RKD STUDIES

Copper engraving, 257 x 174 mm, signed lower right: J. S. Hoef sculpsit.
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv.no. RP-P-OB-60.744

After the painted Portrait of Jean de la Chambre in London [1]. The print was intended for the title page for the sitter’s book Verscheyden geschriften, geschreven ende int koper gesneden,/ door Jean de la Chambre, liefhebber ende beminder der/ pennen, tot Haarlem. Anno 1638.¹

This print is part of a small group of individual portrait commissions. It is also the earliest dated engraving by Jonas Suyderhoef (1614-1686) and as such serves as a barometer for what we can expect when a small scale modello by Hals serves as the model for a contemporary engraver. It is instructive to compare this engraving with the very similar portrait commissioned by De la Chambre in 1666 for an identical purpose, namely a title illustration for a collection of publications. Engraved by Pieter Holsteyn (c. 1614-1673), de la Chambre is depicted there after a painted portrait by Jan de Braij (c. 1626/1627-1697).²

C31

Copper engraving, 215 x 160 mm, signed lower right: D. Coster sculp.t
The Hague, RKD –Netherlands Institute For Art History

The present engraving illustrates an anecdote about a visit of Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641) to Frans Hals in Haarlem by 1632, which goes back to Houbraken. Van Dyck had supposedly come there incognito but was recognized by Hals after he dashed off the latter’s portrait with a few brushstrokes.³ It has not been possible to verify Houbraken’s account, since no credible portrait has surfaced ever since that would match painter and sitter. The present image also misses the mark. Houbraken’s amusing anecdote may yet have a grain of truth in it, as De Clippel first pointed out. She wrote that Van Dyck’s portrait of the smiling musician François Langlois (c. 1588-1647) was clearly inspired by Hals’s Peeckelhaering (A1.50), which possibly hung in the Haarlem tavern De Coninck van Vranckrijck at the time of Van Dyck’s visit.⁴

C32

Etching and drypoint, 158 x 127 mm, signed lower right: L. B Coclers sculpt
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv.no. RP-P-1883-A-7104

This engraving by Louis Bernard Coclers (1741-1817) is made after the New York version of Malle Babbe [2]. The text below the image reads: ‘Babel of Haarlem, To you, your owl is a falcon. O Babel! I am glad of it. Play with a fake doll]. You are not alone’.⁵ In the context of Malle Babbe and her owl, Slive refers to the Netherlandish proverb Elck meent zijn uil een valk te zijn (Everybody regards his owl as a falcon) and the sayings Hij is zoo beschonken als een uil (He is as drunk as an owl) and Zoo zat als ne oel (as tight as an owl).⁶

C33

Copper engraving, 317 x 227 mm, signed lower right: I. Suyderhouf Schulp.
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv.no. RP-P-OB-60.768

After a lost modello by Frans Hals. The small scale portrait of the same sitter in Detroit [2] was probably created at the same time as the engraving.

Hendrik Swalmius (1577-1649) was a Reformed preacher who was first employed in Oud-Alblas and from 1625 onwards at the Grote Kerk in Haarlem. In 1600 he married Judith van Breda (1582-1640), whose portrait was also painted in the Hals studio (A4.1.14). The eight lines of verse under the picture read as follows:

‘Whose voice flows as pleasantly as that of Swalmius during a sermon?
Whose pleasant tongue knows how to break many a heart.
If honey is sweet, even sweeter are his teachings.
To instruct the people and to praise God’s honour.
The spirit of God moves your lips,
so he lays down a firm ground
for knowledge, comfort, or virtue, liberation from sins.
You have served your office over forty-six years.
Ey! Serve as long as you can and rest with God thereafter’.⁷

C34

Print, mezzotint, 240 x 170 mm, signed lower right: J: de Groot Fe:
London, British Museum, inv. no. 1874,0613.792

The model for this engraving could be one of the versions of the Laughing fisherboy with a basket (A4.2.29)

C35
© The Trustees of the British Museum

Copper engraving, 258 x 164 mm, signed lower right: T. Matham/ Sculpsit.
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv.no. RP-P-OB-27.301X

The eulogy below the portrait reads:

‘Great honour can be bestowed on many people,
When they learn well and memorise well.
Therefore learn the honourable art of writing;
It is beneficial for everybody’.⁸

Theodore Bleuet (1598-1661) was the rector of the French school in Beverwijck near Haarlem, and he was also active as a calligrapher. The inventory of his widow’s estate lists portraits of Bleuet and his wife hanging in the best room (‘in de beste camer’).⁹ Nothing is known about the painter of these works, but there is a possible connection to the modello for Theodor Matham’s (c. 1605/1606-1676) print under discussion here. The difficulty with the present engraving – which, according to the inscription is done after a painting by Hals – is the visibly frozen and dull face, which is also out of proportion with the upper body and the hand. It seems unlikely that this difference in quality resulted from mistakes by the engraver; more probably the underlying portrait was already a workshop production.

The correspondence between the current model and the sitter in the painted Portrait of a man [4], as proposed by Pieter Biesboer in 2023, is difficult to believe.¹⁰ The proportion of the face, the shape and position of the left ear, and the parts around the nasal bone and the eyes differ. Even if a much clearer painted portrait of Bleuet had existed, the present engraving being based on a weaker variant of it would be unlikely, even by the standards of the time.

Mezzotint, 353 x 250 mm, signed lower right: I. FABER FECIT 1754
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv.no. RP-P-OB-17.758

After Hals’s Lute player in the National Gallery of Ireland [5]. The inscription on the engraving, FRANS HALS PINXIT, and the signature on the painting mutually confirm the origin of the composition in the Hals workshop.

C37

Mezzotint, 373 x 262 mm, signed and dated lower right: G: White fecit 1732
London, British Museum, inv.no. 1874,0808.1339

The depiction of the violinist is based on a model which is probably from the Hals workshop [6]. White has placed the boy in an arched stone window that is overgrown with vines, a compositional device that was invented by Gerard Dou (1613-1675) in Leiden and which grew immensely popular during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Below the window-sill, a poem is featured:

‘Boy turn thy Laughter into Floods of Tears,
And tune thy Instrument to Mournful Airs;
Play to the Numbers of my broken Verse,
Whilst the loss of Friend and Art rehearse!
A Friend! whom None in Friendship could surpass;
An Artist, worth all Monuments of Brats!
O SHAKESPEAR, for thy Soul to raise my Flame!
Thy Musick PURCELL to resound his Fame!
But what can Verse, or Musick, raise so High –
At this his Last, and Silent Harmony!
On Him nor Verse, nor Musick need be spent;
Read but GEORGE WHITE, & That’s his Monument’.

C38
© The Trustees of the British Museum

Mezzotint, 158 x 124 mm, signed lower right: A. Schouman.
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv.no. RP-P-1909-78

Even though the inscription refers to an example by Hals, no actual work by the master can be matched to this engraving. Nothing relates to his style of painting. Nevertheless, the diagonal composition and the observation of facial features in movement are interesting, as these were typical for Hals’s works from the 1630s.

C39

Copper engraving, 320 x 229 mm, signed lower left: I. Suijderhoef sculp.
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv.no. RP-P-OB-60.773

This engraving renders the painted portrait of Conradus Viëtor (1588-1657) in New York [7] and belongs to the small group of printed representations of preachers and scholars that were executed on the basis of already existing painted portraits. In this case, there was a gap of at least thirteen years between the execution of the painting and the engraving.

The inscription below the image emphasizes once again the achievement of the engraver. The author of these lines is given as I.V.D. Linden.

‘The engraver gives us this image of him whom God gave his character,
Vietor, great spirit: not sufficiently praised on earth.
He was learned, devoted to God, faithful in knowledge, in his way of life, in his office.
Through diligence, grace and love he was carried, lit up and inflamed.
He died, but he lives with God. His soul shall never die, nor his memory.
God help us that we will inherit with him’.¹¹

C40