Een album met tekeningen, vervaardigd door Mattheus Terwesten te Rome in 1697

• Published in: Nederlands kunsthistorisch jaarboek 1983-01, Vol.33, p.21-48
• Main Author: Schapelhouman, Marijn
• Format: Article
• Language: dut
• ISSN: 0169-6726

In the years 1695—9 the Hague artist Mattheus Terwesten (1670—1757), a painter primarily of ceilings and wall decorations who was highly regarded by his contemporaries, made a journey through Germany, Italy, Austria and Bohemia. From 1696 to 1698 he was in Rome. It can be deduced from various sources – including a manuscript biography by his son Pieter Terwesten (1714—98) and the catalogue of the sale of his estate in 1757 – that during his stay in Rome he made numerous drawings after Antique sculptures and the works of great masters of a more recent past. The majority of these appear to be lost, the most important relic of his visit to the Eternal City being a small book of 80 (originally 88) leaves which is now preserved in the Printroom of Leiden University (Inv. No. AW 906). This album, which came from the estate of the artist, contains, apart from copies of the most famous examples of Antique sculpture at that time (the Farnese Hercules and Flora, the Venus Callipyge, the Spinario, etc.), a large number of drawings after works by 'modern' masters: Michelangelo, Bernini, Algardi and François Duquesnoy. In its form and content the album exhibits a resemblance to sets of prints like those by Perrier, Jan de Bisschop and Joachim Sandrart, 'anthologies' of drawings after 'exemplary' works of art, which the prospective artist ought to take as his models. It is highly likely that Terwesten was familiar with the work of Jan de Bisschop in particular, since one of his teachers, Willem Doudyns, supplied a great many of the models after which De Bisschop made the etchings in his Signorum Veterum Icones. De Bisschop's art theory too will not have been unknown to Terwesten. In the introduction to his books of examples De Bisschop says that the young artist must study the great works of art of the past and the modern era closely and that he must try to combine the best of those models in his own work. Sets of illustrations of important works of art could assist the budding artist in his study. It seems justifiable to assume that the Leiden album was Terwesten's own collection of models worth following in the spirit of Jan de Bisschop.