Pieter Symonsz Potter

Vanitas Still Life

1646

Inscriptions

  • signature and date, bottom left:P. Potter ƒ. / 1646

Technical notes

The support is a single vertically grained oak panel bevelled on all sides. The ground layer is white. The paint layers are smooth. The only impasto is in the highlights. There is scumbling in the shadow cast by the flute beside the ribbon. The air bubbles have almost vanished due to ageing. Their contours were accentuated with red, but these may be retouchings.

Scientific examination and reports

  • technical report: M. van de Laar, RMA, 1 februari 2005

Condition

Fair. The painting is abraded and there are some discoloured retouchings. The varnish is discoloured.

Provenance

? Inherited by the painter’s son, Paulus Potter (1625-54);1Notice in the catalogue for the sale, Laurens Lamoraal van Reenen, The Hague (J.W. van Alphen), 7 June 1820, no. 6. ? his widow, Adriana Balckeneynde (c. 1626-90) and her second husband, Dirck Jansz van Reenen (c. 1628-1705), The Hague and Rotterdam; ? by descent to their grandson, Laurens Lamoraal van Reenen (1722-1800), The Hague; his sale, The Hague (J.W. van Alphen), 7 June 1820, no. 6, fl. 27, to Asmutz,2Copy RKD. or to Alisiman,3Copy RMA. ? for Adriaan van der Hoop (1778-1854), Amsterdam;4Van der Hoop Lijst, p. 2, no. 14: ‘Een Stil Leven, door P. Potter den 7 Juny 1820 door my gekocht te ’s Gravenhage, op de Openbare Verkoping van Schilderyen, van wylen L.L. van Reenen en Vrouwe R.H. Massau; zynde dit schildery afkomstig uit de nalatenschap van de Weduwe van Paul Potter: Adriana van Balkenende, die in tweede huwelyk getrouwd geweest is met Dirk Jansz van Reenen, overgrootvader van voorn: L.L. van Reenen, fl. 20’. by whom bequeathed to the City of Amsterdam with the rest of his collection, 1854;5Van der Hoop Taxatie 1854, p. 3, no. 14: ‘Stilleven een Doodshoofd, fl. 75’. on loan from the City of Amsterdam to the museum since 30 June 18856Provenance reconstructed in Pollmer 2004, p. 169, no. 141.

ObjectNumber: SK-C-204

Credit line: On loan from the City of Amsterdam (A. van der Hoop Bequest)

The artist

Biography

Pieter Symonsz Potter (Enkhuizen c. 1597/1600 - Amsterdam 1652)

Pieter Symonsz Potter must have been born around 1597/1600, but the documentary evidence for this is contradictory. He first lived in Enkhuizen, where on 18 September 1622 he married Aechtje, the sister of the painter Willem Bartsius. He trained as a glass-painter. Potter lived in Leiden from 1628 to 1631, and it was there that he began to paint. In 1631 he moved to Amsterdam, where he was living in St Anthonisbreestraat around 1635, not far from the house of his colleague Pieter Codde. He was in The Hague from 1646 to 1649, when he returned to Amsterdam, where he was buried on 4 October 1652.

Pieter Potter was a versatile artist, producing genre scenes, landscapes, still lifes and history paintings. In the late 1630s he was also active as a gilt-leather painter. In Leiden he was influenced by David Bailly and Jan Davidsz de Heem, both in his style and his subject matter. Potter’s guardroom scenes from the 1630s resemble Codde’s and those of Willem Cornelisz Duyster, who also lived in Amsterdam. Interestingly, Potter had an affair with Codde’s wife, Marritje Aerents, around 1640, while his own wife Aechtje was still alive. He was also the father and probably the first teacher of the animal painter Paulus Potter (1625-54).

Everhard Korthals Altes, 2007

References
Houbraken II, 1719, pp. 125-26; Dozy 1884, p. 61; Bredius 1893, pp. 34-46; Von Wurzbach II, 1910, pp. 354-55; Juynboll in Thieme/Becker XXVII, 1933, pp. 307-08; Walsh 1985, pp. 17-35

Entry

Pieter Symonsz Potter painted this Vanitas Still Life in 1646. Almost all the elements in the scene – the skull, small lamp, air bubbles and the old books – are unmistakable allusions to transience and the brevity of mortal life on earth. The dice, flute and book of music also feature regularly in such scenes, stressing how relative human pleasures are.7Leiden 1970, p. 22, no. 24. The vanitas still life was an extremely popular subject in 16th- and 17th-century prints and paintings.8Klemm 2004. A striking detail in this still life is the large seal with a lion, which was the Great Seal of the United Provinces.9Walsh 1985, p. 93.

This rather monochrome work with its predominantly brown hues was probably painted quite quickly, given its simple composition. According to Meijer there is a still life by Jacques de Claeuw that bears some relationship to this late painting by Potter.10Oxford, Ashmolean Museum; illustrated in coll. cat. Oxford 2003, p. 194. One unusual feature of this work is its vertical format.

Potter made two other vanitas still lifes, and there are several others that are attributed to him. They are horizontal works and are more grey than brown in tone. Potter’s earliest signed and dated vanitas still life is from 1636.11Panel, 27 x 35 cm; Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie; coll. cat. Berlin 1996, pp. 99, 373, no. 1521 (ill.). It shows a globe, a skull, some books, letters and an hour-glass, and betrays the influence of the Leiden still-life painters Harmen and Pieter van Steenwijck, which is less apparent in Potter’s later work.12Walsh 1985, pp. 92-93.

Potter painted another Vanitas Still Life two years later.13Panel, 17.3 x 25 cm; Paris, Fondation Custodia, signed and dated 1638; Nihom-Nijstad in coll. cat. Paris 1983, pp. 109-10, no. 66 (ill.). The skull in that painting is seen from the same angle as this one, but the scene looks freer in its brushwork and composition. The scale of the objects was increased. One possible explanation for that is the growing influence of Jan Davidsz de Heem.

None of the vanitas still lifes attributed to Potter can be dated as late as the one in the Rijksmuseum.14See, for example, the painting in Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, canvas, 109 x 127.5 cm; illustrated in coll. cat. Berlin 1996, pp. 99, 373, no. 1522, as ‘manner of Pieter Symonsz Potter’.

Unusually, the provenance of the Amsterdam painting can be traced back to the 17th century, specifically to the estate of Adriana Balckeneynde, who was married to Pieter Potter’s son Paulus.15See Provenance.

Everhard Korthals Altes, 2007

See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements

This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 249.

Literature

Bergström 1957, pp. 165-66, 169; Walsh 1985, pp. 92-93; Meijer in coll. cat. Oxford 2003, pp. 194-95

Collection catalogues

1887, p. 135, no. 1131; 1903, p. 214, no. 1917; 1934, p. 229, no. 1917; 1976, p. 455, no. C 204; 2007, no. 249

Citation

E. Korthals Altes, 2007, 'Pieter Symonsz. Potter, Vanitas Still Life, 1646', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5098

(accessed 18 July 2025 14:07:47).

Footnotes

  • 1Notice in the catalogue for the sale, Laurens Lamoraal van Reenen, The Hague (J.W. van Alphen), 7 June 1820, no. 6.
  • 2Copy RKD.
  • 3Copy RMA.
  • 4Van der Hoop Lijst, p. 2, no. 14: ‘Een Stil Leven, door P. Potter den 7 Juny 1820 door my gekocht te ’s Gravenhage, op de Openbare Verkoping van Schilderyen, van wylen L.L. van Reenen en Vrouwe R.H. Massau; zynde dit schildery afkomstig uit de nalatenschap van de Weduwe van Paul Potter: Adriana van Balkenende, die in tweede huwelyk getrouwd geweest is met Dirk Jansz van Reenen, overgrootvader van voorn: L.L. van Reenen, fl. 20’.
  • 5Van der Hoop Taxatie 1854, p. 3, no. 14: ‘Stilleven een Doodshoofd, fl. 75’.
  • 6Provenance reconstructed in Pollmer 2004, p. 169, no. 141.
  • 7Leiden 1970, p. 22, no. 24.
  • 8Klemm 2004.
  • 9Walsh 1985, p. 93.
  • 10Oxford, Ashmolean Museum; illustrated in coll. cat. Oxford 2003, p. 194.
  • 11Panel, 27 x 35 cm; Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie; coll. cat. Berlin 1996, pp. 99, 373, no. 1521 (ill.).
  • 12Walsh 1985, pp. 92-93.
  • 13Panel, 17.3 x 25 cm; Paris, Fondation Custodia, signed and dated 1638; Nihom-Nijstad in coll. cat. Paris 1983, pp. 109-10, no. 66 (ill.).
  • 14See, for example, the painting in Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, canvas, 109 x 127.5 cm; illustrated in coll. cat. Berlin 1996, pp. 99, 373, no. 1522, as ‘manner of Pieter Symonsz Potter’.
  • 15See Provenance.