Trade in Good Taste: Relations in Architecture and Culture between the Durch Republic and the Baltic World in the Seventeenth Century (ARCHITECTURA MODERNA) 2503514898, 9782503514895

Citation preview

TRADE IN GOOD TASTE RELATIONS IN ARCHITECTURE AND CULTURE BETWEEN THE DUTCH REPUBLIC AND THE BALTIC WORLD IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

ARCHITECTURA MODERNA Architectural Exchanges in Europe, 16th - 17th Centuries

Vol.2

Series Editors: Krista De Jonge (Leuven) Pi et Lombaerde (Antwerp)

Advisory Board: Howard Burns (Venice) Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann (Princeton) Jean Guillaume (Paris) John Newman (London) Konrad Ottenheym (Utrecht) Ulrich Schutte (Marburg)

TRADE IN GOOD TASTE RELATIONS IN ARCHITECTURE AND CULTURE BETWEEN THE DUTCH REPUBLIC AND THE BALTIC WORLD IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Badeloch Noldus

~

BREPOLS

Cover illustrations: NicolaesVisscher, Scandinaviae (detail), 1698 (Det Kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen). Job Adriaenszn Berckheyde (1630-1693). The Amsterdam Stock Exchange.At the right, a painting stand. (Stadelsches Kunstinstitut. Frankfurt am Main. Photo: Artothek).

© 2004 Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium. Translated from the Dutch by Titus Verheijen. Copy edited by Whitney A. Byrn. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. D/2005/0095/33 ISBN 2-503-51489-8 Printed in the E.U. on acid-free paper

For Livia and Joachim

EDITOR'S PREFACE

Almost ten years ago, Thomas DaCosta Kaufinann concluded the following about Northern and Central European art, "When we find works that seem to resemble the classicism ofVersailles, we may actually be encountering the traces of Netherlanders and their pupils, who had an impact in Northern Europe from Diisseldorf to St Petersburg. In architecture this trend had its origins in seventeenth-century Dutch Palladianism; in sculpture it had its source in Rome, in the alternative to Bernini that was represented by Frarn;:ois Duquesnoy; in painting it is rooted in what is often called Netherlandish or Flemish classicism:' He went on to state that, "Because the importance of classicism in all aspects of N etherlandish art has not been sufficiently appreciated and also because the wide spread of Netherlandish classicism has not been emphasized, these strands have not been identified as important elements in a process of cultural exchange that is often simply ascribed to the influence of France:' 1 This statement still rings true today, in spite of the fact that many studies on the area have come to light in the intervening years. Consequently, the editors of Architectura Moderna are proud to present, as the second volume in the series, a work which uncovers the complex processes of cultural exchange between the Dutch Republic and the Baltic world in the seventeenth century. Still a relatively new player in the turbulent politics of the time, the Swedish Empire was nevertheless present in all major theatres of war in Northern and Central Europe. A new study of its cultural choices, shaped by its particular situation and context, has long been overdue. Badeloch Noldus reveals how, against a backdrop of ever-changing alliances, the Swedish nobility and royal house turned to Dutch classicism as a means of expressing their cultural and political ambitions, with the help of many cultural agents based in the Dutch Republic. Her work puts the Swedish Empire on the European map as a receiver and disseminator of the successful form of classicism developed in the upper strata of Dutch society from the 1630s; although its focus is primarily on architecture, its impact ranges well beyond. New archival research enables her to define the pivotal role played by entrepreneurs such as Louis de Geer and noble patrons such as Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie or Carl GustafWrangel. But she also points to mediators such as Michel le Blon whose influence on many levels, from architecture to gardens, from painting to books and luxury objects, can be traced. The series Architectura Moderna, founded in the year 2000, is dedicated to Netherlandish architecture from the early modern period, set within its European context. It intentionally carries a title that evokes the debate of antique vs. modern, the focal point of N etherlandish architectural theory of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century. The reader may catch the echo of well-known treatises, such as Hans Vredeman de Vries' ARCHITECTURA Oder Bauung der Antiquen auss dem Vitruvius (printed in Antwerp, 1577), Charles De Beste's Architectura. Dat is constlicke Bouwijnghen huijt die Antijcken Ende Modernen (written in Bruges between 1596 and 1600), and Salomon de Bray's and Cornelis Danckerts' Architectura 1\!Ioderna efte Bouwinge van onsen Tyt (published in Amsterdam, 1631). However, the series not only focuses on the theoretical tenets underlying contemporary Netherlandish architecture, their origin and their reception (see the first volume on The Reception of PP Rubens's Palazzi di Genova during the 17th century in Europe: Questions and Problems, 2001, edited by Piet Lombaerde), but also welcomes studies which explore the changing relationship between the architecture of the Southern and Northern Low Countries and their European periphery within this perspective. The editors particularly want to encourage interest in N etherlandish patronage of architecture in all its facets. Krista DE ]ONGE 1 Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Court, Cloister, and City. The Art and Culture of Central Europe 1450-1800, Chicago 1995, 280281.

VII

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Introduction Privileges or Cold Cash - Changing Interests on a Rough Baltic II

Regularity and Harmony - A New Style for a New Great Power

page

XI

1 7 19

III Arms and Architecture - Dutch Patrons Overseas

47

IV Providers of Luxury - Agents in Cultural Affairs

93

V Peregrinatio Academica et Architectonica - The Power of Books and Travel

127

Epilogue

175

Abbreviations

179

Bibliography

181

Appendices

199

Index of persons

205

Index of places

215

IX

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Although I am solely responsible for the contents of this publication, which is the revised edition of my dissertation, defended in 2002, I would like to warmly thank the many people who were of great assistance to me. Konrad Ottenheym deserves particular gratitude for recognising the exceptional value of the research material at an early stage and as an inspiring proponent of my research. His unending enthusiasm for our field was always infectious. I would also like to thank Erik de Jong, not only for his thought-provoking classes while I was a student, but perhaps more so for giving me a concerted push in the direction of art historical research. I would like to express my profound appreciation to the following people for making unpublished data available, referring me to literature, or providing useful comments: Asa Ahrland, MartenJan Bok, Heiko Droste, Maria Flinck, Elske Gerritsen, Krista De Jonge, Everhard Korthals Altes, Lars Ljungstrom, Piet Lombaerde, Catharina Nolin,Juliette Roding, Elisja Schulte, Gabri van Tussenbroek, Pieter Vlaardingerbroek, and Erik Thomsson. Furthermore, I would like to thank Lex Bosman for his critical reading of the first manuscript and the ensuing lively conversations. My colleagues Marika Keblusek at the University of Leiden and Hans Cools at the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome deserve thanks for their constructive criticism, for providing new perspectives, and for our pleasant current cooperation. I would like to thank the friendly staff at the National Archives of Sweden in Stockholm where I found the core of my research material and Bjorn Hallerdt for providing access to the Murmestare Embetets Arkiv, also in Stockholm. My mother Marie-Antoinette Noldus-Schulte should be thanked for translating various seventeenth-century French, Italian, and Latin letters. I want to thank my brother Rogier Noldus for his help solving some architectural historical calculation and my regular computer problems, and Jakob Kyril Meile for making the map in Chapter I. Many thanks to Asa Ahrland and Gert Magnusson who made me feel welcome during my archival research in Stockholm which was always equally pleasant thanks to the inspiring dinner time conversations (and the culinary delights served). I would particularly like to express my heartfelt thanks to my husband and best friend Joachim Lund who, as a political and economic historian, provided me with several crucial insights and who I could consult - any time, any place - with regard to the project. Our daughter Livia has not only given us a daily dose of joy since her arrival in 2003, but has also kept our feet on the ground. The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research deserves my due respect and gratitude, because without their financial support this book would never have come into being. And, finally, I would like to express my deepest thanks to the Pallas Institute at the University of Leiden and the Royal Library in Copenhagen for providing me with an office where I can carry out my current research and where I was able to finish this book. Copenhagen and Leiden, Autumn 2004

XI

INTRODUCTION

In the late summer of 1661, the Swedish Count and lover of architecture Carl GustafWrangel wrote to Peter Trotzig, his agent in Amsterdam, that he had heard in Amsterdam such "excellently beautiful buildings are being erected." 2 Moreover, he had been informed that the house of the Trip brothers "will be very well and excellently made." If Trotzig could ensure that he receive from "Mr Finckenboom a drawing of said building," he would be most indebted to him. The object ofWrangel's interest was the Trippenhuis, one of the most prominent examples of classicist architecture in the Dutch Republic. The design by the Amsterdam architect Justus Vingboons was aligned with a development that had started some forty years earlier. In the 1620s, a number of architects in the Northern Netherlands had introduced a stricter application of the classicist architectural rules than had been common in the preceding decades, thereby rebelling against the architectural views of their predecessors. From the middle of the sixteenth century, architects such as Cornelis Floris in Antwerp and Hans V redeman de Vries from Leeuwarden had applied the classical orders as they were described in editions of the treatise De architectura libri decem by the Roman architect Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (ca. 90 - ca. 20 B.C.) and various column books in which the dimensions and sequence of the five architectural orders Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite were described. A much consulted work was the Italian architect Sebastiano Serlio's Books I- V, first published in Dutch by Flemish artist Pieter Coecke van Aelst from 1539 to 1545. What distinguished Floris and Vredeman de Vries from their role models in their application of the classical orders, was their focus on the decorative aspects of the column as architectural ornament. Their fac;ade designs for homes and public buildings, and those of their successors such as Lieven de Key and Hendrik de Keyser, respectively town architects in Haarlem and Amsterdam, were characterised by an interwoven ornamentation in which columns, obelisks, and cartouches were combined. Around 1625, in the Northern Netherlands, the response to this relatively free use of classicist elements was a stricter application of the rules taken from the treatises. The architects who were responsible for this development were Salomon de Bray, Jacob van Campen, Philips Vingboons, and Pieter Post. They did not use the rich fac;ade ornamentation of the preceding generation, but proportioned pilasters, windows, and walls on the basis of mathematics, which indicated that ornament was no longer the focal point of the design, but rather part of the entire structure of elevations and floor plans. The examples used by this new generation of architects were primarily sixteenth-century Italian treatises and works by the architects Giacomo Barozzi Vignola, Andrea Palladio, and Vincenzo Scamozzi, who based themselves on the illustrious Vitruvius, but in contrast to the latter embellished their texts with illustrations which made the content easier to apply in practice. In turn, the architects in the Dutch Republic adapted the rules to the local building traditions, culture, and climate. The urban palace of Count Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen in The Hague, designed by Jacob van Campen and Pieter Post, and that of Constantijn Huygens, Secretary to the Stadtholder Frederic Henry, both built in the 1630s, ensured that the new architectural principles were soon anchored in the world of wealthy patrons and architects. Classicism expressed concepts they wished to identify themselves with: high social status, prosperity, and knowledge of classical antiquity.

2 "(. . .)

Cruse mihr herichtet, dass itzo dess orthes [Amsterdam] trefflich schon gebiiude ufgerichtet; und unter anderen die Trippen darinnen sehr wohl und Artig gemachtet werden sollten; Undt Ich dan dergleichen neue inventionen gern sehen mag; So habe den

H. derunter zu ersuchen, oh nicht durch seine beforderung van

dem Finckenboom ein Abriss von solchen gebiiuden zu bekommen sein mochte." RA, Skoklostersamlingen, E 8277.Wrangel to Trotzig, 3 August 1661.

1

INT RODUCTION

Generally, in research into seventeenthcentury architecture in the Dutch Republic the ,. emphasis is on the role of the Republic as the receiver of new architectural movements, originating in Italy and France. However, the Republic itself also acted as a centre with international allure. Although the scope of classicist architecture, as designed and built in Amsterdam, The Hague, ·,, and Leiden was of considerable importance for the development of architecture in Northern Europe, the Republic as a source of new architecture has only been given limited attention thus far.3 -_.. Within that framework, this study deals with the relations between the Dutch Republic r· and the Baltic area, which was controlled by the Swedish Empire during the seventeenth century. During the second half of the century, this country was one of the main players in Europe and held territories including Finland, E stonia, 1 Trippenhuis (front elevation), Amsterdam: Justus Vingboons, Livonia, and Pomerania. Swedish military success 1660-1662. Engraving Johannes Vingboons, 1664. during the Thirty Years' War gained the country respect from the rest of Europe. The Swedish Empire's new status as a great European power caused a growing need and desire among the Swedish aristocracy for a suitable architectural environment, i.e. an architecture which could be favourable compared to other countries, and w hich could express Sweden's increasing political and military might. During those years, a situation developed which offered opportunities to foreign artists and architects, and also to Swedes who had gained new experience while studying abroad. The demand for knowledge and products from abroad increased in order to sh ape the ideology of the Age of Greatness, which resulted in contacts with the Republic being created differently. 4 Amsterdam started to function as the market where Swedes could purchase the desired goods. 5 I

*** Literature on relations in architecture and culture between the Swedish Empire and the Dutch Republic is still limited. Much-used international art and architectural history overviews such as Ernst Gombrich's Story of Art (1969) and Architecture from Prehistory to Post-Modernism by Marvin Trachtenberg and Isabelle Hyman (1986) ignored Scandinavian architecture from before 1900, while Nordic art and architectural historians have only occupied themselves with international contacts to a limited extent. However, Dutch-Baltic contacts have been described in a broader his-

3 For architectural relations between the Dutch Republic and England, see Stoesser-Johnston 2000. For the Republic-Brandenburg, see Lademacher 1999; Savelsberg, Vi:ilkel 2000; van Tussenbroek 2004. For the RepublicPoland, see Mossakovski 1994. 4 After Michael Robert's Sweden's Age of G reatness 1632 1718 (1973).

2

5 Since the essence of the exchange in cultural goods was not of a quantitative, but of a qualitative nature, a distinction has been made between art trade and trade in bulk goods. A single book or the work of a single architect could be of great importance for the cultural climate; ideas could enter in through a book, an artwork, or a building, which in turn could launch a whole new development.

INTRODUCTION

toric context. In particular a wide range of literature is available on the Republic's trade relations with towns on the Baltic - the so-called moedernegotie or "mother of all trades." In Sveriges och Hollands diplomatiska Forbindelser 1621-163 0, belysta genom Aktstycken ur Svenska Riksarkivet (1881) by Magnus Gottfrid Schybergson and in Gerhard Kernkamp's De sleutels van de Sont (1890), the Republic's position in maintaining a balance in the Baltic trade was described for the first time. Later, other relevant studies as The Interactions ofAmsterdam and Antwerp with the Baltic Region, 14001800, edited by Wiert Jan Wieringa (1983), Thomas Lindblad's Sweden 5 Trade with the Dutch Republic 173 8-179 5 (1982) and "Evidence of Dutch-Swedish trade in the 17th century" (1990), De diplomatieke betrekkingen van de Republiek met Denemarken en Sweden, 1660-167 5 by Joan Romelingh (1969), and Hans van Koningsbrugge's Tussen Rijswijk en Utrecht: de diplomatieke betrekkingen tussen Zweden en de Verenigde Nederlanden 1697-1713 (1996) were published, dealing with mutual relations in trade and diplomacy. Also the collected essays Baltic Affairs. Relations between the Netherlands and North-Eastern Europe 1500-1800 (1990), edited by]. Lemmink and van Koningsbrugge, provide an overview of relations in trade, politics, and diplomacy. Further important studies dealing with relations with the Baltic region are Peter Klein's De Trippen in de 17 de eeuw. Ben studie over het ondernemersgedrag op de Hollandse stapelmarkt (1965), Michael Roberts' Sweden$ Age of Greatness (1973), Jonathan Israel's Dutch Primacy in World Trade (1989) and The Dutch Republic. Its Rise, Greatness and Fall (1995), Entrepeneurs and Entrepeneurship in Early Modern Times (1995) by Cle Lesger and Leo Noordegraaf, Goran Rystad's Europe and Scandinavia (1983), and In Quest ofTrade and Security. The Baltic in Power Politics (1995) edited by Rystad, Klaus Bohme, and Wilhelm Carlgren. More recent is Milja van Tielhof's The 'Mother of all Trades.' The Baltic Grain Trade in Amsterdam from the Late 16th to the Early 19th Century (2002). Obviously, economic, political, and diplomatic historians have considered the Baltic trade part of their curriculum for years, yet art historians have only given it cursory attention. However, recent publications reveal an increasing interest in the cultural relations between the Dutch Republic and the Baltic world.A year after TijdSchrift voor Scandinavistiek5 issue Balticum (1995) was published, dealing with the area as a cultural concept, the cultural exchanges within Northern Europe were even more extensively approached as an independent subject for study in the proceedings of the conference The North Sea and Culture (1550-1800) (1996).Art and architectural ties around the early modern Baltic were highlighted from various angles in the collections of conference papers Sten Karling and Baltic Art History (1999) and Das Problem des klassischen Ideals in der Kunst und Architektur der Lander des Ostseeraums (2003). The growing interest in the subject has also been expressed in a number of exhibitions, accompanied by extensive collections of essays: Bauen nach der Natur - Die Erben Palladios in Nordeuropa (Hamburg, 1997), Palladio and Northern Europe. Books, Travellers, Architects (Vicenza, 1999), Onder den Oranje Boom. Niederliindische Kunst und Kultur im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert an deutschen Furstenhiifen (Krefeld, 1999) and Tilman van Gameren, 16321706. A Dutch architect to the Polish court (Amsterdam, 2002). These works have laid the basis for further research into the cultural relations between the Republic and Northern Europe, constituting a point of departure for the international conference Cultural Traffic and Cultural Transformation around the Baltic Sea, 1450-1720, held in Copenhagen in 2003. Proceedings were published in the Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 28 (2003) 3/ 4, edited by Stephen T. Christensen and Badeloch Noldus. Most recently, transfer and exchange of material and immaterial culture between western Europe and the Baltic region were discussed in the volume Land und Meer: Kultureller Austausch zwischen Westeuropa und dem Ostseeraum in der Fruhen Neuzeit (Cologne-Weimar-Vienna, 2004), edited by Michael North and Martin Krieger. "Ties with Sweden having started early on due to mutual interests, the Netherlands have during the first part of the seventeenth century - exercised more influence on Sweden's inner loldus 1999) I did not reject Dahlgren's theory concerning the architectural history of De Geer's house. At the time, I was not yet familiar with all the documents from the Leufsta archive that Dahlgren had used. When Dahlgren wrote bis arti cle the archive was still privately owned and only years later was it transferred to the national archives in Stockholm and catalogued at his behest.

63

ARMS AND ARCHITECTURE - DUTCH PATRONS OVERSEAS

and the supply of paintings from Norrkoping in 1643, it does indeed seem as ifthe construction of the first, so-called "old house" started in that year. By only listing the payments for roofing tiles, roofing copper, and the stove maker in the year 1646, and not the transport of bricks in May, Dahlgren could write that the construction of the first house was being concluded. 312 The analysis is incorrect and moreover gives rise to questions, which remain unanswered. Why was the house that was already there unsuitable? Why did de Geer change his mind about the appearance of his future home, and why did he only do so in 1646? In that case, was the first house ever finished? Finally, Dahlgren used drawings by de Geer for his analysis, which are not of the urban palace in Stockholm, but of his house in Uppsala. Since art historical sources still refer to Erik Dahlgren's article when mentioning Louis de Geer's house in Stockholm, it is important to refute the analysis, even if this is done more than eighty years after its first publication. Meticulously re-writing the building history of Louis de Geer's urban palace in Stockholm, using the complete building records and previously unused sources, will rectify the inaccuracies. 313

The Building Records Per Year De Geer purchased a plot on Sodermalm from Hubert de Besche on December 14, 1643 for 1,000 riksdalers, additionally he gave him two roosenobelen far his wife Maria Rochet. 314 Architect Hubert de Besche had lived in Sweden with his brothers Gillis, Gerard, and Willem since the start of the seventeenth century. He worked on Gripsholm Castle in 1609, between 1613 and 1618 he designed the tower of the German church in Stockholm, and in 1616 he was appointed the royal master builder at the palace in Stockholm until his countryman Caspar Panten succeeded him in 1620. In 1617, he purchased the plot on Sodermalm, which was later sold to de Geer. In the 1620s, de Besche became increasingly involved in the iron industry, in which his brother Willem was active. Together with Gerard he acquired the Navekvarn iron foundry, not far from Norrkoping where he was active as master builder in those years, working on the tower on Holmen and Louis de Geer's house. However, these commissions seem to be his last as he completely switched to the iron trade and weapons manufacturing. In 1625, he rented his house in Stockholm to this brother-in-law Jacques Radou and lived near Navekvarn. But as Radou paid him no rent, because de Besche still owed him money, de Besche became increasingly troubled by financial woes and tried to sell the house to Radou in 1641, who turned down the offer. He then got contacted Louis de Geer who was immediately interested and concluded the title deed the same day the payment was issued. 315 The house's location was excellent. Tt gave de Geer an uninterrupted view of Sodermalm's square, where the assembly of raw iron took place and products were loaded before being shipped to Amsterdam. Furthermore, de Geer could see his ships in the harbour. De Geer used the location even before he had purchased the plot and the house from de Besche and he paid for the various deliveries of building materials. On September 4, 1643, he paid for the first shipment of bricks and roofing tiles, to be delivered to the malmgaerden, as the location was known in the accounts. 316 Two weeks later, the bills were paid for a shipment of iron from de Geer's iron foundries Leufsta and Osterby, and for roofing copper (dackkooper), which amounted to 389.29 riksdalers. During 312

Dahlgren 1919, 70. Recent examples include Ellehag 1997, 39; Ellehag 1998, 189-1995; Bedoire 2001, 138-140; and Magnusson in Ellenius 2004, 41. 314 RA, Leufsta arkiv, Vol. 160, huvudbok Stockholm 1643-1645. Roosenobelen: a sixteenth-century coin, also known as oud-gelderse. 313

64

315

Letter in Dahlgren 1919, 66. The following data pertaining to the period 4 September 1643 - 2 November 1645, originates from: RA, Leufsta arkiv, Vol. 161, Journal Stockholm 16431645. 316

ARMS AND ARCHITECTURE - DUTCH PATRONS OVERSEAS

the rest of the year, payments took place to "arbeytsfolk," more iron and copper were purchased, and Gustav Swenson from Stromsholm supplied 60,000 tiles. Furthermore, de Geer purchased "fifty thousand large bricks and twelve thousand roofing tiles costing fl. 74 7 .10 including shipping costs" on November 4, 1643. 317 Two thousand of these roofing tiles were intended for the treasurer in lieu of the toll. A mere three days later, payment was effected for "fifteen thousand roofing tiles, forty five thousand clinkers and twenty thousand large bricks totalling fl. 932." 318 He then purchased 24 loads of lime from General Jacob De la Gardie and nails, beams, iron sheeting, and various tools including a hammer, a saw and six shovels. All this was "received in two shipments by ship." 319 While the purchase of so many building materials and tools seems to suggest the building of a house, that year also saw many expenditures for items which seem to belong to the later stages of house construction. For example, as early as September 28, 1643, in the same month as the first bills for the supply of building materials were paid, stonemason Joost Henne received 75 riksdalers for the creation of a mantelpiece. On October 31, he was paid again; this time for two mantelpieces and for bevelling flagstones. 320 Henne had already worked for de Geer in the preceding year when de Geer, or his daughter Ida and her husband Carel de Besche, ordered two doorways from him for Stenhuset in Norrkoping. Henne was one of the most respected stonemasons of his time. He was possibly from Hennen in Westphalia and had been on permanent contract to the widowed Queen Maria Elenora since 1634. He also contributed to the southern portal of the German church in Stockholm, Queen Christina's pleasure house in the gardens of the royal castle Kungstradgarden in Stockholm, the portals of the Tyreso Church in cooperation with Diedrich Blume, and to Jader Church, where Axel Oxenstierna is buried. 321 In 1637, Henne travelled to the Republic to buy marble for Magnus Brahe's tomb in Vasteras. Three years later, he was chosen as the elder of the stonemasons and sculptors guild. 322 It is unknown whether Henne also designed the doorway of de Geer's Stockholm urban palace; in any case the construction bills reveal nothing. Two days after the last payment to Joost Henne, on November 2, 1643, the stonemason was paid for two more mantelpieces like those "installed upstairs in the best room and the two rooms." 323 Two days later, several carpenters were paid 11.8 riksdalers for laying the floor in the loft. Within the week, five riksdalers were paid for the transport of two trunks of paintings to the house in Norrkoping. In 1646, Louis de Geer would expand his collection with twelve paintings of "Romeynse keysere" (Roman Emperors) which he had shipped from the Netherlands, and in the following year he purchased another two paintings. 324 In the same month payment was made for installing the mantelpieces, de Geer also paid for the delivery of 50,000 large bricks, 250 ridge stones, 12,000 roofing tiles, and another 15,000 roofing tiles, 400 ridge stones of which 100 with holes, 45,000 clinkers, and 20,000 large bricks. 325 1644 was a quiet year for the account books. During the first months of 1644, costs were incurred for hiring carpenters, lime and brick carriers, bricklayers, and wood carvers. In February, Hubert de Besche ordered a ton of nails and the bill was paid, and May saw payment for tiling the roof. Fifteen daalders were remunerated "to the blacksmith according to his bill" on September 24,

317

"5 0 duisent moppen ende 12 duisent dakpannen cos ten met d'oncosten tot aenscheeps bordt t'amsterdamfl. 747, 10,-." 318 "15 duisent dackpannen, 45 duisent klinckers en de 20 duisent moppen costen met alle oncostenfl. 932,-." Klincker or clinker: a harder type of stone generally used for the plinth and/ or foundations, usually in the same shape as the other bricks. 3l 9 "In twee reysen met het jacht ontfangen." 32 0 Bevelling: here the right-angled cutting of blocks of stone.

321

Flodin 1979, 52-53. SBL, "Henne, Jost." 3 23 "Boven inde sael ende 2 earners gesett sijn." 324 RA, Leufsta arkiv,Vol. 100 and Vol. 163.After de Geer's death, Magnus De la Gardie purchased fourteen paintings from his est;ite. Dahlgren 1923, vol. 1, 523. 325 Mop: oversized brick, the exact dimensions of which differed. Voorstenen: possibly vorststeen [ridge stone], a cut natural stone cover for the ridge of a slate roof. 322

65

ARMS AND ARCHITECTURE - DUTCH PATRONS OVERSEAS

1644, and October saw bills paid for beams bought from Claes Brouwer, doors and window frames, and for the glazier. 326 No large building materials were delivered the entire year. However, some of the materials were sold or shipped elsewhere: in August 34,000 roofing tiles were sold for 140 daalders including costs and some 17,000 clinkers were transported to Leufsta. The last costs incurred that year were for the painting of the best room (sae0 and on November 27 to Joost Henne's widow Elisabeth Heidenreiter, who had taken over the company after his death on April 8, 1644, for squaring Oland sandstone. 327 1645 was also a calm financial year. 328 Little building activity occurred at the new location in Stockholm. In February and April, Elisabeth Heidenreiter was paid three more times for the squaring of stone and a team of stone carriers were paid their wages. More concrete was the purchase of fruit trees for which 250 daalders were paid for in October. This purchase and the presence of "Anthony Colarz Thuimann" (Anthony Colarz Gardener) in the register of business contacts points to work having started on the garden. 329 Finally, on December 18, a payment was made for the installation of a stove in the best room. 1646 however, paints an entirely different picture than the two preceding years. As of July of that year the number ofbills for building materials rose considerably. On July 13, "5,000 roofing tiles, 1,000 square flagstones, fittings for 26 windows and 6 pairs of door hinges" were paid for which amounted to well over 300 riksdalers. 330 Iron was purchased and supplied to the blacksmith "for the benefit of the building." 331 In August a payment was made for 4,000 bricks, an additional 50,000 bricks, 31 stair stones, Gotland stone, and in September another 12,480 bricks were purchased. In addition, 6,000 stones were purchased in October from Knut Posse, followed by 14,950 roofing tiles in November, and 20, 100 bricks in December, from Gustav Horn. Furthermore, payments were made during the closing months of the year to "Jurgen steenhouwer" Qurgen stonemason) and stove maker David Ongerman, for wages, thousands of nails, oaken planks, and copper from Hendrick Trip, for lime, 30 pairs of windows, and six pairs of door hinges. Moreover, besides building materials and tools various "household items' (huisgeraet) were delivered. On July 21 and July 31 respectively, Louis de Geer paid for twelve paintings with "thereon 12 Roman Emperors at 2 riksdalers a piece," finishing silk to upholster furniture, and seven maps. 332 October saw the "receipt of household goods, taken into the kitchen." 333 At the end of the year, on November 6, gardener Anthony Collar, who also worked in N orrkoping that year, was paid 4 7 guilders for a trip to Liege, Dordrecht, and Amsterdam where he purchased a number of garden shears and other tools. The pattern is comparable with that of 1643. Construction materials were stockpiled on a grand scale while at the same time costs were incurred for items that generally only tend to be purchased when a house is more or less finished, such as stoves, paintings, or objects for the garden. Fiscal year 1646 was concluded on December 30 with the comment "Incurring many unnecessary costs to the house Malm Gaerden and aJso the fact that the old house will be demolished in due course." 334 An explanation of this comment can be found in the remainder of the building records.

32 6 327

"Aende smit volgens sijn reeckeningen." SBL, "Henne,Jost." In 1645, Elisabeth Heidenreiter married master stonemason Johan Wendelstamm, Joost Henne's former apprentice, with whom she continued the company. 32 8 The data pertaining to the period 13 November 1645 - 26 November 1647 are from RA, Leufsta arkiv,Vol. 163, Journal Stockholm 1645-1647. 329 RA, Leufsta arkiv, Vol. 162, Alphabeth der Boecken 1645.Anthony Coelarz is located between Abram Momma

66

and Adriaen Trip. "5.000 dakpannen, 1.000 viercante vloer steenen, voor 26 paer Venster Beslach ende 6 paer deur hengsels." 33 1 "Tot behoevt vant gebou." 2 33 "Daerop de 12 Romeynse keysere 2 rijksdaalders 't stuck." 333 "Huishoudinge ontvangen en in de keuken gebracht." 334 "Aen Malm Gaerden dewyllen bevinde veell onnutte oncosten Aen het gebou gespendeert te hebben oock dat het oude huis melter tijt wederom aji;ebroocken sall werden." 330

a

ARMS AND ARCHITECTURE - DUTCH PATRONS OVERSEAS

The 1647 fiscal year started with a payment on January 12 to Andries Larson and his two boat mates who had spent eight weeks in Stockholm to ship stone. In May, a bill for a shipment of iron from the foundry in Osterby was paid and then delivered to the blacksmith. This also applied to the planks from Finspong, which had arrived from N orrkoping by praem (a flat bottomed boat). In June payments were made for 6,700 bricks, another 12,000 bricks, and a third shipment of 4,000 bricks. The first two shipments were purchased from Leendert Torstensson and the third from Claes Jonsson. 335 Even more building materials were purchased according to the books: 13,900 tile stones in August, 10,500 tile stones in September, 3,000 stones and another shipment of 7 ,500 stones in October, and finally two shipments of roofing tiles, 9,800 and 5,000 tiles respectively in November. The name "muurmeesterJurgen Cesewitt" (master mason Jurgen Gesewitt, or Gesewitz) occurred in the books for the first time on July 20, 1647. Shortly afterwards on July 31, he was paid 200 riksdalers just as he had been 11 days earlier. He was paid on another six occasions: 150 riksdalers on August 14 and August 30, 200 riksdalers on September 23, 100 riksdalers on October 6, 200 riksdalers on October 28, and finally 100 riksdalers on November 24.Whether he received any further payments is unknown, as the ledger ends on November 26 and the subsequent ledgers in Louis de Geer's Stockholm books have not been preserved. In between the payments to Jurgen Gesewitz, bills were paid in August to a stonemason for the purchase of stone, to carpenter Willem de Seeuw (these occur on several occasions) and Anthony Collar was also paid again. Furthermore, the months June - October saw the acquisition oflarge quantities of nails, lime, clay, and planks. And as was the case in 1646, finishing materials were purchased on a grand scale including 114 sheets of roofing copper in July, and one hundred pairs of window fittings and 6 pairs of door hinges at one riksdaler a pair in August. Finally, in October a mason, presumably Jurgen Gesewitz, received 100 riksdalers for "de Grootte port' (the large gate) which is a reference to the gateway in the wall separating the square in front of house from the street. In November 1646, the books note that the street had been covered and that the mayor had been paid for that, meaning that part of the street in front of the house had been paved which required permission from one of the mayors and could be obtained for 67 riksdalers. There are no administrative records for the period after November 26,1647, but individual bills have turned up for the years 1650 - 1655, the year in which de Geer's sons sold the property. The nature of the bills, such as from a locksmith, a tailor, a pharmacist, and a beer brewer indicate that the house was inhabited during those years. 336 It has been assumed that de Geer never saw the house in a finished state, though as early as November 27, 1650, it was in a suitable enough state to receive Queen Christina at a dinner. She watched the fireworks in honour of her coronation that year from the high vantage point offered by the house. 337

The Various Building Stages Three phases can be discerned in the well over four years the building records encompass. The first is from September to the close of 1643, in which large shipments of building materials were supplied, but which simultaneously saw the installation of Joost Henne's mantelpieces, the arrival of paintings from Norrkoping, and the laying of a floor in the loft. Phase two covers the calm years 1644 - '45 until the spring of 1646. Besides the painting of the best room, very little happened at the construction site. The third phase runs from the summer of 1646 through to the end of the financial records in November 1647. Just as in 1643, 1646 saw payments for large quantities of materials. Moreover,

33 5 It is possible that Andries Larsson and his apprentices shipped the bricks from Torstensson and Jiinsson's dock to the building site on Siidermalm.

RA, Leufsta arkiv,Vol. 100. Dahlgren 1919, 77; Ellehag 1998, 193; Bedoire 2001, 139. Sjoberg 1911, 62.

336 337

67

ARMS AND ARCHITECTURE - DUTCH PATRONS OVERSEAS

twelve paintings were acquired and gardener Anthony Collar, who had been on the payroll since the preceding year, worked on the garden. The 1647 financial year was dominated by payments for finishing materials, for the execution of the gateway, and by payments to master mason Jurgen Gesewitz. Two activities seem to run in parallel throughout the three phases: on the one hand, the purchase of all the building materials seems to indicate the construction of a new house, yet on the other hand, the making and installing of mantelpieces, the painting, and the purchasing of artefacts to decorate house and garden, suggest that the house had already been built. The journals, which list the expenditure for the new location in Stockholm for the period 1643-1647 are undeniably accounting journals, kept by the bookkeeper who recorded the costs, what they were, and when they were incurred. However, the time at which payment took place docs not have to agree with the point in time at which something was executed or delivered. The chronology does not necessarily have to be consistent with the construction progress. Louis de Geer regularly sent letters urging his debtors to pay up. 338 Payments sometimes remained outstanding for years. Then again, the payment for the plot took place on December 13, 1643, the same day the contract with Hubert de Besche was signed, and following Joost Henne's death there were no outstanding debts. Louis de Geer himself appears to have paid his bills on time and the chronology of the accounts may therefore be deemed reliable.

Reconstruction of the Building History The simultaneous purchase of building materials on the one hand, and the decoration and furnishing of a house on the other may, at first, seem illogical. The quantity of building materials purchased may also seem somewhat incongruent. However, taking other data and contemporary sources into account, the building records and thereby the building history of Louis de Geer's urban palace can be understood, which allows a revision of Dahlgren's theory. As Hubert de Besche was the royal master builder when he purchased the plot in 1617 and suitable housing befitted that status, there is no reason to assume that de Geer had the house demolished when he took over the plot in 1643. Moreover, it was practical to have a house there as de Geer could use this as accommodation during the construction of his new home. De Besche's house can still be seen on the engraving in the Suecia Antiqua et Hodierna, where it stands to the right of the later structure in the middle of the engraving. Although the images in the Suecia sometimes deviate from reality as far as the details are concerned, the main lines were depicted accurately. De Besche's house, on the far right in the engraving had horizontal banding level with the first and second floors. The short sides of the building were decorated with a stepped gable and the window frames were encompassed in surrounds, probably sandstone. Doric pilasters and a semi-circular fronton flanked the doorway. The structure of the house and the elements mentioned were characteristic of the architecture which could be seen in the Southern and Northern Netherlands at the close of the sixteenth and the start of the seventeenth century, making it reasonable to assume that de Besche built the house himself. Only the drapery festoons under the windows do not correspond to that style. These decorations were either added when the engraving was made to make it look more like the new house or de Geer had the festoons installed in an attempt to modernise the building. The house would not have been in optimum shape when he took it over.Jacques Radou had lived there since 1625 without paying rent, bringing financial difficulties to de Besche who definitely could not afford intermediate refurbishment. As he owed Radou money it seems improbable that he did anything to incur costs on the

338

68

See Kernkamp 1908 and Dahlgren 1934.

ARMS AND ARCHITECTURE - DUTCH PATRONS OVERSEAS

house other than what was absolutely essential. Some of the bills paid in the autumn of 1643 indeed pertained to restoration activities to the house, which de Geer would inhabit during the construction of the adjacent house, such as the laying of the loft floor and the making of windows. 339 It need not have taken more than a year and a half to finish his urban palace, but during that time it was important to have a representative home, which explains the payments for mantelpieces to Joost Henne in September 1643. That the house did indeed function as such can be read in the diary of Marten Blixencron who wrote on September 5, 1643 that he and Riddarhus secretary Samuel Kempe and General-War Commissioner Bengt Hansson were the guests of Louis de Geer on Sodermalm for dinner.340

The arrival of the paintings from the house in Norrkoping meant the house could be decorated. The building materials delivered between September and December 1643 were intended for de Geer's new house which was built at right angles to de Besche's, as can be seen on the engraving in the Suecia; as soon as de Geer's urban palace was completed de Besche's "old house was to be demolished in due course." 341 But that never happened. In the end it took even longer than anticipated before the move could finally take place; a new war between Denmark and Sweden, which was to last two years, broke out in December 1643. Louis de Geer's personal involvement in the war meant construction activities were on hold for a considerable length of time. His absence in the period January-September 1644 and his continuous involvement in the war and the peace negotiations that followed, meant that it was very quiet on the Stockholm building site during the years 1644 and 1645. Only in the spring of 1646 did work recommence and the following months saw the arrival of large quantities of building materials and all manner of necessities and finishing elements, including wainscot which was used to panel walls, doors and shutters. However, the number of window fittings, door hinges and the shipments of bricks and roofing tiles do suggest something. If the orders from 1643 were already intended for the new house then it must be observed that the total quantity tallied in the Stockholm accounts exceeds the quantity required for the new house. De Geer purchased 210,000 bricks, which is close to the quantity required for the house. 342 For the cellar, 70,000 large bricks were purchased, which is a likely number. But 100,000 tiles for the floors and walls, and 60,000 roofing tiles was more than enough. The excess was therefore not intended for the construction of the Stockholm residence. Some of the building materials were sold, such as the 3,400 roofing tiles which were sold in August 1644 for 140,20 daalders, or the shipment of 17 ,000 clinkers which were forwarded to Leufsta in the same month. After all, in December 1643, de Geer not only took over Hubert de Besche's plot and house, but he also purchased the iron foundries and accompanying lands which he had leased since 1627. Besides Leufsta these included Osterby, Gimo, Forsmark, and

339

There is no trace of any possible cost incurred for demolishing de Besche's house in the books. 34 0 Heyman 1929, 37-111. On 6 February 1649, Blixencron and de Geer dined together again. 341 "Het oude huis metier tijt wederom afgebroocken." It remains unclear what the "onnutte costen" (useless costs) were made for "het gebou" (the building), which are discussed in the same note. It is possible that the repair costs to de Besche's house were higher than intended. But it can also refer to wrong or surplus purchases for the second house. 3 42 Louis de Geer's house is currently the Dutch ambassador's residence. Architectural-historical research was therefore impossible. The calculation of the number of stones used was made on the basis of measuring the cellar (whereby the joints were taken into account as these are several centimetres larger than those in the above

storeys) and using the floor plan drawings, which the Dutch Embassy in Stockholm has in its possession. These were made in 1964 for the house's restoration. They indicate which interior walls were to be demolished and which new ones were to be built. The wall content was calculated on the basis of this data. The foundations were not examined, but an ice age river channel runs where the house was built. The foundations were therefore made oflocal granite walls filled with earth (verbal information from Lars Bengtsson, SSA, June 2002). No additional material needed to be imported, besides clinkers to surface the foundations. The roof was entirely renewed in the 1960s, how many roofing tiles were used is unknown. My heartfelt thanks for calculations go out to Rogier Noldus.

69

ARMS AND ARCHITECTURE - DUTCH PATRONS OVERSEAS

Finspong. It is probable that the purchase was followed by the modernisation or expansion of the existing structure of the foundries, workshops, and houses which at least was the case in Leufsta, where a representative house was built including a garden decorated with pavilions and sculptures around the time the lands were purchased. 343 In addition to the foundries there were several other possible destinations for the building materials during the period 1643-1647 other than the house in Stockholm. One of these can be seen on the engraving in the Suecia. There is a plain looking building on the left of the picture. It is unclear whether this was erected in de Geer's time or during the years Ebba Brahe lived there, but the clean lines seem more akin to the classicist architecture of the main building than to those of the garden pavilion that Brahe had built in the garden. 344 Judging by the size of the windows the building did not serve as orangery, stable, or storage, but may possibly have been Anthony Collar's house or a coach house of which the entrance lay behind the house. 345 If the building was erected at the same time as the new house then part of the roofing tiles and bricks were intended for it.A third destination was located nearby. On May 15, 1647, Louis de Geer signed the purchase contract for a plot on Badstugatan. 346 The plots on this street were right on the water's edge. It was a stone's throw away from the other house, but the piece ofland had great advantages: its own storage for the products from the various foundries and factories which were to be shipped to Amsterdam and its own mooring, loading, and unloading space. De Geer paid for "the house and the brewery on the southern malm [Sodermalm] to Jacob Pheyf 15,000 riksdalers, for this much I bought the house" on September 14, 1647. 347 Although Pheyf's house and brewery already stood at Badstugatan and an entirely new warehouse was not required, renovation and building activities nevertheless took place. Between July and November a number of smaller shipments of planks and lime arrived. Other materials for the expansion or repair of the existing buildings possibly came from the construction site on the Gotgatan. Another destination for the enormous quantities of brick and roofing tiles could have been the house in Norrkoping. Between 1642 and 1646, de Geer's daughter Ida and her husband Carel de Besche built a second house in Norrkoping, which was connected to the existing Stenhuset. Goods from the brass and iron factories in N orrkoping or nearby Finspong were regularly transported to Stockholm to then be shipped elsewhere. Any possible transport of building materials to N orrkoping could make use of the existing connections. A final possible destination is the house in Uppsala where work started in 1647. Although the house was made of timber a description states that "the house will be raised off the ground on blocks or stones." 348 Moreover, building materials were hard to come by in Uppsala at the time wrote Louis de Geer's business manager Adolf Menscheuer. 349

The Architecture of the Fac;ade The modern, and in the Baltic context, new Classicism in which Louis de Geer had his home erected was only used in the Republic for the homes of courtiers such as Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen and Constantijn Huygens, and wealthy high-ranking citizens such as Joan Huydecoper and Joan

343

Noldus 2000, 57-86. It definitely cannot be of a later date. The engraving Palatium Comitissae Ebbae Brahe was made between 1660, when Erik Dahlberg was commissioned to make the collection of copper engravings and 167 4, the year Ebba Brahe died. 345 Such as the coach houses on the Kerkstraat in Amsterdam, which belonged to the houses on the Keizersgracht. 344

70

346

RA, Leufsta arkiv, Vol. 163, Journal Stockholm 16451647. 347 '"t Hu is ende Brouwerije op de suider maim aen Jacob Pheyf rd 15000,- voor soo veel het selve huis van hem gecocht hebben." 348 "Het huis wat hooch op blacken of steenen van de eerde stellen." RA, Leufsta arkiv, Vol. 144. 349 RA, Leufsta arkiv, Vol. 92, Menscheuer to de Geer the younger.

ARMS AND ARCHITECTURE - DUTCH PATRONS OVERSEAS

Poppen. Classicism was therefore appropriate for reflecting de Geer's well-earned respect. 350 De Geer also had an impressive home in Amsterdam. In 1634, he had purchased the Huis met de Hoofden, which had been designed by Amsterdam town stonemason Hendrick de Keyser. The house, which was built under the direction of De Keyser's son Pieter and finished in 1622, had one of the most richly decorated fo;:ades along the canals of Amsterdam and its purchase would certainly have contributed to de Geer's status. Louis de Geer's house in Stockholm, and particularly the use of a comparable colossal Ionic order, is very reminiscent of the Mauritshuis in The Hague (1633-1644), which was designed by Jacob van Campen and Pieter Post (Ill. 9). It is possible that Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen's residence served as the inspiration for de Geer's new 15 Design for Westwijck manor house commissioned by Reinier Pauw: Philips Vingboons, 1637. Engraving from Ajbeelsels der voorurban palace. He will have undoubtedly seen the naemste gebouwen, 1648. building during his stay in the Republic between 1637 and 1641, while it was still under construction, and again during his stay from January to September 1644. The Mauritshuis and the adjacent home of Constantijn Huygens were the first examples of edifices built according to the rules of classicist architecture and would set the tone in Dutch architecture for the coming decades. However, other classicist buildings from that era could also have been the inspiration for Louis de Geer's urban palace. Arent van 's-Gravesande used an Ionic colossal order in a comparable manner several times in buildings he designed around 1640. The motif can be seen in the houses at Rapenburg 2 and 48 in Leiden. Various elements from the design for de Geer's urban palace also occur in Philips Vingboons' work, such as the alternating semi-circular and triangular frontons as applied to the home of Michael Pauw in Amsterdam (Herengracht 168) dating from 1638.Vingboons used the colossal order in buildings including country home Westwijck, for Reinier Pauw dating from 1637, and in the Amsterdam home of Joan Poppen (Kloveniersburgwal 95) dating from 1642. Several authors have suggested that a Dutch architect may have designed de Geer's house due to the affinity with these early examples of c:Jassicism in the Repuhlic. 351 The Amsterdam architects Philips Vingboons and Justus Vingboons were mentioned several times in this context. The architect Jean de la Vallee, who moved to Sweden as a twelve year old in 1637 with his father Simon de la Vallee, has also been put forward as responsible for the building's design. Suggesting these specific architects must have been influenced by the authors' desire to connect a well-known name to this first example of Dutch Classicism in Sweden rather than the authors having found proof in the archival material. None of the architects occurs in de Geer's financial records. It would also have been impossible from a practical point of view. Justus Vingboons only travelled to Stockholm in 1653 after he had been contracted to finish the House of Nobles, or Riddarhus . Between 1643 and 1647 Philips Vingboons worked on projects including a design for the new town hall in Amsterdam, a country house in the Purmer polder, and a home on

350 Ellenius wrote, concerning the "pallaclianism" of De Geer's house that it was " (... ) a signal of loyalty to the world presented by the high-bourgeois architecture of his homeland." Ellenius 1967, 89.

Dahlgren 1919, 73; Silverstolpe 1926, 115; Larsson 1997, 221, Ellhag 1997, 39; Ellehag 1998, 191; Bedoire 2001, 139.

351

71

ARMS AND ARCHITECTURE

DCTCH PATRONS OVERSEAS

the Damrak in Amsterdam. In 1648 he provided an overview of all his designs, both built and otherwise. That list does not include de Geer's house.Jean de la Vallee was only 21 in 1646 and at the time did not have a design to his name. Moreover, he was in Paris in 1646 and 1647 and he wrote to Louis de Geer three times from. there. De Geer had promised him 200 riksdalers for his studies in Paris but de la Vallee was unsure of the value of a riksdaler, as he wrote in a letter to de Geer dated October 26, 1646. 352 Jean promised,"(. . .) et moije tacheray de me rendre cappable de vous pouvoir enjour servise en les aucasions au vous auves besoin de man seruice, comme estent et experent estre toute ma vie." 353 His last letter, dated May 24, 1647, very humbly thanked de Geer for the latter's financial support, underlining that he considered the arranging of favourable exchange rates for the donation, not as something he was owed, but as something originating from de Geer's benevolence, for which he would try to compensate him with his very humble services in those cases in which de Geer thought him skilled enough to make use of those services, and only desires this for the rest of his life. But Louis de Geer never took advantage of Jean de la Vallee's repeated offer. A more important reason for looking for an architect other than the one's mentioned above can be found in a series of drawings on which de Geer's home in Stockholm was based. 354 First of all, there is an unsigned drawing of the fac;:ade. There are no notes on the drawing except the comment "Huys" [house] on the back, nor are any dimensions or scale indicated. The fac;:ade of the house is sub-divided into seven equal bays by pilasters and, according to Palladian tradition, fronted by a colossal Ionic order. On the drawing of the fac;:ade of de Geer's Stockholm house an extra astragal has been added to the shaft, under the capital. The form of this ring-shaped profile, which can be found in the treatises of Palladio and Scamozzi, among others, was part of the Tuscan and Doric capital where it served as the transition from capital to shaft. An Ionic capital was executed with a narrower astragal, which was also used in the drawing for de Geer's house. The motif was repeated by using a Tuscan or Doric astragal underneath that. Philips Vingboons used a comparable double astragal in his design for the Ameldonk Leeuw house (Ro kin 95, Amsterdam) from 1646. 355 With its double torus, the pilaster base on the fac;:ade drawing is Ionic. The fronton rests on a slightly protruding middle ressault and across the fac;:ade the window frontons alternate between semi-circular and triangular.The rusticated entrance, which provides access to the entrance hall, staircase, and first floor, has been given the same fronton as the windows. A semi-circular fronton which closes the doorway "presses" directly against the window on the first floor. A second drawing shows the fac;:ade's socle, the base and the bottom of the pilaster set. Although, more "sketched" than the drawing for the entire fac;:ade, it provides a more detailed look

352

The letters date back to 31 August 1646, 26 October 1646, and 24 May 1647. De la Vallee asked whether the riksdalers promised had the same value as Swedish crowns. If that were not the case this could lead to a difference of five riksdalers when it was exchanged. RA, Leufsta arkiv, Vol. 33. 353 " ( ... ) to strive to enable myself to be of service to you for some time. So it is now and will be for all my life." 35 4 RA, Leufsta arkiv,Vol. 144.The originals of the drawings referred to are held in this volume, except for the fa.;:ade drawing. The latter is privately owned. The drawings described in brief below are not dealt with in the main body of the text: part of the side fac;:ade can be seen on a sheet of paper on which the interior of a roof construction has been drawn. The side fac;:ade has not been depicted in its entirety; two parts are shown: the basement - and above that - part of a wall with a row of win-

72

dows immediately below the eaves and part of the roof. A door has been drawn providing access to the basement at street level. However, this door does not occur in the side of the basement's floor plan, but on the front (under the stairs) as can also be seen on the fac;:ade drawing. The base's cladding has been indicated with horizontal lines thereby deviating from the rustication used. The status of the top of the side fac;:ade, as drawn on the same sheet, is unclear. It is unknown whether the building included a high loading window at loft level as indicated on the drawing. The roof construction, which is marked wijdt 22 voedt [22 feet wide], is too narrow and too simple structurally for a home. The status of a floor plan in which window embrasures have only been made on one side is also unclear. 3SS Included in Ajbeelsels der voornaemste gebouwen uyt alle die Philips Vingboons geordineert heeft, 1648, No. 26.

ARMS AND ARCHITECTURE - DUTCH PATRONS OVERSEAS

-·--~-

- -----

C0;1,fr~ SAi.

£;;;;

PALATlUJ.1 BRA.H: E r'n .fuhurb;o 111t rid1'unn.l1. Stockholm )

16 Louis de Geer's residence in Stockholm. Engraving from Suecia Antiqua et Hodierna.

at the covering of the base. As a contrast to the smooth parts of the fo;:ade, the suggestion was to cover the base with large unplastered bricks as a reference to rustication. There are also three drawings of the floor plan for the house: one is a contemporary copy of the second floor plan drawing and the second is of the loft. The last drawing, presumably a preparatory study is damaged and only shows part of the floor plan. On this drawing the house is only eleven yards deep and the left-hand part has an extension at the rear.

The Exterior According to the Suecia Antiqua et Hodierna A single engraving in the Suecia Antiqua et Hodierna is dedicated to Louis de Geer's house; it is referred to as Palatium Comitissae Ebbae Brahe after Ebba Brahe who bought the house following de Geer's death in 1652.The engraving must have been made between 1660, the year in which Erik Dahlberg was commissioned to compose the Suecia Antiqua et Hodierna, and 1674, the year Brahe died. The engraving is the only known seventeenth-century depiction of the house and therefore an important source for research into the building's architecture and architect. 356 Several parts of the engraving differ from the original fo;:ade drawing such as the tympanum, which though empty on the drawing, was later filled by Ebba Brahe and Jacob De la Gardie's garlanded crest. If the engraving is the same as the definitive version the remaining differences must be considered modifications to the design made during construction. The additional astragals on the pilasters under the capital are no longer visible in the engraving, the window frontons no longer alternate between semi-circular and triangular, but are all of the latter shape and the window and fronton above the entrance way have been replaced on the engraving by a crest surrounded by strap work.Although the fronton, cornice, frieze, and architrave have been kept Tuscanly sober on the drawing, the entablature on the engraving has been exe-

However, we should take into account that the engraving may have been embellished in order to please the owner of lhe building or lo improve the book's general status. But those adaptations generally pertained to parts, which had not been finished at the time of the engraving or to the gardens, see Wallin 1967, 25. Publishers also 356

changed details in accordance to suit their taste, see Baarnhiel, Myrdal 1986, 26- 32. The windows in de Geer's house have been placed so high in the fac;ade that their frontons touch the architrave (sloppiness on the part of the engraver perhaps?).

73

ARMS AND ARCHITECTURE - DUTCH PATRONS OVERSEAS

cuted according to the Ionic order in Scamozzi's book of orders making the design depicted in the Suecia well balanced.

Master Mason Jurgen Gesewitz Architectural drawings can provide good insight into the theoretical background and the education of the designer in question. The drawings of, for example, Vingboons, van Campen, and Post reveal that they had been trained as painters, which made them very skilled at drawing. These painter-architects used shadowing to lend depth to their drawings and indicated the materials used with colours. 357 People other than architects could also develop into architects. Originally a surveyor, Adriaen Dortsman revealed his technical background in the detailing of his drawings whereby most parts have their dimensions provided. It was not unusual for a bricklayer or carpenter to be able to make architectural drawings either. The series of drawings of Louis de Geer's house should be seen as belonging to this category. Thanks to the way they are laid out, the drawings, such as those of the roof construction according to the Old Dutch roof method, show that the maker had a background as a craftsman. Even though it is not a sketch, the drawing of the fac;:ade is characterised by a lack of precision. Lines regularly cross, distances have not been employed consistently nor have measurements for window jambs and frontons been included. In general the drawing lacks the finesse and accuracy of an educated architect. Moreover, the lack of mutual relationship between the various fac;:ade elements indicates that the designer was not deeply familiar with the classicist vocabulary. The craftsman to whom the drawings can probably be attributed is Jurgen Gesewitz who was more or less ignored by Dahlgren, only mentioning him in a footnote. Moreover, he wrote that Gesewitz only occurred in the building records once. 358 This in spite of the fact that he was not paid just once, but a total of seven times, and consistently referred to as meester (master). Jurgen Gesewitz was a member of the Stockholm masons guild where he became a master in 1639. 359 With the exception of the plasterers, all the craftsmen in Stockholm had a guild. 360 As with the cabinetmakers guild, the masons guild also had several foreign masters on its register, such as Dutchman Hans Ferster. 361 It is almost certain that Gesewitz came from abroad.As early as 1635, he engaged his first apprentice, something that only a master was permitted to do. This circumstance means that he was a master when he arrived in Stockholm, but was only registered as such by the guild in 1639. Although his name (also spelled Jesuwitz) sounds Eastern Pomeranian, his exact origins are unknown. Cesewitz, who was an elder within the guild from 1655, continued working in Stockholm until his death in 1678. 362 Of all the master masons who were members of the Stockholm guild in the seventeenth century not one registered as many apprentices as Gesewitz. Between 1635 and 1676, he apprenticed a total of 45 mates and during the '40s alone he apprenticed fifteen mates, which suggests that business was booming during that time. 363 The commissions varied from the drawing and executing of structural elements such as a staircase to the building of an entire house. Actually, the majority of buildings in Stockholm were designed and built by master masons and carpenters, 364 a situation comparable to Amsterdam during the same period. 365

357 358 359

360 36!

74

Gerritsen 1997, 45. Dahlgren 1919, 75. MEA, A III: 1 (Guild members list). Ellenius 196 7, 56. For Ferster see: Flodin 1975.

362 He is mentioned as an elder in the registration ledger in 1655, 1668, and 1674, which means that he held this position from at least 1655 onwards. 3 63 MEA,A III:1. Stockholm. 364 Ellenius 1967, 88. 365 Meischke, Zantkuijl, Raue, Rosenberg 1995, 60-70.

ARMS AND ARCHITECTURE - DUTCH PATRON S OVERSEAS

17 Louis de Geer's residence (front elevation), Stockholm: pen drawing ascribed to Jurgen Gesewitz, 1646 (Private collection).

Article Six of the guild regulations, " How one may b ecome a master," m eticulously describes the requirements which an aspiring master had to meet during the master's test and what a master mason's future activities would be. 366 The article's second point reads, "The mate w ho wishes to become a master is requested by the guild to pay three riksdalers and half a riksdaler to the poor. He is then set to work on a nice piece of work so that he may show what he can do w ith his hands to the wall work in question as he is made responsible for a whol e house, or a b eautiful staircase, or a nice vault, or a nice floor to point, which w ill be assessed by the royal architect together with the assessor and the entire guild." 367 T hat a master mason also had to be able to produce architectural drawings is proven in the third point, "The drawings shall consist of five floor plans, namely a cellar and four above ground, and two fac,:ades with a long side and a house front side, a profile on the long side of the house so that the staircase is clearly visible." 368 The eighth point reveals that as soon as a

366

"Huru Een ma blifwa Miistare. "The ten point guild protocol is included, in its entirety, in Alm 1935, 138-153, 144-146. 367 "Hwilken Gesii/l I Murmiistare Embetet will Mdstare blifwa, iiske Embetet Een Sommar f or ut och gifwe A ske penningar i Ladan 3 D :r Silf:r:M :t, och till de fattige 112 D:r, sedan skall han siittias pa ett wackert stycke arbete, derest han wijsa skall hwad han med sina hander giiira kan wid sielfwa murarbetet,

hwilket skall wara, antingen han forestar ett helt huus eller Een wacker trappa el/er ett wackert hwalf, eller och wackert Golf till att ndtt foga, hwilket tera Kongl: Hof A rchitecteuren tillijka med Radz Bijsiittaren och heela Embetet for gott finner." Ibid. , 144 368 " (. . .) R ijtningarna slwla bes ta utj Fem Crundrijtningar, nembl:n Een kiiillare Grund och 4 waningar iifwerJorden, sa och twennefaciater med Een sijda pa liingden och Een gafwel sijda, sa och profil pd liingden cif huuset, att man wiil kan see trappan, (... )." Ibid., 145

75

ARMS AND ARCHITECTURE - DUTCH PATRONS OVERSEAS

bricklayer became a master they often left the work to their mates. However, the guild regulations do not recommend doing so too soon, "Young masters should, once they have became master, themselves work with their hands for a few years so that their apprentices and mates behave better and the patron's work is done much better." 369 In 1647, when he was first mentioned in the building records, Jurgen Gesewitz had worked as a master for eight years. 370 It is imaginable that he may have left the execution and the drawing of construction elements such as a truss to others, for example to carpenter Willem de Seeuw who also occurs in the building records several times. 371 Knowledge of classicist design could have been acquired from books or drawings which his patron Louis de Geer had brought with him from the Republic or which circulated within the guild, as the treatises were becoming known there too. Elder Johan Wendelstam, of the stone and sculptors guild, was not the only craftsman who owned a library featuring books on architecture. Sculptor Johan Ulrik Beuerlein for example possessed treatises by Vignola, Scamozzi, Abraham Bosse, and a book of Michelangelo's engravings. 372 Knowledge of the classical orders was even a prerequisite if a stonemason wished to become a master. 373 There are two reasons why de Geer commissioned a master mason and not an architect. First of all, there were not many architects available in Stockholm at the time: Nicodemus Tessin was in Leiden in 1647, as evidenced by his registration at the university there and Jean de la Vallee was still in Paris that year. Simon de la Vallee and Caspar Panten had died in 1642 and 1630 respectively, and Hubert de Besche had not worked as a master builder for years.And the new generation of architects such as Mathias Spihler, Erik Dahlbergh, Mathias Holl, and Johan Albinus had not yet started to work. The second reason is that a master mason like Jurgen Gesewitz, who if one looks at the many mates he employed was well known and appreciated, was by no means considered inferior to an architect. De Geer and Gesewitz's other patrons definitely saw him as one.At the time, "architect" was still more a title, used for master builders who were in the court or town's permanent employ. Caspar Panten was referred to as architect while he worked for Gustav II Adolf from 1620 up until his death. 374 The same applied to Nicodemus Tessin when he was Stockholm's town architect from 1661 to 1681 and to his son when he took over the position from him in collaboration with his brother in-law Abraham Wijnandts between 1681 and 1715. They were among the few master builders or architects in the Swedish Empire, who could live from their drawings alone. In the Republic, Philips Vingboons and Pieter Post were probably the first architects to be able to live on the proceeds of their drawing work and associated activities such as drawing lessons. To survive financially, most master builders also worked as building supervisors or contractors. 375 Besides Louis de Geer, Gesewitz had various other aristocrats as his clients, amongst them Carl Gustav Wrangel. In November 1653, he was approached to lend his skills to Wrangel's country house Skokloster in the province of Uppland, but no agreement was reached; probably because he was working on Wrangel's urban palace on Riddarholmen in Stockholm at the same time. Gesewitz had earlier executed the brickwork for Karin Oxenstierna's country house, Krusenberg, near Skokloster. 376 Around 1670, an unknown colleague of Gesewitz's drew a design, which seems inspired

369

"Vnge Miistarne skohla sedan de Miistare blifwit, sielfwe forst nagra Ahr med sina egna hander arbeta, pa ded att deras Gesiiller och Poikar sig desto biittre biira mage och Byggherrens Arbete sa mycket biittre blifwa giort. " Ibid., 145 37 0 Gesewitz was paid in 1647. He could therefore have already made the design in 1646. 371 It is impossible to compare the drawings for the De Geer house with Gesewitz's work as his master's test has not been saved, nor have any of the other drawings he

76

made. The earliest master's test retained in the guild's archive dates back to 1642. 372 SSA, Bouppteckning 1670, 1595-1606. Axel-Nilsson 1950,116. 373 Ellenius 1967, 55. 37" Nordberg 1931, 109. 375 Meischke, Zantkuijl, Raue, Rosenberg 1995, 60-70. 376 Andren 1948, 30. In a letter from accountant Niels Oloffsson to Carl GustafWrangel, 17 November 1653.

ARMS AND ARCHITECTURE - DUTCH PATRONS OVERSEAS

~if rC\t.

ac Lafr.n"r.f2{{e6'eJrg.

•Pro1edaol 1:;{ ·J.,

~, b;.a_.,,;,,~'.J

18 Gothenburg town hall: Nicodemus Tessin, 1670. Engraving city architect Johan Eberhard Carlberg (1726), who added the stairs and the window frames (Region- och Stadsarkivet, Gothenburg).

by de Geer's home for his master's test. The drawings show a similar seven axes house, subdivided by colossal pilasters without capitals, a saddle back roof, and rustication on the ground floor. 377 Nicodemus Tessin's 1670 design for the town hall of Gothenburg also had a fac;:ade architecture, which was closely related to Gesewitz's design for de Geer's urban palace.

The Urban Palace's Garden The garden depicted on the engraving in Suecia Antiqua et Hodierna was built in the years that Ebba Brahe inhabited the urban palace. Louis de Geer had planned an entirely different garden on the same spot and a drawing of the garden has been retained. The handwriting on the drawing and the use of both Dutch and French means this design can be attributed to de Geer himself. 378 A gateway is indicated on the drawing for which a separate drawing also exists; a clean-lined gateway with a triangular Doric fronton, which has been given a considerably richer appearance on the Suecia engraving. The gateway provided access to a garden, which was richly laid out with herbs and vegetable crops. The drawing indicates the intended dimensions, "Le Jardin a 11 7 pieds de prefondeur I en largeur 13 0 pieds I pour les allees 10 pieds I les quarters 44 & 48 pieds. "Based on the Swedish foot, which measured 29.69 centimetres, the garden was 34.75 metres deep by 38.60 metres long, the parterres measured

377 The

drawings are kept in MEA. A copy was published in Hall, Hidemark,Wikstrom, Adling 1987, 135.

378

RA, Leufsta arkiv,Vol. 144.

77

ARMS AND ARCHITECTURE - DUTCH PATRONS OVERSEAS

r t

I J 19 Design for kitchen garden at Louis de Geer's residence in Stockholm: ascribed to Louis de Geer, late 1640s (Riksarkiv, Stockholm).

13.06 by 14.25 metres, and the paths which bisect the sections were 2.97 metres wide - considerable dimensions for an urban garden. Around the time Louis de Geer took over the plot from Hubert de Besche, he had also purchased the adjacent plot. During this period Sodermalm's street layout was being regulated and in the following decades increasing urbanisation took place in that quarter. 379 The urban homes that were built later usually did not have gardens of comparable size. Although the garden chiefly had a practical purpose, beauty was not lacking. The combination of aesthetic and functional elements in a single design was the essence of the Dutch seventeenth century gardening tradition. The model )}Een Nederlandtse Hof efTuijn)} from Jan van der Groen's popular treatise D en Nederlandtsen Gardener gives us an impression of how the garden actually may have looked. 380 There too, the names of vegetables and herbs were written in furrow-shaped beds, grouped in four quadrants of which one was left empty, intended for flowerbeds as in van der Groen's model, or for the fruit trees which Louis de Geer had purchased in 1645. 381 De Geer provided the three other parterres with plants for medicinal and kitchen use (Appendix 4). 382 In the first decades of its existence, Louis de Geer's urban palace and its garden situated on the as yet urbanised Sodermalm would have had the character of a northern villa suburbana.

379 R:l.berg 1987, 77-104. 380Van der Groen's treatise was not published until 1669, well after Louis de Geer's garden was designed w hich makes the garden even more modern. 381 RA, Leufsta ark.iv, vol. 163, Journal Stockholm 16451647.

78

382 The following guides were used for transcription and translation: M:l.nsson R ydaholm 1642; ValmorinAndrieux 1885; Nijdam 1961; Boom 1975; Heimans et al. 1983; Stuart 1984;Van der M eijden 1990; Encke et al. 1994.

ARMS AND ARCHITECTURE - DUTCH PATRONS OVERSEAS

_.

.- -

,.::-; ·

~

-

~ --

~~~-

.

20 "Ben Nederlandtse hof of tuijn," engraving from Jan van der Groen's De Nederlandsche Hovenier, 1669.

The majority of de Geer's herb and vegetable collection was the same as the crops mentioned in van der Groen and other garden books for similar gardens. 383 In Sweden, Schering Rosenhane wrote his housekeeping book O economia around the same time van der Groen wrote his work and h e referred to gardening as, "The most lofty and pleasant way to spend time for an aristocrat in the country."384 Rosenhane exhaustively listed the plants required for a utility garden. Everything detailed on the drawing for de Geer's garden also occurs on Rosenhane's list (with the exception of the asparagus!), suggesting that de Geer's collection consisted of crops commonly used in Sweden at the time. A comparison with the inventory of the royal garden in Stockholm, Kun gstradgarden, reveals another side to the story, though.385 Its inventory was drawn up in 1648, shortly after de Geer designed his garden. The parterres of the royal garden were primarily filled with apple, pear, apricot, walnut, and plum trees. Besides fruit trees, there were various kinds of berries, artichokes, asparagus, and several varieties of herbs which seems a somewhat modest collection for "Stockholms Stoore Tragardh" (Stockholm's Large Garden). That year, the French landscape gardener Andre Mollet arrived in Sweden w here h e entered the service of the court. Under his leadership Kungstradgarden was mod-

At the start of the seventeenth century, before garden books like that of Jan van der Groen came onto the market, various catalogues of botanical or private gardens were published. De Geer may have known one of the following: P Pawus, Catalogus van de hortus botanicus in Leiden, 1617; P. Hondius, De Soeticheydt des Buyten-levens, 1621; H. Munting, Catalogus van de hortus botanicus in

383

Groningen, 1646;]. Snippendalius, Catalogus van de hortus botanicus in Amsterdam, 1646. 384 Lagerstedt 1944, 89. 385 Inventarhtm uthi Stockholms Stoore Triigardh, Ifran Mester Hendrich Locher och till denn franssoske triigardzmestaren Andream de Molet, som skedde den 24 och 25 Octobris Anno 1648. The inventory is reprinted in its entirety in Wollin 1923.

79

ARMS AND ARCHITECTURE - DUTCH PATRONS OVERSEAS

ernised and its collection of plants expanded. The list of plants that Rosenhane included in the Oeconomia should be seen as a description of the ideal utility garden and not as an indication of what was standard practice in Swedish gardens in the middle of the seventeenth century. Louis de Geer's garden was therefore less common than it n1ight at first seem, but was characterised by a modern collection of crops in a contemporary composition.

Louis de Geer's Other Properties - Leufsta In December 1643, Louis de Geer purchased various iron foundries that he and Willem de Besche had leased since 1629. One of these was Leufsta, the central foundry in North Uppland, the iron-rich area to the north of Stockholm. A foundry required a quarry in the immediate vicinity, in this case the Dannemora quarry, water for generating energy and the transport of finished products, and forests for firewood. Circumstances were ideal in Uppland and besides Leufsta there were various other foundries. Of those, de Geer leased and later bought Forsmark, Osterby, and Gimo. Almost without exception the workers at these foundries originated from the Liege area, from where both de Geer and de Besche came. The Walloon area in the Southern Netherlands was renowned for its modern casting and processing techniques. A foundry like Leufsta consisted of more than just the various furnaces and workshops. The site also had houses for workers, a school, a church, shops, allotments, and a central house for the owner surrounded by a town. Because most of the workers spoke French, a French speaking teacher was appointed for their children. 386 The doctor and the minister who lived in Leufsta also came from the Southern Netherlands. 387 Leufsta and the other foundries in Uppland were characterised by balanced and rational planning, and its tightly planned network of streets is still intact. 388 A great deal of attention was paid to the entire construction as can be seen on two maps from 1687 and 1704, and two paintings from the second half of the seventeenth century, all of which depict Leufsta. 389 The oldest painting from around 1660, shows Leufsta before the new network of streets was built at the close of the seventeenth century. The house Louis de Geer had built there was plain in comparison to the house in Norrkoping, but de Geer was probably only there in a professional capacity. It is therefore all the more conspicuous that there was an exceptional garden next door to the house, which constitutes the central theme of the painting. The garden was subdivided into four sections, bordered by box hedges and filled with decorative embroidery parterres, medicinal and table crops were grown around them in oblong beds, white obelisk-shaped trellises and sculptures of classical figures stood at the intersections and along the paths, finally, a wooden pavilion was erected in one corner of the garden; all these elements, in a comparable composition, albeit on a much larger scale, can be seen in contemporary gardens in the Dutch Republic, such as the gardens of Noordeinde Palace and Honselaarsdijk, likely visited by Louis de Geer in 1644 when he held negotiations with Stadtholder Frederic Henry. As in the Stockholm garden, de Geer combined beauty and utility in this garden. Gosta Selling ascribed this garden to Louis de Geer's son Emanuel who inherited Leufsta after his father's

386

In Leufsta this was Claude de Marcy and in Osterby Philippe du Bois was appointed. RA, Leufsta arkiv,Vol. 109 (rakenskaper) and Vol. 42 (listor pa arbetare och arbetsloner 1628-1688). 38 7 For the iron foundries and accompanying villages in the north of Uppland see: Douhan 1990. Also see: Lundberg 1930-1931; Anfalt 1989.

80

388

Leufsta's full name is Leufsta bruk in Swedish.A bruk is the conglomerate of foundries, smelters and village community 389 The maps were made by Jacob Braun and are in Lantmaterivcrkct, Gavlc. The first painting is from the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm's collection, the second is privately owned.

ARMS AND ARCHITECTURE - DUTCH PATRONS OVERSEAS

death. 390 Referring to the utility garden in Stockholm, Selling suggested that de Geer was primarily interested in the foundry's proceeds and that it was improbable that he had had the time and attention to spend on a garden he hardly ever visited. However, this assumption does not do justice to de Geer's importance as a principal importer of architectural and garden concepts from the Republic. Furthermore, it seems as if Selling was unfamiliar with the garden in Norrkoping and the drawing which de Geer drew for yet another garden in Uppsala. 391

Uppsala In 1643, the same year in which Louis de Geer purchased Leufsta and various other foundries from the Crown, a new town plan was executed in Uppsala, which entailed moving the garden by the royal castle. The former garden was then subdivided into plots, which Queen Christina sold to prominent citizens. Louis de Geer was one of the buyers and from 1647 owned a plot next door to the royal castle in Uppsala. 392 The name of the spacious plot Fagelsangen (Birdsong) referred to the aviary that was formerly in the palace garden. 393 Here too, de Geer had a house built, under the supervision of his deputy at the site Adolf Menscheuer. The intention was to start construction in the year the plot was purchased, Menscheuer wrote on May 29, 1647 to Louis de Geer's son, but it was difficult to get construction materials because the royal castle was being remodelled and much of the available building materials were going there. He had tried to purchase timber, but this was not simple because a great deal of the timber present was being used as firewood while Queen Christina stayed at the castle. 394 But in June 1648, Menscheurer could finally notify de Geer that he had concluded a contract with four carpenters who were to build a house 40 yards long and 16 yards wide (approximately 24 metres by 9.5 metres). The ground floor would be subdivided into six rooms and one hall, the first floor and loft would be left open. 395 This description is exactly the same as the two floor plans de Geer made himself, but which thus far, starting with Dahlgren, have been ascribed to the house in Stockholm. 396 Both drawings or rather sketches are accompanied by a text. The drawing which seems to have been made at the earliest stage and which shows a floor plan for the entire location bears the text: The width of the building 16 yards, will be around 14 yards within the building the length 40 yards, will be around 38 within the building A corridor down the middle 6 yards 2 wings, stable 10, house 8 the main house 40 yards from the street the hall 10 wide, 14 long, 2 rooms 6 wide 7 long. 397 The stable de Geer mentions in this description and which can be seen on the drawing is referred to as Logis des domestiques on a third drawing. The floor plan is further developed on the second drawing; windows and doors have been indicated and the interior walls seem to have been assigned to their

390

Selling 1980, 46. RA, Leufsta arkiv; Vol. 92. Herdin 1932, 57. 3 9 3 The plot measured aproximately 100 metres along the northern and southern sides. The eastern and western sides measured 180 and 160 metres respectively. 394 RA, Leufsta arkiv, Vol. 92, Menscheuer to De Geer the younger 39 5 RA, Leufsta arkiv, Vol. 92, Menscheuer to De Geer the younger. See also Herdin 1932, 112. 391 392

396

Dahlgren 1919, 72. The drawings can be found in Vol. 144, which also includes all the other drawings of the house in Stockholm. Kading, 1936, also attributed the drawings to the house in Stockholm. 397 "De brede vant gebou stocken van 16 ellen sal binnen s'wercks ontrent 14 ellen blyven I de lengde 40 ellen sal blyven ontrent 38 binnen s'wercks I Een ganck in midden van 6 ellen I 2 vleugels stal 10, huysen 8 I het groat huys 40 ellen van de straet aff I de sael 10 breet 14 Zang 2 camers 6 breet 7 Zang."

81

ARMS AND ARCHITECTURE - DUTCH PATRONS OVERSEAS

definitive place. The accompanying text is also more accurate and no longer mentions any other buildings. The text reads: The building will be erected 44 yards from the street will be 40 yards long, 16 yards wide the room on the right when you come in will measure 11 yards, 2 rooms each 7 yards, the chimney will be built in the middle ( ... ) (... ) The corridor will retain its full 5 yards inside the building The kitchen 9 or 10 yards square and the other rooms arranged according to the drawing (... ) only 2 chimneys will emerge from the cropiis The house will be somewhat high up off the ground on blocks or stones and so the site will be filled up high The height of the rooms should be observed from Knoet Posse's building. 398 'Knoet Posse' refers to Knut Posse, a member of the Riksrad who moved in court circles. In Stockholm, Posse lived in a house in the oldest part of the city, Gamla Stan, close to the royal castle, and like de Geer he had also purchased a plot in Uppsala, right next door to de Geer's. 399 De Geer even had dealings with Posse as the latter sold him bricks, but whether the house in Uppsala was indeed built according to the commission is unknown as it burnt to the ground in 1766. 400 A third drawing depicts the planned layout for the entire plot. 401 The garden was designed by Louis de Geer, judging by the handwriting, and can be seen as a step forwards in de Geer's devel-

398

67 Preliminary sketch for Louis de Geer's house in Uppsala: ascribed to Louis de Geer, 1643 (Riksarkiv, Stockholm).

82

"Het gebou sal men stellen 44 ellen van de straet ajf I sal in sijn lengde hebben 40 ellen, in de brede 16 ellen I de sael aende rechter hand inkomende 11 ellen, I 2 earners ieder 7 ellen, de schorsteen sal int midden komen t~amen van muursteen I op dat geen stocken tusschen inkomen het verband sal met een ijsere stange I doen, als men de schorstenen sal doen en sullen de weggestocken I net boven de 4 ellen mogen inspringen I De gang sal sijn voile 5 ellen binnen 's werck behouden I De keuken op 9 off 10 ellen viercant en d' andere earners naer de afteickening I ajgedeelt ende gelet dat de weggestocken oock met deur schieten wegen I den brandt want ick als boven het werck met ijsere stangen sal laeten verbinden, het bovenste gelyk het onderste, daer sullen maer 2 schorsteen I pijpen uit het cropds steecken I Het huis wat hooch op blacken of steenen van de eerde stellen alsoo men de I plaets hoch op vullen sal I De hochte van de earners suit observeren naer Knoet Posse sijn gebou." 399 The height of the rooms is unknown because Posse's house is no longer extant. 4oo Before then, the house had belonged to J'Viagnus De la Gardie who purchased it from Louis De Geer's heirs in 1666. 4 0 1 RA, Leufsta arkiv. This drawing can be found in Vol. 92 in the folder "tomt Uppsala."

ARMS AND ARCHITECTURE - DUTCH PATRONS OVERSEAS

opment as an amateur landscape designer. The plot's asymmetry would have conflicted with seventeenth-century ideals of shape, but angling the gate in relation to the building line allowed the creation of a symmetrical front courtyard or Cour, leading to the Grand Corps de Logis. Behind the wooden main building lay a garden bordered on three sides by a double Allee, which consisted of a large water basin, four Parterres Fleurs, and beds for table crops. The gardener, once again Anthony Collar, had his own Logis du Jardinier. 402 The drawing for the garden in Uppsala, created shortly after the design for the Stockholm utility garden, revealed a new direction. The square flower parterres, the basin, and the symmetrical lay' . out created, were part of the idiom of the formal garden as could be seen in the Dutch Republic between approximately 1640 and 1700. Recurring elements in the architecture of the Dutch formal garden, which also occurred in the garden for the house in Uppsala, were the combination of elements of both pleasure and utility, and the lack of a main vista in the garden. The large number of drainage channels and ditches in the Dutch landscape did not permit long vistas, which necessitated a wide, almost square layout for many gardens, such as the garden of the country house Vredenburg in the Beemster polder. The double row of trees, which also bordered the garden in Uppsala, had been grown to provide windbreaks for country houses in the flat polder landscape and had become a common element in the Dutch garden architec21 Garden design for Louis de Geer's house in Uppsala: ascribed to ture. The French gardener Andre Mollet used the Louis de Geer, 164 7 (Riksarkivet, Stockholm). double allee in his design for "an ideal garden" included in his book Le Jardin de Plaisir. 403 The house in Uppsala never functioned as de Geer's main residence but instead, like in Leufsta, the house was inhabited by his business manager and was used for official occasions.Visitors to his flourishing operation in Uppland could stay at the house in Uppsala during their two day trip up there.

a

Louis de Geer's four different construction projects in Norrkoping, Stockholm, Leufsta, and Uppsala reveal him to be an active and inspired patron, one of the most active of his time while the

402

RA, Leufsta arkiv, Vol. 92. In 1650, "Anthonius Tragardsmastaran" (Anthonius the garden master) was taken into employ.

403 Mollets Le Jardin de Plaisir, contenant plusieurs desseins de jardinage tant parterres en broderie, compartiments de gazon, que bosquets, & autres was published in 1651 in Stockholm. The same year saw the publication of the Swedish version entitled Lustgard.

83

ARMS AND ARCHITECTURE - DUTCH PATRONS OVERSEAS

gardens reveal his development as an amateur though talented gardener. In many ways Louis de Geer was exceptional, both as an entrepreneur and in the field of architecture. None of his co-emigrants are known to have started as many projects as he did, however they did reveal similar patterns, although on a smaller scale.

The Trip Brothers \Vhen Louis de Geer came to Sweden for the first time in 1627, his cousins Louys and Hendrick Trip followed him. Their father Elias Trip, who had contributed to the loan to the Swedish government in 1618, was married to Margareta de Geer, one of de Geer's sisters. While Louis de Geer himself left for Sweden to set up trading in the valuable raw materials iron and copper, Elias Trip sent his sons. Just like their uncle, Louys and Hendrick would make a fortune in the iron industry and they, too, specialised in the arms trade. In Sweden, Hendrick was based in Nykoping, while Louys settled in Stockholm. The brothers returned to Amsterdam at the start of the 1630s, but they kept in touch with Sweden. 404 Thanks to his marriage to the daughter of Mathias de Geer, a cousin and brother-in--law of Louis de Geer's, Henrick obtained a majority share in the Julita iron foundry in Sodermanland in 1646. 405 Here they made light canons which they successfully sold on the international market. Around 1660, the brothers commissioned the Dutch painter Allart van Everdingen to create a large painting of their principal source of income Julita. 406 The painting, probably made for their Amsterdam residence, the Trippenhuis, shows Louys' country home in the foreground: a considerable accommodation consisting of four wings that enclosed a spacious square courtyard. 407 The house was built of wood, painted red, and was located on the banks of lake Oljaren. Adjacent to the house one can see a fenced garden, which Sten Kading rightly referred to as a simple Dutch garden, featuring four flower parterres bordered by boxwood, with sculptures at the corners. The large industrial complex with the country home would have been quite a conversation piece at the Trippenhuis. However, as Svante Svardstrom already proved in the 1935, the whole construction was idealised: the house never appeared this way, and the garden never existed. 408

Joachim Potter-Lillienhoff The Trip brothers continued their Swedish activities from Amsterdam with the aid of business managers there. One of their contacts in Sweden was Joachim Potter (1630-1676). Potter, or Lillienhoff as he called himself after having been raised to the peerage in 1668, was born in Nykoping. As a young boy, he was sent to the Republic to become proficient in trade. After having spent two years in Rotterdam he was given a post with the Trip company in Amsterdam in 1644, which was how he became acquainted with Elias Trip and his sons. 409 When Potter returned to Sweden ten years later in 1651, he moved to Stockholm where he developed into one of the most prominent traders and investors in the country. Due to his long stay in the Republic, Potter had became embedded in Dutch culture. As a Calvinist,

404 Van Eeghen 1983, 35-36. Louys and Hendrick Trip lived in Sweden from 1627-1631 and 1628-1630 respectively. Hendrick lived there again from 1646 until 1648. 405 Mathias de Geer de Brialmont from Liege was employed by Louis de Geer and moved to Sweden in 1627. Hendrick married Jeanne de Geer at the family castle Osterby.

84

406

Owned by the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Catalogue Number: SK-A-1510, De geschutgieterij van Hendrick Trip te ]ulitabroeck, Soderman/and, Zweden, 192 x 254, 5 cm. 407 Snoep 1983, 204. 408 Svardstrom 1937, 193. 40 9 SBL, "Lillienhoff,Joachim."

ARMS AND ARCHITECTURE - DUTCH PATRONS OVERSEAS

a member of the Dutch Reformed community in Stockholm, married to a Dutch woman, and with many contacts among Dutch immigrants, he was a part of the Dutch community himself. 41 0 Therefore, the Swedish government asked Potter to return to the Republic in 1654 to examine the feasibility of encouraging skilled masters, craftsmen, and civil servants to immigrate to Sweden. 411 Similar to Louis de Geer, Joachim Potrer had an urban palace built on Sodermalrn, designed by the architect Johan Tobias Albinus from Kulmbach in Germany. Albinus made the drawings for the residence in 1668, as is borne out by a contract drawn up in 1673 with rhe executive masrer mason; it was agreed that he would build the house "exactly as it has been corn.rnitted to paper by Albinus the architect." 412 Potter had only recently been raised to the peerage and held high office in the Swedish business world for the last five years. To express his new status, he had Albinus design a five bay long and wide, free-standing house consisting of a base, first floor, second floor, and a mezzanine. Albinus decorated the fo;:ade with a colossal Doric pilaster order of which the base rests on a basement; originally this base was easier to see than it is now 22 Joachim Potter's residence, Stockholm: Johan Tobias Albinus, since the street level was raised in the nineteenth 1668. The roof is not original but the result of an eighteenth-cencentury. Between the four chequered pilasters, tury alteration (Photo: Badeloch Noldus). under the windows of the first floor, the fa