THE DUTCH SCHOOL

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WE have already followed the development of the early Flemish or Netherlandish art during the fifteenth century, and observed how it eventually passed under the Italianising influences which are unmistakable in the pictures of Barend van Orley (1495?–1542) and his contemporaries. The early painters of Holland as distinct from Flanders cannot be traced with any certainty much farther back than Albert von Ouwater (fl. 1420–1460), who worked at Haarlem from 1430 to 1460. As we have already seen, the early Flemish painter, Gerard David (1460?–1523), was born at Ouwater, which may well have had its school of painters. Neither Albert von Ouwater, who is represented to-day by a single work, the Raising of Lazarus in the Berlin Gallery, nor his unidentifiable contemporary who painted the Exhumation of St. Hubert, in the National Gallery (No. 783), are included in the collection of pictures at the Louvre.

GERARD OF HAARLEM

The influence of these painters and Dierick Bouts is seen in the rare works of Geertgen tot S. Jans, or Gerard of Haarlem (1465–1493) whose Raising of Lazarus (No. 2563a) in this collection is an achievement of the highest order, and was purchased as recently as 1902 for £4000 from Baron d’Albenas, after having been for many years in Spain. This pupil or follower of the Ouwater master was a native of Leyden, and worked at Haarlem. He took his name from the commandery of the Knights of St. John at Haarlem for whom he worked, as we see from the careful inscription, “Gerardus Leydanus pictor ad S. Io. Baptist. Harlem pinxt,” on his triptych at Vienna.

Among his contemporaries were Cornelis Engelbrechtsen, who was born in 1468 at Leyden, where he died in 1533, and Lucas van Leyden (1494–1533). The latter played an important part as an engraver quite as much as a painter in the university town of Leyden, which now possesses his large Last Judgment and became famous as the birthplace of Rembrandt in 1606. The Louvre possesses no picture by either Engelbrechtsen or Lucas van Leyden.

Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen (fl. 1470–1533) is also unrepresented here. Portraits by painters in this group are often confused, as in the case of the Portrait of the Duke of East Friesland, in the Oldenburg Gallery, which has been attributed to both Lucas van Leyden and Jacob Cornelisz. A pupil of the latter may have painted the Cana of Galilee (No. 2640c). It is safe to assign to “the Master of the Female Half Figures,” the Young Lady Reading (No. 2641c), which has a close analogy with the well-known picture in the Harrach collection at Vienna, representing half-length figures of three young ladies in crimson velvet dresses cut square at the neck, and singing to the accompaniment of a flute and a lute. The name of this painter is not known, but his pictures, which are neither numerous nor of any conspicuous merit, are easily recognisable.

To this period of transition and mediocre painting belongs Jan Scorel (1495–1562), whose Portrait of Paracelsus the Doctor (No. 2567a) is inscribed:

“FORMOSO DOCTOR PARASELSUS,”

and is in every way superior to the Portrait of a Man (No. 2641b), which is labelled with the name of Scorel, but catalogued as being by an unknown artist. From Scorel, a much travelled Dutch artist, who at one time worked at Nuremburg with Albrecht DÜrer and visited Venice and the East, we naturally pass to Jan Mostaert of Haarlem. Mostaert of Haarlem is unrepresented at the Louvre, a remark which equally well applies to the anonymous “Pseudo-Mostaert,” who painted so much in his style that a large number of inferior productions have been credited to him from time to time. Pictures of this type vary so considerably that the name “Pseudo-Mostaert” is little more than a generic designation for unassignable Flemish and Dutch pictures of the middle of the sixteenth century; such pictures bear some relationship to the Christ bearing His Cross (No. 2299), and the Abraham’s Sacrifice (No. 2300), officially attributed to the little-known and quite negligible painter Alart Claeszoon (1498–1564) of Leyden.

SIR ANTONIS MOR

From Leyden we may pass to Utrecht, which was the birthplace of the much-travelled, distinguished, and cosmopolitan painter, Antonis Mor (1512–1578?). He was a pupil of Jan Scorel, but soon freed himself from the hard manner he acquired under that master by his study in Italy of the best works of the Venetians. Indeed, some of his pictures have passed as the work of Calcar, the pupil of Titian. Mor, or Moro, excelled as a painter of vigorous and truthful portraits, and the portraits and replicas he painted of Queen Mary are well known. The Prado Gallery at Madrid and the Vienna Gallery contain good examples of his art, and he is fairly well represented in the Louvre. While he was in the service of Philip II. of Spain he lived in much splendour, and was amply paid for his work. His close intimacy with the monarch induced him on one occasion to take the liberty of touching with a brush dipped in red paint the hand of the king. This serious breach of Court etiquette created a profound impression on the courtiers present; and, although the painter sued for pardon and obtained it from the king, he soon recognised that he had made himself obnoxious to the Inquisition, who asserted that Moro had got from the heretic English, while painting the portrait of Queen Mary, a charm that enabled him to bewitch the Spanish monarch. Being thus compelled to leave Spain, he settled in Antwerp, where he died between 1576 and 1578.

The pictures of Mor, who was the contemporary of Titian, at different periods of his art bear traces of the Dutch, Spanish, and Flemish schools. He in turn also had an influence on the portrait painters of Spain half a century before the birth of Velazquez. The Portrait of a Man (No. 2478), which is signed and dated:

ANT MORO pingebat, 1565,”

was in the past held by some writers to bear the features of Sir Francis Drake, who was, however, at the date here given only twenty-one years of age. The two large paintings in the DuchÂtel Bequest which pass as the Portrait of Louis de Rio and His Wife (No. 2480 and No. 2481) are, judging by the attitudes of the figures and the shape of the panels, the wings of a large altarpiece. The Dwarf of Charles V. (No. 2479) reminds us that the painter, while still young, was taken into the service of that emperor. The Portrait of Edward VI. of England (No. 2481a) bears a very suspicious-looking inscription.

SPANISH OPPRESSION

The political events of the reign of Philip II. of Spain, the mistaken, mischievous, and oppressive policy he adopted with regard to his territory in the Netherlands, and the contempt with which he treated his Dutch subjects, soon alienated their sympathies; but the Duke of Alva by his harshness and bigotry incited them to frenzy. When he set forth in 1567, all hope of peace and mercy fled before him, and within a short period his tyranny and ferocity fanned the flame of rebellion, which after a struggle of eighty years was to end in the Peace of MÜnster of 1648. In that year Spain ignominiously surrendered, and the independence of the northern Netherlands was recognised. During the long period which elapsed between the Union of Utrecht in 1579 and the negotiations at OsnabrÜck and MÜnster in 1648 must have been destroyed innumerable religious pictures, the loss of which renders it almost impossible for us to estimate the full significance of artistic endeavour in Holland in the closing years of the sixteenth century.

A new era in Dutch history, social life and art was beginning to open out by the year 1612, when Abraham Blomaert (1564–1651) painted and signed his very large Nativity (No. 2327), which was formerly attributed to Bernardino Fassolo. Blomaert’s Portrait of a Man (No. 2327a) is also a signed work.

HISTORY AND PORTRAIT PAINTERS

Blomaert’s contemporary, Michiel Jansz Mierevelt (1567–1641), who was at one time Court painter to the Princes of Orange at The Hague, and was with undue flattery hailed as the “New Xeuxis of Delft,” is represented by the Portrait of Olden Barnevelt (No. 2465) and three other portraits, one of which (No. 2466) is in a very bad state. Stiff but characteristic is the Portrait of a Woman (No. 2534), which was painted by Jan van Ravesteyn (1572–1657) in 1633, while his initials are also found on a panel (No. 2535) which was commissioned of him in the following year. Although Gerard Verspronck (1600–1651) was many years his junior, and in 1641, in the period of his maturity, achieved the Portrait of a Lady (No. 2576a), the top corners of which have been added, he painted on the lines of tradition, and showed little originality. He came under the influence of Frans Hals, under whose name his pictures often pass.

CORNELIS JANSSEN

Nor can it be said that the numerous portraits which Cornelis Janssen van Ceulen (1593–1664?) undertook in England, give signs of the new artistic impulse which was daily manifesting itself in Holland in the early works of Frans Hals. Janssen, who was baptized at the Dutch Reformed Church, Austin Friars, London, throve until the establishment in England of Van Dyck, before whom he quickly had to give way; although he withdrew to Kent and lived in retirement, he did not receive the Speaker’s warrant to pass beyond seas until 1643. That “Cornelius Johnson Picture Drawer” made use of pallid flesh tones and lifeless grey tones, is obvious from the two portraits (No. 2338 and No. 2339) exhibited in the Louvre.

The very modern looking Portrait of a Young Man (No. 2303a), signed “d. bailly,” is officially held to be the work of a Leyden painter of that name who would appear to have been a contemporary of Cornelis Janssen.

FRANS HALS

Although the great Dutch painter, Frans Hals (1580?–1666) was born at Antwerp, his parents were natives of Haarlem, whither he removed about 1600, and where he settled for the remainder of his eventful, irregular, and improvident career. This lusty and unromantic master by his forceful characterisation, his rapid wielding of his brush, and his frank realism, in a few years transformed the earlier portrait-making of Holland, and the rendering of the commonplace and obvious likeness of an individual, as seen in the works of Moreelse and others, into the region of great art. He was by about a quarter of a century the senior of Rembrandt, who is the greatest genius among Dutch painters, and developed his art on logical lines. It is, however, necessary to know the outstanding facts of his personal history, the fluctuating circumstances under which he worked, and the grinding poverty of his latest period. Perhaps no other painter in the whole range of art was so affected by his environment as Hals.

PLATE XXVII.—FRANS HALS
(1580?–1666)
DUTCH SCHOOL
No. 2384.—THE GIPSY GIRL
(La BohÉmienne)

She wears a red dress, which is open at the neck; she smiles as she turns her eyes to the right; half-length figure.

Painted in oil on canvas.

2 ft. 6 in. × 2 ft. 3 in. (0·76 × 0·68.)

Whether he was a pupil of Cornelis Cornelissen, Hendrick Goltzius, and Karel van Mander (the Dutch Vasari), is not known with any certainty, and no picture painted by him earlier than 1613, when he may have been thirty-three years of age, is known to-day. Early in the year 1616, when he painted his famous Banquet of the Officers of the St. Joris Shooting Guild, one of his early masterpieces still preserved in the small gallery at Haarlem, he was summoned before the Burgomaster of the “town of the tulip,” and reprimanded for his cruelty to his first wife. Exactly a year later he married a second time, and as the years went on he became the father of at least six sons who adopted the profession of the painter but earned no permanent success. The Louvre possesses no example of his Doelen-pieces of archer-groups which won him his earliest fame in his own country, but is fortunate enough to contain the famous Gipsy Girl (No. 2384, Plate XXVII.), which alone would have earned for him the title of “the master of the laugh.” It passed through the MÉnars sale in 1792 for 301 livres. The three pictures of the Beresteyn family were bought for £4000 in 1884, when his paintings were not as highly prized as they are to-day. They give an excellent idea of the virility his art had attained by about 1629. The best of these is the Portrait of Nicolaes van Beresteyn (No. 2386), which is inscribed, “Aetat suae 40. 1629.” His hands are superbly painted; while the companion Portrait (No. 2387) of his wife is equally striking. The large and imposing Portrait-Group of the Beresteyn Family (No. 2388) is marred by the excessive use in places of a strong red, and has been enlarged by the addition down the right side of the canvas of a strip about fourteen inches broad, but yet shows a certain felicity of grouping, and a joyous and exuberant outlook. The Portrait, of RenÉ Descartes, the French Philosopher (No. 2383) is so simple in treatment and so easy in pose, that it makes an instant appeal to the student. Another Portrait of Descartes (No. 78), by SÉbastien Bourdon, is in this gallery, and a third was in the ArsÈne Houssaye collection. The Portrait of a Lady in a Black Dress (No. 2385, Plate XXVIII.) is unaffected and lifelike, while the subtle and hasty brushing in of the gloves could only have been done by a great painter. It seems to have been generally overlooked that a study for this picture is in the collection of Lord Ronald Gower, and has for some time past been on loan to the FitzWilliam Museum, Cambridge. In the study, however, the artist had not yet thought of the gloves.

In 1654, Hals had to appear before a public notary of Haarlem at the instance of his landlord, who sued him for debt. The great Dutch painter in his testimony affirmed that his only possessions were two pictures by Vermander and Van Heemskerck, and three by himself and one of his sons, as well as three mattresses and bolsters, a cupboard and a table! The Louvre exhibits no pictorial record of Hals’s latest phase, when he was deserted by his friends, neglected by art patrons, and no longer possessed any inner moral support.

The colouring of his early portraits is vigorous, the tone deep, and the execution careful; gradually he employs richer colouring, subordinates the local colours, and becomes broader in treatment. From about 1650 his olive-greens gradually take on a more ash-grey hue, until we are inclined to the belief that if the master had been able to dispense with colour altogether, he would have willingly done so. It is then that the colours on his palette, like the outer world, became grey and black for him.

PLATE XXVIII.—FRANS HALS
(1580?–1666)
DUTCH SCHOOL
No. 2385.—PORTRAIT OF A LADY IN A BLACK DRESS
(Portrait de Femme)

A middle-aged woman wearing a black dress, with white collar, cuffs and cap, is seen at three-quarter length, standing and turned three-quarters to the left; in her hands, which are superposed, she holds her gloves.

Painted in oil on canvas.

3 ft. 3½ in. × 2 ft. 7½ in. (1·00 × 0·80.)

This great master of the brush some time before his death had to avail himself of poor relief granted by the municipality of Haarlem, and after his death, in 1666, his widow received an allowance of fourteen sous a week! Such was the tragic end of one of the most accomplished of portrait painters in the whole range of art.

DUTCH INDEPENDENCE

Holland after a terrible struggle had ultimately succeeded in throwing off the Spanish yoke before the art of Hals was on the wane. Dutch art then became gradually more independent, self-centred, democratic in outlook, and Protestant in tendency. Religious subjects became less frequent, and domestic scenes dealing with indoor and outdoor life were before long largely on the increase. Before we pass to the detailed study of the most striking characteristics of art in Holland in the last half of the seventeenth century, we must examine at some length the far-reaching influence and the world-famous achievements of Rembrandt, for whom Hals may be said to have prepared the way.

REMBRANDT

As his name denotes, Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn (1606–1669) was born on the banks of the Rhine, his father being a miller at Leyden. When fourteen years of age he entered the university of his native town and had a classical education, which stood him in good stead through his long and troubled career. Although he was at first placed as a pupil of Jacob van Swanenburgh, he at an early age removed to Amsterdam. There he worked under Pieter Lastman (1583–1633), whose Abraham’s Sacrificing Jacob (No. 2443a) of 1616 is hung opposite the works of his illustrious pupil. The independent spirit of Rembrandt soon asserted itself, and as early as 1627 he placed his name on pictures which still exist, notably in the Berlin and Stuttgart museums. His earliest picture in the Louvre is the Old Man Reading (No. 2541a), which is signed and dated 1630, and was presented by M. Kaempfen, a former Director of this gallery, on his retirement. Three years later came the two small and very similar versions (No. 2540 and No. 2541) of the Philosopher in Meditation, the former of which is signed and dated; in 1633 was painted the Portrait of the Artist (No. 2552), while another oval picture of the same subject (No. 2553) is inscribed 1634. In this early period the artist was in the habit of portraying members of his own family, who were naturally his most accessible models.

At this moment of his career Rembrandt had to measure himself with many rivals in Amsterdam, notably with Thomas de Keyser (1596?–1667), whose Portrait of a Man (No. 2438a) was formerly in the Rodolphe Kann collection, while a half-length Portrait of a Man (No. 2438b), also by de Keyser, was formerly at Versailles. From the trammels and restrictions which the art of de Keyser would have been likely to impose on a less gifted and original mind, Rembrandt readily set himself free; and he must have had great hopes for the future when, in 1634, he took to wife the wealthy Saskia van Uylenborch. However, the oval Portrait of Himself wearing a black cap (No. 2554), dated 1637, is of marked inferiority to the dignified and deeply religious panel, The Archangel Raphael leaving Tobias and his Father Tobit (No. 2536), of the same year. A year later he must have painted the Portrait of an Old Man (No. 2544), and his first pure landscape.

The influence of domestic bereavements on Rembrandt’s art is clearly reflected in the choice of his subjects, in their more intimate setting, and in the deep feeling which evidently inspired them. No better example of this side of his character and his art could be found than the Holy Family in the Carpenter’s Shop (No. 2542), which he painted in 1640. In that year his mother died, an event which followed rapidly on the death of his two infant daughters and his son, and his wife’s frequent illness. He, however, still went on painting such varied compositions as the Portrait of a Man (No. 2546), of 1645, and the Woman Bathing (No. 2550), which he achieved two years later.

PLATE XXIX.—REMBRANDT
(1606–1669)
DUTCH SCHOOL
No. 2539.—THE PILGRIMS AT EMMAUS
(Les PÈlerins d’EmmaÜs)

In a lofty room in front of a shallow niche in a wall, Christ and the two disciples sit at table; a young serving-man enters from the right, carrying a dish. Christ, whose bare feet are seen underneath the table, gazes heavenward as He breaks bread, by which act the disciples recognise Him as their Lord. The room is lit from the left.

Painted in oil on panel.

Signed below on the left:—“Rembrandt f. 1648.

2 ft. 2¾ in. × 2 ft. 1¾ in. (0·68 × 0·65.)

The famous Night-Watch, in the Amsterdam Gallery, testifies to his inventive faculty in 1642, the year in which the death of his beloved Saskia caused him intense grief. From this he never really recovered, as we see from the frequency with which during the remainder of his life he painted pathetic subjects. What artist in the whole history of painting has been able to impart to his rendering of the Good Samaritan the kindly solicitude of the principal character in this parable, and the feeling of complete collapse seen in the body of the wounded man, as Rembrandt has done in his superb canvas (No. 2537) of 1648 in this gallery? No less poignant is the grief depicted on the face of the barefooted Man of Sorrows in the Christ and the Pilgrims at Emmaus (No. 2539, Plate XXIX.) of the same year. Here we see convincing proof of the dexterous use that the Dutch “magician-painter” could make of chiaroscuro, which he has handled with such masterly effect in the Portrait of Hendrickje Stoffels (No. 2547, Plate XXX.). All these paintings belong to the same period as the soul-moving Polish Rider, which in 1910 passed from the collection of Count Tarnowski at Dzikow in Galicia into that of Mr. H. C. Frick in New York for £60,000. The Portrait of a Man holding a BÂton (No. 2551), in the La Caze collection in this gallery, was painted three years later than the Bathsheba, or Woman Bathing (No. 2549), of 1654. The wonderfully realistic and in no way repellent Carcase of an Ox in this gallery (No. 2548), like the picture of the same subject at Glasgow, is an achievement of a very different kind, and belongs to the year 1655.

The Louvre authorities have been well advised in recent years in hanging all the pictures by Rembrandt in this collection in one Bay of the Long Gallery. Here now we may study the Portrait of a Young Man (No. 2545), the wonderful and rather later Portrait of the Artist at his Easel at the age of Fifty-four (No. 2555), and the striking St. Matthew (No. 2538) of 1661. Before these three works were painted, the great Dutch master had been declared bankrupt, the sale of his most treasured possessions realising a ridiculously small sum in the winter of 1657.

Although Rembrandt’s own standard of morality offended his neighbours, and his relations with Hendrickje Stoffels seem to have caused much scandal in Amsterdam, we are not concerned with the morals of one of the greatest and most esteemed of the world’s painters, but only with his oeuvre, a high place in which must be accorded to the Portrait of Hendrickje Stoffels and her Child as Venus and Cupid (No. 2543), which was painted in 1662, the year that the large Syndics, now in the Amsterdam Gallery, was completed.

He is also to be credited with the alternative version of the Pilgrims at Emmaus (No. 2555a), a painting of the same date, which for many years was at CompiÈgne, where, however, it passed only as a school picture. This profoundly creative painter, who learnt as time went on to handle his chiaroscuro with increased effect, was also an etcher of the highest order.

We may here note that the art of Jan Lievens (1607–1674), a fellow-pupil with Rembrandt under Pieter Lastman, is seen in the large but far from imposing Visitation (No. 2444).

PLATE XXX.—REMBRANDT
(1606–1669)
DUTCH SCHOOL
No. 2547.—PORTRAIT OF HENDRICKJE STOFFELS
(Portrait de Hendrickje Stoffels)

She is seated, and looks at the spectator. Over her rich brown hair she wears a grey cap with narrow red ribbons; pearl pendants are in her ears, and she wears a brooch on her breast. Life-size half-length figure.

Painted in oil on canvas.

2 ft. 4½ in. × 1 ft. 11¾ in. (0·72 × 0·60.)

THE PUPILS OF REMBRANDT

That Govaert Flinck (1615–1660) was a pupil of Rembrandt, is evident from his Announcement to the Shepherds (No. 2372) rather than from his Portrait of a Young Lady (No. 2373), a signed work of 1641. Ferdinand Bol (1617–1680) was a pupil and imitator of the great Dutch master, and his Portrait of a Mathematician (No. 2330) is one of his best paintings; but his Philosopher in Meditation (No. 2328) compares most unfavourably with Rembrandt’s two early pictures of the same subject which hang opposite it.

The ineffectual productions of Jan Victoors (1620–1670) include the Portrait of a Young Lady (No. 2371), a typical example of the “niche” portrait which became so popular, and a large Isaac blessing Jacob (No. 2370), which vividly recalls his small canvas in the Dulwich College Gallery that in less critical days passed as a Rembrandt.

G. van den Eeckhout (1621–1674) in his picture (No. 2364) shows his dependence on Rembrandt; and Cornells Drost’s repulsive Bathsheba (No. 2359a) has no claim to be regarded as a “fort bonne peinture,” as a French critic has thought fit to term it.

VAN DER HELST

Bartholomeus van der Heist (1612–1670), a native of Haarlem, who painted under the early Dutch master, Nicholas Elias, surnamed Pickenoy, and subsequently worked at Amsterdam, has fully signed his Shooting Prize (No. 2394, Plate XXXI.), which is dated 1653. It has been regarded as a replica on a very reduced scale of The Officers of the Brotherhood of St. Sebastian at Amsterdam, in the Amsterdam Gallery, which, curiously enough, bears the date 1657, and is also signed on a slate.

Pieter van der Faes, who is better known as Sir Peter Lely (1618–1680), after painting at Haarlem in the school of Pieter de Grebber, went to England in 1641. He there succeeded Van Dyck as Court painter, and at the Restoration became the favourite Royal painter. The affectation and mannerism of his Windsor Beauties, now at Hampton Court, is well known. He had a certain facility in painting

“The sleepy eye that spoke the melting soul.”

Three pictures (Nos. 2367–2369) are placed to his credit here, but

“The bugle eyeball and the cheek of cream”

have done their magic now.

The name of H. van Vliet (1611?–1675) is, doubtless, correctly connected with two portraits on canvas (Nos. 2605 and 2605a), while his contemporaries, Cornelis Saftleven (1606–1681) and D. van Santvoort (1610–1680), are represented by The Artist’s Portrait (No. 2562) and the Pilgrims at Emmaus (No. 2564) respectively. Jakob van Loo (1614–1670), who became a naturalised Frenchman, may be judged by his diploma picture (No. 2451) and a very poor Nude Female (No. 2452).

Such mediocre producers of uninspired and unconvincing panels as Dirk Hals (1591–1656), the brother and pupil of Frans Hals, whose Festive Repast (No. 2389) hangs in Room XXIII.; Cornelis van Poelenburg (1586–1667), whose art is here admirably illustrated (Nos. 2518–2523); Hendrick Pot (1585–1657), who evidently derived some satisfaction from the elaborate inscription he has placed on his quite ineffectual, but fortunately diminutive, Portrait of Charles I. (No. 2525); and the little-known and less-esteemed L. F. Zustris (1526–1600), whose absurd Venus and Love (No. 2640) shows what a waste of time it was for him to study under Titian in Italy—these and many more worked as “business artists” for undiscriminating patrons. In the same category come Adriaen van de Venne (No. 2601), Pieter Codde (No. 2339a), Jacob Duck (No. 2360–2361), and A. Palamedesz (No. 2515a).

PLATE XXXI.—VAN DER HELST
(1613–1670)
DUTCH SCHOOL
No. 2394.—THE SHOOTING PRIZE
(Les Chefs de la Gilde des arbalÉtriers)

The four officers of the Brotherhood of St. Sebastian at Amsterdam are seated at a table in the foreground, with the insignia of the Brotherhood displayed before them. By the side of the officer who, seated to the right, is addressing his companions, is a slate on which are inscribed their names. In the background to the right are three young men with bows and arrows. From the left enters a maid-servant with a drinking-horn.

Signed on the slate:—“bartholomeus van der helst fecit, 1653.

Painted in oil on canvas affixed to panel.

1 ft. 7¾ in. × 2 ft. 2½ in. (0·50 × 0·67.)

GENRE PAINTERS

This rough sketch must suffice for our study of the History and Portrait Painters of Holland. Although, of course, portraiture played a most important part throughout the whole range of Dutch art, we must now deal with those of their contemporaries and successors who are classed as painters of genre subjects, Interiors, Conversation-pieces, and Rustic Scenes. The compositions of these men at first show high technical excellence, and a refined feeling for light and shade; they depict simple scenes and homely incidents which make a wide appeal in any age. By the end of the seventeenth century their scenes become festive, and eventually boisterous, and so degenerate into unimaginative renderings of far-fetched incidents which are treated with a parade of mere imitative skill. In the last phase of their art the subjects become even more uninviting, the panels are smoothly painted, and all originality disappears.

ADRIAEN VAN OSTADE

Adriaen van Ostade (1610–1685), as a pupil of Frans Hals at Haarlem, occupies an important position in his school. He is seen to very great advantage at the Louvre. From his early Interior of a Cabaret (No. 2506), which is signed on a form

“A. V. OSTADE 1641,”

we see the direction his life’s work was to take; and his Interior of a Cottage (No. 2498) of the following year, strengthens that view. although Reading the Gazette (No. 2505), of 1653, is painted on a very small panel, it heightens our appreciation of this able and careful painter, who, a year later, must have spent a long time in the completion of a Family Group, which traditionally passes as the Family of the Artist (No. 2495). The Toper (No. 2401), of 1668, and the intensely realistic Smoker (No. 2500), are highly characteristic, while the Schoolmaster (No. 2496) shows great observation. The Fish Market (No. 2497), the Business Man in his Study (No. 2499), the Man Drinking (No. 2502), the Man Reading (No. 2503), the Reading (No. 2504), and the Interior of a School (No. 2507), are both in subject and handling good examples of his methods, which were affected by a study of Adriaen Brouwer and Rembrandt.

Adriaen van Ostade was the elder brother and the master of Isack van Ostade (1621–1649), who is equally well represented at the Louvre. although he painted two Interiors (Nos. 2512 and 2514), a Toit À porcs (No. 2513), a Halt (No. 2509), and an overcrowded Travellers Halting (No. 2508), his best works, here as elsewhere, represent landscapes and frozen river scenes.

Adriaen van Ostade had also as pupils Cornelis Bega (1620–1664), by whom the Louvre possesses a very late Rustic Interior (No. 2312), of 1662; and H. M. Sorgh, called Rokes (1611?–1670), three of whose panels (Nos. 2571–2573) are exhibited.

GERARD DOU

Gerard Dou (1613–1675) was in his day a highly popular and prosperous painter of petty tragedies. As a boy of fifteen he entered the studio of “the skilled and far-famed Mr. Rembrandt,” who was, however, his senior by only seven years. One is apt to tire of his irritating parade of cleverness in the manipulation of light and shade effects, and over-scrupulous and niggling treatment of detail. Yet it is these very qualities that brought him financial success when in later life Rembrandt was receiving scanty treatment at the hands of the art patrons of Holland. The Dentist (No. 2355) is an early work. Dou’s Portrait of an Old Lady (No. 2358) is now held to be a Portrait of Rembrandt’s Mother, and is regarded as the companion picture to the Old Man Reading (No. 2567), by Dou’s pupil, Godfried Schalcken. The Grocer’s Shop (No. 2350), which has been, with needless precision, “ranked about the seventh best of this master’s productions,” is signed in full on the slate, and dated 1647 on the mortar, while the Cook with a Dead Cock (No. 2353) is signed on the window-sill, and dated 1650.

PLATE XXXII.—GERARD DOU
(1613–1675)
DUTCH SCHOOL
No. 2348.—THE DROPSICAL WOMAN
(La Femme Hydropique)

In a well-appointed room, lighted by an arched window on the left, an old woman is seated in an arm-chair. The sick woman, who raises her eyes to heaven and is taking a spoonful of medicine from a young woman, gives her right hand to a girl who kneels on the left by her side. Towards the right stands the doctor, who holds up to the light a glass full of liquid. A chandelier hangs in the centre, and on the right are a large tapestry curtain and a wine-cooler.

Signed on the edge of the book placed on the reading-desk in the left foreground:—

“1663. g. dov. ovt. 65 jaer.”

Painted in oil on panel.

2 ft. 8¾ in. × 2 ft. 2½ in. (0·83 × 0·67.)

The Trumpeter (No. 2351) is perhaps the pendant to the Girl at a Window, of 1657, now in the Rothschild collection at Waddesdon Manor. On the window-ledge in the Trumpeter we see the same silver flagon and a dish that also appear in the Dropsical Woman (No. 2348, Plate XXXII.), a world-famous, but not on that account a great, picture. It bears a somewhat enigmatical inscription:

“1663. G. DOV. OVT. 65 JAER”

on the edge of the book placed on the reading-desk. Dou in 1663, the year here given, was only fifty years of age, and the statement of age in the second half of the inscription may be a later addition, or capable of another interpretation. The light comes in from the window on the left. The woman who is dying of dropsy is receiving a dose of medicine, while her daughter in grief kneels and kisses her hand, and the doctor holds up to the light the vial, the contents of which he is carefully examining. The artist in this his largest picture is at much pains to show the dexterity with which he can paint the fabric of the dresses, the large tapestry hanging in folds on the right, and the reflection of light on the chandelier. This panel, which is Dou’s masterpiece and is in an excellent state of preservation, was originally contained in an ebony case, the outside of which (in two pieces) was formerly the still-life painting of a Silver Ewer and Dish (No. 2349).

The Man weighing Gold (No. 2354) is signed in full, and dated 1664; elaborate care and much time have been expended, if not wasted, on every wrinkle in his face, and every hair in his white beard. It has points of analogy with Quentin Matsys’s Banker and his Wife (No. 2029), which was painted in Flanders nearly a century and a half earlier. Dou’s meticulous art is also exemplified in the Old Man Reading (No. 2357), Reading the Bible (No. 2356), the Dutch Cook (No. 2352), and the highly characteristic but quite negligible Portrait of the Painter (No. 2359). In many respects this type of picture warns us that within a few years of Dou’s death, in 1675, the art of Holland passed into decadence.

DOU’S PUPILS

He had several pupils. Of these Quiryn van Brekelenkam (1620?–1668) holds a respectable place among the Small Masters of Holland, as we see from his Consultation (No. 2337) in this collection rather than from his Monk Writing (No. 2338). Herman van Swanevelt (1620–1655), who from his journeys south earned the name of Herman of Italy, gives us three Landscapes (Nos. 2584–2586). Karel de Moor (1656–1738), a native of Leyden, who has signed his Dutch Family (No. 2477), worked under both Dou and Frans van Mieris the Elder (1635–1681). The latter owes much of his technique and meticulous work to Dou, as is revealed by a hasty inspection of his Tea Party (No. 2471), with two over-dressed women taking tea, and three other panels (Nos. 2469, 2470, and 2472). Ary de Vois (1632–1680) was a pupil of the German painter N. Knupfer and of his own countryman Abraham van den Tempel (1622–1672), who is here represented by a Portrait of a Lady with an Apple (No. 2586a); but he also came under the influence of the painter of the Dropsical Woman (Plate XXXII.), as is testified by his small interior Portrait of a Man (No. 2606), his Portrait of a Painter at his Easel (No. 2607), and his feeble Woman cutting a Lemon (No. 2608). Traces of Dou’s art are seen in J. A. van Staveren’s (1624?–1668) Philosopher in his Study (No. 2577); but P. C. van Slingelandt (1640–1691) was a direct pupil. His Dutch Family (No. 2568) is said to have been bought by Louis xvi. from an English brewer, and the Portrait of a Man (No. 2569) and Kitchen Utensils (No. 2570) have long been in the collection. The Magdalene (No. 2570a) and St. Jerome (No. 2570b) were bequeathed to the Louvre.

PLATE XXXIII.—TERBORCH
(1617–1681)
DUTCH SCHOOL
No. 2589.—THE CONCERT
(Le Concert)

A young lady in white satin dress and yellow bodice is seated in the centre before a table covered with a richly coloured tablecloth. She is singing to the accompaniment of a lady in the left background; a page-boy enters from the right.

Painted in oil on panel.

1 ft. 6¾ in. × 1 ft. 5 in. (0·47 × 0·43.)

GERARD TERBORCH

Gerard Terborch (1617–1681) was the creator of the “Conversation-piece,” and one of the earliest to portray the well born engaged in music lessons and similar occupations; he was one of the greatest of the Dutch “small-masters,” and in every way the superior of the uninspired Dou. Terborch invites us to join him in the fine decorum of a noble chamber where the appointments are carefully tended, while its occupants give themselves up to cultured, if not perhaps deeply intellectual, pursuits. We forget all about the carousing and bestial profligates who people the taverns of Jan Steen and much less accomplished painters, and watch the refined fingers stray over the keyboard of the open spinet or sweep the strings of a well-made mandoline, as in the Concert (No. 2589, Plate XXXIII.). Equally fine are the two Music Lessons (No. 2588 and No. 2591), the former being signed and dated 1660.

The Military Galant (No. 2587) exhibits Terborch’s dexterity in the rendering of reflected light on a red tablecloth, although the subject has an innuendo which hardly adds to its charm. The Ecclesiastical Assembly (No. 2590) is only a small sketch on panel, and affords but a feeble echo of this painter’s masterpiece, the Ratification of the Peace of MÜnster, in the National Gallery. Terborch was a pupil of his father, who had visited Italy, and he studied also under Pieter Molyn the Elder at Haarlem previous to visiting England in 1635. He travelled much more extensively than most of his contemporaries, and went to Spain during the best period of art in the Peninsula. He does not seem to have been dependent on his professional success for his living, which was passed in easy circumstances. Nor did he busy himself as a teacher, his only direct pupil being Caspar Netscher (1639–1684), who gives us a Music Lesson (No. 2486), of the approved stamp, and a Violoncello Lesson (No. 2487).

JAN STEEN

It is not known for certain whether Jan Steen (1626?–1679) was a pupil of Nicholaes Knupfer, a native of Leipzig who resided for a time at Leyden, but he certainly worked under Adriaen van Ostade at Haarlem, and later became a pupil of Jan van Goyen, whose daughter Margaretha he married as his first wife. Steen certainly leased a brewery in Delft for six years, and he is frequently mentioned in the archives of that town about 1656; he subsequently kept a tavern in the Langebrug in Leyden in 1672. His art is vivacious if not boisterous, and the strength and versatility he displayed in the nine hundred pictures with which he is justly credited give him a high place among the artists of Holland in the seventeenth century. The frequency with which he painted the Interior of a Tavern (No. 2578) has suggested that he carried on the tradition of the Flemish-Dutch roysterer Adriaen Brouwer; but such scenes, magnificently as they are handled, are apt to become boring in time. This large canvas is dated 1674, and the coat of arms of Charles v. is fastened on to the balcony in which are spectators. The Merry Company at Table (No. 2579) is somewhat sketchy in parts, but the lighting is well regulated, and the canvas is signed in full on the back of a blue-covered chair to the right. That the Bad Company (No. 2580, Plate XXXIV.) is admirably painted will be conceded by all, but refinement is not its distinguishing feature. A young man dressed in a red jacket is sleeping with his head on the lap of a girl, while another girl is relieving him of his watch. The scene is laid in a tavern, on the floor of which are painted with wonderful precision a number of tiny objects. It was not Steen’s habit to paint representations of cultured society such as Terborch delighted in.

The scene takes place in a tavern. A young man has fallen asleep with his head in the lap of a girl, who is seated to the right of the composition, and holds a glass of wine in her right hand. Another girl has just taken the young man’s watch from his pocket and is giving it to an old woman, who receives it with evident glee. On the left a man sits at a table smoking his pipe, and another is playing the fiddle.

Signed in full in the left bottom corner.

Painted in oil on panel.

1 ft. 6¾ in. × 1 ft. 2¼ in. (0·47 × 0·36.)

PIETER DE HOOCH

The Louvre contains only two paintings by Pieter de Hooch, who was born in 1629 at Rotterdam, a town which played a relatively unimportant part in Dutch painting. He also lived at Delft and Leyden. The Interior of a Dutch House, with a Woman preparing Vegetables (No. 2414), is a good example, and is fully signed in the bottom left-hand corner. The Dutch Interior, with a Lady playing Cards (No. 2415, Plate XXXV.), is full of incidents, contains six figures, and is signed on the base of one of the columns supporting the mantelpiece in the left foreground. No museum in the world exhibits the art of Pieter de Hooch in such excellence as does the National Gallery, which contains three masterpieces from his hands that have indirectly been the cause of assessing the whole of the artist’s life-work on too generous a basis. It is indisputable that during the last ten years of his life, of which nothing is known later than the signature and date, 1677, on the Music Party in the collection of Baron H. A. Steengracht at The Hague, his art deteriorated very considerably both in colouring and draughtsmanship. He may well have been a pupil of Karel Fabritius (1624–1654), but it is almost incredible that he can have been a pupil of the Italianiser Nicholaes Berchem, as Houbraken ventured to assert. This museum contains nothing by Ochtervelt, many of whose pictures have from time to time been accepted as the work of Pieter de Hooch.

From the shortlived artist Karel Fabritius derives the almost incomparable master Jan Vermeer van Delft (1642–1675), whose fifty authentic pictures are to-day among those most coveted by collectors. As a painter skilled in the technicalities of his profession Vermeer must be accorded the highest rank. The subtle and mysterious handling of his Lace Maker (No. 2456, Plate XXXVI.), with its cool colour scheme and dominant tones of blue and lemon-yellow, make it difficult for us to realise that until twenty years ago his works were neglected. Indeed, this small canvas was acquired in 1870 at the Vis Blokhuyzen sale for the ridiculous sum of £290. Jan Vermeer (or Van der Meer) van Delft is not to be confused with Jan Van der Meer of Haarlem (1628–1691), who is included in the official catalogue as the painter of the Outside of an Inn (No. 2455, marked No. 2022 on the frame). It is fully signed, and bears the date 1652.

NICOLAS MAES

One of the last lingering influences of Rembrandt is seen in the art of Nicolas Maes (1632–1693). The genre pictures of his early period are so vastly superior to his later portraits that it was formerly assumed that there might well have been two artists of the same name. He certainly delighted in painting several versions, which vary considerably in size, of Grace before Meat (No. 2454). In his pictures we see the mind that broods, and women who meditate rather than act. The best examples of his domestic scenes are finely graduated, although the sadness of advancing age becomes monotonous in time.

PLATE XXXV.—PIETER DE HOOCH
(1629–1677?)
DUTCH SCHOOL
No. 2415.—DUTCH INTERIOR WITH A LADY PLAYING CARDS
(IntÉrieur hollandais)

By the fireplace to the left a lady is seated. She is playing cards with a gentleman, and shows her hand to a cavalier who stands beside her. In the background stand two lovers, and a boy is entering the room, a richly appointed room, hung with gilt leather.

Signed on the base of one of the columns supporting the mantelpiece:—“p. d. hooch.

Painted in oil on canvas.

2 ft. 2½ in. × 2 ft. 6½ in. (0·67 × 0·77.)

GABRIEL METSU

A high place among the painters of “Conversation-pieces” must be accorded to Gabriel Metsu (1630?–1667), a shortlived artist who was born at Leyden and learnt the first principles of his art from Dou. As early as 1644 he seems to have earned some reputation as a painter, his signature appearing on his Court Physician in that year. He came under the influence of Rembrandt, and in later life practised as a painter at Amsterdam, where he died.

Metsu, whose work is at first sight not easily distinguishable from Terborch’s, acquired a facility in the control of the expression and the ever-varying gesture of the hands in his pictures, that was denied to many of his contemporaries. Instances of this are the figure of the Christ writing a long Latin inscription on the ground in the Woman taken in Adultery (No. 2457), the ease with which the young lady in a white satin dress runs her fingers over the keys of the spinet in the Music Lesson (No. 2460), and the treatment of the Dutch Lady (No. 2462), who holds a jug in her right hand. The last-named panel is evidently the companion to the very thinly painted Dutch Cook peeling Apples (No. 2463), which is signed “g. metsu.” Perhaps his best outdoor scene of humble life is the Vegetable Market at Amsterdam (No. 2458), although his handling of the trees suggests that his forte was the Conversation-piece of Dutch tradition, and that he would not have risen to high rank as a landscape painter. The placing of the signature on a letter, which in this instance lies on the ground, is a favourite device with Metsu. He has derived much pleasure from the treatment of the textures of the tablecloth, the curtain, and the chair in the Officer visiting a Lady (No. 2459). The Alchemist (No. 2461) may be the companion picture to the Sportsman in the Gallery at The Hague. Much speculative criticism has been indulged in by critics as to whether the so-called Portrait of Admiral Cornelis Tromp (No. 2464) represents that admiral, and some doubt has also been cast on its attribution to Metsu.

LANDSCAPE PAINTERS

The naturalistic treatment of the landscape background in the religious pictures of Jan van Eyck and his successors, Memlinc, Bouts, Hugo van der Goes, and other painters in the Netherlands, in time brought about the promotion of landscape painting to an independent art. Among the earlier Dutch artists who approached the study of Nature were Arent Arentzen (1586?–1635?), as we see from his Landscape with a Fisherman (No. 2300a), and Roeland Roghman, who was born a year later than Jan van Goyen, and lived as late as 1685. He painted the Landscape (No. 2555b), which was formerly in the Paul Mantz collection. Indeed, several Dutchmen of the period sought to commit to panel views of nature, as in the case of Pieter de Bloot (1600–1652), who gives us a Landscape with a River (No. 2327b).

The romantic feeling which so often pervades the background of Rembrandt’s paintings, and is so apparent in such etchings as the Three Trees, can only be touched on here. This new tendency is best exemplified in the works of Jan van Goyen (1596–1656), who may be regarded as the founder of a self-centred school of landscape painting in Holland; but it was his ever handy sketch-book that enabled him to outstrip his rivals in this branch of Dutch art. He is seen to great advantage in his very fine Banks of a Dutch River (No. 2375), his superb River View with eight Men in a Boat (No. 2378), a signed and dated work of 1649, a large light-brown-toned River in Holland (No. 2377), a good Banks of a Canal (No. 2379), as well as a Dutch Canal (No. 2376) and a Dutch River (No. 2377).

PLATE XXXVI.—JAN VER MEER VAN DELFT
(1632–1675)
DUTCH SCHOOL
No. 2456.—THE LACE MAKER
(La DentelliÈre)

A girl, wearing a yellow bodice and a blue skirt, is seated behind a table. She is bending her head over a light-blue lace pillow as she adjusts the bobbins with both hands. A dark-blue cushion and a book are on the table to the left.

Signed in the upper right-hand corner:—“J. v. Meer,” the first three letters being intertwined.

Painted in oil on canvas.

9½ in. (0·24) square.

Aert van der Neer (1603–1677) painted with strong contrasts of light, as in his Banks of a Dutch Canal (No. 2483); and his monogram is to be found on the seat at the foot of a tree in his Dutch Village (No. 2484), where his propensity for painting moonlight scenes is well illustrated. Herman Saftleven’s (1609–1685) Banks of the Rhine (No. 2563); Jan Asselyn’s View of the Lamentano Bridge on the Teverone (No. 2301), Landscape (No. 2302), and Ruins in the Roman Campagna (No. 2303); and the two Landscapes (Nos. 2332 and 2333) by Jan Both (1610–1652), who worked in Rome and painted Italian landscapes under the influence of the French artist Claude Lorrain, show the gradual introduction of foreign influences. Joris van der Hagen (died 1669) takes a new line in the representation of a very low horizon in his Environs de Haarlem (No. 2382); but his Landscape with Peasants crossing a Ford (No. 2381) is dull in tone and composed of unrelated parts.

The Banks of a River (No. 2561d) is a superb example of the art of Salomon van Ruysdael (1600?–1670), one of the founders of the Haarlem school of landscape, and the uncle of Jacob van Ruisdael. The Large Tower (No. 2561c) gives a better idea of his power than the Ford (No. 2561b). Another painter in the same school, Cornelis Decker (1618?–1678), has a Landscape (No. 2346). although Isack van Ostade at times gave himself up to trivial subjects, as we have already seen, the merit of his frozen river scenes (Nos. 2510, 2511, 2515) is firmly established, and the happy way in which he combined a genuine appreciation of nature with great skill in the placing and treatment of his figures has earned for him a high place among the Dutch landscape painters.

AELBERT CUYP

Unlike most of the artists of his time in Holland, Aelbert Cuyp (1620–1691) was highly esteemed by his contemporaries, his social position and his good fortune in money matters freeing him from the poverty which Hobbema and others endured. He painted portraits with much skill, as we see from his Portrait of a Man (No. 2345a) and his Portrait of a Boy and a Girl with a Goat (No. 2344); but he is best known as a cattle painter, his sturdy cattle being artistically grouped in thick green pastures flooded with sunshine, as in his Herdsman with Cattle (No. 2341). He attained much success also with his riding pictures, and the Starting for the Ride (No. 2342) and the Riding Party (No. 2343) are in every way preferable to his Boats on a Rough Sea (No. 2345). Following his usual habit, he has placed no date on any of these six pictures. He had no pupil in the proper sense of the term; but a host of imitators, such as Jacob van Stry and the much later English Royal Academician Sidney Cooper, failed ignominiously in their feeble attempts to copy his methods.

Jan Wynants was another landscape painter in the Haarlem School, although he settled in Amsterdam and died there in 1682. His Outskirts of a Forest (No. 2636) is signed and dated 1668, and is superior to the Landscape (No. 2637) which bears his own signature as well as that of Adriaen van de Velde, who on numerous occasions inserted the figures for him. Wynants has also placed his name on a small Landscape with Sportsman and Falconer (No. 2638).

Adriaen van de Velde has been careful to sign and date each of the seven pictures by which he is represented (Nos. 2593–2599). By Allart van Everdingen (1621–1675), who travelled in Norway and painted rocky scenes and waterfalls, we find two Landscapes (Nos. 2365 and 2366).

JACOB VAN RUISDAEL

The greatest of all Dutch landscape painters, with the possible exception of Jan van Goyen, is Jacob van Ruisdael (1628?–1682), who occupied himself more especially with rushing waterfalls and undulating country. His Storm on the Coast (No. 2558) is a fine achievement, but his best picture in this collection is the Landscape (no No.), which was bequeathed by Baron Arthur de Rothschild. His Woody Landscape (No. 2559), the Road (No. 2559a), Landscape (No. 2561), and the Entrance to a Wood (No. 2561a), cannot, however, compare with his Sunny Landscape (No. 2560), which bears the artist’s monogram.

HOBBEMA

The talents of Meindert Hobbema (1638–1709) were so disregarded by his countrymen that in disgust he, at the age of thirty, took a humble post in the Customs. His woody scenes seen in the pale sunlight of the early afternoon are not copied from any chance scenery, but composed; and his Water Mill (No. 2404), fine though it is, contains passages that will be met with elsewhere. The Farm (No. 2404a) is a very good picture, as also is the Landscape (No. 2403) from the Nieuwenhuys collection. A very large number of painters, including Wyntrack, who gives us a Farm (No. 2639), painted the figures into the foregrounds of Hobbema’s best works.

PHILIPS WOUWERMAN

In a large number of Philips Wouwerman’s pictures the landscapes are of secondary importance to the figures; and although the execution is careful and conscientious, the frequenter of picture galleries is apt to tire of his make-believe genre-pieces, landscapes with horses, riders, sportsmen, soldiers, robbers, gipsies, and the like. The Louvre presents an imposing array of fifteen of the twelve hundred or more pictures by Philips Wouwerman (1619–1668), and his brother and pupil Pieter is credited with a poor but historically interesting View of the Porte de Nesles, Paris, in 1664 (No. 2635).

It will be convenient here to group Adam Pynacker (1622–1673) with his three pictures, Willem Romeyn (1624?–1696?) with one, Abraham Begeyn (1637?–1697) with one, Guilliam de Heusch (1625?–1692) with one, Dirk van den Berghen (1645–1690?) with two, and Glauber (1646–1726) with a single Landscape (No. 2374) in which the figures are inserted by Gerard de Lairesse. Mention must, however, be made of Paul Potter, the highly esteemed cattle painter, who died in 1654 at the early age of twenty-nine. One of his latest canvases is the Cows and Sheep in a Field (No. 2527), of 1652; but his Horse in a Field (No. 2528) of the following year, and the Wood at The Hague (No. 2529), give an excellent idea of his art. These and the Horses at the Door of a Cottage (No. 2526) show that Paul Potter had a sound knowledge of animal anatomy. He is seen at his best in small compositions such as are here exhibited, in which the construction and mise-en-scÈne are simple and the details delicately rendered. It is a popular fallacy that his chief contribution to the fame of Dutch art was his large Bull of 1647, which measures 8 ft. by 12 ft., in The Hague Gallery. He did not live long enough to form a “school.”

THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE

The Italianising influence was already beginning to make itself felt, to the lasting detriment of Dutch painting, and the typical example of this downward movement is Nicolaes Berchem (1620–1683), who was founded on his father, Pieter Claesz, and on Pieter de Grebber, and Jan Wils at Haarlem, while he also was impressed by Claes Moyaert and J. B. Weenix at Amsterdam, where he removed in 1677. There is scarcely a well-furnished gallery in Europe that does not seek to pride itself on possessing one of Berchem’s renderings of Crossing the Ford, or a Woman upon an Ass in conversation with another Person. The Louvre is no exception to this rule, and exhibits his Cattle crossing a Ford (No. 2315) and nine other canvases and panels, nearly all of which bear his much-vaunted signature. His art is to-day deservedly out of fashion with discerning collectors.

Berchem’s pupil, Karel du Jardin (1622–1678), who is invariably at much pain to sign his pictures, is seen to some advantage in his very Italian and in every way characteristic Italian Charlatans (No. 2427), the typical Ford in Italy (No. 2428), and eight other works. His attempts to depict a Calvary (No. 2426) have not been crowned with success, as the composition is overcrowded and undramatic; nor do we experience any emotion on regarding his Portrait of Himself (No. 2434), a small production on copper.

Breenberg (1599–1659?), who was born at Deventer, the home of Terborch, has depicted a View of the Campo Vaccino at Rome (No. 2334), and a Ruins of the Palace of the CÆsars (No. 2335) in the Italian manner beloved by Berchem and Pieter van Laer. The latter, who is also named Bamboccio, is represented by two small oval panels. Lingelbach (1622–1674), who frequently collaborated with other Dutch artists, may be judged by his Vegetable Market at Rome (No. 2447) and three other canvases, and FrÉdÉric de Moucheron (1633?–1686) by a Leaving for the Hunt (No. 2482). It will be convenient to mention here Reynier Nooms, whose View of the Old Louvre from the Seine (No. 2491) has some historical interest.

ARCHITECTURAL PAINTERS

A limited number of painters busied themselves in making faithful transcripts of the streets and the exterior appearance of the buildings. Jan van der Heyden (1637–1712) was perhaps the most successful in this direction, and his View of the Town Hall of Amsterdam in 1688 is an excellent example of his methods, while the Louvre also possesses three small panels by him. Jan Abrahamsz Beerstraten (1622–1666), the son of a cooper at Amsterdam, travelled to Italy and the Mediterranean, proof of which is afforded by his Old Town Gate at Genoa (No. 2310). The typical architectural painter is, however, Gerrit Berckheyde (1638–1698). Although he never went to Italy, his View of Trajan’s Column (No. 2324) is a welcome relief from the many versions he painted, with conspicuous success, of The Market-Place of Haarlem.

Hendrik van Steenwyck (1580–1648) almost invariably contented himself with reproducing the Interiors of Churches (Nos. 2582, 2583); but his Christ in the House of Martha and Mary (No. 2581) is an unusual subject with him, and must be his masterpiece. The Vestibule of a Palace (No. 2490), by Isaac van Nickelle (fl. 1660), is very good of its kind; but the Interior of a Guard-Room (No. 2453), by Aart van Maes, is a poor attempt at dramatic action.

MARINE PAINTERS

The fact that the Dutch had fought with swamp and water and possessed a large maritime commerce, is reflected in the Seascapes of Simon de Vlieger (1600–1660), and in the art of Ludolf Backhuysen (1631–1708), who is represented by a Stormy Sea (No. 2309) and five other canvases; but one of the best works of this class in the Louvre is the Marine-piece (No. 2600) by Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633–1707), who crossed over to England, and after a long career died at Greenwich. These men sought to carry on the earlier tradition of Jan van Goyen and the two Ruisdaels, but they showed less originality and power.

STILL-LIFE PAINTERS

Much appreciation and some extravagant praise has been lavished on the still-life painters who, at the time when the higher aims of artistic endeavour began to die out in Holland, displayed remarkable ability. The cultivation of horticulture at Haarlem, the centre of the tulipomania fever in the middle of the seventeenth century, may have had an influence on the artistic presentation of inanimate nature; this feeling was no doubt stimulated by the display made by the goldsmiths in an age of great prosperity. Willem Claesz Heda, who was born 1594, is among the earliest of the Dutch still-life painters, and his picture (No. 2390) is dated 1637; he, however, did not die until more than forty years later. Jan Davidsz de Heem (1606–1684), the painter of Fruit and a Vase on a Table (No. 2391) and of another and much larger picture (No. 2392), was the pupil of his father, David de Heem; as he spent many years at Antwerp, he is sometimes regarded as a Flemish painter. That Abraham van Beyeren (1620–1675?), who painted several sea-pieces, was specially fond of copying the appearance of fish, is seen from his Still-life: Fish (No. 2326a), at the Louvre, which has in recent years also acquired another work (No. 2312a) by him. Willem Kalf (1621?–1693) may have studied under H. G. Pot, the Haarlem genre-painter. He was evidently impressed with the chiaroscuro of Rembrandt, and often placed the drinking-cups, wine-glasses, and fruit on a richly-coloured tablecloth. He is here represented by four examples, of which the Dutch Interior (No. 2436) is the best. Eight pictures by Jan Huysum (1682–1749), two by Jan van Os (1744–1808), and one by C. van Spaendonck (1756–1839) belong to the latest phase of art in Holland, and mark the decadence in full operation. It will be noticed that the Louvre has a much larger selection of still-life pictures than the National Gallery, which seems to regard achievements of this kind with disdain.

Melchior Hondecoeter (1636–1695), the painter of the farmyard, gives unmistakable proof of his power in his large signed Eagle swooping down on a Farmyard (No. 2405), and two rather smaller pictures (Nos. 2406–7).

Jan Weenix (1640–1719), who usually concerns himself with dead game and birds, is working on the usual lines in three (Nos. 2610, 2611, and 2612a) of his four pictures in the great French museum; the other represents A Seaport (No. 2612). He was the fellow-pupil of Hondecoeter in the studio of his father, Jan Baptist Weenix (1621–1660), who studied for a time under the early Dutch master, Abraham Blomaert, and worked in Italy for four years. For that reason the latter has adopted an Italian mode of signing his only picture (No. 2609) in the Louvre.

THE DECLINE

Although Gerard Honthorst (“Gerard of the Night”) was born as early as 1590, and was a pupil of Blomaert, he may he relegated to the period of decline. Almost invariably he resorted to the trick of lighting the figures in his pictures, whether he was painting religious subjects, portraits, or conversation-pieces, with a candlelight effect. This habit he had acquired in Italy by studying the style of Caravaggio. Of his five pictures here, the best is perhaps the Portrait of Charles Louis, Duke of Bavaria (No. 2410), of 1640. His Concert (No. 2409), painted sixteen years earlier, is an ill-balanced and overloaded composition.

Such artists as Abraham Hondius, who paints a Man Selling Pigeons (No. 2407a); Karel de Moor, who was a pupil of G. Dou, and gives us an insignificant Dutch Family (No. 2477); Eglon van der Neer, whose name is signed on a small panel, A Man Selling Pigeons (No. 2485); Egbert van Heemskerck, whose Interior (No. 2393) is in the La Caze collection; Jan Verkolie, whose Interior (No. 2602) has been engraved; H. van Limborch, whose Pleasures of the Golden Age (No. 2446) was in the collection of Louis xvi.; Louis de Moni, the painter of a Family Scene (No. 2476); and Willem van Mieris, a replica of whose Soap Bubbles (No. 2473) is at The Hague,—all these mediocre painters are the despair of the critic, and afford merely momentary entertainment for the curious.

It is apparent that by this period the art of Holland was marked by mechanical inventions, the surface of these eighteenth-century paintings being highly fused and metallic in appearance. The four panels of Adriaen van der Werff (1659–1722), which include an unpleasant Magdalene in the Desert (No. 2617) and a repulsive Dancing Nymph (No. 2619), are characteristic examples of his monotonous art. The Disembarkation of Cleopatra (No. 2441) and the Hercules between Vice and Virtue (No. 2443) of Gerard de Lairesse (1640–1711), have the enamel-like smoothness and meaningless expression of academic art, although they have their usefulness as museum pieces.

It is a remarkable fact that the Louvre does not contain a single example of the revival of art in Holland in the third quarter of the nineteenth century.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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