watermark: letters CC; similar to Heawood, no. 2897 (Amsterdam: 1646)

Abrasions at left border; small loss at upper right corner; small hole, restored, left of the shepherd’s shoulder; verso traces of black colour along the borders

…; collection Johann Edler Goll von Franckenstein (1722-85), Amsterdam and Velzen (L. 2987); ? his son, Jonkheer Johan Goll van Franckenstein (1756-1821), Amsterdam and Velzen; ? his son, Jonkheer Pieter Hendrik Goll van Franckenstein (1787-1832), Amsterdam;¹¹Not in his sale, Amsterdam (De Vries et al.), 1 July 1833 sqq.; not in his section in anonymous sale, Amsterdam (C.S. Roos et al.), 1 March 1819 sqq.; cf. H.-U. Beck, ‘Anmerkungen zu den Zeichnungssammlungen von Valerius Röver und Goll van Franckenstein’, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 32 (1981), p. 125 (n. 27). …; possibly anonymous sale, Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 20 November 1826, Album S, no. 27 (‘Philemon en Dafné, door Casteleyn’), with four other drawings, fl. 11-5, to ‘Siebouts’;²²Copy RKD. …; sale, Adriaan van der Willigen (1766-1841, The Hague) and his nephew, Adriaan van der Willigen Pz (1810-76, Rotterdam and Haarlem), The Hague (A.G. de Visser), 12 August 1874, no. 49; …; sale, A.G. de Visser (?-?, The Hague), Amsterdam (F. Muller), 16 May 1881 sqq., no. 70, fl. 116, to the dealer J. de Vries, Amsterdam;³³Copy RKD. from whom, fl. 133, to the museum (L. 2228), 1881

Object number: RP-T-1881-A-101

This signed sheet, considered to be Casper Casteleyn’s best-known work, served as a model for a print (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-BI-6754) by Cornelis van Dalen II (1638-c. 1660/64).⁸⁸F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700, 72 vols., Amsterdam and elsewhere 1947-2010, IV (1951), p. 97 (no. 3), V (1951), p. 104 (no. 8). The contours were indented with a stylus and the verso was blackened to transfer the image to the copper-plate – some traces of black chalk dust of which are still visible. Van Dalen’s year of death, 1664, offers a terminus ante quem for the drawing’s date, but it may have been done earlier, given the stylistic links to inv. no. RP-T-1890-A-2395 (1653). There are some pentimenti next to the right leg of the shepherd, indicating that his leg was originally more upright.

The print’s signature includes the inventor’s first initial ‘J’. This could have referred to either of Casper’s brothers Johannes Casteleyn (1612-c. 1653) or Jacob Casteleyn (?-?), but they were both booksellers rather than artists. Instead the initial was doubtless intended to denote ‘Jasper’ or ‘Jan’, two alternate name forms used by ‘Casper’. Casper Casteleyn’s draughtsmanship is characterized by smooth contours, animated by elegant, dark accents, subtly blended white heightening and precise hatching. His skilful rendering of surfaces and modelling is best seen in the folds of the drapery and in the delicately sketched hands, though he struggled with the anatomy of the shepherd’s awkwardly bent left leg and foot. The drawing supports the traditional attribution of other drawings to Caspter Casteleyn, such as two studies of cavaliers in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (KdZ 13030 and KdZ 1400).⁹⁹E. Bock and J. Rosenberg, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin: Die niederländischen Meister: Beschreibendes Verzeichnis sämtlicher Zeichnungen, 2 vols., coll. cat. Berlin 1930, I, p. 168, II, pl. 116.

Closely related in composition is a drawing of a Couple Seated in a Landscape in Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam (inv. no. CC 1),¹⁰¹⁰E-mail courtesy of Jan de Klerk, 23 October 2018. which is also signed with the surname ‘Casteleyn’, but with a ligated initial that could be read as either ‘J’ or ‘P’. It, too, is currently classified as by Casper Casteleyn, but the dress of the man and woman suggest a date in the 1630s, ruling out the hand of Casper (who was born only c. 1625) and pointing instead to his elder brother Pieter Casteleyn (1618-1676) as the more likely candidate. Given the compositional similarity, it could be that Casper knew and was inspired by the Rotterdam drawing or a similar work for the present sheet.

The precise subject of this pastoral depiction – a shepherd crowning a shepherdess with a floral wreath – is unclear; it is probably a scene from classical or contemporary literature. It was erroneously described in a nineteenth-century sale catalogue as ‘Philemon and Dafné’, a conflation of the stories of Philemon and Baucis (an elderly couple) and Apollo and Daphne (a nymph transformed into a laurel tree when pursued by the god). It is more likely to represent either Paris and Oenone, like paintings by Pieter Lastman (1583-1633), one dated 1610 in the High Museum of Art, Atlanta (inv. no. 1990.57),¹¹¹¹P. van den Brink and J. de Meyere (eds.), Het gedroomde land. Pastorale schilderkunst in de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Utrecht (Centraal Museum)/Frankfurt-am-Main (Kunsthalle)/Luxembourg (Musée National d’Histoire et d’Art) 1993, p. 49 (fig. 35). or one from 1619 in the Worcester Art Museum (inv. no. 1984.39),¹²¹²Ibid., p. 54 (fig. 37). or the story of Granida and Daifilo, a subject from the Dutch pastoral play by Pieter Cornelisz. Hooft (1581-1647) that was depicted by Casteleyn himself in an undated painting in the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg (inv. no. ??-7647).

** Gerdien Wuestman, 2000/Annemarie Stefes, 2019**

Jaarverslag Rijksprentenkabinet 1881, p. 7; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, VI (1912), pp. 140-41 (entry by E.W. Moes); P.C. Molhuysen et al. (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, 10 vols., Leiden 1911-37, IX (1933), col. 134; F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700, 72 vols., Amsterdam and elsewhere 1947-2010, V (1951), p. 104, no. 8; A. Stefes, Niederländische Zeichnungen, 1450-1800, 3 vols., coll. cat. Hamburg 2011 (Die Sammlungen der Hamburger Kunsthalle, Kupferstichkabinett, vol. 2), I, pp. 161-62, under no. 200

G. Wuestman, 2000/A. Stefes, 2019, 'Casper Casteleyn, Shepherd and Shepherdess Seated in a Landscape, Haarlem, c. 1655', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200120740