Herp, Willem (Guilliam) I van (c. 1614 Antwerp 1677). Mercury at the Peasants. Table scenery in cosy interior with the father pouring wine and two fruitbaskets with, i. a., green + blue wine in the larger. On the left window and overthrown chair. On the right by the fireplace a vat and a cat coiled up. Oil on copper. 26 x 34.5 cm. Time-marked old framing with name-plate covering up a little of the picture on both sides and below.

With  expertise  by  Paul  Wescher

(between 1925 and 1946 regularly collaborator of OUD HOLLAND, the periodical of the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie founded in 1883) in German :

“ I regard the painting illustrated overleaf with the depiction ‘Mercury – struck out: Satyr – at the Peasants’ – on copper, 26 x 34.5 cm – as a characteristic work of the Guillaume van Herp who has painted the theme repeatedly, but always differently. Dr. P. Wescher. ”

Sympathetic  work  of  warmbrown  tone

of the Antwerp smallmaster “of the further following of Rubens” whose and Jacob Jordaens’ influences are perceptible. But, so Bernt going on,

illustrated at the lost Berlin “Satyr at the Peasants” (“Mainwork”, Wurzbach, 1906, continuing apart from that “He painted in the manner of Rubens under whose works v. d. Branden – Geschiedenis der Antwerpsche Schilderschool, 1883 – assumes his works”). Correspondingly unknown his living conditions Herp (erroneously supposed as Gerard) already appeared to Nagler (1838) –

“ though he is an excellent artist … and that he also must be an important painter proves the fact that from the collection of Mr. H. Wiermann at Amsterdam a painting of Van Herp – whom we keep for one person with the our – was bought about 2040 fl. It may well be that van Harp mentioned by Houbracken (see below) … of whom Bertin esteemed a painting 4000 Liv. ”

– and 1923 Thieme-Becker sum up:

“ Confused unclearness existed over Herp’s œuvre a Cuntil a short time ago. But one can ascribe to him with greatest probability a number of paintings inscribed G. V. Herp which form a safe starting point … ”

And latest finally Peter C. Sutton (The Age of Rubens, 1993, pp. 438 + 66) :

“ Van Herp executed religious, historical, and mythological paintings, as well as both high- and low-life genre scenes … His eclectic œuvre is difficult to anylize, in part because only fifteen signed paintings by the artist are known, of which only a few are dated. The small scale and genre subject matter of his works is reminiscent of Teniers, but

his  warm  palette  and  lively  brushwork

are more directly influenced by Rubens and Jordaens … Like (Simon) de Vos

Willem  van  Herp  has  a  more  graceful  figure  style

than  most  Flemish  genre  painters 

(several of his colleagues then also he painted the figures as on the other hand he copied Frans Snyders with the paintings Robels pp. 390,I,c, 391,I,a + 392,I,a). Few of his works are dated (the earliest from 1654) but most seem to have been executed in the 1650s and 1660s … Van Herp’s merry company scenes remind us of Teniers but have the carefully composed unity of Jordaens’ much larger genre scenes, as well as a hint of the elegant attenuation and grace of  van  Dyck’s  figures.

The  latter  are  also  recalled  in  the  master’s  small-scale

religious  and  mythological  paintings …

van Herp is documented as having received fifty-two guilders for a picture of this subject in 1662. ”

Thinkable for the work here also a belonging to that group of which as Sutton has it:

“ In the 1650s and sixties he worked for the Antwerp art dealer Matthijs Musson and for the Forchoudt firm painting pictures for export, specifically to Spain.  Many  were  small  works  on  coppper … ”

A support for this could be also that, so Sutton,

“ Van Herp also received independent commissions from Spanish patrons; in 1663 he worked with Luigi Primo … Adam Frans van der Meulen, and David II Teniers … on a series of twenty small paintings on copper, illustrating episodes from the life of Guillermo Ramon Moncada (see Meyers Konv.-Lex., 4^th ed., XI, 738) and his brother, with decorative borders by Jan I van Kessel … Several of the compositions (including four by van Herp) were subsequently woven into tapestries in Flanders. ”

To look into the richness of narrative of Herp’s compositions promises a charming activity. So the satyr of the Berlin picture lost during the last war is amazed, “that the people make cold the eating by breath while before they have warmed up their hands by breath” (Nagler). A theme repeatedly picked up in Antwerp of the age of Rubens basing “on the tradition of Gheeraerts’ Æsop illustrations worked 1567” (here Æsop-Phaedrus, Fable 126), executed before van Herp i. a. on the Berlin painting of Johann Liss (Catalogue Bln.-Dahlem, 1975, KFMV 245), on which the satyr “jumps up from his place with outspokenly refusing gesture. (For) … on such ambiguities the buck-footed faun of the entourage of the god of wine Bacchus will not found the friendship with the farmer. Without understanding for the distrustful reaction the people look at him”, so A. T. Lurie in Augsburg exhibition catalogue Johann Liss, 1975, no. A9.

Also  at  the  Mercury  visit  here the  debate  is  seizable .

The embedding into the rustic ambient results from the genesis of this “very old Greek god, the homeland of him probably is Arcadia. … Already in Homerian hymn he passes for a son of Zeus and the Maia, also his inclination for foxy spites exists already early, it finds expression in the stories of cattle-larceny. Maybe this feature has made him to the messenger of the gods. … Corresponding to his old nature he counts together as

tutelary  god  of  the  herds  and  roads ”

(Jahn).

So it was the interest of the peasants to be on good terms with him. In contrast to Herp’s otherwise hand-forming the right of the god held against the fire looks somewhat plumply with its spread off thumb. We come across it at the left of the farmer’s wife sitting at table of a family meal of the then collection of councillor of commerce Faber in Stuttgart (Catalogue 1870, no. 76) which was on market again in the 1980s. At the bareness of figures of Herp already Houbraken pointed out in his “Groote Schouburgh der Nederlantsche Konstschilders en Schilderessen” (1718-1729, in German by Wurzbach, 1880, III, 53). – All in all a charming example for it, that

“ (Dutch  and  Flemish  paintings

are  right  actually  the  heart  of  a  painting  collection

… For it is the undeniable preference of Netherlandish painting that a splendid artistic mind fills the plain mural decoration, too. (Shortly)

In  the  17^th  century  the  Netherlands  were  the  homeland  of  the  picture ”

Offer no. 14,427

“ Many thanks for your wonderful web site, and your offer of help.  Best Regards ”

(Mr. D. K., June 3, 2006)