Paludanus Selbstbildnis als Wachsbossierer Wien

Willem van den Broecke, Willem van den Broeck or Guillelmus Paludanus (1530 – 1579) was a Flemish sculptor, painter, draughtsman and architect. He was a scion of a family of artists, which had its origins in

Mechelen Mechelen (; french: Malines ; traditional English name: MechlinMechelen has been known in English as ''Mechlin'', from where the adjective ''Mechlinian'' is derived. This name may still be used, especially in a traditional or historical contex ...

and some members of which later moved to Antwerp. Willem was active in

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,

and also worked and likely trained in Italy for a long period.Willem van den Broecke
at the Netherlands Institute for Art History He was known for his small scale works, many of which were executed in alabaster.Willem van den Broecke, called Guilielmus Paladanus, ''Hercules''
at Daniel Katz Gallery He was, along with Cornelis Floris, the leading sculptor in Antwerp in the second half of the 16th century.Ethan Matt Kavaler, ''The Diaspora of Netherlandish Sculptors in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century.'' In: Konrad Ottenheym, Krista De Jonge (eds.), The Low Countries at the Crossroads. Netherlandish Architecture as an Export Product in Early Modern Europe (1480-1680) (Architectura Moderna 8) (Brepols: Turnhout 2013), 89-101 He was also one of the designers of the Antwerp City Hall. He enjoyed the patronage of an elite international clientele of church institutions, Spanish nobility, princes of Protestant territories as well as patricians from Augsburg.

Life

Willem van den Broecke was born in

as the son of Hendrick van den Broeck, of whom it is not known whether he was an artist. His family members included artists who were active in Mechelen. His family also used the Latinized name 'Paludanus'. The Latinized name is based on the Latin translation ('palus') of the Dutch word 'broeck' (forming part of his family name) which means a marsh or swamp land. He was a brother of the painters Hendrick van den Broeck, Joris and Pieter. The painter

Chrispijn van den Broeck Chrispijn van den Broeck (1523 – c. 1591) was a Flemish painter, draughtsman, print designer and designer of temporary decorations. Willem likely continued his studies in Antwerp in the workshop of Claudius or Cornelis Floris and may have travelled to Italy before 1557. He may have lived there in Rome and in Florence where his brother worked and in other cities. He was registered as a master sculptor in the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke in the year 1557.Ph. Rombouts and Th. van Lerius, ''De liggeren en andere historische archieven der Antwerpsche sint Lucasgilde''
Volume 1, Antwerp, 1864, p. 266 He became a citizen of Antwerp in 1559.
at Sotheby's In an active career spanning 20 years he developed an international network among the intellectual, artistic and ruling elite of his time. He received commissions from local as well as foreign patrons. The commissions executed for patrons in Augsburg in 1560 were likely shipped from Antwerp rather than created in Augsburg. In the years 1566 and 1567 he sculpted three figures for the cathedral of Antwerp. He was further able to secure the patronage of the Duke of Alba, the Governor of the Netherlands in the period 1567–1573, and the Duke's court in Brussels. He enjoyed the protection of the Spanish humanist Benito Arias Montano who resided temporarily in Antwerp and helped him with his contacts at the court. In 1571 the Duke of Alba commissioned a larger-than-life statue of himself to commemorate his reconquest of a large part of the Netherlands and in particular his defeat of the rebels at Jemgum in 1568. The monument was executed by Willem van den Broecke and the Antwerp sculptor Jacob Jongheling after a program proposed by Arias Montanus, that was inspired by

Piero Valeriano Pierio Valeriano (1477–1558), born Giovanni Pietro dalle Fosse, was a prominent Italian Renaissance humanist, specializing in the early study of Egyptian hieroglyphs. His most famous works were ''On the Ill Fortune of Learned Men (De litterator ...

's ''Hieroglyphica'' of 1556. The statue was to be placed inside the citadel of Antwerp, which the Duke himself had built earlier. It depicts Alba in the guise of a Christian Hercules. The statue was upon its completion condemned by both the Spanish rulers and the Dutch regime as an improper expression of pride. The pursuit of glory in a ruler - and in particular, a subordinate thereof - was regarded as unbecoming under the Christian and classical principles upheld by the Spanish and Dutch courts. The statue was seen as nothing less than an act of self-glorification by Alba, which bordered on disloyalty. After the Duke was recalled to Spain, the statue was dismantled without pomp in 1574 and subsequently destroyed. Some prints made before the destruction of the statue show what it looked like. Through the Brussels court he also obtained in 1571 a commission to make a ''reja'' (stone enclosure or fence) for a monastery in

Alba de Tormes Alba de Tormes is a municipality in the province of Salamanca, western Spain, part of the autonomous community of Castile and León Castile and León ( es, Castilla y León ; ast-leo, Castiella y Llión ; gl, Castela e León ) is an auton ...

. Although he worked on the designs for this project and received several payments for it, it is not clear whether it was ever finished by van den Broecke. Willem van den Broecke - Cypris and Eros

Willem van den Broecke - Cypris and Eros

The artist was prosperous and bought in 1567 a plot of land on the Korte Vaartstraat in central Antwerp on which he built a house named ''De liefde'' ('Love'). A relief by his hand referred to as ''The Garden of Eden'' or ''Love'' (collection of the

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 Muse ...

, Brussels) is believed to have been part of a chimney piece of his house called ''De Liefde'' ('Love'), built by the artist in Antwerp. Van den Broecke later bought the plot adjacent to his home on which he constructed another house. He was married to Sibilla Rausmaer. There is no information about the date of the marriage or the background of his wife. The couple had five children of whom Rafael, probably born around 1560, became a well-known sculptor. Another son Elias trained under his uncle Pieter in Mechelen and became a member of the Guild of St Luke of Antwerp in 1596 as a house painter. The names of the pupils of Willem van den Broecke have not been recorded, but it is known he operated a large workshop in which he employed a significant number of pupils, many of whom came from his home town Mechelen. His work found a following among workshops in Mechelen and Antwerp, which created reliefs borrowing iconographic motives from van den Broecke. He operated his workshop as a skilled businessman, reproducing designs that were selling well, supplying other workshops with 'prefabricates' and selling finished works from his house De Liefde. Van den Broecke died in

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,

Work

Willem van den Broecke was a prolific artist who was active as a sculptor, painter, draughtsman and architect. Van den Broecke was a varied sculptor who worked in many materials including alabaster, marble, sandstone, wax and terracotta.Aleksandra Lipińska, ''Moving Sculptures: Southern Netherlandish alabasters from the 16th to 17th centuries in Central and Northern Europe'', BRILL, 2014, p. 56 His subject matter ranged from religious to mythological representations and portraits. He created large-scale works such as retables, partitions and fireplaces. He was particularly known in Antwerp for his small images, jewelry for cabinets of curiosities and the sculpted decorations of facades. Van den Broecke's surviving works in his home country are relatively few. There are busts of

Jan van Eyck Jan van Eyck ( , ; – July 9, 1441) was a painter active in Bruges who was one of the early innovators of what became known as Early Netherlandish painting, and one of the most significant representatives of Early Northern Renaissance art. Ac ...

and

Albrecht Dürer Albrecht Dürer (; ; hu, Ajtósi Adalbert; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528),Müller, Peter O. (1993) ''Substantiv-Derivation in Den Schriften Albrecht Dürers'', Walter de Gruyter. . sometimes spelled in English as Durer (without an umlaut) or Due ...

that he made for the portal of Jan Adriaenssen's house in the Lange Nieuwstraat in Antwerp (now in the collection of the Museum aan de Stroom, Antwerp). He is further known as one of the designers of the Antwerp City Hall. The majority of his output was produced for the export market such as various religious reliefs that were made for Augsburg, Schwerin and Lübeck. His most important lost work was exported to the monastery church in

in Spain.

Willem van den Broecke - The Elevation of the Brazen Serpent

He was particularly known for his small-scale works, often executed in alabaster for which his native town Mechelen was famous. His earliest known work is the ''Cypris and Eros'' (1561, private collection). This small-scale marble statue was made not long after his return from Italy and shows the influence of Michelangelo's allegorical statues on tombs in Florence as well as Titian's Danaë. At the same time the nude figure prefigures the voluptuous beauties of the Flemish painters Rubens and Jordaens. Ten years later van den Broecke made the terracotta ''Anatomical study'' (

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 do ...

), an écorché of a standing man. He is leaning against a tree trunk from which hangs the man's skin. In his right hand he holds the instrument with which he was skinned, a knife without a blade. In his left hand he holds part of his skin. The figure represents possibly Saint Bartholomew. An écorché such as this work was unprecedented in Flemish sculpture of the 16th century. A similar figure executed in bronze has been attributed to van den Broecke (Christie's New York auction of 29 January 2014). Alabaster was one of his favorite materials in which he executed small-scale statuettes as well as larger religious reliefs. Characteristic of these reliefs is that the three-dimensional figures in the foreground are almost completely set off from the pronounced bas-relief of the background. His relief technique was likely gained mostly from his contact with the work of Andrea Sansovino and his pupil

Jacopo Sansovino Jacopo d'Antonio Sansovino (2 July 1486 – 27 November 1570) was an Italian Renaissance sculptor and architect, best known for his works around the Piazza San Marco in Venice. These are crucial works in the history of Venetian Renaissance archi ...

. In his reliefs he quoted antique and Italian motifs he would have seen in Italy. In his view of Jerusalem in the background of the ''Crucifixion'' of 1562 (

Maximilian Museum The Maximilian Museum is a large, public museum housed in a palatial building erected in 1546 in Augsburg, Germany. It houses a notable collection of decorative arts. Augsburg was the leading German center of sculpture, painting, and, especially, o ...

in Augsburg) he depicted buildings of a specific city, Florence. Willem van den Broecke - The Resurrection of Christ

He made various reliefs of ''Calvaries'' (depictions of the ''Crucifixion of Christ'') in alabaster. These were likely destined for private devotion in residential homes (

, Augsburg and Louvre Museum, Paris).Willem VAN DEN BROECK, dit Guilielmus PALUDANUS, Malines, 1530 - Anvers, 1579 - 1580, ''Le Calvaire''
at the Louvre His oldest alabaster relief is the ''Crucifixion of Christ'', dated 1560 (

in Augsburg). It was part of a retable of van den Broecke that was originally commissioned in 1560 by Bartholomeus May and his wife Sibilla Rembold for the Dominican church in Augsburg. The other parts of the retable include the ''Last Supper'', the ''Sacrifice of Abraham'', the ''Sacrifice of Melchizedek'' and the ''Resurrection of Christ'' (all in the

in Augsburg). The Maximilian Museum holds another alabaster relief of the ''Crucifixion of Christ'', signed and dated 1562, which was likely made for a private residence. It has its counterpart in a ''Crucifixion'' in the Louvre. Van den Broecke made a second set of reliefs for the German market. This set was made for the chapel of the

Schwerin Palace Schwerin Castle (also known as ''Schwerin Palace'', german: Schweriner Schloss, ), is a schloss located in the city of Schwerin, the capital of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state, Germany. It is situated on an island in the city's main lake, Lake Schwe ...

that was rebuilt by John Albert I, Duke of Mecklenburg in the period from 1560 to 1563. Of the six reliefs only one, representing ''The Elevation of the Brazen Serpent'', is signed by van den Broecke. On stylistic grounds four other reliefs in this group can be attributed to van den Broecke. However, the ''Adoration of the Shepherds'' is certainly not by his hand. A third series of seven alabaster reliefs made by Willem van den Broecke in the period 1568 to 1572 decorates the pulpit of Lübeck Cathedral. The reliefs in this last series are closely based on the models for the Augsburg and Schwerin reliefs. Willem van den Broecke - Sleeping nymph

He also created a number of small statuettes for a discerning clientele that appreciated stylish compositions and a detailed execution in precious material. These works are characterized by their remarkable quality of execution, as the alabaster allows to precisely give form to the expressions of the faces, the folds of the clothes and the details of the accessories. These works show the influence of Michelangelo as well as that of

Giambologna Giambologna (1529 – 13 August 1608), also known as Jean de Boulogne (French), Jehan Boulongne (Flemish) and Giovanni da Bologna (Italian), was the last significant Italian Renaissance sculptor, with a large workshop producing large and small ...

, whose work he may have seen in Italy. Examples of such sculptures are the ''Sleeping nymph'' (c. 1550-1560,

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 ...

) and the ''Hercules'' (at Daniel Katz Gallery).Willem van den Broecke, ''Sleeping Nymph''
at the Rijksmuseum It is recorded that the artists made portraits in wax but no works of this kind are currently attributed to him.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Broecke, Willem van den 1530 births 1580 deaths Artists from Mechelen 16th-century Flemish sculptors Flemish Renaissance painters Flemish portrait painters Painters from Antwerp