Getting started with the collection:
Hendrik Potuyl
Peddler Selling Pamphlets to Villagers
? Amsterdam, c. 1630 - c. 1640
Inscriptions
signed: lower left, in graphite, HBos PotuyL (H and B in ligature)
Provenance
…; bequeathed by Dr Timon Hendrik Blom Coster (1817-1904), The Hague, to the museum, 1904
ObjectNumber: RP-T-1904-1
Credit line: Blom Coster Bequest, The Hague
The artist
Biography
Hendrik Potuyl (Dortmund 1613 - ? Dortmund after 1651?)
A native of Dortmund, he moved in 1629 to Amsterdam, where in 1641 he became an assistant to Joachim von Sandrart (1606-1688) and where three years later, on 24 September 1644, he married the twenty-one-year old Maria Ransons (1623-?) in Amsterdam.1Amsterdam, Stadsarchief, DTB 678, fol. 2. In the marriage notice, the artist – whose real name was Hendrick Bos (or Hendrik van den Bosch) and who sometimes signed his works ‘H. Bos Potuyl’ – is cited as ‘Heijndrik Boss van Dortmond, schilder, out 31 jaar’. According to the Historische woordenboeken. Nederlands en Fries, in Dutch his nickname ‘Potuyl’ historically referred to an uncouth, uneducated dolt (perhaps an allusion to his subject-matter?).2http://gtb.inl.nl/iWDB/search?actie=article&wdb=WNT&id=M055626.re.401&lemma=potuil&domein=0&conc=true. Why he should have chosen to define himself in such a demeaning way is unclear. His three children were baptized in Amsterdam’s Lutheran church.3Johannes, baptized on 14 November 1645, Amsterdam, Stadsarchief, DTB 141, fol. 308; Madaleen, baptized on 19 December 1648, ibid., DTB 142, fol. 94; Sacharias, baptized on 22 January 1651, ibid., fol. 251. One of their sons, Sacharias Bosch (1651-?), became a painter as well and settled in Riga. Hendrik Potuyl returned to Dortmund shortly after the birth of Sacharias.
Potuyl’s paintings – mainly peasant genre scenes and barn interiors and still lifes – reflect the work of such artists as Cornelis Saftleven (1607-1681), Egbert van der Poel (1621-1664) and Hendrick Sorgh (1609/11-1670). His earliest dated paintings are from 1639, for instance View inside a Barn in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (inv. no. 2880). The last dated paintings are from a decade later, such as Gathering in front of a Church with Food Distributed to the Poor, which was on the London art market in 2001.4Sale, London (Philips), 11 December 2001, no. 79. Genre subjects also feature in Potuyl’s drawings on vellum, which clearly reveal the influence of Pieter Jansz Quast (c. 1605/06-1647), who was active in Amsterdam between 1641 and 1647. Another artist who apparently had an impact on Potuyl was Jan Miense Molenaer (1609/10-1668), who left Amsterdam in 1648.
Annemarie Stefes, 2019
References
R. van Eijnden and A. van der Willigen, Geschiedenis der vaderlandsche schilderkunst, 4 vols., Haarlem 1816-40, I (1816), p. 283; J. Immerzeel, De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1842-43, II (1843), p. 326; C. Kramm, De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, beeldhouwers, graveurs en bouwmeesters van den vroegsten tot op onzen tijd, 7 vols., Amsterdam 1857-64, V (1861), p. 1312; A.D. de Vries, ‘Biografische aanteekeningen betreffende voornamelijk Amsterdamsche schilders, plaatsnijders, enz. en hunne verwanten (I)’, Oud-Holland 3 (1885), p. 69; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, 3 vols., Vienna/Leipzig 1906-11, II (1910), p. 356; A. Bredius (ed.), Künstler-Inventare: Urkunden zur Geschichte der holländischen Kunst des XVIten, XVIIten und XVIIIten Jahrhunderts, 8 vols., The Hague 1915-22 , IV (1917), p. 1399; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XXVII (1933), pp. 309-10 (entry by E. Trautscholdt); C. Klemm, Joachim von Sandrart: Kunst-Werke und Lebens-Lauf, Berlin 1986, pp. 55, 339, 355-56; A. van der Willigen and F.G. Meijer, A Dictionary of Dutch and Flemish Still-life Painters Working in Oils, 1525-1725, Leiden 2003, pp. 163-64; P. Groenendijk, Beknopt biografisch lexicon van Zuid- en Noord-Nederlandse schilders, graveurs, glasschilders, tapijtwevers et cetera van ca. 1350 tot ca. 1720, Utrecht 2008, p. 621; https://rkd.nl/explore/artists/64531; http://www.vondel.humanities.uva.nl/ecartico/persons/1238
Entry
Drawings by Potuyl are rare but highly recognizable. These genre scenes in the style of Pieter Jansz Quast (c. 1605/06-1647) or Jan Miense Molenaer (1609/10-1668) are most often drawn in graphite on vellum, the strokes softly stumped into homogenous shades. The figures in drawings by Potuyl tend to be slenderer than those in the work of his fellow genre draughtsmen, as is best seen in this case by the man standing on a barrel.
Like a related composition in the Klassik Stiftung Weimar (inv. no. KK 5292),5R. Barth, Rembrandt und seine Zeitgenossen, exh. cat. Weimar (Kunsthalle am Theaterplatz) 1981, no. 386. the present sheet was traditionally entitled ‘The Quack’, the description with which it entered the collection.6Various eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sale catalogues mention drawings of quacks by Potuyl: e.g, sale, Johan van der Marck Ægzn (1707-72, Leiden), Amsterdam (De Winter and IJver), 29 November 1773 sqq., no. 1618; anonymous sale, Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 20 November 1826, Album M, no. 34; sale, Tjaard van der Walle Sybouts (?-?, Amsterdam), Amsterdam, 27 April 1847, Album A, no. 48; sale, Gérard Leembruggen Jzn (1801-65, The Hague, Lisse and Hillegom), Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 5 March 1866 sqq., no. 461. However, these sales most likely did not include the present sheet, but instead either the Weimar drawing or a drawing that appeared in the sale of Pieter Langerhuizen Lzn (1839-1918, ‘Crailoo’, near Bussum), Amsterdam (F. Muller & Co.), 29 April 1919, no. 633. However, in contrast to the Weimar drawing, the Amsterdam sheet represents a peddler, not a doctor, standing on a barrel. He is selling sheets or pamphlets from one of which he is reading aloud. One of the bystanders is reaching up for a copy, while an old woman with glasses has already bought one and is now studying it. Related subjects are Folk Singers Selling their Songs, a painting by Molenaer, probably from the first half of the 1630s, which appeared on the Amsterdam art market in 2008;7Sale, Amsterdam (Sotheby’s), 11 November 2008, no. 30. a drawing of the same period by Gerard ter Borch II (1617-1681) in the Rijksprentenkabinet (inv. no. RP-T-1887-A-824); and a print by Jan Georg van Vliet of c. 1632-1634 (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-OB-33.363).8F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700, 72 vols., Amsterdam and elsewhere 1947-2010, XLI (1992), p. 159, no. 15.
The present drawing can be assigned to the 1630s as well. Compared to the Rijksmuseum’s other drawing by Potuyl (inv. no. RP-T-1926-18), datable circa 1640-circa 1650, the figures here appear more awkward in their stereotypical faces, naïve smiles and stiff, puppet-like movements. The signature on this drawing uses the artist’s proper name, Hendrik Bos, while also incorporating his commonly used nickname, ‘Potuyl’ (pot owl). This is further symbolized by the presence of owl perched on the roof to the left, a kind of logo found in other drawings by the artist, such as a sheet in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels (inv. no. 4060/69543B).9W. Bernt, Die niederländischen Zeichner des 17. Jahrhunderts, 2 vols., Munich 1957-58, no. 478.
Bonny van Sighem, 2000/Annemarie Stefes, 2019
Literature
U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XXVII (1933), p. 309 (entry by E. Trautscholdt); A. Stefes, Niederländische Zeichnungen, 1450-1800, 3 vols., coll. cat. Hamburg 2011 (Die Sammlungen der Hamburger Kunsthalle, Kupferstichkabinett, vol. 2), II, p. 445 (n. 3); C. Melzer and J. Keddies, Kühles Licht und weite See: Niederländische Meisterzeichnungen und ihre Restaurierung, exh. cat. Bremen (Kunsthalle Bremen) 2018, p. 196, under no. 107
Citation
B. van Sighem, 2000/A. Stefes, 2019, 'Hendrik Potuyl, Peddler Selling Pamphlets to Villagers, Amsterdam, c. 1630 - c. 1640', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.59664
(accessed 9 May 2025 12:21:35).Footnotes
- 1Amsterdam, Stadsarchief, DTB 678, fol. 2.
- 2http://gtb.inl.nl/iWDB/search?actie=article&wdb=WNT&id=M055626.re.401&lemma=potuil&domein=0&conc=true.
- 3Johannes, baptized on 14 November 1645, Amsterdam, Stadsarchief, DTB 141, fol. 308; Madaleen, baptized on 19 December 1648, ibid., DTB 142, fol. 94; Sacharias, baptized on 22 January 1651, ibid., fol. 251.
- 4Sale, London (Philips), 11 December 2001, no. 79.
- 5R. Barth, Rembrandt und seine Zeitgenossen, exh. cat. Weimar (Kunsthalle am Theaterplatz) 1981, no. 386.
- 6Various eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sale catalogues mention drawings of quacks by Potuyl: e.g, sale, Johan van der Marck Ægzn (1707-72, Leiden), Amsterdam (De Winter and IJver), 29 November 1773 sqq., no. 1618; anonymous sale, Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 20 November 1826, Album M, no. 34; sale, Tjaard van der Walle Sybouts (?-?, Amsterdam), Amsterdam, 27 April 1847, Album A, no. 48; sale, Gérard Leembruggen Jzn (1801-65, The Hague, Lisse and Hillegom), Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 5 March 1866 sqq., no. 461. However, these sales most likely did not include the present sheet, but instead either the Weimar drawing or a drawing that appeared in the sale of Pieter Langerhuizen Lzn (1839-1918, ‘Crailoo’, near Bussum), Amsterdam (F. Muller & Co.), 29 April 1919, no. 633.
- 7Sale, Amsterdam (Sotheby’s), 11 November 2008, no. 30.
- 8F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700, 72 vols., Amsterdam and elsewhere 1947-2010, XLI (1992), p. 159, no. 15.
- 9W. Bernt, Die niederländischen Zeichner des 17. Jahrhunderts, 2 vols., Munich 1957-58, no. 478.