 1599–1652, a Still Life of Fruit by Constancia van Utrecht (after 1606- after 1647 and a portrait of Adriaen and Constancia, '' in: Oud Holland, 109, 1995, pp. 165–169 Van Utrecht became a successful artist who received international commissions from the Emperor of Germany, king

Philip IV of Spain Philip IV ( es, Felipe, pt, Filipe; 8 April 160517 September 1665), also called the Planet King (Spanish: ''Rey Planeta''), was King of Spain from 1621 to his death and (as Philip III) King of Portugal from 1621 to 1640. Philip is remembered f ...

and the Prince of Orange. He could afford to live in spacious dwellings on the Meir in Antwerp, the most prestigious location in the city. His fortune seems to have declined in the late 1640s, possibly due to ill health and by the time he died in Antwerp in 1652 he had lost most of his wealth. Between 1626 and 1646 he trained at least seven known pupils, including Philip Gyselaer (1634/35), and Cornelis van Engelen.

Work

General

Van Utrecht was mainly a

painter. The range of still life subjects that he tackled was wide and included scenes of fish, meat and vegetable stalls, kitchen scenes often including figures or living animals adding a narrative element, displays of game in larders or as hunting trophies, still lifes of fish, fruit and vegetables. More recently, on the basis of a signed and dated ''Vase of Flowers'' of 1642, a few still life paintings with bouquets of flowers have been attributed to van Utrecht. Van Utrecht also painted barnyard scenes with living animals, typically including poultry such as chickens, turkeys, ducks and peacocks. His early work was influenced by

. Van Utrecht did not favor bright colours the way Snyders did but rather preferred warm earthen tones, especially grey-green, and strong chiaroscuro effects.Scott A. Sullivan. "Utrecht, Adriaen van." ''

Grove Art Online ''Grove Art Online'' is the online edition of ''The Dictionary of Art'', often referred to as the ''Grove Dictionary of Art'', and part of Oxford Art Online, an internet gateway to online art reference publications of Oxford University Press, ...

''. ''Oxford Art Online''. Oxford University Press. Web. 15 September 2015 The latter was likely derived from his knowledge of Italian painting and in particular the works of followers of

Caravaggio Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio, known as simply Caravaggio (, , ; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the final four years of hi ...

Market and kitchen scenes

Adriaen van Utrecht created market and kitchen scenes which incorporated large still lifes of game, fish, vegetables and fruit. He thus stood in the tradition of this genre as pioneered in the 16th century by artists in Antwerp such as

Pieter Aertsen Pieter Aertsen (1508 – 2 June 1575), called ''Lange Piet'' ("Tall Pete") because of his height, was a Dutch painter in the style of Northern Mannerism. He is credited with the invention of the monumental genre scene, which combines still life ...

and

Joachim Beuckelaer Joachim Beuckelaer (c. 1533 – c. 1570/4) was a Flemish painter specialising in market and kitchen scenes with elaborate displays of food and household equipment. He also painted still lifes with no figures in the central scene.

and as it had been further developed by Frans Snyders in the early 17th century. Adriaen van Utrecht - Fishmonger's Stall

For some of his market and kitchen scenes Adriaen van Utrecht took direct inspiration from compositions by Snyders such as in the '' Fishmonger's Stall'' (

Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent The Museum of Fine Arts ( nl, Museum voor Schone Kunsten, MSK) an art museum in Ghent, Belgium, is situated at the East side of the Citadelpark (near the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst). The museum's collection consists of some 9000 artwor ...

) in which he relied on motifs and compositional elements present in Snyders' ''

Fish market A fish market is a marketplace for selling fish and fish products. It can be dedicated to wholesale trade between fishermen and fish merchants, or to the sale of seafood to individual consumers, or to both. Retail fish markets, a type of wet mar ...

'' (

Kunsthistorisches Museum The Kunsthistorisches Museum ( "Museum of Art History", often referred to as the "Museum of Fine Arts") is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on the Vienna Ring Road, it is crowned with an octagonal d ...

). As in Snyders' composition, van Utrecht's ''Fishmonger Stall'' relies on the human figures and hanging fish to create the vertical component in contrast to the horizontal element of the table. The diagonals are created through the disposition of the fish but van Utrecht is less interested in dynamic movement than Snyders and therefore his diagonal lines are more muted. The figures in van Utrecht's composition were painted by another painter, possibly

Gerard Seghers Gerard SeghersGerard Seghers
at the

Still Life with Lovers'' dated 1631 (

Bowes Museum The Bowes Museum is an art gallery in the town of Barnard Castle, in County Durham in northern England. It was built to designs by Jules Pellechet and John Edward Watson to house the art collection of John Bowes and his wife Joséphine Benoît ...

) in which a woman shirks away from a young man who is trying to place his hand on her bosom. The pair are standing before a table which is covered with an abundance of baskets of fruit, asparagus, artichokes, cabbages, leeks and poultry. On the left side of the painting a monkey is seen pointing towards the pair from a window. Monkeys were typically symbols of unrestrained lust and the monkey's presence emphasizes the moral message of this kitchen scene. The choice of vegetables and birds reinforces this interpretation.

Pronkstillevens

The elaborate still lifes produced by Frans Snyders and Adriaen van Utrecht in the 1640s accentuated overwhelming abundance by depicting a diversity of objects, fruits, flowers, and dead game, often in combination with human and animal figures. Adriaen van Utrecht let the objects spill over from the table on which they were displayed to the floor below such as in the composition ''A pantry'' (

Prado Museum The Prado Museum ( ; ), officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It is widely considered to house one of the world's finest collections of European art, dating from th ...

, 1650). He also relied on Baroque devices, such as a sweeping curtain and background window view, to add movement and depth. These sumptuous still lifes initiated the genre of the pronkstillevens, which was also taken up by painters from the Northern Netherlands. A typical example of a pronkstilleven by van Utrecht is the ''Banquet still life'' (

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 ...

, 1644). In this picture the notion of abundance is emphasized through the depiction of exclusive and expensive imported fruits, an exotic South-American parrot and other items of luxury such as musical instruments and expensive table ware. Given its low vantage point, the large painting (height 185 cm; width 242.5 cm) was likely intended as a chimneypiece. In the '' Still life with parrot'' (also known as the ''Allegory of fire''), dated 1636 (

Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (french: Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, nl, Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België) are a group of art museums in Brussels, Belgium. They include six museums: the Oldmasters Mus ...

), van Utrecht shows an elaborate display of all the foreign and local luxury items, including Chinese porcelain and a parrot, that were available in the Antwerp market. This offers him the opportunity to display his virtuoso skills at rendering all kinds of materials and textures and the reflection of light on various surfaces. In the background there is scene of a man working at a stove stirring a cauldron and moving the bellows. It is clear that van Utrecht intended the composition to be a eulogy of the creative force of fire, which was involved in the production of many of the items depicted in the still life.

Flower pieces

Adriaen van Utrecht- Vanitas - Still Life with Bouquet and Skull

It was not known that van Utrecht painted flower bouquets until the discovery of a piece depicting a vase of flowers which was signed by van Utrecht and dated 1642. Based on this work, several other flower paintings have been attributed to van Utrecht. His flower paintings clearly show the influence of the prominent Antwerp flower painter

Daniel Seghers Daniël Seghers or Daniel Seghers (3 December 1590 – 2 November 1661) was a Flemish Jesuit brother and painter who specialized in flower still lifes. He is particularly well known for his contributions to the genre of flower garland painting.I ...

. The '' Vanitas Still-Life with a Bouquet and a Skull'' (Sotheby's, 29 May 2003, private collection) dated to 1643 was identified as a work by van Utrecht based on the similarity of the flower bouquet to the signed painting of the vase of flowers. The subject of vanitas as depicted here was unusual for van Utrecht and shows that his role in the development of new types of still life has not been sufficiently recognized in art-historical literature.

Collaborations

As was common in Antwerp's art sector at the time, van Utrecht collaborated with other specialist artists, typically figure painters. He is known to have provided the still life elements in paintings by

, Jan Cossiers,

. He is believed to have also collaborated with

, Theodoor Rombouts,

Theodoor van Thulden Theodoor van Thulden (1606–12 July 1669) was a painter, draughtsman and engraver from 's-Hertogenbosch. He is mainly known for his altarpieces, mythological subjects, allegorical works and portraits. He was active in Antwerp, where he had tra ...

and

Jan van den Hoecke Jan van den Hoecke ( – 1651) was a Flemish painter, draughtsman and designer of wall tapestries. He was one of the principal assistants in Rubens' studio in the 1630s. He later traveled to Italy where he resided for a decade in Rome. He subseq ...

. The collaborative work with Jan Cossiers (dated 1639, private collection) depicts van Utrecht with his wife Constancia in a kitchen amidst an extensive still life with game, lobster, fish and vegetables. It is not always clear who painted the figures in the large market and kitchen scenes and recently it has been suggested that

Gerard Seghers Gerard SeghersGerard Seghers
at the

Fishmonger's Stall'' (

Adriaen van Utrecht, Theodoor Rombouts - Kitchen

The collaborations between artists often created opportunities for patronage. Van Utrecht's regular collaborator Willeboirts Bosschaert relied on his good connections with

Constantijn Huygens Sir Constantijn Huygens, Lord of Zuilichem ( , , ; 4 September 159628 March 1687), was a Dutch Golden Age poet and composer. He was also secretary to two Princes of Orange: Frederick Henry and William II, and the father of the scientist C ...

to secure for van Utrecht commissions for decorations at

Huis ten Bosch Huis ten Bosch ( nl, Paleis Huis ten Bosch, ; English: "House in the Woods") is a royal palace in The Hague, Netherlands. It is one of three official residences of the Dutch monarch; the two others being the Noordeinde Palace in The Hague and ...

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

in 1646. Huis ten Bosch was the residence of the Dutch

stadtholder In the Low Countries, ''stadtholder'' ( nl, stadhouder ) was an office of steward, designated a medieval official and then a national leader. The ''stadtholder'' was the replacement of the duke or count of a province during the Burgundian and H ...

Frederik Hendrik of Orange 's widow, Amalia von Solms.

Tapestry design

Van Utrecht also contributed to

tapestry Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven by hand on a loom. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike most woven textiles, where both the warp and the weft threads may ...

designs. In particular, it is known that he was asked by court painter and designer

to assist with a series of tapestries under the title 'Allegory of Time' (c. 1650) made for

Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria (5 January 1614 – 20 November 1662), younger brother of Emperor Ferdinand III, was an Austrian soldier, administrator and patron of the arts. He held a number of military commands, with limited success, and ...

. Several other artists such as

Pieter Thijs Pieter Thijs, Peter Thijs or Pieter Thys (Antwerp, 1624 – Antwerp, 1677) was a Flemish painter of portraits as well as religious and history paintings. He was a very successful artist who worked for the courts in Brussels and The Hague as wel ...

Jan Brueghel the Younger Jan Brueghel (also Bruegel or Breughel) the Younger (, ; ; 13 September 1601 – 1 September 1678) was a Flemish Baroque painter. He was the son of Jan Brueghel the Elder, and grandson of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, both prominent painters who ...

and Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert also worked on the series. Ten preparatory oil sketches that van den Hoecke made for the series have survived (four in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), as have eight tapestries based on the designs for ''Day and Night'' and ''The Months''. Based on the differences between the modelli and the executed tapestries of the tapestries representing the months of January and February, it is believed that Adriaen van Utrecht made improvements to the animals in van den Hoecke's modelli which were then included in the finished works.

Influence

Adriaen van Utrecht - A barn interior with a turkey

Van Utrecht's work influenced Jan Davidsz de Heem, Evaristo Baschenis, and

Nicolas de Largillière Nicolas de Largillière (; 10 October 1656 – 20 March 1746) was a French portrait painter, born in Paris. Biography Early life Largillière's father, a merchant, took him to Antwerp at the age of three. As a boy, he spent nearly two years i ...

. Abraham van Beyeren is believed to have been influenced by van Utrecht's pronkstillevens, which he likely saw in the

for which van Utrecht had contributed decorations in 1646.Walter A. Liedtke, 'Dutch Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art', Volumes 1–2, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2007, p. 34

Collections

Van Utrecht's work is represented in numerous museum collections, including the

Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp The Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (Dutch: ''Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen'', ''KMSKA'') is a museum in Antwerp, Belgium, founded in 1810, that houses a collection of paintings, sculptures and drawings from the fourteenth t ...

, the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central ...

, the Hermitage, the

Nationalmuseet The National Museum of Denmark (Nationalmuseet) in Copenhagen is Denmark's largest museum of cultural history, comprising the histories of Danish and foreign cultures, alike. The museum's main building is located a short distance from Strøget ...

Stockholm Stockholm () is the capital and largest city of Sweden as well as the largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.6 million in the urban area, and 2.4 million in the metropolita ...

, the

, and in the USA the

Getty Museum The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa. The Getty Center is located in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles and fea ...

, Malibu, the Fine Arts Museum,

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, the

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

Fine Arts Museum, the National Gallery Bulgaria. It is also part of public collections in Arras, Belgrade, Brussels, Cambrai, Cologne, Copenhagen, Lithuania, Munich, Tokyo and other cities.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Utrecht, Adriaen Van Flemish Baroque painters Flemish still life painters Painters from Antwerp 1599 births 1652 deaths

Life

Work

General

Market and kitchen scenes

Pronkstillevens

Flower pieces

Collaborations

Tapestry design

Influence

Collections

References

Further reading

External links