Unknown portrait of Joost van den Vondel? Notes about the picture “The scholar in his study” by Philips Koninck in the Jagiellonian University Museum’s collection

The aim of this article is to present the figure and work of the most outstanding Dutch poet and playwright of the 17th century, Joost van den Vondel, „the Dutch Shakespeare”. He was born in 1587 in Cologne, into a family of Mennonites who fled from Antwerp, and lived in Amsterdam, where he ran a hosiery shop, wrote and met on friendly terms with the largest minds of the period. During his long life (he died at the age of 92 in 1679) Vondel wrote 24 tragedies, numerous lyrical poems, satires, polemics, didactic poems and an epic about John the Baptist. He also translated classical authors – Sophocles, Seneca, Horace, Vergil and Ovid. In the 17th century Netherlands Vondel gained a literary authority; he was regarded as a Prince of Poets, the father of Dutch poetry, the only one who was equal to the classical authors. Finally, he achieved the highest distinction – when a laurel wreath was placed on his head in 1653.

After anthropological and comparative research as well as an experiment used in criminology when comparing different facial composites (the technique of which is similar to that of drawing or painting) was conducted, Anna Jasińska’s hypothesis that Philips Koninck’s painting entitled The scholar in his study, which is in Jagiellonian University Collegium Maius Museum’s collection, presents Vondel himself seems to be reasonable. It is probably also the poet’s last image, made shortly before his death, which makes it a very important discovery in the field of the Dutch-related research. However, in such a case the painting should be dated approx. 1679 (and not about 1645).

I would disagree with the opinion that Koninck’s painting presents the scholar in his study. Nothing indicates that it is the figure of a scholar or his place of work, and the objects shown in the painting are only media of a conventional vanitative content, typical of the period, and not the attributes of a scholar. These objects make us perceive the painting as an allegory of old age or passing, and not the image of a researcher and intellectualist, which is additionally confirmed by a great accumulation of vanitas motifs. I think that a more proper title would simply be Joost van den Vondel (?) in the evening of his life or The portrait of an old man.

Stanisław Wyspiański’s drawing presenting six phases of division of a European fire salamander’s epidermis cell, made with a pencil, charcoal and pastels, which has been in the Jagiellonian University Museum’s collection since 1989, is dated 1894. According to the reminiscences of Professor Michał Siedlecki, it was drawn in the Institute of Zoology at the Jagiellonian University as an expression of gratitude for the possibility of examining stuffed birds, necessary to an artist for a certain painting. However, in 1894 Wyspiański stayed in Paris till September, and after his return to Cracow he did not receive any orders. The frieze of birds was to decorate the baroque church of the Franciscans in Cracow. The work in the church began on the 13th of June, 1895, while on the 23rd of October a distraught Wyspiański wrote to his friend that „birds are not allowed in the church of the Franciscans”9. Therefore, his examination in the Zoological Museum should be placed between these dates, and thus the original date of the drawing should be moved to 1895.