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Design for a Condiment Dish
attributed to Johannes Lutma (1584-1669), c. 1640 - c. 1650
All of the parts of this dish have been deformed into auricular shapes. In this drawing Lutma manages to convey the ambiguous, fluent nature of kwab ornament. The dish itself is tilted to show that it accommodates four containers for spices. The drawing thus provides a maximum of information for prospective clients as well as the silversmith.
- Artwork typedrawing
- Object numberRP-T-2017-69-27
- Dimensionsheight 275 mm x width 198 mm
- Physical characteristicsblack and white chalk, on paper toned brownish-green
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Identification
Title(s)
Design for a Condiment Dish
Object type
Object number
RP-T-2017-69-27
Part of catalogue
Creation
Creation
draughtsman: attributed to Johannes Lutma (1584-1669), Amsterdam
Dating
c. 1640 - c. 1650
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Material and technique
Physical description
black and white chalk, on paper toned brownish-green
Dimensions
height 275 mm x width 198 mm
Acquisition and rights
Credit line
Purchased with the support of H.B. van der Ven, The Hague
Acquisition
purchase 2017-10-19
Copyright
Provenance
…; collection Albert Rosenthal (1863-1939);{After whose death the drawing was placed in an album.} sale, New York (Christie’s), 27 October 1985, no. 435a; …; sale, London (Christie’s South Kensington), 8 December 2009, no. 391, to M. Kiener, Zurich; from whom purchased by H.B. van der Ven, The Hague, 2017; by whom partially donated to the museum (L. 2228), 2017
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Johannes Lutma (1584-1669) (attributed to)
Design for a Condiment Dish
Amsterdam, c. 1640 - c. 1650
Inscriptions
stamped on verso: lower right, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)
Technical notes
watermark: unknown
Condition
Several repairs around the edges
Provenance
…; collection Albert Rosenthal (1863-1939);1After whose death the drawing was placed in an album. sale, New York (Christie’s), 27 October 1985, no. 435a; …; sale, London (Christie’s South Kensington), 8 December 2009, no. 391, to M. Kiener, Zurich; from whom purchased by H.B. van der Ven, The Hague, 2017; by whom partially donated to the museum (L. 2228), 2017
Object number: RP-T-2017-69-27
Credit line: Purchased with the support of H.B. van der Ven, The Hague
The artist
Biography
Johannes Lutma (I) (Emden 1584 – Amsterdam 1669)
He was a silver- and goldsmith and possibly an engraver whose Auricular style (‘Kwabstijl’) was briefly influential among a group of artists in the Netherlands, Germany and possibly Denmark.2J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, XIX, p. 817; R. Baarsen, with a contribution by I. Castelijns van Beek, Kwab. Ornament als kunst in de eeuw van Rembrandt, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2018, pp. 89-157. Based on a drawing of a sculptor in the Rijksmuseum’s collection (inv. no. [RP-T-1953-9])(/en/collection/RP-T-1953-9/catalogue-entry), he was in Paris around 1615. He established himself in Amsterdam in 1621. Lutma’s younger brother, Joost Lutma (?-?), who was likewise a silversmith, also moved to Amsterdam and probably collaborated with him.3J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, vol. XIX, p. 817; R. Baarsen and I. Castelijns van Beek, Kwab. Ornament als kunst in de eeuw van Rembrandt, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2018, pp. 91-92. Lutma married twice, to Mayken Roelants (?-?) in 1623 and to Saera de Bie (?-?) in 1638.4A.D. de Vries, ‘Biografische aanteekeningen betreffende voornamelijk Amsterdamsche schilders, plaatsnijders, enz. en hunne verwanten (III)’, Oud-Holland 3 (1885), p. 226. By his first wife, he had two sons, Johannes Lutma II (c. 1624-1689) and Jacob Lutma (after 1624-1654), both of whom would later make engravings after their father’s designs. A well-known example is the design for the choir-screen in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam (inv. no. RP-P-1892-A-17495).5F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700, 72 vols., Amsterdam and elsewhere 1947-2010, vol. XI (1955), no. 11. Lutma I was a friend of Rembrandt (1606-1669), who etched his portrait (inv. no. RP-P-OB-550).6E. Hinterding and J. Rutgers, The New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings, and Woodcuts, 1450-1700: Rembrandt, 7 pts., Ouderkerk aan den IJssel 2013, no. 293-1(5). Lutma was buried in Amsterdam on 29 January 1669.7J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, XIX, p. 817.
With the exception of the museum’s drawing of a sculptor, the few known drawings attributed to Lutma are all studies for his ornamental designs in silver and gold. These drawings reveal his thinking as a sculptor. The designs are quickly sketched in black chalk: he concentrated mostly on rendering a sense of volume and used highlights to convey the reflective qualities of the metal.8R. Baarsen, with a contribution by I. Castelijns van Beek, Kwab. Ornament als kunst in de eeuw van Rembrandt, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2018, p. 104.
Carolyn Mensing, 2020
References
A.D. de Vries, ‘Biografische aanteekeningen betreffende voornamelijk Amsterdamsche schilders, plaatsnijders, enz. en hunne verwanten (III)’, Oud-Holland 3 (1885), p. 226; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, vol. XXIII (1929), p. 481; J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, vol. XIX, p. 817; R. Baarsen, with a contribution by I. Castelijns van Beek, Kwab. Ornament als kunst in de eeuw van Rembrandt, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2018, pp. 89-157; R. Baarsen, ‘Johannes Lutma de oude als tekenaar’, Tijdschrift voor Interieurgeschiedenis en Design 42 (2020), pp. 83-98; R. Baarsen, ‘Johannes Lutma the Elder: Goldsmith, Designer, Draughtsman’, Burlington Magazine 166 (2024), no. 1452, pp. 252-63
Entry
In this design for a silver condiment dish, Lutma managed to convey the ambiguous, flowing nature of Auricular-style ornament, known since the late nineteenth century by the Dutch term kwab. All of the elements of this dish have been formed into soft, undulating shapes that derive their name from their resemblance to the inside of the human ear. Lutma used quick lines in black chalk to outline the dish and applied heavy, partly smudged hatching to set it against the brownish-green toned paper. The white highlights emphasize how the light would fall onto the metal. The drawing is worked out in such a way that both the client and the silversmith understood exactly how the dish would be conceived. For example, the top of the dish is tilted to show that it could accommodate four containers for spices.
The sheet is the only seventeenth-century drawing in an album of eighteenth-century drawings documenting silver objects in the collection of Anthoni Grill (1664–1727), a silversmith of Swedish descent who had a shop in the Kalverstraat in Amsterdam. The album, now part of the Rijksmuseum’s collection, was put together in the twentieth century.
Carolyn Mensing, 2020
Literature
R. Baarsen and I. Castelijns van Beek, Kwab. Ornament als kunst in de eeuw van Rembrandt, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2018, no. 42, fig. 104; R. Baarsen, ‘An Exhibition at the Rijksmuseum Explores the Inventive Language of the 17th-century Auricular Style’, Apollo (June 2018), pp. 104-05, 262, fig. 104; R. Baarsen, ‘Johannes Lutma de oude als tekenaar’, Tijdschrift voor Interieurgeschiedenis en Design 42 (2020), p. 89, fig. 11; R. Baarsen, Process: Design Drawings from the Rijksmuseum, 1500-1900, exh. cat. Den Bosch (Design Museum)/Paris (Fondation Custodia) 2022-23, no. 43.
Citation
C. Mensing, 2020, 'attributed to Johannes (1584-1669) Lutma, Design for a Condiment Dish, Amsterdam, c. 1640 - c. 1650', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200701038
(accessed 8 December 2025 16:02:31).Footnotes
- 1After whose death the drawing was placed in an album.
- 2J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, XIX, p. 817; R. Baarsen, with a contribution by I. Castelijns van Beek, Kwab. Ornament als kunst in de eeuw van Rembrandt, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2018, pp. 89-157.
- 3J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, vol. XIX, p. 817; R. Baarsen and I. Castelijns van Beek, Kwab. Ornament als kunst in de eeuw van Rembrandt, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2018, pp. 91-92.
- 4A.D. de Vries, ‘Biografische aanteekeningen betreffende voornamelijk Amsterdamsche schilders, plaatsnijders, enz. en hunne verwanten (III)’, Oud-Holland 3 (1885), p. 226.
- 5F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700, 72 vols., Amsterdam and elsewhere 1947-2010, vol. XI (1955), no. 11.
- 6E. Hinterding and J. Rutgers, The New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings, and Woodcuts, 1450-1700: Rembrandt, 7 pts., Ouderkerk aan den IJssel 2013, no. 293-1(5).
- 7J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, XIX, p. 817.
- 8R. Baarsen, with a contribution by I. Castelijns van Beek, Kwab. Ornament als kunst in de eeuw van Rembrandt, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2018, p. 104.