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Sculptor (?) with a Basket Full of Statuettes
Johannes Lutma (1584-1669), 1615-08-08
- Artwork typedrawing
- Object numberRP-T-1953-9
- Dimensionsheight 138 mm x width 92 mm
- Physical characteristicsred chalk, with pen and brown ink, over traces of graphite
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Identification
Title(s)
Sculptor (?) with a Basket Full of Statuettes
Object type
Object number
RP-T-1953-9
Part of catalogue
Creation
Creation
draftsman (artist): Johannes Lutma (1584-1669), Paris
Dating
1615-08-08
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Material and technique
Physical description
red chalk, with pen and brown ink, over traces of graphite
Dimensions
height 138 mm x width 92 mm
This work is about
Subject
Acquisition and rights
Acquisition
purchase 1953
Copyright
Provenance
…; collection Freiherr Carl Rolas du Rosey (1784-1862), Dresden (L. 2237); his sale, Leipzig (R. Weigel), 5 September 1864, no. 4653 (‘Janus Lutma. Ein Mann, welcher ein schweres Gefäss mit beiden Händen vor sich trägt. Leicht, aber zart mit Rothsteinfarbe und bezeichnet: ‘Jan Lutma van Embden In. fecyt den 8 Aug. 1625.'' H . 5" 1 "'. B. 3" 4’);{Copy RKD.} …; from H.C. Valkema Blouw (1883-1953), fl. 50, to the museum (L. 2228), 1953
Remarks
Please note that this provenance was formulated with a special focus on provenance research for the years 1933-45 and could therefore be incomplete. There may be more (mostly earlier) provenance information known in the museum. In case this item has an uncertain or incomplete provenance for the years 1933-45, the Rijksmuseum welcomes information and assistance in the investigation and clarification of the provenance of all works during that era.
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Johannes Lutma (1584-1669)
Sculptor (?) with a Basket Full of Statuettes
Paris, 1615
Inscriptions
signed, annotated and dated: lower left, in brown ink, Jan Lutma van / Embden In parijs den / 8 (?) Augustij 1615; upper right, Rien sans peine
stamped: lower right, with the mark of Rolas du Rosey (L. 2237)
inscribed on verso: upper centre, in a seventeenth-century hand, in graphite, fragmentary inscription; lower left, in a modern hand, in pencil, dealer’s codes
Technical notes
watermark: none
Condition
Light brown stains; lower left corner damaged and made up
Provenance
…; collection Freiherr Carl Rolas du Rosey (1784-1862), Dresden (L. 2237); his sale, Leipzig (R. Weigel), 5 September 1864, no. 4653 (‘Janus Lutma. Ein Mann, welcher ein schweres Gefäss mit beiden Händen vor sich trägt. Leicht, aber zart mit Rothsteinfarbe und bezeichnet: ‘Jan Lutma van Embden In. fecyt den 8 Aug. 1625.'' H . 5" 1 "'. B. 3" 4’);1Copy RKD. …; from H.C. Valkema Blouw (1883-1953), fl. 50, to the museum (L. 2228), 1953
Object number: RP-T-1953-9
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
The motto, the prominence of the detailed signature and date, and the small size of the drawing suggest that it was made for an album amicorum. It is impossible to say whether the motto Rien sans peine (‘Nothing without effort’) was that of the donor or the recipient.9 J. Dielitz, Die Wahl- und Denksprüche, Feldgeschreie, Losungen, Schlacht- und Volksrufe besonders des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, Frankfurt-am-Main 1884, p. 279, mentions several families and individuals who used this motto. One of them, Arnold Jobst Graf zu Bernheim und Steinfurt (1580-1643), was a near contemporary of Lutma’s, but as yet no connection has been found between them.
The drawing – Lutma’s earliest known work (predating his earliest examples of silver by nearly twenty years) – is mainly of documentary value, for so far it is the only evidence that the artist was in Paris in 1615. The meaning of the scene is not entirely clear. Is the man a silversmith, as was assumed in the Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum at the time when the drawing was purchased, or is he a sculptor carrying a basket of plaster or terracotta models?10‘Aanwinsten’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum, I (1953), no. 1/2, p. 38. He cannot be a bronze-founder, for no one would have the strength to carry three or four bronze statuettes of this size. Or is that just the point, given the motto: that the man is doing something that is actually impossible?
Nothing is known about Lutma’s apprenticeship, and this drawing leaves us little the wiser. There is perhaps an echo of the School of Fontainebleau in the stylization of the figure. The meticulous manner, the way in which the red chalk has been stumped to create the effect of a mirror-smooth surface, recalls a red chalk drawing by Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem (1562-1638) in the Hessisches Landesmuseum in Darmstadt (inv. no. AE 2159), but the likeness could be coincidental.11G. Luijten and A. van Suchtelen (eds.), Dawn of the Golden Age: Northern Netherlandish Art, 1580-1620, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1993-94, pp. 341-42, no. IO (text by P.J.J. van Thiel).
Marijn Schapelhouman, 1998
Literature
A.D. de Vries, ‘Biografische aantekeningen betreffende voornamelijk Amsterdamsche schilders, plaatsnijders, enz. en hunne verwanten (III)’, Oud-Holland 3 (1885), p. 226 (n. 1); C. Hofstede de Groot, ‘Johannes Lutma van Groningen’, Groningsche volksalmanak (1895), p. 101; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, 3 vols., Vienna/Leipzig 1906-11, II (1910), p. 72; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50 , XXIII (1929), p. 481; ‘Aanwinsten’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum I (1953), no. 1/2, p. 38; M. Schapelhouman and P. Schatborn, Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: Artists Born between 1580 and 1600, 2 vols., coll. cat. Amsterdam 1998, no. 228; R. Baarsen and I. Castelijns van Beek, Kwab. Ornament als kunst in de eeuw van Rembrandt, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2018, p. 91, fig. 105; R. Baarsen, ‘Johannes Lutma de oude als tekenaar’, Tijdschrift voor Interieurgeschiedenis en Design 42 (2020), p. 86, fig. 4
Citation
C. Mensing, 2020, 'Johannes (1584-1669) Lutma, Sculptor (?) with a Basket Full of Statuettes, Paris, 1615-08-08', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200141904
(accessed 14 March 2026 04:05:05).Footnotes
- 1Copy RKD.
- 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.
- 9J. Dielitz, Die Wahl- und Denksprüche, Feldgeschreie, Losungen, Schlacht- und Volksrufe besonders des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, Frankfurt-am-Main 1884, p. 279, mentions several families and individuals who used this motto. One of them, Arnold Jobst Graf zu Bernheim und Steinfurt (1580-1643), was a near contemporary of Lutma’s, but as yet no connection has been found between them.
- 10‘Aanwinsten’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum, I (1953), no. 1/2, p. 38.
- 11G. Luijten and A. van Suchtelen (eds.), Dawn of the Golden Age: Northern Netherlandish Art, 1580-1620, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1993-94, pp. 341-42, no. IO (text by P.J.J. van Thiel).