Tag: Dutch genre scenes

Jacob Ochtervelt and his Voorhuis Paintings

For many of my blogs recently, I have concentrated on nineteenth century artists as this is one of my favourite artistic era but I have always been fascinated by the artists who flourished during the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history which lasted from 1588, when the Dutch Republic was established until 1672, when the Rampjaar occurred. The Rampjaar, or Disaster Year, was the year of the outbreak of the Franco-Dutch War, when France invaded and nearly overran the Dutch Republic. It was the time of its peripheral conflict, the Third Anglo-Dutch War, and at the same time, it faced the threat of an English naval blockade in support of the French.

Portrait of a Family by Jacob Ochtervelt (1663)

The seventeenth century was a torrid time for the people of the Netherlands who had had to endure war with the old Spanish monarchist with their Catholic cultural traditions. It meant that Dutch art had to reinvent itself almost entirely, a task in which it was very largely successful. The painting of religious subjects of earlier days declined and a large prosperous new market for all kinds of secular subjects evolved. It was an era that saw genre paintings dominated by the likes of Vermeer, Gabriel Metsu, Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Jacob van Ruisdael and Jan Steen to mention but a few.

A Singing Violinist set within a niche (thought to be a self-portrait) by Jacob Ochtervelt (c.1670)

Today, my featured artist was a contemporary of these great Dutch painters who was also active during this period but was less well known. He is Jacob Ochtervelt, a Dutch Golden Age painter who was born in Rotterdam in late January 1634. He was the son and third child of of Lucas Hendricksz, who was employed as a bridgeman of the Roode Brugge, and Trintje Jans. He studied painting and lived in Haarlem from 1646 to 1655 apprenticed to the landscape painter Nicolaes Berchem along with fellow apprentice Pieter de Hooch, who became famous for his genre works of quiet domestic scenes and known for his kamergezichten or “room-views” with ladies and gentlemen in conversation. Ochtervelt moved back to Rotterdam in 1655 where he was a pupil of Ludolf de Jongh, who also taught Pieter de Hooch.

The Music Lesson by Jacob Ochtervelt (1670)

Jacob Ochtervelt married Dirkje Meesters in the Reformed Church of Rotterdam on December 14th 1655. Due to the lack of baptismal records of the church, it is thought that the couple apparently had no children. On January 7th 1657 the following year, however, on January 7, 1666, Ochtervelt was appointed one of two guardians of the orphaned children of his brother Jan. It was thought that Jan may have been a sailor; and according to records, he had died on a return voyage from the East Indies.

Singing Violinist by Jacob Ochtervelt (c.1666)

Ochtervelt depicted scenes which centred on the pleasures of the aristocratic life and leisure—men and women were portrayed reading and writing letters, eating and drinking, making music, and playing games. However, he also depicted the “them and us” perspective with his paintings focusing on the interactions between the upper and lower classes, and the setting for these works was often the threshold of an elegant townhouse. These were known as Voorhuis painting. Voorhuis, which translated means entrance hall or foyer and these paintings were a popular Dutch painting genre of the 17th century, which depicted a view from inside a wealthy house with affluent residents standing in the entrance hall and their interaction with the callers to the house. The foyer is lit up from the light emanating through the open front door bathing the area in light and colour. Ochtervelt was a master of this genre and compassionately depicted the people from the differing social classes.

A Nurse and a Child in an Elegant Foye by Jacob Ochtervelt (1663)

An example of Ochtervelt’s Voorhuis paintings was his 1663 work entitled A Nurse and a Child in an Elegant Foyer, which is in the National Gallery of London collection. It is a depiction of a young boy presumed to be about three years old. He wears his hair in long curls and is dressed in a freshly ironed white dress. It was common for boys until the age of around seven before they started wearing breeches. The young boys hand is outstretched offering money to a family of beggars who have called at his home. The housemaid gently holds her charge’s hand while in the background we see the child’s parents looking on through the open doorway. They beam with pride at their son’s generosity, something they have instilled in him, a virtue taught in the home and of great importance to the Dutch. Outside we see a beggar boy as he sets his foot gingerly on the hall floor as he waits to receive a coin. His mother holds a nursing infant to her breast as she covertly observes her son receiving the money. Ochtervelt skilfully contrasts the two classes of people, the privileged world of the aristocratic family with the insecurities of the life of the poor. He has achieved that by differentiating the dark, ragged clothing of the beggars with the grand marble hallway and the radiant attire of those who live in the impressive townhouse.

Street Musicians at the Door by Jacob Ochtervelt (1665)

A similar depiction can be seen in Ochtervelt’s 1665 painting entitled Street Musicians at the Door which can be seen at the St Louis Art Museum. The setting is similar to the previous painting – the foyer of an upper-class Dutch home. In the mid-ground we see the lady of the house and to the right, the housemaid wearing her pinafore holding the hand of a very young, very excited child dressed in a blue gown as she opens the front door of the house. On the outside we see two dishevelled street musicians who are going from house to house trying to elicit money and who would play some music once they had been paid. There is a moral to this depiction. It is about the child’s mother teaching her child to give coins to the hard working musicians. There is an obvious contrast between the wealthy occupants of the house who are dressed in bright reds and blues, and the musicians, standing outside, begging for money, dressed in shades of murky brown. Through the open doorway we get a perspective view of city buildings culminating in a church.

Bettelmusikanten (Begging Musicians) by Jacob Ochtervelt (c.1665)

A very similar scenario can be seen in Ochtervelt’s painting entitled Bettelmusikanten, which translated means “Begging Musicians”. The setting is once again the entrance area or foyer of a wealthy home. To the left stands a young woman and through the open front door we look into the nighttime darkness and see two musicians who have been going from house to house begging for money as recompense for playing a tune. They are about to enter the voorhuis with its marble-tiled hallway. The woman is holding on to a toddler with both hands who in turn is unaware of the musicians at the door but is concentrating all his efforts on attracting the dog’s attention by waving the yellow ribbons of his dress. Another child on the right bedecked in red satin dress with an expensive lace collar looks mesmerised by the sight of the musicians in the doorway and is already proffering money to recompense the musicians for their tunes.

The Regents of the Leper House, by Jacob Ochtervelt (1674)

The last record of Ochtervelt living in Rotterdam was in 1672, the Ramplaar year. He and his wife were recorded on July 10th 1672 as being a witness at the baptism of the daughter of Jan Meesters and Marya de Jong in a Rotterdam church. There is clear evidence that Ochtervelt and his wife moved to Amsterdam where he was to spend the remainder of his life. It is generally thought that the reason for the move was that Ochtervelt believed that he would find more patrons and receive more lucrative commissions in Amsterdam. Soon he was proved right when in that year he received his largest commission: a group portrait of the Regents of the Amsterdam Leper House. The painting which is now on loan to the Rijksmuseum from the City of Amsterdam. The painting depicts the four regents of the Leprozenhuis, Anthonie de Haes, Gilles Hens, dr. Bonavendura van Dortmont and Isaac Hudde.

Lazarus and the Dog

It is thought that the original painting was slightly larger than this version judged by the way the depiction of the dog in the foreground is almost cut off. On the wall in the background is painted Apollo, and to the right above the door is the Poor Lazarus, just like the lepers “full of ulcers”, whose wounds are licked by a dog as told in the Bible (Luke 16: 19-21):

“…There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores…”

An Interior with a Lady giving Alms to Beggars by Jacob Ochtervelt

Documents from the Burial Register of the Nieuwezijds Chapel in Amsterdam show that Jacob Ochtervelt died in April 1682, aged 58 and his name was entered in the Burial Register of the Nieuwezijds Chapel in Amsterdam on May 1, 1682 which stated that at the time of his death he had been living at the Schapenmarkt near the Amsterdam Mint.
His wife Dirkje was not left a wealthy widow and following her husband’s death she moved back to Rotterdam and died in February 1710 and was buried at the Dutch Reformed Church of Rotterdam.

Information for this blog came mainly from the following websites:

The Ochtervelt Documents by Susan Donahue Kuretsky In the Oud Holland, Journal

Johnny van Haeften website

The Leiden Collection

A Girl in a Kitchen (La chercheuse de puce) by Nicolas Lancret

A Girl in a Kitchen by Nicolas Lancret (c.1720-30)

Today I am featuring the French painter, draughtsman and art collector, Nicolas Lancret, who was born in Paris in 1690.  To begin with, Lancret trained as an engraver but soon afterwards became an apprentice to the history and religious painter Pierre Dulin.  Dulin was later to become a professor of art at  Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in Paris.  Throughout his early artistic training Lancret was influenced by and greatly admired the works of the Jean-Antoine Watteau the late Baroque painter and one of the leading artists in the new Rococo style of artwork.  In 1708, at the age of eighteen, Lancret enrolled at the Académie royale de peinture and in 1711 he competed unsuccessfully for the Prix de Rome prize.  His stay at the Académie ended when he was expelled for quarrelling.    It was Lancret’s love of Watteau’s work that made him part from his tutor Dulin and serve under Claude Gillot, the French genre and decorative painter, who had Watteau as his assistant in 1703.  Once Lancret began to work in the studio of Gillot his artwork changed from the history painting he had learnt whilst with Dulin to the Rococo style with all its scenes of graceful figures at leisure in elegant garden settings similar to the works of Watteau whom Lancret met around 1712.

In 1719 he was the first painter to be accepted into the Académie Royale as a painter of fête galantes, a category that had been created by the Academy in 1717.  Fête galante, which means “courtship party”, is a French term used to describe a type of painting which first came very popular in the early eighteenth century France.  Watteau had submitted his reception piece, ‘The Embarkation for the Island of Cythera (See My Daily Art Display, February 22nd 2011)  to the Académie Royale in 1717 and the critics of the time described it as characterising une fête galante.  These fêtes galantes paintings were usually small in size and recorded the lives of stylishly dressed men and women engaged in amorous but well-mannered play in a garden or parkland surroundings.

Lancret’s art work became very popular and he received numerous commissions from wealthy patrons especially after the death of Watteau in 1721.  Frederick the Great owned more than twenty-six of his paintings but his main patron was the ruler of France, Louis XV,  who, from the 1725,  continued to buy Lancret’s work until the artist died almost twenty years later.  He was one of the most prolific and imaginative genre painters of the first half of the eighteenth century in France and he had the ability to insert lively genre images into an allegorical framework.  His portraiture work was different to many of the time as he liked to treat his portraits as genre scenes.  Lancret exhibited works regularly at the Paris Salon.

Lancret remained single for much of his life and did not marry until 1741 when he was fifty-one years of age.  He married the 18 year old grandchild of Edmé Boursault, the French dramatist and writer.  Although one may be dismayed by the age difference of the couple it is believed that Lancret decided to marry the young girl after finding her and her dying mother living in poverty in an attic room and on hearing that the daughter was soon to be compelled to enter a convent. The marriage was a short-lived as Lancret died of pneumonia in Paris in 1743, aged fifty three.

My Daily Art Display featured painting today is not a fête galante work but a genre piece which I saw recently at the Wallace Collection in London.  The painting is entitled A Girl in a Kitchen (La chercheuse de puce) which Lancret completed in the 1720’s.  It is very reminiscent of the Dutch genre paintings of the previous century.  We see before us a young woman seated in a kitchen.  The first question which comes to mind as we look at her is what is she doing?  The subtitle of the painting La chercheuse de puce, reveals all, as translated it means “the seeker out of fleas”.  Unbelievable as it may seem the girl is inspecting herself for fleas !!!   The reason for this activity was that during the eighteenth century, amongst the poorer classes, infestation in the household with fleas was quite common.  However the depiction of the girl touching her exposed breasts during her inspection was probably Lancret’s way of titillating the observer.  The girl sits before us with her corset unlaced, inspecting her body.  Kitchen scenes in poor and peasant households were popular with the Dutch art collectors but the addition of the bare-breasted girl with its erotic connotations adds a typical French flavour to the depiction.

In some ways this painting is a kind of plagiarism as it is thought that although Lancret painted the girl and the still-life on the table next to her, the interior was painted by a Dutch artist much earlier.    The erotic element of the painting is not the only “Frenchness” about the work of art.  She sits there in her French silk skirt, semi-laced corset and delicate pointed slippers and she has been added by Lancret to this Dutch seventeenth-century interior.  It is not known which Dutch artist had painted the interior.  There were many art collectors  in France who paid good money for these Dutch genre scenes.  However Lancret, the master of fêtes galantes paintings, wanted to add some colourful and picturesque feminine interest into those more dark and somber Dutch paintings and, as was the case in today’s work, he is known to have embellished works by the Dutch landscape and peasant scene painter, Herman Saftleven and the Dutch Golden Age and sill-life painter, Willem Kalf.

I will leave you to ponder over whether the original Dutch interior needed the little bit of colour and bare flesh that Nicolas Lancret has given us.