De eed van de Brugse chirurgijnen , een corporatiestuk van Philips Bernaerts (1677). Een contextuele analyse met nieuwe gegevens over maker en geportretteerden

Abstract

There are three extant, southern Netherlandish group portraits of surgeons: "The anatomy lesson of Dr Joannes van Buyten" (1648) by the Antwerp portraitist Frans Denys (1610-1670), "The board of governors of the Bruges surgeons"(1677) by Philips Bernaerts, and "The anatomy lesson" (1679) featuring four Bruges surgeons by an anonymous artist. Civic group portraits from Bruges have received scant attention in the literature, and very little was known about Philips Bernaerts. Archival documents have aided the following reconstruction of how "The board of governors of the Bruges surgeons" came to be made, and demonstrate that the surgeons were a very active professional guild in the second half of the seventeenth century. The commission of this civic group portrait was an expression of their growing self-assurance and cohesion as a group. New biographical discoveries shed a light on the professional knowledge and activities of the II surgeons. They also tell us something about their personalities. Now, for the first time, it is posible to suggest a name for the candidate surgeon. The art-historical literature places the Ghent painter Philips Bernaerts, who was active there from 1640 onwards, alongside a namesake in Bruges. The archival research carried out for this article now reveals that they are one and the same person. Philips Bernaerts married Johanna Vandenberghe, with whom he had at least seven children in Ghent between 1651 an 1664. He died in Bruges on 18 August 1683, and was buried there in the friary of the Franciscan Recollects. Thanks to these new discoveries it is possible to sketch the first complete picture of Bernaerts's artistic activity. He was a prominent figure in the world of Ghent painters from 1646 to 1658-1660, among other things as member of the board of governors. He painted numerous works for religious houses and churches in and around Ghent, and in Bruges as well, mostly large altarpieces. Bernaerts is highly rated for his composition and colouring. Stylistically he was clearly indebted to Gaspar de Crayed (1584-1669), and Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). In 1677 Bernaerts became a master painter in Bruges and executed his large civic group portrait of "The board of governors of the Bruges surgeons" that same year. The canvas is an exception in his oeuvre in that he is not known to have painted any other portraits. There is no information about his artistic output after 1677.