Hendrik Potuyl (attributed to)

Smoking Peasant, Seated, Facing Right, on an Upturned Half Barrel

? Amsterdam, c. 1637 - c. 1650

Inscriptions

  • inscribed: lower left, in graphite or black chalk (abraded), M S[…]h

  • stamped: lower right, with the mark of Suermondt (L. 415)

  • inscribed on verso: lower left, by Johann Edler Goll von Franckenstein, in brown ink, N 958 (L. 2987); above this, in pencil (with what is possibly the Goll inv. no.), I / 958

  • stamped on verso: lower centre, with the mark of Pitcairn Knowles (L. 2643); lower right, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Provenance

…; collection Johann Edler Goll von Franckenstein (1722-85), Amsterdam and Velsen (L. 2987); ? his son, Jonkheer Johan Goll van Franckenstein (1756-1821), Amsterdam and Velsen; ? his son, Jonkheer Pieter Hendrick Goll van Franckenstein (1787-1832), Amsterdam and Velsen;1Not identified in sale, Jonkheer Johan Goll van Franckenstein, Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 1 July 1833 sqq.…; sale, Hendrik van Eyl Sluyter (1739-1814, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (Ph. van der Schley et al.), 26 September 1814, Album L, no. 60 (‘Een op zijn gemaak zittend Huisman, zijn Pijp rookende. Met zwart krijt op parkament, door H.M. Zorg’), fl. 12:5:-, to ‘Coclers’;2Copy RKD. …; collection Johan Gijsbert Baron Verstolk, Heer van Soelen en Aldenhaag (1776-1845), The Hague and Soelen, near Tiel;3According to the catalogue for the sale, Barthold Suermondt, Frankfurt-am-Main (F.A.C. Prestel), 5 May 1879 sqq., no. 163; not identified in his sale, Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 22 March 1847. …; ? sale, Dirk Vis Blokhuyzen (1799-1869, Rotterdam), Rotterdam (D.A. Lamme and A.C. van Wijngaarden), 23 October 1871 sqq., no. 123 (‘A. Brouwer. Etudes de paysans. Deux dessins. A la pierre noire’), with one other drawing, fl. 16, to Barthold Suermondt (1818-87), Aachen (L. 415);4Note RMA. his sale, Frankfurt-am-Main (F.A.C. Prestel), 5 May 1879 sqq., no. 163 (‘Sorgh (Henri Martin). Fumeur assis sur une cuve renversée, dirigé vers la droite. Etude à la pierre noire. Coll. Verstolk, Blockhuysen. H. 0,103. - L. 0,078.’), 36 DM, to William Pitcairn Knowles (1820-94), Rotterdam and Wiesbaden (L. 2643);5Copy RKD. his sale, Amsterdam (F. Muller), 25 June 1895 sqq., no. 610 (‘Hendrik Maertensz Sorg. Fumeur assis sur une cuve renversée. Collections Verstolk de Zoelen et Suermondt. Pierre noire sur vélin. - H. 10, l. 8 cent.’), fl. 21, to Pieter Langerhuizen Lzn (1839-1918), ‘Crailoo’, near Bussum;6Copy RMA. his sale, Amsterdam (F. Muller), 29 April 1919 sqq., no. 722 (‘Hendrik Martensz. Sorgh. Fumeur assis sur une cuve renversée, dirigé vers la droite. Pierre noire sur vélin. - Hauteur 8, largeur 10,5 centimètres. Collections Sluiter, Verstolk, Blockhuyzen, Suermondt et Knowles’), fl. 30, to August Wilhelm Volz (1873-1944), The Hague;7Copy RMA. his sale, Amsterdam (F. Muller), 15 April 1947 sqq., no. 412, fl. 140, through the mediation of the dealer 'van Groeningen', to the museum (L. 2228), 1947

ObjectNumber: RP-T-1947-35

The artist

Biography

Hendrik Potuyl (Dortmund 1613 - ? Dortmund after 1651?)

A native of Dortmund, he moved in 1629 to Amsterdam, where in 1641 he became an assistant to Joachim von Sandrart (1606-1688) and where three years later, on 24 September 1644, he married the twenty-one-year old Maria Ransons (1623-?).8Amsterdam, Stadsarchief, DTB 678, fol. 2. In the marriage notice, the artist – whose real name was Hendrick Bos (or Hendrik van den Bosch) and who sometimes signed his works ‘H. Bos Potuyl’ – is cited as ‘Heijndrik Boss van Dortmond, schilder, out 31 jaar’. According to the Historische woordenboeken. Nederlands en Fries, in Dutch his nickname ‘Potuyl’ historically referred to an uncouth, uneducated dolt (perhaps an allusion to his subject-matter?).9http://gtb.inl.nl/iWDB/search?actie=article&wdb=WNT&id=M055626.re.401&lemma=potuil&domein=0&conc=true. Why he should have chosen to define himself in such a demeaning way is unclear. His three children were baptized in Amsterdam’s Lutheran Church.10Johannes, baptized on 14 November 1645, Amsterdam, Stadsarchief, DTB 141, fol. 308; Madaleen, baptized on 19 December 1648, ibid., DTB 142, fol. 94; Sacharias, baptized on 22 January 1651, ibid., fol. 251. One of their sons, Sacharias Bosch (1651-?), became a painter as well and settled in Riga. Hendrik Potuyl returned to Dortmund shortly after the birth of Sacharias.

Potuyl’s paintings – mainly peasant genre scenes and barn interiors and still lifes – reflect the work of such artists as Cornelis Saftleven (1607-1681), Egbert van der Poel (1621-1664) and Hendrick Sorgh (1609/11-1670). His earliest dated paintings are from 1639, for instance View inside a Barn in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (inv. no. 2880). The last dated paintings are from a decade later, such as Gathering in front of a Church with Food Distributed to the Poor, which was on the London art market in 2001.11Sale, London (Philips), 11 December 2001, no. 79. Genre subjects also feature in Potuyl’s drawings on vellum, which clearly reveal the influence of Pieter Jansz Quast (c. 1605/06-1647), who was active in Amsterdam between 1641 and 1647. Another artist who apparently had an impact on Potuyl was Jan Miense Molenaer (1609/10-1668), who left Amsterdam in 1648.

Annemarie Stefes, 2019

References

R. van Eijnden and A. van der Willigen, Geschiedenis der vaderlandsche schilderkunst, 4 vols., Haarlem 1816-40, I (1816), p. 283; J. Immerzeel, De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1842-43, II (1843), p. 326; C. Kramm, De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, beeldhouwers, graveurs en bouwmeesters van den vroegsten tot op onzen tijd, 7 vols., Amsterdam 1857-64, V (1861), p. 1312; A.D. de Vries, ‘Biografische aanteekeningen betreffende voornamelijk Amsterdamsche schilders, plaatsnijders, enz. en hunne verwanten (I)’, Oud-Holland 3 (1885), p. 69; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, 3 vols., Vienna/Leipzig 1906-11, II (1910), p. 356; A. Bredius (ed.), Künstler-Inventare: Urkunden zur Geschichte der holländischen Kunst des XVIten, XVIIten und XVIIIten Jahrhunderts, 8 vols., The Hague 1915-22 , IV (1917), p. 1399; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XXVII (1933), pp. 309-10 (entry by E. Trautscholdt); C. Klemm, Joachim von Sandrart: Kunst-Werke und Lebens-Lauf, Berlin 1986, pp. 55, 339, 355-56; A. van der Willigen and F.G. Meijer, A Dictionary of Dutch and Flemish Still-life Painters Working in Oils, 1525-1725, Leiden 2003, pp. 163-64; P. Groenendijk, Beknopt biografisch lexicon van Zuid- en Noord-Nederlandse schilders, graveurs, glasschilders, tapijtwevers et cetera van ca. 1350 tot ca. 1720, Utrecht 2008, p. 621; https://rkd.nl/explore/artists/64531; http://www.vondel.humanities.uva.nl/ecartico/persons/1238

Entry

Since at least the early nineteenth century this drawing – as well as what is likely to be a pendant of similar format (120 x 88 mm), Drinking Peasant, Seated, Facing Left, at a Table, formerly in the collection of Bernard Houthakker (1884-1963), Amsterdam12Sale, Bernard Houthakker, Amsterdam (Sotheby’s) 17 November 1975 sqq., no. 98, repr. – has been considered to be the work of Hendrick Martensz Sorgh (1609/11-1670). This is no doubt due to the now badly abraded inscription at lower left, which is assumed to have once read (H)_M Sorgh_. The companion drawing, likewise carried out in black chalk on vellum, bears a more legible inscription with Sorgh’s name at lower right and is laid down on an elaborate mount with that artist’s name.

Nevertheless, very few drawings by this Rotterdam painter of market scenes and peasant interiors are known. Those published by Schneeman in her dissertation on Sorgh consist mainly of elaborate genre scenes in chalk, but drawn on paper rather than vellum, for instance two sheets in the Frits Lugt Collection, Fondation Custodia, Paris (inv. nos. 5204 and 3948).13L.T. Schneeman, Hendrick Martensz. Sorgh: A Painter of Rotterdam, with Catalogue raisonné, Ann Arbor (MI) 1982 (PhD diss., Pennsylvania State University), nos. D1 and D9, figs. 95 and 87. Moreover, Sorgh’s authentic signature does not resemble the annotation on the present drawing, as can be seen by a comparison with the autograph signature and date on the artist’s drawing of a Man Playing the Violin (1645) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 1994.444).14Sale, Paris (Ader Tajan), 28 October 1994, no. 39.

Schneeman, who was unaware of the presumed ex-Houthakker companion piece, reattributed the Rijksmuseum drawing to Potuyl, mentioning in particular the artist’s characteristic way of rendering eyes (a round dot below a heavy eyelid).15L.T. Schneeman, Hendrick Martensz. Sorgh: A Painter of Rotterdam, with Catalogue raisonné, Ann Arbor (MI) 1982 (PhD diss., Pennsylvania State University), p. 275. The proposal has much to recommend it. Compare, for instance, the handling of the hatching and the strong, but wavy contours of the drapery folds in the museum’s drawing of a Village Merry Company (inv. no. RP-T-1926-18).

Bonny van Sichem, 2000/Jane Shoaf Turner, 2020

Literature

H.-U. Beck, ‘Anmerkungen zu den Zeichnungssammlungen von Valerius Röver und Goll van Franckenstein’, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 32 (1981), p. 120 (as H.M. Sorgh); L.T. Schneeman, Hendrick Martensz. Sorgh: A Painter of Rotterdam, with Catalogue raisonné, Ann Arbor (MI) 1982 (PhD diss., Pennsylvania State University), pp. 187, 275, no. FD3 (as H. Potuyl), fig. 98

Citation

B. van Sichem, 2000/J. Shoaf Turner, 2020, 'attributed to Hendrik Potuyl, Smoking Peasant, Seated, Facing Right, on an Upturned Half Barrel, Amsterdam, c. 1637 - c. 1650', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.60559

(accessed 2 August 2025 22:31:31).

Footnotes

  • 1Not identified in sale, Jonkheer Johan Goll van Franckenstein, Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 1 July 1833 sqq.
  • 2Copy RKD.
  • 3According to the catalogue for the sale, Barthold Suermondt, Frankfurt-am-Main (F.A.C. Prestel), 5 May 1879 sqq., no. 163; not identified in his sale, Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 22 March 1847.
  • 4Note RMA.
  • 5Copy RKD.
  • 6Copy RMA.
  • 7Copy RMA.
  • 8Amsterdam, Stadsarchief, DTB 678, fol. 2.
  • 9http://gtb.inl.nl/iWDB/search?actie=article&wdb=WNT&id=M055626.re.401&lemma=potuil&domein=0&conc=true.
  • 10Johannes, baptized on 14 November 1645, Amsterdam, Stadsarchief, DTB 141, fol. 308; Madaleen, baptized on 19 December 1648, ibid., DTB 142, fol. 94; Sacharias, baptized on 22 January 1651, ibid., fol. 251.
  • 11Sale, London (Philips), 11 December 2001, no. 79.
  • 12Sale, Bernard Houthakker, Amsterdam (Sotheby’s) 17 November 1975 sqq., no. 98, repr.
  • 13L.T. Schneeman, Hendrick Martensz. Sorgh: A Painter of Rotterdam, with Catalogue raisonné, Ann Arbor (MI) 1982 (PhD diss., Pennsylvania State University), nos. D1 and D9, figs. 95 and 87.
  • 14Sale, Paris (Ader Tajan), 28 October 1994, no. 39.
  • 15L.T. Schneeman, Hendrick Martensz. Sorgh: A Painter of Rotterdam, with Catalogue raisonné, Ann Arbor (MI) 1982 (PhD diss., Pennsylvania State University), p. 275.