A merchant widow’s salon

Eighteenth-century decorative paintings in a Rotterdam house

Abstract

In the middle of the eighteenth century, the so-called Koopmanshuis (Merchant’s House) at Rechter Rottekade 405-407 in Rotterdam underwent a substantial renovation that resulted in the present facade, staircase, and first-floor reception room with decorative paintings. The iconography of the paintings raises questions about their meaning, maker and client. In order to elucidate the artistic programme this article investigates the house, the painter, the client and the political-economic context. The research provides insight into the deeper meaning of the paintings while also increasing our knowledge of Rotterdam’s middle-class architectural and domestic culture in this period.

Built largely in the period 1718-1735, the house has the typical layout of Rotterdam merchant houses, with business operations at street level and living spaces on the floors above. In 1756 the front elevation was rebuilt. The same period saw the installation of a rococo staircase and the creation of an elegant reception room, also in rococo style. It is here that the artworks – an overmantel painting and a ceiling painting – are to be found.

The overmantel painting is an allegory on the virtues of Fidelity and Prudence. The ceiling painting consists of four corner tableaus depicting personifications of the four continents and a central  tableau featuring personifications of Trade and Freedom and a composite personification of Victory, Plenty, Peace and Munificence. The iconography is derived in part from the emblem books of Cesare Ripa and Hubert Poot. They are neither signed nor dated.

Stylistic and iconographic similarities with two paintings by Dirk Anthony Bisschop (1708-1785) suggest that this artist was also responsible for the paintings in the Koopmanshuis. Bisschop made decorative artworks, paintings, topographical drawings, armorials and family trees, and decorated carriages and jewellery. Several of his works display the same idiosyncratic kind of iconography as found in the Koopmanshuis. Bisschop was a highly regarded painter whose clients included many prominent families.

The paintings and the rococo interior were done at the behest of the Remonstrant merchant Antonetta Verkanten (1702-1774). She traded in tea, coffee, wool and furs, products sourced in part from the Dutch colonies. The new interior was a reflection of her growing affluence and social ambitions. The subject matter of the paintings refers not just to Verkanten’s commercial activities, but was also influenced by contemporary international, political and economic threats to commerce, such as the Seven Years’ War and international competition in overseas trade.

Based on this, the ceiling painting can be interpreted as an allegory of intercontinental free trade,  and an appeal for peace in order that trade might flourish and generate prosperity. It also encourages the sharing of the resulting abundance. The virtues depicted in the overmantel work are crucial to successful commerce. The paintings and the interior demonstrate that it was not just the elite, but also the well-to-do middle class who commissioned elegant salons furnished in accordance with the latest fashion and decorated with allegorical figurations. The totality expressed the economic position, ambitions and ideas of the client. The painter, Bisschop, possessed the intellectual capacity to render the message in a unique iconography. Paintings like those in the Koopmanshuis, which can be difficult to interpret without knowing their background, are both interesting and relevant to the history of Dutch decorative painting.