Getting started with the collection:
Seated Woman in a Lascivious Pose
Willem Schellinks, in or before c. 1656
- Artwork typedrawing
- Object numberRP-T-1972-17
- Dimensionsheight 195 mm x width 156 mm
- Physical characteristicsred and white chalk, on coarse light brown paper; framing line in dark brown ink
Discover more
Identification
Title(s)
Seated Woman in a Lascivious Pose
Object type
Object number
RP-T-1972-17
Inscriptions / marks
- collector's mark
- inscription: ‘W.S.’
Part of catalogue
Creation
Creation
- draftsman (artist): Willem Schellinks
- draftsman (artist): Jan Baptist Weenix, Utrecht (possibly)
- draftsman (artist): Daniël Schellinks [rejected attribution]
Dating
in or before c. 1656
Search further with
Material and technique
Physical description
red and white chalk, on coarse light brown paper; framing line in dark brown ink
Dimensions
height 195 mm x width 156 mm
This work is about
Subject
Acquisition and rights
Credit line
Gift of A. Olie, Utrecht
Acquisition
gift 1972
Copyright
Provenance
…; donated from the estate of Jacob Olie (1834-1905), Amsterdam, by his daughter Aagje Olie (1884-1975), Utrecht (as ‘Willem or Daniël Schellinks’), with 16 other drawings, to the museum (L. 2228), 1972
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.
Documentation
Persistent URL
To refer to this object, please use the following persistent URL:
Questions?
Do you spot a mistake? Or do you have information about the object? Let us know!
Willem Schellinks
Seated Woman in a Lascivious Pose
? Utrecht, in or before c. 1656
Inscriptions
inscribed: lower left, in graphite or pencil, W.S.
stamped on verso: lower centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)
Technical notes
watermark: foolscap with five points, above three balls (lower part)
Provenance
…; donated from the estate of Jacob Olie (1834-1905), Amsterdam, by his daughter Aagje Olie (1884-1975), Utrecht (as ‘Willem or Daniël Schellinks’), with 16 other drawings, to the museum (L. 2228), 1972
Object number: RP-T-1972-17
Credit line: Gift of A. Olie, Utrecht
The artist
Biography
Jan Baptist Weenix (Amsterdam 1621 – c. 1659 De Haar)
He was the son of the Enkhuizen (house) painter Jan Jansz Weines (?-?). According to Houbraken, who was quite accurately informed by Weenix’s son, Jan Weenix (1641-1719), he trained successively with Jan Micker (1599-1664) in Amsterdam, Abraham Bloemaert (1566-1651) in Utrecht and finally with Claes Moeyaert (1591-1655) in Amsterdam. In 1639 he married Josina (1619-1662), a daughter of the painter Gillis d’Hondecoeter (1575-1638). Despite the fairly recent birth of his son Jan, he decided in March 1643 to go to Rome (via Rouen) ‘to put his art to the test’, as he himself put it. In Rome he joined the Bentvueghels (Northern artists’ society) and was given the nickname ‘Rattle’ (‘Ratel’), because he ‘was hasty in his speech and spoke somewhat jerkily’. Houbraken noted that he worked for Camillo Pamphili (1622-1666), who was made a cardinal in 1644. Invoices in the Pamphili archive also show that he supplied several paintings to Camillo’s uncle, Pope Innocent X (reg. 1644-55), in 1645-46. After his return from Italy, the connection with the pope gave him the idea of signing his works ‘Gio[vanni] Batt[ist]a Weenix’, those being Innocent’s original given names (Cardinal Giovanni Battista Pamphilj). Weenix was back in Amsterdam in 1647, and that is where Bartholomeus van der Helst (1613-1670) painted his portrait (now lost). Two years later he settled in Utrecht, where he became a warden of the Guild of St Luke in 1649 and remained until 1656. He spent the last years of his life in the Kasteel Ter Meij, a country house near De Haar, near Utrecht, which he rented from the nobleman Hendrik Valckenaer (d. 1669). His belongings were auctioned there on 25 April 1659, so that is very probably where he died earlier that year.
Jan Baptist Weenix was a versatile artist. He owes his fame mainly to his Italianate landscapes and harbour views, but he also painted still-lives, portraits and history pieces. Just over a dozen of the surviving paintings are dated, the earliest is the Blinding of Tobit of 1642 in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (inv. no. 1204 (OK)),1W. Stechow, ‘Jan Baptist Weenix’, The Art Quarterly 11 (1948), Stechow 1948, p. 184. and the last is the Italian Landscape with Inn and Ruins, from October 1658, in the Mauritshuis, The Hague (inv. no. 901).2Q. Buvelot and C. Vermeeren, Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis: A Summary Catalogue, coll. cat. The Hague 2004, pp. 332-33. He collaborated on several works with other artists, including Nicolaes Berchem (1621-1683) for the Calling of St Matthew, also in the Mauritshuis (inv. no. 1058).3E. Runia and Q. Buvelot, Mauritshuis, Koninklijk Kabinet der Schilderijen. Hoogtepunten uit de collective, coll. cat. The Hague 2014, pp. 120-21. Weenix’s pupils were his son Jan and nephew Melchior d’Hondecoeter (1635-1695).
E. de Groot
References
C. de Bie, Het gulden cabinet vande edele vry schilder-const, Antwerp 1661, p. 277; A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, II (1719), pp. 77-83, 111, 113, 131, III (1721), pp. 70, 72; A. Bredius, ‘Een testament van Jan Baptist Weenicx’, Oud Holland 45 (1928), no. 1, pp. 177-78; W. Stechow, ‘Jan Baptist Weenix’, The Art Quarterly 11 (1948), pp. 181-98; R.J. Ginnings, The Art of Jan Baptist and Jan Weenix, Newark (DE) 1970 (PhD diss., University of Delaware); C. Schloss, ‘A Note on Jan Baptist Weenix's Patronage in Rome’, Essays in Northern European Art Presented to Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann on his 60th Birthday, CITY 1983, pp. 237-38; A.C. Steland, ‘Jan Baptist Weenix in Rom, 1643-1647: Zur Datierung des zeichnerischen Frühwerks anhand von Signaturveränderungen’, Niederdeutsche Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte 33 (1994), pp. 87-112; J.A. Spicer et al., Masters of Light: Dutch Painters in Utrecht during the Golden Age, exh. cat. San Francisco (Fine Arts Museums)/Baltimore (Walters Art Gallery)/London (National Gallery) 1997-98, pp. 390-91 (text by M.J. Bok); A.C. Steland, ‘Drawings by Dutch Italianate Painters’, in L.B. Harwood (ed.), Inspired by Italy: Dutch Landscape Painting, 1600-1700, exh. cat. London (Dulwich Picture Gallery) 2002, pp. 42-63; A. van der Willigen and F.G. Meijer, A Dictionary of Dutch and Flemish Still-life Painters Working in Oils, 1525-1725, Leiden 2003, p. 215; A.A. van Wagenberg-Ter Hoeven, Jan Baptist en Jan Weenix: The Paintings, 2 vols., Zwolle 2018; RKD Artists https://rkd.nl/artists/83250
Entry
Based on the monogram ‘W.S.’, this drawing was previously catalogued as by Willem Schellinks (1623-1678). However, that monogram (in a different medium) in all likelihood was added by another hand. Schellinks is not known to have worked in red chalk, nor treated subject-matter such as a sleeping girl exposing her breasts.
What remained unnoticed until recently is the fact that the figure corresponds, in reverse, to one in the painting by Jan Baptist Weenix. Sleeping Tambouret Player with a Dog, dated 1656, in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich (inv. no. 869).4M. Dekiert, Alte Pinakothek: Holländische und deutsche Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, coll. cat. Munich 2006 (Katalog der ausgestellten Werke, vol. 4), p. 226; A.A. van Wagenberg-ter Hoeven, Jan Baptist Weenix and Jan Weenix: The Paintings, 2 vols., Zwolle 2018, I, no. 97. The figure in the picture is dressed in the same manner, with open bodice, her head fallen back and with one arm resting on a block of stone. The drawing differs in a few details: the girl’s legs are crossed, her right arm is bent and her hair is partly covered by a scarf. Given these differences, the drawing is unlikely to be a copy after the painting. Instead, it should be considered as a preliminary study for the painted figure. As Schatborn observed, Weenix’s rare figure studies served as a stock of motifs for development in painted figures.5P. Schatborn, Dutch Figure Drawings from the Seventeenth Century, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet)/Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 1981-82, p. 69. Another figure study accepted as by Weenix, the museum’s inv. no. RP-T-1899-A-4239, features similar swift and flowing contours, combined with short, energetically applied accents. In both drawings, soft, broad hatching is paired with light, thin lines. Moreover, red chalk was a favourite medium with Jan Baptist Weenix. The present proposed reattribution was accepted by Anke van Wagenberg-ter Hoeven,6Kindly communicated via email, 19 February 2017 and subsequently included in her monograph the following year. with only the question remaining who – and for what reason – added the monogram ‘W.S.’
The figure in Weenix’s painting – or even the present drawing – might have been known to Jan Steen (c. 1625/26-1679). His figure of Lea in his painting Jacob Confronting Laban (c. 1669) in the Norton Simon Foundation, Pasadena, CA (inv. no. F.1969.10.1.P.),7W.T. Kloek, ‘Jan Steen, zijn motievenschat en het historiestuk’, in A. van Suchtelen (ed.), Jan Steen en de historieschilderkunst, exh. cat. The Hague (Mauritshuis) 2018, p. 33 (fig. 11). largely echoes the present figure in reverse. Such borrowing would be in line with Steen’s regular habit of basing his figures on the inventions of colleagues.8On this practice, cf. W.T. Kloek, ‘Jan Steen, zijn motievenschat en het historiestuk’, in ibid., pp. 40-44.
Annemarie Stefes, 2018
Literature
A.A. van Wagenberg-ter Hoeven, Jan Baptist Weenix and Jan Weenix: The Paintings, 2 vols., Zwolle 2018, I, p. 216
Citation
A. Stefes, 2018, 'Willem Schellinks, Seated Woman in a Lascivious Pose, in or before c. 1656 - 1656', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200144319
(accessed 22 juli 2026 12:54:04 UTC+0).Footnotes
- 1W. Stechow, ‘Jan Baptist Weenix’, The Art Quarterly 11 (1948), Stechow 1948, p. 184.
- 2Q. Buvelot and C. Vermeeren, Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis: A Summary Catalogue, coll. cat. The Hague 2004, pp. 332-33.
- 3E. Runia and Q. Buvelot, Mauritshuis, Koninklijk Kabinet der Schilderijen. Hoogtepunten uit de collective, coll. cat. The Hague 2014, pp. 120-21.
- 4M. Dekiert, Alte Pinakothek: Holländische und deutsche Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, coll. cat. Munich 2006 (Katalog der ausgestellten Werke, vol. 4), p. 226; A.A. van Wagenberg-ter Hoeven, Jan Baptist Weenix and Jan Weenix: The Paintings, 2 vols., Zwolle 2018, I, no. 97.
- 5P. Schatborn, Dutch Figure Drawings from the Seventeenth Century, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet)/Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 1981-82, p. 69.
- 6Kindly communicated via email, 19 February 2017 and subsequently included in her monograph the following year.
- 7W.T. Kloek, ‘Jan Steen, zijn motievenschat en het historiestuk’, in A. van Suchtelen (ed.), Jan Steen en de historieschilderkunst, exh. cat. The Hague (Mauritshuis) 2018, p. 33 (fig. 11).
- 8On this practice, cf. W.T. Kloek, ‘Jan Steen, zijn motievenschat en het historiestuk’, in ibid., pp. 40-44.