Hendrik Potuyl

Village Merry Company

? Amsterdam, c. 1637 - c. 1650

Inscriptions

  • signed: lower right, in red ink, H PotuyL fec

Condition

Laid down

Provenance

...; sale, heirs of the widow of G. Birkmans Debuy (?-?) et al., Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 13 April 1908 sqq., no.155;1Copy RKD. …; sale, Laurentius Xaverius Lannoy (1851-1924, Vlissingen and Amsterdam), et al., Amsterdam (R.W.P. de Vries), 19 May 1925 sqq., no. 570;2Copy RMA. ...; sale, H.J. Holgen, Amsterdam (T. Bom & Sons), 23 November 1926 sqq., no. 77, fl. 11.50, to the museum (L. 2228), 1926

ObjectNumber: RP-T-1926-18

The artist

Biography

Hendrik Potuyl (Dortmund 1613 - ? Dortmund after 1651?)

A native of Dortmund, he moved in 1629 to Amsterdam, where in 1641 he became an assistant to Joachim von Sandrart (1606-1688) and where three years later, on 24 September 1644, he married the twenty-one-year old Maria Ransons (1623-?) in Amsterdam.3Amsterdam, Stadsarchief, DTB 678, fol. 2. In the marriage notice, the artist – whose real name was Hendrick Bos (or Hendrik van den Bosch) and who sometimes signed his works ‘H. Bos Potuyl’ – is cited as ‘Heijndrik Boss van Dortmond, schilder, out 31 jaar’. According to the Historische woordenboeken. Nederlands en Fries, in Dutch his nickname ‘Potuyl’ historically referred to an uncouth, uneducated dolt (perhaps an allusion to his subject-matter?).4http://gtb.inl.nl/iWDB/search?actie=article&wdb=WNT&id=M055626.re.401&lemma=potuil&domein=0&conc=true. Why he should have chosen to define himself in such a demeaning way is unclear. His three children were baptized in Amsterdam’s Lutheran church.5Johannes, baptized on 14 November 1645, Amsterdam, Stadsarchief, DTB 141, fol. 308; Madaleen, baptized on 19 December 1648, ibid., DTB 142, fol. 94; Sacharias, baptized on 22 January 1651, ibid., fol. 251. One of their sons, Sacharias Bosch (1651-?), became a painter as well and settled in Riga. Hendrik Potuyl returned to Dortmund shortly after the birth of Sacharias.

Potuyl’s paintings – mainly peasant genre scenes and barn interiors and still lifes – reflect the work of such artists as Cornelis Saftleven (1607-1681), Egbert van der Poel (1621-1664) and Hendrick Sorgh (1609/11-1670). His earliest dated paintings are from 1639, for instance View inside a Barn in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (inv. no. 2880). The last dated paintings are from a decade later, such as Gathering in front of a Church with Food Distributed to the Poor, which was on the London art market in 2001.6Sale, London (Philips), 11 December 2001, no. 79. Genre subjects also feature in Potuyl’s drawings on vellum, which clearly reveal the influence of Pieter Jansz Quast (c. 1605/06-1647), who was active in Amsterdam between 1641 and 1647. Another artist who apparently had an impact on Potuyl was Jan Miense Molenaer (1609/10-1668), who left Amsterdam in 1648.

Annemarie Stefes, 2019

References
R. van Eijnden and A. van der Willigen, Geschiedenis der vaderlandsche schilderkunst, 4 vols., Haarlem 1816-40, I (1816), p. 283; J. Immerzeel, De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1842-43, II (1843), p. 326; C. Kramm, De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, beeldhouwers, graveurs en bouwmeesters van den vroegsten tot op onzen tijd, 7 vols., Amsterdam 1857-64, V (1861), p. 1312; A.D. de Vries, ‘Biografische aanteekeningen betreffende voornamelijk Amsterdamsche schilders, plaatsnijders, enz. en hunne verwanten (I)’, Oud-Holland 3 (1885), p. 69; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, 3 vols., Vienna/Leipzig 1906-11, II (1910), p. 356; A. Bredius (ed.), Künstler-Inventare: Urkunden zur Geschichte der holländischen Kunst des XVIten, XVIIten und XVIIIten Jahrhunderts, 8 vols., The Hague 1915-22 , IV (1917), p. 1399; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XXVII (1933), pp. 309-10 (entry by E. Trautscholdt); C. Klemm, Joachim von Sandrart: Kunst-Werke und Lebens-Lauf, Berlin 1986, pp. 55, 339, 355-56; A. van der Willigen and F.G. Meijer, A Dictionary of Dutch and Flemish Still-life Painters Working in Oils, 1525-1725, Leiden 2003, pp. 163-64; P. Groenendijk, Beknopt biografisch lexicon van Zuid- en Noord-Nederlandse schilders, graveurs, glasschilders, tapijtwevers et cetera van ca. 1350 tot ca. 1720, Utrecht 2008, p. 621; https://rkd.nl/explore/artists/64531; http://www.vondel.humanities.uva.nl/ecartico/persons/1238

Entry

In the small drawn oeuvre of Hendrik Potuyl, the present sheet – featuring a merry company of peasants drinking, smoking and dancing outside a cottage or country inn – is exceptional for being executed in red chalk instead of the more conventional graphite, the medium of the museum’s other example by the artist (inv. no. RP-T-1904-1).7Another drawing by Potuyl in red chalk is Inn Scene with a Smoker, sale, Cologne (Lempertz), 6 December 1997, no. 1587. It may have been inspired by the work of Jan Miense Molenaer (1609/10-1668), who not only also used red chalk on vellum,8Cf. Peasants before an Inn, a print design in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, inv. no. 30199; D.P. Weller, ‘The Drawings by Jan Miense Molenaer’, Master Drawings 45 (2007), no. 2, p. 161 (fig. 16); H. Bevers and U. Sölter, Niederländische Zeichnungen und Druckgraphik der Sammlung Christoph Müller im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett: Kritisches Bestandsverzeichnis, coll. cat. Berlin 2008, no. 103. but represented similar broad-faced peasants in his drawings of the 1640s. Compare, for example, the museum’s drawing by Molenaer of Peasants Dancing (inv. no. RP-T-1886-A-619, with further examples noted in the catalogue entry). Another Amsterdam artist who experimented with that medium was Pieter Jansz Quast (c. 1605/06-1647), for instance in a red chalk drawing on vellum dated 1637, which was on the Amsterdam art market in 2005 and must have been made in The Hague (where the artist lived from 1634 to 1641).9Elegant Couple, Seated, sale, Amsterdam (Sotheby’s), 16 November 2005, no. 87; cf. also inv. no. RP-T-1883-A-228 of 1636. Considering the fact that Quast was active in Amsterdam between 1641 and 1647 and Molenaer spent the years 1637 to 1648 in the city, the present drawing can be plausibly dated to the late 1630s or the 1640s, when Potuyl could have known these other artists.

Annemarie Stefes, 2019

Citation

A. Stefes, 2019, 'Hendrik Potuyl, Village Merry Company, Amsterdam, c. 1637 - c. 1650', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.59667

(accessed 9 May 2025 11:59:08).

Footnotes

  • 1Copy RKD.
  • 2Copy RMA.
  • 3Amsterdam, Stadsarchief, DTB 678, fol. 2.
  • 4http://gtb.inl.nl/iWDB/search?actie=article&wdb=WNT&id=M055626.re.401&lemma=potuil&domein=0&conc=true.
  • 5Johannes, baptized on 14 November 1645, Amsterdam, Stadsarchief, DTB 141, fol. 308; Madaleen, baptized on 19 December 1648, ibid., DTB 142, fol. 94; Sacharias, baptized on 22 January 1651, ibid., fol. 251.
  • 6Sale, London (Philips), 11 December 2001, no. 79.
  • 7Another drawing by Potuyl in red chalk is Inn Scene with a Smoker, sale, Cologne (Lempertz), 6 December 1997, no. 1587.
  • 8Cf. Peasants before an Inn, a print design in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, inv. no. 30199; D.P. Weller, ‘The Drawings by Jan Miense Molenaer’, Master Drawings 45 (2007), no. 2, p. 161 (fig. 16); H. Bevers and U. Sölter, Niederländische Zeichnungen und Druckgraphik der Sammlung Christoph Müller im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett: Kritisches Bestandsverzeichnis, coll. cat. Berlin 2008, no. 103.
  • 9Elegant Couple, Seated, sale, Amsterdam (Sotheby’s), 16 November 2005, no. 87; cf. also inv. no. RP-T-1883-A-228 of 1636.