Caveau No. 6 (one of 8 hand-colored plates from "Descriptions des Monuments de Rhodes"

Pierre Joseph Witdoeck

Pierre-Joseph Witdoeck’s “Caveau No. 6” is a precursor to 19th century Symbolism and Victorian Gothic romanticism. Death, revitalization, and religious iconography are depicted in a decorative composition that might well have served as a sketch for a future crypt or other architectural shrine. Skeletons in tragic poses crowd the stormy background landscape and guard the entryway of a tomb, bedecked on either side by winged hourglasses. Angels trumpet above the opened crypt door, perhaps representing heaven. The unusual addition of an entryway opening onto a desert landscape may have been inspired by Witdoeck’s extensive travels from his home in Belgium to Algeria, Egypt, and Greece. It appears, with the inclusion of a clear sky and crowding desert plantlife, that it is perhaps meant to be a peaceful destination rather than a dry and uninhabitable place of banishment.

This is plate 6 of 8 hand colored lithographs that accompanied the 1828 Atlas volume "Descriptions des Monuments de Rhodes", published by Bernard Eugène Rottiers (1771-1858) with 77 lithographs by Adrien Colleye after drawings done by Whitdoeck when he accompanied Rottiers on an archaeological mission to Rhodes.

Belgian painter and printmaker Pierre-Joseph Witdoeck, also known as Petrus Josephus Witdoeck, was born on January 4, 1803, in Antwerp, Belgium, the son of painter and architect Franciscus Donatus Witdoeck who was a professor at the Royal Academy, Antwerp. Other family members, including Jean and Jerome Witdoeck, were pupils of Rubens. His formal training began with his father, and then with painters Ferdinand de Braekeleer and Mathieu-Ignace Van Bree. Of particular interest to Witdoeck was religious imagery and the histories and antiquities of places such as Spain and Egypt.

Witdoeck was employed as an artist-cataloguer of antiquities on a scientific expedition to Greece, Algiers, and Egypt beginning in 1824, a trip sponsored by King William I of the Netherlands. Three years later he compiled the sketches to be published in 1830 by Colonel Rottiers, who led the trip. Following this he began teaching architecture and art at the Jesuit college in Brugelette; then, he took a post as city architect of Turnhout. There, he founded a school of his own. He died in 1889, though some places cite his death as 1840 or 1873.