Summary
- Carel Fabritius shared his life between Beemster, Amsterdam, and Delft. He was a talented Rembrandt’s apprentice, yet his life was cut short by the Delft Thunderclap in 1654.
- The Beheading of John the Baptist is a work attributed to Fabritius. It was probably created when he was 18 years old, training in Rembrandt’s studio.
- The Raising of Lazarus uses techniques that could possibly be influenced by Rembrandt’s The Night Watch.
- Hagar and the Angel depicts a Biblical story of an Egyptian slave.
- Self-Portrait (kept in Rotterdam) presents a young man who has lived a difficult life. Fabritius took surprisingly great care with painting the wall in the background.
- Self-Portrait from Munich might be his portrait painted by his younger brother.
- Portrait of Abraham de Potter shows a friend of Fabritius family. The bright colors are a clear departure from the style of Rembrandt.
- Unusual View of Delft might have been created for a perspective box.
- The painting titled The Sentry might, in fact, depict an everyman of warfare, wondering what exactly was he fighting for.
- Young Man in a Fur Cap carries a strong influence of Rembrandt.
- The Goldfinch is a meditation on life, captivity, and beauty. It miraculously survived the explosion that killed Fabritius.
Carel Fabritius’ father was Beemster’s schoolmaster and was a weekend painter. That inspired Carel and his two younger brothers Barent and Johannes to become painters. In September of 1641, at age 19, Carel Fabritius married the girl-next-door, Aeltge Velthuys. They immediately set up a house in Amsterdam and Fabritius began an apprenticeship in Rembrandt’s studio, although there is reason to believe that he was already training there before he was married. Aeltge quickly gave birth to a set of twins and very soon thereafter, a third child. Aeltge died in that childbirth, and all three of the children had died in infancy by the middle of 1643. Carel had just turned 21.
He then returned to Beemster and moved in with his parents. Seven years later he married a widow named Agatha van Pruyssen and moved with her to her hometown of Delft. There, his career began to flourish. But it was to be a short-lived career: He was working at his easel in his studio when the arsenal exploded, destroying a quarter of the city and killing hundreds, including Fabritius himself. The explosion, known as the Delft Thunderclap, presumably destroyed many of his paintings; only about a dozen are known to survive.
1. The Beheading of John the Baptist, c. 1640–1645
Carel Fabritius (attributed), The Beheading of John the Baptist, c. 1640–1645, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Any budding artist in the Dutch Golden Age would have trained with a master artist, not just to hone his skills but to qualify him to join the Guild of St. Luke which in turn would allow him to sell his work. One of the busiest of those training grounds was Rembrandt’s studio in Amsterdam. Fabritius trained there in the early 1640s and was one of Rembrandt’s most gifted students. And as would be the case with any such apprentice painter, the subject matter would include stories from the Bible.
This painting of The Beheading of John the Baptist is identified as the work of Fabritius where it is displayed at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. It is undated and unsigned, making it impossible to know with certainty that it is truly the work of Fabritius. But if it is, then this would be his earliest surviving painting. The date ascribed to it by the Rijksmuseum suggests Fabritius would have been 18 when he painted it. That would have meant that he began his training with Rembrandt as a young teen, as was the case for many of Rembrandt’s students.
The story of the beheading of John the Baptist was a popular subject for many artists at the time. According to the story in the Bible, King Herod, the ruler of Galilee under the Roman Empire, divorced his wife and illegally married his brother’s wife, a woman named Herodias. John the Baptist publicly admonished Herod for his behavior, and as a consequence Herod had John put into prison. When Herodias’ daughter, Salome, danced a seductive dance for a drunken King Herod at his royal birthday banquet, Herod publicly announced that he would give her anything as a reward for her performance. Salome consulted with her mother, and on her advice asked for the head of John the Baptist as her compensation. Herod, having made his promise in public, did as Salome asks: He ordered an executioner to go to the prison, execute John the Baptist, and return his head to the banquet. In this painting, the severed head is being presented on a platter to Salome and Herodias by the executioner, with a few shocked onlookers in the background.
2. The Raising of Lazarus, c. 1643
Carel Fabritius, The Raising of Lazarus, c. 1643, Warsaw National Museum, Warsaw, Poland.
In this instance we know the painting to be by Carel Fabritius: When the painting was restored in 1935, the signature “Car. Fabr.” was revealed. Prior to that, it was attributed to a German follower of Rembrandt.
The subject matter of this painting, the miraculous reanimation of a dead person by Jesus, is another Biblical story that would have been assigned to an artist in training. Rembrandt himself utilized the subject matter in at least one painting and multiple drawings and etchings, so it is not surprising that a student in Rembrandt’s studio would work on such a painting during their training.
A collection of astonished spectators are looking in at the miracle. Some are in awe of what they see and press forward to get a better view; others prefer to shrink away from the scene. It is reminiscent of Rembrandt’s painting The Night Watch, which was painted at the same time. One can imagine the young Fabritius admiring the ongoing work of the master, and incorporating ideas about the crowd scene from Rembrandt’s effort.
Rembrandt, The Night Watch, 1642, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
3. Hagar and the Angel, c. 1945
Carel Fabritius, Hagar and the Angel, c. 1945, The Leiden Collection, New York, USA.
Still under the influence of Rembrandt but possibly now working in Beemster, Fabritius takes on another scene from the Bible. In this story, Hagar, an Egyptian slave, has fled to the desert to avoid Sarah, her mistress. Sarah, unable to get pregnant by her husband Abraham, suggested that Abraham try to have a child with Hagar instead. But now that Hagar is indeed pregnant, Sarah is enraged, and Hagar escapes to the wilderness to avoid her wrath.
In this painting she is kneeling in prayer, leaning against an ivy-covered branch, perhaps unaware of the luminous angel at her side. That angel is about to give Hagar the order to return to her mistress, and she will obey.
4. Self-Portrait, c. 1645
Carel Fabritius, Self-Portrait, c. 1645, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Carel Fabritius painted this when he was around 23 years old. He had already endured more than his share of life experiences. He had survived the death of his young wife and all three of their children and had returned from Amsterdam to Beemster to grieve in his parents’ home.
Here we see a young man, curly locks to his shoulder, piercing black eyes inspecting us, an open shirt showing the hair on his chest, blocked off in part by his work apron. He is young, yes, but also shows the rugged face of a man who already has lived a difficult life. The wisdom and fatigue that come from experience show in the fact of this self-portrait.
Fabritius took as much care painting the wall behind the image of himself as he did to the face itself. There is more background here than normally would be shown in a portrait, enabling the opportunity to create such a fascinating wall. Rembrandt would not have devoted so much space to the background and would have put more emphasis on the face. Fabritius takes great care with the wall here and would do so more often later in his career, inspiring other Dutch artists to do the same. The sense of turmoil in the way the wall is rendered tells us something of the turmoil that the man has endured.
5. Self-Portrait, c. 1645
Carel Fabritius, Self–Portrait, c. 1645, Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany.
At the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, this painting is identified as a self-portrait of Carel Fabritius. And it may be; there is a close enough resemblance to the earlier self-portrait, apparently done in the same year. He is dressed up for this one, having selected a dapper hat, a bright red shirt, and a formal coat rather than the garb of a working painter.
The sitter lacks the piercing black eyes seen in the earlier painting. This painting also lacks the layering of glazes to create the ruddy complexion of the troubled man in the previous piece. The backwall here is interesting, but not as complex as the one portrayed in the earlier work. So, is it really by Fabritius? The letter “C” at the bottom right certainly hints at the beginnings of Carel’s signature; the canvas may have been trimmed. It has been suggested that this isn’t really a self-portrait of Carel Fabritius, but is a self-portrait done by his younger brother, Barent, who was in the long run a more prolific painter than Carel. Some have suggested that it is a painting of Carel Fabritius by Barent Fabritius. It certainly provides material for debate and conjecture.
6. Portrait of Abraham de Potter, 1649
Carel Fabritius, Portrait of Abraham de Potter, 1649, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Abraham de Potter was a silk merchant from Amsterdam, a lifelong friend of Carel Fabritius’ father, and godfather to Carel’s youngest brother and fellow painter Johannes. This and the Rotterdam self-portrait are the only two paintings signed by Fabritius from the six-year period in Beemster before his move to Delft, so they are the only ones that we can say with certainty were done by Fabritius. There is some documentation of payments for some other commissioned portraits at that time, suggesting that he was indeed making a living as a painter, but none of those other paintings survived.
When the Rijksmuseum purchased the painting in 1892 it was presumed to be a Rembrandt. But when the discolored varnish was removed, the previously obscured signature and date were revealed. One wonders how many dirty paintings there are around the world that are presumed to be Rembrandts that will someday be revealed to be by Fabritius in subsequent cleanings.
Abraham de Potter was 56 in this painting. He sits in his black robes and ruffled collar, befitting a merchant of fine fabrics. But as with the earlier self-portrait, one cannot help but think that the rendering of the wall is the most masterly part of the painting. It also represents a substantial departure from the style of Rembrandt, who would have no doubt used a bleaker and darker backdrop. The colors and textures tell a story of an old wall, create something of an aura around de Potter, and presage the walls of future Fabritius paintings and the Delft painters in general.
Carel Fabritius, Portrait of Abraham de Potter, 1649, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Detail.
On the wall between the title and the signature, a trompe l’oeil nail protrudes from the wall, complete with its shadow. It seems to serve no purpose other than to make clear to the viewer that this is an actual wall, and not just the background to a portrait, and that the painter is an absolute master. He is showing off.
The use of a nail in the wall was a device used by other Dutch painters including both Rembrandt and Vermeer, then and in the future.
7. View of Delft, 1652
Carel Fabritius, A View of Delft, 1652, National Gallery, London, UK.
Carel Fabritius was described during his lifetime as a “masterful painter of perspectives.” The commentator might well have been looking at this painting when offering that opinion.
The perspective is indeed unusual. The painting measures a scant 15.5 × 31.7 cm (6 in. by 12 ½ in.) making this the smallest of any of the surviving paintings of Fabritius. His signature and the date appear as a bit of graffiti on the wall of the music seller’s stall. But look at the perspective: in the center is the Nieuwe Kerk (New Church) in Delft, then and now the largest building in the city. In this picture, the church is about the same size as the houses on the right and the lute on the left. The bridge in front of the church takes an unusually large space and seems to separate the merchant from the town rather than provide a link between the two. What is striking, is the lack of potential customers; there are no people in the street!
It appears the image was made through a fisheye lens, but of course, Fabritius did not have access to even the most primitive of cameras. Fisheye lenses were not developed until the early 20th century. So how did he do it? And why did he do it?
There is some speculation that this painting was one of several that would have been fitted inside a perspective box, a popular device at the time for creating a three-dimensional effect. All of the surviving perspective boxes from the time, none by Fabritius, were of interior scenes. This one, a townscape, would have stood alone. How did it work?
The painting would have been mounted on a curved surface at the back of the box, with other images at the sides and perhaps the top and bottom. The back of this painting is coated with a copper-protein complex, suggesting that it may have been affixed to a copper plate with an animal glue accounting for the protein, and then curved to put at the back of the device. When viewed through a small peephole in the box, the image would have been seen in a proper perspective. But no one has been able to replicate the image and put it in a box to create that effect. Perhaps, as with the nail in the painting of de Potter, he did it just to show that he could.
8. The Sentry, 1654
Carel Fabritius, The Sentry, 1654, Staatliches Museum Schwerin, Schwerin, Germany.
The title character of this painting is apparently meant to be guarding something, but he has dozed off on a low wooden bench, legs akimbo, his musket lying across his lap. His shiny helmet is the only thing in his uniform that has had any attention. Perhaps the grapevines in the planter over his head suggest that a bit of wine has been involved in the story.
And what exactly is it that the Sentry in this picture is supposed to be guarding? The more we look at it, the odder it gets. The walls in the structure are in a bit of disrepair. They have been plastered and replastered and whitewashed in patches, but it does not seem the sort of place that warrants a watchman. The wall behind him ends with a pillar that provides a surface for a couple of paper posters but does not support anything. The moss and weeds growing on its top show us that its utility was decades in the past. The archway beyond the pillar seems poorly designed: the radius of the side near us is not the same as the radius of the other side. The purpose of the archway is unclear: the arch itself does not appear to connect one place to another. The wall on the other side of the arch is too close to allow a passageway on the other side. Behind the sleeping watchman is a stairway that seems to come from nowhere and lead nowhere. The shadow of the dog and the shadow of the man are not pointed in the same direction, as though they had posed there at different times of day. The bench on which the man sits does not line up on the two sides. The image on the wall above the arch—of a man with a large rosary and a pig—does not seem to explain anything. What kind of a joke is Fabritius playing?
Fabritius of course did not give this painting its name; the title of The Sentry was assigned by a curator somewhere centuries later. Maybe that title is misleading us. Maybe he isn’t a sentry at all. Maybe he is just a weary soldier, home from battle and resting on a bench in front of some unnamable building in some unnamable country—an everyman of warfare. The Dutch were a warring group when the painting was done. The Eighty Years’ War had just ended, and the Dutch were fighting with both the British and the Portuguese in separate wars. Battles were being fought in the Americas and along shipping routes in Asia. Perhaps Fabritius is giving us an image of a battle-weary soldier, resting in front of an architectural hodgepodge, wondering like many men do when returning from battle, what exactly was he fighting to protect.
9. Young Man in a Fur Cap, 1654
Carel Fabritius, Young Man in a Fur Cap, 1654, National Gallery, London, UK.
This is presumably a self-portrait and is one of the last paintings Fabritius did before his untimely death at age 32.
Some aspects of this painting harken back to his early training. One can imagine Rembrandt fetching both the fur cap and the breastplate for one of his own self-portraits. Part of the background is a Rembrandt-inspired dark, but the rest is a lighter color, as though some clouds are in the foreground. It is as though he was of two minds about his approach to the background—one approach that of his teacher, the other his own.
10. The Goldfinch, 1654
Carel Fabritius, The Goldfinch, 1654, Mauritshuis, The Hague, Netherlands.
At first glance, this painting would seem to be about being “as free as a bird.” But a closer look shows us that this is in fact a painting of bondage. Why is such a sweet innocent bird chained to its feeder?
And what is it about this little painting that makes it so engaging? In museums around the world, people are scurrying past paintings as though they are completing a checklist without spending time with them. But at the Mauritshuis everyone stops to look at this painting.
Perhaps it is the intimate realism of the painting. The trompe-l’oeil technique makes the bird appear three-dimensional and lifelike, inviting the viewer to make a closer inspection. Perhaps it is the tiny chain, showing fragility and confinement that resonates with the human condition. Perhaps it is its small size that makes it more approachable, or at least less overwhelming than larger paintings that might be found nearby. Perhaps it is our knowledge that this was to be the punctuation mark at the end of Fabritius’ career—the artistic equivalent of “famous last words.” There are so many things that might capture to different viewers to this meditation on life, captivity, beauty, fragility, and loss. Perhaps it is telling us that bondage is a part of all of our stories, that we are all held back from our potential.
Analysis of this painting conducted in 2003 revealed several small indentations in the surface of the work, which could have been caused by debris thrown from the explosion of the gunpowder magazine hitting the still-wet paint. Hence this painting may have been not yet dry and in his studio when it was demolished by the Thunderclap, killing four occupants and perhaps destroying the majority of Fabritius’ oeuvre, but somehow sparing this one.
