Envy and pride: Maria Faydherbe (Mechelen, 1587-after 1633), a woman sculptor in a man’s world....

77ENVY AND PRIDE

Introduction

On the Roman artist Marcia Varro, Boccaccio wrote in De claris mulieribus (1374) that Marcia was able to carve ivory !gures and to paint with such skill and !nesse that she surpassed Sopolis and Dionysius, the most famous paint-ers of her day.1 Early on, miniatures of women sculptors appeared to illustrate the story of Marcia, showing her as she carved and chipped away at monumental wooden and stone sculp-tures (!g. 1, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France).2 Yet the actual number of women sculptors before 1750 is exceptionally small and seldom documented.3 Women mainly sculpted using soft materials, such as clay and wax, and did this in a domestic setting, far from the world of the guilds of their time, who controlled the professional art production and trade.4

As far as we know, Maria Faydherbe (1587-after 1633) is the only seventeenth century professional women sculptor from the Low Countries from whom fully signed and monogrammed wooden and alabaster sculptures have been preserved.5 Together with her two much older brothers, Hendrik (1574-1629) and Antoon (around 1576-1653), Maria Faydherbe belongs to the oldest generation of sculptors from the Mechelen Faydherbe family (Appendix I). Maria Faydherbe’s younger nephew Lucas (1617-1697) enjoyed the most recognition as a sculptor and architect.6 It is not only Maria Faydherbe’s surviving oeuvre that is of outstanding signi!cance for the study of early modern women artists. In addition to this, an exceptional transcript of a contemporary request from 1633 testi!es about Maria Faydherbe’s relationship vis-à-vis a group of

Envy and Pride

Maria Faydherbe (Mechelen, 1587-after 1633), a Woman Sculptor in a Man’s World*

Klara Alen

Fig. 1. Marcia Varro Carving, 15th century, miniature

from Le Livre que !st Jehan Bocace, de Certalde, des

Cleres et nobles femmes, lequel il envoya à Andrée des Alpes

de Florence, contesse de Haulteville. Paris, Bibliothèque

Nationale de France, Département des manuscrits,

Français 599, fol. 58r.

78 ENVY AND PRIDE

male members of the artists’ guild in Mechelen (Appendix II and !g. 7).7 The request is not merely a business-like paper. Instead it is an indirect ego-document in which the feelings of a woman artist and a group of male sculptors are vented. Interpreting and contextualising this exceptional document is the aim of this contribution, in which I will put forward a new interpretation of the 1633 request.8

The structure of this contribution is as follows. Firstly, Maria Faydherbe’s fully signed oeuvre is introduced and the 1633 request is explained. Secondly, a historiographical overview is given of the various interpretations that have been discussed in the literature since the publication of Adolph Vanderpoel’s Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de Lucas Fayd’herbe, sculpteur et architect malinoise from 1854.9 A dearth of secondary sources about Maria Faydherbe in the existing literature has led to some curious and problematic facts about her that arose in order to explain the request from 1633. Thirdly, these interpretations will be examined in greater detail, on the basis of normative sources and empirical research.

1. Getting to the Source: Maria Faydherbe’s Fully Signed Oeuvre and the Request of 1633

1.1. Fully Signed Sculptures

Maria Faydherbe put her full signature to three small-scale boxwood sculptures. The Virgin and Child (c. 1632, until recently in the Van Nu+el-Desmedt collection in Belgium, !g. 2) carries the inscription ‘MARIA FAYDHERBE ME FECIT’ on the bottom of the plinth which dis-plays an upright infant Jesus that is turning and looking lovingly at his mother. The Child is standing on a column with a cherub’s head.10 The !fteen centimetre high statuette was !rst mentioned in 1932 in scholarly literature and until recently was the only known signed work by Maria Faydherbe.11 Maria Faydherbe’s name on the statue’s plinth resulted in a whole range of small-scale boxwood statuettes and monu-mental sandstone statues with the same icono-graphic motive – the upright infant Jesus on a

column with a cherub’s head – being shakily attributed to Maria Faydherbe.12 A Virgin and Child (London, Victoria and Albert Museum) has the monogram ‘MF.S’ on the bottom right at the back, and can with certainty be attrib-uted to Maria Faydherbe. It re/ects remarkable similarities with Maria Faydherbe’s fully signed boxwood group of work mentioned above, but was sculpted in alabaster.13 A second boxwood small-scale sculpture, fully signed and dated 1633 around the statue’s plinth (1633, Belgium, private collection, !g. 3,), also depicts a Virgin and Child. In this one, Mary is holding her

Fig. 2. Maria Faydherbe, Virgin and Child, c. 1632, boxwood

15 cm (height). Until recently in the Van Nu+el-Desmedt

collection in Belgium.

79ENVY AND PRIDE

infant Son in her left arm and both !gures are looking down. Mary is wearing a large silver crown.14 In 2011, the Stedelijk Museum Hof van Busleyden in Mechelen bought a box-wood Cruci!x (1625-1650, Mechelen, Stedelijk Museum Hof van Busleyden, !g. 4) by Maria Faydherbe. Among those in the art trade, the statuette was attributed to Maria Faydherbe on the basis of a hand-written label on the back of the modern panel on which the cruci!x was mounted.15 When I went to look at the statuette, restorer Jeannine van Roy and I removed the statuette from the panel and we established that it was fully signed.16 Maria Faydherbe signed the thirty-three centimetre high statuette in the same way as the two statuettes of the Virgin and Child: with her full name in capital letters on the back of Christ’s loincloth, on a spot out of view for the audience (!g. 5). This work – that is made public for the !rst time here – deserves special attention because it proves that Maria Faydherbe mastered the sculpting of various religious themes.

1.2. The Request of 1633

The request of 12 January 1633 is the only sur-viving evidence of the disturbed relationship between Maria Faydherbe and the artists’ guild (Appendix II and !g. 7). This single document shows that Maria Faydherbe had previously turned to the aldermen of the city of Mechelen. On 7 December 1632, Maria Faydherbe very audaciously (‘seer vermetelijcken’) and una-shamedly (‘beroemijl[ijk]’) claimed that she was such a master of the art of sculpture that she was a match for any of the guild members. Less than a fortnight later – on 20 December 1632 – Maria Faydherbe addressed the alder-men once again, this time in an even sharper tone. She claimed that she owed nothing to the members of the guild and bluntly labelled them as dozijnwerckers. With this she was pointing in no uncertain terms to the serial production of stone and polychrome wooden religious poppen, Jesuses and saints with a hieratic character, to which the majority of the sculptors – including

Fig. 3. Maria Faydherbe, Virgin and Child, 1633, boxwood

17.1 cm (height, with crown, excluding base). Belgium, private

collection.

Fig. 4. Maria Faydherbe, Cruci!x, 1625-1650, boxwood 33 cm

(height). Mechelen, Stedelijk Museum Hof van Busleyden, inv.

nr. B0690.

80 ENVY AND PRIDE

the signatories of the document – were apply-ing themselves at the time. A clear example is the Virgin and Child of François van Loo (1581–1668) (1638, Beveren (Kallo), the Church of Saint Petrus and Saint Paulus, !g. 6). Van Loo produced !gurines relied heavily on Renaissance !gures from the second half of the sixteenth century.17 This professional humiliation was the cause of much turmoil among members of the guild. The signatories construed Faydherbe’s response to be a sign of pride and viewed it as a lie that they were no longer prepared to put up with. After all, branding their work in this way was a slight to their honour and reputation (‘streckende tot v[er]minderinge van hunne eere en[de] reputatie’). To prove that the quali!ca-tion of dozijnwerckers was unjusti!ed, the eight signatories to the petition of 12 January 1633 proposed to the aldermen that they would sculpt

the most artistic !gures in competition with Maria Faydherbe (‘tegen de voors[ijde] maria te wercken’). The challenge was speci!ed further: they would sculpt large and small !gures in wood and stone. The aldermen from Mechelen were asked to designate a ‘camer ende plaetse’ – a room and location – where they could each sculpt separately and without outside help. At Maria Faydherbe’s request, several impartial masters from outside Mechelen would come to judge their work. The document was not issued in the name of all in the sculptors profession, but instead was signed by a limited group of eight master sculptors and cleynstekers (sculptors of small-scale works) from Mechelen: François van Loo (1581-1668), Rombaut Verstappen (c. 1592-1636), Peter de Cael (active from 1614), Rombout Rigouts (active from 1615), Lieven van Eegem (active from 1602), Baptist van Loo

Fig. 5. Detail of !g. 4 (signature)

81ENVY AND PRIDE

(active from 1603), François Delva (active from 1619) and Maximiliaen Labbé (ca. 1590-1675).18 The eight signatories were all members of the Mechelen artists’ guild that arose in around 1540 and, as in other cities, brought together various professional categories: painters, drawers, sculptors, cleynstekers, sto$eerders and gold- and silversmiths. The number of masters and apprentices would reach its zenith shortly after the middle of the sixteenth century. The chronicler Marcus van Vaernewijck (1518-1569) wrote that there were one hundred !fty workshops in Mechelen in 1566. Recent quantitative research on the Mechelen painters’ guild showed that at that point in time painters, with their one hundred twenty-nine workshops, formed the absolute majority.19 During the rest of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, painters continued to dominate the profession, both in terms of number of masters and the share of o;cial assignments within the guild. Yet their political impact remained limited. The artists’ guild never had a seat in the city council and also did not have its own premises. In December 1632, the year in which Maria Faydherbe addressed the aldermen, the total number of masters had dropped to hundred and the executive committee comprised four painters: Ambrosius Verschuren (active in 1623), Jan van Recht (active from 1619), Gregorius Beerinckx (active from 1604) and Lucas Franchoys (1574-1643), painter and brother-in-law to Maria Faydherbe.20 The following year, the painters Lucas Franchoys, Gregorius Berincx and Jan van Recht, together with the sculptor and peintre-décorateur Gaspard Schillemans, managed the guild. Schillemans name appears in an accounting book belonging to Maria Faydherbe’s brother, Hendrik. These men worked together on several occasions.21 The request of 1633 (Appendix II) is an isolated transcript that was entered in the Chronologische Algemeynen Aenwyser (!g. 7) in the !rst half of the nineteenth century by the former city archivist and historian, Bartholomeus Gyseleers-Thys (1761-1843). This record comprises ninety-nine chronological registers with printed and written extracts from various ancien régime sources from Mechelen’ municipal archives. These include original loose papers as well as transcriptions of original documents.22 In the latter case, reference was frequently made to the original source, but for the request of 1633 there was no

reference at all. That it was clearly a transcript, whether or not it was made by Thys himself, and was not an original seventeenth-century paper, becomes apparent from the handwriting and parchment with a watermark that also appears in other transcripts in the same register. Given that neither the request of 12 January 1633 nor Maria Faydherbe’s two previous requests to the aldermen appear in the aldermen’s registers (schepenregisters), it is reasonable to assume that the transcript was compiled from the Mechelen painters and sculptors’ guild archives that have largely been lost.23

2. Fact or Fiction: the Request of 1633 in Literature

2.1. The Premise of Exclusion or ‘men verhaelt dat zy eischte als beeldhouwster in het schildersambacht aenveerd te worden’24

It was the archivist and librarian for the city of Mechelen in 1844, Pieter-Jozef van Doren (1808-1870), who drew the attention of Belgian senator and distant descendant of Maria Faydherbe, Charles du Trieu de Terdonck (1790-1861), to the exceptional request in the Chronologische Algemeynen Aenwyser. Charles du Trieu de Terdonck published the !rst complete version of the 1633 request – albeit in the form of a transcription in an endnote in his Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de Lucas Fayd’herbe of 1858.25 A few years prior to this, Adolph Vanderpoel (1854) had mentioned a daughter of Faydherbe who, just like her father, was a sculptor. Vanderpoel was aware of the existence of the request – probably also via Van Doren – and would be the !rst to put forward an underlying reason for Maria Faydherbe’s request in December 1632. According to Vanderpoel, Maria Faydherbe wanted to join the painters’ guild, but had been refused by the deans of the guild. 26 How he reached this interpretation remains unclear. Neither Maria Faydherbe’s request, nor the deans’ refusal was mentioned in the document. Moreover, Vanderpoel never actually saw the 1633 request. After all, he attributes the sculpting to Maria-Anne Faydherbe (1651-1729), daughter of Lucas Faydherbe, while

82 ENVY AND PRIDE

the !rst sentence of the request (‘Alsoo Maria Fijderbe Anthonis Dochter’) clearly states that the person in question is Maria Faydherbe, daughter of Antoon. That mistake was soon recti!ed by Du Trieu de Terdonck.27 Unlike Vanderpoel, Du Trieu de Terdonck examines the content of the document in greater depth. Even though his interpretation of the document is broadly in agreement with the content of the request, he still contributes to an incorrect interpretation. He wrote that the ten sculptors were positive about Maria Faydherbe’s proposal to hold an art competition.28 However, it is not possible to deduce from the 1633 request that Maria Faydherbe took the initiative to challenge the sculptors. On the contrary, it is precisely the eight – and not ten – signatories of the document who proposed to the aldermen to sculpt in competition with Maria Faydherbe and not the other way round.

In 1932 Georges van Doorslaer identi!ed the fully signed boxwood statuette of the Virgin and Child mentioned above (!g. 2).29 The attribution to Maria Faydherbe came more than half a century after Emmanuel Nee+s wrote in his two-volume reference work on painters and sculptors from Mechelen, that Maria Faydherbe could solely be ascribed on the basis of that one request. At the time, nothing at all was known about the life of Maria Faydherbe, her artistic talent or her œuvre.30 Only in 1932, based on this speci!c piece of art, Van Doorslaer rightfully attributed the marble statue in the Church of Saint Petrus and Saint Paulus to Maria Faydherbe on stylistic grounds (!g. 8, Mechelen, the Church of Saint Petrus and Saint Paulus). Yet by viewing the marble statue as a result of the challenge in the request of 1633 he was venturing on to thin ice.31 After all, the sculptors did not mention which kind of wood or stone would be used and nowhere did they refer to the artistic quality of Maria Faydherbe’s work. The quali!cation ‘te weten groot ende cleijn zoo van hout als steen’ referred to their being labelled dozijnwerckers. They wanted to prove that they were capable of sculpting in di+erent materials as well as in various formats. In 1977 Lodewijk Brouwers even wondered whether Maria Faydherbe’s marble statue could be considered as sample for the challenge.32 Van Doorslaer also attempts to put forward Maria Faydherbe’s possibility to sculpt in the workshop of her two brothers as a reason why she was denied membership in the guild.33

2.2. The ‘dozynwerckers’ vs Maria Faydherbe or the Contrast between Traditionalism and Innovation

In 1988, Jaak Jansen puts paid to the premise about Maria Faydherbe’s exclusion and the guild. Indeed, he dismisses the idea and claims that because of her age in 1632 – Maria Faydherbe was at that point forty-!ve years old – she was already master of ‘ander ambacht dan dat van het Sint-Lucasgilde’.34 Which guild she may have been a member of, and what consequences that may have had for her artistic career, remain unclear and are simply ignored by Jansen. In order to explain the request, Jansen di+erentiates between a motive and a deeper

Fig. 6. François van Loo, Virgin and Child, 1638, wood

(polychromed) 81 cm (height). Beveren (Kallo), the Church of

Saint Petrus and Saint Paulus. © KIK-IRPA, Brussels.

83ENVY AND PRIDE

Fig. 7. Request from the ‘Chronologische Algemynen Aenwyser’. Mechelen, Stadsarchief, CC Uittreksels van het

stadsarchief en andere bronnen, SI, Chronologische Algemynen Aenwyser, 12 January 1633, Copy of the request of François

van Loo, Rombaut Verstappen, Peeter de Cael, Rombout Rigouts, Lieven van Eegem, Baptiste van Loo, François

Delva and Maximilliaen Labbé to the aldermen of Mechelen. For a transcription and translation see Appendix II.

84 ENVY AND PRIDE

reason for the con/ict. According to Jansen, the motive for Maria Faydherbe’s letter to the city council should be sought in the number of commissions. Maria Faydherbe would have complained to the city council that some masters were too readily being given commissions by the city while she was being left out in the cold.35 This assumption is convincing and could easily explain why Maria Faydherbe appealed to the aldermen of the Dijlestad, and not to the deans of the guild. In Jansen’s opinion, the root cause of the con/ict lay in the contrast between the signatories’ traditional art of sculpting and Maria Faydherbe’s innovative style. Jansen

argues that the detailed speci!cations of the challenges pointed to disputes. Jansen saw sculpting in wood and large format as the traditional style of the signatories. Sculpting in stone on a smaller scale was evidence of a new purport. The ‘duel’ between Maria Faydherbe and the signatories was ‘merely a mock battle for a con/ict that ran deeper’, according to Jansen.36 Jansen’s explanation for the request on the basis of a stylistic perspective is, however, problematic. First and foremost, assigning a pioneer’s role to Maria Faydherbe is based on only one authentic sculpture – the fully

Fig. 8. Maria Faydherbe, Virgin and Child, 1633, marble 125 cm

(height). Mechelen, the Church of Saint Petrus and Saint Paulus.

© KIK-IRPA, Brussels.

Fig. 9. François van Loo, Saint Petrus, 1625-1650, boxwood

16 cm (height). Sotheby’s, New York, 29 January 2009, nr. 329.

85ENVY AND PRIDE

signed small-scale boxwood group already mentioned by Van Doorslaer in 1932 (!g. 2). The other statues that Jansen ascribes to Maria Faydherbe are six unsigned and undated statues. But associating the production of the eight signatories exclusively with traditional large polychromatic wooden works in a corny renaissance style also raises questions. Traditional polychromatic large wooden statues (!g. 6) as well as small-scale monogrammed statuettes of apostles in boxwood by François van Loo, signatory of the request, have survived (1625-1650, present whereabouts unknown, !g. 9).37 The latter exude the Baroque and can therefore be considered as belonging to the ‘new’ style. Maarten van Calster, another one of signatories to the request, must also have sculpted in boxwood, probably on a small scale, as is apparent from accounts of the Holy Spirit of the Saint Catherine’s Parish in Mechelen. In these accounts it was recorded in 1622: ‘Gegeven Merten van Calster voor het maken van het belt van Christus verhauwen in pallemen haute hangende aen’t cruyse […]’.38 Finally, Jansen, just like all the other authors, sees the challenge to the signatories as an initiative of Maria Faydherbe. 39

3. Maria Faydherbe and the Guild in Mechelen

Jansen’s explanation of the request of 1633 has until now enjoyed little support.40 In contrast, Vanderpoel’s premise from 1854 (that Maria Faydherbe wanted to join the guild and was rejected) has been adopted by countless authors and is also to be found in general art history reference works.41 However, neither these authors nor any other historians, including art historians, researched the attitude of the artists’ guild in Mechelen towards women, although various sources are available that would permit an investigation to see if the exclusion of women in the general, and Maria Faydherbe in particular, was structural. The ordinances (Rolle), in which the rights and privileges of the members were recorded, as well as an eighteenth-century transcript with extracts from a members list of free masters and a list of apprentices make this approach possible.42

3.1. Institutional Rules: The ‘Rolle’ of 1564

The institutional regulation of the Mechelen artists’ guild was laid down in the Rolle of 1564. It shows that the guild did not in any way exclude women. Although most of the twenty-six ordinances are related to male members and deal with leerjongens, leercnapen en sonen, article 13 provides for the submission fees for elck meysken that wants to learn the painting profession. But the activities are – contrary to the male members – precisely de!ned: women were only admitted to ‘parketten te maken oft op papier te verven’.43 What exactly is meant by parketten is unclear: does it mean preparing wooden panels, sawing or processing inlaid /oors?44 Or does it refer to the painting of porcelain or wooden plaketten?45 Admitting women for painting on paper was also tolerated in Antwerp.46 In addition to the article about the apprenticeship of women, there were another four ordinances (articles 15, 16, 24 and 25) which refer explicitly to the working arrangements and annual pay of cnapen and maerten, or servants and maids. A servant or maid was tasked with all kinds of guild-related jobs. An article is mentioned which forbids them to work ‘buyten henne huysen oft winckele’ and ‘eenich werck van schilderen beelden ende metselryen te snydene’.47 Unfortunately the names of these servants and maids were not recorded in Mechelen. As a result the number of women that were active within a speci!c professional group as maids remains unclear.

3.2. The Absence of Maria Faydherbe on the Alphabetical List of Members

A register with a collection of documents – original documents as well as transcripts – about Mechelen artists is kept in the Stads archief of Mechelen.48 It includes an unpublished alphabetical list of members. Due to the various handwritings and the di+erent kinds of information the actual list seems to be a compilation that is di;cult to date.49 According to the list of members, on 27 October 1588 Magdalena Francken was ‘met consent van de oudermans int ambacht gecomen sonder haer kinderen te bevryen ofte enige jongens te mogen leeren oock met consent van der werck na uytwysen der apostille’.50 She was

86 ENVY AND PRIDE

granted mastership in the guild, provided her children were not automatically granted the right to become masters for free and provided she would not set any apprentices to work. These additional conditions meant that her membership was di+erent to those of her male colleagues to whom the right of apprenticeship was automatically granted. Her specialisation within the guild is not speci!ed, so as it stands it is not possible to tell whether she was a woman painter, sculptor, polychromer or gilder. For the sixteenth century, the list of names is probably a reliable source of information for the number of registered masters, both male and female. However, names were only recorded sporadically in the seventeenth century. Therefore, whether or not Maria Faydherbe was ever registered in the guild as a master cannot be deduced from the existing list of members. The assumption that Maria Faydherbe was rejected by the deans of the Mechelen artists’ guild can thus not be demonstrated on the basis of her absence on the list of members. The same register makes clear that widows were also registered in the artists’ guild. 51 Thanks to their socio-economic status, women could become o;cial members of the guild as widows or as unmarried ( jongedochter) or spiritual daughters (!lia devota) of registered masters.52 For instance, these women could – although not all widows chose to do so – continue in the profession after the death of their husbands, taking on the management of the workshop or selling remaining stock.53 Even though these women only appear on the list of members after the death of their husbands, in practice women were often already involved in production or management while their husbands were still alive.54 From a report in the list of members originating from an accounting book it is apparent that in 1632 one hundred masters, eight widows and twenty-seven servants were registered.55 In 1650, the painter Eloy Bonnejonne was !ned ‘omdat hij onvry werckte by de weduwe van Lucas Franchois’.56 Bonnejonne was registered as an apprentice in 1638 with Lucas Franchoys, but had evidently still not attained mastership twelve years later.57 Catharina de Pont, who married Lucas Franchoys in 1606, must have run her husband’s workshop for at least seven years, because Lucas died in 1643. She died in 1654.58 Maria Faydherbe remained a spinster

and was therefore never eligible for the status of widow. She was also not able to invoke the status of jongedochter or unmarried daughter of a master painter. On 12 September 1587, she and her twin sister, Christine, were christened in the Church of Saint Catherine as daughters of the brewer Antoon Faydherbe and his wife Livina Grauwels.59

3.3. The Absence of Maria Faydherbe in the ‘Leerjongensboeck’

Another source throws light on the attitude of the Mechelen artists’ guild towards female members. In an eighteenth-century copy of the guild’s Leerjongensboeck (or apprentices book from 1550-1700), one woman was registered as an apprentice. Anneken Sterde is registered in 1561 as a pupil of the engraver Frans Hogenberg (1535-1590).60 Her profession is not speci!ed, as is the case with most sixteenth-century registrations in the apprentices book. Based on the large group of (women) afsetsters or verlichtsters in Antwerp in this period, one may assume that Anneken Sterde afsette or coloured in prints.61 Maria Faydherbe is not mentioned in the Leerjongensboeck, either as a master or as an apprentice. The absence of women on the list of apprentices is not surprising. The familiar environment o+ered many early modern women artists the opportunity to develop and practice their artistic skills in an informal way.62 Of crucial importance to Maria Faydherbe’s development as a sculptress were her two brothers, Hendrik and Antoon.

3.4. ‘Mijn suster heeft maer 3 willen gheven’: Faydherbe’s Brotherhood

Hendrik and Antoon must have fuelled Maria Faydherbe’s interest in the art of sculpting at an early age. In terms of their professions, both brothers went on to choose a di+erent path, as is evident from their specialisation within the sculptors’ guild, the number of apprentices, the kind of assignments that they were given and the management functions that they held within the guild. Hendrik was registered in 1599 as a sto$eerder or polychromer and gilder of wooden and stone statues.63 According to his own statement

87ENVY AND PRIDE

declared before a notary in Antwerp as a consequence of a legal action in 1608, Hendrik was given fewer assignments in the preceding years and was forced to exchange the Dijlestad for Antwerp.64 Back in Mechelen in 1615, his personal motto selden rust at the Pioene Chamber of Rhetoric undoubtedly re/ected his strong zest for work, as witnessed by the six apprentices whom he trained in his workshop between 1619 and 1625.65 During this time Hendrik meticulously kept a book of debts in which he noted who owed him money for the polychroming of statues.66 Usually, he also recorded what type of sculpture the transaction was for, so that it is possible to determine that Hendrik Faydherbe frequently painted religious statues in the period from 1619 to 1625. While the names of various Mechelen sculptors appear among the clients, including Maarten van Calster, Gaspar Schillemans, Philips van Kerckhove and Peter en Abraham van Avondt, most of the transactions were made between Hendrik and his brother Antoon:

‘Jasper Schillemans ghesto+eerteen L. vrouwken van Scherp[enheuve]

tot 8 [stuivers] […]67

voor mijn broeder anthoni faijdherbeghesto+eert een wapen van steen tot 4

[gulden] 68

noch voor merten van calsternoch 3 belden Maria/Joseph/clara/ tot

12 [gulden] […]69

noch voor mijn broedereen mes v[er]silvert 2 [stuivers]een S. Augustijn tot 2 [gulden] 15

[stuivers] […]70

noch voor mijn broeder […]een mater teresa tot 28 [gulden] […]tot hier toe afgherekent met mijn broeder anthoni faydherbe 29. december 1622. en van alle oud[e] en[de] nieuwe schulden weder sijden e+en aen betaelt. mitsgaders sommich werc voor de paters jhesuwiten als 2 gebronste belden van 188. gul. en 5 versilverde halfbelden en 4 armen tot 192 gulden […]’71

According to the guild’s enrolment list, Maria Faydherbe’s youngest brother, Antoon, practised the profession of beeldsnyder.72 He became an independent master in 1605, he trained !fteen apprentices in his workshop,

and in 1620 and 1628 he held an administrative position within the guild as a dean twice.73 His production covers more than merely small and large religious stone and wooden sculptures for ecclesiastical clients within and outside Mechelen.74 A legal action in 1608 shows that he and Maarten van Calster were appointed by the archdukes to make ‘cruyskens, lieve vrouwen ende andere’ on a daily basis, which were then o+ered as gifts for the Spanish king and other dignitaries.75 His surviving oeuvre includes wooden sculptures both in the classic style and as monumental sandstone statues and bas-reliefs that project more naturalism and can therefore be considered as belonging to early baroque sculpting from Mechelen (1622, Dendermonde, the Church of Our Lady, !g. 10 and 1623, Mechelen, the Church of Saint Catherine, !g. 11). It is these that are more in

Fig. 10. Antoon Faydherbe, Virgin and Child, 1622, sandstone

122 cm (height). Dendermonde, the Church of Our Lady.

© KIK-IRPA, Brussels.

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line with Maria Faydherbe’s surviving oeuvre. A report in Hendrik Faydherbe’s book of debts from around 1620, about four small statues for the Friars Minor Capuchin from Brussels, proves that Maria Faydherbe was involved in the production of both brothers:

‘dit is betaelt behalve vier cleyn beldekens die voor capuchien van brussel waren daer aen verdient vier gulden maer mijn suster heeft maer 3 willen gheven niet tegenstaende mijn beclach. ergo rest 1 [gulden].’76

Maria Faydherbe’s precise role in the transaction for the four statuettes remains unclear. Did she

work as a sto$eerster in Hendrik’s workshop and did she receive a payment of four guilders from Antoon to then subsequently hand over three guilders to Hendrik? It is also possible that she received money from the capuchins themselves. Given her work as a sculptress, it is more likely that Maria Faydherbe worked for Antoon and on receiving the statues from Hendrik she paid him one guilder too little. All of this indicates that, alongside her role as sculptress within Antoon and Hendrik Faydherbe’s cooperative, there was a book-keeping role reserved for Maria Faydherbe, a job that was often taken on enthusiastically by early modern women of artists.77 The book

Fig. 11. Antoon Faydherbe, Nativity, 1623, sandstone 200 cm (height).

Mechelen, the Church of Saint Catherine. © KIK-IRPA, Brussels.

89ENVY AND PRIDE

of debts also records that Hendrik’s wife, Cornelia Franchoys, received various payments and that other housewives of sculptors carried out administrative tasks.78 Moreover, Hendrik Faydherbe employed a jongewijf, Anneken Verheest, in March and September of 1620. It is not clear exactly what her role was within Hendrik’s workshop.79 Thanks to her brothers, Maria Faydherbe not only had the opportunity to learn the art of sculpting, but she also had the possibility of falling back on their network of friends, colleagues and clients. Maarten van Calster was one of the many Mechelen artists with whom Maria Faydherbe came into contact through

her brothers. Van Calster was also a friend of the family and godfather to one of each of her brothers’ children.80 Maria Faydherbe must have also known Cornelia’s brother, Lucas Franchoys, through Cornelia’s marriage to Hendrik in 1615.81 Lucas Franchoys was a painter and served six times as a dean of the guild in Mechelen between 1613 and 1640.82 Despite the age di+erence of thirty years, she must have had contact with her nephew, Lucas Faydherbe, who was active in Mechelen from 1638 onwards, shortly after Maria Faydherbe’s request. The Faydherbe family must also have been in contact with artists in Antwerp. It is quite possible that Lucas Faydherbe was able to get straight to work in Rubens’ workshop at the age of nineteen, thanks to contacts that Antoon had made in Antwerp. From a letter that has been kept from Rubens to Lucas Faydherbe written on 9 May 1640 on the occasion of his marriage to Maria Snijers, Rubens sent his warm greetings to Lucas’ in-laws and parents:

‘Daer en tusschen, sal Ue. believen myne hartelycke groetenissen te doen aen Monsieur Ue schoon-vader ende Ju+rouw Ue. schoon-moeder, die, ick hope daegelykx sullen meer en meer vreught hebben in dese alliancie, door Ue goet comportement; ’t selve wense ick aen Monsieur en Jou+rouw Ue vader en moeder, die haer vuyst moet lachen, om dat de ryse van Italien verstoort is, ende dat, in plaetse van haeren lieven soon te missen, noch een dochter daer toe gheconquesteert heeft, die haer haest groot-moeder maeken sal, met Godts hulpe.’83

Finally, it is important to note that the various members of the Faydherbe family lived in Sint-Katelijnestraat, which had been the hub of art production and trade in Mechelen since the !fteenth century.84 Until at least 1597, the young Maria Faydherbe lived in the house De Olifant that was part of the nearby brewery De Grote Zon.85 Antoon, and probably Maria too, lived and worked most of their lives in De Korenbloem in the Sint-Katelijnestraat (!g. 12).86 Not far further down the street, the abovementioned Maarten van Calster lived in a house named In de drij Rapen.87

Fig. 12. Housefront of De Korenbloem in the Sint-Katelijnestraat

in Mechelen.

90 ENVY AND PRIDE

4. The Request of 1633 Revisited

It has become clear that existing interpretations of the request of 1633 – the guild refusing Maria Faydherbe and the tension between the renais-sance and the baroque style of sculpting – cannot be deduced from the document and should at the very least be questioned. Suppose the guild did refuse admittance to Maria Faydherbe, then this would hardly have been because she was a woman; this is witnessed by the tolerant atti-tude in the ordinance and the names of some women artists on the list of members and in the book of apprentices. One possible reason for her exclusion may well have been gender-spe-ci!c if one considers the medium of sculpting itself. Maria Faydherbe may have been rejected because she was a sculptress and women were deemed incapable of working with hard mate-rials.88 If this is the case, it is the strange that nowhere in the document is an opinion given about the artistic quality of her work. On the contrary, the request discusses the artistic qual-ity of the signatories’ work. They clearly feel aggrieved and would like to prove to the alder-men that they are capable of producing more than merely dozijnwerck. The vehemence with which the signatory defends himself could be an indication of a dwindling market for the kind of Mechelen statues that they produced. It is clear that the precise reason why Maria Faydherbe addressed the aldermen of Mechelen on 7 December 1632, and then went on to denounce the signatories as ‘mass producers’, cannot be deduced from the request of 1633. The urgency with which Maria Faydherbe appealed to the city council, twice in a row and within a short period of time, does, however, raise the suspicion that securing an order may have been the reason behind her application. Moreover, in 1632 Maria Faydherbe was dependent upon Antoon’s workshop. Hendrik died on 30 April 1629, some years before the incident with the guild, which meant for Maria that Hendrik’s jobs – which were probably a !xed source of income for her – would have stopped. Also, the chances are extremely slim that Maria Faydherbe would have been able to work for the new husband of Cornelia Franchoys, Hendrik’s widow and Maria’s sister-in-law. Shortly after Hendrik’s death, Cornelia married the statue painter, Maximiliaen Labbé, signatory of the 1633 document.89

4.1. The Order for the Jesuit Chapel in Mechelen

The order from the Mechelen Jesuits for the marble statue of the Virgin and Child, in or before 1632, o+ers a clue that may clarify the situation. Being awarded an o;cial public order like this would have been exceptional for a woman sculptor in the seventeenth century, but cannot be ruled out.90 Since their arrival in Mechelen in 1611, the Mechelen Jesuits resided at the former domain in front of the Court of Cambrai (Hof van Kamerijk) and the Court of Savoy (Hof van Savoyen) in a complex between the Keizerstraat, the Blokstraat, the Voldersheersgracht and the city wall.91 The former imperial kitchen was converted into a small church that quickly proved to be too small. On 3 May 1632, construction started on an annex that was almost the same size as the existing church. The new Chapel of Our Lady, or Sodality Chapel, was dedicated eighteen months later, on 8 September 1633. A contemporary reported about the dedication of the new chapel in the Historia Domus and was impressed by a white marble statue of the Virgin and Child:

‘The most important ornament of the Chapel of Mary is the Virgin herself. The image is of course sculpted from the whitest of white marble and, in terms of size, it is about the same as that of an average person. The small boy ( Jesus), with a cherub at his feet, is standing upright, leaning against his mother’s arm, with a cheerful, smiling face. He is looking at his mother, who in turn has her full attention focussed on him. All lines of the body, the hair, the nails, even the veins have been chiselled with such natural strokes that only life itself seems to be missing. It required no outside support or extra colour to express its beauty: it was in itself a vision of loveliness, colour, adornment, clothing, all of it. The one thing the statue shares with the divine Madonna herself is that it seems to inspire the spirit of those who see it to the purest kind of chastity and devoutness’.92

In 1677 this monumental marble statue was moved from the Sodality chapel to the new

91ENVY AND PRIDE

Xaverius Church where it is still today in a late baroque altar from an unknown architect.93 This is the marble statue that was rightly attributed to Maria Faydherbe on the basis of stylistic and compositional similarities with the signed boxwood version (1633, Mechelen, the Church of Saint Petrus and Saint Paulus, !g. 8).94 The description in the Historia Domus makes clear that the statue was consecrated in September 1633. That means – given its considerable dimensions – that Maria Faydherbe would have been working on the statue at the time that she appealed to the aldermen in December 1632. Two di+erent scenarios could have taken place.Firstly, it is possible that the eight members of the guild who signed the request were driven by jealousy to dispute the assignment for Maria Faydherbe before the deans. In this case Maria Faydherbe would undoubtedly have had no reason at all in addressing the aldermen on this subject twice in less than a fortnight. She had, after all, managed to secure the order and in that respect had nothing to lose. At most, it would have cost her a few heated discussions with the signatories. Secondly, it is possible the signatories cast doubt on the quality of the statue and disputed it in front of her clients – the Mechelen Jesuits. If that were the case it would been another story. Maria Faydherbe would have lost no time proving the contrary and addressed the aldermen twice – on 7 December and 20 December 1632. Through the signatories’ vili!cation of her to her clients, she may well have run the risk of losing the prestigious order, and been left with a half-!nished statue and expensive materials surplus to her needs.

Conclusion

Maria Faydherbe addressed the aldermen of the city of Mechelen on 7 December 1632. Less

than a fortnight later she renewed her request and sco+ed at several members of the guild, accusing them being mass producers of art, dozijnwerckers. In response, the same members of the guild took up their pens to defend their names before the aldermen of the city Mechelen on 12 January 1633. They proposed sculpting in competition with Maria Faydherbe. The request of 1633, as simply summarised in the previous paragraph, has never in the past been understood in this way. Even before Du Trieu de Terdonck published the document in 1858, the request was already considered to be a response to Maria Faydherbe’s exclusion from the Mechelen artists’ guild. In later literature, the content of the request was systematically misinterpreted in support of that notion. Nevertheless, nowhere in the document can it be deduced that Maria Faydherbe wanted to join the guild, nor that she had already been registered as a guild member. In no way do the ordinances and the registration of various women in the Mechelen artists’ guild point to a structural exclusion of women. Maria Faydherbe’s surviving oeuvre proves that she produced sculptures of high quality and used luxurious materials, such as boxwood, alabaster and marble in a baroque style. Her interest and training to become a sculptor came from her two brothers, and perhaps it was under their guardianship that she was given o;cial assignments at a later stage in her life. The emotions in the 1633 request should probably been seen in this light. Maria Faydherbe reacted furiously because she was under threat of losing the order after the signatories sullied her name before the Mechelen Jesuits. The signatories responded in turn because they were determined to maintain their reputation with the aldermen and hoped that by doing so they would secure more assignments. The commission for the Jesuits seems to be a plausible explanation, but obviously it remains a hypothesis overlooked by all preceding authors.

92 ENVY AND PRIDE

Appendix I

Antoon Faydherbe brewer

x Livinia Grauwels (I) 1573

x Willemijnken Wellens (II) 1602

Hendrik Faydherbe (1574-1629) sculptor

x Dimpna Ponsaert (I) 1599

x Cornelia Franchoys (II) 1615

x Maximiliaan Labbé 1631

Antoon Faydherbe (c. 1576-1653)sculptor

x Charlotte van de Casteele 1606

Christina (c. 1576-1653)

x Jacques Thijs 1622

Johannes

Cornelis

Maria Faydherbe (1587-after 1633) sculptor

Lucas Faydherbe (1617-1697) sculptor

x Maria Snayers 1640

Elizabeth

Maria Faydherbe(1611-1643)

x Jan van Bergen 1641

Cornelis

Elizabeth

Catharina

Charlotte

Anna

Maarten

Livinia

Clara

Antoon

Carolien

Petronella

Anna Barbara Faydherbe(1643-1703)

Hendrik-Remi

Lucas

Rombaut

Jan-Lucas

Maria Anna Faydherbe(1643-1703)

Elisabeth

Cornelis

Hendrik-Cornelis

93ENVY AND PRIDE

Appendix II

Mechelen, Stadsarchief, CC Uittreksels van het stadsarchief en andere bronnen, SI, Chronologische Algemynen Aenwyser, 12 januari 1633, Copy of the request of François van Loo, Rombaut Verstappen, Peeter de Cael, Rombout Rigouts, Lieven van Eegem, Baptiste van Loo, François Delva and Maximilliaen Labbé to the aldermen of Mechelen. (English translation, see below):

Alsoo maria !jderbe Anthonis Dochter bij zekere haere Requeste vanden 7. Decemb[er] 1632, aen mijn heeren Schepenen deser Stede gepresenteert seer vermetelijcken en[de] beroemijl[ijk] vanteert dat zij soo goeden meesterse inde conste der beeldsnijden zoude wesen datter geen meester int ambachte vant tselve wesende haer en zoude connen beschamen ververschende en[de] versterckende dit beroemelijck spreken ook bij haar geschrifte van[den] 20. December daernaer met dese woorden dat zij de voors[ijde] meesters int wercken niet schuldic[g]h en is maer en extimeert voor dozijnwerckers Jae soo ist dat de ondergesh[revenen] meesters Suposten van den Schilders Ambacht hunlieden rapport gedaen wesende vant gealligeerde vande voors[ijde] maria !jderbe bijde Dekens vanden zelven Schilders Ambacht sij lieden qualijck v[er]dragen connende dese onwaerachtige ende v[er]metelijck positie die hun ook te zeer schandaluex is als streckende tot v[er]minderinge van hunne eere en[de] reputatie, overeen gedragen hebben haer daerinne te confonderen en[de] dien volgende v[er]claeren bij desen dat zij tevreden zijn elck besonder ende sonder assistentie van imant ter werelt te compareren ende hun te laeten vinden in sulcken camer ende plaetse alst de voors[ijde] heeren Schepenen sullen ordoneren en[de] aldaer om het constichste tegen de voors[ijde]

maria te wercken en[de] dat int maecken van alderhande !guren te weten groot ende cleijn zoo van hout als steen verre zij ook begeert te compareere dies wij ondersch[revenen] ons submitterren ten seggen van M[eeste]r[s] van ander Steden ompardijdich wesende in teeken van dien hebben wij onder [schrevenen] Dit altesamen ondeteekent desen 12. Januarij 1633. ondert[ekend] Francoijs van Loij, Rombaut verstappen, peeter de Cael Rombout Rigouts Lieven van Eegem, Baptiste van Loij, Francoijs Delva Maximilliaen Labe

Thus Maria Faydherbe, daughter of Antoon, in her request of 7 December 1632 to the aldermen of this city has very audaciously and boastfully claimed that she was such a good master of the art of sculpture that she did not need to feel inferior to the masters of the guild. In her letter of 20 December, she repeated her boastful remarks once again and pressed them home by claiming that she owed nothing to the guild and in this made them out to be a bunch of ‘dozijnwerckers’. For this reason, the signatory masters from the painters’ guild reported to the deans of the painters’ guild that they could not possibly allow this insult to pass without consequences. Being insulted in this way amounted to a scandal because it was a slight to their honour and reputation. They agreed to prove the contrary to her and consented in this request that each of them separately and without assistance from anyone who may appear and to sculpt various !gures the most artistically in competition with Maria Faydherbe, both large and small, and from wood as well as stone in a room and at a location to be speci!ed by the aldermen. She furthermore requires, that we - the undersigned - accept that masters from other cities will give their impartial judgements. We have signed this today on 12 January 1633. Francoijs van Loij, Rombaut verstappen, peeter de Cael, Rombout Rigouts, Lieven van Eegem, Baptiste van Loij, Francoijs Delva, Maximilliaen Labe

94 ENVY AND PRIDE

NOTES

* I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Katlijne Van der

Stighelen, Prof. Dr. Koen Brosens and Dra. Hannelore

Magnus for their critical remarks and useful suggestions. At

the symposium ‘Facts and Feelings’ (12 December 2012 KU

Leuven) I presented a paper about two women artists and

their relation to the guild in Mechelen (Maria Faydherbe)

and the Paris Académie (Margareta Haverman). This pre-

sent article only concerns Maria Faydherbe. For Margareta

Haverman see: Klara Alen, Margareta Haverman (Breda,1693-

Bayonne(?), na 1722): schilderend tussen passie en &ora, unpub-

lished dissertation, KU Leuven, 2010.

1. Giovanni Boccaccio, De claris mulieribus, edited and

translated by Virginia Brown from Italian to English,

Cambridge, 2001, p. 136.

2. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Département

des manuscrits, Français 599, Le Livre que !st Jehan Bocace, de

Certalde, des Cleres et nobles femmes, lequel il envoya à Andrée

des Alpes de Florence, contesse de Haulteville, 15th century, fol.

58r.

3. Marjan Sterckx, Sisyphus’ dochters: beeldhouwsters en

hun werk in de publieke ruimte (Parijs, Londen, Brussel, ca.

1770-1953), Verhandelingen van de Koninklijke Vlaamse

acade mie van België voor wetenschappen en kunsten, 25, 2

vols, Brussels, 2012; Marjan Sterckx, ‘« Dans la Sculpture,

moins de jupons que dans la Peinture ». Parcours de femmes

sculpteurs liées à la Belgique (ca. 1550-1950)’, ART &

FACT, 24 (2005), pp. 56-74. Sterckx mentions about

!fteen international women sculptors active before 1680 in

international lexica. It is said that three of them – Anna

de Coxie, Maria Faydherbe and Anna Barbara Faydherbe

– came from Mechelen, but this is based on literary

sources. Only the artistry of Maria Faydhere is proved by

documentary and material evidence. See Emmanuel Nee+s,

Histoire de la Peinture et de la Sculpture à Malines, Ghent, 1876,

vol. 2, p. 146. Other sculptresses were primarily active in

Italy and Spain. Sterckx’s research shows that in Belgium

women sculptors were involved in public sculpture only

after 1850, when they got access to the o;cial structures of

education, exhibitions and commissions.

4. In early modern times dilettantes practiced sculpturing

in clay and wax. See for example the two wax portrait busts

of Anna Maria van Schurman (1607-1678) from around

1630-40 (Franeker, Museum ‘t Coopmanshûs). Anna Maria

van Schurman also worked with ivory and boxwood. See

Katlijne Van der Stighelen, Anna Maria van Schurman of

Hoe hooge dat een maeght kan in de konsten stijgen, Symbolae

Facultatis Litteratum et Philosophiae Lovaniensis. Series B,

4, Leuven, 1987, pp. 140-158. For the use of soft materials

by women sculptors see Marjan Sterckx, ‘Pride and

Prejudice: Eighteenth-century Women Sculptors and their

Material Practices’, Women and Material Culture, 1660-1830,

Jennie Batchelor and Cora Kaplan (eds.), Palgrave, 2007, pp.

86-102. For the Antwerp guild of Saint Luke see Katlijne

Van der Stighelen and Filip Vermeylen, ‘The Antwerp

Guild of Saint Luke and the Marketing of Paintings, 1400-

1700’, Neil De Marchi and Hans J. Van Miegroet (eds.),

Mapping Markets for Paintings in Europe 1450-1750, Studies in

European Urban History (1100-1800), 6, Turnhout, 2006,

pp. 189-209.

5. It is assumed that Maria I Faydherbe died in 1643. See

Marjorie Trusted, ‘Maria Faydherbe: a seventeenth-century

sculptor in Mechelen’, The Burlington Magazine, 156, 1331

(February 2014), pp. 104-106. However, 1643 is the year in

which her niece, who shared the same name, died. Maria II

Faydherbe married Jan van Bergen on the 3th of April 1641

(Mechelen, Stadsarchief (hereafter SA), Parochieregisters Sint-

Rombouts huwelijken, 3 April 1641) and died on 9 July 1643

(Mechelen, SA, Parochieregisters Sint-Katelijne begrafenissen,

9 July 1643) probably due to complications of the birth of her

son Antoon a week earlier (Mechelen, SA, Parochieregisters

Sint-Katelijne dopen, 29 June 1643). Further documentary

evidence is found in an act of the Orphan Chamber of 10

January 1645 in which Maria II Faydherbe, wife of Jan van

Bergen is already deceased. See Mechelen, SA, Weeskamer,

53, fol. 24r.-25r. Therefore the year of death of Maria I

Faydherbe is unknown.

6. Heidi de Nijn, Hans Vlieghe and Hans Devisscher

(eds.), Lucas Faydherbe 1617-1697, Mechels beeldhouwer &

architect, exh.cat., Mechelen, Stedelijk Museum Hof van

Busleyden, Ghent, 1997.

7. Mechelen, SA, CC Uittreksels van het stadsarchief

en andere bronnen, SI, Chronologische Algemynen Aenwyser,

12 January 1633, Copy of the request of François van Loo,

Rombaut Verstappen, Peeter de Cael, Rombout Rigouts,

Lieven van Eegem, Baptiste van Loo, François Delva and

Maximilliaen Labbé to the aldermen of Mechelen. For a

transcription and translation see Appendix II.

8. About the importance of ego-documents in historical

research on women see Rudolf Michel Dekker, ‘Getting

to the Source, Women in the Medieval and Early Modern

Netherlands’, Journal of Women’s History, 10, 2 (1998),

pp. 165-188.

9. Adolph Vanderpoel, Notice sur la vie et les œuvres de

Lucas Fayd’herbe, sculpteur et architecte malinois, Mechelen,

1854, p. 10.

10. See Helena Bussers, Henri Pauwels, Robert Hoozee,

et.al., De beeldhouwkunst in de eeuw van Rubens in de Zuidelijke

Nederlanden en het prinsbisdom Luik, exh.cat., Brussels,

Museum voor Oude Kunst, Brussels, 1977, nr. 80, pp. 116-

117; De Nijn, Vlieghe and Devisscher 1997 (see note 6), p.

126, nr. 2; Katlijne Van der Stighelen and Miriam Westen

(eds.), Elck zijn waerom. Vrouwelijke kunstenaars in België

en Nederland 1500-1950, exh.cat., Antwerp, Koninklijk

Museum voor Schone Kunsten-Arnhem, Museum voor

Moderne Kunst, Bruges, 1999, p. 144: The sculpture was

last published in 1997 and 1999, when it was respectively in

the Belgian Van Nu+el-Desmedt collection and in a private

collection. The current whereabouts are unknown, see

Trusted 2014 (see note 5), pp. 104-106.

11. Georges van Doorslaer, ‘Une madone en buis signée

Maria Faydherbe’, Revue belge d’archéologie et d’histoire de l’art,

2, 1 (1932), pp. 1-9.

12. The numerous (more than twenty!) attributions

to Maria Faydhere are problematic. See amongst others

Van Doorslaer 1932 (see note 11); Georges van Doorslaer,

‘Sculptures en buis exécutées à Malines aux XVIIe siè-

cle’, Revue belge d’archéologie et d’histoire de l’art, 9, 4 (1939),

pp. 317-331; Theodor Müller, ‘Eine Gruppe vlämischer

Kleinskulpturen des 17. Jahrhunderts und ihre Konsonanzen’,

Festschrift für Herbert von Einem, Berlin, 1965, pp. 173-178;

95ENVY AND PRIDE

Jaak Jansen, ‘Het geschil van Maria Faydherbe in 1632-1633

of de spanning tussen renaissance- en barokbeeldhouw-

kunst te Mechelen’, Bulletin van het Koninklijk Instituut

voor het Kunstpatrimonium, 22 (1988/1989), pp. 78-103 and

Trusted 2014 (see note 5). For a recent bibliography about

Maria Faydherbe see Birgit Onzia, Maria Faydherbe (1587-

1643). Een kritische analyse van het leven en van het (schaarse)

werk van een vermetele beeldhouwster, unpublished master-

paper, KU Leuven, 2012. A rede!nition of the oeuvre of

Maria Faydherbe is only possible with thorough typologi-

cal, meticulous technological and accurate archival research

into seventeenth-century sculpture from Mechelen. The

actual research depends too much on older research of

authors as Georges Van Doorslaer and Emmanuel Nee+s.

They supplied us with creditable information, but never-

theless this literature contains many misconceptions and

inaccuracies. For this problem see François Van der Jeught,

‘Was Thomas Hazart (Mechelen, 1610) wel de ‘Meester

met de Davidster’?’, Handelingen van de Koninklijke Kring

voor Oudheidkunde, Letteren en Kunst van Mechelen (here after

HKKOLKM), 117 (2013), pp. 125-130. Thanks to new

archival research about 35 sculptures with the six-pointed

star which until recently were attributed to Thomas Hazart

must be reconsidered.

13. For this attribution see Trusted 2014 (see note 5).

Virgin and Child, alabaster, 40,5 cm (height). London,

Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. nr. A.31-2013.

14. The sculpture (17,1 cm (height)) is part of a Belgian

private collection and was recently published for the !rst

time in Trusted 2014 (see note 5), p. 105. I would like to

thank Frits Scholten for the pictures and information about

this sculpture.

15. The Cruci!x was sold at auction in Spain in May

2011.

16. Thanks to Wim Husken and Jeannine Van Roy for

their help.

17. François van Loo, Virgin and Child, 1638, polychrome

wood, 81 cm (height). Beveren (Kallo), the Church of

Saint Petrus and Saint Paulus. See De Nijn, Vlieghe and

Devisscher 1997 (see note 6), p. 128, nr. 5. However,

François van Loo (1581-1668) may not be considered his

entire career as a ‘dozijnwercker’. Also small-scale boxwood

sculptures in baroque style survived, see !g. 9: François van

Loo, Saint Petrus, 1625-1650, boxwood, 16 cm. (height).

Sotheby’s, New York, 29 January 2009, nr. 329.

18. About François van Loo see: De Nijn, Vlieghe and

Devisscher 1997 (see note 6), p. 128, nr. 5. François van

Loo has been identi!ed in a group portrait of the guild

of the Kolveniers from 1629-1630 ( Jan de Boilon/Bolion,

oil on canvas, 297 x 400 cm, Mechelen, Stedelijk Museum

Hof van Busleyden, inv. nr. S/56), see Beatrijs Wolters van

der Wey, Groepsvertoon. Publieke groepsportretten in Brabant

1585-1800: studie vanuit maatschappelijk, typologisch en

iconogra!sch oogpunt en kritische catalogus, 5 vols, unpublished

dissertation, KU Leuven, 2012, pp. 884-893; About

Rombaut Verstappen see Nee+s 1876 (see note 3), pp.

236-237; biographical information about Peter de Cael is

scarce. He is registered as ‘beltsnijder’ with Maarten van

Calster in 1614. See Mechelen, SA, Ambachten, Archief

van het schilders-, beeldhouwers- en verguldersambacht,

nr. 3, Inschrijvingsregister van leer jon gens in het schilders-,

beeldhouwers- en verguldersambacht (1550-1696) (eighteenth

century), fol. 33; Little is known about Rombout Rigouts.

As a ‘cleynsteker’ he had seven apprentices between 1611

and 1641. See Mechelen, SA, Ambachten, Archief van

het schilders-, beeldhouwers- en verguldersambacht,

nr. 3, Inschrijvingsregister van leerjongens in het schilders-,

beeldhouwers- en verguldersambacht (1550-1696) (eighteenth

century), fol. 4, 24, 42, 27, 29, 35. He worked with Lucas

Faydherbe see De Nijn, Vlieghe and Devisscher 1997 (see

note 6), p. 35 and 75; Lieven van Eegem became master

in 1602. He had at least nine apprentices between 1605

and 1634. See Mechelen, SA, Ambachten, Archief van het

schilders-, beeldhouwers- en verguldersambacht, nr. 3,

Inschrijvingsregister van leerjongens in het schilders-, beeldhouwers-

en verguldersambacht (1550-1696) (eighteenth century), fol.

3, 21, 24, 27, 28, 30, 33, 35; In 1603 Baptist van Loo is

registered as an apprentice with Maarten van Calster (c.

1574-1628). About Maarten van Calster see Jaak Jansen,

‘Maarten van Calster, beldesnyder tot Mechelen (ca. 1574-

1628)’, Koninklijk Instituut voor het Kunstpatrimonium Bulletin,

28 (1999/2000), pp. 97-122; François Delva/Delvaux/

Delval became master in 1619, see Nee+s 1876 (see note 3),

pp. 241-242; For a biography of Maximiliaen Labbé see De

Nijn, Vlieghe and Devisscher 1997 (see note 6), pp. 21-22.

19. Neil De Marchi and Hans J. Van Miegroet, ‘The

Antwerp-Mechelen Production and Export Complex’,

In his milieu, Essays on Netherlandish Art in Memory of John

Michael Montias, Amy Golahny, Mia Mochizuki and Lisa

Vergara (eds.), Amsterdam, 2006, pp. 136-137; Adolf

Monballieu, ‘Documenten van het Mechelse schilders-

en beeldsnijdersambacht, II. Het rekwest van 1562 of

het probleem van de 51 of 150 ateliers’, HKKOLKM, 74

(1970), p. 74 citing Marcus van Vaernewijck, Den Spiegel der

nederlantscher oudheyt, Ghent, 1568, fol. 135v-136r.

20. Mechelen, SA, DD Geschiedkundige- en oudheid-kundige wereldlijke bijdragen (Notices), SI, nr. 32,

Collection of transcripts and contemporary documents

about the guild of artists, including an alphabetical list of

masters and apprentices, fol. 25r. For the committee of the

guild see Hyacinth Coninckx, ‘Le livre des apprentis de

la Corporation des Peintres et des Sculpteurs à Malines’,

HKKOLKM, 13 (1903), p. 166. Lucas Franchoys’ sister

Cornelia married Maria Faydherbe’s brother Hendrik: see

Mechelen, SA, Parochieregisters Sint-Jan huwelijken, 17 January

1615. For the Franchoys family see Emmanuel Nee+s,

Histoire de la Peinture et de la Sculpture à Malines, Ghent, 1876,

vol. 1, pp. 339, for Ambrosius Verschuren, Jan van Recht

and Gregorius Beerinckx see Nee+s 1876, pp. 196-197, p.

441, p. 443.

21. Brussels, Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België,

Handschriften, II, 1284, Originele notitieboexken van schult en

weder-schult van Hendrick Faydherbe.

22. Victor Hermans, Inventaire des archives de la ville de

Malines, vol. 8, Mechelen, 1894, pp. 225-226; Mechelen,

SA, CC Uittreksels van het stadsarchief en andere bronnen,

SI, Chronologische Algemynen Aenwyser, 12 januari 1633, Copy

of the request of François van Loo, Rombaut Verstappen,

Peeter de Cael, Rombout Rigouts, Lieven van Eegem,

Baptiste van Loo, François Delva and Maximilliaen Labbé

to the aldermen of Mechelen.

23. For the archive of the guild of the painters, sculptors

and gilders see the inventory of Johan Dambruyne: Johan

Dambruyne, Verzamelinventaris van de nog niet geherinventa-

riseerde archieven van de Mechelse ambachten (tweede helft 13de

eeuw-einde 18de eeuw), Studia et Documenta Mechliniensia,

96 ENVY AND PRIDE

9, Koninklijke Kring voor Oudheidkunde, Letteren en

Kunst van Mechelen, 2006, Mechelen, pp. 43, 140-141.

24. Charles du Trieu de Terdonck, ‘Lucas Fayd’herbe’,

De Vlaemsche School, Tijdschrift voor Kunsten, Letteren,

Wetenschappen en Nyverheid, 5 (1859), p. 183.

25. Charles du Trieu de Terdonck, Notice sur la vie et les

ouvrages de Lucas Fayd’herbe, Mechelen, 1858, pp. 21-22,

35-36.

26. ‘Une des !lles de Fayd’herbe, nommée Marie-Anne,

s’occupait également de sculpture; elle prétendit même être

admise dans la corporation des peintres et des sculpteurs,

mais les doyens refusèrent de l’admettre. A ce sujet elle

soutint un procès contre eux’. Vanderpoel 1854 (see note

9), p. 10.

27. Du Trieu de Terdonck 1858 (see note 25), p. 21; Du

Trieu de Terdonck 1859 (see note 24), p. 183.

28. ‘Zij ging zoo ver dat zij hun eene uitdaging

toezond, om tegen haer een kunstkamp aen te zetten […].

Ook verclaerden de tien beeldhouwers dat zy dit beroep

aennamen […] om tegen Maria Faydherbe den wedstrijd

te onderstaen’. Du Trieu de Terdonck 1859 (see note 24),

p.183.

29. Van Doorslaer 1932 (see note 11), pp. 1-9.

30. ‘Nous ne possédons aucun détail ni sur sa vie, ni sur

son talent, ni sur ses œuvres’. Nee+s 1876 (see note 3), p.

157.

31. ‘Ce l’est d’autant moins, que les sculpteurs

protestataires de 1633 o+rirent d’entrer en lice avec Maria

Faydherbe, tant pour la taille sur pierre, que pour la taille

sur bois, lui reconnaissant ainsi le talent de manier son

ciseau sur l’une comme sur l’autre matière.’ Van Doorslaer

1932 (see note 11), pp. 7.

32. Lodewijk Brouwers, De Jezuïeten te Mechelen in de 17e

en 18e eeuw en hun Xaveriuskerk, de huidige parochiekerk S.S.

Petrus en Paulus, Kortrijk, 1977, p. 38.

33. ‘Sous la direction de ses deux frères elle a pu acquérir

un talent réel, tout en éludant l’inscription, statutaire de

la corporation, en qualité d’élève dans l’atelier de quelque

maître quali!é. Mais les doyens de celle-ci trouvèrent dans

ce subterfuge un motif de refus lorsque, poussée par une

raison quelconque à prendre rang parmi les maîtres attitrés,

elle sollicita leur consentement. Dispense des obligations

réglementaires lui étant refusée par les doyens, Maria

Faydherbe eut recours ensuite au collège des échevins, ou

également, elle échoua’. Van Doorslaer 1932 (see note 11),

p. 5.

34. Jansen 1988/1989 (see note 12), p. 101.

35. ‘Het ware meer aannemelijk dat Maria Faydherbe

er zich bij het stadsbestuur over bekloeg dat sommige

meesters te gemakkelijk met opdrachten vanwege de stad

werden bedacht terwijl zij zelf in de kou bleef staan.’ Jansen

1988/1989 (see note 12), p. 101.

36. Jansen 1988/1989 (see note 12), p. 101.

37. Other boxwood apostles of François van Loo are in

various museum collections, including the Victoria and

Albert Museum in London (inv. nr A.15-1932 and inv. nr.

A.16-1932) and the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest (inv.

nr. 5225).

38. Georges van Doorslaer, ‘Beeldsnijderij in palmhout’,

Mechlinia, 1 (1922), pp. 47-48.

39. Jansen emphasises this idea more strongly in a later

publication, in which he assumed the following: ‘Zij

beweerde een even goed meester te zijn als de leden van

het ambacht en verklaarde zich in gespierde taal bereid om

haar gelijk te bewijzen in een wedstrijd voor beeldhouwen

in het groot en klein, in hout en steen.’ See Jaak Jansen,

‘Voorlopers van Lucas Faydherbe’ in De Nijn, Vlieghe and

Devisscher 1997 (see note 6), pp. 20-21.

40. No other author took his statement as such. Hans

Vlieghe wrote ‘het is goed mogelijk dat de beeldhouwster

zich, bij de confrontatie met haar Mechelse vakgenoten,

zeer bewust was van het feit dat haar italianiserende stijl, in

vergelijking met de traditionele vormgeving van de meeste

producten van de Mechelse beeldhouwkunst, blijk gaf van

zin voor innovatie’. Hans Vlieghe, ‘Maria Faydherbe’ in

Van der Stighelen and Westen 1999 (see note 10), p. 144.

Marjan Sterckx sees the di+erence in style as an interesting

testimony of the artistic skills of women artists, who are

usually associated with conventional art. Sterckx 2005 (see

note 3), p. 58.

41. Among the most important publications: Nee+s

1876 (see note 3), p. 155: ‘Convaincue de la valeur de

son talent, cette !lle voulut partager les avantages de la

corporation de Saint-Luc, et à cet e+et elle adressa une

requête aux autorités communales le 20 décembre 1632.

[…] huit sculpteurs répondirent le 12 janvier 1633 à sa

demande, et s’o+rirent à entrer en avec la jeune !lle. Marie

Faydherbe, naquit à Mechelen le 22 janvier 1611. Nous ne

possédons aucun détail ni sur sa vie, ni sur son talent, ni sur

ses œuvres.’; Edmont Marchal, La sculpture et les chefs-d’œuvre

de l’orfèvrerie belge, Brussels, 1895, pp. 534-535: ‘Marie

Faydherbe née le 22 janvier 1611. Elle est principalement

connue par la requête qu’elle adressa, le 20 décembre 1632

au magistrat de Malines, pour obtenir, par un concours,

d’entrer dans la corporation de Saint-Luc.’; Ulrich Thieme

and Felix Becker, ‘Faydherbe, Maria’, Allgemeines Lexikon

der Bildenden Künstler, 11, Leipzig, 1915, p. 319; Müller 1965

(see note 12); Brouwers 1977 (see note 32), p. 38: ‘Maria

Faydherbe […] maakte aanspraak op lidmaatschap van het

gilde der schilders en beeldhouwers van Mechelen, maar

het werd haar geweigerd.’; Sterckx 2005 (see note 3), pp.

57-58. Sterckx considers both assumptions (the exclusion

from the guild and the di+erences in style). About the

exclusion she wrote: ‘Même si la question du sexe n’est pas

évoquée dans les archives susmentionnées, il est tout à fait

imaginable que la corporation ait refusé Maria Faydherbe

parce qu’elle était une femme.’; Anne Rivière wrote ‘Ses

demandes à être admise à la Guilde de Saint-Luc furent

repoussées tout au long de sa vie et un document d’archives

de la Ville de Malines nous montre toutes les di;cultés

qu’elle rencontra.’ See Anne Rivière, Sculpture’Elles.

Les sculpteurs femmes du XVIIIe siècle à nos jours, exh.cat.,

Boulogne-Billancourt, M-A30/Musée des Années Trente,

Paris, 2011, pp. 11-14.

42. For the ‘Rolle’ or the ordinances of the guild see

Mechelen, SA, Ambachten, Archief van het schilders-,

beeldhouwers- en verguldersambacht, nr. 2, Ambachts-

reglement van het schilders-, beeldhouwers- en verguldersambacht

uitgevaardigd door het stadsbestuur van Mechelen (1564). De

‘Rolle’ was published by Adolf Monballieu, ‘Documenten

van het Mechelse schilders- en beeldsnijdersambacht, I. De

Rolle van 1564’, HKKOLKM, 73 (1969), pp. 89-106. For the

list of apprentices see Mechelen, SA, Ambachten, Archief

van het schilders-, beeldhouwers- en vergulders ambacht,

97ENVY AND PRIDE

nr. 3, Inschrijvingsregister van leerjongens in het schilders-, beeld-

houwers- en verguldersambacht (1550-1696) (eighteenth cen-

tury). Published by Coninckx 1903 (see note 20). For the

extracts from the registration list of masters see Mechelen,

SA, DD Geschiedkundige- en oudheidkundige wereldlijke

bijdragen (Notices), SI, nr. 32, Collection of transcripts and

contemporary documents about the guild of artists, includ-

ing an alphabetical list of masters and apprentices.

43. Article 13:‘Item dat elck meysken die voertaen

tschilders ambacht sal willen leeren, te weten om parketten

te maken oft op papier te verven, geven zal totten

dienste van Sint-Lucas achthien groote, ende den voerss.

ghesworenen oick achthien groote brab.’ Mechelen, SA,

Ambachten, Archief van het schilders-, beeldhouwers-

en verguldersambacht, nr. 2, Ambachtsreglement van het

schilders-, beeldhouwers- en verguldersambacht uitgevaardigd door

het stadsbestuur van Mechelen (1564). See Monballieu 1969

(see note 42), p. 95.

44. In 1690 Huygens wrote in his diary ‘De vloeren

waeren een groot gedeelte geparqueteert’. Woordenboek

der Nederlandsche Taal (WNT), http://gtb.inl.nl/iWDB/

search?actie=article_content&wdb=WNT&id=M052356,

[3 March 2014].

45. Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal (WNT),

http://gtb.inl.nl/iWDB/search?actie=article&wdb=WNT

&id=M054194&lemma=plaket, [3 March 2014].

46. In seventeenth century Antwerp dozens of

‘verluchtsters’ or ‘afzetsters’ were listed. See Katlijne Van

der Stighelen, “Ravissant of astrant, feminien of ‘onvraulic’?

Vrouwelijke kunstenaars in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden

tussen 1500-1800’ in Van der Stighelen and Westen 1999

(see note 10), p. 30.

47. Article 24: ‘Item dat de vry meesters van den voirss.

ambachte gheenen van henne cnapen oft maerten en sal

moegen buyten henne huysen oft winckele te wercken

geven eenich werck van schilderen beelden ende metselryen

te snydene oft andere den ambachte aengaende in eenigher

manieren op te pene van sesse schellingen groote by den

Meester ende van dry schellingen gr. brab. bij den cnape

oft maerte te verbueren telcker reysen en de in dryen oeck

als voer te bekeeren.’ Mechelen, SA, Ambachten, Archief

van het schilders-, beeldhouwers- en verguldersambacht,

nr. 2, Ambachtsreglement van het schilders-, beeldhouwers- en

verguldersambacht uitgevaardigd door het stadsbestuur van Mechelen

(1564). See Monballieu 1969 (see note 42), p. 99.

48. See Mechelen, SA, DD Geschiedkundige- en

oudheidkundige wereldlijke bijdragen (Notices), SI, nr.

32, Collection of transcripts and contemporary documents


masters and apprentices.

49. The documents were compiled by Jan Baptist

Rymenans (1748-1840). See Adolf Monballieu, ‘P.

Breughel en het altaar van de Mechelse Handschoenmakers

(1551)’, HKKOLKM, 68 (1964), pp. 92-93. Monballieu

claims correctly that the year recorded in the list must be

interpreted as the year of registration as a master.

50. Mechelen, SA, DD Geschiedkundige- en oud-

heid kundige wereldlijke bijdragen (Notices), SI, nr. 32,



masters and apprentices, fol. 8v.


heidkundige wereldlijke bijdragen (Notices), SI, nr. 32,



masters and apprentices, fol. 16 (‘Vrou van Oost’ in 1581),

fol. 28 (the widow of Claes de Vleesschouwer in 1557 and

the widow of Claas van Muysene in 1513), fol. 29 (the

widow Vleminx (before 1529) and the widow Tserden (date

unknown)).

52. Van der Stighelen 1999 (see note 46), p. 28 citing J.M

Bennett and A.M. Froide, Singlewoman in the European Past

1250-1800, Philadelphia, 1999, pp. 38-126.

53. See the examples in Tim de Doncker, ‘De Gentse

Sint-Lucasgilde: kunstenaars in de periode 1574-1773: een

prosopogra!sche benadering’, Handelingen der Maatschappij

voor Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde te Gent, 61 (2007), p. 226;

Lynn F. Jacobs and Els Kloek, ‘Guilds and the Open

Market. The Example of the Netherlands’, Delia Gaze (ed.),

Dictionary of Women Artists, London, 1997, vol. 1, p. 33.

54. Leen Kelchtermans, ‘Portret van een zeventiende-

eeuwse schildersvrouw: Anna Schut, huisvrouw en weduwe

van Peter Snayers’, Oud Holland, 126, 4 (2013), pp. 178-197.

55. This is a note about the year 1632. Other years

were not included in the manuscript. Mechelen, SA,

DD Geschiedkundige- en oudheidkundige wereldlijke

bijdragen (Notices), SI, nr. 32, Collection of transcripts

and contemporary documents about the guild of artists,

including an alphabetical list of masters and apprentices, fol.

25r.


heidkundige wereldlijke bijdragen (Notices), SI, nr. 32,



masters and apprentices, fol. 2v.

57. Coninckx 1903 (see note 20), p. 189.

58. Mechelen, SA, Parochieregisters Sint-Rombouts huwe lij-

ken, 13 January 1606; Mechelen, SA, Parochieregisters Sint-Jan

begrafenissen, 5 September 1654.

59. Mechelen, SA, Parochieregisters Sint-Katelijne dopen,

12 September 1578; Mechelen, SA, Parochieregisters Sint-

Rombouts huwelijken, 15 August 1573. Antoon Faydherbe

contracted a second marriage with Willemijn Wellens on

12 February 1602. Mechelen, SA, Parochieregisters Onze-

Lieve-Vrouw huwelijken, 12 February 1602.

60. Mechelen, SA, Ambachten, Archief van het



en verguldersambacht (1550-1696) (eighteenth century), fol. 1.

About Frans Hogenberg see Nee+s 1876 (see note 20), pp.

218-219.

61. Van der Stighelen 1999 (see note 46), p. 30. Katlijne

Van der Stighelen systematically examined the list of

members of the guilds of Saint Luke in Antwerp, Bruges

and Brussels.

62. Jacobs and Kloek 1997 (see note 53), p. 33.

63. Hendrik became a master on 17 July 1599. Mechelen,

SA, Ambachten, Archief van het schilders-, beeldhouwers-

en verguldersambacht, nr. 3, Inschrijvingsregister van leerjongens

in het schilders-, beeldhouwers- en verguldersambacht (1550-1696)

(eighteenth century), fol. 38.

98 ENVY AND PRIDE

64. Adolf Monballieu, ‘Documenten van het Mechelse

schilders- en beeldsnijdersambacht, III. Het proces

van de sto+eerders tegen de beeldsnijders (1608-1611)’,

HKKOLKM, 74 (1970), p. 159. He is probably back in

Mechelen in December 1615 when his oldest daughter

Elisabeth was born. See Mechelen, SA, Parochieregisters Sint-

Rombouts dopen, 22 December 1615.

65. Antoon Vermeulen (1599), Geeraert Vermeulen

(1616), Jaak Lauwers (1620) and Richard van Orley

(1625). Mechelen, SA, Ambachten, Archief van het



en verguldersambacht (1550-1696) (eighteenth century): fol.

3, 17, 24 en 35. Nee+s mentions two more apprentices:

Jan Ceulemans (1619) and Antoon de Helt (1623). Nee+s

1876 (see note 3), pp. 151-152. For the poetry of Hendrik

Faydherbe see Jan Thierullier, De schadt-kiste der philosophen

ende poeten waer inne te vinden syn veel schoone leerlycke

blasoenen, refereynen ende liedekens gebracht ende gesonden op de

Peoen-camere binnen Mechelen geprononciert ende gesonghen op

den 3. mey vanden jaere 1620, Mechelen, 1621, p. 213.

66. Brussels, Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België, Hand-

schriften, II, 1284, Originele notitieboexken van schult en weder-

schult van Hendrick Faydherbe.



schult van Hendrick Faydherbe, fol. 6r.









schult van Hendrick Faydherbe, fol. 9v.



schult van Hendrick Faydherbe, fol. 15v.

72. Antoon joins the guild on the 1st of October

1598 as an apprentice of Philips Kerael. Mechelen, SA,

Ambachten, Archief van het schilders-, beeldhouwers- en

verguldersambacht, nr. 3, Inschrijvingsregister van leerjongens


(eighteenthcentury), fol. 3.

73. Antoon is recorded as a master in 1605. Mechelen,

SA, Ambachten, Archief van het schilders-, beeldhouwers-

en verguldersambacht, nr. 3, Inschrijvingsregister van leerjongens


(eighteenth century), fol. 38. He managed more than !fteen

apprentices, see Mechelen, SA, Ambachten, Archief van

het schilders-, beeldhouwers- en verguldersambacht, nr. 3,


en verguldersambacht (1550-1696) (eighteenth century), fols. 7,

8, 13, 23, 24, 25, 30, 33, 34, 35, 37.

74. Jansen wrote that the reconstruction of Antoon’s

oeuvre is possible based on notes Antoon made in a copy of

the ‘Schilderboeck’ of Carel van Mander, see Jansen 1997

(see note 39), pp. 20-21. Jansen referred to the publication

of Nee+s 1876 (see note 3), pp. 151, 154-155, where the

book of Carel van Mander is not mentioned in connection

to Antoon, but François van Loo. See Nee+s 1876 (see

note 3), pp. 243-244: ‘M. Willequet possède un exemplaire

du Schilderboeck de van Mander, volume qui fut jadis la

propriété de notre artiste, et sur lequel celui-ci consigna

des annotations qui nous guiderons dans la rédaction de

cette notice. D’abord on lit sur le livre: ‘Desen boeck hoort

toe Franssoes van Loi, beeltsneider, 1612’.’ The current

whereabouts of the book are unkown.

75. Monballieu 1970 (see note 64), p. 162: ‘[…] Merten

van Calstere ende Faydherbe (Anthonis), wiens conste sulcx

is dat Hunne Hoogheden, onse genadighe Princen, hun

daegelyckx stukken doen maeken om die te senden aen

de Majesteit van Spanien ende elders, soo mede doen de

principaelste Heren hier te lande, waer door dese stadt meer

en meer vermaerdt word […].’




77. Both women of painters (Anna Schut in the business

of the painter Peter Snayers, see Kelchtermans 2013 (see

note 54), pp. 178-197) and tapestry dealers (Isabella Maria

de Cocqueel in the business of Nicolaes Naulaerts, see

Klara Alen, Zooming in and out on Nicolaes Naulaerts (1654-

1703). The complexities of archival research on late 17th century

Antwerp tapestry [working title], Koen Brosens (ed.), ‘Woven

paintings’? Flemish and French Tapestry 1660-1770,

Leuven, forthcoming) were involved in the business of their

husbands.



schult van Hendrick Faydherbe. Payments were received by

Cornelia Franchoys, wife of Hendrik (e.g. fols. 18r., 18v.,

20v., 23v. and 25v.) and made by the wife of Abraham van

Avont (e.g. fol. 16r.)




80. Mechelen, SA, Parochieregisters Sint-Katelijne dopen, 1

March 1607 (daughter of Antoon Faydherbe and Charlotte

van den Castele) and Parochieregisters Sint-Rombouts dopen,

23 February 1625 (daughter of Hendrik Faydherbe and

Cornelia Franchoys); About Maarten van Calster see Jansen

1999/2000 (see note 18), pp. 97-122.

81. See note 20.

82. Nee+s 1876 (see note 20), pp. 339-43.

83. Max Rooses, Correspondance de Rubens et documents

épistolaires publiés, traduits, annotés, 6, Antwerp, 1909,

pp. 281-282. Leen Huet published a modern Dutch

transcription of the letters. See Leen Huet, De Brieven van

Rubens. Een bloemlezing uit de correspondentie van Pieter Paul

Rubens, Antwerp, 2006, p. 365.

84. De Marchi and Van Miegroet 2006 (see note 19),

p. 139.

85. Nee+s 1876 (see note 3), p. 149.

86. See Krista De Jonge, Annemie De Vos, Linda van

Langendonck, et.al., ‘Lucas Faydherbe als architect’ in

De Nijn, Vlieghe and Devisscher 1997 (see note 6), p. 72

(with references to the registers of the aldermen and the

districtbooks).

99ENVY AND PRIDE

87. Nee+s 1876 (see note 3), p. 107.

88. Sterckx 2007 (see note 4).

89. Mechelen, SA, Parochieregisters Sint-Rombouts huwelij-

ken, 7 January 1631.

90. Already a century earlier the thirty-six-year old

Prosperzia de’ Rossi was appointed a sculptress by the

Fabbrica di San Petronio in Bologna. In 1525 Tribolo en

Alfonso Lombardi were paid for ‘models made by Porpertia’.

A few months later they received 40 lire for ‘carvings of two

sibyls, at least two angels and a quadro’. Frederika H. Jacobs,

‘Rossi, Properzia de’, Dictionary of Women Artists, Delia Gaze

(ed.), London, 1997, vol. 2, pp. 1199-1201.

91. Krista De Jonge, ‘De voornaamste residenties in

Mechelen. Het Hof van Kamerijk en het Hof van Savoyen’,

Dames met klasse: Margareta van York, Margareta van Oostenrijk,

Bleyerveld, Yvonne and Eichberger, Dagmar (eds.), exh.

cat., Mechelen, Lamot, Leuven, 2005, pp. 57-66.

92. Antwerp, Rijksarchief, T14/034, Nederduitse Pro-

vincie der Jezuïeten, nr. 25, Historia Domus probationes

provinciae Flandro-Belgicae Mechlinie, 1611-1695, fol. 19v: ‘Sed

praecipuum Mariani sacelli ornamentum ipsa Maria. Statua

videlicet ex candidissimo marmore mediocrem hominis

staturam fere magnitudine adaequans. Parvulus substernenti

se cherubino pedibus insistens ac Virginis ulnis adnixus,

vultu hilari et ad risum composito Matrem aspicit sui vicissim

contemplatione de!xam. Omnia corporis lineamenta, crinis,

ungues, venae ipsae tam nativis scalpri expressa ductibus, ut

nihil praeter vitam videatur deesse. Nec externae opis aut

adscitui coloris ad conciliandam sibi pulchritudinem indiga

est: ipsa sibi pulchritudo, ipsa color, ipsa ornamentum, ipsa

vestis, ipsa omnia. Hoc ipsi inprimis cum ipsa diva commune

quod intuentium animis purissimum quemdam castimoniae

et pietatis amorem videatur a�are.’ I would like to thank

Dr. Jeannine De Landtsheer (KU Leuven) for the translation

from Latin to Dutch.

93. After the dissolution of the Jesuit order in 1778, the

Xaverius Church was named the Church of Saint Peter and

Saint Paul. Hadewyck Hammenecker, De bouwgeschiedenis

van de Sint-Pieter-en-Pauluskerk te Mechelen, unpublished

dissertation, KU Leuven, 1976, p. 23. Traditionally the altar

is attributed to Lucas Faydherbe, but this attribution must

be reconsidered. See Sandra van Riet, De Barokke altaren van

Lucas Faydherbe en zijn beeldhouwwerk in de Mechelse kerken.

Een kritische synthese aangevuld met nieuwe documenten en stijl-

onderzoek, unpublished dissertation, KU Leuven, 1993, p.79.

94. Van Doorslaer 1932 (see note 11), pp. 6-7.

Envy and pride: Maria Faydherbe (Mechelen, 1587-after 1633), a woman sculptor in a man’s world....

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