Romeyn Evicted?

The Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles holds a pen drawing showing four allegorical characters chasing an individual away from a city (fig. 5.1). The authorship of the anonymous and undated picture is obscure, but it is presumed to represent Romeyn de Hooghe being expelled from Amsterdam.

On the left, a man with a giant periwig is smiling mischievously. In contrast to his abundant hairdo – a periwig was a sign of wealth and leisure – he is dressed like a tramp. Leaning on a stick and accompanied by a dog (!), he is carrying the besace or beggars’ knapsack, a famous symbol of the rebellious nobles who had started the Dutch Revolt. In his left hand, partly cut off by the border of the drawing, he clutches a purse or a money bag. In the foreground gleams a pile of treasure with the legend Aeraium, a misspelling of aerarium (public treasury). The character is evidently not only a vagrant but also a thief, a combination not uncommon in the early modern imagination. He is accompanied by a repulsive hag, winged and clawed, hovering above him and shrouded in dark clouds, the symbol of Invidia or Envy. The beggar- thief and his companion are being expelled from a city, visible in the background, by an allegorical figure, a woman holding a stick in her right hand and a knot of snakes in the other. She represents ‘Concord of War’ (Concordia militare), according to Cesare Ripa ‘an armoured woman, holding in her hands a bunch of snakes thrown together; for she is able to protect herself with weapons and harm others with venom, which is brought about by anger’. The central figure on the right, dressed in sixteenth-century garb, embodies the city-maiden of Amsterdam. She has no particular attributes, but the imperial crown on the wall behind her unequivocally refers to that city, which had the right to display the crown above its arms. She holds a laurel wreath over a figure sitting to her left, representing Justice, with scales (but no blindfold), a bundle of fasces (the ancient Roman symbol for justice), law books, and another imperial crown sitting on her lap.