7. The Bambocciate in Rome and Beyond

The dispute between the Academy and the Dutch artists would never have flared up with such vehemence had it not been for a development which stirred up very strong feelings. Pieter van Laer (1599-1642) came to Rome in 1625 and immediately enjoyed great success with his new genre paintings.¹³⁹ The Academy painters might have come to terms with the little pictures by Bril, Elsheimer, Breenbergh and Poelenburch, but Pieter van Laer seems to have set the temple of art on fire like some second Herostratus. That, at any rate, was Passeri’s reaction.¹⁴⁰ All Pieter van Laer did in actual fact was to depict the life of the people in Italy in the vein of Dutch Naturalism and to demonstrate a genuine Dutch feeling for the painterly values of light and shade [i][i]. He was a native of Haarlem, where the depiction of peasant life had a certain tradition. Leonaert Bramer, Jan Liss and Domenico Fetti were similar to him in a way in their use of chiaroscuro, but Liss and Fetti remained in Venice and Bramer’s art seems to have largely stagnated in Italy. Hence Pieter van Laer had no real forerunners as such, which can only have increased the astonishment caused by his presence. It might be more correct to say that dark shadows and the lateral incidence of bright light were elements of Caravaggism which Pieter van Laer included in his small panel paintings. He was a deformed little man, which earned him the nickname of ‘Bamboccio’ (large child, wretch) [i]. According to Passeri, his name was his undoing, because his spirit drove him to paint Bambocci and Bambocciate and other demeaning and hideous scenes showing beggars and tramps – much to the delight of common folk and of those whose spirit was not guided by any lofty concepts. For Filippo Baldinucci, who had a certain degree of sympathy for this genre, ‘bambocci o fantocci’ were quite simply poor-quality paintings bereft of all understanding.¹⁴¹ The Bambocciate became famous, nonetheless, and with the passing of the years they developed into something of an artistic creed. In France it became customary to honour (or revile) every Naturalist, popular genre painting by referring to it as a ‘bambochade’.¹⁴² As regards Pieter van Laer’s paintings, even his adversaries were obliged to concede that he could paint ‘con una imitatione cosi esatta del natural e con una verità cosi grande’ (in a manner that reproduces nature very accurately and with great realism). Coming from Passeri that was praise indeed.¹⁴³

The admirers of Pieter van Laer’s art by no means came solely from the camp of the ‘animi non sollevati’ [unexalted]. One of his best friends was Joachim von Sandrart (1606-1688), to whom we owe a very detailed and warm account of the artist’s life.¹⁴⁴ He recounts an excursion the artist undertook to Tivoli in the company of Claude and Poussin. Bamboccio was the first to return home. He was such a misshapen little man that the sentry failed to spot him on his horse. A sign of the reputation Pieter van Laer enjoyed was his dedication of a series of etchings to Fernando Afán de Ribera, Duke of Alcalá (1583-1637), in 1636 [i][i]. A year later a statement was made during a trial to the effect that two pictures by Pieter van Laer, which had been stolen from the painter, Herman van Swanevelt, were worthy of a prince.¹⁴⁵ In 1688, paintings by van Laer and other artists like himself, such as Jan Miel and Michelangelo Cerquozzi, found their way from the collection of Gaspar Roomer (Antwerp 1595-Napels 1674) collection in Naples into the hands of Prince Colonna di Stigliano in Rome.¹⁴⁶ Many of these pictures are still in Italian collections even today and we know that aristocratic collectors by no means looked down on the Bambocciate. Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani (1564-1637), an admirer of Caravaggio and his Dutch followers, made some instructive remarks about different levels of painting. He distinguishes twelve manners; the tenth manners sees the advent of painters who paint ‘… di maniera’ [in an accomplished manner] followed by artists who paint ‘con avere gli oggetti naturali d’avanti’ [from nature]. They receive high praise, for they know how to use light and shade to ensure smooth transitions and unity in a picture. For the most part it is Dutch artists who cultivate this style. This is a perfect description of the painting of Pieter van Laer, although Giustiniani appears to have had the Caravaggists in mind.¹⁴⁷ These artists are surpassed only by a twelfth – the supreme – manner, i.e. by those artists who paint ‘di maniera e con l’esempio avanti del naturale’ [in an accomplished manner and with the natural object in front of them].¹⁴⁸

Having spent 13 years in Italy, van Laer went back to Holland in 1639 at the request of Joachim von Sandrart. He died there a few years later.¹⁴⁹ Apparently things did not turn out as he had hoped after his return home. Houbraken reports that he earned very little from his paintings, prompting him to plan a second trip to Italy. Nothing became of it, however. Pieter van Laer had virtually no influence in Haarlem. Dirk Stoop and others engraved and copied his pictures [i][i]. Houbraken provides us with a somewhat improbable story of how Philips Wouwerman came into possession of van Laer’s drawings.¹⁵⁰ One element of truth in this story is that the young Philips Wouwerman certainly learned from van Laer’s works, as is apparent from an examination of his style.

The influence of Pieter’s art was of greater significance in Italy.¹⁵¹ To what extent his style was prepared or adopted by his teacher, Giovanni del Campo (c. 1600-after 1639), is difficult to say given the lack of confirmed works by the latter.¹⁵² Nothing is known either of the paintings of the other del Campo pupils who lived in the same accommodation as Pieter van Laer: Alexander van Wevelinckhoven (1606-1629), Stefano de Corte (c. 1590-1635), Gerard van Krik (identical with Georgius Crudanus?)¹⁵³ and Reynier van Heukelem (born 1602/4), known as Wolf, who at his death left an art collection as well as a number of pictures commissioned by the friend of his youth.¹⁵⁴ As regards works by Pieter van Laer’s brother, Roeland van Laer (1598-in or after 1635), who reportedly drowned in Genoa in about 1635,¹⁵⁵ we know of only one drawing [i], which says nothing about his style as a Bambocciate painter [i].¹⁵⁶

Leonaert Bramer (1596-1674) arrived in Rome ten years before Pieter van Laer. He remained in the city until 1627/8 and so will have had an opportunity to welcome his fellow countryman. He will undoubtedly have paid him a call, for the first dated picture by Bramer to have survived shows quite clearly that the new arrival’s paintings made a great impression on him [i].¹⁵⁷ It should be borne in mind that during his extended journeys through Italy – he is said to have been to Venice, Florence, Mantua, Bologna and many other places – Bramer will have seen and assimilated many different kinds of art.¹⁵⁸ He was pleased by the works of Bassano and Fetti in Venice and must have very much liked the delicate little pictures made by Elsheimer and his circle in Rome. Bramer seems to have painted a great deal when he was in the city. Cornelis de Bie mentions some of his paintings, and in about 1630 over 40 pictures by ‘Leonardo’ were recorded in the Gaspar Roomer collection, which had previously attracted the attention of Joachim von Sandrart.¹⁵⁹ Perhaps Bramer was in Rome again around 1635-1640.¹⁶⁰ That would fit in with a number of his Italianate paintings which date to this time. Above all, it would explain several ‘Rembrandtesque’ pictures by Salvator Rosa who had arrived in Rome around 1635 and had an open eye for Dutch art [i].¹⁶¹ Bramer might well have been the one who made Rembrandt’s style known. Salvator Rosa also seems to have been familiar with drawings by Rembrandt and Lievens at an early stage.¹⁶²

After the Flemish artist, Jan Miel (c. 1599-1664), arrived in Rome in the early 1630s he enthusiastically embraced the new direction embarked upon by the painters of Bambocciate and so he deserves to be dealt with here. The sources expressly state that he was especially talented at imitating the works of Pieter van Laer, which is confirmed by the works of this former pupil of Anthony van Dyck (or Gerard Seghers?) [i][i].¹⁶³ The members of the Academy naturally expressed their disapproval, although they were obliged to concede that the Bamboccio style was extremely popular and that Miel’s little pictures were capable of ‘d’infettare alcune Gallerie per altro degne di gran Personaggio’ [defiling galleries otherwise dignified by great artists].¹⁶⁴ Balduccini came to the defence of his depictions of ordinary folk by pointing out that if the objective of painting was ‘la forza dell’imitazione’ [the power of imitation] then no reproach could be made. Jan Miel was not by any means a fanatical painter of the common people.

He first helped Agostino Tassi with the staffage of his little-figure ceremonial paintings [i],¹⁶⁵ after which he took over Jacob de Hase’s task as the painter of staffage figures in Claude Lorrain’s landscapes.¹⁶⁶ Claude was one of Tassi’s pupils, after all. A few years later Andrea Sacchi (1599-1661) availed himself of Miel’s services [i], since he was a past master at painting ‘caprici e bambocciate sul gusto del pittore Pietro vander(!) detto il Bamboccio’ [capricci and bambocciate in the manner of Pietro vander (!) known as il Bamboccio].¹⁶⁷ However, it was precisely because of these pictures that Miel later fell out with his client, who sent him packing. Miel learned the art of large-scale painting in Sacchi’s studio and between 1646 and 1656 painted several large altarpieces for Roman churches which reveal Tassi’s influence.¹⁶⁸ Other works followed in the style of Pietro da Cortona who called on his services for the decoration of the Quirinal Palace.¹⁶⁹

In 1659 Miel took up an appointment in Turin where, in addition to numerous other activities, he decorated the large banqueting hall in the Venaria Reale with monumental hunting scenes [i][i].¹⁷⁰ There was no call in Turin for any Bambocciate, and his appointment as court painter, which earned him the title of Cavaliere, was certainly not attributable to his resourcefulness in devising such scenes.¹⁷¹ Miel does not appear to have fully renounced this pastime, however, for Baldinucci states quite explicitly, after having talked of Miel’s frescoes, that the artist continued to paint Bambocciate for members of the nobility which were in no way inferior to those of Michelangelo Cerquozzi [i].¹⁷² Jan Miel engaged in ‘high’ and ‘low’ art in equal measure, studying the sources of inspiration for both [i].¹⁷³ In 1648 he was admitted to the Accademia di San Luca and in 1650 joined the Congregazione dei Virtuosi, although he never foreswore Bambocciate.¹⁷⁴

Whereas Baldinucci was a little reserved about Jan Miel’s Bambocciate and considered it necessary to excuse paintings of this kind, he could not commend similar work by Michelangelo Cerquozzi (1602-1660) highly enough.¹⁷⁵ Cerquozzi’s famous patrons – and they were numerous – are all listed and reference is made to the good reputation he enjoyed outside Italy. Cerquozzi was a pupil and friend of Pieter van Laer.¹⁷⁶ He is even said to have painted a portrait of the ‘Bent’ brothers.¹⁷⁷ As it happens, his first teacher was also from the Low Countries, a Fleming by the name of Jacob de Hase (1575-1634), of whose work nothing is known [i].¹⁷⁸ Passeri confirms all this but with a reproving undertone: Cerquozzi’s art could not be accorded any great esteem because he failed to portray any saints or heroes.¹⁷⁹ He painted not only the usual low-life scenes, but also agreeable hunting and battle scenes [i][i]. In an amusing picture he depicts a performance of the Commedia dell’Arte (H. Davis Collection, London) [i].¹⁸⁰ His still lifes, which are more Flemish than Dutch, can most readily be compared with works by Neapolitan artists [i]. Just how popular paintings by van Laer and his circle were at the time is apparent from an inventory note of 1667 which records six copies after Cerquozzi and one original.¹⁸¹ Unsigned pictures in the style of the Bamboccianti are still found quite frequently even now.¹⁸²

Looking first at the Dutch successors of Pieter van Laer, mention must be made of the role played by Cornelis de Wael (1592-1667) [i], who in fact belonged to a different artistic circle.¹⁸³ He was in Rome for a short while in 1625 and will have taken due note of the painting of genre scenes in the spirit of Pieter van Laer. As an art dealer he had a certain significance for the movement, because his stock, an inventory of which was drawn up after his death in Rome, contained a number of paintings by Dutch artists, even by van Laer, Cerquozzi and Rembrandt. He possessed no less than 50 works by a certain Frederick van Steenlant (born c. 1626), including – it was assumed – a number of Bambocciate.¹⁸⁴

By the time Andries Both (1611/2-1642) had left Venice and arrived in Rome in 1635,¹⁸⁵ Pieter van Laer had already achieved several initial successes. Both soon came into contact with him and his circle, as is clear from a witness’s statement of 1637. A drawing made in Amsterdam in 1636 makes it clear that he assimilated the style and depictions of the Bamboccianti [i]. Andries’ types are a little more caricature-like than Pieter van Laer’s good-humoured strollers [i][i]. Since Both had already developed this style during his time in Venice, it must be assumed that he brought it with him from the land of Adriaen Brouwer. For that reason he cannot simply be numbered among the successors to Pieter van Laer. Rather it should be pointed out that he added a stylistic element of his own to the painting of Bambocciate. Andries left Rome with his brother Jan around 1641.

Michael Sweerts (1618-1664), another Fleming, was a good Catholic but not one of the ‘Bent’ fraternity. On the contrary, he was a member of the Academy and helped to collect the Dutch artists’ contributions to his institute’s coffers.¹⁸⁶ Nevertheless, in the six or so years he spent in Italy from 1646 to 1652 and after that as well he mostly painted genre pictures in the Bamboccio style.¹⁸⁷ While his images of old beggars, rural folk and street urchins were neither crude nor bizarre, the Academy will nonetheless not have regarded their appearance in a series devoted to the Seven Compassions as constituting high art [i][i][i][i][i][i][i]. Sweerts’ paintings of artists’ studio’s with their lateral incidence of very bright light, which is reminiscent of Caravaggio, are especially attractive [i]. He has been compared with the brothers Le Nain, which is justifiable in that both artists kept genuine Bambocciate at arm’s length. As Roberto Longhi has shown, Sweerts also considered himself a match for the ‘Roman’ Poussin.¹⁸⁸ And since we’re talking of French painters, it is perhaps appropriate to recall Sébastien Bourdon, who was in Rome while Pieter van Laer was still alive and thought as much of the Dutchman’s art as he did that of the works of the great Italians he copied.¹⁸⁹

The works of Jan van Ossenbeeck (c. 1624-1674) are often confused with paintings by Pieter van Laer, although Ossenbeeck, like Sweerts, arrived in Rome too late to meet Il Bamboccio [i]. He painted charming, light-hearted pictures of everyday life which found great favour at the imperial court in Vienna. Van Laer would have been ill advised to introduce himself there with a work of this kind, however, as the court had not the slightest interest in pictures of beggars.¹⁹⁰

Dirck Helmbreeker (1633-1696) from Haarlem was a worthy successor to Jan Miel. He painted altarpieces, which are admittedly not so highly regarded today [i], as well as numerous Bambocciate, which Baldinucci saw in Italian collections and described in friendly terms.¹⁹¹ A few of them are still familiar to us and they are very commendable in view of their late emergence – one picture in Lucca is dated 1681 [i].¹⁹² While we can now barely imagine any allegorical Bambocciata, Helmbreeker – who was in Italy four times – must nonetheless have produced some [i].¹⁹³ He survived Jan Miel by 30 years and was still supplying the Turin court with Bambocciate in the 1680s and 90s.¹⁹⁴ If the term ‘late travellers to Italy’ is not interpreted too narrowly, one or other of their number, such as Thomas Wijck, Karel Dujardin, Johannes Lingelbach and Barend Graet, can be counted among the followers of Pieter van Laer. In Brussels there is a hunting scene dated 1674 by the comparatively unknown Jacob (Giacomo) van Staverden (1656[?]-after 1716) which must have been inspired by Bamboccio [i]. Christian Reder (1656/61-1729) from Leipzig also painted scenes of this kind amongst others [i].¹⁹⁵

One should not imagine the rejection of Bambocciate by Rome’s Academy painters as being inspired purely by petty, selfish motives. To all intents and purposes the Bambocciate and Italian Baroque paintings represented completely separate worlds. With the sole exception of Michelangelo Cerquozzi there was no other Italian painter who fully embraced the artistic style of the Bambocciate, which only serves to underline once again just how isolated the colony of Dutch artists was in Rome. When Salvator Rosa (1615-1673)¹⁹⁶ came to the city in 1635, he painted small figures for dealers – creations di buon gusto – but they were placed in unattractive everyday scenes, which he later came to satirise himself [i]. So this excursion into the realm of Bambocciate was nothing for him to boast about. Jacques Courtois (1621-1676) met Pieter van Laer in Rome. But under the influence of Michelangelo Cerquozzi he soon devoted his attention entirely to the painting of battle scenes, as a consequence of which the specifically Dutch elements in Pieter van Laer’s style fell by the wayside [i].¹⁹⁷

In Rome the official style of painting reigned supreme. Even the Bambocciate of Dutch artists such as Lingelbach and Helmbreker gradually came to assume a tranquil, classical appearance. Only one artist, who owed his rediscovery to the stylistic analysis and critical endeavours of Roberto Longhi, continued Dutch-style genre painting for a while, although he cannot be counted among the direct imitators of Pieter van Laer. He was a pupil of Rembrandt’s from Denmark, Eberhard Keil (1624-1687), whose first name was Italianised by mistake into (Monsù) Bernardo. Baldinucci reported at length on his life, and everything that he knew about Rembrandt he gleaned from ‘Keilho’, as he was called.¹⁹⁸ Having completed the first part of his apprenticeship under Morten van Steenwinckel (1595-1646) in Denmark,¹⁹⁹ Keil continued his training from 1642 to 1644 under Rembrandt. In 1651 he set off for Italy, travelling via Venice, Bergamo and Milan, where he stayed for a number of years, before moving on to Rome.²⁰⁰ He arrived in the city in 1656 and lived there until his death. This ‘Rembrandt pupil’ was so skilful in adapting to his new surroundings that his paintings were attributed in the past to Antonio Amorosi, an artist from Northern Italy. In the meantime Longhi, having undertaken a meticulous examination of Voss’s reconstruction of Amorosi’s oeuvre,²⁰¹ has come to the conclusion that a group of works which date to an earlier period should be excluded from it and, for reasons set out in his essay, attributed to Keil.²⁰² This consequently renders obsolete the old attributions in Danish collections, such as Evening Visit to the Sculptor (Copenhagen) [i], which was mentioned in an inventory in 1674, and similar pictures in the Honthorst style.²⁰³ The ‘newborn’ Keil can be seen as a representative of the ‘pittura popularesca italiana’ with a tangible element of Haarlem-style painting; Longhi describes him as ‘un Frans Hals mancato’ [a flawed Frans Hals]. To that extent his pictures can be counted among the successors of the Bambocciate, which ultimately had their origins in Haarlem painting and not in Rembrandt’s Amsterdam. They are broad genre images, dashed off rather than carefully finished, completely non-classical and non-academic in character. For that reason they were soon disdained and forgotten (fig. 15/43)[i][i][i][i].

What is left of the work of Antonio Amorosi (1660-1738) certainly justifies Leone Pascoli’s remark to the effect that he renounced the heroic style in favour of burlesque genre paintings [i].²⁰⁴ Amorosi’s Bambocciate are in keeping with the Rococo period and for that reason are painted in a less crude and chaotic manner than 17th century low-life scenes [i].

In Northern Italy the Dutch popular style can be discovered in a number of minor masters, but its impact should not be considered particularly direct or strong.²⁰⁵ In Genoa there were certain lingering remains of the Bamboccio style in the work of Antonio Travi (1608-1665), although the Netherlandish nuances in landscape painting were probably passed on to him by Flemings such as Cornelis de Wael and Goffredo Wals [i][i].²⁰⁶ The chiaroscuro painting of Giuseppe Maria Crespi (1665-1747) from Bologna, by contrast, had less to do with Rembrandt and more with Guercino and Mattia Petri [i].²⁰⁷ His popular scenes are also reminiscent of Venetian and Flemish-Dutch models, although there is never the slightest doubt about their Italian character [i].

The Feast of St. Pancrasl by Pietro Domenico Oliviero I (1679-1754) in Turin, painted in 1725, can be seen as a mixture of the Jan Brueghel school and Cerquozzi [i].²⁰⁸ Giuseppe Gambarini (1680-1725) from Bologna continued the tradition of Crespi’s genre pictures, the Flemish elements being more prominent in his works than in those of Crespi [i][i]. The genre images produced by Antonio Cifrondi (1657-1730)²⁰⁹ are strikingly Dutch without it being possible to establish any connecting element [i]. He travelled a great deal – he spent some time in Turin and Grenoble but was otherwise in France – and, since his portraits also have a French look about them, the possibility cannot be excluded that he came to be known in France for his Dutch genre paintings.

A special kind of Bambocciate painter is Faustino Bocchi (1659-1741) from Brescia, who later specialised in bizarre scenes featuring dwarfs and pygmies, which were more Flemish than Dutch-inspired [i].²¹⁰ His teacher was also a Fleming – an obscure painter of battle scenes by the name of Angelo Everardi (Esseradts) (1647-1678), who is known to have painted a biblical scene [i].²¹¹ In Venice the Bambocciate tradition was continued in a modest way by Matteo Ghidoni (c. 1626-1689)(fig. 45) [i].²¹²

There is no firm biographical evidence for the information available on the two remaining artists who deserve to be mentioned in this context. Giacomo Francesco Cipper (1664-1736), called Il Todeschini, was probably a Southern German or Austrian active in Northern Italy, possibly in Bologna [i].²¹³ In his genre paintings he incorporates aspects reminiscent of Frans Hals, the pseudo-van de Venne, Jan Baptist Weenix and many others but without distancing himself from the painters in Brescia and Venice. His pictures are encountered under some of the most obscure Dutch and Italian names [i].²¹⁴ He may have exerted an influence on Giacomo Ceruti (1698-1767), who was active a little later. Pieter van Laer’s Bambocciate assume a certain monumentality in his work [i][i]. Ceruti’s paintings have a very close affinity with the works of the brothers Le Nain. Like the Dutchmen he has a keen eye for the painterly treatment of every detail in a picture, regardless of whether it is a still life or a piece of cloth. On the other hand, he produced genre pictures in the Venetian style that were previously attributed to Pietro Longhi and Antonio Amorosi, portraits in the style of Giambattista Piazzetta and altarpieces in the manner of Carlo Carloni and Fra Vittore Ghislandi (Galgario).²¹⁵