A Merry Company by Louis de Caullery

Scenes known as ‘merry company’ enjoyed a fleeting popularity during the first thirty or so years of the^17th century in Holland. Within the Calvinist Dutch Republic, where work-related values were paramount, leisure time remained a rarity. It was, however, viewed in a very positive light, and as a result, ‘merry companies’ were, for a time, a theme as important to genre painters as work itself.

They depict groups of elegantly dressed young men and women, dancing or seated at tables, playing music, though they sometimes illustrate excesses with an implicit moral condemnation. The Calvinist society of the Republic severely disapproved of flashy clothing, overindulgence in food, idleness – hence the stern inscriptions accompanying the engravings by Cornelis van Kittensteyn (1600–1638), based on scenes of merry companies by Dirck Hals (1591–1656).

‘Merry companies’ actually encompass several types of painting: the scenes may take place inside a house, a garden or a tavern, and the figures may be elegant and move about in opulent interiors, or they may be drinking in the company of prostitutes. In Aulteribe’s painting, the ‘merry company’ is elegant and celebrates the pleasures of socialising.

The leading Flemish artists who practised this genre include David Vinckboons, Frans Francken II and his uncle Hieronymus I, or his brother Hieronymus II, Sebastian Vrancx and Louis de Caullery. All painted small-scale courtly scenes in which the figures and architectural settings, both inside and outside sumptuous palaces, are rendered with great finesse.

Aulteribe’s work can be compared to that of Louis de Caullery, a painter born around 1580. After an apprenticeship with J. II de Momper, he became a master of the Guild of Saint Luke in Antwerp in 1602. Although he was highly renowned in his day, as evidenced by the number of his paintings found in^17th-century Antwerp collections, only four works are now attributed to him with certainty, all of which are signed. These are an Adoration of the Magi(Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie), aTriumph of Bacchus (London, 1979 auction),Carnival in the Snow (Hamburg, Kunsthalle) and *The Five Senses* (Cambrai, Museum of Fine Arts). On the basis of these works, around fifty others are attributed to him by analogy. He thus appears to have been the creator of both history paintings and genre scenes depicting balls and festivities, set in both interiors and exteriors.    

The Aulteribe panel features figures with a ‘doll-like’ appearance, characteristic of Caullery, as well as a delicate rendering of the costumes, particularly the embroidery, which appears almost drawn. The pronounced white highlights around the eyes and the tip of the nose are also characteristic of the painter. Beyond the stylistic similarities, many paintings attributed to Caullery feature compositional elements identical to those in the Aulteribe panel. For instance, a work held at the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam features a fairly similar composition, particularly in the arrangement of the figures—two of whom are isolated in the centre whilst groups of courtiers are arranged around the couple—as well as the perspective of the ballroom. Another work, attributed to Caullery, which was sold at public auction in Monaco in 2014, features the same central pair, as well as the pair of children.

As for the setting of the scene, a very similar ballroom—featuring the same arrangement of paintings on the walls, identical stained-glass windows and an identical chandelier—can be found in other panels that have appeared at public auction (Sotheby’s, London, 1995 and London, Christie’s, 2015).

Franits, Wayne, 17th-Century Dutch Genre Painting, Yale UP, New York, 2004.

Rosen, Jochai, ‘The Dutch Guardhouse Scene of the Golden Age: A Definition’, *Artibus et Historiae*, Vol. 27, No. 53, 2006, pp. 151–174.

Webster, Erin L., review of‘The Art and Culture of Love in 17th-Century Holland’by H. Rodney Nevitt, *The Sixteenth Century Journal*, Vol. 35, No. 2, 2004, pp. 550–552.