Going Dutch_ How England Plundered Holland's Glory - Lisa Jardine [53]
Lodewijk’s training in connoisseurship under the able tutelage of his father, Sir Constantijn, allowed him confidently to identify some of the paintings ranged in disorderly fashion around an upstairs room as of real artistic importance and high value. He was astonished at the low estimates placed on them, though in such uncertain times most of these items failed to realise even these deflated prices:
In a gallery above, we saw a very large number of beautiful paintings, but all so badly cared for and so dusty that it was a pitiable sight. There was an admirable portrait by Van Dyck of King Charles sitting on a white horse, which could be obtained for £150. Five or six Titians, however, surpassed everything else there, and yet these also could be purchased at a very reasonable price. All these goods, brought together from several of the King’s houses, had been given in payment to some creditors of the late Sovereign, who did their best now to get rid of them.3
Long before Lodewijk toured Somerset House, incredulous at the artistic riches lying around in neglect, it became obvious that the sale was not meeting expectations. By May 1650 only 375 pictures, roughly a quarter of the total, had been disposed of, for £7,700 in all. A special committee was convened, empowered to settle the debts of former royal servants and other needy creditors with a combination of cash and goods from the collection. The creditors in their turn endeavoured to sell the valuable pictures on. Bakers and butchers, purveyors of bread and meat for the royal household, whose outstanding bills were settled in the form of works of art were only too keen to unload them back onto the market, thereby deflating prices still further. Foreign buyers (generally acting anonymously through local intermediaries) took advantage of the situation. Important works were discreetly acquired by agents acting for the King of Spain, Philip IV – an enthusiast for paintings and other art objects, with a collection to match that of Charles I. A number of important paintings from the King’s collection were bought by Dutch collectors, who felt less inhibited than the English about snapping up bargains by painters admired in the Netherlands. While the works acquired by English collectors were forcibly returned to Charles II at the Restoration in 1660, some of those which had been dispersed farther afield remained in the hands of their purchasers. I shall argue that this has had a curious effect upon our retrospective evaluation of what constituted ‘great’ art in the eyes of the English and the Dutch in the middle years of the seventeenth century.
In the United Provinces, the Stadholderless period (1650–72) had a less obvious impact on fine art and its distribution. In spite of the fact that William III, as a mere infant, could not immediately lay claim to the Stadholdership, and that three years later, under pressure from Cromwell, the States General passed legislation permanently banning the house of Orange from ever again holding that office, the courts of the widowed Princess Royal, the widowed Amalia van Solms, and the widowed and exiled Elizabeth of Bohemia continued to operate as beacons of cultural and artistic activity throughout the 1650s and ’60s. One might, indeed, argue that, for the widowed Princess Royal and her mother-in-law Amalia, it became of even greater importance than previously to affirm their international importance and political status by continuing to enlarge their collections of artistic treasures. Just as in the 1630s the leading courtiers around Charles I had jostled for position by competitively purchasing the best and most exotic of art and luxury objects to grace their cabinets of curiosities and galleries, so now the three royal Princesses in The Hague competed for cultural prominence by commissioning paintings, hosting sumptuous balls and masques, and presiding at elegant musical soirées.
The continuing flow