Die Devise des Künstlers

Networking is crucial for an artist’s economic

success—in the present day as in sixteenth- and

seventeenth-century Europe. Within Netherlandish

cities, guilds and societies offered ample

opportunity to associate with potential patrons and

commissioning bodies. But for travelling artists,

intellectuals, and merchants, an album amicorum

offered a handy tool to record one’s contacts. Such

albums, often in oblong octavo format, typically

travelled with an individual to be offered to friends

and contacts for inscriptions or drawings. Such was

the context of the present sheet. Unfortunately,

we do not know who owned the album, which was

apparently divided at a later date. The inscription

only tells us that it was dedicated to someone of

German background, who, in his own annotation,

used the German spelling zúe instead of te when

referring to Harlem Inn Hollandt and who specified

the date given by Goltzius, 1600, as “August 15 as

above (ut supra).”

Three other album drawings by Hendrick

Goltzius (1558–1617) are known today, all showing

the same motif, though to varying degrees of

execution. Two are kept in their original albums:

one of around 1607, made for the Dutch regent and

collector Ernst Brinck (1582–1649);1 the other, of

1608, for Conrad Ernst von Berlepsch (1588–1659),

from Thuringia, Germany.2 The third, dated 1609,

is, like the Albertina’s drawing, retained as a loose

sheet.3

In each of the drawings, Goltzius illustrates his

personal motto, which is also written above the

device in the other sheets but is lacking in the

Albertina’s drawing, being the earliest of the four.

Eer boven golt (Honor above gold) is a witty pun on

his name (as confirmed by his addition of ius or zius

on two of the sheets4). The imagery consists of the

winged head of a putto, a lof-geest (spirit of praise),5

crowned with a laurel, turning its face toward the

sunlight. It is placed above a caduceus planted in

a pile of coins or in a vessel filled with mintage,

respectively. Three of the drawings, including the

one in Vienna, feature a coastal landscape with

sailing ships in the background. The motto, and its

accompanying device, offer differing interpretations.

If we follow Karel van Mander (1548–1606), it

was to be read as a token of self-denial, expressing

Goltzius’s disregard for material riches.6 However,

more recent authors argue that Mercury’s caduceus

and the ships in the background, images of

commerce, suggest a more mundane reading. The

fact that honor springs from gold hints at the happy

connection of art and commerce,7 or, possibly, the

conversion of raw materials into profit, with the

caduceus serving as a kind of magic wand.8

By creating his own device and employing

it repeatedly,9 the artist revealed his business

savvy. Goltzius had already used his monogram

as a kind of logo, on artwork as well as seals10 and

handkerchiefs.11 His device added another, more

sophisticated layer to such “branding.”

 

1. Hendrick Goltzius, Device of the Artist, c. 1607, pen and ink,

on paper, 15.3 x 10.1 cm, National Library of the Netherlands,

The Hague, 133 M 86, fol. 245; Reznicek 1961, 1:315–16, no. 195;

Leeflang H. and Luijten 2003, 27–28, no. 4.

2. Hendrick Goltzius, Eer boven golt (Honor above Gold), c. 1608,

pen and ink, on paper, Sächsische Landesbibliothek, Staats- und

Universitätsbibliothek, Dresden, Mscr.Dresd.App.2547, fol. 289.

3. Hendrick Goltzius, Eer boven golt (Honor above Gold), 1609,

pen and dark-brown ink, on cream laid paper, 15.1 x 8.9 cm,

Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, 1871.143; Reznicek 1961, 1:316,

no. 197, fig. A 428.

4. In the albums of Brinck and Von Berlepsch, respectively.

5. Leeflang in Leeflang H. and Luijten 2003, 26, 311n106,

referring to Van Mander 1973, 316–17nn24–26, 368, 374–75.

6. Van Mander 1994–99, 1:286r: “He has ‘Honor above Gold’ as his

motto, and in practice he shows plentifully that he strives not so

much for money as for honor and adopting modesty rather than

opulence.”

7. Müller K. 2002, 7; the function of the gold, especially in view

of Mercury’s role in promoting both art and commerce, is also

noted by Krystof 1997, 41; Silver 2011a, 327, 330.

8. Göttler 2020, 417.

9. The artist included Eer boven golt in a verse accompanying a

lottery in 1606; cf. Van Mander 1994–99, 5:175; Nichols L. 2013,

43. Moreover, we find it in his Allegory of the Arts, 1611, oil on

canvas, 181 x 256.6 cm, Kunstmuseum, Basel, 252, cf. Göttler

2020; and in the 1612-dated Allegory of Drawing, brown ink, red

and black chalks, white opaque watercolor, on prepared paper,

16.7 x 12.3 cm, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 1970.109.

It was also used in Jacob Matham’s posthumous portrait of

Goltzius, Hendrick Goltzius, 1620, engraving, Widerkehr (NHD)

2007, 209–13, no. 242.

10. Cf. the seal on a letter to Jan van Weely, May 22, 1605,

Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam, RP-T-1888-A-1874; Leeflang H.

and Luijten 2003, 18, fig. 11.

11. Van Mander 1994–99, 1:283v.

 

Emily J. Peters, Laura M. Ritter (Hg.), AK Tales of the City. Drawing in the Netherlands from Bosch to Bruegel, Cleveland Museum of Art 9.10.2022 - 8.1.2023, New Haven 2022, Kat. Nr. 68