4.1 Introduction
Recent research has shown both how Rome deserves to be studied as a place of international exchanges,1 and how artists’ correspondences are a meaningful source for studying the crucial role the Eternal City played in these artistic networks.2 In this vein, this essay represents a modest attempt to review, in a more international frame, the research its author undertook many years ago.3 The following is mainly based on sources that were not accessible at the time, complemented by some more general reflections. What is proposed here is nothing definitive. Rather, a few questions will be raised that merit further investigation.4
In December 1828, the Swiss painter Léopold Robert (1794-1835), in Rome at the time, wrote to his Belgian friend François-Joseph Navez (1787-1869) [1], with whom he had been in Rome but who was then back in Brussels:
‘As far as the arts are concerned here, I must tell you that things have changed. Every year the number of artists from all nations increases here, and the amateurs, who come in infinitely smaller numbers now, bring ideas of patriotism which prevent them, for the most part, from visiting even the studios of artists of reputation who are not their compatriots’.5
Léopold Robert’s contemporary Stendhal, pen name of Marie-Henri Beyle (1783-1842), with regard to French artists, asserted in his Promenades dans Rome (1829) that ‘the young artists established in Rome [...] form an oasis perfectly isolated from Italian society’.6
Robert compared the situation in 1828 with the one he had shared ten years before with Navez, who had stayed in Rome from late 1817 to late 1821. Was Robert’s impression of increasing national isolation among Rome’s artistic community confirmed some 15 years later, when his namesake, the Belgian painter Alexandre Robert (1817-1890) arrived in the Eternal City? There is a connection between both moments in time that can be helpful to answer this question; the linking pin here is François-Joseph Navez. Alexandre Robert travelled with his friend Jean François Portaels (1818-1895). Their friendship dated back to when they were both students of Navez in Brussels.
The Roman experience of Alexandre Robert and Jean Portaels will be the starting point of this discussion. It will be examined with whom they met and established more or less close relationships, and what influence this had, both on their work and activities in Rome and on the development of their careers later on. From the perspective of these two painters, the focus will be extended to other artists then present in Rome. This short text will deal exclusively with male artists. There were also Belgian women artists present in Italy in the 19th century,7 but they are much more difficult to trace and were seldom part of the male-dominated social networks this article is concerned with.
Portaels and Robert, each around 25 years of age, left Belgium in June 1843. They travelled together through Germany, Switzerland and Italy (stopping in Florence) and arrived in Rome on 8 August 1843. Portaels had been awarded the Prix de Rome in 1842. This prestigious award had been established in the Low Countries in 1815, following the French example. The winners received a scholarship allowing them to pursue their studies of art by travelling, mainly to Italy, and specifically to Rome.8 Portaels’ stay in Rome was interrupted only by a longer trip to Venice [2], Ravenna and Florence from May to October 1844. In June 1845, he left the Eternal City for Southern Italy, from where he in turn embarked to the Middle East. He came back to Rome afterwards and stayed there again until the late spring of 1847, before finally returning to Belgium.9 Portaels then went on to become one of Belgium’s most successful 19th-century painters.10
Alexandre Robert did not benefit from a Belgian state scholarship. Instead, he was supported by his family’s money and probably by a patron, marquis Charles de Trazegnies d'Ittre (1804-1865). He stayed in Rome (with some interruptions, travelling to Venice and to Belgium) until August 1848. Robert had an established but less brilliant career than his friend Jean Portaels.11 In Rome, both artists studied the great tradition of classical history painting and worked on some religious and historical paintings themselves as well [3]. Furthermore, they drew and painted portraits and scenes with Italians in traditional dress [4-5]. In addition to this classical production, they also worked on the (Roman) countryside, sketching landscapes and monuments.
1
François Joseph Navez
Self-portrait, 1823 to be dated
London (England), art dealer Trafalgar Galleries
2
Jean François Portaels after Paolo Veronese
Juno Showering Gifts on Venice
Brussels, Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België
3
Alexandre Nestor Nicolas Robert
The Holy Women, dated 1846
Brussels, Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België, inv./cat.nr. 1178
4
Alexandre Robert,
Italian woman holding a rifle, ca. 1848-1849,
pencil and watercolor on paper, 308 x 226 mm,
property of the French Community of Belgium,
inv. no. APC 1042/76
5
Jean Portaels,
Shepherd leaning on his stick, with Italian landscape in the background, dated Rome 1844,
pen and brown ink, watercolors, graphite on paper, 285 x 216 mm,
KBR Royal Library of Belgium, Print Cabinet, inv. no. F41516
Notes
1 I warmly thank Emma Teworte for her excellent English proofreading of my text.
2 Capitelli 2022.
3 Dupont 2005.
4 For instance, the inedited correspondence of the Belgian Prix de Rome painter Jean François Portaels. I would like here to thank Antoinette De Laet, who owns and studies this correspondence, for granting me access to the letters sent by and to Portaels from Italy (Portaels’ correspondence).
5 ’À l'égard des arts, ici, il faut te dire que cela a bien changé. Toutes les années les artistes de chaque nation augmentent ici, et les amateurs, qui viennent en infiniment plus petit nombre à présent, apportent des idées de patriotisme qui les empêchent, en grande partie, de visiter même les ateliers des artistes de réputation qui ne sont pas leurs compatriotes’. Letter from Léopold Robert to François-Joseph Navez, Rome, December 1828, quoted in Coekelberghs/Jacobs et al. 1999, p. 94.
6 ‘Les jeunes artistes établis à Rome […] forment une oasis parfaitement isolée de la société italienne’, quoted in Esnault 2018, p. 157.
7 Dupont 2005, p. 222-225.
8 For an introduction to the Belgian Prix de Rome: Dupont 2005, p. 55-82.
9 Chronology of Portaels’ Italian stay on the basis of the artist’s correspondence. On Portaels’ presence in Italy: Dupont forthcoming.
10 Depelchin/Rossi-Schrimpf 2015.
11 Hymans 1895.