Upon entering the first room of Rundāle Palace Museum’s (RPM) decorative art exhibition ‘From the Gothic Style to Art Nouveau,’ attention immediately draws to the large-scale portrait of the richly clad Wilhelm, Duke of Courland (1574–1640). This exquisite portrait dates back to the beginning of the 17th century. In literature, it’s often described as the only authentic portrait among the dukes of the house of Kettler that still remains in Latvia. Over time, it has often been reproduced and mentioned in several sources. And yet little is known about the portrait, with its authorship and history still posing many unanswered questions.
How did the portrait end up at the museum?
Sources published in Latvia’s territory start showing special interest in the portrait towards the end of the 19th century. At the time, it was preserved at St. Magdalene Church on the island of Ruhnu, now part of modern Estonia. How Duke Wilhelm’s portrait ended up at this wooden church (built some 30 years after the portrait was completed) is anyone’s guess. It’s worth noting that the island, inhabited by ethnic Swedes (Latvian: Roņu; Swedish: Runö) used to belong to the Bishopric of Courland. Later, up until 1621, the autonomous district of Piltene comprised the island, part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Next, the island was added to Swedish Livonia, before subsequently being incorporated into Imperial Russia’s Governorate of Livonia. In 1919, the island’s inhabitants chose to join the newly formed Republic of Estonia.
The island of Ruhnu holds a distinct place in Duke Wilhelm’s biography. In 1609, he married Sophie (1582–1610), the daughter of Albrecht Friedrich, Duke of Prussia (1553–1618). As part of Sophie’s dowry, Wilhelm received the region of Grobiņa and the district of Piltene. Both territories were pawned to Prussia. In 1615, tensions between Duke Wilhelm and the local nobility intensified. Two years later, Courland’s provincial assembly stripped him off his title as duke and banished him from the duchy. Wilhelm went into exile, briefly seeking refuge on the island of Ruhnu, though he later settled at the Kukułowo Abbey in Pomerania, now part of modern Poland.
While tracing the painting’s journey from the church on Ruhnu Island, it was discovered that two of the most significant 19th century scientific societies, concerned with studying history and operating in the territory known as Latvia today, had expressed interest in the artwork. Namely, Courland’s Society of Literature and Arts (Kurländische Gesellschaft für Literatur und Kunst, 1817–1939) and the Society for the Research of History and Antiquity in Riga (Gesellschaft für Geschichte und Altertumskunde zu Riga, 1834–1939). Courland Province Museum in Jelgava was already operating under the patronage of Courland’s Society of Literature and Arts, whereas the Society for the Research of History and Antiquity in Riga was one of the supporters of the Dom Museum. Here is the sequence of events that unfolded, in chronological order.
On October 25, 1890, the pastor F. F. Dreyer composed a letter on the island of Ruhnu and sent it to the historian and headteacher August Seraphim. In the letter, Dreyer described the portrait of Duke Wilhelm, housed at the church on the island of Ruhnu. Three years later, the recipient of the letter presented it as a gift to Courland’s Society of Literature and Arts. On 6 October 1893, the society’s secretary and leader of the antique department of the Courland Province Museum, headteacher Heinrich Diederichs, presented a report about “the remarkable portrait of Duke Wilhelm from 1615, housed at Ruhnu Island’s church.” He compared pastor Dreyer’s description of the painting in the letter with several other 19th century sources, concluding that all of these describe the same portrait. It was decided that “it would be very desirable for the Courland Province Museum to acquire a copy of the painting, or at least a large photograph of it, as there can be no doubt that the portrait was made during the duke’s lifetime.”
The genealogy and heraldry annual, Jahrbuch für Genealogie, Heraldik und Sphragistik 1894, released by Courland’s Society of Literature and Arts, featured an article by the historian Leonid Arbusow that gave a broader account of the portraits of Kettler dukes and duchesses. Arbusow mentioned Wilhelm’s portrait as the only known, existing depiction of the more ancient Kettler dukes, made during the reign of the person depicted. Concerned about the painting’s poor technical condition, Arbusow stressed that “before the portrait deteriorates completely, an authentic and respectable copy must be acquired.”
At the time of the article’s publication, early in 1895, Arbusow had already been studying the historical documents of Livland and Courland for a couple of years, commissioned by the Society for the Research of History and Antiquity in Riga. It is unknown whether Arbusow stoked any real interest in preserving the said portrait. However, in December of the same year, the society’s patronised Dom Museum, received a special gift from one of its Board members, the avid collector Carl Gustav von Sengbusch. It was the original of Duke Wilhelm’s portrait, restored by the artist Julius Siegmund. The artist also made a copy of the painting, which was handed to Ruhnu Island’s church congregation.
As evidenced by a description of the painting along with an invitation to come and see the museum’s newly acquired artefact, published in the Riga newspaper Düna Zeitung on 15 January 1896, Duke Wilhelm’s portrait was exhibited at the Dom Museum right after it was received. A few years later, the portrait was reproduced for the first time in the museum’s guide. During the second half of the 1930s, the magnificent original of the full-scale portrait adorned the reception rooms at Riga Castle, the residence of the President of Latvia, where the artist Pauls Šprenks later reproduced it. In 1939, the authoritative leader of the Republic of Latvia, Kārlis Ulmanis, gifted Šprenks’ copy to the town of Grobiņa.
The inscriptions and stickers on the back of the portrait’s original version tell us that sometime – arguably, in the first half of the 1940s – the painting was added to the Riga City Art Museum’s collection (known today as the main building of the Latvian National Museum of Art). Following on from this, the painting was added to the collection of the State Museum of Western European Art (known today as Art Museum RIGA BOURSE, a branch of the Latvian National Museum of Art), until it was returned to the Dom Museum’s successor, the Museum of the History of Riga and Navigation. In 1965, the museum handed Duke Wilhelm’s portrait over to the Bauska Local History and Art Museum, with an aim to exhibit the painting at Rundāle Palace.
What happened to the portrait of Duchess Sophie?
Source literature often cites that the church on Ruhnu Island used to house not only a large-scale portrait of Duke Wilhelm, but also that of his wife, Duchess Sophie, in addition to paintings depicting both spouses’ armorial bearings. These are still preserved at the small wooden church today, along with a copy of Duke Wilhelm’s portrait to the scale of the original, painted by Julius Siegmund. However, there’s little information regarding Duchess Sophie’s portrait. Sources often mention it being lost sometime in the 19th century.
A few years ago, the long-standing conservator of the Rundāle Palace Museum, Daira Līdaka, dedicated her attention to the question of Duchess Sophie’s portrait. She was writing a feature for the museum’s ‘Tales of Things’ series about the rings found in the sarcophagus of Princess Elisabeth Sophie of Brandenburg, the Duchess of Courland. There’s evident doubt in the article over whether such a portrait had even existed at the church on Ruhnu Island. The author points out that Duke Wilhelm’s portrait had been painted after his wife’s death, posing the following questions: “Would the artist have made a copy from some other portrait of Sophie? And would he have painted it on such a large scale?”
The oldest known source that contains information about Duchess Sophie’s portrait’s whereabouts in the church on Ruhnu Island, is the manuscript Genealogische Tabellen derer sämtlichen Durchlauchtigsten Herzöge und Herzoginnen in Liefland zu Curland und Semgallen... Penned by a doctor from Kuldīga and avid collector of cultural heritage materials, Johann Georg Weygand, the publication lists the genealogy of Kettler dukes and duchesses. Finished no later than 1731, the publication was once stored at the Courland Province Museum. The author wrote that, as tensions intensified between Duke Wilhelm and Courland’s nobility, he set sail for Ruhnu Island on 20 April 1617, departing from the port of Ventspils. The duke spent several years on the island, whose inhabitants honoured him by placing his portrait next to the church altar, along with a portrait of his spouse and depictions of their armorial bearings.
However, several sources describing Ruhnu Island and its artifacts of cultural heritage, published in the middle of the 19th century, fail to mention anything about Duchess Sophie’s portrait, even though they describe Duke Wilhelm’s portrait in notable detail. These include Carl Rußwurm’s Eibofolke oder die Schweden an der Küste Esthlands und auf Runö (1855) and Arwed von Schmidt’s Einige Notizen über die Insel Runo (1864).
A possible answer as to whether St. Magdalene’s church housed Duchess Sophie’s portrait in the 19th century in the first place, can be found in the description of Ruhnu Island, Beskrifning om Runö i Liffland (Tavastehus, 1847). Penned by the congregation’s Finnish pastor, Fredrik Joachim Ekman, the publication contains detailed information on the architecture and interior of the church, as well as its adornments and historical artifacts (such as paintings, stained-glass panels, and especially decorated end boards of pews). In painstaking detail, the author has described Duke Wilhelm’s portrait, pointing out that the painting is in a very bad condition and haphazardly attached to the banisters of the men’s choir section. Meanwhile, the north wall of the women’s section contains a “relatively well-known bust of Queen Christina,” an oil painting that’s one “aln” tall (an ancient measuring unit, approximately 62 cm in modern terms).
Ekman’s depiction supports the idea that there once was, indeed, a portrait of a woman at the church on Ruhnu Island, which later sources no longer mention. However, based on its size, it can only be assumed that the said portrait was not paired with Duke Wilhelm’s one, which stands 218 cm tall. Furthermore, the author of the publication has identified a specific person in the portrait – Christina, Queen of Sweden, who reigned in 1632–1654. During this time, the island of Ruhnu was part of the Swedish Livonian territory. And given that St. Magdalene’s church was constructed in 1644, during Queen Christina’s reign, it makes logical sense to assume that the island’s Swedish inhabitants would have placed a portrait of their reigning monarch in the newly constructed church.
Therefore, it can further be supposed that the doctor from Kuldīga, Johann Georg Weygand, did not see the portrait in person, given that he was composing the genealogy of the Kettler dukes and duchesses during the first decade of the 18th century. Or perhaps he did, but he failed to recognise the woman depicted, assuming her to be Duchess Sophie, the wife of Wilhelm, Duke of Courland, since the rest of the paintings in the church – Wilhelm’s portrait and the armorial bearings – are interconnected. However, 120 years later, the Swedish pastor who served at the church on Ruhnu Island, Fredrik Joachim Ekman, recognised (or perhaps, being familiar with the island’s history, wanted to recognise) the Queen of Sweden, Christina.
No matter which character was depicted in the portrait, the question still stands over what happened to the portrait of a woman, still present at the church on Ruhnu Island in 1847.
How much of the portrait needed restoring?
Even the oldest known descriptions of the portrait, penned in mid-19th century, outline the painting’s poor condition, expressing concern over its imminent demise. The historical descriptions hint that the painting was missing a stretcher frame, as well as a significant portion of its right section. Basing his conclusions on pastor Dreyer’s letter, published in a review about the age of dukedom in Courland Aus Kurlands herzoglicher Zeit (Mitau, 1892), the historian August Seraphim wrote: “Over time, a portion of the gradually deteriorating painting was cut off, creating an impression that Duke Wilhelm only had one arm. And even though he was on good terms with his brother, Duke Friedrich, the people of Ruhnu Island came up with the notion that Wilhelm’s arm was severed by his brother.” However, three years later the aforementioned newspaper Düna Zeitung, printed an article which stated that the sides of Duke Wilhelm’s portrait had been partly damaged and partly cut off, damaging the painting’s inscription in turn.
The first attempt of restauration was undertaken by the painter Julius Siegmund in c. 1895. He lined the painting by attaching the edges of a canvas to both sides of the painting and its top left corner. Furthermore, he reconstructed the missing parts of the portrait’s composition. Even to the naked eye it’s obvious how much the artist had added to the edges of the artwork by painting them fresh. It can clearly be seen when looking at the painting in slanting light, which illuminates the joining lines of the newer and older layers of canvas on both sides of the duke’s figure.
This was uncovered in more precise detail by a 2020 roentgenological investigation. The X-ray exposed the exact spot where the duke’s left arm had been ‘severed,’ further specifying how much of the inscription had been lost. Overall, it’s clear that Julius Siegmund added the leg of the table on the portrait’s left side. He also reconstructed part of the table-top, covered in a red velvet tablecloth. In addition, he restored the dark-green drapery on both sides of the painting’s upper section, while on the right-hand side he finished up the duke’s shoe and other aspects of his clothing. Furthermore, he painted the palm with the handle of the sword from scratch and added to the missing section of the inscription.
A significant aid in Julius Siegmund’s efforts to reconstruct the inscription written on the portrait in Antiqua typeface, was the painting of Duke Wilhelm’s coat of arms, preserved at the church on the island of Ruhnu. His coat of arms contains the same inscription in German: ‘VON GOTTES / GNADEN WIL / HELM IN LIEFF / LAND ZV CHVR / LAND VND SEM / GALLEN HERZOG’. This translates as: ‘Wilhelm, Duke in Livland, reigning over Courland and Semigallia by the grace of God.’ Even though the inscription was only partially preserved on the painting itself, it would have been very easy to decipher and reconstruct, based on the depiction of the coat of arms. However, the artist has not been able to complete the date, which contained only the first two numerals ‘16-‘. Nonetheless, 19th century sources had already dated the portrait as 1615, because Duke Wilhelm’s aforementioned coat of arms depicts the same year. Plus, the portrait matches this era stylistically as well.
The next attempt at restoration was carried out in 1983–1984 by Ieva Lancmane, Head of the Scientific Restauration Department at the Rundāle Palace Museum. This process uncovered that Julius Siegmund had overpainted and retouched small sections in quite a few places where the original layer of paint had been lost. Furthermore, he had done this without first applying fill to these areas, thus grazing the author’s original paintwork. During the course of restoration, the canvas was smoothed out in places where it had deformed. Tearing was repaired, and pictorial restoration was completed in some sections.
As already mentioned, the portrait underwent a roentgenological examination in 2020. The most fascinating discovery in this process was the depiction of Duke Wilhelm’s face next to his feet, painted on the reverse side of the original canvas, which cannot be seen behind the lining. Evidently, the artist had already begun painting the model, but something in the already detailed face hadn’t quite met his expectations. So, he turned the canvas inside out and started again.
Evaluating the duke’s outfit
In his book Baroque Art in Latvia (Riga, 1939), the art historian Boriss Vipers claims that Duke Wilhelm’s portrait is one of the boldest examples of late Renaissance or Mannerism in Latvian pictorial art. As he points out on, “the costume plays a very active role both in the composition of the picture and in the conception of the man. Wide, puffed, starched breeches, the circumference of which is still more marked by the ribbons and the silhouette of the garment; thin legs in light, tight-fitting stockings; black shoes; a short, stiff doublet with a high waist; an upturned collar, starched and fan-like – all these to distort the natural proportions of the human body, to deprive it of its organic structure and turn it into an arbitrary, abstract ornamental design. This abstract, bodiless appearance of the model the painter attempts to enhance by emphasizing the smallness of the head, by the fixed, expressionless stare, by the almost complete absence of chiaroscuro in the modelling of the figure, by the extremely high horizon, and by the glaring inscription, which seems to float in the void. As a result, the portrait is given a perfectly irrational, magical character” (an extract from the book, pages 104–106).
Typical of Mannerism, the portrait clearly exaggerates the model’s proportions and garments. Overall, however, Duke Wilhelm’s outfit is on par with men’s fashion trends in the second decade of the 17th century. The painting was made at a time when Western European fashion was gradually withdrawing from the trends of the Spanish court of the late Renaissance and the influence of the style prominent in Queen Elizabeth I’s court.
The duke is wearing an openwork heraldic chain, made of gold, enamel and pearls. It’s a mark of honour from a society, established by the young Elector of Saxony, Christian II, in 1601. It served as a representational present for his allies and noblemen he was friendly with. Although such chains accompanied their wearers to their graves, a few examples have ended up in museums, namely The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and The Green Vault in Dresden. A portrait of the founder of the society, Christian II, painted after his death, depicts him wearing the same heraldic chain around his neck.
Is this the only portraiture of Duke Wilhelm?
When Ieva Lancmane described Duke Wilhelm’s portrait some 30 years ago, for the 17th century portraiture catalogue Портрет XVII века в Латвии (Riga, 1986), she stressed that it was undoubtedly painted in situ. This is characterised by the “individualised facial features, the focused expression, and the natural depiction of what’s being seen.” For this reason, sources often describe Duke Wilhelm’s painting as “the only original portrait still remaining of the dukes of the house of Kettler.” This refers to portraits that were made during their subjects’ lifetimes, though several other depictions of Duke Wilhelm are known.
For instance, the duke’s profile was depicted on the silver three-groschen coins, forged in the Duchy of Courland during his lifetime. As evidenced by examples that survive to this day, Duke Wilhelm’s depiction varies between coins forged in different years. For instance, his collar and hairstyle are inconsistent between the obverse of the 1598 coin, forged in Jelgava, and that of the 1606 coin, now housed at the Rundāle Palace Museum.
Furthermore, there are at least two other known portraitures of Duke Wilhelm, made after his death. Firstly, the stipple engraving published in the almanac Nordischer Almanach für das Jahr 1809 (Riga, 1809). It was made by the German master Johann Adolf Rossmaesler, based on a drawing by K. Klemm, an amateur artist from Jelgava. Meanwhile, the Courland Province Museum used to house Duke Wilhelm’s portrait, made by Joseph Dominik Oechs, an artist from Jelgava. It was made in 1836, commissioned for a portrait series of Courland’s dukes, based on depictions that were included in genealogic tables and other sources. However, in an article discussing portraits of dukes from the house of Kettler, published in the journal Senatne un Māksla (History and Art, 1936, no. 1), the historian Verners Tepfers points out that the artist had damaged the likeness to any existing portraits by “taking liberty with the original and letting his fantasy roam free.” Sources point to another couple of portraits, made in watercolour, but news of their replicas or whereabouts are unknown today.
Who is the author of the portrait?
The author of Duke Wilhelm’s portrait is unknown. Originally, the piece may have been signed, but the signature has since vanished along with the damaged sides of the painting. So, we are limited to making assumptions over its authorship. Furthermore, 19th century sources don’t address the question of authorship while sources published in the 20th century have gone as far as to name a few potential authors and/or the schools they represented. For example, Boriss Vipers wrote as follows over the authorship of Duke Wilhelm’s portrait: “The style of our portrait points either to Danzig [modern-day Gdańsk] (A. Möller, G. Jantzen) as its primary source or to the well-known school of portrait-painters who worked at Königsberg [modern-day Kaliningrad] at the court of Duke Albrecht” (page 106).
Equally, Ieva Lancmane has also pointed to the painting’s potential connection with the court of the Duke of Prussia. She noted that no one in the Duchy of Courland would have been able to paint such a high-quality portrait in situ. Therefore, “the author had to be sought out beyond the borders of the duchy, among painters working in courts that had kinship ties with Courland. The first place to look would have been Brandenburg-Prussia, since Duke Wilhelm’s wife was a Brandenburg princess by birth. Certain similarities can be observed in portraits by Martin Schulz, Joachim Siwert and Daniel Rose” (page 8).
Looking at examples of the aforementioned painters, one must side with the opinion of both authors cited above: comparisons can most likely be found in the works of court artists of Brandenburg and Prussia. For example, the 1605 portrait of Brandenburg’s Elector Johann Sigismund, painted by the Königsberg-based artist Daniel Rose, housed at the Königsberg Castle up until World War II (its whereabouts today are unknown). Duke Wilhelm and the Elector were connected by kinship ties – their wives were sisters, daughters of Albrecht Friedrich, Duke of Prussia. And although the original portrait of the Elector Johann Sigismund has survived today only through the medium of a black-and-white photograph, even such an image can reveal that the model, painted in full height, is wearing a similarly richly clad garment, and is depicted in the same pose as Duke Wilhelm. Likewise, the painting’s top border is adorned in drapery, and features the model’s title and name. An inscription on the right-hand side reveals the year the painting was made. It must also be noted that the same painter, Daniel Rose, is considered to be the author of Duke Wilhelm’s wife’s portrait – Sophie, Princess of Prussia – which suffered a similar fate.
However, there is yet another portraiture of Brandenburg’s Elector Johann Sigismund, which bears a significant resemblance to the portrait of Duke Wilhelm. This painting is reproduced in 1907 in the annual Hohenzollern-Jahrbuch (Berlin/Leipzig, 1907), dedicated to the ruling house of Brandenburg-Prussia, the Hohenzollern dynasty. At the time, the portrait was housed at the Berlin Palace. The publication does not name the author of the work, nor does it state the dimensions of the painting, or any other parameters that could further characterise the painting. Nonetheless, its composition leads to the assumption that this was a representative large-scale piece of work and its visual likeness to Duke Wilhelm’s portrait poses the question over whether both paintings were made by the same artist, though his identity is yet to be discovered.
As mentioned in the opening of this article, the history and authorship of Duke Wilhelm’s portrait, displayed as part of Rundāle Palace Museum’s exhibition ‘From the Gothic Style to Art Nouveau’ poses a series of questions. Over the course of the last two centuries, queries around where the painting was housed have largely been answered. However, lots of questions remain open for future research. Who is the author of the portrait? Where and under what circumstances was the painting created? When and how did it arrive at the church on Ruhnu Island? To what extent do the sections of the painting, reconstructed by Julius Siegmund, correspond with the original? And plenty more…
The author: Baiba Vanaga, PhD
26.02.2024