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Republic Author(s): Jan de Vries Source: The Journal of the Walters Art Gallery, Vol. 57, Place and Culture in Northern Art (1999), pp. 73-85 Published by: The Walters Art Museum Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20169143 . Accessed: 11/10/2011 18:10
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and Capitalism: Luxury and Calvinism/Luxury in the for Luxury Goods Supply and Demand Dutch Republic Seventeenth-Century
Jan de Vries
This article offers an interpretation of luxury consumption in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic. The traditional concept of luxury emphasized its moral and social dangers. This remained influential in theDutch Republic, but economic new forms of a development brought with it consumption: " 'New Luxury emerged to stand beside the traditional "Old
Luxury. "Practice changed in advance of theory, and a new,
the noble
patron
of
a fine garment easily of pursuit luxury could bankrupt one's family, undermine one's health, and submerge a healthy in debauchery. personality turned to lust. The Nor were An elite downfall and the dangers of luxury purely personal. given over to luxury set the stage for the of the state, as the comforts and pleasures life left men unfit the hard
to
more positive, understanding of the role of luxury consumption emerged only later. The article closes by considering the limits a consumer society, and to the development of role the city of Utrecht in this development. special played by to the Dutch was Iuxury -?Europe. of peasants means?the
rulers,
study of ancient
every educated
these
lessons
European.
The a
led society through cycle leading from poverty via to riches, and from the luxury
of Time"
warriors,
the desire
very nearly
for
the
luxury
sole
among
for
those
the
groups
craftsmen,
that was
artists,
support
and performers who produced the non-quotidian goods and services of society. This sector, usually resident in cities, was not so much a "middle class" standing between the elites and the peasantry
a creature of the elites
and back to poverty. by riches to decadence rich complex of associations, between luxury and high culture and between luxury, personal deca dence, and societal ruin, drew upon both the Christian and Classical capitalist associated
and more episcopal complex
traditions. of feudal
But
It took
as it was a dependent
and of the institutions
class,
that
society with?indeed,
courts. society,
shape when
even
centuries, and
their It was
inordinate
hold
on
luxury production the markers of their status and authority, and that established the definitions of refined taste and elegant material
commercialized
in western Europe, the leading role of court emerged in culture what "civilization" meant, via the defining cultivation of luxury, long remained dominant. In his influential Elias study, The Process civilization elevated presented as from the princely tastes, etc.) flowing, via emulation, courts to the aristocracy and gentry, and from them to the bourgeoisie.1 Werner Sombart, of Civilization, (polite manners, Norbert
was the In short, luxury production design. embodiment of high culture: the fitness for rule of Europe's traditional rulers was visibly justified of the suppliers of luxurious goods
services.
by their patronage
and
was associated with power, but at the Luxury same time the consumption of luxury was universally to be fraught with moral understood danger. Terrible vices, including most of in it: gluttony, implicated vanity, sins, were deadly lust, avarice, malice, anger, sloth, pride. Only a thin line separated the seven
in his Luxury and Capitalism of 1913, saw capitalism not from frugality, emerging savings, and investment (as Max Weber had it) but from luxury spending: a spending incited by the example of the court and by which the "rule of women" led men into the reckless in such environments, pursuit of sensuous
greed,
73
Fig.
1. The
Still-Life
of costly food, drink, every manner genre, luxury still life was a popular displaying with a Lobster and Turkey, ca. 1660, oil on canvas. Oxford: The Ashmolean Museum.
and
decoration.
Abraham
van
Beyeren,
pleasure,
the nose,
touch."2
the "Old Luxury" of the pre-capitalist interpretations, on to lives influence, perhaps even to shape, the society more commercial and nine society of the eighteenth teenth centuries. This obviously of designers
customers.
cultural message, it style and hegemonic of heterogeneous Old elements. The Luxury, or for could be refinement, striving grandeur exquisite some emulated only by distincdy inferior adaptations, consists times called striving more "populuxe goods." The New Luxury, for comfort and enjoyment, lent itself to and diffusion. Where the Old Luxury as a marker, people,
more
coherent
type of luxury lives on today, most in the high-fashion apparel and accessories whose
It remains
authority
and influence
of elite?preferably
associated
a means and
between
served
times,
places,
cultural
with
to communicate
Indeed,
associations
it would
were
not
absent.
impress call
us it
permitting
dangerous
kind
for which
economy, pre-capitalist today. Rather than being defined it is by a royal court, a urban than Rather by generated society. presenting
in the
reciprocal in consumption.3 among participants The New Luxury was a product of the commercial and urban societies that Europe possessed by the sixteenth century and which grew in size and influ ence centuries. Its promise and its those of the Old Luxury. The
relations?a
kind of sociability?
74
New
to a much Luxury was accessible larger portion of society, which created the potential for new dangers of social confusion and for the erosion of established as diffusion
of luxury
hierarchies
marker
and
emulation
subverted
In response,
the
lustful behavior of envious, a productive, effect of producing The That Root of evil Avarice ill-natured
society the self-seeking, vain, individuals has the net prosperous society.
there a human
function
consumption.
governments regulating
laws sumptuary repeatedly promulgated dress, but these could not restore the old
damn'd
baneful
Vice,
because the New Luxuries had a patterns. Moreover, broader reach, their aggregate consumption supported of who formed producers larger groups significant
industries. In many cases, the luxury products were
Was slave to Prodigality, That Noble Sin; whilst Luxury a million of the poor Employed and odious He concludes: Thus Yet This these every part was full of Vice, the whole Mass a Paradise. the place to pursue the development of the foundations of modern to do here is examine the Pride a million more.
on such a scale that imported, and they visibly affected the balance of trade. This attracted the attention of the state and which the development linked luxury with doctrines, imports, and imports with silver abroad to pay for the of mercantilist
is not new
the shipment of gold and luxuries. A drain of coin abroad luxury, the theory went, health of the state. Thus,
economics.
into
in the seventeenth century, the old arguments about the moral and social dangers of luxury came to be joined by new ones. to answer for, and had much Luxury consumption of the most yet, the experience of the time?and here is where comes into advanced economies the Dutch Republic a succession the picture?spurred of from the 1690s to the 1770s to raise a against pedigrees luxury and
of the place of luxury in the most advanced economy seventeenth Dutch The with shared century. Republic the rest of Europe introduced above. the traditional But it was views about in the forefront luxury of the
of the New Luxury. Since a new discourse development of luxury came only after the end of the Dutch Golden a time when, I will examining argue, a large gap opened between theory and practice, discourse and human behavior: what people thought about luxury and the practice of luxury consumption Age, became two different Besides we are
philosophers fundamental
godly
"great luxury debate" of the eighteenth century some of the best minds of the time and led to the fundamental new insights in political economy of Adam Smith. At its heart was the new understanding, based on experience rather than theory, that consumer exercised a powerful desire for luxury?formed aspirations?the of economic In fact, it led wellspring improvement. to what we would call economic In 1691 development. Sir Dudley North wrote, in his pamphlet Discourses
upon Trade, The main spur to trade, or rather to industry
The
things. the general European views on luxury, was Dutch not also influenced society by the specific of Calvinism? For most people message today, access or by is mediated thought by Max Weber, version of Weber's in the Protestant potted argument Ethic. So itmay not hurt to go directly to the source. a A on material survey of Calvin's observations goods and consumption in his Institutes of the Christian Religion does not yield numerous fulminations against materialism and luxury. In fact, Calvin shared with the Christian Humanists of his age a "relativistic" view on the subject. on Christian In his discourse Liberty, Calvin writes: "Let all men live in their respective stations, whether slenderly, remember or moderately, or so that all may plentifully, that God confers his blessings on them for the support of life, not for luxury."5 As our means of the things of this world that God increase, more to be beneficial forbidden are brought within reach. We to use and enjoy these things. Nor that we could live more endlessly to Calvin's
is the exorbitant appetites of men, ingenuity, which will take pains to gratify, and so be they to else will incline work, when nothing disposed them to it; for did men content themselves with
bare necessities, we should have a poor world.4
and
The
vices:
"appetites of men," aren't these the seat of the of lust and gluttony, pride and vanity? Could the unashamed in these vices lead to the indulgence of economic emigrant precisely and growth? The prosperity to England, Bernard de Mandeville, this in his scandalous poem of 1705,
we worry simply. He who "hesitate[s] respecting good wine, will afterward be unable with any peace of conscience to drink the most vapid; and he will not presume even
75
Fig.
2. Jacob
Backer,
Regentesses
of the Burgher
Orphanage,
1633-34,
oil on
canvas.
Amsterdam
Historisch
Museum.
to
touch
purer
and
sweeter
water
than
others."
Such
thinking
and
inextricable
Calvin
to
reasoned
was no
that
summarize, Calvin did not council other-worldliness, an escape from the temptations of prosperity. Nor did he demand what we would call "Puritan abstemiousness." Such a course from
[I]n the present age . . . there is scarcely any to be sumptuous, one, whom his wealth permits not who is with luxurious splendour delighted in his entertainments, buildings; who does on his elegance. The can be defended that such consumption argument as a matter of "things indifferent" does not impress Calvin. This I admit, provided they be [argument] are too But where used. they indifferently in his dress, not strangely and in his flatter himself
was playing far away it safe?staying the line separating proper from improper enjoy ment of material goods. Calvin actually recommends to implement: station something much more difficult
or income-specific moderation, i.e., keeping material
luxury were not really It ismore likely that the indirect influence rather than its specific teachings on luxury and is in
the greater behavior, impact on consumer the best place to look for this influence perhaps
76
Fig.
3. Adriaen
Backer,
Regentesses
of the Burgher
Orphanage,
1683, oil on
canvas.
Amsterdam
Historisch
Museum.
two paintings of the Burgher's of Amsterdam. Some of those sitting for the the female regents Orphanage Figs. 2 and 3. These display or of 1683 painting of in the 1633-34. The Adriaen have been relatives those Backer, was the nephew may painter, daughters painting over this fifty-year too easily, to the view that Dutch of Jacob Backer. The in costume and hairstyle interval lends itself, perhaps change or decadent. over had become society culturally ripe,
Calvin's
was
on what we emphasis today call the might examined life. The beginning of Christian knowledge
to know one's true self, that is, one's own sinfulness
in the saying (which in my experience is expressed a to not to Dutch society and confined universal particular that every child hears from his mother: confession) dat is al gek genoeg." toch gewoon; that's crazy enough already.] normally; "Doe
So, what was the nature of luxury
and
where
grace. dependence to the Heidelberg Catechism?the introduction the faith used by the Reformed with churches?began
one's
on God's
It is here
[Just act
consumption
its first questions and answers. The Christian was to in the psychological achieve authenticity, sense, and this raised a vigorous objection to a "culture of appearances" be fostered by a fashion industry, or even to the theater, where the whole intention is to pretend be what you are not. The use of luxury goods to project such as would
power, wealth, or status one does not possess, to exploit
can turn to
of foreign in their verdict these are nearly unanimous savers and that the Dutch as a whole were prodigious
these documents frugal consumers. But, in interpreting we must be mindful of the heavy ideological baggage attached to this subject, and the propagandiste purposes for which
foreign
of urban society the anonymity actor fools a (willing) audience, At the mundane level, this aversion and deception, to theatrics and
as an illusion is
was
paraded
readers.
We mation
gesture,
77
Fig.
4. Pieter
de Hooch,
Two Women
beside a Linen
1663, oil on
canvas.
Amsterdam,
Rijksmuseum.
seduce us into believing that they offer framed views of society, where we employ a historian's gaze, poking about the paintings for evidence down as an amateur a Dutch front might by walking into the uncurtained Already more sociologist today street and glancing of the houses.
And
different
record,
those notions, he went on to say, would be very from the impressions gained from the written
and not so much supplementary as contradictory.
The imous
windows
unan called
opened Seventeenth
Were
his celebrated
years ago, Johan Huizinga in the essay, "Dutch Civilization with the observation:
Dutchman's
glorious simplicity." The Observations written Sir William in the years by Temple, English ambassador a as account has often stood definitive of 1668-70, Golden so many Age society, later writers if for no other reason than that or simply imitated, corroborated, was concerned with explaining the power and prosperity of the Republic readers, and he placed great
"Holland's
we
to
test
the
average
of life in the Netherlands knowledge during the Seventeenth Century, we should probably to odd stray find that it is largely confined notions gleaned from paintings.6
English
78
Fig. 5. Pieter
de Hooch,
Musk,
Cleveland
Museum
of Art, Gift
of
the Hanna
Fund,
1951.355.
The
of their magistrates simplicity and modesty in their way of living, which is so general, that I never knew one among them exceed the frugal popular air.7 Of
or to say it more properly, in every man's less than he has in, be that spending coming what it will.8 save a good deal could person to and still have plenty in extravagance, left indulge but Temple such in that luxury expenditure thought the Republic course, or in the fabrick, adornment, of their houses; things not so transitory, or so prejudicial as to Health and to Business is laid out furniture the constant perhaps
expenses of
common He described
a rich
every social class in turn, and except for as the small corps of noblemen, whom he regarded imitations French than rather (of fashion) poor good originals, There seem of men order he concluded are some with customs the observation:
...
and dispositions that all these through degrees as great frugality and Their more common than he riches spends;
excesses
altogether
clothes
having
79
Fig.
6. Cornelis
van
Poelenburch,
Feast
of the Gods,
ca.
1635,
oil on
copper.
The
Hague,
Mauritshuis.
in my opinion, of is an observation, insightful, of the New Luxury relative to the Old, to which we will return. But, for the most part, to of stressed the self-denial: Temple point frugality Here the character By
Riches
Now,
no
one
who
has
spent
an
afternoon
viewing
Dutch
genre paintings or still lifes, such as Abraham van sumptuous Still-life with a Lobster and Turkey Beyern's can lend full credence to Temple's observa (fig. 1), in Pleasures which they really "traffique never for and added measure, taste," then, they hang on their walls paintings of those very pleasures, just to remind themselves of what they were missing? tions. Did
this we find
of Holland.
out
the foundation
. . . For never
of
any
the
Country
so little. They . . . to but this sell buy infinitely, again. are masters of Indian the the great They spices, and of the Persian silks; but wear plain traded and consumed woollens cloath [sic] Nay, to France, and buy coarse out of England for their own wear. They send abroad the best of . . . and their butter buy the cheapest out of
Ireland . . . for their own use.
so much
words alert us to a special feature of Temple's Dutch society: it was more than ordinarily frugal and access to than ordinary sober in the face of a more luxuries and pleasures. As Dutch trade her cargoes ports filled with the precious expanded, from the Levant, Russia, Africa, Asia, and brought the foremost port, could the New World. Amsterdam, all the world's be described by 1648 as:
In short, they furnish infinite Luxury, which they never practice, and traffique
Pleasures which they never taste.10
"The warehouse in
of the world, the seat of of riches, and the rendezvous opulence, the darling of the gods."11
80
This
agriculture of broad
merchants,
to the goods of the world was accessibility a growth in the productivity of domestic and the industry, raising purchasing segments
investors,
of society as well
property
as making
and
of aristocratic lifestyles and French fashion did indeed find many devotees by the 1670s, as this telling comparison of two paintings (figs. 2 and 3) depicting the of the Municipal Orphanage indicate. That Regentesses blandishments of 1633-34 is by Adreaen, is by Jacob Backer, while the 1683 painting this was hardly the his nephew. However,
argument owes far more to the contem
many
owners,
industrialists
on such a
time?
a
whole
story.
This
to purchase luxuries the potential society a extended well beyond elite. A small, traditional to substantial tranche of society was now in a position exercise choice, to enter the market and spend money in which
to fashion a consumer culture.
than to seventeenth-century plation was once Dutch history, and uncritically embraced by his torians eager for simple explanations of a difficult subject. of the fall of Rome Rather grip of
attempt
than simply seeing Republican society in the of the Old Luxury, we should the discourse
to see the new consumer culture being con
Choice moral
exposes one to were faced by in and other societies still, earlier, choices constrained by the heavy
custom, and whose extrava
by the
innumerable with
and
possessed its choices, the old discourse to be sure, but the reality
of an enlarged In income. discretionary options remained of influ in its behavior culture the home
narrowly graphed displays of excessive eating and drinking. in his celebrated of Simon Schama, investigation on Dutch the culture, Embarrassment of Riches, draws venerable surround arguments about the moral pitfalls that in he, wrongly, luxury consumption?which to Calvinist preaching?to my view, ascribes evoke a society caught on the horns of a dilemma, its very where which produce prosperity, virtues, lead ^^^k ^^^^^H
gances
were
channeled
into well
choreo
into being a distinctive material brought toward which the luxuries were directed more both
tended
than home
to
the body, and adorned the interior, of more and body, than the exterior. They
achieve comfort more than refinement.
De Mandeville, prodigality
conventional
that
notorious
as the road
wisdom
of the
sources
^^^ ^^^^^
inexorably
to the vices of
^^^^^^H
of Dutch prosperity. "The Dutch may ascribe their present grandeur to the virtue and frugality of
their ancestors as they
relies luxury. His evocation on A and heavily paintings other visual images, which A in relied, ^H on the traditional turn, ^^H themes of luxury's ^^H themselves
please,"
he wrote
in the
early eighteenth century.12 In fact, he claimed with i 1 A H H H H H characteristic hyperbole, "In pictures and mar ble they are profuse, in their and are buildings they to no and gardens
dangers that derived from pre-capitalist, pre-market societies: the Old Luxury. An ally in his project was the view of many historians
of earlier generations
palaces
was closely associated, if not caused by, the onset of a cultural over-ripeness:
a decadent generation
accus
tomed to luxury and, therefore, without the character and determination of its forefathers. families some burgher
^^B
Figs. 6 and 7. Both of these silk scarves feature multicolored specialty of Utrecht's silk weaving
81
Fig. was
ambitious expansion to turn Utrecht, which had a sustained by large population C2.949. Archiefdienst,
8. The
was to make plan for Utrecht designed once been a center of luxury consumption of wealthy families. Expansion bourgeois
place court,
for rich
families of
to settle. The
hope
into a center
Moreelse,
magnificent and other gendemen's many of the merchants' in Amsterdam houses and in some of the great cities of that small province.14 The
...
shall find
no
private as a great
in 1697, one of the Great of Russia traveled to Holland of his objectives was to acquire a fabulous collection precosia.16 These dwellings also contained cosdy products of high craftsmanship such as tapestries and furniture. These where often came from craft traditions the Southern Netherlands, of long standing were sustained local and Spanish courts. of Holland themselves offered
to Cologne, Pallavicino, made similar Papal Nuncio observations his visit of 1676. After during visiting canals where the Amsterdam, system of concentric around the old medieval city was nearing completion, he noted wealth that "only a nation that does not squander on clothes or servants could have succeeded all this with its in
products requiring real skill, to be or capable sure, but products capable of multiplication, in a gradated of of being offered range qualities and more The canal like humble houses, abodes, prices. were tiled with Delft tiles of varying qualities, just as their kitchens Delft and tables made use of the Orient could not do inspired was follow technical faience. What the Dutch
restrained homes, by a thirty- to forty-foot bourgeois from blatantly advertising exterior frontage the occu a but endowed 190-foot pants' wealth, by depth with to achieve a new form of private ample opportunity
domestic comfort.
or Worcester element
S?vres, Meissen, Vienna, Copenhagen, in the production of porcelain. The skills were not lacking; rather, the missing the court a new associations essential to design "Old Luxury."
Exotic found
luxuries
from
was
their way
and market
82
nilliliiiii?^????i''?
Wf?smi? fe:
^^?^f v. ;
tU&
*r w*%& / /
iwi
;7
to*.
j?S?s
4 ITidily*
Sat
Fig. 9. Joan Blau, Bancroft Library, map University of Utrecht, 1649. From Toonneel of California, Berkeley. der Steden
"S?15*
Met hare Bechrijringen. Berkeley, The
The
cabinetmakers,
canal
houses
such
were
as wardrobes
filled with
and
the work
linen chests,
of
as
in two paintings from 1663 by Pieter de represented Hooch, Two Women beside a Linen Chest and Family Making Music (figs. 4 and 5). Here again, the great pieces were the highest tradition of a furniture expression that
albeit
a that fetched (work by the dozen) "dozijnwerk" or two at if of the fair. Indeed, the possession guilder can to all of the in Delft be paintings generalized province paintings houses by the One makers of Holland, must have could then something like three million on the walls of Holland's hung
1660s.17
came
more
up we
from come
below,
versions
for even
of these
farmers
same items.
had,
modest,
was
to painting. This art, as is well from reconstructed after the Reformation as elite patronage gave both economy. By developing product innovations (new themes in the paintings one, of painting) to a New
go on to discuss clock and instrument a solid majority of Friesian farmers 1700 (by on their walls); book had pendulum clocks hanging had 781 printers and sellers (the Republic publishing in operation than by the 1660s, a far higher density in Europe); luxuries like tobacco elsewhere popular and utilitarian silver. In contrast to pipes, decorative,
the exotic extra-European objects, or the most refined
Luxury to a market
painters opened new some 700 to 800 by mid-century allowing to be active simultaneously, over producing in price of the century many millions of paintings to the from thousands of guilders
material
from Brabant or further afield in possessions were usually produced in New the Luxuries Europe, the Dutch cities. Some were imitations and adaptations of foreign luxuries, such as Delftware, responding to
83
Chinese
porcelain,
others
were
cheaper
versions
of
Its
modernity
was,
however,
premature.
By
the
luxuries, tapestry European or Amsterdam and Utrecht's silk industry. works, Reminders of the latter are found in two paintings by van Poelenburch: the Utrecht Cornells his painter Portrait of Susanna van Collen18 (fig. 6) in which to the sitter's colored silk scarf contributes a multi fanciful
such as Delft
and Gouda's
third quarter
movement
of the seventeenth
spreads across
century
a new
cultural
from
Europe,
emanating
royal courts, associated with aristocracy and featuring classical and rococo and forms, gallantry idealizing It affects the Republic, too. Its outward refinement. manifestations as evidence in the Netherlands of decadence are often held up inevitable (the consequence to luxury), but that addiction is studied in
attire, and a Feast of the Gods19 (fig. 7), "shepherdess" a similar scarf graces the in which figure of Ceres, who sits with her back to us. goddess of Abundance, in Europe depended Craft production everywhere on specific skills that could be transferred successfully of artisans. Thus, the Republic's only by the migration new crafts and industries abroad. in diffusion from inevitably find their origin Still, in their new home form, shaped by the nature
if the Netherlands
in which it nesded. the Europe complete It remains true, however, that the Republic was poorly in social structure, endowed?whether craft skills, or was life offer much that mentality, style?to original from to this new that had cultural interacted movement project. A European with Dutch society to create some and powerfully appealing gave way after
a particular they developed of Dutch demand?urban, burgerlijk, broad-based? and by the prevailing cultural These imperatives.
thing original the 1670s to another acted weakly Luxury Dutch; were ahead
imperatives might be stamped with the label Calvinist, to invoke of but it might be better the concept
"Confessionalization."20 Calvinists, Lutherans, Catholics?
movement that inter European and derivatively with that same society. was not the undoing of the consumption in instead, Dutch luxury production strengths of their time.
in the denomination?was concerned every Christian era of the Dutch Golden with its Age consolidating and penetrating the projects of religious revitalization insti broad base of society with programs of education, cultural and social control. The tutionalization, greater movement of this multi-centered left a deep dimension mark
luxuries, This
one city stood In this Republic of New Luxury, had been the one Dutch city that had apart. Utrecht as a major medieval center of the Old functioned the canons of Luxury catering for the Prince Bishops, the cathedral chapters, and the provincial nobility. By the seventeenth had abolished century the Reformation the bishop and the episcopal political regime; Utrecht had no choice but to adapt to the new social and economic
structures of the Republic.22 Thus, when seventeenth
on the design
on interior movement
of everyday
decoration, was European
articles,
and on rather
on accessible
clothing. than specif
social ically Dutch, but it resonated with the Republic's and economic structures more fully and more creatively of Dutch which caused the output than elsewhere,
ceramics, paintings, prints, maps, books, furniture,
century paper
be
Utrecht
is set beside
for to
into
comparison, need
nuanced
in this
they do need
preservation
of textiles to be and printing glass, and the dyeing seen as particularly well suited to the temper and era. The of the Confessional purpose integrating rather than differentiating impact of these New Luxuries culture. feature The comfort is revealed By of Dutch forms were the in the broader culture late seventeenth material study of material the striking century
the Republican
Utrecht of a
period
social
province
of
elite?noble
patrician?whose
on land, and on antique institutions that preserved their hold over the province's landed wealth. The pendant of this society of luxury consumers was an old, guild-organized that continued throughout that market. from The fact largely of the Netherlands similar panoply of luxury producers era to serve the Republican drew towns its migrants in the east
basic
between city and was It and the cost rich poor. country, and specific quality, rather than the types of objects and their general form, that differed.21 and between the perspective of the outsider, Dutch society seemed to eschew luxury altogether. The Old Luxury was thin on the from view. But a ground and hidden From
New Luxury, one we might call modern, or proto
that Utrecht
"old fashioned"
this and in Germany, reinforced more in in than the Holland Utrecht Thus, regime. towns, one found all types of metal workers (which coach silk became a Utrecht weavers, builders, specialty),
wig makers, Of wood carvers, interest etc. to me is the city's conscious
particular
modern, easily
was
in fact
could
not be
ness and
the Dutch
urban
production
were
84
the city's efforts to participate lay. Thus, advantage of based economic the commercially prosperity of: the form took larger society 1. attracting luxury industries and the offer inducements
numerous decommissioned
in the
upon (Oxford,
of the 1673),
in its
10. Ibid., 11. Quoted Perspective 12. Bernard Publick Remark 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid., Remark 15. Quoted Q. Dutch Civilization, 62. 119. in Fernand on the World Mandeville, Braudel, (New York, The Fable Civilization 1984; first of and Capitalism 3, The ed., 1979), 189. or, Private of 1732 Vices,
2. establishing particularly
3. launching a
the Bees:
a large residents by building to to zone rich the residential appeal designed in this map of an expansion rentier, as reflected can be compared with 1664 dated (fig. 8). It plan attract well-healed an earlier map of the city dated 1649 (fig. 9), still and which, given the city's slow growth, valid at the time of the planned remained for zones in The plan also provided expansion. to crafts accommodate the newly expanded city that would cater to the enlarged In short, Utrecht's development effort to strategy was based on a conscious itself from the cities of Holland differentiate by offering superior facilities for the rich and the and industries demand. well born: to offer a modified is the context Luxury. This lived and worked. of Utrecht type of Old in which the artists
1924,
republication
edition),
in Huizinga,
and Annemiek 16. See Ren?e Kistemaker, Overbeek, Natalja Kopaneva, Cult?rele en wetenschappelijke eds., Peter de Grote en Holland. betrekkingen en Nederland ten tijde van tsaar Peter de Grote (Bussum, tussen Rusland Amsterdams R. and Historisch Museum, 1996). See also E. Bergvelt binnen handberiek. Nederlandse Kistemaker, eds., De wereld 1585-1735 kunst- en rariteitenverzamelingen, (Zwolle, Amsterdam Historisch Museum, 1992). in of Paintings "The Volume and Value der Woude, at the Time of the Dutch Republic," in Jan de Vries and David in Art (Santa Monica, eds., Art in History, History Getty Freedberg, of Art and the Humanities, Center for the History 1991), 285-330. 17. Ad see a discussion A. Spicer with of the costume, Joaneath Dutch Painters in Utrecht during Masters Federle eds., Orr, Lynn of Light. nos. 60 the Golden Age (New Haven and London, 1997), catalogue and 61. 18. For 19. Spicer 20. On with Orr, Masters of Light, no. 53. "Confessionalization Political Culture, pp. and van
Holland
University
of California Berkeley,
at Berkeley California
see Heinz confessionalization, Schilling, in Heinz in the Empire," ed., Religion, Schilling, the Emergence Society (Leiden, of Early Modern
Notes
Paper Dutch presented Painting to the Walters from 1998: 31 January Art Gallery Seminar, and Utrecht: Reality. I7th-Century Imagination E. Jephcott, trans.
Ethic S. Gorski, "The Protestant Philip in Holland and State Formation Revolution Journal of Sociology, 99 (1993), 265-316.
205-46;
1. Norbert (London,
van van Weesp en cultuur "De materi?le 21. Hans Koolbergen, et al., eds., Aards geluk. De in Anton Schuurman Weesperkarspel," en hum spulten, 1550?1850 Nederlanders 152; (Amsterdam, 1997), and economic patterns Jan de Vries, "Peasant demand development: in William N. Parker and Eric L. Jones, Friesland, 1550-1700," eds., European Peasants and their Markets (Princeton, 1975), 234-36.
2. Werner 1967; first Sombart, (Ann Arbor, Luxury and Capitalism author of The Protestant Ethic and 60. Max Weber, ed., 1913), 2-5, is well the Spirit of Capitalism 1992, first ed., 1904-05), (New York, an aes of is the known for arguing that Western product capitalism that made thetic impulse reinforced possible by Protestant theology the continuous, 3. These in Mary an are Douglas the systematic accumulation purposes Isherwood, of of capital.
for a Role: The 22. Jan de Vries, "Searching in the Golden of the Dutch Age Republic," Light, 49-59. PHOTOGRAPHS: Amsterdam, fig. Amsterdams 1, Oxford, Historisch Ashmolean Museum; The Cleveland
Economy in Spicer,
of Utrecht Masters of
Museum;
figs.
2-3,
Anthropology
of Consumption Discourses
consumption proposed The World of Goods: Towards (New York, 1978). (London, 1691), 27. 1936; from
Rijksmuseum; fig. 5, Cleveland, fig. 6, Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery; Gemeentelijke fig. 8, Utrecht, Bancroft Library, University
4. Sir John
Dudley,
upon Trade
5. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion from the last edition of 1559). The quotations Book III, Chapter 19, 81-84. 6. Johan Huizinga, 1968; first Dutch ed., Civilization 1941), 9. in
the Seventeenth
Century
(London,
85