This post shares images from a famous 19th-century German printmaker that depict Anabaptist rule at Münster in the 1530s. It also outlines how these images have been confused repeatedly as 16th-century images.
UPDATED: 1 Jan. 2023
art
(Self-)Portraits of early modern artists from Doopsgezind (Mennonite) milieus
This post consists of a gallery of early modern Dutch Mennonite artists (or those who were a part of Mennonite milieus, even though they might not have been congregational members). The list is far from exhaustive, but it provides a quick sense of just how involved in the arts Mennonites were. For more details about Mennonite artists, or Anabaptist portrayed in art, click the tags “art” or “portrait”. Read more
Images of the Lamb Church (aka Singelkerk) in Amsterdam
Amsterdam’s Doopsgezind (aka Mennonite) church on the inner city canal ring called the Singel is a major landmark in the history of Dutch dissenters. Its modern address is Singel 452. The building did not and still does not look like a church from the outside. Since Mennonites did not enjoy rights of public worship in most part of the Netherlands until the 19th century, they usually made the outside of their meeting houses to look like a regular building (for more, see the Wikipedia article on clandestine churches). The Singelkerk is a major example of a Dutch clandestine church.
The Singel Church was the epicentre of the so-called “War of the Lambs” in the middle of the 17th century (see the building’s symbol). Read more
The Anabaptist Attack on Amsterdam’s City Hall
-
- Engraving from Lambertus Hortensius, Van den oproer der Weder-dooperen (1614)
-
- Frontispiece to Pieter Codde, Herdoopers anslagh op Amsterdam (1641)
-
- Etching from Jan Wagenaar, Vaderlandse historie (21 vols., 1751-1781)
-
- Print from Jacob van Lennep, De geschiedenis des vaderlands (8 vols., 1855-1861)
Early modern Mennonite families in Dutch art
The Museum Van Loon in Amsterdam recently finished an exhibit of 18th-century family portraits. I’m posting a poster from that exhibit, plus 5 portraits of Doopsgezind families who lived in Amsterdam and Haarlem. The artworks are from the collections of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and the Amsterdam Museum. I plan eventually to add more details about these portraits and families; my goal is to place the expanded form of this post in the exhibits portion of this website. For now, click on an image to view it in more detail and to find links for more information.
-
- Poster from the Museum Van Loon
-
- The Leeuw-Hooft family, 1671
-
- The de Flines-Block family, ca. 1694
-
- The Neufville family, 1696
-
- The Brak family, 1752
-
- The Overbeek family, 1784
For more details, click on the pictures.
A “new” etching by Romeyn de Hooghe? Updated and revised post
Cover of a 2008 catalog that accompanied an exhibit in 2008-9 at the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam. The translation of the catalog title is “Romeyn de Hooghe: the late Golden Age brought to life.”
Romeyn de Hooghe (1645-1708) is a major figure in the world of European art history in the era of the Dutch Golden Age. What’s more, he played a significant role in Anglo-Dutch politics around the time of the Glorious Revolution as a supporter of William of Orange / William III. He’s been the subject of a significant number of exhibitions and academic studies recently. For example, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, has just finished an exhibit on “The Book Illustrations of Romeyn de Hooghe” (13 Sept. 2014 to 25 Jan. 2015). In this post I introduce an anonymous etching that I think might be by him (or maybe by his student Adriaan Schoonebeek).
Note: Since first publishing this post I have updated it a few times. One revision was from Feb. 8, and more thorough revisions are from Feb. 11 and 23. The main change in the most recent, thorough revisions is to downplay the importance of the 1660 edition of Hortensius.