Adriaen Verdoel I (attributed to)

Recumbent Pig

c. 1650 - c. 1675

Inscriptions

  • stamped on verso: lower left, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

  • inscribed on mount: lower right, by Van Regteren Altena, in pencil, niet Potter, vgl. Verdoel

Technical notes

Watermark: None

Provenance

…; donated from the estate of Jacob Olie (1834-1905), Amsterdam, by his daughter Aagje Olie (1884-1975), Utrecht, as ‘Cornelis Saftleven?’, with 16 other drawings, to the museum (L. 2228), 1972

ObjectNumber: RP-T-1972-5

Credit line: Gift of A. Olie, Utrecht

The artist

Biography

Adriaen Verdoel I (Poortugaal, near Rotterdam 1623 – Vlissingen 1675)

He was the son of a corn miller, Joris Claesz. Verdoel (1585-1631/37), and Susanna IJsbrantsdr. van Bijlant (c. 1583-1650). Houbraken’s claims that he was born c. 1620 in Overmaas (on the other side of the River Maas) and was a pupil of Rembrandt (1606-1669) have now been discounted.1A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, II (1719), p. 57. We now know that he came from a small village near Rotterdam, that he was baptized on 9 April 1623 and that the Verdoel family moved to Schiedam in 1625.2A. Jager, ‘Galey-schilders’ en ‘dosijnwerck’. De productie, distributie en consumptie van goedkope historiestukken in zeventiende-eeuws, Amsterdam 2016 (PhD diss., Universiteit van Amsterdam), pp. 354-57. Houbraken was, however, accurate about his training under two other artists, first Leonaert Bramer (1596-1674) and later (1640) Jacob de Wet the elder (c. 1610-1677/91). In 1649 VerdoelAdriaen became a member of the Guild of St Luke in Haarlem, where he remained active until 1660. He married Cornelia Willemsdr (?-1655), with whom he made a will in Haarlem in February 1654, while she was pregnant.^{Ibid., p. 355.] She must, however, have died during childbirth or shortly after having given birth to their son Nicolaes Verdoel (1655-?), since Adriaen signed a prenuptial agreement with his second wife, Maria Cornelisdr van Warmondt (?-?), on 21 August 1655, and exactly a week later was described as a widower with a twenty-week-old son, Nicolaes.3Ibid.

Verdoel’s move to Vlissingen must have taken place before 1666. He is assumed to be the same ‘Adriaen Verdoel’ who was apparently buried there on 19 January 1675, the year that, according to Houbraken, he was awarded the top prize as a member of the local Chamber of Rhetoric.4A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, II (1719), p. 58. His interest in poetry and literature also shows in his disposition to paint history themes. He also created landscapes and animal pieces, the latter mostly devoted to pigs and clearly influenced by Paulus Potter (1625-1654), who had also studied with De Wet.5A. Walsh et al., Paulus Potter. Schilderijen, tekeningen en etsen, exh. cat. The Hague (Mauritshuis) 1994-95, p. 106. Verdoel’s paintings are rarely dated, and there are no other drawings attributed to himVerdoel besides the one in the Rijksmuseum.

Adriaen Verdoel was the teacher of Jan de Groot (1650-1726).6A. Bredius, ‘De Schilder Jan de Groot’, Oud Holland 5 (1887), no. 1, pp. 64-65. It is not known whether his son, the still-life painter Adriaen Verdoel II (?-1700/1720), was the child of Verdoel’s first or second marriage, most likely the second, given his documented period of activity (1691–1700) and his recorded membership of the Guild of St Luke of Middelburg (1695–96).

Jane Shoaf Turner, 2019

References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, II (1719), pp. 57-58; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, 3 vols., Vienna/Leipzig 1906-11, II (1910), p. 765, with earlier literature; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XXXIV (1940), p. 235, with earlier literature; L.J. Bol, Holländische Maler des 17. Jahrhunderts nahe den großen Meistern: Landschaften und Stilleben, Braunschweig 1969, p. 230-31; W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, 6 vols., Landau 1983-1994, IV (1989), p. 2728; A. van der Willigen and B. Meijer, A Dictionary of Dutch and Flemish Still-life Painters Working in Oils, 1525-1725, Leiden 2003, p. 203; G. Seelig and D. Blübaum (eds.), Kosmos der Niederländer: Die Sammlung Christoph Müller: Bestandskatalog Staatliches Museum Schwerin, coll. cat. Schwerin 2013, pp. 286-87; A. Jager, ‘Galey-schilders’ en ‘dosijnwerck’. De productie, distributie en consumptie van goedkope historiestukken in zeventiende-eeuws, Amsterdam 2016 (PhD diss., Universiteit van Amsterdam), pp. 354-57; A. Jager, ‘The Workshop of Jacob de Wet (1610-1675) and his Mass Production of History Painting’, Oud Holland 131 (2018), no. 2, p. 104

Entry

On its arrival in the museum, this drawing of a recumbent or sleeping pig was tentatively associated with Cornelis Saftleven (1607-1681).7‘C. Saftleven?’, RMA, inventory book. Later, it was reassigned to Paulus Potter (1625-1654). Yet neither attribution is supported by a direct connection to an authentic work by Saftleven or Potter.

The current attribution to Adriaen Verdoel I was suggested by Van Regteren Altena in a note on the mount. Verdoel is unknown as a draughtsman, but there is a plausible link with a pair of companion paintings by him, both entitled Three Pigs in a Sty and both preserved in the Staatliches Museum, Schwerin (inv. nos. 546 and 2297).8Cf. L. Jürss, Holländische und Flämische Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, Schwerin 1982, nos. 352-53. A third painting attributed to Verdoel, which in 1986 was in the collecton of H. Fritz, Tübingen, features a sleeping pig, whose snout is rendered in a similar manner to the creature in the present drawing.9The tentative attribution to Verdoel was suggested by Fred G. Meijer; photo RKD. That painting is a variant after Potter’s drawn Swineherd with Pigs (1644) in the Musée Condé, Chantilly (inv. no. 363).10A. Walsh et. al., Paulus Potter. Schilderijen, tekeningen en etsen, exh. cat. The Hague (Mauritshuis) 1994-95, p. 43 (fig. 8); D. Mandrella, Arcadie du Nord: Dessins hollandais du Musée Condé à Chantilly, exh. cat. Chantilly (Musée Condé) 2001-02, no. 34. Even more comparable is the position of the sleeping pig in the foreground of a painting, Four Pigs before a Sty, classified as ‘manner/circle of Verdoel’, which was on the London art market in 1997 as by Adriaen Cornelisz Beeldemaker (1618-1709),11Sale, London (Philips), 15 April 1997, no. 102. The tentative attribution to the manner or circle of Verdoel was suggested by Fred G. Meijer. The subject-matter of a single, sleeping pig also features in a panel painting by Verdoel in the National Museum, Warsaw (inv. no. M.Ob.350).

Generally speaking, when painting pigs, Verdoel emphasized the animals’ eyes, slightly protruding with apparently swollen eye-lids. In the drawing Pig with Tied Legs in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (KdZ 14416),12E. Bock and J. Rosenberg, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Kupferstichkabinett zu Berlin: Beschreibendes Verzeichnis sämtlicher Zeichnungen: Die niederländischen Meister, 2 vols., Berlin, 1930, p. 312. closely related in style with the present sheet, the one visible eye is similarly accented. That drawing is currently classified as by Simon de Vlieger (c. 1600/01-1653), probably erroneously, but it might be considered a potential work by Verdoel as well.

Ingrid Oud, 2000/Annemarie Stefes, 2019

Literature

‘Keuze uit de aanwinsten’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 20 (1972), p. 184, 191 (fig. 15, as by C. Saftleven); ‘Keuze uit de aanwinsten 1972 van het Rijksprentenkabinet’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 21 (1973), p. 43 (as by C. Saftleven); C. van Hasselt, Rembrandt and his Century: Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century from the Collection of Frits Lugt, Institut Néerlandais Paris, exh. cat. New York (Pierpont Morgan Library)/Paris (Institut Néerlandais) 1977-78, p. 117, under no. 80 (n. 5, as by P. Potter); W. Schulz, Cornelis Saftleven (1607-1685): Leben und Werke, mit einem kritischen Katalog der Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Berlin 1978, p. 126 (as not by C. Saftleven, not by P. Potter)

Citation

I. Oud, 2000/A. Stefes, 2019, 'attributed to Adriaen Verdoel I, Recumbent Pig, c. 1650 - c. 1675', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.58259

(accessed 2 May 2025 03:58:18).

Footnotes

  • 1A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, II (1719), p. 57.
  • 2A. Jager, ‘Galey-schilders’ en ‘dosijnwerck’. De productie, distributie en consumptie van goedkope historiestukken in zeventiende-eeuws, Amsterdam 2016 (PhD diss., Universiteit van Amsterdam), pp. 354-57.
  • 3Ibid.
  • 4A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, II (1719), p. 58.
  • 5A. Walsh et al., Paulus Potter. Schilderijen, tekeningen en etsen, exh. cat. The Hague (Mauritshuis) 1994-95, p. 106.
  • 6A. Bredius, ‘De Schilder Jan de Groot’, Oud Holland 5 (1887), no. 1, pp. 64-65.
  • 7‘C. Saftleven?’, RMA, inventory book.
  • 8Cf. L. Jürss, Holländische und Flämische Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, Schwerin 1982, nos. 352-53.
  • 9The tentative attribution to Verdoel was suggested by Fred G. Meijer; photo RKD.
  • 10A. Walsh et. al., Paulus Potter. Schilderijen, tekeningen en etsen, exh. cat. The Hague (Mauritshuis) 1994-95, p. 43 (fig. 8); D. Mandrella, Arcadie du Nord: Dessins hollandais du Musée Condé à Chantilly, exh. cat. Chantilly (Musée Condé) 2001-02, no. 34.
  • 11Sale, London (Philips), 15 April 1997, no. 102. The tentative attribution to the manner or circle of Verdoel was suggested by Fred G. Meijer.
  • 12E. Bock and J. Rosenberg, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Kupferstichkabinett zu Berlin: Beschreibendes Verzeichnis sämtlicher Zeichnungen: Die niederländischen Meister, 2 vols., Berlin, 1930, p. 312.