Jan Weenix
Encyclopedia
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
painter. He was trained by his father, Jan Baptist Weenix
Jan Baptist Weenix
Jan Baptist Weenix , a painter of the Dutch Golden Age. Despite his relatively brief career, he was a very productive and versatile painter. His favourite subjects were Italian landscapes with large figures among ruins, seaside views, and, later in life, large still life pictures of dead game or dogs...
, together with his cousin Melchior d'Hondecoeter
Melchior d'Hondecoeter
Melchior d'Hondecoeter , Dutch animalier painter, was born in Utrecht and died in Amsterdam. After the start of his career, he painted virtually exclusively bird subjects, usually exotic or game, in park-like landscapes...
. Like his father, he devoted himself to a variety of subjects, but his fame is chiefly due to his paintings of dead game and of hunting scenes. Many pictures in this genre formerly ascribed to the elder Weenix are now generally considered to be the works of the son.
Life
It is not very sure if Weenix was born in Amsterdam; also his date of birth is not exactly known. The year in which his father died is also a puzzle. The family lived in a castle outside Utrecht, but his father died young after he went broke. Weenix was a member of the UtrechtUtrecht (city)
Utrecht city and municipality is the capital and most populous city of the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, and is the fourth largest city of the Netherlands with a population of 312,634 on 1 Jan 2011.Utrecht's ancient city centre features...
guild of painters in 1664 and 1668. By the age of twenty Jan Weenix rivalled and then subsequently surpassed his father in breadth of treatment and richness of colour. In 1679 when Jan Weenix married the 20-years old Pieternella Backers he told the schepen
Schepen
A schepen is a Dutch word referring to a municipal civic office in Dutch-speaking countries. The term is still in use in Belgium, but it has been replaced by wethouder in the Netherlands. The closest English terms are alderman, member of the municipal executive, councillor and magistrate,...
he was "around thirty"! Between 1680 and 1700 they had 13 children baptized in a hidden church
Schuilkerk
A clandestine church , defined by historian Benjamin J. Kaplan as a "semi-clandestine church", is a house of worship used by religious minorities whose communal worship is tolerated by those of the majority faith on condition that it is discreet and not conducted in public spaces...
. At least three of them died young.
In 1697 he painted a portrait of Peter the Great, visiting the Republic to study shipbuilding, science and the art of fortification building. In Amsterdam Weenix was frequently employed to decorate private houses with wall-paintings on canvas. One was near the Admiralty of Amsterdam
Admiralty of Amsterdam
The Admiralty of Amsterdam was the largest of the five Dutch admiralties at the time of the Dutch Republic. The administration of the various Admiralties was strongly influenced by provincial interests...
. The mansion, on a canal with many rich Sefardim, with a view on the park and in to a long avenue, was owned by a Spanish merchant, involved in sugar plantations in South America. The five fixed paintings or wallpaper
Wallpaper
Wallpaper is a kind of material used to cover and decorate the interior walls of homes, offices, and other buildings; it is one aspect of interior decoration. It is usually sold in rolls and is put onto a wall using wallpaper paste...
on canvas became very popular in the second half of the 18th century, when nature and Rousseau were fashionable and copied. The wallpaper survived in the house until 1921. Then the enormous "paintings" were sold by the nuns - who moved in - to William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
in a private arrangement. After Hearst went bankrupt, the paintings were dispersed; one is in the National Galleries of Scotland
National Galleries of Scotland
The National Galleries of Scotland are the five national galleries of Scotland and two partner galleries. It is one of the country's National Collections.-List of national galleries:* The National Gallery of Scotland* The Royal Scottish Academy Building...
in Edinburgh, two are in Hotel Carlyle in New York, one has been in the Allen Memorial Art Museum
Allen Memorial Art Museum
The Allen Memorial Art Museum is located in Oberlin, Ohio and is run by Oberlin College. Founded in 1917, its collection is one of the finest of any college or university museum in the United States, consistently ranking among those of Harvard and Yale...
since 1953 and one is lost.
Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine
Johann Wilhelm II, Elector Palatine was Elector Palatine , Duke Palatine of Neuburg/Danube , Duke of Jülich and Berg , and Duke of Upper Palatinate and Cham...
castle of Bensberg, near Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
. Also Eglon van der Neer
Eglon van der Neer
Eglon van der Neer , was a Dutch painter of historical scenes, portraits and elegant, fashionable people, and later of landscapes.-Life:...
, Rachel Ruysch
Rachel Ruysch
Rachel Ruysch was a Dutch artist who specialized in still-life paintings of flowers, one of only three significant women artists in Dutch Golden Age painting, of whom Maria van Oosterwijk was also a flower painter, and Judith Leyster mainly not .She was born in The...
, Adriaen van der Werff
Adriaen van der Werff
Adriaen van der Werff was an accomplished Dutch painter of portraits and erotic, devotional and mythological scenes. His brother, Pieter van der Werff , was his principal pupil and assistant.-Life:...
had a very good relation with the court, being paid well or knighted as ridder
Ridder (title)
Ridder is a noble title in the Netherlands and Belgium. The collective term for its holders in a certain locality is the Ridderschap . In the Netherlands and Belgium no female equivalent exists...
and most probably meeting an international crowd of artists and musicians. The treasury was empty when Jan Wellem, as he was called in Düsseldorf, died. Most of this collection is now at the Munich Gallery
Kunstareal
The Kunstareal is a museum quarter in the city centre of Munich, Germany.It consists of the three "Pinakotheken" galleries , the Glyptothek, the Staatliche Antikensammlung , the Lenbachhaus, the Museum Brandhorst and...
, but the paintings of Van der Werff moved to the cellar.
Jan Weenix, who at the end of his life lived in a house at the Amstel
Amstel
The Amstel is a river in the Netherlands which runs through the city of Amsterdam. The river's name is derived from Aeme stelle, old Dutch for "area abounding with water"....
, was buried in Nieuwezijds Kapel
Heilige Stede
Nieuwezijds Kapel, or Heilige Stede or Chapel of the Heilige Stede refers to a site in Amsterdam that includes shops and a Dutch Reformed church built in 1908 on the site of a church once called the Heilige Stede, originally built in the 15th century to replace a chapel that burned in a city fire...
a nearby church on Rokin
Rokin
Rokin is a major street in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Originally it was part of the river Amstel, and was known then as Rak-in . When the quays along the Rokin were constructed in 1913, they were named after the water which they adjoined.The Rokin begins at Muntplein square and ends at Dam square...
.
Work
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheJohann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
was impressed by the treatment of animals in Weenix pictures which he saw in Munich. He devoted a poem to the masters technique in which he stated that Weenix equaled and even surpassed nature in his treatment of animal textures as hair, feathers and claws.
Many of his best works are to be found in English private collections. Though the National Gallery, London
National Gallery, London
The National Gallery is an art museum on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The gallery is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media...
has only a single example, a painting of dead game and a dog, the Wallace Collection, also in London, has a number of paintings, including the intriguingly disturbing "Flowers on a Fountain with a Peacock." Jan Weenix is well represented in the galleries of Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
, Haarlem
Haarlem
Haarlem is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland, the northern half of Holland, which at one time was the most powerful of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic...
, Rotterdam
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
, Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, and Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. A medium sized Weenix, "Still Life with Dead Game" hangs in the dining room of the Filoli
Filoli
Filoli is a country house set in of formal gardens surrounded by estate, located in Woodside, California, about 25 miles south of San Francisco, at the southern end of Crystal Springs Lake, on the eastern slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains....
estate in California. A certain "Still Life with Hunting Trophies" hangs in the Ackland Art Museum
Ackland Art Museum
The Ackland Art Museum is a museum and academic unit of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It was founded through the bequest of William Hayes Ackland to The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It is located at 101 S...
, Chapel Hill, NC. "Boy with Toys, Pet Monkey and a Turkey" is in the Kresge Art Museum.
External links
- Work of Weenix formerly in the castle Bensberg near Cologne
- http://www.liechtensteinmuseum.at/en/pages/1553.asp#31362566,Weenix in Liechtenstein MuseumLiechtenstein MuseumThe Liechtenstein Museum is in Vienna, Austria, named after the princely House of Liechtenstein, one of Europe's oldest noble families. The museum includes the Princely Collections containing important European works of art, forming one of the world's leading private art collections.The museum has...
, Vienna] - Still Life with Hunting Trophies, by Jan Weenix, at the Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Boy with Toys, Pet Monkey and a Turkey at Michigan State University