Natalia Makhnovskaya
Chelyabinsk State Museum of Fine Arts, Russia
Battle Scene (oil on canvas, 43 × 58 cm) became an addition to the collection of Chelyabinsk State Museum of Fine Arts arriving from the State History Museum in 1960 as a painting of an unknown western school artist of the 18th century. Earlier the painting was kept in the collection of countess Chernysheva-Bezobrazova in Yaropolets estate. Later I. V. Linnik (verbally) attributed the painting to the Flemish school of the 17th century. These were the only known details about the painting until recently.
In the course of the research, we managed to find an image of a painting by Jan van Huchtenburgh (1647–1733) entitled The Battle at Ramillies between the French and the Allied Powers, 23 May 1706 dated 1706–1710 from the collection of Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam), whose theme, composition, details of depicting the horses and horsemen combined with other works by this artist make for straightforward attribution of the Chelyabinsk piece to this painter’s authorship.
Jan van Huchtenburg, Dutch painter of battle scenes, engraver and art trader, was born in 1647 in Haarlem, died in 1733 in Amsterdam. He was an apprentice of Thomas Wijck. He had a brother artist Jacob van Huchtenburg. He was in the service of Prince Eugene of Savoy. He painted ten big battles between 1697 and 1717 depicting victories of Eugene of Savoy. He was influenced by Van der Meulen and Philips Wouwerman.
The works of brothers Huchtenburg are rare in Russian collections. The Hermitage Museum keeps a painting of Jan van Huchtenburgh with a question mark beside the name, since the painting was priorly attributed to Pieter Wouwerman.
Presumably the painting in Chelyabinsk belongs to a series of battle scenes The War of the Spanish Succession of 1701–1714 along with The Battle of Ramillies.
Rather skillfully executed although poorly preserved this painting always provoked curiosity of researchers. Various technical studies — macro photography, microscopic inspection, infrared photography — ultimately resulted in discovery of the artist’s signature.
Dutch experts Bernard Vermet (RKD) and Pieter Roelofs (Rijksmuseum) agreed with our conclusions as to attribution of this piece of art to Jan van Huchtenburgh or his circle. Quentin Buvelot, expert in battle painting from Mauritshuis, believes that the discovered signature belongs to Jan van Huchtenburgh.