Laid down; several large stains; cockled in upper half, losses at upper right (in the tree)

…; ? sale, Samuel van Huls (1655-1734, The Hague), The Hague (J. Swart), 14 May 1736 sqq., Album V, no. 1113 (‘G. de Heer, La figure d’un Homme se tenant debout, dans un fort grand Païsage, à la plume sur du velin, très curieusement terminée.’); …; donated by Adam Anthony Stratenus (1779-1836), The Hague, to the museum, 1809

Object number: RP-T-00-328

Credit line: Gift of A.A. Stratenus

There is the risk of confusing the drawings of Gerrit de Heer with those of his son Willem (1637/38-1681), who worked in a closely related style and sometimes even used the same signature, ‘G de Heer’ (‘G’ standing for ‘Guillaume’).¹¹F.W. Robinson, Selections from the Collection of Dutch Drawings of Maida and George Abrams, exh. cat. Hanover (NH) (Hopkins Center Art Galleries)/Wellesley (MA) (Jewett Arts Center)/Providence (RI) (RISD Museum)/Storrs (CT) (William Benton Museum of Art) 1969, n.p., under no. 23; J. Bolten (ed.), Oude tekeningen van het Prentenkabinet der Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden/Dessins anciens du Cabinet des dessins et des estampes de l’Université de Leyde, exh. cat. Leiden (Prentenkabinet der Rijksuniversiteit Leiden) 1985, p. 113, under no. 42 (entry by M. Kersten); W.W. Robinson, Seventeenth-century Dutch Drawings: A Selection from the Maida and George Abrams Collection, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet)/Vienna (Graphische Sammlung Albertina)/New York (Pierpont Morgan Library)/Cambridge (MA) (Fogg Art Museum) 1991-92, p. 56, under no. 19. That was exactly the case with the present portrait, which was long preserved under Willem’s name. Already in 1972, however, this conclusion was questioned by Schatborn,²²P. Schatborn and K.G. Boon, Dutch Genre Drawings of the Seventeenth Century: A Loan Exhibition from Dutch Museums, Foundations and Private Collections, exh. cat. New York (Pierpont Morgan Library)/Boston (Museum of Fine Arts)/Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago) 1972-73, p. 38, under no. 47. who observed the drawing’s stylistic connections with an etching by the father, Landscape with a Dilapidated Cottage (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-OB-55.323), dated 1634, when Willem was not even born.³³F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700, 72 vols, Amsterdam and elsewhere 1947-2010, IX (1953), p. 2, no. 2. Still closer in their artificial rendering of nature are two portrait drawings from the same year, Portrait of a Gentleman in a Landscape and Portrait of a Lady in a Landscape in the Groninger Museum, Groningen, both signed ‘G. de Heer’ (inv. nos. 1931-167 and 1931-168).⁴⁴L. Pijl and D. Dekkers, Van Cuyp tot Rembrandt. De verzameling Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, exh. cat. Groningen (Groninger Museum) 2005-06, nos. 41-42. Moreover, the dress of the sitter in the present drawing – a tall, wide-brimmed hat, a small, flat collar and wide ‘bucket-top’ boots with boothose – points to a date in the late 1640s.

The gentleman’s dark silhouette is set against a delicately drawn rural landscape, with hunters and travellers resting at a well in the left background. The well features a sculptural programme showing the Triumph of Death, with water sprinkling from skulls and the words ‘MEMENTO MORI’ carved in stone. Like the sitter’s carefully rendered costume, the botanical elements of the landscape are accurately drawn, allowing for the identification of pelargonium, ribwort plantain, dandelions, red-root amaranth and butterbur. There is a frozen, ornamental quality in the depiction of nature, with each penstroke creating a decorative pattern of lines. Passages of parallel hatching and crosshatching, partly curved, partly straight, are set in clusters to give structure to the willow’s bark.

A considerably larger Portrait of a Hunter with Company in a Landscape in the Special Collections, Universiteit Leiden (inv. no. PK-T-296), mirrors the present composition.⁵⁵P. Schatborn, Hollandse genre-tekeningen uit de zeventiende eeuw, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet) 1973, no. 47. It appears to be a grander version of the present sheet, not only in size but also in subject, presenting a gentleman hunter in fancier costume, accompanied by his servant, dog and other members of a large hunting party. A more substantial selection of game is spread at the foot of the well, where a cheerful Bacchus replaces the figure of Death, thus removing the explicit allusion to vanitas from the scene.

Annemarie Stefes, 2018

W. Martin, ‘Oude Tekeningen in het Amsterdamsche Prentenkabinet’, Onze Kunst 7 (1908), p. 109; P. Schatborn and K.G. Boon, Dutch Genre Drawings of the Seventeenth Century: A Loan Exhibition from Dutch Museums, Foundations and Private Collections, exh. cat. New York (Pierpont Morgan Library)/Boston (Museum of Fine Arts)/Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago) 1972-73, p. 38, under no. 47

A. Stefes, 2018, 'Gerrit Adriaensz. de Heer, Portrait of a Gentleman in a Landscape, c. 1645 - c. 1650', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200139636