A Sheet from the Album de Cröy

Album made for Charles de Croÿ (1560-1612) from 1596 to 1598. After Charles' death the volume passed to his nephew and heir, Alexandre d'Arenberg. It then passed down through the Arenberg family until the 19^th century, when it reached Ludmilla d'Arenberg, who in 1888 had married Prince Charles-Alfred de Croÿ-Dülmen. From then it passed to their son, Engelbert de Croÿ at Authal, Austria, thereafter by descent, until sale, Sotheby's, London, 19 June 2001, lot 47 (recto listed as sheet 10, verso as sheet 9);

sale, New York, Sotheby's, 23 January 2008, lot 133

Leuven, Museum M, De Arenbergs, 2018

This grand and elaborate, double-sided gouache is a sheet from the celebrated Album de Croÿ, made between 1596 and 1598 for Charles de Croÿ (1560-1612), 4^th Duc d'Arschot. Charles held numerous titles and lands - including the Duchy of Aarschot, the Principality of Porcien, the Earldoms of Beaumont and Seninghen and the Lordship of Avesnes, Lillers, Quiévrain, Esclaibes and Beveren - the administration of which clearly required a highly organised bureaucracy. In order to understand his properties, in 1590 the Duc ordered illustrated land surveys (cadastres), with coloured plans and perspective views in which the various individual properties were numbered, to correspond with lists of rents drawn up by Charles' treasurer and secretary. Between 1596 and 1598, these documents were synthesised into spectacular albums of painting on vellum, containing the images from the cadastres, but without the accompanying text. 

No fewer than 23 volumes were painted in all, comprising a total of 2,500 views. The present sheet is from one of the first two albums produced, covering the lands in Brabant, Flanders, Artois and Picardy. Originally, this album contained 86 leaves, with 118 full-page miniatures with decorative borders.  Still complete when sold at Sotheby's on 19 June 2001, the album was subsequently split up.  The individual sheets continue, however, to be of extraordinary importance for the architectural history, the topography, and the social history of northern France and Belgium during the final years of the struggle against Philip II of Spain.  For further information on the album and its history, see the catalogue of the aforementioned sale.

The three compartments on the verso are plans of different parts of the village, Betekum, that is depicted in the atmospheric view on the recto. The larger plan shows the village centre, with the church of St.-Laurent, the walled cemetery and the river Laak running nearby; the smaller views show a small parcel of land and a pond, both owned by the duc d'Aarschot.