Bartholomeus Strobel the Younger or Bartholomäus in German or Bartlomiej in Polish (11 April 1591 (baptised) – after 1650) was a Baroque painter from

Silesia Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is split ...

, who worked in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

, Silesia, and finally

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

, where he emigrated to escape the disruption of the

Thirty Years War The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, lasting from 1618 to 1648. Fought primarily in Central Europe, an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of battl ...

.Jagiello He painted portraits and religious works for the complicated ruling elites of the region and religious orders. His largest and most impressive painting, the '' Feast of Herod with the Beheading of St John the Baptist'' in the Museo del Prado, combines an ostensible religious subject with a lavish depiction of a contemporary court banquet and many portraits of leading figures in Central Europe, whose identification remains uncertain. Two much smaller works, a ''Feast of Herod'' now in the

Alte Pinakothek The Alte Pinakothek (, ''Old Pinakothek'') is an art museum located in the Kunstareal area in Munich, Germany. It is one of the oldest galleries in the world and houses a significant collection of Old Master paintings. The name Alte (Old) Pi ...

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

, and ''Daniel and Cyrus before the Idol Bel'', now

National Museum, Warsaw The National Museum in Warsaw ( pl, Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie), popularly abbreviated as MNW, is a national museum in Warsaw, one of the largest museums in Poland and the largest in the capital. It comprises a rich collection of ancient art ( Eg ...

, repeat the distinctive formula of lavish and rather decadent feasting, placed in a complicated picture space with recessed areas at the back, and with many of the figures wearing fantasy versions of contemporary costume.

Background and training

Strobel was born to a Protestant German family in what is now

Wrocław Wrocław (; german: Breslau, or . ; Silesian German: ''Brassel'') is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, rou ...

, Poland, which he would have known by its German name of Breslau. Breslau was then part of the

Lands of the Bohemian Crown The Lands of the Bohemian Crown were a number of incorporated states in Central Europe during the medieval and early modern periods connected by feudal relations under the Bohemian kings. The crown lands primarily consisted of the Kingdom of ...

within the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. From the accession of Otto I in 962 ...

, with the Catholic Habsburg monarchy in possession of both, although most of the aristocracy and gentry were

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...

. Strobel's grandfather had moved to Breslau from

Saxony Saxony (german: Sachsen ; Upper Saxon: ''Saggsn''; hsb, Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony (german: Freistaat Sachsen, links=no ; Upper Saxon: ''Freischdaad Saggsn''; hsb, Swobodny stat Sakska, links=no), is a landlocked state of ...

, as some sort of craftsman. In the next generation, Bartholomäus the Elder was a painter, among other artistic and decorative skills, who in 1586 married the daughter of a local painter, Andreas Ruhl the Elder (d. 1567), and ran a workshop where his son Bartholomeus the Younger was trained. Bartholomeus the Younger completed a five-year apprenticeship in 1602, when the workshop had nine apprentices. By 1610 Strobel was working in Prague, and very possibly visited

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, but no documentation for this survives. When Bartholomäus the Elder died in 1612, Bartholomeus the Younger was left 20 thalers and items including a painting by

Bartholomeus Spranger Bartholomeus Spranger or Bartholomaeus SprangerBartholomeus Spranger
at the

, the court painter to

Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II (18 July 1552 – 20 January 1612) was Holy Roman Emperor (1576–1612), King of Hungary and Croatia (as Rudolf I, 1572–1608), King of Bohemia (1575–1608/1611) and Archduke of Austria (1576–1608). He was a member of the H ...

, the leading artistic centre in the region. His style in his history paintings remained a late, even rather archaic, continuation of the

Northern Mannerism 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, e ...

of Spranger and other artists at Rudolf's court, whose last years he participated in.

Career

In 1618, when he is documented in Danzig (Gdańsk), he received a "Freibrief" from the Emperor, enabling him to work anywhere in the

without the permission of the local

guild A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes ...

; the award was repeated in 1624. The early part of his career is only patchily documented, and few works survive, but he was retained as court artist by the Habsburg Archduke

Charles of Austria, Bishop of Wroclaw Charles of Austria (german: Karl von Österreich; 7 August 1590 – 28 December 1624), nicknamed ''the Posthumous'', a member of the Imperial House of Habsburg, was Prince-Bishop of Wrocław (Breslau) from 1608, Prince-Bishop of Brixen from 1613 ...

, leader of the Imperial party in Silesia, and from 1625 by his successor Prince

Karol Ferdynand Vasa Prince Charles Ferdinand Vasa ( pl, Karol Ferdynand Waza; 13 October 1613 in Warsaw – 9 May 1655 in Wyszków), was a Polish prince, priest, Bishop of Wrocław from 1625, bishop of Płock from 1640 and Duke of Opole from 1648 to 1655. Biograph ...

, son of King Sigismund III of Poland. By the mid-1620s he was evidently rather successful, and other patrons included

John George I, Elector of Saxony John George I (5 March 1585 – 8 October 1656) was Elector of Saxony from 1611 to 1656. He led Saxony through the Thirty Years' War, which dominated his 45 year reign. Biography Born in Dresden, John George was the second son of the Elector C ...

, King

Sigismund III Vasa Sigismund III Vasa ( pl, Zygmunt III Waza, lt, Žygimantas Vaza; 20 June 1566 – 30 April 1632 N.S.) was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1587 to 1632 and, as Sigismund, King of Sweden and Grand Duke of Finland from 1592 to ...

of Poland, and his successor Ferdinand II. He had also painted the previous emperor, Matthias. The early years of the

brought instability to Silesia, with a string of invasions by the two sides leading to huge destruction and flight of the population. In 1632 Stobel painted the portrait of the invading Prince

Ulrik of Denmark (1611–1633) Prince Ulrik of Denmark (2 February 1611 – 12 August 1633) was a son of King Christian IV of Denmark and Norway and his consort Queen Anne Catherine of Brandenburg. As the fourth-born son, he bore the merely titular rank of Duke of Holstein and ...

, but did not get paid, as Ulrik was murdered the next year. When an outbreak of plague added to the desperate situation in Breslau, Strobel decided to leave Silesia for Poland, and settled in Gdańsk in 1634, receiving many commissions there and in other cities, both for portraits of burghers and aristocrats, and paintings for churches, including the royal chapel of St.Casimir in

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...

, (1636–37), and in Toruń in 1634. Thereafter he is described as "commuting between Danzig, Thorn and Elbing" (that is to say Gdańsk,

Toruń )'' , image_skyline = , image_caption = , image_flag = POL Toruń flag.svg , image_shield = POL Toruń COA.svg , nickname = City of Angels, Gingerbread city, Copernicus Town , pushpin_map = Kuyavian-Pom ...

, and Elbląg). Strobel had met King

Władysław IV Vasa Władysław IV Vasa; lt, Vladislovas Vaza; sv, Vladislav IV av Polen; rus, Владислав IV Ваза, r=Vladislav IV Vaza; la, Ladislaus IV Vasa or Ladislaus IV of Poland (9 June 1595 – 20 May 1648) was King of Poland, Grand Duke of ...

of Poland (r. 1632–1649) in 1624, before his accession, and made a drawing for him when he visited Breslau on a European tour. In 1639 he appointed Strobel court painter, and may have commissioned the Prado ''Feast of Herod with the Beheading of St John the Baptist'' around this time, though the Prado date it to "1630–33". He had already painted a much smaller version of the subject, now

, which is dated to about 1625, and is in a similarly fantastical style. Indeed, biblical royal feasts were a speciality of his, with several versions of the ''Feast of

Belshazzar Belshazzar (Babylonian cuneiform: ''Bēl-šar-uṣur'', meaning "Bel, protect the king"; ''Bēlšaʾṣṣar'') was the son and crown prince of Nabonidus (556–539 BC), the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Through his mother he might h ...

'' attributed to him or his circle. Apart from the two "Feasts" most of his significant works are in museums or churches in Poland. According to Arnold Houbraken, he received the Dutch painter Gillis Schagen in Elbing in 1637,Bartholomäus Strobel Biography
in ''De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen'' (1718) by Houbraken, courtesy of the

Digital library for Dutch literature The Digital Library for Dutch Literature (Dutch: Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren or DBNL) is a website (showing the abbreviation as dbnl) about Dutch language and Dutch literature. It contains thousands of literary texts, second ...

and was court painter to the emperor at that time.

Personal life

In 1624 he married Magdalena Mitwentz, daughter of a merchant, and the following year was living in a good house in Breslau. He became a friend of the leading German poet of his day,

Martin Opitz Martin Opitz von Boberfeld (23 December 1597 – 20 August 1639) was a German poet, regarded as the greatest of that nation during his lifetime. Biography Opitz was born in Bunzlau (Bolesławiec) in Lower Silesia, in the Principality of ...

, after Opitz arrived in Silesia in 1624: Opitz praised his work in verse, and they shared many patrons. In 1643, after a serious illness, he converted to Roman Catholicism with the Jesuits at Toruń. His death date is uncertain, but his last documented mention has been creeping forward as research proceeds, from 1644 in the 1996 Prado Catalogue, to 1647 in Jagiello, to 1650 in the 2012 Prado Guide, in which year he was 58. He is presumed to have died around then, perhaps in Toruń.Prado Catalogo, 377; Jagiello; Prado Guide, 409 which says he died "after 1650".

Notes

References

*Harosimowicz, Jan (2002)
""What could be better now than the struggle for freedom and faith", Confessionalization and the Estates' Quest for Liberation as Reflected in the Silesian Arts of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries"
from the exhibition catalogue ''1648 – War and Peace in Europe'', 2002, Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte,

Münster Münster (; nds, Mönster) is an independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a state di ...

*Harasimowicz, Jan (2010), ''Schwärmergeist und Freiheitsdenken: Beiträge zur Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte Schlesiens in der Frühen Neuzeit'', 2010, Böhlau Verlag, Köln/Weimar, , 9783412206161
google books
pp. 144–149, more Opitz quoted, and bibliography in note 8 on p. 144 *Ossowski, Zdzislaw, "La Degollación de San Juan Bautista y el banquete de Herodes" del Museo del Prado" (in Spanish)
PDF
''Boletín del Museo del Prado'', Vol. 10, Nº. 28, 1989, pp. 13–24, ISSN 0210-8143
Jagiello, Jakub, biography
from the culture.pl site of the Instytut Adama Mickiewicza, Warsaw, with list of works
Prado website biography
(in Spanish) *''The Prado Guide'', 2012, Museo Nacional del Prado,

Background and training

Career

Personal life

Notes

References

Further reading