Knight Vanquishing Time, Death, and Monstrous Demons

Philips Wouwerman made his living from horses, from cavalry skirmishes, hunts and travellers at inns. This panel, signed with his monogram and dated 1662, is something else, a moral allegory. A knight overcomes Time, Death and a swarm of monstrous demons, and two Latin mottoes spell out what it means. On the crown at the upper right is Augusta per angusta, to high things by narrow ways. On the shield in the centre is a line borrowed from Virgil. In the Aeneid the Trojans press on through every mishap and danger towards Latium, their promised land in Italy. Here the same words lead instead to the heavens. The picture had a partner, a Saint George also by Wouwerman, and the two were sold together in Amsterdam in 1771 from the collection of Gerret Braamcamp, one of the best-known Amsterdam cabinets of the day. Both later belonged to François Tronchin, a collector in Geneva, and this one stayed with his family until 1938. The Saint George is still in Geneva, in the Musée d'art et d'histoire.