Merry Violinist with Wineglass

The support is a plain-weave canvas. Slight cusping on all sides indicates that the dimensions have not been altered, at least not significantly. The canvas is lined. The ground layer is not visible. The paint was applied with relatively broad, distinct brushstrokes, especially visible in the figure’s face, the feathers of the beret and highlights on the doublet. Lines have been incised with the butt end of a brush in the curtain, perhaps as a rudimentary guide, although they often do not correspond to the pattern. Similar incised lines are to be found in the violin. An incised line in the central highlight of the figure’s right sleeve, near the cuff, enhances the plasticity of the fold.

Good. The varnish has discoloured somewhat and is matte in places.

...; ? collection Johann Georg Eimbke (1714-93), Berlin, 1761 (‘Ein soldat. Bruststück Lebensgröße auf Leinewand gemahlt, 3 Fuß hoch und 2 Fuß 4 Zoll breit [94 x 62.8 cm]. Er hat in der rechten Hand ein Glaß, und in der andern eine Violine [...] das vergnügte Lachen im Gesichte ist natürlich und gut ausgedruckt.’);¹¹Coll. cat. Eimbke 1761, no. 18. his sale, Berlin (auction house not known), 18 May 1764, no. 18 (description same as above), 23.4 Reichsthaler, to Christian Christoph Engel;²²Copy EBNP....; sale, Jacobus Viet (The Hague), Amsterdam (J. Posthumus et al.), 12 October 1774, no. 106 (‘Een vrolyke Gast; op Doek, h. 40 b. 34 duim [102.8 x 87.4 cm]. Deeze vertoond zich, levensgroote, kykende uit een Venster, hebbende in zyn eene hand een Rynse Wynroemer en in de andere een Viool’), fl. 6.15;³³Copy EBNP....; sale, Maria Magdalena van Sluypwijk (1710-1802), Gravin van Moens, Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 20 April 1803, no. 32 (‘Voor een Open Vengster, staat een vrolyke Muzikant, houdende een Fiool en Strykstok in de eene, en een Roemer met Wyn in de andere hand, hy is gekleed in aloude Spaansche kleeding, omhoog en ter zyde hangteen Tapytkleed [...] doek, hoog 42, breed 34 duim [108 x 87.4 cm]’), fl. 500, to the dealer Christian Josi, Amsterdam and London;⁴⁴Copy RKD....; sale, Van Terburg family, Amsterdam (C.S. Roos et al.), 16 July 1819, no. 74 (‘Een vrolijke Gast op zijn Spaansch gekleed, met een fiool in de eene, en eene roemer wijn in de andere hand, op D., h. 41, br. 34 d. [105.4 x 87.4 cm]’), fl. 100, to the dealer Jeronimo de Vries, Amsterdam;⁵⁵Copy RKD....; from the dealer Christian Josi, to the museum, fl. 600, 1824⁶⁶RANH, ARM, Kop, inv. 36, p. 155 (12 July 1824); RANH ARM, IS, inv. 11, no. 88, (5 August 1824, no. 8); RANH, ARM, Kop, inv. 36, p. 159 (7 December 1824).

ObjectNumber: SK-A-180

The earliest dated half-length single-figure musicians in the northern Netherlands were produced by Dirck van Baburen, Hendrick ter Brugghen and Abraham Bloemaert in 1621, and the type quickly became a popular one. Often lyrical in mood, these works have their origins in the mostly pastoral single-figure musicians of 16th-century north Italian artists like Savoldo and artists in the circles of Giorgione and Jacopo Bassano. Perhaps significant for Honthorst’s interest in the genre were the two musicians described as ‘Buffoni’ and attributed to Giorgione in the collection of Honthorst’s Roman patron, Cardinal Scipione Borghese.¹³¹³For these paintings and their provenance see Herrmann Fiore in Rome-Siena 2000, pp. 130-33, nos. 11, 12 (ill.). The present painting, and one in Schwerin of a Singing Elder with a Flute (fig. a), are the earliest dated examples from Honthorst’s hand. The exuberant, laughing musician bursting into the viewer’s space from behind a window or balustrade in the Amsterdam painting differs dramatically from the often quiet, poetic mood of especially Ter Brugghen’s musicians, as well as Caravaggio’s only single-figure musician, the Lute Player in St Petersburg.¹⁴¹⁴Hermitage. The diagonal placement of Honthorst’s figure, the broad brushstrokes, especially in the costume, and the seemingly quivering hair and feathers, as well as the highlights on the hand, shoulder and face, add to the vivacity of this violinist.

Manfredi’s Drinker in Modena has been seen as a direct model for Honthorst’s painting, as both figures are possessed of a joyful attitude (fig. b).¹⁵¹⁵See, for example, Judson/Ekkart 1999, p. 190. A painting such as Baburen’s 1622 Lute Player in Utrecht,¹⁶¹⁶Centraal Museum; illustrated in Slatkes 1965, fig. 31. with its foreshortened lute and closely cropped figure, might have inspired Honthorst to create the first truly trompe l’oeil version of the single-figure musician. A year prior to his Rijksmuseum work, Honthorst painted a di sotto in su ceiling, possibly for his own house, showing merry music-making figures gathered around a balustrade.¹⁷¹⁷Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum; illustrated in Judson/Ekkart 1999, pl. 171. A number of other scenes of joyful musicians set behind trompe l’oeil balustrades followed in 1623¹⁸¹⁸For example the painting in Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts; illustrated in Judson/Ekkart 1999, pl. 170. and 1624.¹⁹¹⁹For example the painting in Paris, Louvre; illustrated in Judson/Ekkart 1999, pl. 159. Although he was perhaps spurred on by the single-figure musicians created by other Utrecht artists, Honthorst’s innovative approach is consistent with his own artistic preoccupations at the time.

Attempts to identify the figure in Honthorst’s painting as a Rederijkersnar, the fool in the Dutch variant of the Commedia dell’arte, or as Peeckelhaering, a figure in popular Dutch theatre whose insatiable appetite for herring led to an equally insatiable thirst, have been based on the assumption that the figure is dressed in ‘late Burgundian theatrical costume’.²⁰²⁰Gudlaugsson 1938, p. 68; Judson 1959, p. 65; Braun 1966, p. 18, no. 49. The striped doublet and feathered beret, however, were more likely based on the costume of Caravaggio and Manfredi’s bravi.²¹²¹Brown in Philadelphia etc. 1984, p. 212. The hypothesis has also been advanced that the present painting represented Taste (and, as such, had a vanitas function) in a series of the five senses which included the Singing Elder with a Flute in Schwerin (Hearing) and three other, now supposedly lost, compositions.²²²²Judson/Ekkart 1999, pp. 190-91. The most persuasive argument against this hypothesis is that the violin held by the figure in the present painting represents Hearing, and therefore would overlap with the sense represented in the Schwerin painting had they indeed been part of a series of the five senses.²³²³See Brown in Philadelphia etc. 1984, p. 212. Nor is another, similar hypothesis advanced by some scholars, that the Amsterdam and Schwerin paintings were conceived as pendants, thoroughly convincing.²⁴²⁴Judson (1959, p. 233), Braun (1966, p. 180) and Vermeer (in Utrecht-Braunschweig 1986, p. 291) consider these works to be pendants. This theory, however, is rejected by Moiso-Diekamp 1987, p. 346, no. B2. Indeed, in both paintings the figure is seen from below and placed behind a trompe l’oeil balustrade. The dimensions of both works are also similar, especially if one allows for the possibility that the Schwerin painting might have been cut down on the left. The lighting, which comes from the left, is also consistent in both paintings. The figures, however, have different relationships to their settings, as the singing man leans back while the violinist leans forward, producing a disjointed effect when the two works are placed side by side.

Jonathan Bikker, 2007

See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements

This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 135.

Judson/Ekkart 1999, pp. 190-91, no. 241, with earlier literature; Macioce in Rome-Siena 2000, pp. 212-14, no. 47

1832, p. 35, no. 142; 1843, p. 31, no. 142 (‘in good condition’); 1858, p. 93, no. 183; 1880, p. 150, no. 153; 1887, p. 79, no. 669; 1903, p. 132, no. 1233; 1934, p. 134, no. 1233; 1960, p. 142, no. 1233; 1976, p. 285, no. A 180; 2007, no. 135

J. Bikker, 2007, 'Gerard van Honthorst, Merry Violinist with Wineglass, 1623', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8762