Who is cleaning herring in her backyard?

Interesting little puzzle. This painting on canvas by Matthijs Naiveu, signed below left, was offered at the Venduehuis in The Hague in 2022 and went unsold.

Mathijs Naiveu (1647-1726),
Portrait of Ida Maria Cromhout cleaning herring in the garden of her house on Herengracht, Amsterdam
Lot 4826, Auction House De Zwaan Amsterdam. Signed and dated 1690

Now coming up for auction in November 2023 at De Zwaan Amsterdam, with the sitter identified as “Ida Maria Cromhout cleaning herring in the courtyard of her house on Herengracht”. I wonder what research led to this identification! Wasn’t mentioned in the earlier auction.

Looking into the life of Ida Maria Cromhout, we find she was a daughter of Jacob Cromhout and Margaretha Wuytiers. The family lived on Herengracht 366, which is one of four connected buildings called “Cromhout Houses” after the extremely wealthy catholic merchant Jacob Cromhout who commissioned them in 1662 from famous architect Philips Vingboons.

Herengracht 366, the home of the family of Jacob Cromhout

Originally a coach house belonged to Herengracht 366, Huidenstraat 16. If the identification of the sitter and location are correct, could this be the coach house we see in the background to the left? Intriguing …

Detail of Naiveu’s painting

Ida Maria was born in 1649. She married Adriaan Roest van Alkemade when she was twenty, the year her father died. The couple had two sons. Naiveu was apparently acquainted with the couple: he painted “the newborn baby”, celebrating the birth of their second son, Adrianus, (baptised December 23, 1674). The painting, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is signed and dated 1675. Father Adriaan Roest is the figure looking toward the viewer in the right background in that painting.

Matthijs Naiveu, The Newborn Baby, 1675, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

I hope I can go to the viewing and ask around. I somehow cannot imagine that such a wealthy woman would clean her own herring in her courtyard!

Adriaan Roest van Alkemade toasting on the birth of baby Adrianus

Rembrandt, 350 years after his death

Rembrandt (and follower, see below, Simeon in the Temple, 1669, oil on canvas, 98,5 x 79,5 cm, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

On the 5 of October 1669, 350 years ago, a day after Rembrandt’s passing, notary Gerrit Steeman came round to take stock of his possessions. There were 22 paintings, “both finished and unfinished”, stored in the entrance hall in the small rental house on Rozengracht in Amsterdam where Rembrandt lived with Cornelia, his nearly 15-year-old daughter with Hendrickje. Rembrandt and Hendrickje, who had died in 1663, were not married and so Cornelia, as their illegitimate daughter, had no claim to any of Rembrandt’s belongings. There were more unfinished paintings, number not mentioned, in the parlour.

This time, unlike his bankruptcy inventory, Rembrandt wasn’t around to tell the notary what was what so we are kept guessing. Present that day, apart from Titus’ widow Magdalena van Loo (who would die not two weeks later, she was buried in Westerkerk on 21 October), was Christiaen Dusart, young Cornelia’s guardian. According to the notary: “The remaining property, including paintings, drawings, curios, antiques and other objects have been placed in three separate rooms, the door of which were locked by me, the notary, in addition, this door was sealed with my signet and the keys were taken into my custody.”

Detail from a page from the probate inventory drawn up on 5 October 1669, Amsterdam City Archives

The reason was very likely that Magdalena, and Dusart on behalf of young Cornelia, were undecided whether to accept the inheritance. I don’t blame them. Knowing Rembrandt’s pattern of spending, there may have been more stuff encumbered with debt than there were assets. But that hesitation has deprived us from knowing what Rembrandt was working on when he died.

“Curios, antiques and other objects” – Rembrandt, in spite of his bankruptcy, had started collecting again. Although these objects were locked away and not itemised in the death inventory as they were in the bankruptcy inventory we nevertheless get a glimpse of what they comprised through Pieter van Brederode van Wieringen (1631-1690).

Portrait of Pieter van Brederode van Wieringen by Redolphus van Walsburgh, before 1670, HRvA, The Hague 

Van Brederode was a bit of a social upstart. The son of an Amsterdam whitesmith and shopkeeper, he became an amateur genealogist who strove his whole life to prove that he was descended from the aristocratic Van Brederode family – without much success. Nevertheless, as can be seen in the portrait Redolphus van Walsburgh painted of him, he appropriated the name and the Van Brederode coat of arms. His interest in heraldic paraphernalia took him to Rembrandt’s house. Pieter was especially interested in a helmet reputedly once worn by 13th century lord Gerard van Velsen.

Facsimile page from one of Pieter van Brederode van Wieringen’s notebooks, HRvA, The Hague.

In his notebook he jotted down what he saw in Rembrandt’s house under the heading “Antiquities and curios collected over a time by Rembrant van Rym 2 October 1669”. Interesting that he notes, beside the helmet and a few other objects, “four pieces of flayed arms and legs anatomized according to Vesalius”. Whether he spoke with Rembrandt and if so in what condition he found the painter (was he already ill?) he alas does not say.

We know, thanks to the invaluable Abraham Bredius who published it in 1909, that the painter Allaert van Everdingen and his son, the playwright Cornelis van Everdingen saw Rembrandt working on a painting representing “Simeon” in the months prior to his death. This has to be the sadly damaged and fragile painting now in Stockholm. There is no proof that I am aware of that this was “on his easel” when Rembrandt died, as some have published, but it must have been among the “works finished and unfinished” as noted by the notary.

Incredibly fragile today, it is one of Rembrandt’s most moving paintings on a theme he had so often depicted in his career: the story in the Gospel of Luke of devout Simeon who, as an old man, had been promised by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Saviour. Holding the new-born baby Jesus in his arms, sings his canticle “Nunc dimittis”. The passage in the Gospel of St. Luke reads as follows:

Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. And inspired by the Spirit he came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, “Lord, now let your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” – Luke 2:25.

Next to Simeon a woman can be seen. But there’s another twist: the painting was once owned by Sir Joshua Reynolds, who is known to have “improved on” the Rembrandts paintings in his collection. Could the rather unconvincing figure to the right of Simeon be his? It wouldn’t surprise me. 

 

An ambitious widow and a room full of Bols

For over a century four gigantic paintings by the Amsterdam painter Ferdinand Bol (1616-1680) have hung in the Peace Palace in The Hague. Together with a fifth painting in the Provincial Executive of North Brabant they once formed an impressive series that hung in a town house in Utrecht. How they were originally hung and why there is no apparent thematic connection between them has long been a mystery. An intriguing question was who had commissioned such an ambitious and extravagant series of paintings? Recent research revealed many hitherto unknown facts, but has the mystery been solved completely?

The “Bolzaal” at the Peace Palace in The Hague

An unwelcome gift

In 1892 the paintings by Bol together with a painting by the Utrecht painter Jan van Bijlert were donated to the Dutch State by the Royaards family of Utrecht who wished the Bol series to be displayed in the Rijksmuseum. The museum must have received the gift with mixed feelings: not only were the paintings in Bol’s late Flemish manner and not considered his best but their size made it impossible for them to be displayed: all are over four meters high and even wider, the largest is almost five meters in width. By comparison Rembrandt’s Nightwatch is 363 cm high and 437 cm wide.

The house at Nieuwegracht 6, Utrecht

Until recently not much was known about the ensemble. Given their style, Bol’s paintings were dated between 1655 and 1669, the year he retired from painting. Old Rijksmuseum catalogues only mention that the paintings were “a series of wall coverings consisting of five large compositions by Bol from a room in the house at 6 Nieuwegracht in Utrecht”. What precisely that “room” was or how the paintings were hung remained a mystery until in 1982 an exchange of letters concerning the gift was discovered in the museum’s correspondence “Copyboek”. One of the letters records that the paintings were then in the “large back room”, the best room of the house, which was 10 meters long, 6.7 meters wide and 4.3 meters high. They were built into the panelling and covered the walls completely except for narrow strips of panelling between them. The detailed description of their location in the room helped form an idea about the order in which the paintings might have been hung originally.

In Utrecht’s municipal archive an old ground-plan of the house was discovered which afforded an even better understanding of the room’s layout. It had three large windows facing east and overlooking the garden. The other walls had Bol’s paintings and the painting by Jan van Bijlert while the hearth was decorated with a painting by Utrecht artist Joost Cornelisz. Droochsloot.

Ground plan of Nieuwegracht 6. The red dot marks the room where the paintings hung. Municipal Archives, Utrecht

What paintings can tell us

Nail marks, remnants of varnish and of paint from the original frame

As luck would have it, various elements such as nail holes, remnants of old varnish and traces of paint from frames on the canvases were still intact; these are usually deemed unimportant by museum restorers and in most cases removed. Now that they were preserved they revealed how the canvases were stretched and framed. For example, vertical cuts were found which made it possible for the canvases to be slid between the ceiling’s beams. Today, the house is an office building and nothing of its original layout remains. The back part where the parlour was has been converted into an extension with an unattractive lowered ceiling but probes revealed that the 17th century beams with remnants of their original red paint are still present. Measurements confirmed that the cuts on the paintings fitted the distance between the beams exactly which provided vital clues about the order in which the paintings were hung originally.

Digital reconstruction of the west and north wall. From left to right: the Finding of Moses, Solomon Receiving Gifts, the Pool at Bethesda (mantlepiece), Venus and Adonis

Another aspect that was fairly unique was the discovery that the paintings had started life much smaller. Bol had enlarged them at a later time by sewing new strokes of canvas onto them. The Aenaes Receiving his Armour and Weapons, the first painting, had been conceived as a smaller painting that was extended at the top to its present height. Next, the Finding of Moses and Abraham Receiving the Three Angels were painted. Again these had begun as smaller canvases that achieved their present height through added strokes of canvas. In the third and last phase the series was completed with the The Lord Appearing to Joshua and Solomon Receiving Gifts. At that time both the Aenaes and the Moses were widened with a stroke of canvas of about one meter on the left.

Ferdinand Bol, Aenaes Receiving his Weapons and Armour, image Rijksmuseum

Jan van Bijlert’s Venus and Adonis which hung to the right of the hearth on the north wall has not survived intact. The painting had been given to the Centraal Museum in Utrecht where, during restoration in 1934, it was deemed beyond repair. The complete painting was photographed but only a fragment was preserved. The surviving portion bears such similarity to the style of Van Bijlert’s more famous townsman Van Honthorst that it was attributed to him; Van Bijlert’s signature on the discarded section of the painting had apparently been forgotten. Since the light in this painting comes from the left and given its position to the left of the windows it would seem that the Venus and Adonis were not specifically painted for the room unless, perhaps, the painting had been in the house prior to Bol’s interventions and had been rehung.

Jan van Bijlert, Venus and Adonis, 1934 photograph in the Centraal Museum

Jan van Bijlert, Venus and Adonis, remaining fragment, Centraal Museum

Sadly the original hearth with Droochsloot’s painting has not survived. It was transferred to the town hall of Soest after 1892 but was lost when the building was demolished around 1960. The last trace of the painting was a Utrecht exhibition in 1892. The catalogue states that the painting was signed and dated 1643 and gives its measurements but the painting’s current whereabouts are not known. Droochsloot painted several copies of The Pool at Bethesda, none of which, however, have the correct measurements.

The hearth from the back room at Nieuwegracht 6 before it was demolished. Photo municipal archives, Utrecht

Joost Cornelisz. Droochsloot, The Pool of Bethesda, copy in KMSKA, Antwerp

The commission

Love letter from Carel Martens to Jacoba Lampsins, Utrecht Municipal Archives

Since no correspondence or accounts regarding the commission have been preserved, the only way to find out who commissioned the series would be to determine who had lived in Nieuwegracht 6 in the late 1650s. Here, the municipal archives proved helpful. It turned out that the house had been sold in 1657 to a wealthy widow, Jacoba Lampsins, who had lost her husband Carel Martens eight years before. Martens, a wealthy lawyer and tax broker, had been a staunch Calvinist but also a passionate art collector. His ledger includes paintings by Ambrosius Boschaert, Joachim Wtewael and in 1645 “a figure in full” by Rembrandt. His wife continued to collect paintings after his death. Theirs must have been a very happy marriage: several love letters from Carel to Jacoba have survived.

Anonymous painter, Carel Martens, 1643, Centraal Museum

Anonymous painter, Jacoba Lampsins, 1643, Centraal Museum

Like her husband, Jacoba Lampsins was the daughter of an old and influential Calvinist family. Her ancestors belonged to the governing elite of Ostend in present day Belgium. She was born in the province of Zeeland where the family had moved to escape the violence and religious persecution of the catholic Spanish during the Eighty Years War. Given the status of her family it seems logical that Jacoba intended her three sons to climb the social ladder in Utrecht. Although a respected citizen and extremely wealthy thanks to the lucrative United East India Company shares owned by her family, more than mere money was needed to gain access to Utrecht’s upper crust, the regents, since important functions were limited to only a few of the ruling families. The only way for newcomers to become part of the elite was to marry into that circle.

Buying the town mansion on Nieuwegracht was the first step in that direction since this meant that Jacoba and her four children now lived among the wealthiest and most respectable burghers of Utrecht. She must have engaged Ferdinand Bol to decorate her parlour where she could receive distinguished guests in style and where she could present her three sons to their fullest advantage.

Digital reconstruction of the back room at Nieuwegracht 6. Left to right: The Lord Appearing to Joshua, Aenaeas Receiving his Armour and Weapons, Abraham Receiving the Three Angels and the Finding of Moses

Thematic unity?

At the time, ensembles of the magnitude of Bol’s could only be found in Amsterdam’s Town Hall and in the Sael van Oranje in Amalia van Solms’ palace at Huis ten Bosch in The Hague. There perfection was sought not only through the choice of painters but also by selecting subjects that were logically compatible and meaningful. At first sight, Jacoba’s paintings appeared to display no such unity or logic: for example the mythological Aeneas was wedged between two Old Testament scenes. It was therefore assumed that the paintings were not intended as a coherent ensemble and perhaps were even transported to the house on Nieuwegracht at a later time. The latter option seemed plausible: Ferdinand Bol painted almost exclusively for the Amsterdam elite and not for that of Utrecht. Cities reserved that right mostly for local artists.

Ferdinand Bol, The Finding of Moses, the largest paintings in the series. Bol was one of few painters who portrayed the women naked. Image Rijksmuseum

In a 1992 article the art historian Albert Blankert assumed that Bol had recycled the paintings he sold to Jacoba since the Solomon Receiving Gifts was a far larger version of another painting. Blankert even suggested that Bol may have sold her bits and pieces lying unfinished in his studio from commissions that had failed to materialise.

Ferdinand Bol or Rembrandt, sketch for the Finding of Moses, Rijksmuseum

An interesting theory that seemed to be supported by Bol’s drawing for The Finding of Moses which, judging from its Rembrandtesque style, was conceived much earlier than the painting. The drawing was in fact attributed to Rembrandt for many years. What may be in favour of Blankert’s theory is that all Bol’s paintings, as we have seen, started out as smaller versions and were extended to fit the room’s proportions. Researchers have now contradicted this and have sought to discover a thematic unity on the basis of what we know about Jacoba’s biography and the fate of her ancestors.

Ferdinand Bol, Abraham Receiving the Three Angels, image Rijksmuseum

As we have seen, the first painting in the series was the Aeneas and just like Aeneas, Jacoba’s and her husband’s families had had to flee their home. Crucial in this analogy is that Ostend, home to her ancestors, was at the time compared with Troy (it was even known as Nova Troja) because of the long siege and bloody conquest by the Spanish. The same analogy fits the Old Testament stories of Moses and Abraham who were forced to leave their native countries too and became symbols for Southern Netherlandish refugees. In addition, these three main protagonists were destined to become founders of influential dynasties and therefore epitomise Jacoba’s social ambitions for her sons.

Cyrus or Solomon?

Ferdinand Bol, Solomon Receiving Gifts (?). Image Rijksmuseum

During the last stages of the commission Jacoba added the Solomon and the Joshua. A possible explanation for these subjects, so researchers assume, could lie in a conflict between liberal and orthodox factions in Utrecht’s city council concerning the management of former catholic church goods. Any income generated from them was destined for charitable purposes but in practice the managerial tasks had fallen to a few wealthy families who used the profits for their own financial gain. Jacoba sided with the orthodox faction that advocated the return of the goods to the protestant church of Utrecht. This conflict, it has been argued, could be reflected in the story of Joshua: those who shamelessly enriched themselves could be compared with Achan who is guilty of plunder against God’s command. But Achan can barely be seen in Bol’s painting, if at all. The analogy must then have been by implication. In addition, the Solomon receiving gifts is now thought to depict King Cyrus who returned robbed temple treasures to the Jews. Since Bol painted a smaller version of this painting for Amsterdam’s Zuiderkerk, this would mean that such a highly unusual subject would be depicted there too. Has the painting been fitted to suit the theory?

Ferdinand Bol, the Lord Appears to Joshua. Image Rijksmuseum

Researchers have further suggested that Jacoba’s standpoint in the conflict may also have been inspired by the fact that one of the leaders of the orthodox faction, Johan van Nellesteijn, was the guardian of the extremely wealthy regent’s daughter Aletta Pater. Whether this was behind it or not, in 1663 Jacoba’s eldest son married Aletta. The marriage proved lucrative in many ways as through it he and his brothers secured honourable functions that continued for many generations.

Remaining questions

While many mysteries concerning Bol’s five paintings seem to have been resolved, there are some aspects that still depend on conjecture such as why the paintings, originally conceived as smaller works, would have been enlarged to fit the walls in Jacoba’s parlour. Would not Jacoba, had she commissioned them for that specific room, ordered the correct sizes to begin with? The identification of the subject in one of the paintings (Cyrus or Solomon) also needs further consideration. For now the Rijksmuseum sticks to the traditional title of Solomon Receiving Gifts. Another matter needing more research is Van Bijlert’s Venus and Adonis, the function of which, perhaps because of its sadly trunkated state, is as yet unclear. In spite of admirable and very sound research, I believe that, although very close, this intriguing case has not quite been cracked.

 

Van Eikema Hommes investigated various attributes such as the nail holes, old varnish remnants and paint remnants from frames on the canvasses. These revealed how the canvasses have been stretched and framed. For example, she found cuts which ensured that the canvasses could be pushed between ceiling beams. In a prominent house along a canal in Utrecht Van Eikema Hommes found the ceiling beams that fitted the canvasses. Further research revealed that the widow Jacoba Lampsins had resided in this house during Bol’s time. The canvasses formed a spectacular decoration that covered all the walls of a large reception room.Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-02-true-history-ferdinand-bol-revealed.html#jCp

Digital reconstruction with the original setting of Bol’s paintings in the reception room of Jacoba Lampsins in Utrecht. At the time, the paintings would be standing directly on the ground under the ceiling beams. In the 18th century, they were pushed up between the beams, to create space for panelling belowRead more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-02-true-history-ferdinand-bol-revealed.html#jCp

Digital reconstruction with the original setting of Bol’s paintings in the reception room of Jacoba Lampsins in Utrecht. At the time, the paintings would be standing directly on the ground under the ceiling beams. In the 18th century, they were pushed up between the beams, to create space for panelling belowRead more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-02-true-history-ferdinand-bol-revealed.html#jCp