(Mechelen 1576–1631/33 Amsterdam)

The Struggle between Carnival and Lent,
oil on panel, 69.5 x 115 cm, framed  



Provenance:
sale, Sotheby’s, London, 9 July 1998, lot 24;
sale, Sotheby’s, London, 17 December 1998, lot 111;
sale, Christie’s, London, 11 July 2001, lot 9;
Private collection, United Kingdom

Literature:
K. Ertz, C. Nitze-Ertz, David Vinckboons, Lingen 2016, p. 397, no. 164

The present painting is a late work by David Vinckboons and has been recognised as such at its first appearance in 1998. Not known to Korneel Goossens, it was only published in 2016 by K. Ertz and C. Nitze-Ertz. It is recorded at the RKD in the Hague under the number 47761.

David Vinckboons’ painted oeuvre, for which the first catalogue was compiled by Korneel Goossens in 1954 and for which K. Ertz and C. Nitze-Ertz drew a new one in 2016, consists mostly of histories and genre scenes in landscapes setting, which in their style, composition and lightheartedness recall Flemish painting of the 16th century, albeit without any moral spirit.

The present work is by its subject matter and style somewhat eccentric in the artist’s oeuvre. However, the paintings relatively large size, the use of larger figures and the loose painterly style does recall the Circumcision, oil on panel, 133 x 193 cm in the University Art Gallery, Notre Dame, Indiana (see K. Goossens, Nog meer over David Vickboons, in: Jaarboek van het Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten te Antwerpen, 1966, pp. 91, 103, fig. 10). The children recall those in the village kermesse now in the Mauritshuis, The Hague.

The painting depicts the Battle between Carnaval and Lent and presents the confrontation between the curvaceous personification of Shrovetide, wearing a belt and chain of sausages and holding a spit with fried chicken, and his meager counterpart of Ashwednesday, with chain of fishes on his back and an empty basket above his head, as a farce performance on a village square at night. The theatrical character is enhanced by the light of the torches and the facades. A similar scene in a town at night is seen in the print of Winter, edited by Matham in Haarlem (see F. Lammertse, David Vinckeboons (1576–1632). Schilder en Tekenaar in Antwerpen, in: Het Kunstbedrijf van de familie Vinckboons, exhibition catalogue, 1989, p. 25, fig. 16).

The subject is rare in Dutch painting of the 17th century. The earliest pictorial representations are from circa 1500, most notably by Hieronymus Bosch and his followers, such as those in the Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp and the Noordbrabants Museum, Bois le Duc. The most famous depiction is that of 1559 by Pieter Brueghel I (oil on panel, 118 x 164,5 cm, in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, inv. 1016) and was copied by his son Pieter Brueghel II.

Yet, while Brueghel’s interest was foremost folkloric with the composition giving a restraint encyclopedic overview over various practices relating to that very moment when Winter is succeeded by Spring, Vinckboons presents the battle of Carnaval and Lent as pure entertainment and as a theatrical performance. Indeed, such mock performances had been the practice in many Flemish cities and villages in Medieval times. In Vinckboons days these practices were continued in the Rederijkerskamers (Rhetorician Chambers). Vinckboons himself, as other immigrant artists, was a member of Het Wit Lavendel and thus connected to the world of literature and theatre.

David Vinckboons was born into a family of artists in Malines in 1576. His grandfather Gillis had settled there in 1489 and had opened a studio of painting in watercolour on canvas – a Malines specialty continued by his son Philip (1545–1601). Due to the political and religious situation of the day, Philip moved his business to Antwerp in 1579, where he is recorded from 1580 until 1586. As the situation deteriorated for the reformed community to which the Vinckboons belonged, in late 1586 Philip travelled to the North with 185 other Antwerp families under safe conduct granted by the Duke of Leicester. Here he first settled in Middelburg and from 1591 in Amsterdam. With other religious immigrants from the South, such as Gillis van Coninxloo and Hans Bol, the Vinckboons family formed a tight artistic community in Amsterdam and continued their businesses as before. Thus David received his training from his father and first specialised in paintings in watercolour on canvas, such as his forebears had done. Later he took up painting in oil, mostly on smaller formats, which Karel van Mander praises as of considerable merit. His compositions must have been popular since they were frequently engraved.