Paris, Galerie Heim-Gairac, Exposition de Paysages Flamands: Herri met de Bles à Jan Breughel, 18 April - 15 May 1953, no. 9 (loaned from a private collection)

The Flemish painter and printmaker Adriaen van Stalbemt worked mainly in Antwerp, where he enjoyed a long and productive career.  Although he is best remembered today as a painter of landscapes, he also painted religious, mythological and allegorical scenes, and gallery interiors.  His oeuvre shows great stylistic variety, but owing to a paucity of dated paintings, it is difficult to establish a reliable chronology.  A gifted figure painter, he was regularly invited to paint the staffage in the compositions of his fellow painters: among those with whom he collaborated were Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625), and Frans Francken the Younger (1581-1642).

In this luminous landscape, painted on a post-card-sized copper panel, Stalbemt presents a view of rural Flanders in summer.  Dominating the scene is a large windmill standing on a small hillock.  Curving around its base is a rutted track along which trudges a peasant couple: the woman carries a laden basket on her head, while her companion pushes a heavy barrow.  Beyond a tree that rises in the middle of the composition is an expansive view of gently rolling countryside stretching away into the distance, dotted with farm buildings.  Tiny figures toil in the fields and pastures: some are busy scything the corn, while a shepherd tends his flock.  In the foreground, seated in the shade by a pond, a small party of workers enjoys a picnic.

This painting is clearly influenced by the art of Jan Brueghel the Elder.  Stalbemt has adopted a compositional scheme developed by Brueghel in a series of landscapes executed between about 1606 and 1612 featuring an extensive landscape with a road passing by a prominent  windmill[i].  The large, silhouetted windmill was one of Brueghel’s favourite motifs.  Brueghel’s influence is also reflected here in Stalbemt’s meticulous technique and his miniaturist treatment of detail.  Stalbemt used a similar design in another larger, more elaborate composition in which he depicted a large post mill, with a river landscape beyond[ii], as well as in a print in which he reversed the composition, placing the windmill on a mound on the right.

This small painting belongs to a long-established tradition in Flemish art of depicting allegories of the seasons as landscapes populated with figures engaged in activities appropriate to the time of year.  Here, the evocation of the abundance of summer, as well as such motifs as the labourers bringing in the harvest and the picnicking peasants places it firmly within this tradition. 

Stalbemt often chose to paint on copper.  The smooth surface of the metal enabled him to paint in great detail and also intensified the brilliance of the colours.  Copper plates had other advantages over wood panels and canvases as they were harder and more durable.  For this reason, copper was considered to be particularly suitable for paintings intended for export abroad.  Moreover, paintings on copper panels were especially prized by art lovers in Spain.  We know from documentary sources that Stalbemt worked regularly for the art dealer Crisostomo van Immerseel, who was based in Seville, supplying him with small copper plates[iii].  In 1632, he also supplied the art dealer Pieter Goetkind with paintings of pastoral scenes from Ovid on copper and on wood for two large cabinets for which he received 500 guilders[iv].  

BIOGRAPHY

In his book of artists’ biographies, Het Gulden Cabinet, of 1661, Cornelis de Bie recorded that Adriaen van Stalbemt was born in Antwerp on 12 June 1580.  However, in 1638, the artist claimed to be 60 years old, although he was actually only 58.  Following the fall of Antwerp to the Spanish in 1585, he moved with his Protestant family to nearby Middelburg, where he most likely received his artistic training.  In 1609, probably after the signing of the Twelve Years’ Truce (1609-1621), which brought about a cessation of hostilities between Catholic Spain and the Protestant Northern Netherlands, Stalbemt returned to his hometown, where he converted to Catholicism and in 1609 became a master in the Guild of St. Luke.  In the following years, he trained three apprentices, and in 1617, became Dean of the guild.  He was also a member of the closely associated chamber of rhetoric De Violieren. 

On 5 May 1613, Stalbemt married Barbara Verdelft, daughter of the art dealer Jan Verdelft and moved to a house on the Meir in Antwerp.  A daughter born to the union died young after which the couple remained childless.  In 1632-1633, the artist spent ten months in England, according to de Bie, at the invitation of King Charles I.  During his stay, he collaborated with the painter Jan van Belcamp (c. 1610-1653) in A View of Greenwich with Charles I and Henrietta Maria with a Group of Courtiers, today in the Royal Collection[v].  The artist apparently lived the rest of his life in Antwerp, where he died on 21 September 1662.