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Spaightwood Galleries
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Maarten de Vos was born in Antwerp in 1532 and died there in 1603. His father Pieter de Vos was also a painter and he studied first with him and then with Frans Floris, one of the first to bring Mannerism to Antwerp. In 1551 de Vos left Floris and went to Rome, where he studied the works of Michelangelo and then to Venice where he became first the pupil then the friend and collaborator of Tintoretto. He was highly successful in Italy, executing commissions for the Medici among others. In 1558 he returned to Antwerp where he worked as a painter executing portraits and large commissions for churches. He executed some engravings, but he was far more prolific as a source of drawings that were then engraved and published by others. In this set of twenty pieces depicting the Celebrated Women of the Old Testament, his drawings were engraved by Adrien Collaert (c. 1560-1618) and Karel de Mallery (c, 1576-after 1631), two of Phillip Galle's sons-in-law, and Adrien's brother Hans / Jan Collaert (1566-1628).
Stylistically these engravings are clearly Mannerist in inspiration. Thematically, they present an interesting set of celebrated women. Rahab is a prostitute who protects Joshua's spies in Jericho and thus aids in Joshua's conquest of her city, Tamar (or Thamar) is a widow who must play the part of a prostitute to force her father-in-law to obey the law of Israel and give her his third son as a husband following the deaths of his two eldest sons without begetting a child with her. Esther uses her beauty to become the wife of an Assyrian King and uses that place to put down an attempt to destroy the people of Israel and Judith lures an Assyrian General to his death, thus demoralizing his troops and saving Isreal from destruction by allowing Holofernes to think that she will sleep with him and then cutting off his head with his own sword when he falls asleep drunk. The acts of some of these women demonstrate a willingness to put service to God above all other concerns including conventional morality. Some of the presentations stress the beauty and sexual attractiveness of the women as if to invite us to reconsider whether the very things for which women had frequently been condemned might not be the very means by which God saves his people in these stories.
Select Bibliography: A. Doutrepont, Martin de Vos et l'Entrée triomphale de l'Archiduc Ernest d'Autriche à Anvers en 1594 (Brussels/Rome: 1937); M.M.L. Netto-Bol, So-called Maarten de Vos sketchbook of drawings after the antique (The Hague, Staatsuitgeverij, 1976: Vol. IV of the series "Kunsthistorische Studiën van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome); C. Schuckman, Maarten de Vos, 1532-1603 (Rotterdam: Sound & Vision, 1995/96. 3 vols. Together 850 pp., ca.1600 ills. Vols XLIV - XLVI in the Hollstein's Dutch and Flemish series); A. Zweite, Studien zu Marten Vos. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der antwerpener Malerei in der zweiten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen: Georg-August-Universität, 1974); A. Zweite, Marten de Vos als Maler. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Antwerpener Malerei in der zweiten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts (Berlin 1980).
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Hans (Jan) Collaert (Antwerp, 1566-1628), Sara (New Holl. de Vos 224 ii/ii). Engraving after Maarten de Vos, c. 1581. Plate 2 from a set of Celebrated Women of the Old Testament consisting of twenty engravings (plus frontispiece) by Hans or Adrien Collaert and Carel van Mallery published in Antwerp by Phillip Galle (1537-1612). In the left rear, Abraham at Sara's demand sends Hagar and Ishmael, the son that he begat upon her at Sara's demand before she was able to conceive Isaac, into the wilderness, where they will be saved from death by an angel. Image size: 154x88mm. Price: SOLD.
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Hans (Jan) Collaert (Antwerp, 1566-1628), Rebecca New Holl. de Vos 225 i/ii). Engraving after Maarten de Vos, c. 1581. Plate 3 from a set of Celebrated Women of the Old Testament consisting of twenty engravings (plus frontispiece) by Hans or Adrien Collaert and Carel van Mallery published in Antwerp by Phillip Galle (1537-1612). In the background, Rebecca helps Jacob deceive his blind father Isaac into giving him the blessing that Isaac had intended for his older brother Esau. Image size: 154x88mm. Price: $750.
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Hans (Jan) Collaert (Antwerp, 1566-1628), Leah (New Holl. de Vos 226 ii/ii)). Engraving after Maarten de Vos, c. 1581. Plate 4 from a set of Celebrated Women of the Old Testament consisting of twenty engravings (plus frontispiece) by Hans or Adrien Collaert and Carel van Mallery published in Antwerp by Phillip Galle (1537-1612). Jacob serves her father Laban for seven years in order to win Rachel, then discovers, the morning after the wedding that he had slept with Leah ("who was tender-eyed") instead and is forced to serve another seven years in order to wed Rachel. There is another engraving printed on the reverse, Rachel by Hans Collaert (Plate 5). Image size: 154x88mm. Price: SOLD.
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Hans (Jan) Collaert (Antwerp, 1566-1628), Rachel (New Holl. de Vos 227 ii/ii)). Engraving after Maarten de Vos, c. 1581. Plate 5 from a set of Celebrated Women of the Old Testament consisting of twenty engravings (plus frontispiece) by Hans or Adrien Collaert and Carel van Mallery published in Antwerp by Phillip Galle (1537-1612). Rachel, "who was beautiful and well-favored," was jacob's first love but his second wife. Image size: 154x88mm. Price: $750.
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Hans (Jan) Collaert (Antwerp, 1566-1628), Thamar (New Holl. de Vos 228 ii/ii)). Engraving after Marten de Vos, c. 1581. Plate 6 from a set of Celebrated Women of the Old Testament consisting of twenty engravings (plus frontispiece) by Hans or Adrien Collaert and Carel van Mallery published in Antwerp by Phillip Galle (1537-1612). The scene depicts Tamar trapping her father-in-law into keeping his promise to allow her to marry his youngest son after the deaths of his two older ones after their marriages to her by dressing as a prostitute and sleeping with him (see top left). Image size: 154x88mm. Price: $750
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Hans (Jan) Collaert (Antwerp, 1566-1628), Rahab (New Holl. de Vos 230 ii/ii)). Engraving after Marten de Vos, c. 1581. Plate 8 from a set of Celebrated Women of the Old Testament consisting of twenty engravings (plus frontispiece) by Hans or Adrien Collaert and Carel van Mallery published in Antwerp by Phillip Galle (1537-1612). There is another engraving printed on the reverse, Joshua by Abraham de Bruyn. Rahab is a prostitute in Jericho who protects Joshua's spies and keeps them from being discovered in return for being spared when Joshua takes the city. Image size: 154x88mm. Price: $700.
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Hans (Jan) Collaert (Antwerp, 1566-1628), Debora (New Holl. de Vos 231 ii/ii)). Engraving after Marten de Vos, c. 1581. Plate 9 from a set of Celebrated Women of the Old Testament consisting of twenty engravings (plus frontispiece) by Hans or Adrien Collaert and Carel van Mallery published in Antwerp by Phillip Galle (1537-1612). Debora was one of the judges of Isreal; Queen Elizabeth I of England was compared to Debora in the early years of her reign. Image size: 154x88mm. Price: SOLD.
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Spaightwood Galleries, Inc.
To purchase, call us at 1-800-809-3343 (508-529-2511 in Upton MA & vicinity) or send an email to sptwd@verizon.net. We accept AmericanExpress, DiscoverCard, MasterCard, and Visa.
For directions and visiting information, please call. We are, of course, always available over the web and by telephone (see above for contact information). Click the following for links to past shows and artists. For a visual tour of the gallery, please click here. For information about Andy Weiner and Sonja Hansard-Weiner, please click here. For a list of special offers currently available, see Specials.
Visiting hours: Saturday and Sunday noon to 6 pm and other times by arrangement. Please call to confirm your visit. Browsers and guests are welcome.
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