(Haarlem 1647–1733 Amsterdam)
The Siege of Turin: Prince Eugene of Savoy chases the French troops under Louis d’Aubusson, Duc de la Feuillade; and
The Battle of Malplaquet: The English, Dutch, Prussian and Habsburg troops under Prince Eugene of Savoy triumph over the French led by Maréchal Louis-François, Duc de Boufflers,
oil on canvas, each 46 x 67.5 cm, framed, a pair (2)

The present pair of paintings replicate, with a few variations, two of the ten large canvases painted by Jan van Huchtenburg for Prince Eugene of Savoy, now in the Galleria Sabauda in Turin.

The first scene shows the Battle of Turin, during which the Savoy capital was liberated from the long siege of the French army between May and September 1706. The Austro-Piedmontese troops, led by Prince Eugene and the Duke of Savoy, repulsed the attack on 7 September 1706, forcing the French to flee. Prince Eugene is shown on horseback on the right, wearing a red coat, next to his cousin Victor Amadeus II. In the background we see the city of Turin, identifiable by the outline of its towers, as well as the characteristic star-shape of the military fort.

The second canvas depicts the Battle of Malplaquet in 1709, between the Anglo-Dutch united armies under the command of the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene against the French led by Maréchal de Villars and later by Louis-François, Duc de Boufflers. In this painting Prince Eugene appears on the left-hand side of the composition, turning his gaze towards the spectator, whom he conceptually invites to participate in his success.

Prince Eugene of Savoy (Paris 1663–1736 Vienna) was a great military strategist but also a passionate art lover, patron and collector, he created an extraordinary collection of paintings destined to decorate his summer residence, the Belvedere Palace in Vienna and the other residences he owned. After his death, the picture collection was for the most part acquired by Charles Emmanuel III of Savoy, and thus incorporated in the Royal collections in Turin. During his youth in Paris, Prince Eugene had the opportunity to admire the great battle scenes commissioned by the court of Louis XIV from the best artists of the time for the Palace of Versailles, such as, the frescoes for the Ambassadors’ Staircase, painted between 1677 and 1678 by Adam Frans van der Meulen after a design by Charles Le Brun (the frescoes were destroyed in the mid-18th century), or the decoration of the famous Gallery of Mirrors, another work by Le Brun, completed in 1681.

When it came to choosing a painter to accompany him on his military campaigns of 1708–1709, his choice therefore fell on Jan van Huchtenburg, a Dutch artist who in the last years of the 17th century had worked under Le Brun and van der Meulen at the court of Louis XIV, and also in the Parisian tapestry manufactory of the Gobelins.

Eugene of Savoy’s most important commission to van Huchtenburg was for the canvases which now hang in the Galleria Sabauda. The artist painted them between 1712 and 1717, bringing together the 17th-century tradition of crowded and agitated battle-scenes, with the commander in the foreground and the older tradition of the bird’s-eye view, providing at the same time a detailed representation of the events, and a compelling celebration of the victorious commander.
At the time of Prince Eugene’s death, this large pictorial cycle was listed in the inventory as present in the antechamber of the ceremonial rooms of Schloss Hof, which was purchased by the prince in 1725, however, its original place of display remains unknown; it is possible that initially it hung in the Belvedere in Vienna.

The series of Eugene of Savoy’s battles by van Huchtenburg enjoyed a great success throughout Europe, also thanks to the engravings that the artist himself derived from the paintings in order to illustrate the Batailles gagnées par le serenissime prince Fr. Eugène sur les ennemis de la foi [...] dépeintes et gravées en Taille-douce, published in The Hague in 1720, and re-edited several times during the 18th century.