The Monogrammist of Brunswick

By depicting scenes taking place in brothels, the Brunswick Monogrammist is indeed a forerunner, just preceded by Lucas van Leyden. He is the herald of a new genre. As such, the painting we are...

By depicting scenes taking place in brothels, the Brunswick Monogrammist is indeed a forerunner, just preceded by Lucas van Leyden. He is the herald of a new genre. As such, the painting we are presenting was probably a source of inspiration for many 17th century artists who repeatedly copied this subject, such as Adriaen Van Ostade, Metsus and Steen. In 1918, the art critic Baldass announced the Brunswick Monogrammist as being at the origin of the oldest Dutch genre paintings (“die ältesten reinen Sittenbilder”).
The originality of the subject is even more accentuated by its plebeian character: here, the artist makes no reference to any biblical moral or other social critique. It is rare to find a 16th century painting without any symbolic significance.
The subject and composition of this painting enable us to draw similarities with two other works: the first kept in Berlin at the Gemäldegalerie, and the second kept in Frankfurt at the Städelsches Kunstinstitut (see M.J. Friedländer, opus cite supra, figs. 235 to 236b). Here we see the artist’s same concern to master the space by using vanishing points created by the spaces between the tiles, the perspective of an open door that gives you a glimpse of the outside, the steps of a staircase or the addition of expedients, such as the table, in order to establish several coherent planes that are connected to each other.

This painting is all the more exceptional since the Monogrammist was able to conscientiously depict a range of attitudes and expressions from the front and in profile. We can see the artist’s curiosity for the human body and movement. He succeeds in establishing a cohesion in the group of characters through a clever use of interlace, gestures and actions, thus creating a coherent whole of great technical difficulty.

His use of a wide-ranging chromatic palette should also be emphasised. The artist alternates cinnabar red, royal blue, bright yellow, and golden yellow, unifying all these colours with pure white, and revealing a constant concern for shades and graduations. This exceptional chromatic range, combined with a studied and skilled drawing technique make this a talented work of great quality.
A couple of characters seem to be behind this brawl: a servant and a clergyman. The latter, holding a cane, is ready to strike a third protagonist, a man who had decided to prevent the illegitimate couple from going up to the rooms at the top where two lovers are already to be found.  A woman forcefully pulls his hair. Her set of keys leads us to believe that she is the owner of this place. This is undoubtedly why we can see her trying by all possible means to hold back this third man who is clearly jealous.
In the background, two men who are out for a good time are playing around with two servants as though nothing is happening.  The servants invite their two companions to sit at the table where there are already glasses of wine and plates of food, leaving the viewer to imagine the rest of the events.

This attraction for human faces, the choice of colourful and exaggerated attitudes, aided by a scrupulous and incisive drawing technique make the Brunswick Monogrammist a forerunner of Brueghelian art.

The originality of his subject, reinforced by a talented pictorial execution, makes this painting a work worthy of association with all the works of the Brunswick Monogrammist.

The De Jonckheere gallery also has another painting whose subject closely resembles this one: “The card game” by Jan Van Amstel, a painter recognised by numerous art historians as actually being the Brunswick Monogrammist.