RKD STUDIES

As early as 1842, Jan Hendrik’s father had suggested his eldest son, Johan Philip Koelman (1818-1893), might also travel to Rome. Two years later, ‘Flip’ settled in the Eternal City, not to return to the Netherlands until 1857, when he embarked on a career as a teacher and director of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague, and designer of a number of prominent national monuments [22].

During that later period, Philip Koelman published extensive memoirs about his stay in Rome, reportedly based on earlier diary entries. The memoirs appeared between 1863 and 1865 as a serial in the magazine De Nederlandsche Spectator, and in 1869 in book form, under the title In Rome 1846-1851.¹ Apart from being an artist’s book, In Rome was primarily a political document, intended as an expression of support for the Italian unification movement and as an indictment of the secular power of the Pope, who at the time of publication still ruled over Rome and its surroundings, thereby hindering the completion of the young Kingdom of Italy.

Jan Hendrik Koelman plays only a minor role in his brother’s memoirs. This may have had to do with the fact that the brothers had fallen out, possibly out of ‘professional jealousy’, to such an extent that Philip did not attend the wedding of Jan Hendrik and Enrichetta. Nevertheless, the memoirs are interesting, particularly because they reveal something about Jan Hendrik Koelman’s political sympathies during the turbulent triennio of 1846-1849 [23].

Philip Koelman gives the impression that his brother, at first, reluctantly joined the Roman civic guard, established on 5 July 1847, a year after the accession of Pope Pius IX, who initially presented himself as a reformer.²

‘Thus, all Roman citizens, including those who had become so through marriage to a Roman woman, had to bear arms.’ […] ‘I, for my part, had little desire to become a papal soldier’ […] ‘but my brother Jan, who was married, was called up and had to obey.’³

However, Jan Hendriks’ reluctance to serve soon gave way to conviction, as the civic guard turned out to act as a catalyst for Italian national patriotism. Ultimately, this militia even became a republican body, after Pius IX had fled the city and the Roman Republic was proclaimed on 9 February 1849. From that moment on, the civic guard was deployed to defend Rome against an international catholic coalition army, sent to Rome to restore the Pope to his throne. Philip Koelman describes how he repeatedly visited his brother in his corps de garde. When the republic finally fell, the brothers, along with many other artists, took part in the silent protest against the entry of the French occupying forces that had besieged Rome.⁴

In his brother’s memoirs, there is no doubt about Jan Hendrik’s Italian patriotic and republican sympathies. Can any of his artworks perhaps confirm this attitude? That question is not easy to answer. While a mid-nineteenth-century audience was certainly susceptible to the socio-political connotations of genre paintings, the same cannot be said of the modern observer.⁵

In at least one of Koelmans artworks, however, the political message is clearly evident: a watercolour of a Young Man in Italian Tricolour [24]. In addition to the frequently used motif of the tricolour, openly used in Rome during the ‘liberal phase’ of Pius’ pontificate, we also see the symbol of the cappello alla calabrese, the Calabrian or ‘banditesque’ hat.⁶ This was considered a libertine and revolutionary symbol and was seen as a much more explicit political statement.⁷ The same ‘bandit’s hat’ can also be found on a number of works by the older Koelman.

22
Portrait of Johan Philip Koelman, ca. 1855-1860,
photograph, 9,4 × 5,5 cm, nr. 37 from Fotoalbum Schroot,
RKD – Netherlands Institute for Art History, The Hague, RKD Images IB 180080

23
Johan Philip Koelman,
Portrait of Johan Hendrik Koelman, brother of the artist, 1850,
oil on canvas, 33 × 26 cm,
Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, inv. no. C 823, photo Margareta Svensson

24
Johan Hendrik Koelman,
Young man in Italian tricolore, n.d.
aquarel, size unknown,
private collection, photo courtesy, previously De Heeren van Bronckhorst, Bronkhorst