Guilliam du Gardijn (Cologne, c. 1595/96 - Amsterdam, after 1647)

Little is known about the life of this artist – who was not related to Karel Dujardin (1626-1678), with whom he has often been confused. He was apparently born in Cologne and betrothed twice, first to Jannetgen Ysbrands (Leiden, ?-?) in Amsterdam on 18 March 1618, and again, after he had become a widower, to Annetje Vermou (?-?) on 3 November 1639.²²A.D. de Vries, ‘Biografische aantekeningen betreffende voornamelijk Amsterdamsche schilders, plaatsnijders, enz. en hunne verwanten (II)’, Oud-Holland 3 (1885), p. 143. He was the teacher of the German painter Johann Heinrich Roos (1631-1685), probably around 1640.³³H. Jedding, ‘Roos Family’ (2003), Grove Art Online, https://doi.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T073818; accessed 2 June 2020. He was still in Amsterdam in 1647 (when Roos was staying in his studio), but his whereabouts thereafter are unknown.⁴⁴P. Schatborn, with J. Verberne, Drawn to Warmth: 17th-century Dutch Artists in Italy, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2001, p. 74.

A large part of his drawn oeuvre consists of views of Rome, but it is not known whether he ever visited Italy. If he were indeed there at some point, it might have been in the mid-1620s, as his work reveals the influence of fellow ‘first generation’ Dutch Italianates such as Cornelis van Poelenburch (1594-1667) and Bartholomeus Breenbergh (1598-1657).⁵⁵Ibid. Du Gardijn’s Italian drawings are characterized by the free, almost casual way in which the buildings are sketched with the point of a half-dry brush over a cursory design in black chalk. His style is slightly reminiscent of Breenbergh's late Roman manner, with the difference that Breenbergh worked on smaller pieces of paper in his final years in Rome, whereas Du Gardijn appears to have preferred large sheets with Italian watermarks that were folded in the centre and drawn on both sides. He often sketched when seated on the ground, using a low vantage point. His drawings are signed with the initial G. (previously misread as a ‘C’), followed by du Jardin, Gardin, or Gardijn. He included price annotations on his drawings in guilders or stuivers, but the meaning of these prices is unclear.⁶⁶Ibid.

Carolyn Mensing, 2020

References
U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, X (1910), p. 102 (as Dujardin (Du Jardin, Du Gardijn), Guilliam); H. Gerson, Ausbreitung und Nachwirkung der holländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, Amsterdam 1942, p. 202 (as Julian Dugardin); M. Schapelhouman, ‘Tekeningen van Guilliam dú Gardijn’, Vouwblad Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar, 1995, pp. 4-7; P. Schatborn, with J. Verberne, Drawn to Warmth: 17th-century Dutch Artists in Italy, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2001, pp. 74-76; M. Gruijs, De tekeningen van Karel Dujardin (1626-1678), Utrecht 2003 (unpublished MA thesis), pp. 123-28; E.J. Sluijter, Rembrandt’s Rivals: History Painting in Amsterdam, 1630-1650, Amsterdam 2015, pp. 259-62