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Focusing on the interrelationship between Jacob van Loo's art, honor, and career, this book argues that Van Loo's lifelong success and unblemished reputation were by no means incompatible, as art historians have long assumed, with his specialization in painting nudes and his conviction for manslaughter. Van Loo's iconographic specialty - the nude - allowed his clientele to present themselves as judges of beauty and display their mastery of decorum, while his portraiture perfectly expressed his clients' social and political ambitions. Van Loo's honor explains why his success lasted a lifetime, whereas that of Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Vermeer did not. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this book reinterprets the manslaughter case as a sign that Van Loo's elite patrons recognized him as a gentleman and highly-esteemed artist. Uniquely, this book: - redefines Van Loo's place within, and contribution to, the Golden Age of Dutch painting, consistently discussing Van Loo in relation to his contemporaries; - demonstrates that honor was a precondition for artistic success; - allows new insight into the relation between honor, artistic success and socially acceptable behavior, particularly of artists in the Dutch Golden Age.
List of contents
Acknowledgements, Introduction, Chapter 1 - Life, The State of Flanders: Where Wolves Outnumbered Men, The Hague, The Affluent Bachelor, Settling Down, Moving Up, Great Success, Manslaughter, Starting Over in Saint-Germain, The Royal Academy, The Ambassador Artist, Founder of the Van Loo Dynasty, Chapter 2 - Artistic Output, Training, Studio Practice, Authenticity, History on a Grand Scale, Cabinet Pictures, Fashionable Portraiture, Paris, 1661-70, Chapter 3 - Clientele, Archival Data, Clientele, Portraiture in Amsterdam, Figure Paintings in Amsterdam, Portraits in Paris, Enduring Relationships, The Huydecoper-Hinlopen Family, The Huygens Family, Chapter 4 - The Academic Nude and its Audience, Documentary Evidence on Amsterdam's Academies, European Art Academies, The Theory of 'Welstant', The Surviving Academic Drawings, Two Groups of Academic Draftsmen, Empathy versus 'Welstant', Dutch Classicism: The Art of Standing Well, Van Loo's Academic Mode, An Audience for the Academic Nude, Chapter 5 - The Manslaughter Case, Homicide: A Matter of Honor, 31 October 1660, Van Loo's Legal Case, Pardon Ante Sententiam, Friendship, Van Loo's 'Honorable' Homicide, Support from the Huydecoper-Hinlopen Family, 'His Reputation regarding his Morality', Homicide in a European Context, Appendices, A List of Works, B List of Early Owners, C Transcriptions, Notes, Bibliography, List of illustrations, Photocredits, Index
About the author
Judith Noorman is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Amsterdam and leads the Dutch Research Council project The Female Impact, 2021-2026. As Director of the Amsterdam Centre for Studies in Early Modernity, she has organized the Object Colloquia Series, which laid the foundation for this book.
