HOECKE, Jan van den

In around 1645 van den Hoecke worked in Vienna in the service of the Habsburg court. He returned to the Netherlands in the late 1640s to settle in Brussels as court painter to the Spanish governor, the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, in whose service he painted most of his work.

This painting comes from the main altar of the church of the Recollettenklooster in Bruges.

Initially Jan van den Hoecke painted in a style associated with that of Rubens’s later work; he had in fact worked with him in the 1630s. His earliest work consists mainly of biblical pictures. Particularly worthy of mention are his oil sketches for Old Testament scenes probably intended as an integrated series. The present oil sketch belongs to this series.

In around 1645 van den Hoecke worked in Vienna in the service of the Habsburg court. He returned to the Netherlands in the late 1640s to settle in Brussels as court painter to the Spanish governor, the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, in whose service he painted most of his work.

During his stay in Austria, Hoecke executed several paintings for Emperor Ferdinand III’s brother, Duke Leopold William of Austria (1614-1662)

This tapestry depicts within an architectural frame an allegorical representation of the Four Elements and Chronos from a series of ten with the Months, Seasons and Elements. It was designed by Jan van den Hoecke and executed in Brussels by Everaert Leyniers.

In around 1645 van den Hoecke worked in Vienna in the service of the Habsburg court. He returned to the Netherlands in the late 1640s to settle in Brussels as court painter to the Spanish governor, the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, in whose service he painted most of his work. To a large extent this consisted of allegorical and mythological pictures, the most important of which were the cartoons for the set of tapestries of the twelve months. This late work displays a strong classicist trend, clearly influenced by the artistic ideas he had picked up in Italy. It shows a particular affinity with Guido Reni’s later paintings.

This oil sketch shows David welcomed at the city gates of Jerusalem by young women, who celebrate his victory over Goliath with music and dance, and throw roses at his feet. It is one of a series of Old Testament subjects of similar dimensions that includes Moses, Aaron, and Miriam Celebrate the Crossing of the Red Sea (Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe) and David Playing the Harp for King Saul (Sz�pm�v�szeti M�zeum, Budapest).

The Triumph of David is a rapidly executed ‘modello’ inspired by Rubens’s later technique.

Initially Jan van den Hoecke painted in a style associated with that of Rubens’s later work; he had in fact worked with him in the 1630s. His earliest work consists mainly of biblical pictures. Particularly worthy of mention are his oil sketches for Old Testament scenes probably intended as an integrated series. The present oil sketch belongs to this series.

In this scene, Saul, the King of Israel, rides in triumph on a horse-drawn chariot, surrounded by his war trophies, towards the walls of a city attended by his soldiers. David holds the head of the felled Philistine giant Goliath. They are greeted by women and children playing instruments.

For Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, van den Hoecke designed the oil sketches for a series of 12 wall tapestries on the motif of vanitas and a series of ten tapestries under the title ‘Allegory of Time’: Day and Night, six pictures of The Months, the Four Seasons, the Four Elements and the Triumph of Time. The series of the Allegory of Time was woven between 1647 and 1650 in the Brussels tapestry workshop of Everaert Leyniers. Several other artists such as Pieter Thijs and Adriaen van Utrecht also worked on the series. Ten preparatory oil sketches (“modelli”) that van den Hoecke made for the series have survived (four in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), as have eight tapestries based on the designs for Day and Night and The Months. Four of the modelli for The Months are now in the Miramare Castle in Trieste.

The cartoons of van Hoecke for the Allegory of Time series were innovative in that they dispensed with the traditional borders of the tapestries, which he replaced by elements of the picture such as piers, entablature and foreground step of the architecture as well as with sumptuous festoons of game, fowl, fish, flowers and fruit. He was also able to create an illusion of three-dimensional space by extending the architectural elements behind and around the figures. The muted palette of the modelli shows that van den Hoecke was more interested in line and composition than in colour.