Studie van het hoofd van een oude vrouw

Cornelis Visscher (II), ca. 1654 - ca. 1658

  • Soort kunstwerktekening
  • ObjectnummerRP-T-1902-A-4627
  • Afmetingenhoogte 135 mm x breedte 131 mm
  • Fysieke kenmerkenzwart krijt; kaderlijnen in bruine inkt

Ontdek verder

meer door Cornelis Visscher (II)

Grote kat

Cornelis Visscher (II) (vermeld op object), 1657

Grote kat

Grote kat

Cornelis Visscher (II) (vermeld op object), 1657

Grote kat

Studie van een schedel

Cornelis Visscher (II), ca. 1654 - ca. 1658

Studie van een schedel

Kleine kat

Cornelis Visscher (II), 1638 - 1658

Kleine kat

Magdalena Moons

Cornelis Visscher (II) (vermeld op object), 1649

Magdalena Moons

Kat likt kaarsvet van de kandelaar

toegeschreven aan Cornelis Visscher (II), ca. 1650 - ca. 1654

Kat likt kaarsvet van de kandelaar

Cornelis Visscher (II)

Study of the Head of an Old Woman

c. 1654 - c. 1658

Inscriptions

  • inscribed on verso: lower left, in brown ink, C de Visscher

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

Provenance

…; ? sale, Johan van der Marck Ægzn (1707-72), Leiden, Amsterdam (H. de Winter and J. IJver), 29 November 1773 sqq., Album A, no. 4 (‘Een oud vrouwtje, borststuk, met een platte kraag om den hals, en een kapje op ’t hoofd; mede zeer fraay getekend met zwart kryt, h. 6 b. 4¾ duim [152 x 121 mm].’), fl. 51, to Hendrik van Maarsseveen (1731-92), Amsterdam;1Hofstede de Groot notes, RKD. his sale, Amsterdam (P.B. Bunel et al.), 28 October 1793, Album L, no. 5 (‘Een oude Vrouw halver lyve, met een’ platten kraag om den hals; ongemeen uitvoerig en fraai met zwart kryt geteekent C Visscher’), fl. 26, to Louis Bernard Coclers (1741-1817), Amsterdam;2Copy RMA; according to the catalogue for the sale, Amsterdam (F. Muller), 16 May 1881, no. 490. …; sale, Hendrik van Cranenburgh (1754-1832, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 26 (27) October 1858 sqq., Album K, no. 245, fl. 10, to the dealer F. Buffa, Amsterdam;3Copy RKD; according to the catalogue for the sale, Amsterdam (F. Muller), 16 May 1881, no. 490. …; sale, Leendert Dupper Wz. (1799-1870, Dordrecht), Dordrecht (C.J. Roos et al.), 28 (29) June 1870 sqq., no. 410, fl. 8, to Baron Willem Constant Pieter van Reede van Oudtshoorn (1812-1874), Utrecht;4Copy RKD. his sale, Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 27 October 1874 sqq., no. 334, fl. 11, to the dealer A.G. de Visser, Amsterdam;5Copy RKD. his sale, Amsterdam (F. Muller), 16 May 1881, no. 490, fl. 130, to William Pitcairn Knowles (1820-94), Rotterdam and Wiesbaden (L. 2643);6Copy RKD. his sale, Amsterdam (F. Muller), 25 June 1895, no. 709, fl. 74, to the dealer H.J. Valk for the Vereniging Rembrandt;7Copy RKD. from whom on loan to the museum, 1895; from whom, fl. 85.10, to the museum (L. 2228), 1902

Object number: RP-T-1902-A-4627

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

The artist

Biography

Cornelis Visscher (Haarlem 1628/29 - 1658 Amsterdam)

Little is known about his early life. Information regarding his birth is based on two surviving self-portraits, one from 1649 in the British Museum, London (inv. no. 1895,0915.1343), and the other, dated 10 April 1653, in the Rijksmuseum (inv. no. RP-T-1902-A-4624). He was presumably born in Haarlem, where he became a member of the Guild of St Luke in 1653. His father – who cannot be identified – must have been an artist as well, because in the admission book of the guild Visscher is described as ‘plaetsnijder en Meester outste zoon’ (‘engraver and the master’s oldest son’). Two younger brothers, Jan Visscher (1633/34-1712) and Lambert Visscher (1630/32-after 1690), also pursued artistic careers. The relationship between Cornelis and the relatively unknown painter Cornelis de Visscher (c. 1530-c. 1586) of Gouda is unclear. According to Van Mander, the latter was a skilled portraitist, but had some mental issues and died in a shipwreck on the North Sea.8K. van Mander, Het schilder-boeck waer in voor eerst de leerlustighe iueght den grondt der edel vry schilderconst in verscheyden deelen wort voorghedraghen, Haarlem 1604, p. 228. Perhaps the same person can be identified with Cornelis de Visscher, whose money was managed (presumably on behalf of his under-age children) by the orphans’ board of Gouda because he was considered mentally ill; in 1622, the widow of Cornelis’ brother, the painter Gerrit Gerritsz. de Visscher II (c. 1559-before 1622), collected the money from the orphans’ board on behalf of Cornelis’ two nephews, her sons Gerrit de Visscher III (?-?), a goldsmith living in Gouda, and Barent de Visscher (?-?).9Gouda, Streekarchief Midden-Holland, inv. no. OA196.

Cornelis Visscher probably received his first artistic training from his father. Later he must have been apprenticed to the Haarlem painter, engraver and draughtsman Pieter Soutman (1593/1601-1657), with whom he collaborated on several print series in 1649/50. Shortly after his admission in the Guild of St Luke in Haarlem, he moved to Amsterdam. In the 1650s, he received numerous commissions for portrait drawings and engravings of Haarlem and Amsterdam scholars, clergymen and writers, including Joost van den Vondel (1587-1679) (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-H-P-41). One of his last commissions was an engraved portrait of Constantijn Huygens I (1596-1687) after a lost drawing by the sitter’s son Christiaan Huygens (1629-95), which was included as the frontispiece to Huygens’ poem book Koren-bloemen (1658) (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-OB-27.428). It was finished in the last months of 1657, when the artist was presumably suffering from ‘de steen’ (kidney stones). Visscher died the following year and was buried on 16 January in the Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam. Despite his short life – he was only twenty-eight years old when he died – Visscher left an extensive oeuvre, consisting of more than 100 drawings and some 185 prints.

Marleen Ram, 2019

References
R. van Eijnden and A. van der Willigen, Geschiedenis der vaderlandsche schilderkunst, 4 vols., Haarlem 1816-40, I (1816), pp. 71-77, IV (1840), pp. 96-97; P. Schatborn, Dutch Figure Drawings from the Seventeenth Century, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet)/Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 1981-82, pp. 100-01; R.E.O. Ekkart, ‘Visscher, Cornelis (de)’, in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, XXXII, pp. 622-23; J. Hawley, ‘An Introduction to the Life and Drawings of Jan de Vissccher’, Master Drawings 52 (2014), no. 1, pp. 59-94; J. Hawley, ‘Cornelis Visscher and Constantijn Huygens’s Koren-bloemen’, Print Quarterly 32 (2015), no. 1, pp. 51-53

Entry

Besides Visscher’s finished portrait drawings on vellum, a couple of black chalk studies on paper have come down to us, such as the Drapery-covered Hand and Arm in the Kupferstich-Kabinett, Dresden (inv. no. C 1043),10J. Hawley, ‘An Introduction to the Life and Drawings of Jan de Visscher’, Master Drawings 52 (2014), no. 1, p. 70 (fig. 16). and the Study of the Head of a Child in the Amsterdam Museum (inv. no. TA 10361).11B.P.J. Broos and M. Schapelhouman, Nederlandse tekenaars geboren tussen 1600 en 1660, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1993 (Oude tekeningen in het bezit van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, waaronder de collectie Fodor, vol. 4), no. 164. Characteristic for these works is the confident handling of chalk, which is freely used to alternate between detailed and sketchily drawn parts. In the present drawing, a sharp contrast between light and shade is created by enhancing contours and shadows with darker lines and extensive parallel hatching. This gives the drawing its unusual lighting, as if the model were studied at night by candlelight.12G. Luijten and A.W.F.M. Meij, Van Pisanello tot Cézanne. Keuze uit de verzameling tekeningen in het Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam/From Pisanello to Cézanne: Master Drawings from the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Museum Boymans-van Beuningen) 1990, pp. 93-94, under no. 31. Scholars have identified this type of drawing style among other draughtsmen active in Haarlem in the 1650s and ‘60s, which included Cornelis Bega (1631/32-1664), Leendert van der Cooghen (1632-1681), Dirk Helmbreeker (1633-1696) and Gerrit Berckheyde (1638-1698).13P. Schatborn, Dutch Figure Drawings from the Seventeenth Century, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet)/Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 1981-82, p. 99; G. Luijten and A.W.F.M. Meij, Van Pisanello tot Cézanne. Keuze uit de verzameling tekeningen in het Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam/From Pisanello to Cézanne: Master Drawings from the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Museum Boymans-van Beuningen) 1990, pp. 93-94, under no. 31; B.J.L. Coenen, ‘The Drawings of the Haarlem Amateur Leendert van der Cooghen’, Master Drawings 43 (2005), no. 1, pp. 5-6.

There are four other studies of old women by Visscher that are worth mentioning in relation to the museum’s drawing, one in the Louvre, Paris (inv. no. 23115);14F. Lugt, Musée du Louvre: Inventaire général des dessins des écoles du Nord: École hollandaise, 3 vols., coll. cat. Paris 1929-33, II (1931), no. 870. one in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (inv. no. Visscher 2 (PK)); one in a Paris sale in 1980;15Sale, Paris (Drouot), 23 January 1980, no. 319, repr. and one formerly in the collection of Victor de Stuers (1843-1916), Vorden.16P. 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, no. 106; B.P.J. Broos, ‘“Notitie der Teekeningen van Sybrand Feitama”, III. De verzameling van Sybrand I Feitama (1620-1701) en van Isaac Feitama (1666-1709)’, Oud Holland 101 (1987), no. 3, pp. 171-217, p. 186 (fig. 28). The latter can be linked to Visscher’s print of an old woman facing right (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-OB-27.440), which is also known as the so-called portrait of the artist’s mother.17Hollstein, XL (1992), no. 171. Based on the corresponding facial features, such as the long, plump nose and protruding under lip, it is plausible that the same old woman served as a model for the artist on all four occasions. Whether or not she is his mother is difficult to prove.

Bonny van Sighem, 2000/Marleen Ram, 2019

Literature

B.P.J. Broos and M. Schapelhouman, Nederlandse tekenaars geboren tussen 1600 en 1660, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1993 (Oude tekeningen in het bezit van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, waaronder de collectie Fodor, vol. 4), p. 211, under no. 166

Citation

B. van Sighem, 2000/M. Ram, 2019, 'Cornelis (II) Visscher, Study of the Head of an Old Woman, c. 1654 - c. 1658', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200145407

(accessed 11 January 2026 10:01:38).

Footnotes

  • 1Hofstede de Groot notes, RKD.
  • 2Copy RMA; according to the catalogue for the sale, Amsterdam (F. Muller), 16 May 1881, no. 490.
  • 3Copy RKD; according to the catalogue for the sale, Amsterdam (F. Muller), 16 May 1881, no. 490.
  • 4Copy RKD.
  • 5Copy RKD.
  • 6Copy RKD.
  • 7Copy RKD.
  • 8K. van Mander, Het schilder-boeck waer in voor eerst de leerlustighe iueght den grondt der edel vry schilderconst in verscheyden deelen wort voorghedraghen, Haarlem 1604, p. 228.
  • 9Gouda, Streekarchief Midden-Holland, inv. no. OA196.
  • 10J. Hawley, ‘An Introduction to the Life and Drawings of Jan de Visscher’, Master Drawings 52 (2014), no. 1, p. 70 (fig. 16).
  • 11B.P.J. Broos and M. Schapelhouman, Nederlandse tekenaars geboren tussen 1600 en 1660, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1993 (Oude tekeningen in het bezit van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, waaronder de collectie Fodor, vol. 4), no. 164.
  • 12G. Luijten and A.W.F.M. Meij, Van Pisanello tot Cézanne. Keuze uit de verzameling tekeningen in het Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam/From Pisanello to Cézanne: Master Drawings from the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Museum Boymans-van Beuningen) 1990, pp. 93-94, under no. 31.
  • 13P. Schatborn, Dutch Figure Drawings from the Seventeenth Century, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet)/Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 1981-82, p. 99; G. Luijten and A.W.F.M. Meij, Van Pisanello tot Cézanne. Keuze uit de verzameling tekeningen in het Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam/From Pisanello to Cézanne: Master Drawings from the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Museum Boymans-van Beuningen) 1990, pp. 93-94, under no. 31; B.J.L. Coenen, ‘The Drawings of the Haarlem Amateur Leendert van der Cooghen’, Master Drawings 43 (2005), no. 1, pp. 5-6.
  • 14F. Lugt, Musée du Louvre: Inventaire général des dessins des écoles du Nord: École hollandaise, 3 vols., coll. cat. Paris 1929-33, II (1931), no. 870.
  • 15Sale, Paris (Drouot), 23 January 1980, no. 319, repr.
  • 16P. 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, no. 106; B.P.J. Broos, ‘“Notitie der Teekeningen van Sybrand Feitama”, III. De verzameling van Sybrand I Feitama (1620-1701) en van Isaac Feitama (1666-1709)’, Oud Holland 101 (1987), no. 3, pp. 171-217, p. 186 (fig. 28).
  • 17Hollstein, XL (1992), no. 171.