RKD STUDIES

In the same way as the Great Elector preferably appointed Dutchmen as court painters, Frederick the Great favoured France’s artists with similar exclusivity. To him we owe the small but choice collection of French paintings, especially by Antoine Watteau, Jean Baptist Pater and Nicolas Lancret, which we can still admire in the Prussian castles and in the Berlin museum. His court painter was the Frenchman Antoine Pesne (1683-1757), who almost became a native in the nearly forty years of activity in Prussia. His portraits and depictions of elegant festivities do not deny a context with his homeland, with Watteau, Pater and Lancret. However, his contemporaries couldn’t but notice, that he found Rembrandt’s art as a source of inspiration. Matthias Oesterreich is of the opinion, that Pesne only started to imitate Rembrandt’s manner of painting in his later years and ‘that he can be equaled without qualms with Rembrandt’.¹ The marquis d’ Argens even went so far as to claim, that his likeness of Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff ‘efface un Rembrandt!’ (outweighs a Rembrandt) [1].²

1
Antoine Pesne
Portrait of the architect Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff (1699-1753), dated 1737
Doorn (Utrecht), Kasteel Huis Doorn, inv./cat.nr. HuD 1717

When we reduce these sentimental exaggerations to normal proportions, we can really say that Pesne did paint some genre-like portraits in the manner of Rembrandt. The portrait of Nicolas Vleughels in the Louvre (of 1723, so in no way a late work) [2] belongs to this group, as also do works in the Neues Palais in Potsdam [3] and in Schwerin [4], which adjusted Rembrandt’s Saskia portraits to the smooth taste of the 18th century [5-6].³ In his manner of Rembrandt imitation he adjoined his compatriot Raoux, i.e. he took a flamboyant composition from Rem5brandt, polished the surface in the manner of Dou and lighted it like Schalcken. Pesne’s pupil Bernhard Rode (1725-1797) from Berlin painted mainly historical scenes and decorations for the Prussian castles in the French manner. But in his cabinet paintings he sometimes fell back on the compositions and techniques of the young Rembrandt, in the same way as the Zicks did, both father and son [7-10].⁴

2
Antoine Pesne
Portrait of the painter Nicolas Vleughels (1668-1737), dated 1723
Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv./cat.nr. 7173

Furthermore we also have to look for ‘Hollandisms’ in the smaller arts. The engraver Georg Friedrich Schmidt (1712-1775) is a good example in this respect: we only need to compare his self-portrait of 1758 [12] with Rembrandt’s etching of 1648 (B. 22) [13]! After his return from Paris and Russia (1762) he engraved many Rembrandt paintings and paintings of his school,⁵ whereas before 1753 he worked almost exclusively after French examples. He did not disdain to take Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich as an example and thus a Rembrandt imitation in the third hand arose [11].

11
Georg Friedrich Schmidt after Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich
The presentation of the Christ-child in the temple, dated 1769
Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, inv./cat.nr. A 24085

Schmidt also possessed an etching plate of Rembrandt which he reworked in his own taste [14].⁶ For him Rembrandt wasn’t the great, magic artist, but rather a representative of Dutch, bourgeois realism. This spirit he found in pupils and imitators alike.⁷ Paintings by him are unknown nowadays, just like those of his pupils Johann Gottlieb Glume (1711-1778) [15]⁸ and Joachim Martin Falbe (1709-1782) [16-18], of whom we do have, however, drawings in the manner of Jan Josef Horemans [19].⁹

14
and Georg Friedrich Schmidt Rembrandt
Old man shading his eyes with his hand, c. 1639 and 1770
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv./cat.nr. RP-P-1961-1133

15
Johann Gottlieb Glume
Portrait of the artist Joachim Martin Falbe (1709-1782), drawing, dated 1747
Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), Philadelphia Museum of Art - John G. Johnson Collection, inv./cat.nr. 1985-52-17398

16
Joachim Martin Falbe
Female half-length figure wit a hat and rode, dated 1769
Private collection

17
Joachim Martin Falbe
Portrait of a man with a feathered beret, 1752 gedateerd
Amsterdam, Rijksprentenkabinet, inv./cat.nr. RP-P-2011-66-5

18
Joachim Martin Falbe
Male portrait
Berlin (city, Germany), Kupferstichkabinett der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, inv./cat.nr. 7201

Daniel Chodowiecki (1726-1801), a real narrator of the bourgeois, everyday life of his time [20-21], was in Berlin a pupil of the Englishman Haid,¹⁰ who seems to have introduced him to the graphics of Rembrandt. Small works in oils and in enamels from his early days with Rembrandt-like light effects and Dutch costumes can confirm this. In addition, some etchings, which are explicitly described as ‘after Rembrandt’ [22]. Orientals, Turks, candle-light effects in the Dutch taste frequently appear in his early works, although he did not try to imitate Rembrandt’s etching technique. As a prolific draughtsman and illustrator of the Berlin bourgeoisie, Chodowiecki is altogether independent, but it is charming to see how the new style slowly developed under the shelter of the Dutch realism. For Chodowiecki, as for many others of his time, Rembrandt doesn’t stand out as a genius among talents. Dutch minor masters such as Adriaen van Ostade, Aert van der Neer and Godfried Schalcken in their turn offered a wealth of stimulating motifs, that one could use.¹¹

19
Joachim Martin Falbe after Rembrandt
A scholar in his study
Haarlem, Teylers Museum, inv./cat.nr. KG 01155

Although the area of graphics is only lightly touched upon in our study, the hobby of the great Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) must be mentioned here. In his leisure time he made some very rare etchings after Rembrandt and after Schmidt-Rembrandt [23].¹² Another royal amateur, Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia (1688-1740), even painted after Dutch examples. When Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein came to Berlin around 1778, he saw some beautiful pictures by him, ‘especially a few old heads after Abraham Bloemaert’.¹³ In the hunting lodge Grunewald hangs a Bathseba of 1737, ‘free after G. Flinck’ [24].¹⁴

22
Daniel Chodowiecki after Rembrandt
Landscape with buildings on a hill-top, dated 1759
Private collection

23
Alexander von Humboldt after Georg Friedrich Schmidt after Rembrandt
Man in oriental costume, 1788 gedateerd
Whereabouts unknown

24
Frederick William I of Prussia Friedrich Wilhelm I von Preußen possibly after Govert Flinck possibly after Gerard Dou
Bathsheba alone with David's letter (2 Samuël 11:3), dated 1737
Grunewald (Berlin), Jagdschloss Grunewald