(Antwerp? c. 1540–1596 Venice)
An Allegory of Trade and Commerce,
oil on canvas, 120 x 190.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Collection Carl Albert Schiffers (1935–2014), Aachen;
Kunsthaus Le Marie, Aachen;
since 1973 private collection, Germany

Literature:
S. Mason Rinaldi, Paolo Fiammingo, in: Saggi e memorie di storia dell’arte 11, 1978, p. 61, under cat. 11, fig. 35

We are grateful to Bernard Aikema for confirming the attribution after examining the present painting in the original.

This picture is an autograph variant of a work, executed by the Flemish painter Pauwels Frank, better known as Paolo Fiammingo, for the immensely rich and powerful Southern German entrepreneur and banker Hans Fugger. The latter employed Paolo Fiammingo, from 1580 onwards, for a series of paintings in his castle at Kirchheim, sub-divided into various cycles, depicting what may be called the state and knowledge of civilization and nature of the times in an all-encompassing, encyclopedic ‘theatre’. Among these series there is one, executed, according to Stefania Mason, between 1586 and 1591, which consists of four pictures – all of the same size - showing important human achievements and/or professions. Whereas the other three pictures of this series can be identified easily as representing, respectively, Music, Agriculture and Arts and Sciences, the subject of the fourth one, of which the present picture is a version, seems less clear at first sight. According to Klaus Demus (former curator at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), in a 1975 letter to the then owner of our picture, the work depicts an episode from the legend of Alexander the Great, as reported by various late-classical and medieval authors. The story tells of a man who discovers a treasure on a piece of land which another man, not knowing of this, had recently sold him. As none of the two wants to give up the treasure, the cause is brought before the king, who discovers that the two contenders have, respectively, a son and a daughter. To resolve the case, the king orders that the two get married and receive the treasure as a dowry.

There are two objections against this interpretation. First, as Stefania Mason remarked, the group in the lower right corner does not correspond to the story, and reflects rather the standard iconography of ‘trade and commerce’. Secondly, the Alexandrine story does not match the subjects of the other three pictures, nor, indeed, does it conform in any way to the general iconography of Paolo Fiammingo’s cycles for Hans Fugger. Therefore, it is possible to identify the theme as that of an allegory of Trade and Commerce.

Paolo Fiammingo was a native of Antwerp, where he received his training and entered the painters corporation in the year 1561. By 1573 he was in Venice, where he initially worked as a landscape specialist, collaborating with Tintoretto and other major figure painters before establishing himself as an autonomous painter. He was registered as a member of the Venetian painters’ guild from 1583. His works for the Fugger were among his major commissions. It is obvious that he worked on these many pictures with the help of assistants, about whom, however, we have no further information.

The present picture is typical for Paolo Fiammingo’s eclectic style. The peaceful countryside in the background reflect his roots as a landscape painter, but in the figures his manner adheres to that of major Venetian figuristi, in particular Tintoretto and Jacopo Palma il Giovane. The scene in the foreground, to the right, betrays Paolo’s knowledge of the ‘low life’ scenes of the Bassano workshop, which enjoyed much success at the time.

In conclusion it should be stressed that the painting is a typical example of Paolo Fiammingo’s ‘Veneto-Netherlandish’ style, which enjoyed considerable popularity towards the end of the sixteenth century.

We are grateful to Bernard Aikema for cataloguing the present painting.