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

A Nocturnal Feast in the Interior of a Temple
signed H.V.S.I on the base of the column in the lower left

oil on panel (a fragment)

8 3/8 × 19 1/8 inches (21.5 × 48.5 cm.), originally part of a larger painting, probably c. 19 ½ × 25 ½ inches (50 × 65 cm.)

PROVENANCE:
Private Collection, London, circa 1920s and thus by inheritance to; Private Collection, New York, until the present time

Hendrick van Steenwyck the Younger painted in a style similar to that of his father (c. 1550–1603) who worked in Aachen, Antwerp and Frankfurt-am-Main and is credited, together with his master Hans Vredeman de Vries, with 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 painting a wide range of subjects, including interiors of imaginary churches, prison scenes, imaginary Renaissance courtyards (including some as the backgrounds to portraits of King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria, working with artists such as Daniel Mytens and Cornelis Johnson) ¹as well as a number of religious scenes and domestic interiors. 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 illusions 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

Among the most curious paintings by Steenwyck II (with possibly some also by Steenwyck I), are his series of paintings of pagan worship, including those of Baal’s (or Bel’s) priests and their families consuming the Babylonian people’s offerings at night. These paintings were based on the story of Daniel, who disabused King Cyrus of the claims by the priests of Baal that their god was able to consume the great quantities of food and drink offered by the Babylonians, demonstrating that the food was consumed by the priests and their families.⁵ These paintings, sometimes confused with scenes of the Agapes (early Christian banquets), are all set in imaginary gothic style temples and are quite comparable with his other gothic church interiors, apart from the altar, the idol and the subject matter. How he or the staffage artists came to paint this unusual subject a number of times remains something of a mystery. Probably it was the mystery of the subject that appealed, like his prison scenes, to Steenwyck’s imagination and gave him ample scope to portray a sense of secrecy in a dimly lit environment.

It is also possible that the concept originated in Protestant Switzerland in response to a demand from Protestant patrons for scenes of uncontroversial (in religious terms) Old Testament subject matter. In the late 16th century some drawings of a similar subject by Marten van Heemskerck had been engraved and in 1574 Hans Vredeman de Vries drew an exterior of the Temple with Daniel and King Cyrus (Vienna Akademie der bildenden Künste, Inv. 4845). The Steenwycks and their patrons would have known these examples, although there are few known examples of paintings of this subject by Steenwyck I, apart from one painting signed and dated 1599 and a painting in the Maidstone Museum apparently initiated by Steenwyck I and completed by Steenwyck II. ⁶There are a few other contemporary examples by Dirck van Delen, Wolfgang Avemann, Pieter Neeffs & Frans Francken, Bartholomeus van Bassen and Rembrandt suggesting that this subject enjoyed some popularity in the early to mid 17th century.⁷ The dates of the earlier Steenwyck examples (1591 for the father and 1609 for the son) suggest that the Steenwycks were the first artists to turn to this subject after Heemskerck.

King James II and VII owned a painting of this type, attributed to Steenwyck I, as did the Amsterdam collector Petrus Scriverius in 1663 ⁸ and the Archduchess Isabella.⁹

Steenwyck II also painted a number of smaller scenes of pagan worship, usually of two figures, sometimes Mordecai and Esther, placed at the entrance of a Gothic temple. It is likely that these were painted for similar reasons to those of Baal’s priests to appeal to those wishing to own a painting of an (uncontroversial) Old Testament subject. ¹⁰

This fragment of a once larger painting of the priests of Baal and their families consuming the offerings of the people was originally set in a large Gothic temple, ¹¹quite similar in its architecture to a number of Steenwyck’s Gothic Church Interiors. This remaining part displays the feast in a (truncated) architectural setting, but still shows Steenwyck’s mastery of perspective, light and shade and his sense of the mysterious. The figures are probably by the hand of Steenwyck himself.

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 at Hampton Court still holds some 11 paintings by or partly by Steenwyck II, mainly scenes of the Liberation of St. Peter.

³ Steenwyck’s portrait was 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 The story is told in 2 Kings X, vv. 18-28. It also appears in the Apocrypha, the Book of Bel and the Dragon and is further referred to in 1 Corinthians, 8.

⁶ This painting is signed (or inscribed) HENRI VAN / STEINWICK / INVENTOR / 1591 (the Elder) and HENRI VAN / STEINWICK / FECIT / 1624 (the Younger). Apart from Maidstone similar scenes can be found at the Hartford (Conn.) Wadsworth Atheneum, Museum of Art (Inv. 1940. 196, attributed to Hendrick van Steenwyck the Younger) and in Aschaffenburg, Staatsgemäldesammlung (Inv. 6286).

⁷ Hollstein, Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, 1450-1700, 2 vols., compiled by Peter Fuhring, Rotterdam 1997, Vol. XLVIII, No. 534-543. See also Schneider, J., “Daniel und der Bel zu Babylon,” Zeitschrift für Schweizerische Archaeologie und Kunstgeschichte, XV, 1954, p. 96.

⁸ Frederiks, J.G., “Het kabinet schilderijen van Petrus Scriverius,” Oud Holland, 12, 1894, pp. 62-63.

⁹ M. de Maeyer, Albrecht en Isabella en de schilderkunst, Brussels 1955, p. 419 (inventories of 1633 and 1650); “Een ander perspective en de tempel met een banquet.”

¹⁰ Examples of pagan temple scenes by Steenwyck II can be found in public collections in Brunswick, Städtisches Museum am Löwenwall (Inv. 1200-0805-00), Bitonto (Bari) Galleria Nazionale and Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art (Inv. 2006.20.1).

¹¹ A very similar central part appeared in a painting sold in the Empress Eugenie sale, Christie’s, London, December 16, 1921, lot 119 as oil on panel, 19 ½ x 25 ½ inches. It is likely that this fragment came from a painting of similar dimensions.

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