Lot 1261 Dα

The battle of Lützen in the year 1632 was one of the most significant military events of the Thirty Years' War. The young Jan Asselijn depicted it in this large-format painting just three years later.
The viewer's gaze is led from the large tree in the foreground on the left across an expansive plane with the silhouette of the town of Lützen in the distance. The centre of the composition is occupied by a group of cavalrymen, within which one figure in a broad brimmed hat and blue sash features particularly prominently. The figure in question is Gustavus Adolphus II of Sweden who, although he died in this battle, is here depicted as a dynamic commander. The dead soldiers and animals in the foreground represent the horrors of war, and the extent of the battle becomes clear when we observe the myriad of mounted soldiers in the background of the image.
Jan Asselijn follows a composition scheme for battle scenes developed in the 1620s by Esaias van de Velde. The tree on the left side of the work, the corpses in the foreground and the group of riders attacking were all elements already found in the works of van de Velde as well as other military painters such as Asselijn's tutor Jan Martsen. Whereas most contemporary Dutch “battaljes” showed single skirmishes, Jan Asselijn extends the composition into an expansive military scene with Gustavus Adolphus as an identifiable figure amid a mass of cavalrymen and foot soldiers.
With Albrecht von Wallenstein on the side of the emperor and Gustavus Adolphus II of Sweden leading the Protestant faction, the battle of Lützen brought together two main protagonists of the Thirty Years' War as opponents on the field. The Protestants were able to force the imperial army into a retreat, but Gustavus Adolphus fell in the battle. Asselijn glorifies the Swedish king as the leader of the Protestant army for the art patrons of the northern Netherlands, who naturally supported this cause. The artist left for Italy just one year after the completion of this painting, where he henceforth devoted himself entirely to the depiction of Italianate landscapes.