Hendrick van Steenwyck the Younger
Antwerp 1580/81 – Leiden or The Hague 1649

St. Jerome in a Gothic Church
Indistinctly signed and dated 1657 (the date appears to have been altered by another hand at a later time) on the base of the column on the left-hand side

oil on copper

6½ x 8½ inches (16.5 x 21.6 cm.)

PROVENANCE: Rafael Valls, London, 1978; Gottfried Dietze (d. 2006), United States

LITERATURE: This painting will be included and illustrated in Jeremy Howarth’s forthcoming publication The Steenwyck Family: Masters of Perspective, under no. II D12.

Hendrick van Steenwyck the Younger painted in a similar style to his father (c. 1550 – 1603) who worked in Aachen, Antwerp and Frankfurt-am-Main and is credited with his master Hans Vredeman de Vries as rediscovering the art of perspective using realistic if imaginary architectural scenes as the main subject of his paintings.

Hendrick the Younger studied under his father in Frankfurt and went on to work in Antwerp, London and The Hague and to paint a wide range of subjects, including interiors of imaginary churches, prison scenes, imaginary Renaissance courtyards (some for backgrounds of portraits of King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria by artists such as Daniel Mytens and Cornelis Johnson) ¹and a number of religious interior scenes. He is renowned for his meticulous work and his very realistic impressions of architecture and light and shade that must have been astonishing to his contemporaries. In all cases his architectural themes predominated and the figures and the subject were subsidiary to the main purpose which was to display his talent for creating the illusion of reality and space. He found favour with King Charles I at whose court he worked for over 20 years ² and was a friend of Sir Anthony van Dyck who drew Steenwyck’s portrait in the early 1630s. ³His painstaking methods and technique were described by another of Steenwyck’s contemporaries, Edward Norgate. ⁴

This painting of St. Jerome translating the Bible from Greek into Latin in the early 5th century can be compared with several other depictions of the same subject by Steenwyck. ⁵One group shows St. Jerome working at a large desk set in a palatial room with a view behind into a small gothic chapel and is derived from a 1514 engraving by Albrecht Dürer. This variation puts more emphasis on the apse and the altar of the gothic church behind and shows the Saint seated at a small desk in a panelled ante-room on the left. Behind him the panelling helps to divide the space into separate compartments. His cardinal’s hat hangs below various books and bottles which are placed on the top ledge. A number of letters are also shown which with a clock were probably intended as memento mori. St. Jerome’s faithful lion is shown lying on the floor to his left.

This painting is typical of Steenwyck’s work. A very similar, but smaller, signed version of this example was exhibited in London in 1958 and 1959 at the Alfred Brod Gallery.

Jeremy Howarth

¹ Examples of architectural backgrounds by Steenwyck to royal portraits are held in the Royal Collection at Hampton Court, Turin Galleria Sabauda, the Dresden Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, London, National Portrait Gallery and the Copenhagen Statens Museum for Kunst.
² The Royal Collection still holds some 11 paintings by or partly by Steenwyck.
³ Engraved and published in 1645 as part Paulus Pontius’s Iconography of Van Dyck’s drawings of contemporary leaders.
⁴ Edward Norgate, Miniatura or the art of limming, originally published in 1628; modern edition ed. J.M. Muller and J. Murrell, New Haven & London, 1997.
⁵ Examples of paintings by Steenwyck of St. Jerome working on his translation of the Bible can be found in Siena, La Pinacoteca Nazionale (attributed to Steenwyck the Elder), Vercelli, Civico Museo, Francesco Borgogna, London, Courtauld Institute Galleries, Heidelberg, Kurpfälzisches Museum, St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, Munich, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek and Cassel, Schloss Wilhelmshöhe.

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