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Seated Shepherd
Gerrit Berckheyde, 1648 - 1698
- Artwork typedrawing
- Object numberRP-T-1989-107
- Dimensionsheight 165 mm x width 204 mm
- Physical characteristicsred chalk; framing line in brown ink
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Identification
Title(s)
Seated Shepherd
Object type
Object number
RP-T-1989-107
Part of catalogue
Creation
Creation
draughtsman: Gerrit Berckheyde, Haarlem
Dating
1648 - 1698
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Material and technique
Physical description
red chalk; framing line in brown ink
Dimensions
height 165 mm x width 204 mm
This work is about
Subject
Acquisition and rights
Credit line
Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt, with additional funding from the Prins Bernhard Fonds, the Rijksmuseum-Stichting and De Ster Holding BV
Acquisition
purchase 1989
Copyright
Provenance
…; Jan Pietersz Zomer (1641-1724), Amsterdam{Possibly in his 1720-24 catalogue, Album 19 (‘(…) _aardige Beeldjes, zoo Mannen als Vrouwtjes, na ’t leven konstig getekent, door Job en Gerrit Berkheyde, Jan Bot, Bamboots, en W. Schellinx_’) or Album 20 (‘(…) _Aardige Beeltjes van Jan Both, en veel van Bega, en van Job en Gerrit Berkheyden_ (…).}; Dirk Vis Blokhuyzen (1799-1869), Rotterdam; his sale, Rotterdam (D.A. Lamme and A.C. van Wijngaarden), 23 October 1871 sqq., no. 68 (‘_G. Berkheyde. Etude de paysans. Deux dessins. A la sanguine_’), fl. 1, to Carel Vosmaer (1826-88), The Hague;{Copy RKD.} by descent to Carel Johannes Jacob Gualtherus Vosmaer (1907-86), Leiden; purchased from his heirs, with the support from the Vereniging Rembrandt, the Prins Bernhard Fonds, the Rijksmuseum-Stichting, and De Ster Holding BV, by the museum (L. 2228), 1989
Remarks
Please note that this provenance was formulated with a special focus on provenance research for the years 1933-45 and could therefore be incomplete. There may be more (mostly earlier) provenance information known in the museum. In case this item has an uncertain or incomplete provenance for the years 1933-45, the Rijksmuseum welcomes information and assistance in the investigation and clarification of the provenance of all works during that era.
Documentation
Persistent URL
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Gerrit Berckheyde
Seated Shepherd
Haarlem, 1648 - 1698
Inscriptions
inscribed: lower left, by Zomer, in red chalk, G. Berkheijde
inscribed on verso, in pencil: lower left, 3455; centre, 173
stamped on verso: lower right, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)
Technical notes
watermark: posthorn (fragment); similar to Heawood, no. 2732 (Leiden: 1704)
Condition
Some foxing; discolouration along the left edge
Provenance
…; Jan Pietersz Zomer (1641-1724), Amsterdam1Possibly in his 1720-24 catalogue, Album 19 (‘(…) aardige Beeldjes, zoo Mannen als Vrouwtjes, na ’t leven konstig getekent, door Job en Gerrit Berkheyde, Jan Bot, Bamboots, en W. Schellinx’) or Album 20 (‘(…) Aardige Beeltjes van Jan Both, en veel van Bega, en van Job en Gerrit Berkheyden (…).; Dirk Vis Blokhuyzen (1799-1869), Rotterdam; his sale, Rotterdam (D.A. Lamme and A.C. van Wijngaarden), 23 October 1871 sqq., no. 68 (‘G. Berkheyde. Etude de paysans. Deux dessins. A la sanguine’), fl. 1, to Carel Vosmaer (1826-88), The Hague;2Copy RKD. by descent to Carel Johannes Jacob Gualtherus Vosmaer (1907-86), Leiden; purchased from his heirs, with the support from the Vereniging Rembrandt, the Prins Bernhard Fonds, the Rijksmuseum-Stichting, and De Ster Holding BV, by the museum (L. 2228), 1989
Object number: RP-T-1989-107
Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt, with additional funding from the Prins Bernhard Fonds, the Rijksmuseum-Stichting and De Ster Holding BV
The artist
Biography
Gerrit Berckheyde (Haarlem, 1638 - Haarlem, 1698)
He was probably trained by his older brother, Job Berckheyde (1630-1693). In the 1650s, as a young teenager, Gerrit travelled with Job along the Rhine to Heidelberg to study and draw German architecture.3B.P.J. Broos and M. Schapelhouman, Nederlandse tekenaars geboren tussen 1600 en 1660, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1993 (Oude tekeningen in het bezit van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, waaronder de collectie Fodor, vol. 4), p. 38, no. 25.
The brothers established themselves in their native Haarlem around 1653-54 and probably shared a workshop.4On 10 June 1653 Job Berckheyde repaid a loan to the local Guild of St Luke, which he joined on 10 March 1654; cf. C. Lawrence, ‘Berckheyde Family’, Grove Art Online, 2003; accessed 26 March 2020. Gerrit joined the Guild of St Luke on 27 July 1660.5Ibid.; P. Schatborn, Dutch Figure Drawings from the Seventeenth Century, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet)/Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 1981-82, p. 130. He specialized in townscapes. Gerrit drew figure studies in red and black chalk to be used as staffage for his paintings, a large number of which have been preserved. The models for these drawings were shared among Haarlem artists and recorded by different hands during joint drawing sessions. In the past Gerrit’s drawings have thus often been confused with those of other Haarlem artists, especially Cornelis Bega (1631-1664).6Ibid, pp. 108-109. He is not known to have had students, but he collaborated with Jan van Huchtenburg (1647-1733) and possibly Nicolas Guérard (?-1719), Dirk Maas (1656-1717) and Johannes Lingelbach (1622-1674).7C. Lawrence, ‘Berckheyde Family’, Grove Art Online, 2003; accessed 26 March 2020.
From 1666 to 1681, Gerrit was a member of the Haarlem society of rhetoricians, the ‘Wijngaardranken’. He served as an official for the Haarlem Guild of St Luke between 1691 and 1695. He died unexpectedly on 10 January 1698, when he fell into the Brouwersvaart and drowned. He was buried in the nave of the St Jan four days later.8Ibid.
Carolyn Mensing, 2020
References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, III (1721), pp. 189-97; A. van der Willigen, Geschiedkundige aantekeningen over Haarlemsche schilders, Haarlem 1866, p. 70; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, III (1909), p. 376; H. Jantzen, Das niederländische Architecturbild, Leipzig 1910, pp. 87-88; H. Gerson, Ausbreitung und Nachwirkung der holländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, Amsterdam 1942, pp. 168, 204, 25; B. Haak, Hollandse schilders in de Gouden Eeuw, Amsterdam 1984, p. 392; C. Lawrence, Gerrit Adriaensz. Berckheyde (1638-1698): Haarlem Cityscape Painter, Doornspijk 1991; C. Lawrence, ‘Berckheyde Family’, Grove Art Online, 2003, online at https://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000008029; I. van Thiel-Stroman, ‘Gerrit Adriaensz Berckheyde’, in P. Biesboer et al., Painting in Haarlem, 1500-1850: The Collection of the Frans Hals Museum, coll. cat. Haarlem 2006, pp. 105-06
Entry
Besides architectural views of the Netherlands and Germany, Berckheyde also painted Italianate landscapes with ruins, shepherds and hunters. This drawing of a resting shepherd was probably intended to be used for one such picture, but so far it has not been possible to match it with one.
No fully signed figure studies by Gerrit Berckheyde are known, but the dealer and collector Jan Pietersz Zomer (1641-1724) recorded the artist’s name on a number of drawings, including this sheet, the Rijksmuseum’s Seated Man, Drinking (inv. no. RP-T-1989-106) and the Standing Woman in Museum Boijmans Van Beunningen, Rotterdam (inv. no. G.A.B.1.).9M.C. Plomp, ‘Jan Pietersz. Zomer’s Inscriptions on Drawings’, Delineavit et Sculpsit 17 (1997), p. 17, fig. 8. Zomer’s attributions are a useful starting-point for recognizing Gerrit’s hand as a draughtsman, especially since over time many of his drawings have been attributed to fellow Haarlem artist Cornelis Bega (1631-1664) or to his older brother, Job Berckheyde (1630-1693).10P. Schatborn, Dutch Figure Drawings from the Seventeenth Century, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet)/Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 1981-82, pp. 105, 109; B.P.J. Broos and M. Schapelhouman, Nederlandse tekenaars geboren tussen 1600 en 1660, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1993 (Oude tekeningen in het bezit van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, waaronder de collectie Fodor, vol. 4) 1993, pp. 38-41, nos. 25-26. Because Zomer often, as here, added the first name or initial on sheets that he annotated, he evidently believed himself to be capable of distinguishing between the brothers’ hands. However, as Broos correctly noted, the mere presence in Gerrit’s paintings of figures that correspond to surviving drawings is not sufficient grounds for making an attribution, since Gerrit and Job could have used each other’s drawings.11Ibid, p. 41. Moreover, Gerrit sometimes had other artists paint the staffage in his pictures.12Among these were Nicolas Guerard (?-1719), Jan van Huchtenburg (1647-1733), Dirck Maas (1656-1717) and Johannes Lingelbach; C. Lawrence, Gerrit Adriaensz. Berckheyde (1638-1698): Haarlem Cityscape Painter, Doornspijk 1991, p. 19. A drawing attributed to Johannes Lingelbach (1622-1674) in the Teylers Museum, Haarlem (inv. no. Q*7), for instance, features six oriental figures found in various paintings by Berckheyde.13M.C. Plomp, The Dutch Drawings in the Teyler Museum, II: Artists Born between 1575 and 1630, coll. cat. Haarlem 1997, p. 228, under no. 245.
Bonny van Sighem, 2001
Literature
J.F. Heijbroek (ed.), De verzameling van mr. Carel Vosmaer (1826-1888), exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet) 1989, pp. 69-71, no. 26; M.C. Plomp, ‘Jan Pietersz. Zomer’s Inscriptions on Drawings’, Delineavit et Sculpsit 17 (1997), p. 17, figs. 11 and 11a
Citation
B. van Sighem, 2001, 'Gerrit Berckheyde, Seated Shepherd, Haarlem, 1648 - 1698', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200117084
(accessed 6 December 2025 10:42:52).Footnotes
- 1Possibly in his 1720-24 catalogue, Album 19 (‘(…) aardige Beeldjes, zoo Mannen als Vrouwtjes, na ’t leven konstig getekent, door Job en Gerrit Berkheyde, Jan Bot, Bamboots, en W. Schellinx’) or Album 20 (‘(…) Aardige Beeltjes van Jan Both, en veel van Bega, en van Job en Gerrit Berkheyden (…).
- 2Copy RKD.
- 3B.P.J. Broos and M. Schapelhouman, Nederlandse tekenaars geboren tussen 1600 en 1660, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1993 (Oude tekeningen in het bezit van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, waaronder de collectie Fodor, vol. 4), p. 38, no. 25.
- 4On 10 June 1653 Job Berckheyde repaid a loan to the local Guild of St Luke, which he joined on 10 March 1654; cf. C. Lawrence, ‘Berckheyde Family’, Grove Art Online, 2003; accessed 26 March 2020.
- 5Ibid.; P. Schatborn, Dutch Figure Drawings from the Seventeenth Century, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet)/Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 1981-82, p. 130.
- 6Ibid, pp. 108-109.
- 7C. Lawrence, ‘Berckheyde Family’, Grove Art Online, 2003; accessed 26 March 2020.
- 8Ibid.
- 9M.C. Plomp, ‘Jan Pietersz. Zomer’s Inscriptions on Drawings’, Delineavit et Sculpsit 17 (1997), p. 17, fig. 8.
- 10P. Schatborn, Dutch Figure Drawings from the Seventeenth Century, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet)/Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 1981-82, pp. 105, 109; B.P.J. Broos and M. Schapelhouman, Nederlandse tekenaars geboren tussen 1600 en 1660, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1993 (Oude tekeningen in het bezit van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, waaronder de collectie Fodor, vol. 4) 1993, pp. 38-41, nos. 25-26.
- 11Ibid, p. 41.
- 12Among these were Nicolas Guerard (?-1719), Jan van Huchtenburg (1647-1733), Dirck Maas (1656-1717) and Johannes Lingelbach; C. Lawrence, Gerrit Adriaensz. Berckheyde (1638-1698): Haarlem Cityscape Painter, Doornspijk 1991, p. 19.
- 13M.C. Plomp, The Dutch Drawings in the Teyler Museum, II: Artists Born between 1575 and 1630, coll. cat. Haarlem 1997, p. 228, under no. 245.