[i] According to Mary Crawford Volk in “New Light on a Seventeenth-Century Collector: The Marqués de Leganés”, in The Art Bulletin, 1980, Vol. 62, no. 2, p. 262, note. 35, the Altamira and Leganés estates were combined at the turn of the 18^th century, when the 8^th Count of Altamira inherited the Leganés titles through his grandmother, who was one of the four children of Leganés and Policena.  See: Domingo Gutiérrez Coronel, Historia genealógica de la Casa de Mendoza, Madrid, 1946, II, pp. 441-444. 

This pair of paintings, which has recently surfaced in Spain, ranks among the most ambitious works of the Flemish painter David Ryckaert III.  Executed in 1652, when the artist was at the height of his powers, they depict popular religious subjects – The Annunciation and The Adoration of the Magi - both of which are unique in his oeuvre.  Recently discovered in an old Spanish collection, they had remained in private hands since the seventeenth century when they formed part of the celebrated collection of the Spanish nobleman the Marqués de Leganés (c. 1585-1655).

Born into a family of artists, David Ryckaert III lived and worked in Antwerp all his life.  He enjoyed a successful career and attracted some distinguished patrons.  Although primarily a genre specialist, Ryckaert also painted a few religious and mythological subjects, and scenes of witches and devilry.  Signed and dated paintings are extant from 1636 until the year of his death, making it relatively easy to trace his artistic development.  He drew upon a variety of influences in the formation of his own distinctive style.  His earliest paintings depict rustic interiors in the manner of Adriaen Brouwer (1605-1638), often with elaborate still-life elements, but after 1640, David Teniers the Younger (1610-1690) became his main source of inspiration.  Significant changes in his style and subject matter became apparent in 1649, reflecting a new energy and ambition.  Under the influence of his former pupil and brother-in-law Gonzales Coques (1614-1684), Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678), and others, he expanded his thematic repertoire to include high-life genre scenes, especially musical companies, and history subjects.  At the same time, his paintings became larger in scale, more complex in their compositions, and increasingly refined in their execution.  This change of direction was likely prompted by a desire to stay abreast of changing fashions in art and reach a wider audience.  In any event, it seems to have paid off since his work now came to the attention of the art-loving Archduke Leopold Wilhelm (1614-1662), who acquired four of his paintings for his picture gallery in the Coudenberg Palace, in Brussels.  In 1651, Ryckaert was elected dean of the guild, in recognition of the high esteem in which he was held by his fellow artists.  He was now at the peak of his career.

A cousin of the King Philip IV of Spain, Leopold Wilhelm (1614-1662) was an enthusiastic collector and generous patron of the arts.  During his tenure as Governor of the Southern Netherlands from 1647 to 1656, he amassed one of the great princely collections of Europe which later formed the core of the picture holdings of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.  In addition to making important acquisitions of Italian Old Masters, he eagerly acquired masterpieces of both early and contemporary Flemish paintings.  Within months of taking up his governorship, his court painter Jan van den Hoecke wrote to the dealer Matthys Musson, advising him that ..”His Highness has said to me that when he comes to Antwerp, he wishes to see all the most beautiful things that can be seen in Antwerp in the art of painting and he wishes to buy all the most beautiful things that suit him best, according to his taste.”[i]  Among the many Flemish artists that the Archduke patronised was David Teniers the Younger, whom he appointed as his court painter and curator of the archducal collections. 

Four paintings by Ryckaert are listed in the 1659 inventory of the Archduke’s collection.  A now-lost painting of The Adoration of the Shepherds, one depicting an alchemist, and a monumental pair of outdoor genre scenes, the last three of which are now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, in Vienna.  The pair of outdoor scenes exemplify the large-format, multi-figure compositions that Ryckaert produced during his best years.  Painted in 1649, they take up the traditional theme of Peasant Joy and Peasant Sorrow[ii], showing on the one hand, a kermesse with peasants feasting and drinking, and on the other, peasants suffering at the hands of plundering soldiers.  The refined technique and elegantly drawn figures are typical of Ryckaert’s mature style, as is the palette of clear, bright colours.  These pictures also illustrate Ryckaert’s effective use of pendant pairs that juxtapose complementary themes.  He evidently enjoyed considerable success with such pairs as his oeuvre contains a significant number of them.  That Ryckaert gained the recognition of the Archduke must have done much to enhance his reputation and social standing, as well as stimulating a demand for his work.  To judge from the number of his paintings dated 1650, a great deal of work came his way that year. 

The fact that the Archduke took an interest in Ryckaert’s work is referred to in the biography of the artist which appears in Cornelis de Bie’s Het Gulden Cabinet, published in 1661, the year of the artist’s death.  The relevant passage occurs in the text accompanying Ryckaert’s portrait, in which it states that “like other princes” (“comme ausi autre Princes”), Leopold Wilhelm considered Ryckaert’s paintings worthy of his cabinet.  However, the names of these other princes are not mentioned, nor indeed do we know much about any of Ryckaert’s other patrons.  Therefore, the discovery that this pair of paintings belonged to the Marqués de Leganés, one of the most distinguished collectors of his day, speaks volumes about the artist’s standing during his lifetime.  The key to making this connection, as Matías Díaz Padrón pointed out in his scholarly article of 2008[iii], is the characteristic inventory number “1324”, inscribed in white in the lower right-hand corner of The Annunciation, and the red collection seal of the Marqués affixed to the canvas of its companion piece.  These marks make it possible to identify the paintings among the 1333 art works listed in the inventory of the Marqués’s estate drawn up on 21 February 1655[iv], where they are described as follows:-

“1.324.  Otra Pintura de la Anunciación de Ntra. Sra. Con un ramillete de flores en la mano arriba dha de 2 y ½ varas ancho y de alto ¾, en 1.100. 

1.323.  Otra pintura de la Adorazión de los Reyes, de ancho 2 y ½ b. y alto ¾ de mano e ricarente, en 1.100”. 

Diego Mexiá Felípez de Guzmán, 1^st Marqués de Leganés (c. 1585-1655) was the aristocratic courtier par excellence.  A cousin and protégé of the immensely powerful Count-Duke of Olivares, the favourite of the young King Philip IV of Spain, he rose through the ranks of the nobility, serving in important positions at court and in the military. In 1627, he married Policena Spinola, daughter of Ambrogio Spinola, supreme commander of the Spanish forces in the Netherlands, who brought a handsome dowry to their marriage.  During the 1620s, he frequently visited Flanders on military or diplomatic missions and was a resident in Brussels from 1630 to 1635.  During these years, he had every opportunity to become familiar with the archducal collections in Brussels, as well as many of the smaller collections of wealthy Antwerp citizens.  He also met and became a major patron of Rubens, who painted his portrait, a fine preparatory study for which survives in the Albertina, in Vienna[v].  Leganés appears appropriately enough in a painting by Willem van Haecht depicting one of the picture galleries in the royal castle of Tervuren[vi] , in which he is shown standing amid other courtiers surrounding the seated figure of the Archduchess Isabella.  Such gallery paintings, which became popular in the early-to-mid-seventeenth century, reflect the rich culture of collecting and connoisseurship that flourished in Flanders at this time.

The impulse for Leganés to collect himself began in the 1620s.  Rubens writing to Pierre Dupuy in Paris in 1628 described him as … “one of the greatest connoisseurs of the age”[vii], although an inventory of his collection made in 1630 lists only eighteen paintings and a set of tapestries, suggesting that initially he harboured rather modest ambitions.  However, a second inventory, dated 30 March 1642, shows that he had amassed an astonishing 1150 pictures by that date.  The pace of his acquisitions subsequently declined, but a final inventory compiled after his death in 1655 nevertheless totals 1333 pictures.  Although many of these have not been identified, the document nevertheless tells us much about his collecting tastes.  In keeping with major Spanish collectors of his time, Leganés owned many paintings by the great Italian masters of the sixteen and seventeenth centuries, especially Titian, but somewhat surprisingly relatively few by Spanish masters, with the exception of Velázquez.  However, the marked preference he showed throughout his career for Flemish art, especially that of contemporary painters, is striking.  Rubens was without doubt his clear favourite with no less than nineteen paintings, but he also owned seven paintings by van Dyck, as well as numerous works by other living painters including Jan Brueghel the Elder, Frans Snyders, Paul de Vos, Gaspar de Crayer, Hendrick de Clerck, and Joos de Momper.  Judging from the rich variety of works in his holdings, the Marqués appreciated the full spectrum of Flemish specialities from still life, and landscape, to genre scenes, animal paintings and hunting pictures.

These two paintings, both of which are fully signed, display all the hallmarks of specially commissioned works.  First, their imposing size and elongated, horizontal format suggest they were intended for a specific location, perhaps as overdoors, or as part of an architectural scheme.  Leganés owned properties in Madrid, Leganés and Morata, but it is not known in which of these locations our paintings were originally housed.  Likewise, nothing is known about the genesis of the commission, although it seems likely that it came about either through the Marqués’s connections with the court in Brussels, or through one of the firms of art dealers active in Antwerp.  Possible candidates are the firms of Forchoudt, or Matthijs Musson, which specialised in procuring works of art for export, and with whom we know Ryckaert had some dealings[ix], a subject popular with genre specialists, as well as depictions of The Repentant Magdalen and The Sacrifice of Isaac, but, these representations of The Annunciation and The Adoration of the Magi are as far as we know unique in Ryckaert’s oeuvre.  When it comes to The Annunciation, Ryckaert’s interpretation follows the traditional iconography.  The story of the Annunciation (Luke 1:26-35) is one of the most frequently treated subjects in Christian art.  The archangel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary when she was betrothed to Joseph and told her, “behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus…”  And Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no husband?”  The angel answered: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you …”.  In our painting, Mary appears on the right-hand side of the picture, kneeling at a prie-dieu.  Turning from the book she was reading, she reacts in surprise to the appearance of the archangel Gabriel, who kneels before her on a cushion of clouds, surrounded by putti.  In the upper centre, The Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, descends from an opening in the clouds which radiates a bright light.  In the foreground, standing between the two principal figures is a magnificent vase filled a profusion of flowers, including a white lily, an allusion to the purity of the Virgin.  The sewing basket containing a white cloth, a pair of scissors, a needle and thread and a pin cushion, which appears beside the prie-dieu, is a not uncommon motif in scenes of the annunciation and refers to a passage in the Book of James, or Protevangelium (10:1-2), relating that Mary was sewing when the angel appeared to her.

When venturing into the unfamiliar field of history painting, perhaps unsurprisingly Ryckaert relied heavily on the example of an artist who specialised in this genre.  In this case, he turned to his Antwerp colleague and close personal friend Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert (1613/14-1654) [x], a painter of portraits and history subjects in the manner of Anthony van Dyck, from whom he borrowed such motifs as the chubby putti gambolling in the clouds, and the graceful pose of the archangel.  The theatrical conception is similarly derived from such works by Willeboirt Bosschaert’s as his Coronation of the Virgin, in Antwerp[xi], or his Assumption of the Virgin, in Duffel[xii].  Perhaps significantly, Willeboirts Bosschaert also had well-established links with elite Spanish patrons.  He was one of the artists who had collaborated with Rubens on the decoration of the Torre de la Parada for Philip IV of Spain in 1636-38, and in the early 1650s, he was engaged with a large commission to paint an Assumption of the Virgin for Count Alonso Perez de Vivero, today in the museum in Valladolid.

Another feature of The Annunciation that distinguishes it from Ryckaert’s standard works is the inclusion of prominent floral still-life elements.  Whilst Ryckaert was a proficient painter of kitchen still lifes, he evidently felt the need to delegate the flowers in this painting to a specialist in this genre.  Collaboration between specialists in different fields was a common practice in seventeenth-century Antwerp, and in this case Ryckaert chose to work with Jan van Kessel the Elder (1626-1679), whose distinctive hand is evident in the finely rendered vase of flowers, and the other small floral posies and nosegays that grace the composition.  Van Kessel was especially renowned in Spain as a painter of flowers and enjoyed the patronage of a number of elite Spanish clients[xiii].  However, Weyerman’s claim that he “painted many works for the King of Spain” has never been proven[xv].  The vase of flowers in our The Annunciation is more modest in format and much less highly finished than any of the latter, but both the large Baroque vase, with its rich gilded mounts, and the style of the arrangement bring to mind two paintings in particular from van Kessel’s  series of large flower pieces[xvi]. 

Like its companion piece, Ryckaert’s depiction of The Adoration of the Magi follows the traditional iconography.  The subject is described in Matthew 2:1-2.  “When they had heard the king, they went their way: and lo, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was.  When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy; and going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him.  Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh”.  The theme was well suited to Ryckaert’s skills since it allowed him to treat it in a more or less genre-like fashion, while the wide horizontal format offered him the opportunity to deploy a large number of figures across the width of the canvas.  Mary appears on the right, seated before an open portico, with the baby Jesus sitting on her lap and Joseph standing behind.  A blaze of heavenly light floods the scene.  The tiny child reaches out his hand towards Melchior, the most senior of the three kings, who kneels before him, clad in a gold-encrusted robe and an ermine cape, while his page kneels on the right, offering his master’s gift of gold coins.  Balthasar stands directly behind Melchior, dressed in red and gold brocade, his right arm akimbo, gazing out of the picture.  In the other hand, he holds a nautilus cup containing myrrh, his gift to the Christ child.  Lastly, Caspar, the Moor, appears at the back in a plumed turban, presenting his offering of incense.  The kings are attended by a team of young pages, wearing pink and pale blue livery and bearing flaming candelabra, as well as a large retinue of soldiers stretching away to the left.  A mounted bugler and a standard-bearer appear at the head of the column of men, while the rear is taken up by a donkey train and an elephant, with its mahout, striking an exotic note.  In the left-hand corner, a glimmer of light in the sky signals the arrival of dawn. 

Like many other seventeenth-century painters, Ryckaert often repeated motifs in more than one painting.  In The Adoration of the Magi we recognise several motifs that appear in other paintings dated around mid-century.  For instance, the motif of the white horse, viewed from the rear, which features prominently in the centre of the composition, can also be seen in a near-identical pose on the left-hand corner of the large Kermesse painting of 1649, in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (Fig. 2).  Another motif common to both paintings is the building with a small tower which appears in the left background in The Adoration of the Magi and in the centre right background in the kermesse.  The white horse motif also crops up again in a painting of A Social Gathering in the Country[xvii], where it appears together with a greyhound, another motif that recurs in the left foreground of our painting.  This practice of repeating motifs was probably the consequence of working from a stock of studies made from life. 

Apparently unknown to Bernadette van Haute when she published her monograph on David Ryckaert III in 1999, this pair of paintings is an important addition to the artist’s oeuvre.  Not only do they have a very distinguished provenance, but they belong to an especially successful phase in Ryckaert’s professional life, when he produced much of his best work.  Although Leganès was no longer resident in the Low Countries by 1652, when Ryckaert executed this commission, he must have maintained links with members of the court and art lovers in Brussels.  As the inventory numbers suggest, these two paintings were among the very last acquisitions Leganès made towards the end of his life. 

BIOGRAPHY

Son of the painter David Ryckaert II (1586-1642) and Catharina de Meere, David Ryckaert III was baptised in the Church of St. Jacob in Antwerp on 2 December 1612.  He belonged to an extended family of artists: his grandfather, David I (1560-1607) was a painter, as was his uncle, the landscapist Marten Ryckaert (1587-1631) and, in 1642, his sister Catharina married the painter Gonzales Coques (1614-84).  The younger Ryckaert was trained by his father, who painted still lifes, and became a master in the Antwerp guild of St. Luke in 1636/37.  During the course of his career, he took four pupils.  He was also a member of his local chamber of rhetoric, De Violieren, from 1645 until his death. On 31 August 1647, Ryckaert married Jacoba Pallemans: the couple had eight children, the eldest of whom, David IV may also have been a painter.  In 1651, he was elected dean of the painters’ guild for the term of office from 1652-53 (and was nicknamed “den Os van Sint Lucas” (the ox of Saint Luke). 

Ryckaert apparently never left his native city.  On 2 May 1649, the artist and his wife purchased the house “Het Keizershoofd” (“the Emperor’s Head”) in the Arensbergstraat, which had previously belonged to Tobias Verhaecht.  In 1658, they rented the house “De Munt” (“the Mint”) near the Cathedral for 150 Guilders per annum, with an additional 12 guilders for the adjacent garden.  On 31 October, 1661, the Ryckaerts baptised their last child, Franciscus, in the Cathedral.  Nine days later, on 9^th November, 1661, David Ryckaert III and his wife Jacoba Pallemans, both sick in bed, drew up a will in the house “De Munt”.  The artist died soon afterwards on 11 November 1661.  His widow continued living in the marital home and remarried Cornelis Huysman, the former provost of the Antwerp mint, before passing away on 31 December 1663, leaving her three surviving children, David IV (16), Michiel (14) and Isabella (6).  As the contents of his inventory, drawn up at the time of his death attest, Ryckaert died a relatively rich man.  In addition to the list of movable assets, including items of cash, furniture and jewels, it details “winckelgoederen” (goods of the shop), revealing that the Ryckaerts owned a shop, described as dealing in fine linen, cloth of Kamerijk and lace.  Van Haute has speculated that the shop may well have been the domain of the artist’s wife Jacoba Pallemans, who was not without means of her own, having received a handsome inheritance from her aunt some years previously[xviii]. 

[i] Jan Denucé, Les Galeries d’art à Anvers aux 16^e et 17^e siècles.  Inventaires.  S’Gravenhage,1932, p. 67-8.  Quoted by Jonathan Brown in Kings & Connoisseurs: Collecting Art in Seventeenth-Century Europe, Princeton, 1995, p. 160, note 18. 

[ii] David Ryckaert III, Peasant Joy, Oil on canvas, 120 x 175 cm, signed.  Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna,

inv. no. 729 & Peasant Sorrow, oil on canvas, 121 x 177 cm, signed and Dated 1649.  Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, inv. no. 733. 

[iii]  Matías Díaz Padrón, “Dos Pinturas de David Ryckaert III identificadas en la colección del Marqués de Leganés: la anunciación & la adoración de los reyes”, Archivo Español de Arte, LXXXI, no. 321, 2008, ISSN: 0004-0428. 

[iv] The 1655 inventory appears in J. López Navio, “La gran collección de pinturas del Marqués de Leganés,” Analecta Calasanctiana, nos. 7-8, 1962, p. 262-330. 

[v] Peter Paul Rubens, The Marqués de Leganès, Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna, inv. No. 8258.

[vi] Willem van Haecht, Gallery Painting with the Archduchess Isabella and the Marqués de Leganés, location unknown. 

[vii] The Letters of Peter Paul Rubens, translated and edited by Ruth Saunders Magurn, 1955, p. 145. 

[viii] Bernadette van Haute, David III Ryckaert: a Seventeenth-Century Flemish Painter of Peasant Scenes, Turnhout, 1999, p. 53, note 127, p. 59, note 217, p. 60, notes 227 & 228. 

[ix] One in the Archduke’s collection and the other now in the collection of the Prince of Liechtenstein, Vaduz, inv. no. 352.

[x] Ryckaert’s relationship with Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert was more than just a professional one.  When Ryckaert’s second child was born in May 1650, Bosschaert stood as godfather at his baptism in the Church of St. Joris, and the child was named Thomas Willeboirts Ryckaert. 

[xi] Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert, The Coronation of the Virgin, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp. 

[xii] Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert, The Assumption of the Virgin, c. 1641-54, Onze-Lieve-Vrouw Van Goede Wil, Duffel.

[xiii] Nadia Baajd in Jan Van Kessel I (1626-79): Crafting a Natural History of Art in Early Modern Antwerp, 2016, p. 70-71.

[xiv] Jacob Campo Weyerman, De levans-beschryvingen der Nederlandsche konst-schilders en konst-schilderessen, 3 vols., The Hague, 1729, vol. 2, p. 209 “He painted many works for the King of Spain, for the Governors of the Spanish Netherlands, and for other great Personages and prosperous Merchants”. 

[xv] Although the name of the patron is not recorded, the fact that a number of paintings from the series all first appeared in Spanish collections suggests that they were originally executed for a Spanish patron. 

[xvi] Klaus Ertz, Jan van Kessel der Ältere, 1626-1679, Jan van Kessel der Jüngere, 1654-1708, Jan van Kessel der ‘Andere’, ca. 1620-ca. 1661: Kritische Kataloge der Gemälde, Lingen: Luca,  2012, cat. nos.  563 & 564, which belonged respectively to the Marquis de Nieves, and the Count de Villalcazar de Sirga. 

[xvii] David Ryckaert III, Social gathering in the country, oil on canvas, 89 x 130 cm, c. 1650-52, location unknown. Illustrated in B. van Haute, op. cit, pl. 112. 

[xviii] B. van Haute. op. cit., p. 63-64.