St Martin Cutting Off Part of his Cloak for a Beggar

Joost Cornelisz Droochsloot (signed by artist), 1623

Dorpsgezicht met Sint Maarten die een stuk van zijn jas afsnijdt om aan een bedelaar te geven. Links van de heilige Martinus een groep vechtende bedelaars, rechts meer bedelaars. Achter de heilige en door de bomen is een kerk te zien.

  • Artwork typepainting
  • Object numberSK-A-1930
  • Dimensionssupport: height 58 cm x width 85 cm
  • Physical characteristicsoil on panel

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Joost Cornelisz Droochsloot (signed by artist), 1625

The Disbanding of the 'Waardgelders' (Mercenaries in the Pay of the Town Government) by Prince Maurits in Utrecht, 31 July 1618

River View

Joost Cornelisz Droochsloot (signed by artist), 1650

River View

Housing the Poor

Joost Cornelisz Droochsloot (signed by artist), 1647

Housing the Poor

The Prodigal Son

manner of Joost Cornelisz Droochsloot, 1600 - 1699

The Prodigal Son

Drie bedelaars en een vrouw aan tafel in een herberg

Joost Cornelisz Droochsloot, 1610

Drie bedelaars en een vrouw aan tafel in een herberg

Drie bedelaars en een vrouw aan tafel in een herberg

Joost Cornelisz Droochsloot (mentioned on object), 1618 - 1648

Drie bedelaars en een vrouw aan tafel in een herberg

Joost Cornelisz Droochsloot

St Martin Cutting Off Part of his Cloak for a Beggar

1623

Inscriptions

  • signature and date, upper left, under the window of the house:Joost. Cornel. / Drooch. Sloot. 1623

Technical notes

The support consists of two horizontally grained oak planks, each with a pronounced convex warp. (The painting was examined in a climate box.)

Scientific examination and reports

  • technical report: I. Verslype, RMA, 25 november 2004

Condition

Fair. The varnish has discoloured somewhat. The figure in the middleground and the trees are abraded. A number of retouchings are visible. The roofs of the buildings have their own very distinct craquelure.

Provenance

…; from William Burroughs Hill, Southampton, fl. 603, to the museum, December 1900; on loan to the Limburgs Museum, Venlo, since 2000

Object number: SK-A-1930

The artist

Biography

Joost Cornelisz Droochsloot (Utrecht c. 1586 - Utrecht 1666)

It is assumed that Droochsloot was born in 1586, the year his parents married, or shortly thereafter and that his place of birth was Utrecht, where his father had settled by 1581. He painted imaginary village scenes, topographical views and history pieces. It is not known with whom he trained, although the resemblance of his peasant figures with those of David Vinckboons indicates that it might have been with the latter. Droochsloot’s first dated painting Village Kermis,1Signed with monogram and dated 1615; sale, Vienna (Dorotheum), 14 September 1976, no. 37 (ill.). and his etchings are highly reminiscent of Vinckboons. The influence of Esaias van de Velde and Adriaen van de Venne is also discernible in Droochsloot’s oeuvre, and two of his early paintings include topographical views of The Hague,2The Princes of Orange on the Buitenhof, The Hague, Kunstmuseum Den Haag; photo RKD; Summer Landscape, 1624; sale, Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), New York (Christie’s), 14 January 1993, no. 35 (ill.). where Van de Velde had settled in 1618 and Van de Venne in 1625. Droochsloot’s first dated work is an etching from 1610.3Illustrated in Amsterdam 1997, p. 113, fig. 4. Although his first dated painting is from 1615, he did not register as a master-painter in the Utrecht painters’ guild until 1616. Two years later he married Agnietgen van Rijnevelt in the Reformed Church. In 1623, 1641 and 1642 he was elected dean of the painters’ guild. A respected burgher, he also filled other public positions: in 1638 he was elected a lifelong regent of the St Job’s Hospice, in 1642 deacon of the Reformed Church, and in 1650 and 1651 sergeant in the Utrecht militia. Financial success eluded Droochsloot later in his career, and he was forced to take out several mortgages on his house. Beginning in the 1620s, he gave drawing lessons. His pupils included Jacob Duck (c. 1600-67) in 1621, a number of painters about whom nothing else is known (Jan Petersen, Peter van Straesborgh, Steven de Leeuw, and Cornelis Duck), as well as his own son, Cornelis Droochsloot (1630-after 1673), who continued his workshop after his death in 1666.

Jonathan Bikker, 2007

References
Houbraken III, 1721, p. 288; Lilienfeld in Thieme/Becker IX, 1913, pp. 574-75; Van Luttervelt 1947; Bok in San Francisco etc. 1997, pp. 380-81; Luijten in Amsterdam 1997, pp. 113, 171-73, no. 31; Beaujean in Saur XXIX, 2001, p. 489

Entry

A large part of Droochsloot’s oeuvre is composed of village scenes with coarsely executed Brueghelian peasants. Acts of charity also constituted a considerable amount of his production. The present painting is the first of three showing the Christian nobleman, St Martin, dividing his cloak with a beggar. Unlike the other versions, St Martin wears a suit of armour in the Rijksmuseum painting. The contrast between the orderly peasants on the right and the brawling peasants on the left is common to all three works. The leafless trees and grey atmosphere evoke a winter setting; St Martin’s feast day was considered the first day of winter.4As pointed out by Spicer in San Francisco etc. 1997, pp. 225-26.

The composition, including the partially seen building cast in shadow that acts as a repoussoir on the left, is typical for Droochsloot. The twisted trees, with their oddly stunted uppermost branches, are another standard feature in his work, and remind one of the trees in certain landscape etchings by Willem Buytewech5Hollstein IV, 1951, pp. 73-75, nos. 35-44. and Jan van de Velde II.6For example, Hollstein XXXIV, 1989, pp. 23, 25, nos. 33, 34, 36. David Vinckboons’s peasant types were likely Droochsloot’s immediate model. As Houbraken first commented, Droochsloot’s peasants all appear to have been cast from the same mould.7Houbraken III, 1721, p. 288. Indeed, his figure types are as repetitive as his bizarre leafless trees.

Spicer’s hypothesis that the present painting is the one described in Peter Wtewael’s 1661 estate inventory cannot be substantiated, as the description does not include the work’s dimensions and, as mentioned above, there are three works of this theme by Droochsloot.8Spicer in San Francisco etc. 1997, p. 225, no. 31; for the mention in the estate inventory see Lowenthal 1986, p. 196.

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. 56.

Literature

Spicer in San Francisco etc. 1997, pp. 225-28, no. 31, with selected earlier literature

Collection catalogues

1903, p. 86, no. 808; 1934, p. 85, no. 808; 1960, p. 86, no. 808; 1976, p. 199, no. A 1930; 2007, no. 56

Citation

J. Bikker, 2007, 'Joost Cornelisz. Droochsloot, St Martin Cutting Off Part of his Cloak for a Beggar, 1623', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20015928

(accessed 6 December 2025 13:00:52).

Footnotes

  • 1Signed with monogram and dated 1615; sale, Vienna (Dorotheum), 14 September 1976, no. 37 (ill.).
  • 2The Princes of Orange on the Buitenhof, The Hague, Kunstmuseum Den Haag; photo RKD; Summer Landscape, 1624; sale, Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), New York (Christie’s), 14 January 1993, no. 35 (ill.).
  • 3Illustrated in Amsterdam 1997, p. 113, fig. 4.
  • 4As pointed out by Spicer in San Francisco etc. 1997, pp. 225-26.
  • 5Hollstein IV, 1951, pp. 73-75, nos. 35-44.
  • 6For example, Hollstein XXXIV, 1989, pp. 23, 25, nos. 33, 34, 36.
  • 7Houbraken III, 1721, p. 288.
  • 8Spicer in San Francisco etc. 1997, p. 225, no. 31; for the mention in the estate inventory see Lowenthal 1986, p. 196.