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.¹¹R.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.²²Ibid.; 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.³³R.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).⁴⁴F. 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.⁵⁵P. 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.⁶⁶A. 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