Joachim Anthonisz. Wtewael Utrecht 1566 - 1638

Private Collection, by about 1950;
New York, Christie's, January 12, 1994, lot 102, there purchased by the present owner.

A. W. Lowenthal, in  Masters of Light: Dutch painters in Utrecht During the Golden Age, exhibition catalogue, San Francisco and Baltimore 1997, under cat. 2, p. 137, illustrated fig. 2 and p. 408, cat. 2,  note 5 (as dated circa 1600).

The discovery of The Raising of Lazarus in 1994 brought to light a spectacular example of Dutch mannerist paintings and is a fascinating record of Wtewael’s relationship to his fellow artists in the Netherlands. Until this painting came on the market, the composition was known only from copies, one formerly in a private collection in Düsseldorf, the second in the Blanton Museum, University of Texas and the third in a private collection in Paris.¹   

Wtewael had depicted the theme earlier in a painting now in the Musée-des Beaux-Arts, Lille, datable to 1595-1600.²  While sharing some of the same compositional elements as well as the dramatic motif of the man reaching his arm out toward the viewer, the Lille painting is less well-resolved.  The space is more crowded and confused, and some of the figures, most notably Lazarus, the gravedigger kneeling at the right, and Christ, have heads that are far too large for their bodies.  The present work, while exhibiting a characteristic mannerist love for contorted poses and exaggerated gestures, is much more coherently organized.  Wtewael has reduced the number of figures and clarified their relationship to the ruins behind.  They are svelter, with smaller heads, exhibiting the elegant characteristic of the artist’s mature style.

Scholars have compared The Raising of Lazarus to an engraving of the same subject by Jan Muller after a design by Abraham Bloemaert, emphasizing the similarities between the two sets of gravediggers in the foreground.³ However, in Bloemaert’s original drawing, now in the Museum der bildenden Kunsten, Leipzig (fig. 1) they, and the basic elements of the composition, are in the same relationship as in the painting, while in the print they are reversed. One gravedigger stands at the left with his palm out and fingers up, his arm raised as if gesturing the viewer to halt;  the other at the right with his palm up as if inviting us to look at the scene. Though it cannot be documented that Wtewael had access to the drawing, the two artists knew each other and both worked in Utrecht.  Furthermore, Bloemaert’s composition was enormously popular and Muller’s engraving was later widely copied, so it is not unlikely that Wtewael would have been curious to see the original design.     

Though the two works share many of the same elements – the gravediggers, the slab at the left front, the kneeling woman at the right, the arch behind – the overall effect is subtly different.  While mannerist gestures abound in both, Bloemaert’s figures crowd together in a frenzy of excitement at the miracle they are observing, while Wtewael’s are taking part in an elegantly choreographed ballet.  The gravedigger gestures out toward the observer, but his arm leads us toward Christ, who dips gracefully down stretching his hand to Lazarus, but Lazarus’s gaze and bent leg lead us to the kneeling woman at the right…; and so it goes, as the play of looks and limbs lead us all around the composition.  Wtewael’s oeuvre is considerably smaller than that of many of his contemporaries, perhaps because he was apparently still very competitive with them.  Wouter Kloek observed Wtewael’s Mars and Venus Surprised by Vulcan and Wedding of Peleus and Thetis were ‘a sort of personal commentary on celebrated pieces by his Haarlem colleagues,’ Goltzius and Cornelis van Haarlem.⁴ While The Raising of Lazarus is of a different scale than the two small coppers, the intent appears to be the same:  a variation and further refinement of a theme set out by his colleagues.  The picture is itself a gesture of mannerist bravura, an assertion that he too was to be considered part of the pantheon of great artists. 

1  The first two cited in A.W. Lowenthal, Joachim Wtewael and Dutch Mannerism, Groningen 1986, p. 167, C-30 and C-31, respectively, where she postulates the existence of a lost original, and all in A.W. Lowenthal 1997, Op. cit., p. 408, cat. 2, note 5.
2  See Lowenthal 1986, Op. cit., no. A-10, pp. 87-88 and figure 14, datable to 1595-1600. 
3  M. G. Roethlisberger, Abraham Bloemaert and His Sons:  Paintings and Prints, Doornspijck 1993, vol. 1, p. 79.
4  W. T. Kloek, ‘Northern Netherlandish Art 1580-1620.  A Survey,’ in Dawn of the Golden Age. Northern Netherlandish Art, 1580-1620, Amsterdam and Zwolle 1993, p. 22.