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Zittende man die een pijp rookt
anonymous, 1600 - 1699
- Artwork typedrawing
- Object numberRP-T-00-230
- Dimensionsheight 256 mm x width 170 mm
- Physical characteristicszwart krijt
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Identification
Title(s)
Zittende man die een pijp rookt
Object type
Object number
RP-T-00-230
Creation
Creation
- draftsman (artist): anonymous
- draftsman (artist): Cornelis Saftleven [rejected attribution]
Dating
1600 - 1699
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Material and technique
Physical description
zwart krijt
Dimensions
height 256 mm x width 170 mm
This work is about
Subject
Acquisition and rights
Credit line
Jonkheer J. de Witte van Citters Bequest, The Hague
Acquisition
bequest 1877
Copyright
Persistent URL
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Ludolf de Jongh (possibly copy after)
Study of a Man Smoking a Pipe
1600 - 1699
Inscriptions
inscribed on verso, in pencil: lower right, in a nineteenth-century or early twentieth-century hand, probably by Teding van Berkhout, Legaat / de Witte v Citters; below that, in a twentieth-century hand, B
stamped on verso: lower centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)
Technical notes
watermark: none
Provenance
…; bequeathed by Jonkheer Jacob de Witte van Citters (1817-76), The Hague, to the museum (L. 2228), 1877
Object number: RP-T-00-230
Credit line: Jonkheer J. de Witte van Citters Bequest, The Hague
The artist
Biography
Ludolf de Jongh (Overschie (Rotterdam) 1616 – 1679 Hillegersberg (Rotterdam))
He was the eldest son of Leendert Leendertsz. de Jongh (1590-c. 1657), a shoemaker and innkeeper in Rotterdam, and his wife, Annetje Leuvens (?-1647). According to Houbraken, Ludolf started his artistic training around 1627 in the workshop of his fellow townsman Cornelis Saftleven (1607-1681). He then moved to Delft to study with Anthonie Palamedesz (1602-1673), before settling in Utrecht, to work in the studio of Jan van Bijlert (c. 1597/98-1671). Houbraken subsequently placed the artist in Paris, where he reportedly stayed from 1635 to 1642. After his return, De Jongh established himself in Rotterdam as a portraitist and genre painter. In 1646 he married Adriana Pietersdr. Montagne (?-1697). In 1652 he was appointed major to the city’s militia company and in 1665 the artist moved to nearby Hillegersberg, where he was appointed bailiff. On his death, De Jongh left a considerable fortune, testifying to his successful career.1R.E. Fleischer, ‘Ludolf (Leuff) de Jongh (2003), Grove Art Online, https://doi.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T045121; accessed 31-05-2021.
De Jongh’s earliest known works, dating from around 1642, strongly reflect the style of his teacher, Palamedesz. Throughout his later career, however, De Jongh employed a large variety of artistic styles and worked across several genres. Apart from portraiture, his painted oeuvre consists of genre scenes of both domestic and soldier life, panoramic landscapes with elegant hunting parties, as well as paintings of historical subjects.2Ibid.; R.E. Fleischer, Ludolf de Jongh (1616-1679): Painter of Rotterdam, Doornspijk 1989 (Ars Picturae, no. 1), pp. 83-85.
This artistic and stylistic versatility may be explained by the fact that Rotterdam never was a major centre of artistic patronage, and painters thus were less obliged to conform to a particular style or to specialize to meet competition; instead they could expand into a wider range of subject-matter.3R.E. Fleischer and S. Reiss, ‘Attributions to Ludolf de Jongh: Some Old, Some New’, Burlington Magazine 135 (1993), no. 1087, p. 668. Given De Jongh’s artistic breadth and the fact that few of his paintings are signed, his works have often been misattributed to artists of greater renown, such as Bartholomeus van der Helst (1613-1670), Gerard ter Borch (1617-1681) or Pieter de Hooch (1629-c. 1679/99). His genre scenes show close affinity to corps de garde painters, such as Simon Kick (1603-1653) and Pieter Codde (1599-1678). Equally apparent is the influence of Cornelis Saftleven, Abraham Diepraam (1622-1690) and Willem Kalf (1619-1693) as representatives of the typical Rotterdam tradition of farmers’ interiors. His elegant landscapes with figures, in turn, are reminiscent of Italianate painters such as Jan Both (c. 1615/22-1652) and Herman van Swanevelt (c. 1603-1655).4F. Scholten, ‘Review of R.E. Fleischer, Ludolf de Jongh (1616-1679): Painter of Rotterdam’, Oud Holland 106 (1992) no. 1, pp. 50-51. De Jongh may have met Swanevelt during his stay in Paris.
The same attribution issues apply to De Jongh’s drawn oeuvre. Schatborn, in his article on the artist’s figure studies, convincingly established his authorship of several chalk drawings by linking them to figural motifs in De Jongh’s signed paintings and drew attention to the strong stylistic affinity with the work of Cornelis Saftleven.5P. Schatborn, ‘Figuurstudies van Ludolf de Jongh’, Oud-Holland 89 (1975), pp. 79-82. This process was recently repeated by Stefes for a large group of chalk studies of greyhounds related to hunting scenes.6A. Stefes, ‘Dogs by the Dozen: New Attributions to Ludolf de Jongh’, Master Drawings 60 (2022), no. 1, pp. 69-73. De Jongh would have kept such figure and animal studies as study material to incorporate as staffage in his landscapes and interiors.
Saskia van Altena, 2021
References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, II (1719), pp. 33-34; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, 3 vols., Vienna/Leipzig 1906-11, I (1906), p. 762; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XIX (1926), pp. 132-34; P. Haverkorn van Rijsewijk, ‘Ludolf (Leuff) de Jongh’, Oud-Holland 14 (1896), pp. 36-46; P. Schatborn, ‘Figuurstudies van Ludolf de Jongh’, Oud-Holland 89 (1975), pp. 79-85; R.E. Fleischer, ‘Ludolf de Jongh and the Early Work of Pieter de Hooch’, Oud-Holland 92 (1978), pp. 49-67; R.E. Fleischer, Ludolf de Jongh (1616-1679): Painter of Rotterdam, Doornspijk 1989 (Ars Picturae, no. 1); F. Scholten, ‘Review of R.E. Fleischer, Ludolf de Jongh (1616-1679): Painter of Rotterdam’, Oud Holland 106 (1992) no. 1, pp. 49-54; R.E. Fleischer and S. Reiss, ‘Attributions to Ludolf de Jongh: Some Old, Some New’, Burlington Magazine 135 (1993), no. 1087, pp. 668-77; R.E. Fleischer, ‘Ludolf (Leuff) de Jongh (2003), Grove Art Online, https://doi.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T045121; accessed 31-05-2021; A. Stefes, ‘Dogs by the Dozen: New Attributions to Ludolf de Jongh’, Master Drawings 60 (2022), no. 1, pp. 69-73; https://rkd.nl/explore/artists/42770
Entry
When retroactively inventoried in the 1970s, the present drawing was given to Cornelis Saftleven (1607-1681), probably in context with the publication of Wolfgang Schulz’s monograph (1978), in which it was catalogued as an autograph drawing by that artist.7W. Schulz, Cornelis Saftleven (1607-1685): Leben und Werke, mit einem kritischen Katalog der Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Berlin 1978, no. 37. The connection with Saftleven is obvious if compared with dated drawings in the museum’s collection, such as the Seated Smoker of 1631 (inv. no. RP-T-1989-101) or the Seated Man, Facing Left of 1660 (inv. no. RP-T-1889-A-2001). That attribution was later rejected, and the sheet was then consigned to the anonymous seventeenth-century Dutch.
Given the complete absence of an indication of the figure’s setting – there is no seat nor table on which the left elbow is resting – we may assume that it is the work of a copyist. At the same time, the draughtsmanship is distinctive enough to recall the work of two other seventeenth-century artists, Ludolf de Jongh and Simon Kick (1603-1652). Related figures are found in De Jongh’s painted Hunters in an Inn (c. 1650) in the Kunstmuseum Basel (inv. no. 905),8R.E. Fleischer, Ludolf de Jongh (1616-1679): Painter of Rotterdam, Doornspijk 1989, p. 66 (fig. 76). while the energetic manner of hatching is reminiscent of two drawings attributed to that artist in the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen: Seated Man with a Sword and a Drinking Cup (inv. no. Tu 82b, 20) and Seated Man (inv. no. Tu 82b,1).9P. Schatborn, ‘Figuurstudies van Ludolf de Jongh’, Oud Holland 89 (1975), no. 2, figs. 5 and 10. Curiously, in both drawings, as in the present sheet, one hand is rendered in rather decisive strokes, while the other appears somewhat crippled. Another drawing by De Jongh, Two Men Shaking Hands in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (KdZ 2891)10Ibid., fig. 3. is similar in the rendering of feet as well as of the respective faces, marked by broad shapes and almond-shaped eyes. This drawing was probably made in the late 1640s, in connection with a painting, Canal Boat Station (c. 1648-50) in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin (inv. no. NGI.148).11Cf. R.E. Fleischer, Ludolf de Jongh (1616-1679): Painter of Rotterdam, Doornspijk 1989, p. 64 (fig. 73).
Of the few drawings attributed to Simon Kick, Seated Man Putting on his Boots, again in Copenhagen (inv. no. 6603, Tu 56,1),12P. Schatborn, ‘Figuurstudies van Ludolf de Jongh’, Oud Holland 89 (1975), no. 2, fig. 6. bears some affinity with the present sheet, although it features more nuanced hatching than found in the present drawing. Given the present drawing’s indebtedness to Cornelis Saftleven while at the same time reflecting drawings by Ludolf de Jongh, reportedly the latter’s pupil, there may be enough reason to assign it at least to the circle of the latter, probably as a copy after a now lost drawing.
Annemarie Stefes, 2021
Literature
W. Schulz, Cornelis Saftleven (1607-1685): Leben und Werke, mit einem kritischen Katalog der Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Berlin 1978, no. 37 (as by Cornelis Saftleven)
Citation
A. Stefes, 2021, 'possibly copy after Ludolf de Jongh, _, 1600 - 1699', in J. Turner (ed.), _Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200145821
(accessed 21 augustus 2026 04:30:48 UTC+0).Footnotes
- 1R.E. Fleischer, ‘Ludolf (Leuff) de Jongh (2003), Grove Art Online, https://doi.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T045121; accessed 31-05-2021.
- 2Ibid.; R.E. Fleischer, Ludolf de Jongh (1616-1679): Painter of Rotterdam, Doornspijk 1989 (Ars Picturae, no. 1), pp. 83-85.
- 3R.E. Fleischer and S. Reiss, ‘Attributions to Ludolf de Jongh: Some Old, Some New’, Burlington Magazine 135 (1993), no. 1087, p. 668.
- 4F. Scholten, ‘Review of R.E. Fleischer, Ludolf de Jongh (1616-1679): Painter of Rotterdam’, Oud Holland 106 (1992) no. 1, pp. 50-51. De Jongh may have met Swanevelt during his stay in Paris.
- 5P. Schatborn, ‘Figuurstudies van Ludolf de Jongh’, Oud-Holland 89 (1975), pp. 79-82.
- 6A. Stefes, ‘Dogs by the Dozen: New Attributions to Ludolf de Jongh’, Master Drawings 60 (2022), no. 1, pp. 69-73.
- 7W. Schulz, Cornelis Saftleven (1607-1685): Leben und Werke, mit einem kritischen Katalog der Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Berlin 1978, no. 37.
- 8R.E. Fleischer, Ludolf de Jongh (1616-1679): Painter of Rotterdam, Doornspijk 1989, p. 66 (fig. 76).
- 9P. Schatborn, ‘Figuurstudies van Ludolf de Jongh’, Oud Holland 89 (1975), no. 2, figs. 5 and 10.
- 10Ibid., fig. 3.
- 11Cf. R.E. Fleischer, Ludolf de Jongh (1616-1679): Painter of Rotterdam, Doornspijk 1989, p. 64 (fig. 73).
- 12P. Schatborn, ‘Figuurstudies van Ludolf de Jongh’, Oud Holland 89 (1975), no. 2, fig. 6.