Invitation to exhibition preview, 14:00, Tuesday, 22 September: The boisterous Bentvueghels artist group and silly nicknames

Exhibition Preview 
14:00, Tuesday, 22 September  

Sinebrychoff Art Museum Curator Salla Heino will introduce the exhibition. The author of the article in the exhibition publication, art historian Albert Boersma, as well as photographer Hans Withoos, who is related to Mathias Withoos and whose works are also on display in the exhibition, will also be present. Register for the preview: merja.haikio@siff.fi  

The Peacock in the Garden – Mathias Withoos and Rome
24.9.2026–10.1.2027
Sinebrychoff Art Museum  

Friendship, joy and community! The Sinebrychoff Art Museum presents the Bentvueghels artist group, which started among Dutch and Flemish artists in Rome around 1620 and bubbled over with exuberance. 

It was typical for artists of the time to add to their expertise by travelling to Rome, and Dutch painter Mathias Withoos (1627–1703) was no exception. Withoos joined the Bentvueghels during his stay in the city around 1648–1653.  

“The Bentvueghels were a loose community of artists, who supported each other, caroused a lot together, and sometimes even challenged each other artistically. Living in Rome united them, and Mathias Withoos’ time there left a lasting impression on his artistic working process,” says Museum Director Kirsi Eskelinen. 

The comradely, rambunctious Bentvueghels group flourished for a century, with new artists joining as they arrived in Rome. Two of the group’s founding members, painters Cornelis van Poelenburch (1594–1667) and Bartholomeus Breenbergh (1598–1657), also have works in the exhibition. The Bentvueghels were a diverse band of exponents of different art disciplines, and are known to have had at least 480 members. The vueghel in the name means “bird”, a playful reference to freedom, while bent means “flock”. A colourful flock of birds of a feather spending time in Rome – like peacocks in a garden.  

A great deal of information about the artists in the group has been preserved, including their correspondence with their families at home and official documents. We also know the streets that some of the members lived on, and which of them lodged together. The sense of community was evident in the sharing of knowledge, contacts, and everyday life. The Bentvueghels offered members both professional networks and financial security.  

“This information brings us closer to the artists behind the individual works and their lives. The exhibition not only tells us about 17th-century art, but also about the community and its people,” says exhibition curator Salla Heino.  

The exhibition, produced by the Sinebrychoff Art Museum, profiles the Bentvueghels artist group and among its painters, especially the work of Mathias Withoos. It includes paintings and rare drawings from the 17th century, mainly from Dutch museums and private collections, in addition to paintings and prints from the Finnish National Gallery’s collection. Dutch art historian Albert Boersma has contributed to the exhibition publication with an extensive article.


Silly nicknames immortalized in a church

White Sock, The Torch, Scarecrow, Rattle, Ferret, Archimedes, Sweet Milk, Goatee, and Satyr. The Bentvueghels came up with these nicknames for each other. The group had no proper membership register or official rules, but each new artist who joined was given his own Bent name. Nicknames were assigned at joining ceremonies and referred, for example, to someone´s external features, character or artistic work. The silly nicknames were a mark of belonging and many also used them to sign their works. Mathias Withoos’ Bent name is Calzetta Bianca, which is the Italian translation of his surname, and means white sock.  

The exhibition includes a painting from Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum’s collection depicting an initiation ceremony. Here, wine flowed and participants dressed jokingly in long robes in the manner of Antiquity. The ritual culminated in a group visit to the church of Santa Costanza built by Constantine the Great, where the initials of the new Bent name were carved into a wall. Membership of the group was thus immortalized on the church walls, where the artists’ names can still be seen. 

While doing research for the article in the exhibition publication, Albert Boersma discovered a new Bent name. He found the nickname of the successful artist Jan Both (1618–1652), whose work is in this exhibition, in the art-collection inventory of the patron of the arts and collector Wilhelm Vincent van Wittenhorst (1613–1674). Beside Jan Both’s name was the marking Soetemelck (Sweet Milk). This Bent name had been awaiting discovery from the 17th century until the making of this exhibition.


Abundant plants, architecture and detailed depictions of animals

Mathias Withoos left his hometown of Amersfoort for Rome in 1647. Besides other fellow artists, his travelling party included the painter Otto Marseus van Schrieck (1613–1678), known for his plant and nature paintings. While in Italy, Withoos and van Schrieck developed sottobosco, a specialised form of still-life painting on forest or nature themes that meticulously depicts forest undergrowth and the insects and small animals scurrying around there. Their sottobosco paintings are carefully constructed worlds. 

Withoos’ paintings often combine Roman landscapes and buildings in original ways, with an abundance of plants and detailed depictions of small animals. The plants in the foreground of the garden views are a reminder of the wondrousness of nature, which must be revered. The paintings contain prominent Vanitas motifs, reminders of the fleeting nature of life. In 17th-century paintings every piece of nature has its own meaning. In Dutch art the peacock was frequently a reminder of the ephemerality of beauty and the futility of glory and self-centeredness. Peacocks are a repeated presence in Withoos’ works. 

“Peacocks symbolise transcendence of momentary pleasure. Still today, in the midst of our busy everyday lives, we long for something meaningful. This can take the form of time shared with loved ones, nature experiences, or a need to slow down in general,” says Salla Heino. 

Mathias Withoos’ time in Rome inspired him for the rest of his life, but while he was living there, he was homesick. He spent a total of about four years in the city. He later shared his enthusiasm for Rome with his own students. Withoos’ pupil Caspar van Wittel (1653–1736) in turn travelled to Rome in 1673 and joined the Bentvueghels community. He was dubbed De Toorts, The Torch. 

After returning to his hometown of Amersfoort, Mathias started a family that became a small artist dynasty. Four of his eight children, Johannes, Pieter, Alida and Frans, grew up to be artists under their father’s tutelage. Mathias’ interest in nature can also be seen in his children’s artistic output. A good example of this in the exhibition is Forest Still Life with Butterflies (1686) by his son Johannes Withoos (1648–c. 1688). 

There are still artists in the family to this day. The exhibition features two works by photographer Hans Withoos (b. 1962) that hark back to the paintings of his centuries-old relative Mathias Withoos and conduct a dialogue with them. In Hans Withoos’ Still-life with Butterflies (2016) the landscape painted by Mathias Withoos takes on a new form and travels in time to the present.


Exhibition curator:
Salla Heino, Curator, Sinebrychoff Art Museum / Finnish National Gallery


Exhibition publication:
The Peacock in the Garden – Mathias Withoos and Rome

Editors: Salla Heino and Claudia de Brün
Photo editor: Anna Ahtola
Publisher: Sinebrychoff Art Museum

Authors:
Albert Boersma, art historian
Kirsi Eskelinen PhD, Museum Director, Sinebrychoff Art Museum / Finnish National Gallery


Works loaned by:
Centraal Museum, Utrecht
Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands
Gustavianum, Uppsala
Museum Amersfoort, Amersfoort
Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Private collections in The Netherlands



The exhibition is supported by the Embassy of the Netherlands in Helsinki. 

Oy Sinebrychoff Ab supports the operations of the Sinebrychoff Art Museum.