Luxury and Calvinism/ Luxury and Capitalism: Supply and Demand for Luxury Goods in the Seventeenth-Century Dutch

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

the arts from

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

the refined self-aggrandizer; the admiration of gluttony;

the vain, prideful palate easily slid into

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,

of a luxurious averse defend

to taking the state. The

accessible

for military service to decisions needed history made

study of ancient
every educated

a "hot button" In an economy

topic in Early Modern the toil of millions where

these

lessons

European.

The a

"Dance to the Music

coercive supported?usually through classes of and privileged temporal spiritual

churchmen, and landowners, it was

seemingly unavoidable fortitude and hard work supplied This

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,

Europe, largely defined

in later

shape when

in the pre luxury was by?princely

as a far urbanized,

even

centuries, and

sustained surpluses. elites with

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

society's meager that supplied the

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,

The Journal of theWalters Art Gallery 57 (1999)

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,

all those things which

the palate, or the

"charm the eye, the ear,

In short, in these

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

the patronage and moral

if these

of elite?preferably
associated

is secured by elite? non-bourgeois

ruinous expense

multiplication served primarily nating

Luxury

a means and

of discrimi the New

meaning,

between
served

times,

places,
cultural

with

to communicate

questions. is another Luxury,

Indeed,
associations

it would
were

not
absent.

impress call

us it

permitting

dangerous

There the New

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

of luxury, let me there was no place but which is dominant

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?

in the following from dangers differed

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

The Fable of theBees. He describes as a beehive, in which disguised

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,

to pay for needless struck directly at the economic

economics.

insights I want What

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

challenge to the arguments I have just rehearsed, with their ancient

endorsements.

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,

foresees are not should

social good Dutch argued

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

leads the Christian

labyrinth.

into a "snare, [into] a long

..."

inextricable

ardently coveted, proudly lavished, these things, of indifferent, are completely To

boasted, or luxuriously themselves otherwise polluted by such vices.

Calvin
to

reasoned
was no

goods was a matter

say there

of material the enjoyment This is not indifferent. theologically

danger:

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

goods in proper perspective. on Calvin's specific views exceptional. of Calvinism had

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

in seventeenth-century Dutch society? We the observations written records?primarily visitors?and

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

to fool strangers was anathema. to the grand

as an illusion is

the "Dutch Example" turn to visual

was

paraded

before infor easily

readers.

We mation

can also about

gesture,

this society. And

images to gain Dutch paintings

77

Fig.

4. Pieter

de Hooch,

Two Women

beside a Linen

Chest, with a Child,

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

visitors were writings of contemporary in celebrating what Constantijn Huygens

unan called

than fifty Century,"

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

his views. Temple amazing economic to his envious emphasis on

English

78

Fig. 5. Pieter

de Hooch,

Portrait of a Family Making

Musk,

1663, oil on canvas. The

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:

...

to run generally them; among in their expense.

and dispositions that all these through degrees as great frugality and Their more common than he riches spends;

excesses

altogether
clothes

luxury of tables; nor so vain as the extravagant and

and attendance.9

lye in every man's

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

and feed upon they sell the finest

their own fish and roots. of their own

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

unique paired with power

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

very, very rich. Here,

scale and on so enduring

for the first

a basis?was

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

gives freedom; and freedom Now dilemma. these dilemma's

large numbers who had their consumer

hands of scarcity

exposes one to were faced by in and other societies still, earlier, choices constrained by the heavy
custom, and whose extrava

structed population making ential,

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

champion to wealth, rejected

about the

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

^^H ^^^H ^^^| ^^^H ^^^H ^^^B ^^^|

^^H

folly."13 He that there great

extravagant conceded were

palaces

was closely associated, if not caused by, the onset of a cultural over-ripeness:
a decadent generation

that the Republic's ^^H decline after the 1670s ^^M

^H ^ ^
van Poelenburch, Fig. 7. Cornelis Susanna van G?lten, ca. 1626, oil on copper. Art Walters Baltimore, Gallery, ace. no. 38.227. paintings that were industry.

accus

tomed to luxury and, therefore, without the character and determination of its forefathers. families some burgher

^^B

Certainly to the succumbed

Figs. 6 and 7. Both of these silk scarves feature multicolored specialty of Utrecht's silk weaving

81

JDnDOM ?.?i? ?lwtft?*a.

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

the city an attractive by the Episcopal plan of Burgomaster

place court,

for rich

families of

to settle. The

hope

into a center

Moreelse,

luxury consumption 1664. Utrecht, Gemeentelijke

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

in all of Europe you so sumptuously buildings

...

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

of by the patronage What the cities were New Luxuries,

doing was the erection

so litde fuss."15 "All this," of course, of many of comfortable thousands

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

the four corners Indeed,

of the world when Peter

was

their way

into these homes.

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

van de Vereenighde Nederlanden,

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,

Then known, an Old

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

way and process and new techniques markets, masters

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

the course ranging

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

of a prosperity-fueled can only be argued isolation

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

the cities of Holland I have made but

the

for to
into

comparison, need
nuanced

the generalizations not be abandoned,

to take into account

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

in the city and

or

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

income was based

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

of expressing similar remarkably

is its uniformity. status and achieving

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

taking "read" by the cultural

was

in fact

shape, but outsider.

could

not be

ness and

that, within luxury

the Dutch

urban

production

were

life system, genteel where its comparative

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

7. Sir William Netherlands, 86, 87. 8. 9. Ibid. Ibid.

Temple, Sir George

Observations Clark, ed.

upon (Oxford,

the United 1972;

Provinces first ed.,

of the 1673),

via financial of space

churches;

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

a university to appeal intended to the foreign and well born scholar;

grandiose?but aborted?plan to

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

(Oxford, Benefits 185-89. Q,

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.

1992), Revisited: and

205-46;

Disciplinary Prussia," American

1. Norbert (London,

The Process Elias, of Civilization, 1981; first ed., 1939).

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,

two cultural and Baron

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

fig. 4, Amsterdam, of Art; Museum

4. Sir John

Dudley,

upon Trade

fig. 7, The Hague, Mauritshuis, The Archiefdienst; fig. 9, Berkeley, of California.

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

(Philadelphia, are all taken

the Seventeenth

Century

(London,

85