Prince Condé with the Army of Louis X1V on Campaign, possibly the Taking of Salins, 22nd June 1674

Oil on canvas

89 x 115 cms
35 x 45 1/4 inches

A painter of battle scenes, landscapes and genre, Adam Frans van der Meulen was baptised in Brussels on 11th January 1632 and did his artistic apprenticeship under Pieter Snayers, 1592-1666, a painter of hunting and battle scenes. By 18th May 1648, aged sixteen, van der Meulen had become master in the local guild and in 1653, his younger brother Pieter had become his apprentice.

In 1664 he settled in Paris where he collaborated with the important French history painter Charles Lebrun who had begun a major series of tapestries in 1662 depicting "The Story of the King". Van der Meulen produced a hundred preparatory drawings for this series and the ensuing sketches and the large-scale paintings for royal palaces earned him enormous success at court establishing the career for which he is principally remembered.

He married a relative of Lebrun who became his third wife and also collaborated with his step-brother and Brussels landscape painter Adriaen Frans Boudewijns, who had gone to Paris in 1669 to work at the Gobelins tapestry firm painting cartoons.

Van der Meulen returned to Brussels and in 1673 became a member of the Academy where he was recorded as "Peintre des Conquêtes du Roi" and in 1674 he took on Sauveur Le Comte and Jean Baptiste Martin (later known as Martin des Batailles) as his pupils.

Louis XIV loved the ideal of warfare and the conquest of Flanders was compared to a ceremonial march. He took his Queen, his whole Court and his mistresses on campaign with him and enjoyed supervising the leisurely and dignified sieges which were the fahionable mode of waging war. Van der Meulen was in the service of King Louis XIV and often accompanied him on these historic campaigns, recording cavalry engagements and sieges. However, more often he visited the sites after the action had ended and the main body of troops had left. The result of this is that his military campaign paintings are topographically accurate with great attention to detail whereas the depiction of the actual conflict and attendant military events is not always quite so correct. His method of recording a particular site was to execute very precise drawings of the relevant landscape and city on different sheets of paper which he would later re-assemble into large horizontal compositions measuring 220 cms in width. Upon his return to Paris, he would use these drawings to create sketches which in turn formed the basis for the finished large scale paintings. The sketches were then often used by tapestry manufacturers, such as Gobelins for whom van der Meulen often worked, to form the basis for the large woven works which were much in demand at that time.

The finished paintings were then copied by the artist himself or his studio of collaborators so that other royal castles could have a record of the King’s exploits. In addition to J B Martin and Sauveur Le Comte mentioned above, Dominicus Nollet, P Scotin and an artist recorded only as Everts worked in his studio and often utilised their master’s signature on paintings that they had copied. Other copies were sold to private collectors and the paintings were seen by an even wider audience because many were turned into prints by engravers such as A F Boudewijns, J A van Huchtenburg and R F Bonnart.

Van der Meulen occasionally painted, sometimes with and sometimes without his pupils, large decorative paintings of processions and receptions. He also collaborated with the important Flemish landscape painter Jacques d’Arthois contributing colourful, elegant mounted figures and the latter’s landscape style can sometimes be discerned in van der Meulen’s landscapes. His panoramic Brabant landscapes which were meticulous in their topographical detail, became a significant influence on French painting and spawned imitators such as Jean Paul, R Bonnard, Pierre Scotin, Henri Testelin and Sylvain Bonnet.

Unlike his own master Pieter Snayers, van der Meulen was not interested in showing the violent aspect of 17th century warfare but endeavoured to give an accurate record of the King and his suite to produce a spectacular and decorative effect.

Museums where his work can be seen include: Amsterdam Rijksmueum, Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, Edinburgh, Brussels, Madrid Prado, Metropolitan New York, Ashmolean Oxford, Vienna, Versailles among others and many important private collections, castles and stately homes.

There are versions of this painting in Chatsworth House and in the Hermitage.

Bibliography:
Dictionary of 17th Century Flemish Painters –J de Maere and M Wabbes
Netherlandish Painters of the 17th Century – Walther Berndt

In the time of Louis XIV, love of glory was possibly the strongest emotion in France and this had evolved through a renewed interest in the classics, in particular Rome, where it was perceived as great and honourable renown as opposed to vanity. The success of great emperors and kings such as Trajan, Julius Caesar, Augustus and, later, Charlemagne and
Henry IV of France was inculcated into Louis from an early age and this "gloire" could principally be achieved by extending the frontiers of France by victory on the battlefield. At the age of thirty Louis wrote, "My dominant passion is certainly love of glory". This ideal then was far more important than any ambition to unite all territories of French language and civilisation or to secure a favourable outcome to the Spanish Succession as has sometimes been mooted.

His aggressive foreign policy was greatly assisted by the fact that France had become prosperous and financially independent and he was further helped by the death of Philip IV of Spain in 1665 which, together with England, was the other principal power in Europe at that time. All his nobility, who had no other occupation, encouraged their King’s bellicose tendencies as they saw it as a way to distinguish and win favour for themselves and to gain benefits.

Louis’ wife Marie-Thérèse, the daughter of Philip IV, was the heir to the Spanish held Netherlands and this was an agreement that the Dutch had been happy to uphold in return for the assistance that Louis had given the Netherlands in their war of independence. Considerable political manoeuvres followed the death of Philip IV and the Dutch change of heart concerning subjugation to France, involving deals with the Spanish, Portuguese, English and the Habsburg Emperor Leopold I, as well as a French territorial compromise with the Netherlands which briefly gave a respite in the outbreak of war.

However in 1667, Turenne led a French army into Flanders to take the country and met with immediate success but the taking of the Netherlands was halted by the forming of the Triple Alliance of the Hague in1668 between the three Protestant powers of England, Sweden and the Netherlands. This supposed duplicity by Holland formed the basis of the six years of warfare from 1672 onwards which was precipitated by a French trade embargo and imposition of economic tariffs on the Netherlands.

The French army under Condé met with immediate success after his spectacular crossing of the Rhine and for a while it appeared that the small beleaguered Netherlands would fall but increasing concern in Europe about French expansion resulted in England, Sweden, Spain, Emperor Leopold and Elector Brandenburg offering political and military assistance. France was under threat on all its frontiers, towns fell and were re-taken and stalemate ensued until the Treaty of Nymegen on 10th August 1678 whereby the Netherlands obtained the autonomy they had sought and a comparatively stable peace resulted in Western Europe.

Louis had retaken Franche-Comté from Spain in 1674 and had had a medal struck to commemorate the event: "Caesar once, Louis twice" and the Treaty at Nymegen had left him, apart from the much sought after military glory he craved – the crossing of the Rhine, the capture of Maastricht, Ghent and Ypres among other notable victories – with an increase in French territory as his kingdom now had Franche-Comté and half of Flanders added to it despite having been opposed by a formidable coalition.

Louis, Prince de Condé, (1621-1686) known as the Great Condé was generalissimo of the French forces from 1643 and achieved victories against the Spanish at Rocroi in 1643 and the Bavarians at Freiburg and Nordlingen in 1645. He took Dunkirk in 1646 and a famous victory at Lens against the Spanish infantry augmented his renown.

He fell out with Mazarin and the Queen who were acting as regents to the young Louis XIV and was imprisoned for a year and, upon his release, joined the civil war known as Fronde on the side of the nobles aggrieved at being excluded from political power. The insurrection was unsuccessful and eventually, because of his renown, the young king deemed it politic to restore Condé to his favour. In 1675 he succeeded Tourenne as commander of the army on the Rhine and was an integral part of Louis’ campaigns in Franche-Comté, Flanders and the Netherlands despite having no political genius and achieving military success more through fiery energy than through possession of an astute tactical brain.

Ill health forced his retirement after 1675 and he moved to his estates in Chantilly where he associated with Molière, Boileau and Racine.

Bibliography:

Louis XIV – Vincent Cronin
New Cambridge Modern History Vol V The Ascendancy of France: 1648-1688
Louis XIV and the Greatness of France – Maurice Ashley