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A self-portrait painting photo of Joachim Wtewael –

Top 10 Fun Facts abot Joachim Wtewael

Joachim Anthoniszoon Wtewael was also known as Uytewael. Joachim was born in 1566 (the exact date and month are not yet known) and died on 1 August 1638. He was a Dutch Mannerist painter and draughtsman.

Joachim was also a highly successful flax merchant and town councilor of Utrecht. Wtewael was one of the leading Dutch exponents of Northern Mannerism. In the article are the top ten fun facts about Joachim Wtewael.

1. Where did Joachim get the skill of glass making and painting?

Joachim Wtewael was the son of a glassmaker and glass painter who had settled in Utrecht in 1566. He began his career in Utrecht, according to Carel van Mander, as a glassmaker and glass engraver in his father’s workshop.

His skills were polished as early as when he was working with his father in his shop. There is no doubt that his art in glass was unbeatable in his era. Some of the stained glass he designed are still preserved.

2. Joachim used the style of Haarlem Mannerism in his painting

Joachim’s portrait painting of a shepherd photo –

Haarlem Mannerism or Northern Mannerism is the form of Mannerism found in the visual arts north of the Alps in the 16th and early 17th centuries. Wtewael was trained in the style of late 16th-century Haarlem Mannerism and remained essentially faithful to it, despite painting well into the early period of Dutch Golden Age painting.

His distinctive and attractive style remained largely untouched by the naturalistic developments happening around him, “characterized by masterfully drawn, highly polished figures often set in capricious poses”.

3. Altogether Joachim left about a hundred paintings

Apart from the hundred paintings, Joachim also left drawings and some stained glass he designed. He painted a mixture of large paintings on canvas, and tiny cabinet paintings on copper plates, the latter the more numerous and typically the most distinctive.

There is also a group of mid-sized paintings, often on panels. In all these sizes he painted a mixture of conventional religious subjects and mythological ones, the latter with a strong erotic element.

4. Joachim’s main Italian base was in Padua

In 1586, he began four years of traveling and living in Italy and then France, the latter in the household of the bishop of St Malo, Charles de Bourgneuf de Cucé. His main Italian base was in Padua.

Padua is a city and comune in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. His earliest works show awareness of the Second School of Fontainebleau, which was probably the result of visiting there.

5. Wtewael established his first workshop after returning to Utrecht

Joachim Returned to Utrecht in about 1590-92. Wtewael established a workshop and joined the saddlemakers’ guild as a painter. He then began producing paintings, drawings, engravings, and stained glass.

6. Joachim is the founder member of the Utrecht Guild of Saint Luke for the painters of Utrecht

The feast of the gods at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis portrait photo by Abraham Bloemaert –

The Utrecht Guild of Saint Luke refers to two artist collectives in Utrecht city; the old Catholic Zadelaarsgilde (Saddler’s Guild) dating from the Middle Ages, as well as the newer Sint Lucas Gilde, established in 1611.

The first collective was for several trades that were connected to the art industry, though the smiths had their guild called the “St. Eloyen” guild. The second collective was founded for the oil painters after the Protestant Reformation. The Zadelaarsgilde fell under the patron saint Luke the Evangelist and the St. Eloyen guild fell under Saint Eligius.

7. Joachim married Christina Wtewael van Halen

A portrait photo of Christian Wtewael by Joachim Wtewael –

Wtewael married Christina van Halen in 1595. He portrayed her as the ideal, god-fearing wife. He made a portrait of his wife Christina in 1601 which makes a pair with the self-portrait illustrated.

In 1596 they had a son Peter Wtewael, who became a painter. Their other son, Jan Wtewael born in 1598 and died in 1652, may also have been a painter. However, unlike Peter, Jan registered with the guild in 1639 after his father’s death.

8. Joachim had several children

A portrait photo of Peter Wtewael by Joachim Wtewael –

Peter and Jan Wtewael are the firstborn sons of Joachim and Christina Wtewael respectively. In the late 1620s, Joachim painted portraits of both his sons, dated 1628, his daughter Eva and a pair of his other daughter and her husband Johan Pater, dated 1626.

All of these are in Utrecht. Burial records suggest several other children died young, but their birthdates are unknown. Wtewael’s dated paintings stretch from 1592 to 1628, taking him from the age of 26 to 62.

9. Like his brother, Joachim was also a town councilor

Joachim was on the town council in 1610 and was later awarded a seat for life by the Stadtholder Maurice, Prince of Orange for his loyalty against the Remonstrants. However, his brother was also rewarded in this way and Utrecht had a rule against more than one brother being on the council at any time.

So, he did not take up his seat until 1632 after his brother had died. Despite a reasonable amount of documentary records, the leading scholar of his work has written that “Wtewael the man is essentially inscrutable”.

10. Some of his mythological paintings were not displayed because of nudity

Joachim’s portrait painting of Mars and Venus photo –

The eroticism of his mythological works was daring for the time, and some of the small paintings were probably not displayed publicly, by their original collectors as much as later by museums.

Two of the preparatory drawings for different painted versions of Mars and Venus Surprised were mutilated by later owners to remove parts of the lovers’ bodies, and the Mauritshuis version, part of the founding royal gift, was not displayed in the 1920s, the contemporary explanation being that this was “to protect an immature public from itself”.

It remained in storage, and rather dirty, until the 1980s, when, after the Getty Museum acquired their version of the subject, it was cleaned and placed on display, soon joining touring selections of “masterworks” from the museum.

His depiction of erotic subjects is not simply titillating, but like many such Dutch paintings, depicted subjects that allowed for moralistic interpretations.

Anne Lowenthal, the most dedicated scholar of Wtewael, has analyzed his several depictions of Lot and his Daughters, dating from several periods of his career, and proposes that his treatments are designed to allude to various possible interpretations of the biblical story and to pose a “moral dilemma” for the viewer.