(probably) SOUTH GERMAN, CIRCA 1700
Portrait of a Gardener
oil on an octagonal oak panel
34 ½ x 31 inches (94.5 x 79.5 cm.)
GARDENING THIS WEEKEND?
Were you busy working in the garden this weekend? Summer tends to send many people into the garden, whether for some light work or a complete overhaul. Gardening has been a long-held tradition which has grown in popularity across the centuries. Western gardening has its origins in Egypt over 4,000 years ago. As the style spread, it has changed and adapted to different localities and climates, but its essentials remain those of disciplined lines and groupings of plants, usually in walled enclosures. In Europe particularly, gardening was introduced through the expansion of Roman rule and Islam’s spread into Spain.
Monasteries were the main sources of gardening and herbal knowledge, beginning in medieval times. The earliest account of gardening in English, The Feate of Gardening, dating from about 1400, mentions the use of more than 100 plants, with instructions on sowing, planting, and grafting of trees and advice on cultivation of herbs.
At this point, gardening was largely for utility. The emergence of the garden as a form of creative display began in the early 16th century. The Renaissance, with its increased prosperity, brought an upsurge of curiosity about the natural world. The enthusiasm for gardening was also apparent in the arts, with poets conjuring up verbal images of flora and fauna and paintings being liberally adorned with flowers. Botanical science was also born, with notable gardens being founded in Pisa (1543), Padua (1545) and Leiden (1593) with the introduction of the tulip.
DUTCH SCHOOL, CIRCA 1700
A Tulip Study
watercolor with body-color on white paper
9 ¾ x3 5/8 inches (24.6 x 9.2 cm.)
Sold to a Private Collection
By the end of the 17th century, gardens were growing in popularity and gardeners were vital to an age which saw the rise of the landscape garden. In the 17th century, gardeners were already on the top end of the servant hierarchy. The household’s gardener was expected to execute his employer’s garden designs and ideas. His work included the planting and maintenance of the flowerbeds and kitchen garden, hothouses, greenhouses, and orangeries. Often, the chief gardener headed a team of assistants and their positions grew over time reflecting the importance society started placing on gardens. From the 18th to the 19th Century a gardener’s wages increased 6-fold (while most other positions only doubled or tripled at best).
It might seem unusual that this portrait of a servant Gardener was commissioned but, they served a very distinct purpose. Servants were notoriously hard to keep, and in particular gardeners. Such paintings as this were usually intended to be hung in the main communal space below stairs in the servant’s hall and were a reward for loyalty and skill. They were further intended to set an example for the rest of the staff to hopefully emulate.
The Gardner was executed circa 1700 and is among the earliest known paintings of this unique category of portraiture. As the intention was a portrayal set apart from their “betters,” the result was a complete abandonment of artifice, and instead an accurate rendering of reality. A note of lightheartedness has been injected to directly engage the viewer. The fact that the subject is shown smiling, as in this panel, is representative of a break from the grand tradition, and serves to make the panel more of a genre piece than a portrait.
3 August, 2020