Support The single, horizontally grained plank is approx. 0.8 cm thick. The reverse is bevelled on all sides and has regularly spaced saw marks. The type of wood could not be identified.
Preparatory layers The double ground extends up to the edges of the support. The first layer is off-white and barely fills the grain of the wood. The second layer is beige and consists of earth pigments with an addition of white pigment particles, some of them coarse, and fine black pigment particles.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared reflectography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the edges of the support. The composition was first indicated with translucent dark brown paint. The background was thinly applied from dark to light in shades of brown with some greyish scumbles, for the most part reserving the figures. The painting was loosely executed, allowing the ground to show through in many places, though fine, hatched brushstrokes are visible in the faces and clothing. Infrared reflectography revealed numerous changes to the composition. A square shape, possibly a window, was initially present to the right of the fireplace. The latter was narrower at first and a hunched figure stood in front of it, turned away from the viewer. The pair of bellows hanging next to it was originally somewhat smaller and the dog’s left paw was longer. An earlier version of the reed basket in the lower right corner was placed further back towards the wall, and the hat on the floor was further to the right. A pitcher with its lid open stood on the bench, to the left of which was a plate on the ground. The paint layer is mostly smooth with only some impasto in the clothing.
Anna Krekeler, 2011

Good. The varnish is extremely thick, has severely yellowed and saturates moderately.

…; ? sale, Gerard Bicker van Zwieten (1687-1753, The Hague), The Hague, sold on the premises (auction house not known), 12 April 1741 sqq., no. 99, as Slingelandt (‘Een Gezelschap en keuken met 5 figuuren vol werk […] hoog 1 voet 6 duim breed 1 voet 11 duym [47 x 60 cm]’), fl. 240, to Van Olden;¹¹Copy RMA.…; Hendrik van Heteren (1672-1749), The Hague, in or before 1747/48 as Slingelandt;²²E. Geudeker, Het kabinet Van Heteren Gevers, een achttiende-eeuwse schilderijenverzameling ‘waarvan de rénommee zo groot is’, MA thesis, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam 2005, I, p. 30, note 178, II, p. 103. his son, Adriaan Leonard van Heteren (1724-1800), The Hague, as Pieter van Slingelandt (‘Een gezelschap in een Keuke, maakende de Vrouw de groente schoon, terwyl de man op de Fiool speelt en de andere zingen […] h. 18 d., br. 23 en een agste d. [47 x 60.4 cm] P.’);³³‘Catalogus van Schilderyen, In’t Kabinet van den Heer Bewindhebber, Adriaan Leonard van Heteren, in ’s Hage’, in G. Hoet, Catalogus of naamlyst van schilderyen, met derzelver pryzen zedert een langen reeks van jaaren zoo in Holland als op andere plaatzen in het openbaar verkogt: Benevens een verzameling van lysten van verscheyden nog in wezen zynde cabinetten, II, The Hague 1752, pp. 451-62, esp. p. 460. his third cousin and godson, Adriaan Leonard van Heteren Gevers (1794-1866), Rotterdam, as Pieter van Slingelandt (‘Très beau tableau d’un grand fini; on y voit un homme assis jouant du violon, un jeune garçon chante, une femme prépare des legumes (bois, h. 17½, l. 23 [45.7 x 60 cm].)’);⁴⁴Catalogue raisonné d’une collection de tableaux appartenant à Monsieur A.L. Gevers, Page de Leurs Majestés le Roi et la Reine de Hollande 1808; transcr. in E.W. Moes and E. van Biema, De Nationale Konst-Gallery en het Koninklijk Museum, Amsterdam 1909, pp. 145-51, esp. p. 150, no. 105. from whom, with 136 other paintings (known as ‘Kabinet van Heteren Gevers’), fl. 100,000, to the museum, by decree of Louis Napoleon, King of Holland, and through the mediation of his father, Dirk Cornelis Gevers (1763-1839), as Pieter van Slingelandt, 8 June 1809;⁵⁵T.L.J. Verroen, ‘‘Een verstandig ryk man’: De achttiende-eeuwse verzamelaar Adriaan Leonard van Heteren’, Leids Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 4 (1985), pp. 17-61, esp. p. 52, no. 136. on loan to the Stedelijk Museum Gouda, through the DRVK, 3 June 1959-26 April 2007⁶⁶Provenance reconstructed in E. Geudeker, Het kabinet Van Heteren Gevers, een achttiende-eeuwse schilderijenverzameling ‘waarvan de rénommee zo groot is’, MA thesis, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam 2005, II, p. 70.

Object number: SK-A-376

Three adults and two children are in the kitchen of a peasant’s home, where a woman is chopping up herbs or vegetables. The seated man is playing a fiddle, one of the boys is singing, and the standing man with the beer tankard appears to be doing the same. There is a mass of household utensils around the group, and initially there were even more of them, for several were painted out by the artist.¹⁰¹⁰See Technical notes. This smooth and detailed picture is inscribed ‘PVSlingerland Fecit’ on a cupboard in the centre of the composition, and for a long time it was thought to be an important work in the oeuvre of the Leiden genre painter Pieter van Slingelandt.¹¹¹¹J. Immerzeel Jr, De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, beeldhouwers, graveurs en bouwmeesters: Van het begin der vijftiende eeuw tot heden, III, Amsterdam 1843, p. 93. See also under Literature. The incorrect spelling of his name (with an ‘r’ added in the middle) and the odd position of the signature did not arouse any suspicion for more than two centuries or perhaps even longer.

In 1978 Willem van de Watering attributed this Peasant Family Singing to the obscure Rotterdam master Pieter Duyfhuysen.¹²¹²Written communication, RMA, 3 November 1978; that attribution was published in W.L. van de Watering, ‘Pieter Duyfhuysen (1608-1677): Een reconstructie van het oeuvre van een vergeten Rotterdamse schilder van boereninterieurs’, in H. Bock and T.W. Gaehtgens (eds.), Proceedings of the Symposium ‘Holländische Genremalerei im 17. Jahrhundert’, Berlin, Gemäldegalerie und Freie Universität, 20-22 June 1984, Berlin 1987, pp. 357-83, esp. p. 359, no. 11. There are indeed striking parallels with a few other works by that artist, who produced peasant interiors with massed displays of household utensils in the tradition of Pieter de Bloot and Hendrick Sorgh.¹³¹³See, for example, Sorgh’s painting dated 1643 in Warsaw, National Museum; illustrated in H. Benesc et al., Europische Malerei des Barock aus dem Nationalmuseum Warschau, exh. cat. Braunschweig (Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum)/Utrecht (Centraal Museum)/Cologne (Wallraf-Richartz-Museum)/Munich (Alte Pinakothek) 1988-90, p. 126. For instance, the female figure is almost identical to the one, accompanied by a young boy, in a signed kitchen piece by Duyfhuysen in Winterthur.¹⁴¹⁴Museum Briner und Kern; see P. Wegmann, Die Kunst des Betrachtens: Holländische und andere Gemälde Alter Meister der Stiftung Jakob Briner, coll. cat. Winterthur (Museum Briner und Kern) 2006, pp. 130-31 (ill.). In the foreground is also a dish with fish on a wooden barrel. The same model reappears in several other of his paintings, among them a kitchen scene with a woman scraping carrots, also with a child, signed and dated 1665.¹⁵¹⁵Private collection; illustrated in N.I. Schadee (ed.), Rotterdamse meesters uit de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Historisch Museum) 1994, p. 180.

Technical examination carried out in 2011 seems to confirm Van de Watering’s attribution. Infrared reflectography combined with microscopic inspection demonstrated that an inscription was removed at the bottom left beneath the long strip of retouching on the floor. The length of it and the areas where the upper and lower loops of letters were scraped off make it very likely that this is where Duyfhuysen’s name was, who very often signed with his name in full.¹⁶¹⁶He signed as ‘PDuijfhuijsen’, with the ‘P’ and ‘D’ ligated; see, for example, P. Wegmann, Die Kunst des Betrachtens: Holländische und andere Gemälde Alter Meister der Stiftung Jakob Briner, coll. cat. Winterthur (Museum Briner und Kern) 2006, p. 130. The painting must also have borne a date, the last digit of which, a ‘4’, is still visible. Given the marked resemblance to the 1665 kitchen scene mentioned above,¹⁷¹⁷Private collection, illustrated in N.I. Schadee (ed.), Rotterdamse meesters uit de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Historisch Museum) 1994, p. 180. this Peasant Family Singing could have been made in 1664.¹⁸¹⁸Since the panel is not made of oak (see Technical notes) dendrochronology cannot determine its age.

The fact that in the third quarter of the seventeenth century Duyfhuysen was still painting a type of peasant interior that had mainly been popular in the first half of the century indicates that he was not a very innovative artist.¹⁹¹⁹Schadee in N.I. Schadee (ed.), Rotterdamse meesters uit de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Historisch Museum) 1994, p. 180. There is some slight development, though, for his late work is clearly more refined than that of his early period. His relative anonymity led to many of his pictures ultimately being preserved under other names. Prior to the middle of the eighteenth century the Rijksmuseum scene was attributed to the better-known and more fashionable Pieter van Slingelandt. Duyfhuysen’s signature must have been removed and replaced by Van Slingelandt’s by then, which makes it a strikingly early example of deliberate forgery.²⁰²⁰See Provenance. This is not the only work by Duyfhuysen to be transformed into a Van Slingelandt, see W.L. van de Watering, ‘Pieter Duyfhuysen (1608-1677): Een reconstructie van het oeuvre van een vergeten Rotterdamse schilder van boereninterieurs’, in H. Bock and T.W. Gaehtgens (eds.), Proceedings of the Symposium ‘Holländische Genremalerei im 17. Jahrhundert’, Berlin, Gemäldegalerie und Freie Universität, 20-22 June 1984, Berlin 1987, pp. 357-83, esp. p. 361.

The high regard it enjoyed at the time is clear from the fact that Johan Georg von Freese tried to buy it from Adriaan Leonard van Heteren for his patron, Wilhelm VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel.²¹²¹E. Geudeker, Het kabinet Van Heteren Gevers, een achttiende-eeuwse schilderijenverzameling ‘waarvan de rénommee zo groot is’, MA thesis, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam 2005, I, p. 30, note 178, II, pp. 102-03, includes two lists of paintings that Von Freese had sought out for Wilhelm VIII, among them a work by ‘Slingeland’. This must have been the Rijksmuseum picture, as it was the only ‘Slingeland’ in Van Heteren’s collection at the time. However, the Dutchman did not want to part with it, so it stayed put until the Rijksmuseum acquired his collection more than 60 years later.

Gerdien Wuestman, 2025

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, I, London 1829, p. 58, no. 32 (as Pieter van Slingelandt); ibid., IX, 1842, pp. 30-31, no. 19 (as Pieter van Slingelandt); C. Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, V, Esslingen/Paris 1912, p. 471, no. 92 (as Pieter van Slingelandt); W.L. van de Watering, ‘Pieter Duyfhuysen (1608-1677): Een reconstructie van het oeuvre van een vergeten Rotterdamse schilder van boereninterieurs’, in H. Bock and T.W. Gaehtgens (eds.), Proceedings of the Symposium ‘Holländische Genremalerei im 17. Jahrhundert’, Berlin, Gemäldegalerie und Freie Universität, 20-22 June 1984, Berlin 1987, pp. 357-83, esp. pp. 359, 362, no. 11

1809, p. 65, no. 282 (as Pieter van Slingelandt); 1843, p. 55, no. 287 (‘in good condition’; as Pieter van Slingelandt); 1853, p. 26, no. 259 (fl. 2,500; as Pieter van Slingelandt); 1858, p. 130, no. 291 (as Pieter van Slingelandt); 1880, p. 284, no. 330 (as Pieter van Slingelandt); 1887, p. 159, no. 1341; 1903, p. 247, no. 2203 (as Pieter van Slingelandt); 1934, p. 264, no. 2203 (as Pieter van Slingelandt); 1976, p. 515, no. A 376 (as Pieter van Slingelandt); 1992, p. 50, no. 376

Gerdien Wuestman, 2025, 'Pieter Duyfhuysen, _, c. 1664', in J. Bikker (ed.), _Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20027088