Jordaens' 'Night Vision' Author(s): Erwin Bielefeld Source: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol.

23, No. 1/2 (Jan. - Jun., 1960), pp. 177-178 Published by: The Warburg Institute Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/750587 . Accessed: 31/01/2014 19:38
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177 JORDAENS' 'NIGHT VISION' and a white leaves her arms partly uncovered, JORDAENS' 'NIGHT VISION' cap or bonnet on her head; over a dark blue painting (P1. I8) by Jordaens in the skirt she wears a second dark red garment Staatliche Gemaldegalerie at Schwerin, of indeterminate form which billows out known as the 'Night Vision', presents the vigorously as if stirred by the wind. The dark beholder with a mystery which so far does not blue underskirt hangs quite still. She holds appear to have been solved.' We are looking up a candle which casts a bright light into the into a dark room at night-time; it is richly room through the half-open door; on the furnished, and to judge by the dimly discern- back of the door is the ghostly shadow of her ible carvings on the walls, belongs to a person left hand, with which she is shading the flame. of substance. In it stands a low, deeply While she gazes, fascinated and fearful, at the carved bed, over which hangs a dark red bell- naked apparition, the young woman beside shaped canopy, attached to a boss on the her (who is of a robust and coarse build) looks ceiling. A leaded window affords a glimpse inquiringly and apparently with longing at of a garden and a neighbouring house; and the sleeping youth. A table beneath the admits the pale moonlight which breaks window, and a bottle on the windowsill, comthrough an overcast sky. On the bed a young plete the furnishing of the room. The whole man lies, in uneasy sleep; his arms move picture is sombre, even gloomy, as befits the agitatedly, as if in a troubled dream. With ghostly character of the scene; only a few his right hand he has just knocked a copper accents stand out sharply. In the original, pot and candlestick off a small table near the the canopy over the bed is more clearly visible bed. Still deep in sleep, he reaches towards than in the photograph; the rest, however, is the apparition of a nude girl which seems to as dark as the illustration indicates. Until now, the subject of the picture has hover above him, resting on a cloud. The not been identified with any certainty; the young woman is seen only from the back; she holds in front of her a long white cloth which title 'Night Vision' is merely a descriptive flutters gently round her, following her move- one. However, it is not difficult to determine ments. Her hair is meticulously arranged, what the painting represents. and adorned with a magnificent rope of Phlegon of Tralles, a freedman of the Hadrian, dedicated to the latter at the of the On extreme Emperor left, edge pearls. a work called 7rept eautmaciv, in which all into a an door the picture, is open leading marvellous tales were related. We kinds of it two women are looking through passage; into the room, astonished at the sight they are only possess fragments of it;2 one of the witnessing. The more important of these two stories, however, though only part of it has figures is an old woman, richly but carelessly survived (the beginning is missing), holds the dressed, who has clearly just got up from her key to the understanding of our picture. This story, told in the form of a letter,3 bed. She wears a loose white chemise which apparently described how a young man named Machates stayed with a distinguished couple, Demostratos and Charito, as their 1 Schwerin, Staatliche Gemiildegallerie No. 547. Canvas: height, 133 cm.; width, 147 cm. Literature: guest. Their daughter, Philinion, had died a derGemdlde in derHerzog- few months Joh. Gottfr. Groth, Verzeichnis previously; she now appeared to lichen Gallerie, Schwerin, 1792, P. 9 ; Friedr. Christ. the Machates during the night as a sleeping der Grossherzoglichen Georg Lenthe, Verzeichnis Gemdildesammlung,Schwerin, 1838, p. 9I, No. 343; E. Prosch, vampire, desiring to sleep with him. Next Gemdlde- comes the passage in Phlegon's story which is Katalog und Inventariumder Grossherzoglichen gallerie (in manuscript), Schwerin, 1863 ff., p. 1o9, old of decisive importance for us: the sound of number 343, new number XVI, I; Friedr. Schlie, man's voice in his room aroused der WerkeiiltererMeister in der the young Beschreibendes Verzeichnis the curiosity of Charito, the dead girl's Grossherzoglichen Gemildegalleriezu Schwerin, Schwerin, 1882, pp. 305 f., No. 547; Wilhelm Bode, Die Gross- mother; she entered the room, accompanied

The

zu Schwerin, Vienna, 1891, herzogliche Gemdldegallerie und vldmischen p. 144; idem, Die Meister der holldndischen
Malerschulen, 3. Auflage, 1921, p. 403; Max Rooses,

Jordaens' Levenen Werken,Amsterdam-Antwerp, 1906, p. 144 (there reproduced from a copy in a private collection). I owe this reference to the kindness of Dr. O. Kurz. I do not know of any additional literature. I wish to thank Dr. H. Mansfeld, the Director of the Schwerin Gallery, for kindly giving me permission to reproduce the painting (apparently hitherto unpublished) from a Schwerin Museum photograph.

Mueller, III, Paris, 1883, pp. 611 ff., No. 20o; Felix 2. Teil B, dergriechischen Historiker, Jacoby, Die Fragmente Berlin, 1929, p. 1 i69 f. Finally, for information on the personality of Phlegon see Pauly-Wissowa, Realenzyklo39, Stuttgart, 1941, pddiederKlass. Altertumswissenschaften 261 ff. (Eva Frank). pp. 3 E. Rohde, Rheinisches MuseumfiirPhilologien. F. 32,
1877, p. 329 f.

2 Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum col. . . . Carolus

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fiberGoethe, 2, Berlin, 1841, p. 531 ; Riemer, Mitteilungen see also the essay by Erich Schmidt just mentioned, for further details. pp. 229 ff.,

NOTES 178 a to and was horrified find by maid-servant, daughter risen from the grave. The white her dead daughter with Machates. cloth floating round the nude figure is the This story has frequently been re-told since shroud in which Philinion's corpse was the early seventeenth century, and the miss- wrapped when she was buried. ing opening passages supplied;4 Goethe, for Unfortunately, nothing has been disexample, used it as the basis of his ballad covered about the history of the painting be"Die Braut von Korinth".5 Goethe has fore it reached the gallery of Schwerin in the handled his material freely, and enriched it eighteenth century; nor, sad to say, do we with additions from other sources. He took know for what occasion Jordaens painted it. the subject from the book by Johann Praeto- It is impossible to say, therefore, whether he Eine neueweltbe- was introduced to the subject by a patron rius, Anthropodemus plutonicus, Menschen, with a classical education who had probably schreibungvon allerlei wunderbaren read Phlegon's story in the original Greek, or Magdeburg, I666. Jordaens, closely following Phlegon, depicts whether he perhaps took it from a later verthe moment when the mother and the servant sion; either could have furnished the central girl enter Machates' room and see the point of the story-the ghostly apparition of the dead girl. Since this motif is also the core of Goethe's ballad, art historians who have ed. L. Geiger, IX, i888, p. 230 4 Goethejahrbuch, studied the Schwerin picture could easily (E. Schmidt). have identified it long ago. 5 This information first appeared in Friedr. Wilh.
ERWIN BIELEFELD

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18

Jacob Jordaens, 'The Night Vision', Staatliches Museum, Schwerin (p. 177)

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