Chapter 10
The Patrician Residence1.

The ‘great house’ has been seen expanding from a rather modest home concentrated round simple workrooms into one of the architectural wonders of Antwerp. From the inventories of the family possessions and particularly from those taken on their deaths, the masters of the Golden Compasses can be seen turning their premises into a luxurious residence and filling it with art treasures, stage by stage, as they expanded the building itself.

Each generation contributed something, but on the other hand, on the death of every master or master's widow the interior furnishings and collections were divided and dispersed again among the heirs: a rhythmic alternation of gathering and scattering so that of the treasures which filled the Plantin House in days gone by only a fraction remains. Yet considering the many generations of the Moretus family and the impressive number of heirs in every generation, the most surprising thing is that so much has been preserved in the house in the Vrijdagmarkt.

Comfort and external luxury seem to have meant little to Plantin. By the time of the master printer's death his house may possibly have contained a few more furnishings and objets d'art than were listed in the modest inventory of the auction of 1562,2. but even in later years the printer had little money to spare for embellishing the domestic life of himself and his family.

Only one simple work of art in the Plantin-Moretus Museum was probably acquired by the founder of the house. This is his portrait, by an anonymous sixteenth-century master, but even this painting may have been commissioned and paid for by one of his sons-in-law. In any case, the piece is not included in the inventory taken on the death of Jeanne Rivière, in 1596.1. This inventory simply lists some everyday household effects and useful articles, together with some silver and gold ornaments, including a massive gold medal portraying the Prince of Orange and a little medal bearing the head of a King Henry of France - but none with a portrait of Philip II! The total value amounted to a mere 2,718 fl. 8¾ st.2.

Nor do Jan I Moretus and Martina Plantin seem to have indulged in many personal expenses. The total value of the movable property left by the widow of Jan I Moretus in 1616 was assessed at 7,165 fl. 19½ st. The lion's share of this property, amounting to 3,213 fl. 14 st., was acquired by Balthasar I (partly as his rightful share and partly by purchase from the other heirs). Only a list of these possessions remains.3. They included a gilded head of Justus Lipsius (worth 93 fl. 9 st.), a gold chain and medal with the head of Archduke Albert (245 fl.), and a few pictures, none of great value.4.

With Balthasar I a new, more artistically aware generation began. The crippled son of Jan I Moretus turned the humble Plantin home into an architectural jewel. He was also the first of the family to acquire other than soberly utilitarian furniture and to adorn the walls of his house with other than second or third-rate paintings. It is not possible to trace these activities of the humanist, art-loving Balthasar in detail. A thorough combing of his correspondence and accounts might still conceivably bring interesting particulars to light, but for the present all that is available is some information about his purchases of paintings (especially from his childhood friend Rubens) and his orders to Hans van Mildert and Pauwel Diricx for the decoration of his ‘new building’. These orders have already been mentioned above;5. the relationship with Rubens will be discussed in more detail below.6.

Balthasar II was his unmarried uncle's heir. It was one of the delights of this Moretus to draw up inventories (and wills). Among the inventories he left is one of all he possessed on 31st December 1658 (and a second, with a few amendments, of 31st December 1662),1. in which with the meticulousness of a notary he listed everything, down to the merest trifle, with the estimated value beside it. Setting out as it does the possessions of a distinguished mid-seventeenth-century gentleman, this is a unique document, and one which deserves to be published and studied.

In 1658 Balthasar II valued the ‘great house’ at 40,000 fl., the printing-press (that is, the equipment of the printing house, including the stocks of lead type, woodblocks and copperplates) at 24,000 fl., his personal library at 10,000 fl., his jewels at 6,039 fl. 11 st., his gold and silver at 6,519 fl. 18 st. and the total of his remaining movables at 17,861 fl.

This remainder includes an impressive quantity of linen (totalling 5,324 fl. 2 st. in value), pewter (624 fl. 8 st.), copper (289 fl.), ironmongery (102 fl.), a reasonable number of beds and pillows (594 fl.; including a pair of ‘beds for ten [persons] with their bolsters’ and also a pair ‘with bolsters for nine [persons]’),2. an item headed ‘woodwork’, which covers bedsteads, tables, benches, dressers, sideboards, screens, etc. (800 fl.), supplemented by a separate item for chairs (480 fl.) and for chests (50 fl., including a ‘bride's coffer’ for 12 fl.); also blankets (149 fl.), cushions (70 fl.), tablecloths (338 fl.), and ‘all the clothes, both for the body of my wife and for mine own body, I estimate in all the value of 1,200 fl.’

These were articles which, apart from their number and fine quality, were among the customary furnishings of the middle class dwelling of those days. A further series of items is more luxurious: fine porcelain (542 fl. 10 st.), more than no paintings (4,080 fl.), a long list of gilt leather and tapestries (1,130 fl.) and hangings (723 fl.). There was not a room that does not seem to have been hung with costly embossed leather and tapestries or scarcely less expensive materials - even the servants' rooms.3.

Balthasar concludes his register of furnishings with a summary of articles for which he could think of no general heading, and which can be called ‘sundries’ (1,365 fl. 4 st.). The latter include, besides four plaster heads in the library (4 fl.), the ‘figure of Laocoon with its table’ (12 fl.), a few not too expensive mirrors, ‘a guncase with three firelocks, a musket, 2 pistols, 4 rapiers and a pocket pistol’ (40 fl.), etc., a number of valuable objets d'art and scientific instruments: a tortoise-shell escritoire with stand (300 fl.), a large mirror with tortoise-shell frame (120 fl.), a bronze crucifix (100 fl.), a clavicymbal with legs (but without the lid, which is noted separately among the paintings: 36 fl.), a ‘horologe’ in the Lipsius room (60 fl.), ‘two globi celestis et terrestris... with their stands’ (60 fl.), ‘a copper sphere, two medium globes, various mathematical instruments’ (in all: 100 fl.).

The splendour and pomp of the interior of the great house in those years must have been worthy of its new architectural frame. Christophe Plantin's grandson and great-grandson turned their home into a little treasure-house where they need not be ashamed to receive kings and princes. Despite the successive divisions of the estate the interior of the Plantin house continued to be splendid and impressive; anything lost to the house was

immediately replaced by the new owners with equally or even more beautiful pieces. It will not be attempted here to follow their comings and goings. Several inventories and allocations of property have in any case been lost. Others are not always very detailed or exact.1. An exception deserves to be made of the house inventory on the decease of Anna Maria de Neuf, widow of Balthasar III Moretus, in 1714.2.

Balthasar II left a systematic, priced inventory of all that his house contained. The inventory of 1714 gives no values and is not systematic, but in it room after room is conjured up and a picture is presented of the whole as it then was.

This, for instance, is how the three big reception rooms on the ground floor in the east wing looked in 1714 (Rooms 1, 2 and 3):3. ‘First downstairs in the little marble room (Room 1): first twelve black Spanish leather double chairs; item the gilt leathers with black ground; a mirror with gilt frame;

an inlaid table; two white window curtains; item an overmantel painting depicting Christmas Night by Gerard Zegers; item an overmantel canvas. In the first big room next to the above (Room 2): first the gilt leathers with white ground; an escritoire with silver fittings; two porcelain plates; a mother-of-pearl bowl in silver gilt; eight green velvet double chairs and twelve single chairs of the same [green] velvet; five white curtains at the windows; a green silk curtain at the door; a hearthrug; an iron grate with copper rings in the hearth with tongs and shovel; an overmantel canvas; an overmantel painting depicting the Gifts of the Three Kings, painted by Rubens; a Turkish carpet; an inlaid table of tortoise-shell; a mirror with tortoise-shell frame. In the second big room next to that (Room 3): first thirty-six portraits, of which some are of the family and others of famous authors, hanging over the tapestries; item the tapestries depicting landscapes with figures, consisting of ten pieces both large and small; item an escritoire with silver plates; item twelve red velvet chairs and twelve red velvet double chairs of Spanish wood; two large mirrors with tortoise-shell frames; two inlaid tortoise-shell tables; item painted shutters; item silk curtains at the windows; item an overmantel painting by Boeyermans; an overmantel canvas; item ten silver brackets; item a silver chased fruit dish; a piece of red cloth the length of the chamber; a bronze bust under the chimneypiece.’

This was how the Justus Lipsius room looked in 1714, or rather, this was what it contained:1. ‘A small painting showing the Church of St. Peter of Aardenburg and filled in by Biset; an overmantel painting depicting the sacrifice of Paul and Barnabas; the portrait of Father Moretus the Minorite; item black gilded leathers with gilt ground; a wood inlaid table; a writing desk; an inlaid nutwood table; a tick-tack board; twelve black leather men's chairs; a mirror with black frame; two porcelain bowls; six white porcelain

chocolate bowls with gilt stands; six porcelain tea cups with saucers and gilt stands; three white linen curtains; sixteen little serpentine pots and cups; item fire-irons, shovel, tongs and bellows; a pewter coffee and teapot.’

This was how one of the bedrooms was equipped - the one called the ‘corner room’:1. ‘First gilt leathers with black ground; a bedstead with grey cloth hangings with fringes, a bedspread, a flowered cotton calico, a tablecloth, a straw mattress in two parts, a bed with pillows and bedclothes, and bed valance; a hardwood table; a carved wooden dressing-table, consisting of a mirror, a square casket, two round boxes, a pair of smaller boxes, a clothes-brush, and a pair of carved candelabra; a small case covered with green velvet; an overmantel painting symbolizing the seven sins; item the portrait of the deceased lady of the house with gilt frame; a small painting portraying Christ; two small portrait miniatures of Christ and Mary in tortoise-shell frames; a tortoise-shell crucifix with palmwood Christ; a black painted softwood prie-dieu; a washstand; an iron grate with copper balls and rings; a hearth-cloth of brown silk stuff; five men's and two women's red plush chairs; item seventeen porcelain chocolate cups with seven gilt stands; item thirteen Indian potlets and cocoanuts; a tortoise-shell escritoire with stand; item five white curtains with the iron runners’.

What is left of all this pomp and splendour? Relatively little, if comparison is made with the inventories, but quite a lot if a tour is made of the rooms of the Plantin-Moretus Museum. Not all the works of art in the present museum were included in the transfer of 1876. Over the years the

Museum administration has bought a number of pieces or borrowed them from other Antwerp institutions to fill the rooms: chairs, tables, chests,1. gilt leathers,2. clocks,3. lustres,4. ceramic tiles (set in the fireplaces),5. grates,6. paintings,7. etc. Admirers of the Museum have often shown their appreciation by gifts and legacies.8.

But the most beautiful and also the most interesting pieces as far as the history of art and culture is concerned were handed over in 1876 with the great house, having formerly graced the drawing-rooms, dining-rooms and bedrooms of the Moretus family. In practically every room of the Museum a number of these silent but eloquent witnesses to the prosperity of the Antwerp printing family can be admired.

Furniture

The Plantin-Moretus Museum boasts a number of very interesting seventeenth and eighteenth-century chests and tables, but it is practically impossible to specify now which of them formerly belonged to the Moretus family and which were acquired subsequently by the Museum authorities.9.

Only the two art cabinets (displayed in Room 2) and the tortoise-shell table (Room 1) are known for certain to have been Moretus possessions. The two art cabinets are all that remain of the countless escritoires of every shape and size which were once distributed among the rooms of the great house. They are really magnificent specimens of their type. One is covered with tortoise-shell, framed in rosewood and ebony and decorated with twenty-three Biblical themes painted on white marble; the cupboard is supported by four negroes. This is very typical Baroque work of the first half of the seventeenth century and may possibly be identified with the tortoise-shell escritoire with stand (value 300 fl.) in the 1658 inventory. The

other art cabinet - in rosewood and inlaid with niello-work in pewter - is of somewhat later date. It was specially made for the Moretus family - witness Plantin's printer's mark on the little door inside.1. This must be one of the two ‘silver-fitted escritoires’ listed in the inventory of 1714.2.

The table inlaid with tortoise-shell is another fine specimen of Antwerp luxury furniture of the seventeenth century; it may be one of the three ‘inlaid tortoise-shell tables’ which in 1714 adorned the reception-rooms on the lower floor.

Clocks

The silver-gilt clock in the form of a clocktower which now stands on one of the cabinets was, according to Moretus family tradition, a gift from Archduke Albert and his wife Isabella; it can be identified with the ‘horologe’ (value 60 fl.) which in 1658 stood in the Justus Lipsius room.3.

Musical Instruments

Over the years the Moretus family bought various valuable harpsichords. A ‘clavicymbal with its stand’ is listed at 36 fl. in the inventory of 1658; the lid, painted by Van Balen, was listed separately among the paintings and assessed at 80 fl. A ‘great clavicymbal tailpiece by the old Cochet’ had the place of honour in the first library in 1714. Petrus Joannes Couchet had delivered this piece in 1673 for the sum of 336 fl., and the legs separately (‘of limewood, painted in tortoise manner’) for 29 fl.4.

These two harpsichords have vanished without trace, but another very unusual musical instrument took their place and has been preserved. It combines into one instrument a harpsichord and a spinet, and as such is extremely remarkable and rare (only two or three similar harpsichord-spinet

combinations seem to be known). An inscription gives the maker, place (Roermond), and date: ‘Ioannes Iosephus Coenen, presbyter et organista cathedralis me fecit. Ruramundae A^o 1734.’1.

Globes

In 1658 Balthasar II owned ‘two globi celestis et terrestris... with their stands’ (valued at 60 fl.) and ‘a copper sphere, two medium globes, various mathematical instruments’ (100 fl. in all). These instruments were listed in the inventory of 1691, but on the death of Anna Maria de Neuf, the two smaller globes had already disappeared; after 1714 all trace is lost of the other pieces.

Later masters of the Gulden Passer were to make good the loss in part by the purchase of a new pair of globes, which, luckier than their predecessors, are displayed to this day in the library with their original elegantly carved stands. These celestial and terrestrial globes were made in Paris by Robert de Vaugondy fils, and bear the date 1751.

These are both interesting and rare pieces, but still more interesting for the history of cartography and voyages of discovery are the terrestrial and heavenly globes which were acquired by the Museum at the end of the previous century and now occupy a place of honour in the geography room: two rare pieces from the workshop of the Van Langeren dynasty, the most eminent spherographers and cartographers of the Southern Netherlands in the first half of the seventeenth century.2.

Porcelain and ceramics

Among the family possessions handed over to the City of Antwerp in 1876 there was also a small collection of porcelain and faience, now distributed among the various rooms of the Museum.1. The collection does not offer anything very remarkable to the connoisseur, comprising only a few faience dishes and bowls, bearing the Plantin compasses or the coat-of-arms of the Moretus family.2.

This porcelain and earthenware represents only a fraction of what the Moretus family owned and used at that time. The greater part was divided and distributed among the heirs, but we can assume that in the course of the years much of it was broken and carelessly thrown away. Excavations in the Museum cellars between January and April 1944 brought broken family possessions of this kind to light: sixteenth and seventeenth-century pots and bowls, pipe-bowls etc., of which the least damaged are now reverently displayed on a table in the kitchen (Room 8).

The excavation of the cellars also disclosed a quantity of tiles which were found to be fragments of the tile pictures so beloved and so characteristic of the Netherlands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. There were enough tiles left of two or three of these for the pictures to be reconstructed and the date and place of manufacture to be fixed. They proved to be rare Antwerp work of the late sixteenth century.3.

Embossed leather

When Balthasar II's inventory of 1658 first revealed something of the home life of the masters of the Golden Compasses, the most elegant showrooms of the house were found to be hung with ‘gilt leathers’.4. Later the Moretus family repeatedly decorated additional rooms5. with these costly hangings,

which were regarded as ‘movable’ goods and as such were regularly divided among the heirs. Of the impressive number of gilt leathers which decked the walls of the house in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, only a fraction has survived.1. These few, however, with the leather hangings bought by the Museum authorities after 1876,2. are enough to make the Plantin house one of the few museums where this wall decoration, so typical of the houses of the property-owning middle class in the Western Europe of the sixteenth, seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth century, is really well represented.

The leather hangings in the Lipsius room - the ‘gilt leather black and gold’ (valued at 200 fl.) which decorated the ‘great chamber above’ in 1658, but by 1691 was already hanging in the Lipsius room - constitute one of the few known examples in the world of a complete room of genuine Cordovan leather, the original ‘guadamacil’.3. The rest of the leather hangings in the Plantin house are more likely to have come from Southern Netherlands workshops (Malines, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries).4.

Tapestries

Two sets of tapestries were handed over to the City of Antwerp with the great house in 1876. One is the work of a Flemish-Brabant (possibly Brussels) workshop of the sixteenth century (now in Room 1). It now consists of seven tapestries, but these were probably cut up in the past by one of the Moretus family to fit the room for which they were intended: the seven pieces can be reduced to three large and one small tapestry (probably a fragment of a larger piece which has disappeared). On the border of the dress of one of the figures is the name ‘Thomyris’, so it may be assumed that the tapestries were meant to depict events from the life of the legendary queen of the Massagetes, who defeated and had beheaded Cyrus, King of Persia - or from the life of Cyrus himself.

These tapestries once belonged to the Losson-van Hove family, whose coat-of-arms appears here and there on the borders of the tapestries. But to judge from the Plantin compasses, which are woven into the borders in several places, they must have been taken over during manufacture by one of the owners of the Golden Compasses. The fact that the tapestry work dates from the sixteenth century led Max Rooses to assume that this owner must have been Christophe Plantin himself.1. The borders are, however, of a later date than the tapestries themselves. From the style, they were made in the seventeenth century, perhaps with the specific purpose of framing the central panels. So it may also have been a Moretus, probably Balthasar I or Balthasar II, who bought this set of tapestries.

The second series comprises five tapestries: landscapes with shepherds, huntsmen, sellers of game, a dancing bear, loving couples, a quack. It is Oudenarde work from the end of the seventeenth century (now in Room 6).

The archives of the Plantin house furnish little information about these acquisitions. In his inventory of 1658, Balthasar II confines himself to the summary note, ‘tapestries in the new chamber: 200 fl.’ The inventory on the death of Anna Maria Goos, 1691, is not much more informative. The ‘tapestry chamber’ (probably the.same as the ‘second big room’ of 1714, now Room 3) is listed as being hung with tapestries depicting landscapes. The inventory of Anna Maria de Neuf, 1714, gives a few more details: the

‘second big room’ contained ‘tapestries depicting landscapes with figures, consisting of ten pieces, both large and small’.1. This, however, poses a new problem: does this refer to the two series, the pieces of which were all hung up together? Or does it simply refer to the first set, which would mean that a number of its tapestries have disappeared without trace?

Sculpture

Mention has already been made of how Balthasar I decorated the inner courtyard he had created for the Golden Compasses (and the entrance to his new bookshop) with carvings, and how his successors continued this tradition.2. It has also been noted that Plantin's grandson commissioned Pauwel Diricx to carve many ornaments for the new building in 1620-22, including a number of decorations on the beams and the elegant little lion, which still watches faithfully over the stairs below the gallery.3. For the ‘new building’ of 1637-39, Balthasar I called on this Antwerp craftsman again. The frames round the entrance door to the present proof-readers' room (Room 9) and the door leading to the Antwerp printers' room (Room 20) and the fireplace ornamentation in the corner room (Room 19) and in the salon on the first floor (Room 21)4. were executed by Pauwel Diricx in those years.

The front part erected in 1761-63 was also suitably adorned. In 1781 the widow of Franciscus Joannes Moretus ordered from the Antwerp sculptor Daniel Herreyns a number of wood reliefs with allegorical subjects - Architecture, Geography, Painting, Mathematics, Sculpture, Astronomy - to be set above the doors in the hall and a few rooms on the first floor.5.

A riddle is posed by the low relief carving round the exit door of Room 6: two columns on both sides of the door together with their capitals and adjacent panels, carved with remarkable decorative motifs in the Early Flemish Renaissance style (c. 1550). According to the information provided by Max Rooses,6. it may be assumed that these wood carvings were already

framing this door in 1876-77, i.e. when the room in question was still the stable of the old Plantin house and had not yet been converted into a drawing-room. This stable was the ground floor of the Houten Passer (Wooden Compasses), which, before being demoted to a stable, and apart from the brief period when it served as a bookshop, had been a rented house. The carving, which may date from before the erection of the Houten Passer in 1579-80, may have been put there by one of the tenants and left behind or taken over by the Moretus family. In any case, it deserves careful examination by experts.

The Moretus family were very fond of bas-relief as a decorative feature, but they seem to have had less taste for sculpture as an independent form of artistic expression. The inventories of the house in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries mention a statue or statuette only occasionally. The two little ivories, seventeenth-century Flemish work, depicting St. Martin and St. George, listed on the death of J.J. Moretus, 1757, and valued by the assessors at 30 fl., are now displayed in Room 21. The few other pieces have been lost, with the exception of the busts put up in the libraries by the Moretus family in the seventeenth century1. and still on show there; but these are plaster representations of Greek and Roman philosophers and emperors, and are of little intrinsic value or importance.

Nevertheless, the Plantin-Moretus Museum does possess a few really remarkable pieces dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and belonging to the Moretus family collections, which must have been overlooked in the inventories: the graceful terracotta Virgin of Loreto (seventeenth century), resplendent above the presses in the printing-office (Room 14); the three wood carvings representing Virtue, Doctrine and Honour (eighteenth century, now standing in the type room: Room 13); a series of busts in terracotta portraying masters of the Golden Compasses (models for the busts in the courtyard)2. and a few less important pieces.3.

More important to the history of art are the twelve Apostles and the five images of Popes, prelates, and monks, executed in limewood; with their

dynamic force and powerful expression, they are splendid examples of Flemish wood sculpture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They are the lopped heads of life-size statues, still bearing on the back the staples with which they were once fastened to a pillar in some unknown church, before they were acquired by the Moretus family. But when and how this happened is still a mystery.1. It is not impossible that this purchase or acquisition was of comparatively recent date, possibly in the Napoleonic period, after the sale of church property. This would explain why these seventeen fine statues of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were not included in the older inventories - and also why they left the church (or churches) of which they must have been among the loveliest ornaments.

The nineteenth century is also represented by a few works of art from the original collection of the Moretus family: the almost life-size Apollo carved in stone in 1809 by the Brussels sculptor Guillaume Godecharle (1750-1835), placed in the great hall, and a small bas-relief in beaten leather, Christ before Caiaphas, signed Justin (possibly Justin Mathieu, 1796-1864).2.

Paintings3.

Paintings aroused the collector's passion in the Moretus family far more than sculpture. They evinced a great preference for portraits, a few of which go back to the time of Plantin and Jan I Moretus. They are all the work of anonymous masters: the portraits of Christophe Plantin;4. of Magdalena

Plantin and Egidius Beys; of Jacob Moerentorf and Adriana Gras, Jan I Moretus's parents; of Nicholas de Sweert and Elisabeth Janssens de Bisthoven, the parents of Jan II Moretus's wife, Maria de Sweert (refurbished by Jacob van Reesbroeck in 1659). The first five of these may be the ‘5 portraits of grandfathers and mothers, Margerite Moeyken’, listed at 30 fl. in the inventory on the death of Martina Plantin, 1616.

In October 1620 Jan Woverius gave his friend Balthasar I Moretus a portrait of their beloved teacher, Justus Lipsius, showing the scholar at the age of 38.1. Plantin's grandson was also to spend considerable sums on building up a gallery of portraits of members of the family, friends, and famous personalities. For most of these he commissioned no less an artist than Rubens himself. The first series, between 1613 and 1616, comprised the portraits of the founder of the house, Christophe Plantin; Balthasar's father, Jan I Moretus; his teacher, Justus Lipsius; a few great Renaissance scholars and patrons of the arts: Pope Leo X, Lorenzo de' Medici, King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, Pico della Mirandola, and King Alphonso X of Aragon.2. Possibly the portraits of Pope Nicholas V and Cosimo de' Medici also belong to this series but they are not listed in Rubens's invoices.

In 1633 Balthasar I arranged through Jan Woverius to have the portraits of Cardinals Baronius and Bellarminus painted in Brussels by a painter whose name is not known. With these, as he wrote to his friend on 7th January 1623, he had enough portraits ‘to decorate my little hall’ (aululae meae exornandae).3. But a few years later, between 1630 and 1636, the printer and humanist ordered from Rubens another series of portraits: it was now the turn of the wives of Christophe Plantin and Jan I Moretus - Jeanne Rivière and Martina Plantin - who could at last be hung beside their husbands; the parents of Jan I Moretus, Jacob Moerentorf and Adriana Gras, were copied from the anonymous sixteenth-century paintings mentioned above; three other great scholars and friends of the house - Arias Montanus, Abraham Ortelius and Pierre Pantin - were also included in the gallery.

For the first series Balthasar paid Rubens 14 fl. 8 st. per painting. For the

second the painter charged 24 fl. per work. Balthasar tried to haggle for the old price but the master was not to be cajoled even by his bosom friend and Balthasar had to pay the new price demanded. For Rubens these sums are very much on the low side. His fees were usually a great deal more than the 24 fl. which Balthasar thought too high. Some Rubens experts believe that although the painter received the money, the work was in fact done by pupils.1. This was undoubtedly the case with the portraits of the art patrons. Pope Leo X, Lorenzo de' Medici, Pico della Mirandola, King Alphonso, King Matthias Corvinus, as well as Pope Nicholas V and Cosimo de' Medici were actually painted by none too skilled pupils. But the portraits of members of Balthasar's family (Christophe Plantin, Jeanne Rivière, Jacob Moerentorf, Adriana Gras, Jan I Moretus, Martina Plantin) and of intimate family friends (Justus Lipsius, Abraham Ortelius, Arias Montanus, Pierre Pantin) reveal the hand of the master. For those paintings Rubens must have done more than simply oversee his pupils' work: even if he did not paint the whole picture, the heads were certainly the product of his genius.

With this portrait gallery Balthasar seems to have been content, but his nephew and successor carried on the tradition. Balthasar I, with the inferiority complex derived from his physical infirmity, stubbornly refused to have his portrait painted in his lifetime, even by his good friend Rubens. The first portrait made of him was commissioned by Balthasar II; it shows Plantin's grandson on his death-bed. From this painting the artist Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert made another portrait, less sinister and more in the genre idiom. For these ‘twee contrefaictsels van oom saligher, een doot, een naer het leven’ [two likenesses of my late Uncle, one dead, one as in life] Willeboirts received the sum of 96 fl. (11th October 1641).

Balthasar II gave the same painter other commissions. For the portrait of Father Balthasar Corderius he paid Willeboirts the sum of 50 fl. in February 1647. It was the same artist who perhaps painted portraits of Gaspar Gevartius, Erycius Puteanus, Godefridus Wendelinus.2.

Willeboirts Bosschaert was not the only painter patronized by Balthasar II.

He had portraits made of Joannes Malderus, Bishop of Antwerp, of Jan Woverius, his uncle's bosom friend (the sum of 21 fl. was paid for both portraits together on 31st July 1650), and of Jean Jacques Chifflet and Jules Chifflet, his own close personal friends (23 fl. was paid for both portraits on 17th March 1650), by his cousin Balthasar van Meurs.

Erasmus Quellin was also approached. Apart from a grisaille of Balthasar I, after the portrait by Bosschaert, and intended as a model for an engraving, this artist supplied portraits of Balthasar's father, Jan II Moretus, and of Aubertus Miraeus (together 16 fl., paid on 10th September 1642), and - a little later - that of the Antwerp humanist-physician Ludovicus Nonnius (together with a sketch for a frontispiece, 15 fl., paid on 18th April 1647).1.

It was Jacob van Reesbroeck, however, who painted the portraits of Balthasar and his nearest family. In 1659 and 1660 Moretus paid this artist the sum of 100 fl. 10 st. for the portraits of himself, his wife Anna Goos and his mother Maria de Sweert, and 44 fl. ‘for the portrait of our son Balthasar, when he went to live in Paris’.2.

It was also probably thanks to Balthasar I and Balthasar II that the portrait gallery was enriched with the portraits of the Italian humanists Angelo Poliziano and Marsilio Ficino, the French polemicist Mathias de Morgues, and two Jesuit scholars from the Netherlands, Leonardus Lessius and Carolus Scribanus. The archives of the Plantin house give no information about these acquisitions, so that even the painters' names are unknown. This is also true of the author of the portrait of Balthasar II aged 23, whose indistinct monogram has been variously interpreted as that of Antoine Palamedes and that of Melchior Mierevelt.

After Balthasar II the Moretus family in general was content to have portraits made of their immediate entourage. There are a few exceptions. On 8th July 1717, 75 fl. 12 st. was paid to Jan van Helmont for the portraits of J.J. Moretus, his wife Theresia Mathilda Schilders, and Pope Clement XI. For the rest there are only family portraits. A few artists can still be identified and the prices they asked discovered in the Plantin archives: F. Tassaert asked 5 guineas per painting for the portraits of F.J. Moretus and his wife Maria Theresia Borrekens, and 2½ guineas for that of their son Ludovicus,

and is credited in the accounts with the sum of 142 fl. 3 st. under this heading on 29th July 1762 (the portrait of Ludovicus has not been preserved).

The other Moretus portraits which have survived from the second half of the seventeenth and the eighteenth century have to be classed as the work of anonymous artists: the portrait of Balthasar III Moretus, and the two portraits of his wife Anna Maria de Neuf; the two portraits of Balthasar IV and his wife Isabella Jacoba de Mont; another portrait of J.J. Moretus and his wife Theresia Mathilda Schilders.

The later Moretus descendants also had a number of portraits of their ancestors copied, probably to adorn other rooms of their houses. Balthasar Beschey, for instance, received the sum of 21 fl. in 1757 for a copy of the portrait of Balthasar I. The odier copies - of Christophe Plantin, Jeanne Rivière, Jacob Moerentorf, Jan I Moretus and Martina Plantin - were done by unknown painters at unspecified dates after the originals by Rubens.

This makes an impressive total of 71 portraits, 41 of the family and 30 of eminent native and foreign humanists and art patrons.1. The Museum authorities were able to supplement this part of the collection to some extent with purchases and gifts.2.

Compared to this portrait gallery, the genre paintings from the original

Moretus collections are rather few in number. Some of them bear a signature or can be ascribed on the basis of the Plantin archives. Two works by Rubens must be discussed in another context.1. Among the remaining paintings are found: Gaspar Broers (1682-1716), Battle at Ekeren (30th June 1703), purchased in 1716 at an auction for 52 fl.; Jacob Leyssens (1661-1710), St. Joseph with the Holy Child (listed in the inventory on the death of J.J. Moretus, 1757, and assessed at 12 fl.); Joannes Lingelbach (1622-74), Still Life with hare (referred to in the 1757 inventory as ‘Hare by Lingelenbach: 20 fl.’);2. Jan Filips van Thielen (1618-1667), Flower piece; P. Thijs, (1624/6-1677/79), Christ on the Cross (bought in 1757 for 63 fl. and used as an altarpiece in the chapel installed in the large library); Lucas van Uden (1595-1672), Winter Landscape (described as ‘winter piece by Lucas van Uden: 25 fl.’ in the 1757 inventory); Peter Verdussen (1662-after 1710), Landscape with Bridge (referred to in the 1757 inventory as ‘Landscape by Verdussen, the figures by Broers: 16 fl.’); Jan Baptist Wolfert (1625-after 1656), Huntsmen's Rest; Frans Ykens (1601-93), Madonna and Child in a Wreath of Flowers and Fruit; Gerard Zegers (1591-1651), Adoration of the Shepherds (a large ‘overmantel canvas’, bought in 1649 for 400 fl. and assessed at 450 fl. in the 1658 inventory); and the Country Pleasures and a few grisailles executed by Theodoor de Bruyn in 1761-63 for the dining-room in the front extension.

Two are anonymous copies of work by Rubens. ‘The Lion hunt, overmantel painting, a good copy after Rubens’ is in fact a very good painting which was on the wall of one of the salons as early as 1658 and even then assessed at 40 fl., that is, considerably more than the original portraits of members of the family and scholars by Rubens which ‘taken all together’ were put at 10 fl. each. There is no documentary data about Doubting

Thomas (after the painting now in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp); this copy is in any case of inferior quality.

Data and attributions are also lacking for the artists responsible for St. Paul at the house of St. Aquila and St. Priscilla, a fine work by a seventeenth-century master; The Flight into Egypt (seventeenth century) and a number of canvases of the school of Rubens.

The subject and authorship of one painting are in dispute: the seated man peering through spectacles at the papers on the desk in front of him is generally referred to as ‘The proof-reader’, and very often the still more detailed description is given: ‘Cornelis Kiliaan [proof-reader under Christophe Plantin] at work.’ In 1874, when an inventory was drawn up of the paintings owned by Edward Moretus, this beautiful sixteenth or seventeenth-century painting was ascribed to Adriaan van de Venne (1589-1665). Having at first accepted this attribution, after 1893 Max Rooses apparently supported the authorship of Pieter van der Borcht (1545-1608). The Moretus inventories, however, give the name of Van de Venne, if only in the 1757 inventory, where the painting is mentioned as ‘The Philosopher of Vanden Venne: 4 fl.’ The painting is mentioned for the first time in the 1696 inventories, in which it is described once as ‘studerende philosofken’ [studying philosopher] and elsewhere as ‘een advocaet studerende’ [a lawyer studying]. In 1714 mention is also made of a ‘studying lawyer’. The traditional view, which sees this man, diligently intent on his papers, as a proof-reader, and more particularly as Cornelis Kiliaan, is thus not confirmed in the Moretus archives. The painting itself seems, in any case, to have come into the possession of the family only in the second half of the seventeenth century. This series of genre paintings was supplemented by a few canvases after 1876, some of them quite noteworthy.1.

In the collection of the Plantin-Moretus Museum the portraits therefore predominate. This, however, is not because the family concentrated over the centuries on collecting this sort of painting. It is simply because the portraits were more or less always included among the ‘fixed effects’ of the house and were left as a priority to the successive masters of the Gulden Passer. It was the genre paintings which principally fell victim to division by inheritance.

The history of these disappearances is in its way as fascinating as the history of the Moretus collection. It is also more difficult to follow. The problem has as yet been studied in detail only in relation to the paintings of Rubens.1.

Apart from the portraits referred to above and the few grisaille sketches which must be dealt with in another connection,2. Balthasar I Moretus also bought other works from his childhood friend. The first series of portraits, done between 1613 and 1616, also includes paintings of Seneca and Plato, while at a time which cannot be accurately fixed (after 1624 anyway) Rubens's account was credited with 150 fl. ‘pour cinq figures peintes sur paneel, a scavoir N. Dame avec l'Enfant Jésus, St. Joseph, St. Jaspar, St. Melchior et St. Balthasar... à 30 fl. la piece’; ‘pour deux visages peints sur paneel de Christus et Maria’. The last two panels are not mentioned again in the 1658 inventory: they had probably already disappeared from the house by then. Balthasar II, however, could still note: ‘Joseph, Mary, and Three Kings in five pieces, originals by Rubens: 100 fl.’ - and: ‘Seneca and Plato in two pieces, original by Rubens: 30 fl.’ And he was able to add a new and valuable work: ‘Drij Coninghen, schoustuck van Rubens: 600 fl.’ [Three Kings, overmantel painting by Rubens: 600 fl.].

In 1691, after the death of Anna Goos, the Seneca and Plato fell to the lot of Balthasar III. They are probably included in the anonymous body of 36 ‘portraits hanging over the tapestries’ [in the ‘second big room’] noted in the inventory of Anna Maria de Neuf, widow of Balthasar III, 1714. At all events, when they are mentioned by name again it is in the auction

catalogue of the property of the widow Verdussen (Antwerp, 1777). The Seneca then disappeared again, and was bought back in 1923 by the Plantin-Moretus Museum from an antique shop, whose only information was that the work came from the Baltic area, where it had hung for many years in a castle (near Riga?). It is a magnificent painting, which can be regarded as the finest work in the Museum collection. The Plato, after being mentioned for the last time in the auction of Albert Fonson's goods (Oudenarde, 1820), has been lost. The Three Kings - Gaspar, Melchior and Balthasar - were certain to be found in the collection of a family which had chosen the Star of Bethlehem as its symbol and named its sons after these kings. Nevertheless, the Three Kings also departed from the Gulden Passer after 1714 (and before 1781), together with Mary and Joseph. Mary and Joseph have not reappeared, but it has been possible to follow up the Three Kings. Until 1881 they stayed together, then their ways parted - Melchior and Gaspar went to the United States;1. the Moorish King Balthasar, having belonged to Hermann Goering during the Second World War, is now in the possession of a Brussels collector, who has lent the work to the Rubens house in Antwerp.2.

The most impressive - and most valuable - of the Rubens paintings bought by the Moretus family to embellish the great house was, however, the ‘Three Kings, overmantel painting’. It was listed again in the estate of Anna Maria de Neuf (1714), but between that date and 1748 it was bought from a Moretus by ‘M. Godefroy le peintre’, who travelled the Low Countries to acquire paintings on behalf of the Parisian banker Charles Godefroy. The big canvas - 7′ 1″ × 8′ 7½″ - after a short stay in Paris, then journeyed to Potsdam, where it enriched the collections of the King of Prussia.

Apart from these originals, Balthasar I and Balthasar II also bought a few copies of Rubens's paintings. The Lion Hunt, listed in 1658, stayed in the Plantin house. The rest have been lost since 1714: Christ, Mary and the Thirteen Apostles, a total of fifteen paintings, bought on 14th January 1615 by Balthasar I from his brother-in-law, the engraver Theodoor Galle, for

110 fl. (and quoted by Balthasar II in 1658 at 60 fl.), and ‘Joseph ende Maria, boffetstuck nae Rubens: 15 fl.’ [Joseph and Mary, sideboard piece after Rubens: 15 fl.], which first appear in the inventory of 1658.

The tribulations of the works of another master have been followed up already: the Labor et Constantia by Erasmus Quellin, a large ‘overmantel painting’ (4′ 7″ × 7′ 11″) for which Balthasar I Moretus paid 250 fl. to the artist on 20th September 1640, was rediscovered in the 1930's by Maurice Sabbe, the curator of the Museum, in the castle of Baron de Weichs of Roesberg near Brühl (between Cologne and Bonn). The works of art which decorate the castle were assembled by Baron Karel de Keverberg (1768-1841), who was Governor of the Province of Antwerp from 1815 to 1817 and after 1817 of the Province of East Flanders. It was probably in those years that Erasmus Quellin's painting passed from the possession of some member of the Moretus family (or a related family) into that of the Dutch nobleman.1.

The many other works which have come and gone again in the house are still waiting for an art historian to track them down. Many of the paintings were only listed in summary form in the inventories. For instance it is quite impractical to try to identify the works which Balthasar I inherited from his mother in 1616: eight small round paintings (‘rondekens’) of the prodigal son (20 fl.), 1 overmantel canvas (2 fl. 10 st.), 1 painting of Resurrection (8 fl.), 1 landscape by Momper (8 fl.), 1 woman with puppy in Evangelio (7 fl. 5 st.), 1 parrot painted (1 fl.), 1 Arias Montanus (6 fl.), I Matthew de Denario (30 fl.), 1 Martha and Magdalene cooking (18 fl.), 1 Blessed Virgin with copper brackets (8 fl. 10 st.), 1 painting of Paul and Barnabas (10 fl.), 1 Ecce Homo (22 fl.), ...1 Saviour by Master Michiels (20 fl.), 1 Martha and Magdalene cooking (12 fl.), 1 Mary Magdalene with [long] hair (8 fl.), 1 Emmaus (12 fl.).2.

But in the list of over 110 paintings which Balthasar II could note as his property in 1658, he names the artists of a number of the vanished works, which may simplify further detective work and ultimate identification. The

list is long and impressive enough to tempt the experts to hunt further:1. ‘Whitsuntide, overmantel painting by Van Balen (300 fl.); Christ among the doctors, sideboard piece by Abraham Janssens (400 fl.);2. Paul and Barnabas, overmantel piece by Langhen Pierre (500 fl.); Ptolemeus Philadelphus, overmantel piece by Seghers (200 fl.); Mary, Joachim, and Joseph, overmantel piece by Jordaens (80 fl.); the Risen Christ, sideboard piece by Michiel Coxie (60 fl.); Stag-hunting, overmantel piece, copy after Snyders (40 fl.); Winter Scene by Momper, with figures by Breugel the Elder (25 fl.); a landscape by Tobias Verhaecht (15 fl.); Christ sitting on a rock, a small piece by Mostart (15 fl.); clavicymbal lid, original by Van Balen (80 fl.).’3.

In what collections (and with what attributions?) are now to be found the ‘fine overmantel piece’ painted by Nicolaas Boyermans, and depicting the ‘History of Scipio Africanus’, bought by Balthasar III Moretus for 200 fl.;4. the ‘Lipsius in Parnassus’ (5 fl.) listed in 1691; and the smaller paintings in the estate of Joannes Jacobus Moretus, 1757?5.

Paintings in the Plantin-Moretus Museum1.