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DOI Artikel:Slatkes, Leonard J.: Bringing Ter Brugghen and Baburen up-to-date
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18945#0209
Leonard J. Slatkes
Bringing Ter Brugghen
and Baburen up-to-date*
Eddy de Jongh LXV
In the ten years since the Hendrick ter Brugghen en tijdgenoten exhibition,1
there has been a small but steady stream of new material concerning Hendrick
ter Brugghen and Dirck van Baburen that has helped clarify significant aspects
of both painters’ development and, more importantly, the complex relationship
between these two innovative Utrecht artists. Apparently, their individual
talents and abilities complemented each other making for what appears to have
been an unusually harmonious creative relationship. It is also important to
recognize that high social and economic status is one of the things that
seemingly brought them together, as well as setting them slightly apart from the
other Utrecht painters of their generation. As we now know, ter Brugghen may
have been born in The Hague,2 where his father held several important
governmental posts, although he maintained his links with Utrecht. As for
Baburen, there is a growing body of evidence that his parents came from the
higher echelons of Dutch society, which would account for their positions at
the court of Geertruijd van Bronckhorst van Battenburg, baroness of Vianen,
at Wijk-bij-Duurstede, near Utrecht, where Dirck was born.3 Thus both artists
must have had a better than usual education, a supposition supported by the
choice and the handling of the subject matter of their paintings. It would also
seem to have been a factor in sustaining the common workshop the two shared
until Baburen’s untimely death - he was not yet thirty - early in 1624.
There has been some opposition to placing two such important Utrecht
artists in a single workshop, and some scholars have pointed to guild
* Some of the research used in this paper was supported by a grant ftom the Research Foundation
of the City University of New York.
1 Albert Blankert, Leonard J. Slatkes, et ah, Nieuw Licht op de Gouden Eemv; Hendrick ter Brugghen
en tijdgenoten, Centraal Museum, Utrecht; Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig 1986-
87. Also in German.
2 One cannot, however, entirely rule out Utrecht as his birth place as the archival material is not
completely clear on this matter.
3 See Marten Jan Bok in Utrecht/Braunschweig 1986/87, pp. 173-175.
199
Bringing Ter Brugghen
and Baburen up-to-date*
Eddy de Jongh LXV
In the ten years since the Hendrick ter Brugghen en tijdgenoten exhibition,1
there has been a small but steady stream of new material concerning Hendrick
ter Brugghen and Dirck van Baburen that has helped clarify significant aspects
of both painters’ development and, more importantly, the complex relationship
between these two innovative Utrecht artists. Apparently, their individual
talents and abilities complemented each other making for what appears to have
been an unusually harmonious creative relationship. It is also important to
recognize that high social and economic status is one of the things that
seemingly brought them together, as well as setting them slightly apart from the
other Utrecht painters of their generation. As we now know, ter Brugghen may
have been born in The Hague,2 where his father held several important
governmental posts, although he maintained his links with Utrecht. As for
Baburen, there is a growing body of evidence that his parents came from the
higher echelons of Dutch society, which would account for their positions at
the court of Geertruijd van Bronckhorst van Battenburg, baroness of Vianen,
at Wijk-bij-Duurstede, near Utrecht, where Dirck was born.3 Thus both artists
must have had a better than usual education, a supposition supported by the
choice and the handling of the subject matter of their paintings. It would also
seem to have been a factor in sustaining the common workshop the two shared
until Baburen’s untimely death - he was not yet thirty - early in 1624.
There has been some opposition to placing two such important Utrecht
artists in a single workshop, and some scholars have pointed to guild
* Some of the research used in this paper was supported by a grant ftom the Research Foundation
of the City University of New York.
1 Albert Blankert, Leonard J. Slatkes, et ah, Nieuw Licht op de Gouden Eemv; Hendrick ter Brugghen
en tijdgenoten, Centraal Museum, Utrecht; Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig 1986-
87. Also in German.
2 One cannot, however, entirely rule out Utrecht as his birth place as the archival material is not
completely clear on this matter.
3 See Marten Jan Bok in Utrecht/Braunschweig 1986/87, pp. 173-175.
199