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03 — ARTWORK
HELST, Bartholomeus van der · 1648 →
PALETTE
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COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
In the second half of the 1640s not a single Dutch portraitist, including Van der Helst, tried to emulate Rembrandt's revolutionary achievement, the Night Watch. Their group portraits are all clearly and sharply delineated collective portraits giving each man his due. The interest of Dutch artists and their clients in detailed portrayals won the day. The inclination towards brighter colouring which became popular during the forties by the influence of Van Dyck's followers, came to the fore and found favour with the public.
This group portraitThe Roman portrait bust survived in the form of life-sized reliquaries of saints, but it was in 15th century Florence that the individual features and character of a contemporary sitter were accurately recorded by sculptors such as Donatello, Desiderio da Settignano, Mino da Fiesole and the Rossellino. A similar degree of realism occurs in 15th century tomb sculpture. The equestrian portrait, based on antique statues such as the Marcus Aurelius monument (Rome, Campidoglio), was revived in the 14th century. Two examples in fresco are Simone Martini's Guidoriccio (c. 1328; Siena, Palazzo Pubblico) and the posthumous portrait of Sir John Hawkwood (1436; Florence, Cathedral) by Uccello, which gives the illusion of a 3-dimensional statue seen from below. The Venetian Republic ordered imposing monuments from Donatello (1447; Gattarnelata, Padua) and Verrocchio (14799; Colleoni, Venice), whilst other statesmen ordered their own images to be erected in public places, directly relating themselves to the military heroes of ancient Rome. Another form of political portraiture derived from antiquity was the commemorative portrait medal designed by artists such as Pisanello. The carved or painted profile portrait became popular in the 1450s. The realism of the clear, flattened image, painted under the influence of Flemish examples by the Pollaiuolo brothers, Piero della Francesca and Botticelli, was superseded by the three-quarter and frontal portrait, psychologically more complex, such as Leonardo's enigmatic Mona Lisa (Paris, Louvre) with her momentary smile or Andrea del Sarto's arresting Portrait of a Man (London, National Gallery). The 16th century portrait became generalized, Lotto's Andrea Odoni (1527; Royal Collection) being an idealized concept of a collector rather than an individual. Group portraits, decorating whole rooms, include the narrative scenes of the Gonzaga court painted by Mantegna (completed 1474; Mantua, Palazzo Ducale) and the elaborate schemes commissioned by the Farnese family in Rome from Vasari (1546; Palazzo della Cancelleria) and Salviati (after 1553; Palazzo Farnese). Portraits were also incorporated into religious narratives, as in Ghirlandaio's fresco cycle painted for Giovanni Tornabuoni in S. Maria Novella, Florence (1486-90). shows the banquet held by the St George's Guard to celebrate the Peace of Münster which put an end to the Eighty Years' War on the 18th of June, 1648. In this painting Van der Helst succeeded in portraying no fewer than 25 people grouped around a table. To the right we see the captain (holding a silver drinking-horn) and the lieutenant congratulating each other on the successful outcome. On the drumthe cylindrical or polygonal base of a dome., the artist painted a sheet of paper bearing the words of a poem in praise of peace.
@online{wga-r2594fb79225522,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {Celebration of the Peace of Münster, 1648, at the Crossbowmen's Headquarters by HELST, Bartholomeus van der},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-09},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/helst-bartholomeus-van-der-r0c860ac20969c0/celebration-of-the-peace-of-mnster-1648-at-the-crossbowmens-headquarters-r2594fb79225522},
urldate = {2026-09-09},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-09. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.
