Creating Distinctions in Dutch Genre Painting: Repetition and Invention 9789048532940

Table of contents :
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Key Concepts
2. A Niche of One’s Own: Gerrit Dou’s Brand-Building Project
3. The Pleasure of Novelty: Gerard ter Borch’s Innovation
4. Invention through Repetition: Imitation and Emulation in the Work of Frans van Mieris
Epilogue: On Signature Products, Knock-Offs, and Product Lines
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Creating Distinctions in Dutch Genre Painting

Visual and Material Culture, 1300–1700 A forum for innovative research on the role of images and objects in the late medieval and early modern periods, Visual and Material Culture, 1300–1700 publishes monographs and essay collections that combine rigorous investigation with critical inquiry to present new narratives on a wide range of topics, from traditional arts to seemingly ordinary things. Recognizing the fluidity of images, objects, and ideas, this series fosters cross-cultural as well as multi-disciplinary exploration. We consider proposals from across the spectrum of analytic approaches and methodologies. Series Editor Dr. Allison Levy, an art historian, has written and/or edited three scholarly books, and she has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, from the N ­ ational Endowment for the Humanities, the American Association of University Women, the Getty Research Institute, the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library of Harvard ­University, the Whiting Foundation and the Bogliasco Foundation, among others. www.allisonlevy.com.

Creating Distinctions in Dutch Genre Painting Repetition and Invention

Angela K. Ho

Amsterdam University Press

The publication was published with support from the Historians of Netherlandish Art and the Department of History and Art History at George Mason University. Cover illustration: Gerard ter Borch, The Suitor’s Visit, c. 1658. Oil on canvas, 80 × 75 cm. National Gallery of Art, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, Washington, DC. Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Newgen/Konvertus Amsterdam University Press English-language titles are distributed in the US and Canada by the University of Chicago Press. 978 94 6298 297 0 isbn 978 90 4853294 0 e-isbn doi 10.5117/9789462982970 nur 654 © A.K. Ho/ Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2017 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.

Table of Contents List of Illustrations

7

Acknowledgments15 Introduction17 1. Key Concepts

29

2. A Niche of One’s Own: Gerrit Dou’s Brand-Building Project

53

3. The Pleasure of Novelty: Gerard ter Borch’s Innovation

93

4. Invention through Repetition: Imitation and Emulation in the Work of Frans van Mieris

139

Epilogue: On Signature Products, Knock-Offs, and Product Lines

183

Notes191 Bibliography225 Index249

List of Illustrations Color Plates Plate 1. Frans van Mieris, The Duet, 1658. Oil on panel, 31.5 × 24.6 cm. Staatliches Museum, Schwerin. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY. Plate 2. Gerard ter Borch, A Lady at her Toilet, c. 1660. Oil on canvas, 76.2 × 59.7 cm. Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit. Founders Society Purchase, Eleanor Clay Ford Fund, General Membership Fund, Endowment Income Fund and Special Activities Fund/ Bridgeman Images. Plate 3. Gerard ter Borch, The Suitor’s Visit, c. 1658. Oil on canvas, 80 × 75 cm. National Gallery of Art, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, Washington, DC. Plate 4. Gerrit Dou, The Grocer’s Shop, signed and dated 1647. Oil on panel, arched top, 38.5 × 29 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Photo: Hervé Lewandowski. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY. Plate 5. Gerrit Dou, The Violin Player, signed and dated 1653. Oil on panel, arched top, 31.7 × 20.3 cm. Princely Collections, Liechtenstein. © LIECHTENSTEIN, The Princely Collections, Vaduz-Vienna/ Scala, Florence/Art Resource, NY. Plate 6. Gerrit Dou, The Violin Player, signed and dated 1665. Oil on panel, arched top, 40 × 29 cm. Gemäldegalerie, Dresden. bpk, Berlin/ Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden/Art Resource, NY. Plate 7. Gerard ter Borch, The Music Lesson, c. 1668. Oil on canvas, 86.4 × 70.2 cm. Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo. Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey. Photography Incorporated, Toledo. Plate 8. Gerard ter Borch, The Music Party, c. 1668. Oil on panel, 58.1 × 47.3 cm. Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati. Bequest of Mary M. Emery/Bridgeman Images. Plate 9. Gerard ter Borch, Gallant Conversation, c. 1654. Oil on canvas, 71 × 73 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Plate 10. Frans van Mieris, The Cloth Shop, 1660. Oil on panel, 54.5 × 42.7 cm. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY. Plate 11. Gerrit Dou, The Trumpeter, c. 1660–65. Oil on panel, 38 × 29 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

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Plate 12. Gerrit Dou, The Doctor, signed and dated 1653. Oil on panel, arched top, 49.3 × 36.6 cm. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY. Plate 13. Gerard ter Borch, The Introduction, c. 1662. Oil on canvas, 76 × 68 cm. Polesdon Lacey, National Trust, UK. Photo: Derrick E. Witty. National Trust Photo Library/Art Resource, NY. Plate 14. Frans van Mieris, The Doctor’s Visit, 1667. Oil on panel, 44.5 × 31.1 cm. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program. Plate 15. Frans van Mieris, The Family Concert, 1675. Oil on panel, 51.8 × 40.2 cm. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. Scala/Art Resource, NY. Plate 16. Frans van Mieris, The Letter Writer, 1680. Oil on panel, 25 × 19.5 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Black and White Figures Fig. 1. Fig. 2. Fig. 3. Fig. 4. Fig. 5. Fig. 6. Fig. 7. Fig. 8. Fig. 9.

Gerard ter Borch, The Concert, c. 1657. Oil on panel, 47 × 44 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY. Jan Steen, A Young Woman Playing a Harpsichord to a Young Man, c. 1659. Oil on panel, 42.3 × 33 cm. The National Gallery, London. © National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY. Johannes Vermeer, A Young Woman standing at a Virginal, c. 1670–72. Oil on canvas, 51.7 × 45.2 cm. The National Gallery, London. © National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY. Samuel van Hoogstraten, The Slippers, c. 1670. Oil on canvas, 103 × 70 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY. Willem van Haecht, The Cabinet of Cornelis van der Gheest, 1628. Oil on panel, 100 × 130 cm. Rubenshuis, Antwerp. Scala/Art Resource, NY. Gerrit van Honthorst, The Merry Fiddler, 1623. Oil on canvas, 108 × 89 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Rogier van der Weyden, Altarpiece of St. John, 1440s. Oil on panels, each 77 × 48 cm. Staatliche Museen, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. bpk, Berlin/Gemäldegalerie, Berlin/Jörg P. Anders/Art Resource, NY. Herman Doomer, Ebony chest, c. 1635–45. Ebony, mother-of-pearl inlay, 220.5 × 206 × 83.5 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Rembrandt, Still-Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl, c. 1639. Oil on canvas, 145 × 135 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

List of Illustrations

Fig. 10. Gerrit Dou, Woman Hanging a Rooster at a Window, 1650. Oil on panel, 26 × 20 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Photo: Hervé Lewandowski. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource. Fig. 11. Rembrandt, Girl at a Window, 1645. Oil on canvas, 81.6 × 66 cm. Dulwich Picture Gallery, Dulwich. © By permission of the Trustees of Dulwich Picture Gallery/Dist. RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY. Fig. 12. Rembrandt, Girl at a Window, 1651. Oil on canvas, 78 cm × 64 cm. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. © Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Sweden/Bridgeman Images. Fig. 13. Rembrandt, Agatha Bas, 1641. Oil on canvas, 105.4 × 83.9 cm. Royal Collection, London. © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2016/ Bridgeman Images. Fig. 14. Gerrit Dou, A Girl with a Basket of Fruit at a Window, c. 1657. Oil on panel, 37.5 × 29.1 cm. Waddesdon, The Rothschild Collection (The National Trust), Bequest of James de Rothschild, 1957; acc. no. 2573. Photo © The National Trust, Waddesdon Manor. Fig. 15. Gerrit Dou, Still Life with Candlestick, Pipe, and Pocketwatch, c. 1660. Oil on panel, 43 × 35.5 cm. Gemäldegalerie, Dresden. bpk, Berlin/Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden/Hans-Peter Klut/ Art Resource, NY. Fig. 16. Gerrit Dou, Still Life with Ewer, Basin and Cloth, c. 1660. Oil on two panels, each 102 × 42 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Photo: Hervé Lewandowski. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY. Fig. 17. Copy after Francois Duquesnoy, Bacchanal, 19th century. Ivory, 11.5 × 16 cm. Victoria and Albert Museum, London. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Fig. 18. Jost Amman, “Der Holzdreschser (The Turner),” from: Eygentliche Beschreibung aller Stände auff Erden … (Ständebuch), by Hans Sachs. Woodcut, Frankfurt am Main, 1568. bpk, Berlin/Art Resource, NY. Fig. 19. Gerrit Dou, The Quack, signed and dated 1652. Oil on panel, 112 × 83 cm. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. Kavaler/Art Resource, NY. Fig. 20. Gerrit Dou, The Poulterer’s Shop, c. 1665–70. Oil on panel, 58 × 46 cm. National Gallery, London. © National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY. Fig. 21. Willem Buytewech, Merry Company, c. 1622–24. Oil on canvas, 61 × 81 cm. Staatliche Museen, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. bpk, Berlin/Gemäldegalerie Berlin/Jörg P. Anders/Art Resource, NY.

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Fig. 22. Gerard ter Borch, Young people around a table drinking, smoking and making music, 1632. Pencil, pen in brown ink, 16.1 × 21.3 cm. Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Fig. 23. Gerard ter Borch, Portrait of Robert van Voerst, 1635–36. Black chalk, 22.7 × 18.2 cm. Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Fig. 24. Gerard ter Borch, Two Boys seen from the Rear, c. 1631. Black chalk, 21.3 × 16.6 cm. Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Fig. 25. Gerard ter Borch, Standing boy, seen from the rear, 1631. Black chalk, 16.5 × 9.6 cm. Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Fig. 26. Gerard ter Borch, Rider on a Rearing Horse, 1630s. Black chalk, 15 × 19.8 cm. Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Fig. 27. Gerard ter Borch, Officer, seen from behind, watching skaters, 1633–34. Pen in brown, brush in black, over black chalk, 10.1 × 15.8 cm. Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Fig. 28. Gerard ter Borch, Man, seen from behind, watching skaters, c. 1633. Pen and brush in brown, over black chalk, 11.7 × 12 cm. Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Fig. 29. Gerard ter Borch, Skaters outside the Zwolle city walls, late 1630s. Pen and brush in black, pen in brown, brush in grey, pencil, 15.1 × 29 cm. Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Fig. 30. Gerard ter Borch, Ice activities by Zijlpoort, Haarlem, 1634. Black chalk, 16.8 × 32.8 cm. Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Fig. 31. Gerard ter Borch, The Lute Player, c. 1667–70. Oil on canvas, 53 × 39 cm. Staatliche Museen, Kassel. bpk, Berlin/ Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Kassel/Art Resource, NY. Fig. 32. Gerard ter Borch, Woman Playing the Theorbo to Two Men, c. 1667. Oil on canvas, 68 × 58 cm. National Gallery, London. © National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY. Fig. 33. Gerard ter Borch, The Music Lesson, c. 1668. Oil on canvas, 67.6 × 59.4 cm. The Getty, Los Angeles. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program. Fig. 34. Gerard ter Borch, Gallant Conversation, c. 1654. Oil on canvas, 70 × 60 cm. Staatliche Museen, Gemäldegalerie Berlin. bpk, Berlin/Gemäldegalerie Berlin/Art Resource, NY. Fig. 35. Gerard ter Borch, Jan van Duren, c. 1666. Oil on canvas, 81.5 × 65.5 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Robert Lehman Collection, 1975 (1975.1.141), New York. Photograph by Schecter Lee. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

List of Illustrations

Fig. 36. Gerard ter Borch, Margaretha van Haexbergen, c. 1666. Oil on canvas, 81.3 × 65.1 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Robert Lehman Collection, 1975 (1975.1.141), New York. Photograph by Schecter Lee. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art Fig. 37. Frans Hals, Portrait of Willem van Heijthuysen, c. 1637. Oil on panel, 46.9 × 37.5 cm. Musée Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels. Scala/Art Resource, NY. Fig. 38. Dirck van Baburen, The Procuress, 1622. Oil on canvas, 101.5 × 107.6 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Photograph © 2017 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Fig. 39. Gerard ter Borch, Woman Peeling an Apple, 1660–61. Oil on canvas, 36 × 30.5 cm. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY. Fig. 40. Gerard ter Borch, Curiosity, c. 1660. Oil on canvas, 76.2 × 66.2 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The Jules Bache Collection, 1949 (49.7.38). Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fig. 41. Pieter Codde, Lady Holding a Letter seated at a Virginal, early 1630s. Oil on panel, 40.3 × 31.7 cm. Private collection, Boston. Collection RKD‐Netherlands Institute for Art History, The Hague. Fig. 42. Willem Duyster, Soldiers Fighting over Booty in a Barn, c. 1623–24. Oil on panel, 37.6 × 57 cm. National Gallery, London. © National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY. Fig. 43. Gerard ter Borch, The Gallant Officer, c. 1662. Oil on canvas, 67 × 55 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Photo: Gérard Blot. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY. Fig. 44. Nicolaes Maes, The Eavesdropper, 1656. Oil on canvas, 84.7 × 70.6 cm. The Wallace Collection, London. By kind permission of the Trustees of the Wallace Collection, London/Art Resource, NY. Fig. 45. Willem Duyster, The Tric-Trac Players, c. 1625. Oil on canvas, 31.1 × 41 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Fig. 46. Jan Steen, In Luxury, Look Out, 1663. Oil on canvas, 105 × 145 cm. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Erich Lessing/ Art Resource, NY. Fig. 47. Hendrick Goltzius, The Circumcision, c. 1594. Engraving, 50.5 × 36.8 cm. National Gallery of Art, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, Washington, DC. Fig. 48. Rembrandt, Self Portrait Leaning on a Stone Sill, 1639. Etching, 20.6 × 16.3 cm. National Gallery of Art, Rosenwald Collection, Washington, DC.

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Fig. 49. Rembrandt, Self-Portrait, 1640. Oil on canvas, 102 × 80 cm. National Gallery, London. © National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY. Fig. 50. Titian, Portrait of a Man, c. 1508–11. Oil on canvas, 81 × 66 cm. National Gallery, London. © National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY. Fig. 51. Frans van Mieris, Self-Portrait, 1667. Oil on panel, 17.7 × 13.3 cm. Polesden Lacey, National Trust Estate, UK National Trust Photo Library/Art Resource, NY. Fig. 52. Gerrit Dou, “Dropsical Woman”, c. 1663. Oil on panel, 86 × 67.8 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY. Fig. 53. Caspar Netscher, A Young Woman Feeding a Parrot, 1666. Oil on panel, 45.7 × 36.2 cm. National Gallery of Art, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, Washington, DC. Fig. 54. Frans van Mieris, A Woman Feeding a Parrot, c. 1663. Oil on copper, 22.5 × 17.3 cm. National Gallery, London. © National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY. Fig. 55. Frans van Mieris, A Woman Feeding a Parrot, c. 1663. Oil on panel, 22.5 × 17.5 cm. Private collection, UK. Collection RKD‐Netherlands Institute for Art History, The Hague. Fig. 56. Jacob Ochtervelt, Musical Company in an Interior, c. 1670. Oil on canvas, 58.5 × 48.9 cm. Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund/Bridgeman Images. Fig. 57. Matthijs Naiveu, Boy and Girl Blowing Soap Bubbles, c. 1700. Oil on canvas, 50 × 42 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Photograph © 2017 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Fig. 58. Frans van Mieris, Boy Blowing Bubbles, 1663. Oil on panel, 26 × 19 cm. Mauritshuis, The Hague. Scala/Art Resource, NY. Fig. 59. Matthijs Naiveu, Newborn Baby, 1675. Oil on canvas, 64 × 80 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Purchase, 1871 (71.160). Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fig. 60. Gabriel Metsu, The Visit to the Nursery, 1661. Oil on canvas, 78 × 81 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fig. 61. Godfried Schalcken, A Girl Reading a Letter. Oil on panel, 27 × 20.5 cm. Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden. bpk, Berlin/ Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden/Elke Estel, Hans-Peter Klut/Art Resource, NY. Fig. 62. Frans van Mieris, A Woman Tuning a Lute, c. 1680. Oil on panel, 21 × 17.5 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

List of Illustrations

Fig. 63. Frans van Mieris, The Serenade, c. 1678–80. Oil on panel, arched top, 14.6 × 11.1 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Bequest of Lillian S. Timken, 1959 (60.71.3). Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fig. 64. Gerard ter Borch, The Letter Writer, c. 1655. Oil on panel, 39 × 29.5 cm. Mauritshuis, The Hague. Kavaler/Art Resource, NY. Fig. 65. Dominicus van Tol, Woman in a Window, Holding a Dead Fowl. Oil on panel, 41.6 × 30.2 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Photograph © 2017 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

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Plate 1. Frans van Mieris, The Duet, 1658. Oil on panel, 31.5 × 24.6 cm. Staatliches Museum, Schwerin. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

Plate 2. Gerard ter Borch, A Lady at her Toilet, c. 1660. Oil on canvas, 76.2 × 59.7 cm. Detroit Institute of Arts, ­Detroit. Founders Society Purchase, Eleanor Clay Ford Fund, General Membership Fund, Endowment Income Fund and Special Activities Fund/Bridgeman Images.

Plate 3. Gerard ter Borch, The Suitor’s Visit, c. 1658. Oil on canvas, 80 × 75 cm. National Gallery of Art, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, Washington, DC.

Plate 4. Gerrit Dou, The Grocer’s Shop, signed and dated 1647. Oil on panel, arched top, 38.5 × 29 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Photo: Hervé Lewandowski. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY.

Plate 5. Gerrit Dou, The Violin Player, signed and dated 1653. Oil on panel, arched top, 31.7 × 20.3 cm. Princely Collections, Liechtenstein. © LIECHTENSTEIN, The Princely Collections, Vaduz-Vienna/Scala, Florence/Art Resource, NY.

Plate 6. Gerrit Dou, The Violin Player, signed and dated 1665. Oil on panel, arched top, 40 × 29 cm. ­Gemäldegalerie, Dresden. bpk, Berlin/Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden/Art Resource, NY.

Plate 7. Gerard ter Borch, The Music Lesson, c. 1668. Oil on canvas, 86.4 × 70.2 cm. Toledo Museum of Art, ­Toledo. ­Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey. Photography ­Incorporated, Toledo.

Plate 8. Gerard ter Borch, The Music Party, c. 1668. Oil on panel, 58.1 × 47.3 cm. Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati. Bequest of Mary M. Emery/Bridgeman Images.

Plate 9. Gerard ter Borch, Gallant Conversation, c. 1654. Oil on canvas, 71 × 73 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Plate 10. Frans van Mieris, The Cloth Shop, 1660. Oil on panel, 54.5 × 42.7 cm. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

Plate 11. Gerrit Dou, The Trumpeter, c. 1660–65. Oil on panel, 38 × 29 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Erich Lessing/ Art Resource, NY.

Plate 12. Gerrit Dou, The Doctor, signed and dated 1653. Oil on panel, arched top, 49.3 × 36.6 cm. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

Plate 13. Gerard ter Borch, The Introduction, c. 1662. Oil on canvas, 76 × 68 cm. Polesdon Lacey, National Trust, UK. Photo: Derrick E. Witty. National Trust Photo Library/Art Resource, NY.

Plate 14. Frans van Mieris, The Doctor’s Visit, 1667. Oil on panel, 44.5 × 31.1 cm. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

Plate 15. Frans van Mieris, The Family Concert, 1675. Oil on panel, 51.8 × 40.2 cm. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. Scala/Art Resource, NY.

Plate 16. Frans van Mieris, The Letter Writer, 1680. Oil on panel, 25 × 19.5 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Acknowledgments I have benefited from the generosity of many individuals and organizations over years of research and writing for this project. I would like to begin by acknowledging the institutions that offered financial assistance during this long process. The dissertation stage was funded by a Rackham Merit Fellowship from the University of Michigan and the Robert H. and Clarice Smith Fellowship from the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. At George Mason University, the Study Leave for Tenure-Track Faculty program and the Mathy Junior Faculty Award in the Arts and Humanities provided two semesters of much needed research leave for developing the dissertation into this book. Summer Research Funding for Tenure-Track Faculty and an Alan and Gwen Nelson Travel Grant enabled me to conduct additional research in Dutch archives and libraries. A Historians of Netherlandish Art Fellowship provided financial support for the production of this book. I would also like to thank the Department of History and Art History at George Mason for granting me funds to defray the costs of obtaining images and copyright licenses. I would like to thank the curators of the many museums in Europe and the US who made it possible for me to study the paintings in their collections and consult their curatorial files. In particular, I thank Arthur Wheelock, Marjorie Wieseman, and the late Walter Liedtke for sharing their insights during my visits to their museums in the early phases of my research, and Dominique Surh at the Leiden Gallery for her help in the final stages of the project. I would like to express my appreciation to the librarians and staffs ­ unstgeschiedenis, the of the following institutions: the RKD Nederlands Instituut voor K Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the Rijksmuseum Library, the Stadsarchief Amsterdam, the Special Collections at the University of Amsterdam Library, the University of Michigan Fine Arts Library, and the Fenwick Library at George Mason University. I am grateful to the scholars in the US and the Netherlands who shared their knowledge on various aspects of my project. I thank Eric Jan Sluijter, Marten Jan Bok, and Elmer Kolfin for the opportunity to participate in the graduate discussion group in Amsterdam in the early stages of my project. For their encouragement and interest in my work, I would like to thank Kevin Carr, Wayne Franits, Elaine Gazda, Dorothy Metzger Habel, Alison Kettering, Diane Owen Hughes, Helmut Puff, Lisa Rosenthal, and Elizabeth Sears. For their friendship and support, I thank Heather Badamo, H ­ eidi Gearhart, Katie Hornstein, Monica Huerta, Timothy McCall, Sean Roberts, Olivia Poska, and Noël Schiller. Several individuals helped me negotiate the intense final stages of preparing the book manuscript for publication. Special thanks are due to Diana Bullen Presciutti, Kirsten Olds, and Heather Vinson for poring over much of the text and offering imaginative suggestions and practical advice, as well as years of friendship. My colleagues at the History and Art History Department at George Mason University have

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CREATING DISTINC TIONS IN DUTCH GENRE PAINTING

been a great source of support and inspiration. In particular, I am grateful to ­Robert ­DeCaroli, Michele Greet, and Ellen Todd for reading and commenting on various chapters of the manuscript, and to Lawrence Butler, Sheila ffolliott, Carol Mattusch, Paula Petrik, Brian Platt, and Jennifer van Horn for their advice on the publication process. I would also like to thank Erika Gaffney at Amsterdam University Press for her support and guidance, and the anonymous reader for the many helpful suggestions on improving the manuscript. I am fortunate to have had generous mentors over the years. I thank Zirka ­Filipczak, who first sparked my interest in early modern Netherlandish art, and Megan Holmes and Pat Simons, who challenged me to question my assumptions and step out of my comfort zone. I am especially grateful to Celeste Brusati, my dissertation advisor, who encouraged me to develop a project that somehow fused my interests in art making and economic theory. Finally, I want to thank my family. I am grateful to my parents for understanding and supporting my decision to pursue an academic career far from home, and to my sister, my brother-in-law, and my big extended family for cheering me on. This book is dedicated to the memory of my aunt, Betty Ho, an inspiring scholar and teacher.

Introduction When the art collection of Adriaan Bout, agent of the Elector Palatine Johann Wilhelm, was auctioned in 1733, the painting that fetched the highest price was The Duet (Plate 1; 1658) by Frans van Mieris the Elder. At 3,000 guilders, it was almost seven times the price of Rembrandt’s Song of Simeon, which had once belonged to Stadhouder Frederik Hendrik.1 The Duet, completed early in Van Mieris’s career, already shows the qualities that would make him one of the most famous Dutch painters of his age. With his characteristically polished manner of painting, Van Mieris puts his stamp on a pictorial type—music making by elegant figures in a refined domestic space—that today has become almost synonymous with Dutch genre painting from the second half of the seventeenth century. Working within a familiar pictorial idiom, Van Mieris nevertheless asserts his personal artistic identity through a stylized elegance and vivid, lifelike details in this painting. As such, it exemplifies the pictorial phenomenon at the center of this study: the creation of distinctions through purposeful repetition. With The Duet, Van Mieris participated in an exchange among artists who were experimenting in the so-called high-life genre painting in the third quarter of the seventeenth century. In the early 1650s Gerard ter Borch introduced compositions representing encounters between upper-class figures that were distinct in appearance and tone from the merry companies produced in the previous generation. Shortly thereafter artists including Pieter de Hooch, Gabriel Metsu, Jan Steen, and Van Mieris produced adaptations of Ter Borch’s novel pictorial type. The Duet, for example, bears a resemblance to Ter Borch’s paintings in the tone of the scene and the figural types.2 In this painting, Van Mieris has limited the number of figures and arranged them in a compact pyramid, with the striking young woman at the apex, in the center of the painting. The slight tilt of her head to the right accentuates her long neck and sloping shoulders, her figure forming an elegant S-curve as she leans back from the harpsichord. Music was a common pictorial metaphor for love and harmony, yet here Van Mieris, again in a way similar to Ter Borch in his courtship pictures, offers a restrained interpretation of the amorous theme. None of Van Mieris’s figures make eye contact with each other or the viewer, with the music-making couple focusing their gaze on the sheet music, and the young servant giving his full attention to the tray in his hands. Despite the similarities, Van Mieris accentuates his authorship in this picture by introducing features that distinguish his work from Ter Borch’s. Scholars have identified the seated female figure and the young boy serving a drink in Ter Borch’s Concert (Fig. 1) as models for the corresponding elements in Van Mieris’s Duet. Ter Borch demonstrates his celebrated ability to render finely clad human figures in this picture. He carefully differentiates the various fabrics—from the woven carpet to the

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Creating Distinctions in Dutch Genre Painting

Fig. 1. Gerard ter Borch, The Concert, c. 1657. Oil on panel, 47 × 44 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

shiny satin skirt—and captures the graceful actions and gestures of the young women. The backdrop, which consists of a dark patterned bed curtain, is summarily treated, further focusing the viewer’s attention on the brightly illuminated music-making scene in the foreground. By contast, Van Mieris brings almost the entire picture to a high level of finish. He does devote much attention to the figures, painstakingly differentiating the play of light over the delicate hair and bared shoulder of the young woman from the sheen of the orange satin dress and gold embroidery, but he meticulously describes the surrounding objects as well. For example, the curling page of music is given a palpable sense of texture, while the decorations on the harpsichord are rendered with such fastidious care that scholars have been able to connect the

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inscribed name to known harpsichord makers in Antwerp.3 The insistence on capturing the smallest detail recalls the work of Gerrit Dou, Van Mieris’s famous teacher in Leiden. Van Mieris imagines light streaming in from an unseen source on the left, a feature that may have been inspired by an exchange with the Delft artists Pieter de Hooch and Carel Fabritius.4 Another element that recalls Delft paintings is the opening to a secondary space on the right, even though the ascending staircase has not been constructed with the same mathematical accuracy found in the works of De Hooch or Gerrit Houckgeest. Van Mieris, here at the beginning of his career, was therefore appropriating and fusing thematic and technical elements from various sources in mid-century Dutch genre painting to create his own distinctive treatment of a familiar subject. The Duet has in turn been regarded as the inspiration for Jan Steen’s Young Woman Playing a Harpsichord to a Young Man (c. 1659; Fig. 2) and Vermeer’s Young Woman standing at a Virginal (c. 1670–72; Fig. 3), both in London. Indeed, a dialogue developed among artists in different locations in the 1650s and 1660s, as ideas in composition, brushwork, and narrative are adopted from, assimilated by, and transformed among painters specializing in refined genre painting. Each artist also creatively redeployed motifs and techniques he himself developed in order to generate innovative compositions. These acts of borrowing and reusing pictorial elements are not just indicative of the conventional nature of Dutch art or mechanical attempts to facilitate ­production—as they have often been characterized in the art historical ­literature—but of efforts to create difference through the reworking of stock themes and motifs. The patterns of collecting reveal that the viewers in the most privileged segment of the Dutch art market were cognizant of the artists’ purposeful acts of repetition, and they were moreover interested in creating juxtapositions between diverse interpretations of common themes and motifs in their collections. Inventories and auction catalogues indicate that substantial collections of paintings in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century often featured pictures of similar subjects by different artists. For instance, along with The Duet, Bout’s collection included works by ­painters—including the Leiden fijnschilders (“fine painters”)5 Dou, ­Carel de Moor, and Pieter Slingelandt, as well as Ter Borch, Gabriel Metsu, and Caspar ­Netscher—who were known for their detailed and polished renderings.6 Bout was not an isolated example; other wealthy art enthusiasts had pictures that were related in theme and technique in their collections. Moreover, contemporary testimonies, including artists’ biographies and travelers’ journals, suggest that the purchase of a painting in the top layer of the Dutch market was often not simply an isolated, impersonal business transaction, but could involve social interactions between artist and client. A collector could forge a sustained relationship with an artist s/he admired, buying several paintings from him and introducing him to other art lovers. For example, Franciscus de le Boe Sylvius, who assembled an impressive collection

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Creating Distinctions in Dutch Genre Painting

Fig. 2. Jan Steen, A Young Woman Playing a Harpsichord to a Young Man, c. 1659. Oil on panel, 42.3 × 33 cm. The National Gallery, London. © National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY.

that contained eleven works by Dou and six by Van Mieris, was described in contemporary sources as not only a customer but also a supporter of Van Mieris.7 I therefore propose that artists in this market segment were well aware of viewers’ preferences for this sophisticated interplay between familiarity and difference and could develop strategies not just to meet their demand but to shape collectors’ preferences.

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Fig. 3. Johannes Vermeer, A Young Woman standing at a Virginal, c. 1670–72. Oil on canvas, 51.7 × 45.2 cm. The National Gallery, London. © National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY.

In order to study this interdependence between production and reception in greater specificity, this book focuses on the practices of three genre painters: Dou, Ter Borch, and Van Mieris. Not only were they already famous in their own time,8 all three have also been seen as innovators in the history of genre painting. The third quarter of the seventeenth century saw the emergence of new stylistic traits and subject matter in Dutch genre painting. Technically, there was a growing preference for polished finishes and astonishing feats of illusionism, an area in which Dou reached new heights. His

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meticulous rendering of lifelike details on a miniature scale attracted the admiration of collectors and authors, who considered him the founder of the Leiden school of fijnschilders. In terms of imagery, paintings featuring elegant figures in well-­appointed spaces became increasingly popular. Such depictions of upper-class life draw from earlier merry company paintings by Haarlem artists and the musical companies by Pieter Codde and Willem Duyster, but there was a novel emphasis on introspection and narrative ambiguity in the works produced after 1648. Ter Borch has long been regarded as a pivotal artist in developing and popularizing such refined—and sometimes ­puzzling—scenes of courtship and domesticity in patrician settings. As pioneers of the innovative genre paintings in the middle of the century, Dou and Ter Borch each accentuated his novelty and distinctive character by developing personal motifs that highlighted his own expertise. Dou’s niche window, which frames many of his genre scenes, not only provides an easily recognizable trademark feature, but it also underscores the illusionistic effects generated through his unique “fine” manner of painting. Ter Borch, meanwhile, draws attention to his virtuosity by repeating the skillful execution of the satin dress. In each case, the recurring motif became linked to a strong sense of artistic identity, craftsmanship, and innovation. The thematic and technical innovations of Dou and Ter Borch would shape the development of Dutch genre painting in the second half of the seventeenth century and beyond. Van Mieris, who studied with Dou, was one of the artists who drew inspiration from the two older masters to create his own unique brand of genre painting, in the process achieving extraordinary commercial success and critical acclaim. Indeed, his work became a touchstone as genre imagery reached a heightened sense of luxury in the 1670s and 1680s. Writing in the early eighteenth century, Gerard de Lairesse praised Van Mieris’s success at renewing Dutch art in accordance with classicizing principles. To De Lairesse, Van Mieris had surpassed even Dou in elevating genre painting to a new elegance. What is also interesting about Van Mieris is the shift in his manner from the delicate brushwork of the 1650s to the stylized rendering in his late works. His use of a common stock of motifs—musical parties, young women performing various activities in well-appointed interiors—helped to underscore Van Mieris’s distinctive manner of painting in comparison to the techniques exhibited by his contemporaries and in his own previous creations. For Dou, Ter Borch, and Van Mieris, innovation was thus inextricably linked to creative repetition, both in the development of idiosyncratic motifs and the practice of emulation. The attraction of their simultaneously novel and familiar images to art enthusiasts, as we shall see, opens up questions about the ways in which paintings were assessed and valued, as well as the role they played in social negotiations among the Dutch elite. This book takes a multidisciplinary approach to scrutinizing the interdependent processes of artistic invention, art collecting, and social negotiation. The first task is to use the art historians’ tools to study how artists appropriated from others

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or themselves while creating difference in the process. I look at the motifs an artist chose to repeat and the possible meanings conveyed through those features. For example, Ter Borch’s artistic persona was—and is—very much tied to his unrivaled ability to simulate the reflective quality of satin. Apart from being a striking visual feature, the satin dress also asserts Ter Borch’s expertise in describing the effects of light, which is discussed as a fundamental painterly skill by Van Mander.9 Yet despite the impression of realism, it is clear that Ter Borch sometimes reproduces the identical skirt in several paintings, which suggests that he reuses the same detailed studies. At the same time, results of technical examinations support what we can observe with the naked eye: Ter Borch builds up the vivid image of satin in several paint layers, using a variety of brushstrokes to achieve a high degree of verisimilitude.10 Even if Ter Borch or his assistants traced the contours of the skirt onto multiple painting supports, the rendering of the material would have still required considerable skill and time, making efficiency an unlikely reason for the repetition of such a complex motif. While it may be argued that depicting the same or similar motifs more than once could eventually simplify the task, the artist still had to solve another problem. We know from writings on connoisseurship in the period that replicas, even those by the same artist, were seen as lacking the spontaneity and grace of the original.11 The repetition of an artistic performance, such as the skirts in the Detroit Lady at her Toilet (Plate 2) and the Washington Suitor’s Visit (Plate 3), without allowing the subsequent renditions to appear inferior represented a challenge in itself. The material and technical aspects of the paintings, as well as the contemporary discourse on painting, thus suggest the reuse of specific motifs in certain segments of the Dutch art world to be purposeful rather than merely expeditious. My second major task is to establish the conditions in which the historical viewers received these paintings. Dou, Ter Borch, and Van Mieris operated in circles where the authorship of a work of art was a key factor in determining its value, and developing signature motifs was one way for each artist to emphasize his hand in the creation of a picture. It should be noted that not every segment of the Dutch art market placed such an emphasis on the identity of the maker of a painting. There is evidence, for example, that some dealers actively suppressed the individuality of the painters in their employ as they offered low-cost products to consumers with lower levels of disposable income.12 So it is worth asking under what circumstances viewers would value paintings that were readily recognizable as the works of named masters. To complicate matters further, other artists targeting the same audience cited the works of Ter Borch, Dou, and Van Mieris while endeavoring to build their own reputations. The qualities of individuality and uniqueness were thus defined in relation to famous precedents. To understand the conditions under which a premium was placed on this particular form of invention, it is necessary to consider the purposes that paintings served in the viewers’ social and cultural milieu.

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It has been well established that there was a surge in demand for, and production of, paintings from the turn of the seventeenth century to the 1650s. Art historians have pointed to the economic boom following the Dutch Revolt and the arrival of migrants from the southern Netherlands as driving forces behind the growth of the art market, but the interesting question of why the affluent gravitated towards particular kinds of luxury goods still remains. It may not be feasible to pinpoint the personal motives of an individual buyer in purchasing a painting, but it is possible to understand what buying and displaying paintings meant in particular social circles. We can make inferences from contemporary treatises on paintings and connoisseurship, personal correspondence, and probate inventories about the acquisition of pictures as a meaningful act. Just as Dutch artists sought to carve out niches in a variegated art market by devising distinguishing features in their work, their target customers strove to create an identity of their own: one of wealth, knowledge, and discernment that would separate them from other social groups. Factors in different areas of Dutch life, including the newly formed political system that left the power in the hands of wealthy commoners, the spectacular rise of the economy and relatively high degree of social mobility, an artistic tradition that valued craftsmanship, and the culture of collecting, all combined to produce the conditions that made projecting the identity of an ­ ouglas art lover, or liefhebber, an effective means of social negotiation. As Mary D and Baron Isherwood have argued, consumer goods (including paintings) are carriers of constantly shifting meanings, and one way in which a culture can “pin down meanings so that they can stay still for a little time” is the ritualized manipulation of material possessions.13 Viewing and discussing a highly prized painting by a renowned master in a private collection was just such a ritual through which meanings and identities could be established and projected. This is not just a matter of finding pieces of information that one particular painting conveys about its owner (e.g., wealth because of its cost, or piety through its religious subject), but it entails analyzing how collectors engage with or exclude others from their circles through their patterns of consumption. Finally, I draw on recent theories of the economics of information and consumer behavior to consider the ways in which the development of the art market as a whole, with its interlocking segments, might create pressures on the most privileged consumer group. This relatively new area of research in economics goes beyond traditional concepts such as utility and price to examine the signaling function of consumption.14 Economic and sociological studies have shown that the widening distribution of a specific product diminishes its ability to signal distinction.15 As the market for standardized, finished paintings grew in the seventeenth century and the works became affordable to a broader range of consumers, simply possessing some paintings no longer distinguished the owner as a person of means and discernment. We need not assume that consumers consciously displayed their status to others;

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indeed, some economists have argued that individuals could derive satisfaction from the knowledge that they possessed the characteristics of a certain desired identity.16 Regardless of whether the image of a liefhebber was externally or internally directed, the individual’s project of identity construction was executed in a social context. Even though this book focuses on artists and collectors at the top of the socioeconomic hierarchy, the various segments of the market were interconnected. For instance, the wealthy and knowledgeable consumers served as trendsetters for the middling and lower strata of the market. Just as importantly, however, the growth in the demand for cheap paintings could have driven the connoisseur’s search for novelty and ever finer demonstrations of skill. In the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic, the pressure to justify one’s inclusion in the upper echelons of society was a crucial factor in the emergence of the demand for not only paintings that allowed collectors to express their wealth and taste, but also for innovations. The following chapters will explore how, at the top end of the Dutch art market, the artists’ interests in constructing an authorial identity converged with the viewers’ efforts to claim membership in the cultural elite. The first chapter expounds on three key terms in my analytical framework: creative repetition, liefhebber, and taste. Repetition can result from a variety of practices, ranging from literal copying to thoughtful and competitive engagement with one’s sources; this book analyzes those that generated difference and contributed to the projection of an artist’s creative persona. These strategic and innovative uses of repetitive imagery were designed to appeal to individuals who identified as liefhebbers, a role clearly associated with wealth, but also with interest and knowledge in the arts and sciences of the period. The category of liefhebber enabled individuals of disparate backgrounds, including rich merchants, well-off intellectuals, and foreign princes, to interact in a network forged through shared cultural interests. The liefhebber was not a role defined by birth, hence individuals had to justify their designation as such through the display of taste. This meant demonstrating that they were knowledgeable about the preferences and patterns of purchases by other members of the group. Since those aspiring to join their ranks could learn to develop similar preferences, liefhebbers had to regularly redefine their tastes. This chapter considers how the constant need to assert one’s cultural pedigree and the inherent instability of taste emerged in the Dutch Republic, and how those factors shaped the demand for paintings that combined familiarity and novelty. An art enthusiast performed his identity as liefhebber in a specific physical setting, namely, an art collection. Chapter Two investigates how one particular painter, Dou, exploits that visual environment by developing his signature “niche picture.” In a prestigious collector’s cabinet, where a large number of paintings and precious objects competed for the viewer’s attention, such a “trademark” element as the niche window helped knowledgeable viewers to establish Dou as the maker of the work. Yet I argue that the window was much more than a simple identifier. Used in religious

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Creating Distinctions in Dutch Genre Painting

paintings and trompe l’oeil images, the window establishes the framed scenes as removed from the quotidian world, even as it simultaneously provides a visual bridge between the two realms. This chapter examines how the window, through its association with those genres, underscored Dou’s celebrated ability to create a fictive world that nonetheless appears persuasive. Dou’s reuse of the distinctive compositional format also took into account the social custom among liefhebbers of visiting renowned collections, inviting them to recollect and compare his works in different locations. The subtle variations around a pictorial theme thus served two interrelated functions: they provided the occasion for viewers to assert their role as liefhebbers, and formed a sustained commentary on Dou’s superlative skills. Chapter Three explores the intersections between innovation and repetition in the work of Gerard ter Borch. Ter Borch’s genteel genre scenes have been regarded in the existing scholarship as reflections of the growing prosperity enjoyed by Dutch burghers in the mid-seventeenth century. My study treats these paintings not just as portrayals (even idealized ones) of patrician life, but as novel genre scenes that exuded elegance but subverted seventeenth-century viewers’ expectations. The concept of “product innovation” provides an analytical tool for considering the production and reception of these works. John Michael Montias defines product innovation as a new product with characteristics that distinguish it from the existing items on the market, but I propose that the concept can actually offer ways to analyze innovative behavior beyond the consideration of the quantifiable factors of profits and costs. I suggest that Ter Borch creates novelty in his paintings by appropriating stock figures from pictorial subjects already familiar to the seventeenth-century viewer, such as the guardroom scene, the bordello picture, and the merry company. The figures are arranged in unusual configurations, however, creating a tantalizing sense of enigma. Meanwhile, Ter Borch’s signature motif of the shimmering satin skirt, repeated with consummate skill, puts his personal stamp on the innovation. His paintings tested liefhebbers’ ability to identify the associations, and at the same time appealed to them as refined works of artifice. The chapter thus examines how the commercial drive for innovation, the agency of the paintings as they helped affluent citizens perform as liefhebbers, and Ter Borch’s artistic process intersected in the artist’s novel creations. With Frans van Mieris the Elder as a case study, the fourth chapter shifts the focus from an artist’s creative use of self-repetition to repetition in the form of imitation and emulation. According to the contemporary discourse of artistic invention, Van Mieris was practicing a sophisticated and reflexive form of imitation, exercising his judgement in selecting and combining elements from Dou and Ter Borch, among others. Van Mieris’s process can tell us much about the complex and changing concepts of invention and originality in early modern Dutch art. It also asks us to consider the historical conditions that made emulation the paradigmatic mode of invention. Working from around 1660 to 1680, Van Mieris’s career coincided with tumultuous

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changes in the economy and the art market. Political and economic crises exacerbated the problem of a saturated market, leading to a collapse of the demand for less expensive paintings. Artists who remained in the profession had to compete for the attention of the wealthiest and most discriminating of liefhebbers. By combining allusions to popular pictorial themes with his own distinctive techniques, Van Mieris invited the informed historical viewer to compare his work to those by his predecessors and his peers. This chapter argues that imitation and citations underlined the uniqueness and value of Van Mieris’s inventions in this rarefied cultural milieu. This study thus explores the symbiotic relationship between collectors’ demand for innovation and the painters’ competitive endeavors in the art market, which made creative repetition a strategy that served the interests of both groups. My investigation into the creation of distinctions in genre paintings brings out larger thematic questions—such as the significance of cultural consumption and social negotiation, the fraught relationship between imitation and invention, and the market as a network of forces that its constituents tried to shape—which I address through the three case studies. In the next chapter we turn to the conceptual tools needed for analyzing how painting played a role in mediating social relations between the various participants in the rituals of collecting and viewing of art.

1.

Key Concepts

Gerrit Dou’s Grocer’s Shop (1647; Plate 4) was a novel painting in more ways than one. An interior shop, unlike an outdoor market, was an uncommon pictorial subject in the mid-seventeenth century. The arched masonry window that frames the complex and carefully constructed composition was likewise an unusual device in genre painting before it became a distinctive element in Dou’s oeuvre. A strong focused light leads our attention to the standing matronly woman, who is placing grains of pepper onto the balance, and the young maid, who is the other party to the transaction. In the lower left corner, an older woman sits counting coins. Finally, behind the maid is a diminutive male figure who stands near the vanishing point of the oblique perspectival system of the picture. While Dou displays his descriptive artistry in the detailed rendering of individual objects, there is a heightened sense of artifice in the scene. Light emanating from an unseen source within the architectural space selectively illuminates the figures while leaving the surrounding objects in shadows. The pictorial space also looks contrived, as the sides of the table in the center recede sharply to the left, creating an accelerated sense of recession into depth. The line of figures on the left blocks the beholder’s view to the back wall and, moreover, the relative sizes of the figures do not completely agree with the perspectival construction established by the foreshortened table. For example, it is unclear where the young man, who has been identified by some as a peculiar self-portrait of Dou, is situated in relation to the young maid or the long table. Dou’s interpretation of the novel subject of a shop, as Elizabeth Honig has pointed out, constitutes a witty commentary on practices in a changing commercial world. Various elements, such as the pepper on the pan of a balance, the butter on the table, and the coins being counted, refer to Dutch commonplaces about value and judgement.1 The combination of the innovative subject and formal experimentation ultimately draws attention to Dou’s technical expertise and witty use of verbal commonplaces. The Grocer’s Shop is an early example of Dou’s so-called “niche pictures”, which present a figural scene to the beholder through a niche window. The Violin Player (Plate 5), completed a few years later in 1653, further accentuates the play with scale and chiaroscuro. The figure of the violinist is pushed into a shallow foreground; indeed his upper body leans out beyond the face of the window. Behind him, at an indeterminate distance, is a much smaller, shadowy figure who is grinding pigment. Dou has eliminated the orthogonals provided by the table in The Grocer’s Shop, and instead rendered the spatial disjunction between the foreground and background even more pronounced in The Violin Player. The abrupt transition between the two zones is heightened by the contrast between the evenly lit foreground and the dark interior scene. Just like The Grocer’s Shop, the later panel celebrates the painter’s

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supreme craftsmanship, this time through the paragone with music. The imagery of the painting suggests that while the violinist fools the bird in the cage with music, Dou’s lifelike depiction could deceive the human spectator.2 The Grocer’s Shop and The Violin Player thus address similar themes—the artifice of the art of painting and Dou’s mastery of his craft—but each in distinctive iconographic and technical ways. Yet despite the differences, the common niche format thematizes one further cohesive element in the works: the authorship of Dou. These unique but clearly related paintings serve as a point of departure for exploring issues central to this book. This niche picture format, while novel for genre paintings at the time, nevertheless drew from a number of Netherlandish pictorial sources, including religious paintings from the fifteenth century, genre prints from the sixteenth, and a more immediate precedent: Dou’s master, Rembrandt. We find a similar process of appropriation and transformation at work in Gerard ter Borch’s paintings in the same period, as they feature stock components derived from disparate models that were arranged into familiar yet subtly different variations. How specific types of recognizable repetition underscored difference and uniqueness—and therefore proved to be winning artistic strategies—is the focus of this book. This chapter discusses three terms central to this study—creative repetition, liefhebber, and taste. I am less concerned with giving them fixed definitions, however, than with exploring how historical conditions of artistic production and reception molded their meanings. Moreover, acts of artistic repetition, the cultivation of the persona of liefhebber, and the display of taste are interlinked in the complex negotiations taking place within the upper echelons of seventeenth-century Dutch society. In the fluid social order of the young Republic, where roles and relations were still contested, artists and collectors alike had the obligation—and opportunity—to project cultural identities, a process in which the creation and consumption of art played a crucial part. An examination of the historical conditions will help elucidate the cultural and social significance of these repetitive and expensive paintings for a discerning audience.

Repetition and the Creation of Difference This book explores how the creation of novelty within familiar material became a valued form of invention for artists and Dutch upper-class viewers. In the following pages I will demonstrate that Dutch genre painters sought to solidify a sense of individuality through reiterations and citations. By investigating the value attributed to a unique creative identity, I hope to open up broader questions about cultural practices, social negotiations, and the role paintings played within them. My work enters into dialogue with, but also departs from, several studies that have sought to contextualize the recurrence of stock elements in Dutch genre paintings. These recent

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discussions have taken two main approaches, both of which refer to the influence of economic forces and rely on certain assumptions about the nature of consumer demand. The first approach places the generation of formulaic imagery in the context of an expanding mass market for finished paintings. Economic historians argue that this market had grown to such a scale that individual artists could not influence the prices of pictures or the overall volume of production.3 According to the standard supply-and-demand model used to predict optimal output and price levels, artists survived and thrived in these conditions by offering their paintings at lower prices to attract customers. To avoid cutting into their profit margins, however, painters had to devise economizing measures, such as specializing in specific genres and standardizing the formats, sizes, and subjects of paintings. Such strategies would expedite production, but they often resulted in paintings that featured the same, or at least similar, elements and compositions. While this might be a reasonable description of the lower or middle levels of the Dutch art market, it is less applicable to the practices of an artist like Van Mieris, who could sell a single painting for more than a master artisan’s yearly salary.4 The supply-and-demand model used to describe an anonymous market aims at determining the equilibrium levels of prices and production volume of a particular commodity, and as such it is based on the assumption that individual units were interchangeable. It therefore does not adequately account for the desire for novelty, aesthetic appeal, and other factors that mattered most to the admirers of Dou, Van Mieris, and Ter Borch.5 Indeed, the behavior of those artists and their customers seemed to run counter to the predictions of this model. In contrast to the anonymity of participants posited as necessary for an open market, the reputation of the artist—and even the reputation of other collectors who owned paintings by those artists—became an increasingly important consideration for collectors in the course of the seventeenth century. Even though the products belonged to the generic category of “paintings”, the works of prominent painters were clearly treated as distinctive creations. Meanwhile, instead of increasing production and lowering prices, Dou and Van Mieris restricted their output and received generous remuneration for their time-consuming work. Ter Borch, whose prices were not quite as high, nevertheless made exquisite craftsmanship his main selling point. The second explanation of Dutch genre painters’ adherence to familiar thematic and visual tropes acknowledges the importance of commercial considerations but also takes into account the historically specific definition of invention. Drawing from contemporary discourses on imitation and invention, these art historians highlight the conventional nature of Dutch art in the seventeenth century. Wayne Franits explains that conventionality “refers not only to the repetition of specific styles and motifs but especially to the restricted number of themes that artists depicted, ones that were used continually, often over several generations.”6 Franits rightly points out

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that the conventional nature of the images belies the assumption of the realism of Dutch painting, arguing that for genre painters, the conservatism of early modern culture accounted for the artists’ propensity to adhere to a repertoire of accepted forms. Painters had to respond to the demands of contemporary consumers, who “had strong affinities for that which was familiar.”7 Perhaps more importantly, artists were working within a culture that regarded invention as a process that built on tradition. Radical breaks from the past were neither expected nor valued.8 Scholars who take this approach recognize that well-known and well-paid painters were not simply preoccupied with efficiency. Instead, they characterize the exchange of expensive paintings as commissions that took place outside the art market proper, and which therefore did not follow the rules of a competitive mass market.9 These expensive works were, however, still made for patrons whose tastes tended toward conservatism. This argument has the virtue of historicizing artistic practice and reception; that is, it does not impose modernist ideas of originality onto the seventeenth century. Yet I would argue that it does not yield a complete account of the practices of artists like Dou and Van Mieris. Separating seventeenth-century transactions under two opposing categories of “market” and “patronage” obscures the complex processes of negotiations between artists and buyers in the period. Instead, the Dutch art market encompasses the trade in paintings through a variety of methods and at a range of price points. Examining how an unusually expensive painting was completed and acquired can help us gain a fuller understanding of the artists’ creative strategies.10 I suggest that in this segment of the art market, consumer preference was defined not only in relation to particular kinds of subjects or styles but also to a demand for novelty—technical and/or thematic—itself. Moreover, shaping that novelty was a dynamic, interactive process between artists and collectors. It is now almost a cliché to point out that “originality”, defined as an immanent quality of a great artist and manifested in unprecedented creations, is a post-Enlightenment concept.11 The oppositional relationship between originality and repetition, in particular, was formulated as part of the myth of the avant-garde artist.12 The fact that originality is a historical construct does not mean, however, that viewers in the seventeenth century were simply unconcerned with ideas we now associate with that term. As the recent studies by Elizabeth Cropper and Maria Loh have shown, the relationship between repetition and invention was already a contested issue in early modern Europe. Their analyses demonstrate that the traditionally accepted connection between creativity and imitation was being challenged by an emerging “cult of the new” in seicento Italy.13 Despite the very different socioeconomic conditions and artistic traditions, innovation and novelty were likewise important considerations for the Dutch elite. While the term “repetition” can refer to pictorial phenomena ranging from literal replication to creative imitation, the forms and practices discussed in this book are those that help an artist distinguish himself from his peers and predecessors. My

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approach builds on the interrogation of the notions of originality and imitation in recent art historical scholarship, but it is also informed in part by Gilles Deleuze’s theory of difference and repetition. Deleuze critiques the Platonic tradition of philosophy that ties Ideas to essences, thereby defining them as transcendental and existing prior to conceptualization. In this view, thoughts are regarded as degraded copies of such fixed, abstract Ideas, while difference denotes the distance between the original essence and its representation. Deleuze, by contrast, defines thought as a specific kind of repetition, one which concerns “non-exchangeable and non-substitutable singularities.”14 He theorizes Ideas as “complexes of coexistence” of these singularities, rather than universal essences of which thoughts are representations. ­Difference in turn is regarded as something that exists without reference to a preexisting original identity.15 Each repetition—as opposed to representation—is not a copy but a simulacrum, conditioned by the contingencies of time, space, and other variables in its production. In Deleuze’s formulation, multiplicity and instability are integral to identity, which is constructed and continually reshaped through repetition. This idea of identity as a contested notion helps frame my examination of serial production and pictorial repetition. I am interested in two overlapping categories of repetitive images that helped an artist project a creative persona. The first can be observed in the affinity between individual paintings by the same artist (and his/her studio), i.e., when an artist creates a series of similar but distinct paintings based on variations around a similar motif. The second involves the appropriation, adaptation, and transformation of motifs and techniques between artists. The genre painters considered in this study engaged in repetition of both levels. For example, Dou draws on the meanings and visual effects of the niche window from Renaissance allegorical paintings and contemporary works by Rembrandt in his niche pictures, which he then develops into a signature compositional format through self-repetition. As I will argue throughout this book, the culture of collecting and the art market in the Dutch Republic encouraged these acts of purposeful repetition. The strategies of repetition I explore in this book were practiced at the very top layer of the Dutch art market, where there was a keen appreciation for uniqueness and novelty. The resulting images therefore cannot be fully explained purely with reference to the conventionality of early modern Dutch painting. That is not to say that the artists disregarded their heritage or market forces; rather, my point is that painters such as Dou, Ter Borch, and Van Mieris also reused elements and engaged with precedents in order to emphasize their own expertise and inventiveness. Franits acknowledges that painters introduced innovations to create interest or lower costs, but I argue that accomplished artists achieved innovations through repetition in a more self-aware way. Dou and Ter Borch have been regarded as pivotal figures in ­seventeenth-century Dutch painting: Dou as a pioneer of the detailed, polished manner of the fijnschilders, Ter Borch as the originator of the genteel “high-life” genre scene. Yet each built and projected his distinctive identity through remarkably

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repetitive paintings of technical virtuosity. The individual compositions may revolve around recurring motifs and themes, but the modifications of elements or interpretations bring out the distinctiveness of each picture. Because repetition and difference are mutually generative, each new work modifies collectors’ views of the artist’s oeuvre and his increasingly singular artistic identity. We can think of a niche picture by Dou, for example, as an iteration rather than a replication of a master template; at the same time the individual painting impacts the viewers’ perceptions of all the other related pictures in the series and ultimately Dou’s artistic persona. After settling on the familiar niche formula in the early 1650s, Dou returned to it time and again until the end of his career in the 1670s. More than ten years after he produced the Liechtenstein Violin Player (Plate 5), Dou returned to the same format and subject. The later panel, now in Dresden (Plate 6), also positions a violinist behind an arched window. Unlike his counterpart in the Liechtenstein picture, the Dresden figure stands upright and looks out with a grin at the viewer. His jovial expression is complemented by the warm palette, with the reddish tones in the figure’s complexion echoed in the hanging tapestry and the sword belt. Dou has also introduced subtle variations in spatial construction between the two works. In the Dresden painting, a diagonal cast shadow in the lower left corner suggests the presence of objects outside the pictorial field and pushes the depicted scene slightly behind the picture plane. By contrast, the stone wall in the Liechtenstein painting is fully illuminated, eliminating the implied space between the face of the wall and the picture plane. Dou has created two distinct viewing experiences through modifications in the figure’s pose and gaze, the color scheme, and the arrangement of light and shadow. The differences establish each work as a unique object, but the recurring pictorial format prompts knowledgeable viewers—and potential buyers—to compare the two paintings and connect both to Dou as the creator. Other artists working in the same privileged market segment also sought to build distinctive identities through various forms of self-repetition and appropriations. Ter Borch, for instance, created a series of genteel but provocative courtship scenes around a young female figure dressed in satin. The Music Lesson in Toledo (Plate 7) and The Music Party in Cincinnati (Plate 8), for example, share an almost identical central female figure, but the subtle changes in glances and poses suggest differences in the multiple relationships among the depicted characters.16 In The Music Lesson, the lute-playing officer sits facing the young woman, both leaning towards the center to form a balanced arrangement around the table. In The Music Party, the fashionable young man reclines across the table, his surprisingly informal pose contrasts with the young woman’s upright posture and demure gaze. In each painting a third figure, a young man who stands behind the music-playing couple, adds yet another layer of mystery to the amorous encounter. While this third figure wears an inscrutable expression in each image, his

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features, gaze, and disposition vary. Ter Borch enhances these narrative differences through formal means. The painting in Toledo presents full-length figures in spacious surroundings, which places the viewer at a distance from the scene, as if s/he is watching it unfold on a stage. Although the figures are about the same sizes as their counterparts in the Toledo picture, in the Cincinnati canvas they are placed closer to the picture plane, creating a more intimate composition that invites closer inspection. Moreover, Ter Borch has left little negative space on the left side of the composition, shifting the female figure closer to the center. Ter Borch thus offers two entwined but distinct encounters for the viewer, just as Dou does in his two renditions of the violinists. The repetition considered in this study relies on the viewer’s recognition of the familiar elements, yet engages him or her in a new way each time. The reuse and reworking of one’s idiosyncratic motifs was just one way of creating such encounters. Dou and Ter Borch develop signature formats and motifs, but their works are also deeply informed by existing pictorial conventions. As I explore in greater depth in the next two chapters, both artists appropriate stock elements from established subjects and turn them into multivalent pictorial features, helping to construct their cohesive artistic identities. For instance, the sense of irresolution that characterizes much of Ter Borch’s work stems from his re-contextualizing of figural types drawn from the Netherlandish tradition. It is a form of repetition that generates novelty—a kind that offers the familiar and the unexpected in a carefully balanced synergy. Appropriation in its various forms has become a lively topic of scholarly inquiry as the discipline of art history challenges the traditional narrative of one artistic genius succeeding another in an autonomous field of creation. Informed by poststructuralist scrutiny of the notion of authorship, recent studies no longer concentrate solely on tracing originary sources of influences, but instead consider the lively interchanges among artists in what Deleuze would call a rhizomic network.17 This challenge to the binary notions of original and copy, author and follower is not simply an imposition of postmodern concerns on premodern material. Indeed, imitation was recognized as the paradigmatic mode of artistic invention in early modern Europe. Borrowing from ancient and contemporary theories of poetics and rhetoric, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century art theorists identify several progressional stages of imitation, including more literal transcription practiced by students to learn basic techniques; the selection and melding of multiple sources by more accomplished artists to create their own inventions; and competitive engagement with sources undertaken by ambitious masters.18 Working in a culture in which imitation was the dominant mode of invention, the painters considered in this book engaged with artistic precedents in various ways. Frans van Mieris, for example, often alluded to Dou, his master, in both technique and motifs. To these citations of Dou’s work Van Mieris would add references

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to Ter Borch and other practitioners of high-life genre painting. Even in his ­early works as an independent master, Van Mieris was not practicing purely selective imitation, i. e., the seamless assimilation of multiple sources in a new work of art. Instead, Van Mieris engaged in what contemporary theory characterizes as ­aemulatio or emulation. In this mode of imitation artists leave their quotations visible but add certain iconographic changes or technical flourishes to encourage viewers to draw comparisons between their new creations and their sources of inspiration. Van Mieris will be the primary example of this competitive form of repetition in my analysis. This book, then, treats repetition as a broad term that denotes phenomena beyond replication or transcription. Beginning with the premise of the interdependence of repetition and difference, I explore pictorial recurrences that would engage the viewer “with equal or greater force at each occurrence.”19 These include the creation and redefining of an artistic identity through self-repetition; the production of novelty by drawing from the repertoire of established traditions; and competitive engagement with artistic models through the practice of emulation. For the sake of analytical specificity, each of the remaining chapters will focus on one artistic strategy through the work of one artist, but in reality, Dou, Ter Borch, and Van Mieris—as well as many of their fellow painters—combine all these practices. Moreover, in the social and physical spaces of collecting, each picture influences the viewer’s perception of the other related paintings, regardless of the chronological order of their production. An artist’s homage to or citation of another’s work could shape the creative identities of both. One of the most striking examples of this phenomenon is the adaptation of the central figure in Ter Borch’s the Gallant Conversation (Plate 9) in multiple compositions. Ter Borch himself made at least two versions of the composition, while the standing young woman in satin appears in several pictures by other artists.20 These simpler compositions omit the two prominent seated figures, whose relationships with the satin-clad lady had been the subject of much scholarly debate. The substitution or omission of the other figures in the Gallant Conversation alters our understanding of the female figure, who is now reading a letter brought by a page, standing quietly in her own space, or even appearing in a painting within Samuel van Hoogstraten’s enigmatic Slippers (c. 1670; Fig. 4).21 Surrounded by the accoutrements of an affluent domestic setting, the young woman performs a variety of stock domestic activities, so that essentially the same figure takes on different roles and generates diverse meanings across the paintings.22 The recurrence of the figure shows the familiarity with the image in certain artistic circles and points to the dissemination of ideas via drawings or possible access to collections. Knowledge of the initial paintings would have highlighted the differences created through the repetition in later works, while those variations would, in turn, have added layers of possible meaning to Ter Borch’s work. Painters showcase their skill and creativity through such

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Fig. 4. Samuel van Hoogstraten, The Slippers, c. 1670. Oil on canvas, 103 × 70 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

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deliberate, judicious acts of repetition, each instance of which adds to a discursive game that keeps molding the artists’ identities.

Liefhebber: An Identity of Distinction While art history has shifted its emphasis away from a grand narrative of great artists, there is a risk that the commercial explanations swing too far in the opposite direction, reducing the early modern artist to a passive party who simply responded to economic pressures. In an effort to bring the focus among historians of Dutch art from market forces back to the creative process, Svetlana Alpers has recently suggested an intriguing alternative to the dominant account of productivity and ­conventionality—an idea that is informed by her understanding of how non-­narrative paintings were evaluated in the seventeenth century. Alpers argues that in a still life, landscape, or genre scene, the painter’s invention was not assessed according to his or her interpretation of a pre-determined, text-based subject. Instead, the genre was the subject. An artist’s inventiveness was thus manifested not in the arrangements of narrative elements, but in the handling of formal elements.23 She acknowledges that the workshop practices of replication and variation were probably—as the economic historians maintain—the results of the drive toward efficient production, while positing that these cost-cutting measures subsequently “stimulated a way of working” in painters of high-value works.24 In her view, the artist’s oeuvre consists of variations on a few themes, with the focus primarily on execution. Alpers’s emphasis is on connecting repetition to the artist’s creative process, and she seems to discount the possibility that viewers would have noticed the relationships among the paintings.25 My research, however, suggests that reception also played a role in shaping artistic strategies. By reception I do not mean a fixed, predetermined consumer preference, but instead the ways in which paintings were used and viewed. My analysis of archival records and written testimonies shows that while viewers may not have frequently seen multiple works by the same artist hanging in one place—and even here there were exceptions26—the wealthy, well-connected art enthusiasts had opportunities to see them in various locations over time. The appeal of singular works that were, at the same time, recognizably the creations of specific masters has to be analyzed in the context of this cultural milieu. The specific type of beholder targeted by artists such as Dou, Ter Borch, and Van Mieris was designated by authors at the time as a liefhebber der schilderijen. Loosely translated as “lover of paintings”, the term has been commonly used in the art historical literature as a synonym for connoisseur or collector. Recent attempts at a more precise definition emphasize the question of personal motivation. Marten Jan Bok, for example, argues that the individuals identified by Van Mander as liefhebbers “had

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a specialist interest in art and who were also active patrons.”27 Neil de Marchi and Hans van Miegroet differentiate liefhebbers from merchants in the way they valued pictures. Although the authors acknowledge that the processes—and results—of valuation applied by the two groups were similar, they argue that going from evaluating pictures for their “salability” to appreciating them for their “excellence” involved a “mental shift.”28 Without dismissing personal aesthetic pleasure as a motive for artistic consumption, my study puts the emphasis on the cultural and social meanings associated with the identity of liefhebber. I want to examine “liefhebber” as a complex and contested term in Dutch society, one that was continuously reshaped by those who occupied—or aspired to occupy—this distinguished role of a cultural insider. The term liefhebber was used by Van Mander and, later, Philips Angel, to describe a special kind of art owner. Van Mander mentions seventy-six individuals who possessed paintings in his Schilder-Boeck but applies the term liefhebber to only ­twenty-three, making more references to this group and describing more of their paintings. Unlike some individuals, who inherited the bulk of their collections, those designated by Van Mander as liefhebbers actively bought paintings, especially those by living artists.29 The term, as used by Van Mander, connotes not only financial means but knowledge, discernment, and a keen interest in the visual arts. Angel underscores the importance of these influential lovers of art in an address delivered to his colleagues in Leiden in 1641. In the text, which was published the following year, Angel urges his fellow artists to “overwhelm and seize the eye of the lovers of art” and to awaken in their hearts “a keener desire for art.”30 To win the admiration of these art lovers or liefhebbers, the author explains, painters must strive to produce the most lifelike, convincing imitations of nature. In his Description of the City of ­Leiden, published in 1641, Jan Jansz. Orlers (1570–1646) likewise discusses the successes of the city’s artists in terms of the liefhebbers’ judgment of their works. Orlers points out, for example, that Gerrit Dou was held in great esteem by liefhebbers of art, who paid high prices for his pictures.31 As the production and collecting of paintings grew at the turn of the seventeenth century, the liefhebbers der schilderijen emerged as a distinct group first in the Southern Netherlandish art world. In the institutional records, the term liefhebber referred to a new category of membership in the Guild of St. Luke in Antwerp.32 Zirka Filipczak has analyzed the language in the guild documents and found that an individual who identified himself as a liefhebber did not register in order to deal in paintings, for he was distinguished from a coopman der schilderijen (a merchant or dealer of paintings).33 Instead, a major motivation for the liefhebbers to become members of the guild seemed to be their desire for official recognition of their knowledge about and enthusiasm for art. The banquets organized by the guild in Antwerp were as much cultural as commercial events for painters, dealers, and liefhebbers to exchange ideas and build connections.34

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A further indication of the respected place occupied by liefhebbers of paintings in contemporary culture is their presence in series of portraits depicting eminent individuals in the Netherlands. Anthony van Dyck’s Iconography—the best known of such portrait series—places liefhebbers alongside princes, captains, statesmen, scholars, and artists.35 As Filipczak has noted, the liefhebbers included in the Iconography were identified as such without mention of their professions or business interests. This suggests that their role as liefhebbers in itself qualified them for inclusion in this list of illustrious individuals. It appears, therefore, that collecting paintings and supporting artists were seen as important means of cultivating the accepted group taste by Netherlandish burghers who aspired to join the ranks of the social elite in the early seventeenth century.36 In the Northern Netherlands, even though official registration of liefhebbers with the guilds of St. Luke only began around the middle of the seventeenth century, the term can be found in guild letters and other documents, suggesting that it had an established meaning among the participants in the art market.37 Merchants and skilled artisans from the southern provinces, who emigrated in the wake of the Dutch Revolt, strengthened the culture of collecting in the north. As Sluijter has argued, these newcomers brought with them not only financial capital but also the custom of decorating residences with paintings, as well as the cultural ideas associated with the acquisition of art.38 Ambitious Dutch artists in the mid-seventeenth century, such as Dou, Van Mieris, and Ter Borch, counted on these “art-loving spirits” to recognize their acts of repetition and appropriation. These viewers had the knowledge of artistic traditions, painters’ styles, and prevailing standards to help them evaluate the masters’ paintings. Like the “gentleman” or “honnête homme”, the liefhebber was an early modern cultural category that mediated the relations among various groups that made up the urban elite. The two were in fact closely related, as an interest in humanist learning, natural philosophy, and the visual arts was expected of a member of the cultured upper class.39 The liefhebbers played a central role in the pursuit of artistic and scientific interests in early modern Netherlands, although they were by no means the only consumers of art and rarities. While historians no longer take at face value John Evelyn’s famous claim that pictures filled the houses of ordinary farmers and workers, probate inventories and other textual sources from the seventeenth century indicate that well-to-do shopkeepers and artisans had the disposable income to assemble modest collections.40 Liefhebbers were distinguished from those purchasers not only by the scale on which they collected, but by their passion for, and knowledge of, works of art and nature. In his study of the intersections of commerce and medicine, Harold J. Cook defines the liefhebber as “someone who had a sincere and discriminating love of things that indicated inner v­ irtue.”41 The word thus implies qualities of intellectual curiosity, virtuous desire for knowledge, and discerning taste. Nevertheless, it is also clear that the contemplation of the wonders of human and natural ingenuity required money and leisure. To be

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designated a liefhebber, then, spoke to a person’s cultural standing and the financial means at his disposal to acquire that status. In an age of humanist learning, technological advances, and colonial expansion, a plethora of new information and objects flowed into Europe. With this influx of novel material came the need for figures of authority who could attest to the veracity of scientific observations, authenticity of antiquities and exotica, and the quality of works of art. This need was especially acute when the study of nature and distant cultures was inextricably connected to commercial interests. The demand for objects of fine craftsmanship and exotic origins, for example, fueled the large-scale trade with Asia in textiles, porcelain, curiosities, and other luxury objects. Liefhebbers and their counterparts in Italy and France—virtuosi and curieux, respectively—stepped into the role of experts who could articulate a set of standards by which to assess scientific, artistic, and monetary values of specific objects.42 At the intersection of science, art, economics, and geopolitics, the presence of the ostensibly disinterested liefhebber, whose passion was for virtue and knowledge rather than material gain, was vital in the burgeoning culture of collecting. An episode in Arnold Houbraken’s biography of Frans van Mieris illustrates how the identity of liefhebber provided space and structure for people of means from diverse backgrounds to interact.43 In De groote schouburgh (1718–21), Houbraken praises the Leiden fijnschilder’s painterly skill and critical success, even though he does not shy away from anecdotes about the artist’s drunken behavior. As Giorgio Vasari, Karel van Mander, and Joachim von Sandrart had done before him, Houbraken mentions eminent admirers of Van Mieris in order to emphasize the artist’s position in the Netherlandish canon. The presence of his paintings in the cabinets of major Dutch collectors and foreign princes supports Houbraken’s claim that Van Mieris was one of the most revered Dutch painters of his time, whose works were coveted by connoisseurs in his hometown of Leiden and beyond. One particular individual identified by Houbraken as Van Mieris’s Maecenas was Franciscus de le Boe Sylvius, a renowned physician and professor of medicine, who was also known for his collection of paintings.44 Houbraken claims that Sylvius’s desire for art (Konstlust) was so strong that he secured the first choice of Van Mieris’s production by promising to match other potential buyers’ offers.45 Yet Sylvius apparently did more than buy up Van Mieris’s creations. According to Houbraken, it was thanks to the favor of the professor that Van Mieris had the opportunity to make a painting for Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria. Houbraken was not the first author to have remarked on this painting, known as The Cloth Shop (Plate 10); Sandrart has already singled out this picture in the Teutsche Academie (1675) as a milestone in Van Mieris’s early career.46 Sandrart claims that Leopold Wilhelm paid 2,000 guilders for The Cloth Shop, while Houbraken reports the price as 1,000 rijksdaalders (2,500 guilders). In the Dutch Republic, where a simple landscape could sell for less than a guilder, these figures were astonishing indeed.

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Houbraken was writing forty years after the fact and he was known, like other biographers of the period, to embellish his accounts of artists’ lives.47 What is of interest here, however, is not so much the accuracy of the story but more the kind of interactions among the parties it implies. The individual who evidently had a close relationship with the artist and played the mediator for the prince was Sylvius.48 As an internationally famous scholar, Sylvius was a prominent member of the Leiden intellectual community. Although lacking princely rank or resources, Sylvius’s cultural connections with the most successful painters of his hometown made him an ideal intermediary for visiting foreign princes and scholars. The inventory of his assets lists 172 paintings by the time of his death in 1672, including eleven works by Dou and six by Van Mieris. Considering the prices commanded by the two artists, those seventeen paintings would have cost a small fortune. Many of the other works in Sylvius’s collections were made in a similarly refined and labor-intensive—and therefore expensive—fashion, indicating that Sylvius spent considerable funds on paintings.49 Houbraken’s assertion that Van Mieris gained the opportunity to sell The Cloth Shop to Leopold Wilhelm through Sylvius could mean one of two things: Sylvius relinquished his claim to buy The Cloth Shop for himself, or he brokered the sale. In either case, the genesis of The Cloth Shop involved two individuals of disparate social backgrounds—one an affluent professional in a republic, the other a noble prince—performing the rituals that had developed around the ownership of art in early modern Europe. The association with both eminent art enthusiasts in turn added a level of prestige to Van Mieris and his painting, which further strengthened the young artist’s reputation in the circles of elite collecting. Sylvius, who built a notable collection of contemporary and recent Netherlandish art, and Leopold Wilhelm, who began collecting paintings on an impressive scale after assuming the title of Archduke, would have been recognized as liefhebbers in their day. Art collecting and its related activities provided the occasions for what Anne Goldgar calls “social mixing” on a “fairly high level.”50 Sylvius, an intellectual from a merchant family, could engage with princes because they all belonged to a community defined by shared knowledge and preferences. By making those traits visible, individuals could perform the role of the educated art enthusiast, a designation more of cultural standing than of social class. Paintings intended for such viewers needed to fulfill a specific function; namely, to allow them to display their taste and sophistication. This does not mean, however, that the buyers dictated the content and style of the paintings. What they did instead, as will become clear in this book, was create an environment that demanded and rewarded innovation, craftsmanship, and distinctive artistic identities. In a mercantile society where influence was tied more to money than to bloodline, the rank of a family could change relatively quickly. Once they had defied the odds and won independence from Spain in 1609, the Dutch built a decentralized system

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of government that left the reins of economic and political powers in the hands of non-noble office holders in the major urban centers.51 Some, like the Huygens family, positioned themselves at the Orange Court.52 Others, such as the Berkhout family of The Hague and Delft, built their fortunes in trade and became civic leaders within a few generations.53 With the growing opportunities to accumulate wealth through commerce and trade, the relatively high degree of social mobility also created uncertainties in social relations, making the formation of an urban elite a process fraught with tensions.54 Although the established families tried to distinguish themselves from the more recent entrants into the upper income group, it was not possible or always desirable in a town like Amsterdam to maintain strict divisions between nobility, office holders, and merchants. The question was how members of the upper layer of urban society, which was thus heterogeneous in nature, could sustain an exclusive group identity. One solution lay in the emergence of new roles that transcended the classifications used in the traditional hierarchy, which was defined more strictly by lineage. In her study of manners in early modern England, Anna Bryson has argued that the ideal of civility emerged as both the court and the city became the centers of “gentlemanly life.”55 In the major metropolis of London, for example, a person’s status could become rather hard to discern. Contacts and exchanges among courtiers, affluent merchants, and professionals, despite the difference in rank, were common. Moreover, they may well have had similar educational background and levels of wealth. Comparable conditions prevailed in major Dutch urban centers in the seventeenth century, such as Leiden, The Hague, and Amsterdam. In these settings, an individual’s status as gentleman or honnête homme was defined by the company he kept, connections that he would have to cultivate by observing the appropriate codes of conduct and acquiring the right kind of material goods. To borrow Bryson’s words, a man’s manners became the “membership card” to “the club of ‘persons of quality.’”56 Again, by cultivating the sense of refinement associated with the aristocracy, the Dutch burgher elite were not, strictly speaking, simply yearning to become aristocrats.57 Instead, they adopted the manners considered appropriate for the upper classes to present themselves as “well-bred”, respected members of society. Manners and the trappings of polite society functioned as codes, which were governed by rules and could be deployed to convey information about the “quality” and station of a person. In embracing the standards of the learned and graceful courtier, but adapting them to the unique conditions in the Republic, Dutch patricians such as Huygens and Berkhout could fashion a distinct group identity based on sophistication and learning as well as wealth. By adhering to the codes in their behaviors and daily practices, the Dutch elite constructed and reaffirmed the social hierarchy, with themselves installed at the top. The boundaries of such an identity were necessarily flexible, however, as excluded groups could endeavor to adopt those accepted behaviors and thereby claim membership in the

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elite circle. The role of the learned gentleman, therefore, had to be continually confirmed via the demonstration of taste.58

Cultivating “Taste”: The Display of Cultural Capital Paintings destined for the upper echelons of society thus had to serve as conversation pieces that allowed individuals to display their taste. By “taste” I am referring to a set of manifested preferences that—in Pierre Bourdieu’s words—“classifies the classifier.”59 When individuals make decisions about cultural consumption, their familiarity and agreement with specific criteria of excellence betray their positions in the social spectrum.60 Seventeenth-century liefhebbers cultivated their taste through art collecting and connoisseurship; that is, they underscored their cultural capital by deploying the symbolic language of distinction. Taste is therefore neither purely personal nor determined by absolute standards; instead it is the result of negotiations among people who belong to, or seek entry into, a group. The formation of such group preferences depends on the circulation of knowledge and information, as well as the enactment of social rituals. How did the acquisition and appreciation of paintings figure into the processes of taste formation? Because paintings were generally less expensive than tapestries, works of precious metal, or rare natural specimens, a collection of paintings was arguably not a very effective indication of wealth. Yet several developments in the early modern period suggested that the ownership and/or knowledge of the right kind of paintings to acquire could serve as a mark of cultural pedigree.61 Artists and theorists of the Renaissance, such as Leon Battistia Alberti, Vasari, Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Dürer, and Agnolo Bronzino have argued for the ancient prestige and cerebral aspects of the art of painting. Authors in the seventeenth century would continue to cite Greek and Roman precedents to assert the nobility of painting and to formulate standards of evaluating artistic achievement. Van Mander’s SchilderBoeck, for example, establishes the canon of Northern European artists and includes a didactic poem that expounds on the criteria for painterly excellence. In the subsequent decades, Angel, Samuel van Hoogstraten, Cornelis de Bie, Willem Goeree, Gerard de Lairesse, and Arnold Houbraken would publish texts of varying degrees of sophistication on the subject of painting. Thus there were specific principles in place for judging the quality of paintings, and a wish list of artists whose creations were coveted by knowledgeable collectors. It is no coincidence that this demand for paintings developed in tandem with that for antiquities and naturalia, for art collecting was an integral part of these interrelated endeavors by members of the elite to acquire encyclopedic knowledge and assert their cultural and social superiority.62 The standards of gentlemanly behavior demanded that men atop the social hierarchy be well versed in the literary and visual

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arts, as well as natural philosophy. It appears that early in the seventeenth century most elite Dutch liefhebbers strove to build wide-ranging collections of both naturalia and artificialia, but as the century progressed paintings grew in prestige even in the major collections in Europe.63 Perhaps the clearest indication of the increasing importance of the pictorial arts in the Low Countries is the marked growth in the general size of private collections, which a number of recent studies have confirmed.64 Constantijn Huygens’s autobiography offers a glimpse into the way the Dutch elite viewed paintings as the sites of social negotiation. In the text, written in 1629 for the edification of his children, Huygens gives an account of his early education. Among other things, he studied the classical languages and literature, learned to play the lute and compose music, participated in sports, and took drawing and painting lessons.65 His father, Christiaan, ensured that he had training in the pictorial arts because “important persons” were expected to converse “in the field of painting (with which one is currently everywhere confronted)”, and “it is impossible to arrive at even a partially founded judgment unless one has actively tried to practice the basic principles of this art oneself.” Huygens explains that his father wanted him and his brother to be able to talk intelligently about paintings and to “never cut a ridiculous figure with our judgment.”66 Christiaan the Elder’s rationale suggested a form of elite social interaction in the early years of the Republic, when the acquisition and display of paintings became newly fashionable, and viewers were judged even as they were judging the artists’ works.67 Huygens’s writings on artists, which made him an important figure in the historiography of Dutch art, reflect how knowledge about art could contribute to the construction of a courtier’s identity in the Dutch context. In addition to his support of the young Rembrandt and Jan Lievens, two up-and-coming painters destined for great public careers, his memoir contains perceptive passages about contemporary artists such as Jacob de Gheyn II and his son, Jacob III, Hendrik Goltzius, Michiel Jansz. van Mierevelt, Torrentius, and the Flemish “Apelles of the age”, Peter Paul Rubens.68 Huygens may have complemented practical training in art making with the study of Renaissance and seventeenth-century writings on art. Among the books recorded in his library were Vasari’s Trattato della pittura, Franciscus Junius’s Painting of the Ancients, and several titles on architecture.69 Some of Huygens’s books on painting may have passed to his son Constantijn the Younger, whose library contained an impressive number of texts of art. He owned Van Mander’s Schilder-Boeck and Vasari’s Vite de’ piu eccellenti pittori, scultori e archittetori, as well as publications by contemporary Dutch, Italian, and French authors, including Goeree, Giovanni Baglione, Giovanni Pietro Bellori, Roger de Piles, and André Félibien.70 Other prominent citizens, regents, and wealthy merchants also had these texts on painting, antiquities, and architecture in their possession. Their ownership of these publications suggests that these distinguished citizens agreed with Christiaan Huygens the Elder: the ability to converse intelligently about art was required in

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Fig. 5. Willem van Haecht, The Cabinet of Cornelis van der Gheest, 1628. Oil on panel, 100 × 130 cm. Rubenshuis, Antwerp. Scala/Art Resource, NY.

polite society. The presence of these tracts in private libraries was also indicative of the sharing of knowledge and ideas among Dutch patricians. For example, Adriaan Pauw, a regent in Amsterdam and the Grand Pensionary of Holland, had a copy of Vasari’s Vite in his library.71 Jan Six, burgomaster of Amsterdam and patron of Rembrandt, had several texts on architecture and antiquities, as well as Vasari’s Vite and Alberti’s De Pictura.72 Albert Bentes, a prominent Amsterdam merchant, owned treatises by Leonardo, Dürer, and Goeree, and artists’ biographies compiled by Vasari, Van Mander, De Bie, and Baglione.73 The point here is not that the collectors derived their ideas from the treatises; rather, the texts can be seen as distillation of existing thoughts on and standards for evaluating paintings. The circulation of these publications therefore reveals something about the dissemination of information and knowledge among individuals in privileged circles, as well as the formation of group preferences. Liefhebbers performed their role by interacting with objects of cultural interest (including paintings) in the refined setting of private collections. Patronage of the arts and learning had long been regarded as an expression of power and culture, with princely courts entertaining visiting dignitaries with their Wunder- and Kunstkammern since the Renaissance.74 Because an art collection worked as a status symbol

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only if it was known to others, collectors evidently welcomed the attention of fellow liefhebbers. When we consider the display environment for pictures in this period, one of the “gallery pictures” produced in Antwerp, such as Willem van Haecht’s Cabinet of Cornelis van der Gheest (Fig. 5), often comes to mind.75 Van Haecht presents us with a palatial interior, with a high, coffered ceiling and large windows lining the wall on the left. Framed paintings are hung in three or four tiers on the right and back walls, leaving little of the wall surfaces visible. The richly dressed figures inspect and converse about select paintings that have been placed against chairs or pedestals. Statues and busts based on classical prototypes flank the door, which leads out to a courtyard. Other collectibles, including books, prints, statuettes, antique coins, and scientific instruments, are displayed on several tables. This is an image of a Kunstkammer, a room in which the objects of artistic and scientific pursuits were kept and showcased in early modern Europe. Although they purport to depict arrangements of art objects in an architectural interior, it must be noted that the vast majority of these gallery paintings represent imaginary collections. Even Van Haecht’s picture, which is a rare representation based on an actual Netherlandish collection, most likely shows an idealized environment, with the artist manipulating the scale of the room and its contents to accommodate the large number of objects and figures. It may be even more difficult to form definitive conclusions about how paintings were displayed in seventeenth-century Dutch homes, as private collections have long been dispersed and architectural interiors remodeled over the centuries. Nevertheless, the enumeration of the objects in some seventeenth-century Dutch inventories suggests that certain rooms took on some characteristics similar to the embellished scene created by Van Haecht.76 John Loughman and John Michael Montias explain that rooms in Dutch residences began to acquire more specific functions in the seventeenth century, with clearer distinctions drawn between areas of the house used for entertaining guests and more private quarters reserved for the family.77 A specially designated gallery for art objects, however, was rare in Dutch houses before the 1740s.78 Citing Montias’s earlier research on Amsterdam inventories, the authors observe that paintings were hung in almost every room in affluent homes. The greatest numbers of paintings were found in the voorhuis (the front hall), the grote or beste kamer (the “great” or “best” room), the zaal (the great hall), and the zijkamer (the side room). Not surprisingly, Loughman and Montias establish that works that were attributed to specific artists and/or more expensive were concentrated in these more public areas of the house.79 As it was a common part of social life among the Dutch upper class in the seventeenth century to call on artists and collectors, connoisseurs visited collections on their travels and learned about the works in different locations through gallery pictures and reproductive prints. The diary of Pieter Teding van Berkhout, Huygens’s close associate and one of the most prominent citizens of Delft and The Hague, records such a lively interest in art and curiosities. On 30 December 1669,

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for example, Berkhout went with his uncle to the studio of “the famous painter” Gerrit Dou in Leiden. There, Dou showed them “three or four beautiful pieces of his art.”80 Berkhout is now famous above all for his two trips in 1669 to Delft to meet the “celebrated painter”, Johannes Vermeer.81 Scholars disagree on whether Huygens traveled with Berkhout on one of these excursions, but Huygens had had other invitations to visit artists and collectors.82 Travelers’ accounts suggest that artists’ studios and private collections had become destinations for cultural tourists and visiting dignitaries, such as Leopold Wilhelm and the French diplomat and scholar Balthasar de Monconys.83 Judging by the diaries kept by members of his entourage, Cosimo de’ Medici—the future Grand Duke of Tuscany—considered artists’ studios and private cabinets significant items on his itinerary. These visits provided occasions for liefhebbers and artists to engage and forge relations with one another, as the interactions between Sylvius, Leopold Wilhelm, and Van Mieris had shown. Furthermore, according to the journal of Cosimo III’s travels kept by Francesco Rucellai, the Medici prince met Sylvius, who may have introduced him to Van Mieris.84 Group visits to artists and collectors point to what Herman Roodenburg terms the “performative dimensions” of being an honnête homme. I would like to build on this research and consider how the participants constructed the identity of a ­liefhebber—which was closely tied to the honnête homme—through the display of taste in the social space of a collector’s cabinet. Roodenburg explains that socializing in an artist’s studio or a private collection was “part of the art of conversation, and of the prevailing notions of civility.”85 In this setting, collectors strove to impress visitors with their paintings by canonical masters and even to publicize their holdings. Leopold Wilhelm, for example, commissioned paintings of his collection from David Teniers the Younger, some of which were likely sent to other courts as gifts.86 In 1660, Teniers produced the Theatrum Pictorium, a series of 243 engravings after the Italian paintings in Leopold Wilhelm’s possession. The fact that the catalogue was issued in four languages—Latin, French, Spanish, and Dutch—indicates the intention to propagate the image of the Archduke as a great collector.87 The desire to win recognition for one’s enthusiasm for art spread beyond the princely ranks in the seventeenth century. In one of the earliest published manuals of connoisseurship, Sentimens sur la distinction des diverses manieres de peinture, dessein et graveure, et des originaux d’avec leurs copies (1649), the engraver Abraham Bosse states that a collection of fine paintings could win the owner the admiration of other connoisseurs.88 A Dutch collection that fulfilled this ambition was the cabinet of the brothers Gerrit and Jan Reynst, successful merchants and members of the Amsterdam council.89 The Reynst brothers, who displayed their collection in a house they purchased on Keizersgracht, were famous especially for the Italian paintings and antique sculptures in their possession. Their cabinet was mentioned in two city descriptions in the 1660s, and two sets of prints after selected paintings and statues

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were commissioned.90 Among the notable visitors to the collection were Queen Marie de’ Medici of France, who was accompanied by Amalia van Solms, the wife of Stadhouder Frederik Hendrik.91 Unlike Sylvius, who built his collection by forging contacts with artists and fellow liefhebbers, Jan Reynst simply bought the entire collection that belonged to the deceased Venetian nobleman Andrea Vendramin.92 This has led to suggestions that the collection reflected the Reynst brothers’ social ambitions rather than genuine interest in art and antiquities, but it nevertheless won the owners the admiration of “art-loving” royalty. A comment in Huygens’s correspondence suggests that not everyone who amassed a collection enjoyed the same success as the Reynst brothers. In 1625, Jacob van den Burch invited Huygens to accompany him to see the collection of Matthijs van Overbeke. Huygens declined, writing: “The man is rich, but he seems very ordinary to me.”93 Huygens’s decision may seem surprising, given that Van Overbeke owned paintings by such celebrated Netherlandish artists as Rubens, Roelant Savery, David Bailly, and Jan Porcellis. This incident shows that claiming membership in the liefhebbers’ club was not a simple matter; it could be a process that took much time, money, and social networking. Owners and viewers were expected to demonstrate their visual acuity, knowledge of the personal manners of canonical artists, and ability to apply the language of criticism.94 To possess a coveted painting like Van Mieris’s The Cloth Shop might show an individual’s wealth, but to discuss its merits, attribution, and innovative aspects would mark a viewer as a member of the exclusive circle of liefhebbers. In short, the viewer had to exercise his judgment and confirm his taste in a social environment. Van Overbeke evidently enhanced his cultural and social capital, as five years after his initial indifference, Huygens changed his mind and visited the once-ordinary man’s cabinet.95 The talk of “deploying” a certain language or adhering to behavioral codes may suggest that people like Huygens and Berkhout were agents who calculated their every move to position themselves in society, but the process was subtler and more complex. Bourdieu, whose work has been influential in the study of social class distinctions in recent decades, challenges this presumption of intentionality. A key concept in his theory, habitus—“the durably installed generative principle of regulated improvisations”96—refers to a series of mental habits and orientations produced through a long period of inculcation, so much so that they become second nature to the person. Bourdieu’s argument does not preclude individual decision making, but it asserts that a person’s habitus—his/her upbringing, education, social experiences—renders certain choices viable and others largely invisible. The effectiveness of the display of manners and taste as means of social differentiation increases if the actions are perceived to come naturally to the individual. Following this argument, the liefhebber was assumed (by others and by himself) to have developed a discerning eye through a lifelong exposure to paintings. Yet, the circulation of civility manuals

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and treatises on painting seems to be an implicit acknowledgment that even those in the highest social classes needed to work to stay informed. To be an effective marker of distinction, taste, although constructed, has to appear natural. This tension between the idea that the elite were naturally endowed with taste and grace and the tacit recognition that such qualities needed to be cultivated was already evident in Castiglione’s discussion of sprezzatura. Count Ludovico says in Book 1 of Il Cortegiano that the courtier is to “avoid affectation in every way possible … and to practice in all things a certain sprezzatura, so as to conceal all art and make whatever is done or said appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it.”97 Castiglione’s advice, then, was to conceal the labor invested in acquiring grace and knowledge, to make refinement appear innate and effortless. This is an important point, for if patterns in cultural consumption could erect boundaries between social groups, they could also challenge those boundaries.98 Excluded groups with sufficient resources could learn social etiquette, send their sons to university, buy coveted paintings, and learn to participate in the discourse of art. The appearance of popularizing books on connoisseurship, such as Bosse’s Sentimens, testified to the desire of a wider range of social groups to acquire the ­knowledge—or at least the appearance of possessing the knowledge—about art.99 The demand for these manuals revealed the constructed character of taste, suggesting that the identities defined through the display of taste could therefore also be fluid and contested. To maintain their cultural superiority, liefhebbers had to demonstrate their ability to make ever finer distinctions and to appreciate increasingly subtle variations on accepted preferences. Moreover, they had to perform with ease. These overlapping social and cultural interests, I argue, also gave impetus to the kind of artistic innovations detailed at the outset of this chapter. The interactions among viewers and objects, and the competition and dialogue carried out by artists through their works, spurred the types of creative repetition this book identifies and explores. The emergence of polished high-life genre painting in the mid-seventeenth century has usually been linked to the “civilizing process” in Dutch society. I suggest that the demand for innovation in the top layer of the art market was in part driven by a different sort of social negotiation. In a way, I am positing that the new subjects and tenor in genre paintings had more to do with how painters engaged with artistic precedents. This is not an argument about an insular, autonomous development of artistic styles and forms, however. Liefhebbers regulated the boundaries of their group by continually redefining taste. What was in demand, then, was not so much genteel pictures that reflected the buyers’ current lifestyle, but novel images that differed from merry companies from the previous generation. Meanwhile, artists stimulated liefhebbers’ interest with their distinctive innovative creations. The intertwined processes involving both artists and viewers generated a feedback loop that inspired repetition and innovation.

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It would be an oversimplification to describe collecting solely as a tool to enhance one’s status, but it nevertheless had a function of “legitimating social differences.”100 Art viewing and collecting were not merely personal activities of disinterested art lovers; instead they were tied to the projection of an elite identity. Michael Baxandall considers a painting “the deposit of a social relationship” in Quattrocento Florence;101 this was no less the case in the Dutch Golden Age. In fact, I would argue that a painting was not just the end product of a relationship between an artist and a patron, but that it continued to shape further relations and artistic productions as it was displayed and viewed in a collector’s cabinet.102 The world of the liefhebber was the milieu in which the creators of high-value genre paintings built their careers in the mid-seventeenth century. It was a social sphere where individuals could turn their economic capital into cultural capital by virtue of their consumption patterns and the acquisition of intangible marks of prestige.103 Paintings destined to be hung in a prestigious collection were not only objects of aesthetic enjoyment, but also occasions for viewers to demonstrate their taste. In an environment where pictures were scrutinized for authorship and quality, it was imperative for enterprising artists to create a distinctive artistic identity and draw attention to his technical expertise.

2. A Niche of One’s Own: Gerrit Dou’s Brand-Building Project On 26 September 1665, the following advertisement appeared in the Haarlemsche Courant: All gentlemen and liefhebbers, please note that in the house of Mons. Hannot, opposite the town hall in the town of Leiden, from 11 to 12 every day except Sundays, in the absence of unavoidable hindrances, twenty-nine pieces can be seen, most admirably painted and wonderfully executed by the artful and renowned Mr. Gerard Dou; asking all in particular that as they leave to not neglect to remember the great need of the poor, and to leave a liberal gift in view of the same, to which end a box shall hang in the said room, and if anyone has a liking for the art to please discuss the matter with the owner.1

The focus of the exhibition was Gerrit Dou, one of the most revered Dutch artists in the 1660s.2 The owner of the paintings to be put on display was Johan de Bye, whose reputation as one of the great collectors of Dou’s works was known even before this announcement. The French scholar and diplomat Balthasar de Monconys, for instance, wrote of seeing De Bye’s vast collection of Dou’s pictures when he traveled to Leiden in 1663.3 In 1665, however, De Bye rented a room in the house of a third party, Johannes Hannot (a painter of portraits and still life) specifically to showcase the paintings by Dou in his possession. De Bye’s purpose for mounting a special exhibition in a dedicated space is unclear, although the encouragement to interested viewers to approach the owner has led a number of scholars to surmise that the event served a commercial purpose.4 Regardless of his intentions, this unique event can shed light on the collecting and display of art, as well as the status of the artist, in a major seventeenth-century Dutch town. What does the announcement communicate about De Bye, who presumably initiated the project, to the readers of the Haarlemsche Courant? Perhaps most obviously, the collection testified to the owner’s wealth. On 18 September, several days before the announcement appeared in the gazette, De Bye had a contract drawn up with Hannot to have the pictures shown in the voorcamer (“front room”) of the latter’s house on Breestraat.5 The document spells out measures to safeguard the precious paintings: Hannot was to give the key to the room only to De Bye; Hannot was not permitted to keep a duplicate of the key; and, probably apart from the times specified in the announcement in the Courant, Hannot was to open the room to other parties

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only in the presence of De Bye or with the latter’s written instructions.6 Finally, Hannot pledged his person and all his possessions “present or future, without exception” as security for the pieces on show,7 which, given what we know about the prices Dou charged, must have cost De Bye a hefty sum. The exhibition of De Bye’s valuable paintings also pointed to something less tangible about the collector than financial resources. The advertisement was addressed to a particular kind of potential visitor: heeren (gentlemen) and liefhebbers, in other words, people of a certain level of social standing and—as discussed in the previous chapter—cultural savvy. The collection of works by Dou demonstrated De Bye’s knowledge of and taste for the latest, most fashionable artistic style in the town of Leiden. The fact that he was able to amass such a large number of the master’s pictures indicates a personal association with the artist, something that, as I have argued earlier, liefhebbers and artists were eager to cultivate. Nonetheless, De Bye probably did not acquire all his paintings directly from Dou, and this in turn suggests that he was able to tap into the network of collectors and dealers in Leiden and beyond to make the purchases. The exhibition, which visually presented the exquisite objects in De Bye’s possession and implicitly referred to his membership in the elite circle of liefhebbers, bolstered his cultural and social standing in his community. Since the pictures already belonged to De Bye, it was unlikely that Dou would have shared in the proceeds if any of the pieces were sold. Yet the artist was still a central figure in the whole episode, because the installation comprised not just any twenty-nine fine paintings, but specifically pieces by him. De Bye clearly hoped and expected that his fellow liefhebbers would be attracted by the opportunity to see more than twenty works by the artist in one place, which hints at Dou’s celebrity status. It also suggests that a notion of an artist’s oeuvre was developing in the discourse of art at the time, and that liefhebbers, those knowledgeable enthusiasts, were interested in inspecting and comparing several examples from an artist’s corpus of works. Given this emphasis on his authorship, Dou most likely would have benefited indirectly from the exposure granted by this focused display of his art. More importantly, the event gives us a glimpse into the cultural milieu in which Dou worked. As I show in the previous chapter, liefhebbers sustained their reputations in elite circles by acquiring paintings by canonical or fashionable artists, visiting one another’s collections, and demonstrating their knowledge in conversations about the pieces on display. This chapter investigates how one artist, Dou, negotiated this particular set of social and cultural conditions with great success. Unlike his predecessors in the sixteenth century and earlier, Dou could not rely on Church patronage in the Dutch Republic, which adopted Reformed Calvinism as its official religion. The Orange court was modest compared to the monarchical courts of Europe, which meant that commissions from nobility made up only a minor part of the consumer demand. Dou’s primary audience, therefore, comprised the non-noble patricians who controlled the Dutch economy and government in the seventeenth century.

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Acquiring paintings and declaring a learned interest in art helped these prominent burghers fashion an elite cultural identity, a contested process when the social hierarchy in the new state was being redefined. In order to distinguish themselves from their fellow citizens, they had to prove their credentials as liefhebbers by participating in the culture of collecting. Dou’s career illustrates how an artist strategically negotiated an environment that put great stock in the authorship of a painting and the artist’s reputation. To prosper in such conditions, a painter had to produce works that answered the liefhebbers’ need to underscore their status as cultured consumers. For the painter, this entailed creating a distinctive authorial identity, one expressed in a personal manner or a set of signature themes. The need for an artist to project a unique creative personality, and the viewer’s endeavor to perform his role as a member of the cultural elite thus became intertwined. This chapter will explore how Dou, through the creative use of repetition, succeeded in developing paintings that (1) were recognizably by his hand (or at least from his shop), and (2) accentuated his technical strengths.

Dou’s Reputation among Liefhebbers Gerrit Dou exemplified the commercially successful genre painter in the mid- to late seventeenth century. Born in Leiden in 1613, Dou began his artistic training in his father’s profession of glass engraving. He entered Rembrandt’s studio in 1628, but opted to remain in Leiden when his teacher moved to Amsterdam in 1631. Dou soon found fame for his refined rendering of details in small genre paintings, and he would become one of the highest paid Dutch painters in the seventeenth century. His renown attracted many pupils and imitators, who adopted the meticulous method of building rich colors and subtle tonal transitions in multiple glazes. For their attention to detail and polished finish, Dou and the artists in his circle in Leiden were known as the fijnschilders.8 Commentators since the seventeenth century have characterized Dou’s audience as a small, exclusive circle of wealthy collectors. Jan Jansz. Orlers, for example, includes the twenty-eight-year-old Dou in the list of “illustrious, learned and renowned men” in his Description of the City of Leiden (1641). Orlers describes Dou as an excellent painter of “small, subtle and curious things”, whose works were a source of wonder. The author further states that the artist was held in great esteem by liefhebbers, who paid high prices for his paintings.9 In Lof der Schilderkonst, published in 1642, Philips Angel praises Dou as the exemplary painter to Leiden artists and liefhebbers. Angel bases his judgment on Dou’s skill and his commercial success as a painter.10 Both Angel and Joachim von Sandrart draw attention to the agreement between Dou and Pieter Spiering Silvercroon, the Ambassador for Queen Christina of Sweden to The Hague. Angel states that Spiering paid 500 guilders for the right of

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first refusal of Dou’s works, while Sandrart puts the sum at 1,000 guilders. Sandrart also claims that Dou sold his palm-sized panels for between 600 and 1,000 guilders.11 Such a sum for one picture would equal up to twice or more the annual salary earned by a master craftsman in the third quarter of the century.12 Archival evidence and other contemporary accounts bear out the biographers’ claims about Dou’s popularity among the social and financial elite of Europe. In addition to Spiering, Franciscus de le Boe Sylvius, whose role in the sale of a painting by Frans van Mieris to Archduke Leopold Wilhelm is discussed in the previous chapter, was an admirer who owned eleven of Dou’s works. Other prominent Leiden citizens who had Dou’s paintings in their collections include the wealthy merchants Hendrick Bugge van Ring and Isaak Gerard, and of course Johan de Bye, who, as we have seen, put his collection of twenty-seven Dous in a special exhibition.13 Although Dou worked exclusively in his hometown, his paintings appear regularly in Amsterdam inventories in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. In fact, Eric Jan Sluijter has suggested that Dou’s market largely lay outside the relatively small market of Leiden by the second half of the seventeenth century.14 Moreover, several paintings by Dou could be traced to powerful Dutch families. For example, Gerard Bicker van Zwieten, a wealthy and titled collector, had five paintings by Dou in his possession, including one valued at 1,290 guilders.15 Other notable owners in Amsterdam include: Maria Temmink, the widow of Joan Huydecoper, a member of the patrician Huydecoper family;16 Anthony Grill, an officer of the Wisselbank;17 Nicolaes van Bambeeck, regent and burgomaster;18 and Jan van Beuningen, a rich merchant, banker, and famous liefhebber who played a prominent role in the sale of the paintings from Het Loo Palace in the early eighteenth century.19 A further indication of Dou’s appeal beyond Leiden is the presence of his paintings in the inventories of well-known Amsterdam-based dealers Johannes Renialme and Gerrit Uylenburgh. Unlike the dealers who hired obscure painters to produce mass quantities of standardized pictures, Renialme and Uylenburgh held a variety of expensive paintings. The inventories of their stocks list works attributed to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italian masters, as well as renowned Netherlandish painters.20 That fact that Dou’s paintings were in these dealers’ inventories suggests that they were marketed to discerning collectors who were interested in fine works from different regions and periods. Furthermore, Renialme and Uylenburgh had commercial ties beyond the Republic, which might have helped Dou reach a European audience.21 Dou’s clientele was indeed not limited to the rich and powerful in the Dutch Republic, as foreign princely collectors were also acquiring his works. In May of 1660, the States of Holland and Westfriesland sent three paintings by Dou as part of the “Dutch gift” to Charles II of England.22 While the bulk of the artworks sent to England consisted of Italian paintings and antique sculpture selected from the famous Reynst collection in Amsterdam,23 the Dutch authorities approached Dou separately to

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purchase the three pieces. Charles II purportedly offered Dou the position of court painter, an invitation that the painter declined.24 By this time, Archduke Leopold Wilhelm owned at least one painting by Dou. Cosimo de’ Medici, the future Grand Duke of Tuscany, visited Dou’s studio in Leiden in 1669, on which occasion he may have purchased two paintings.25 One year after Dou’s death, Giovacchino Guasconi, Cosimo’s agent in Amsterdam, made “an attempt to move heaven and earth” to acquire a self-portrait by the artist for the Grand Duke’s gallery.26 Dou, with his celebrity and high earnings, contrasts with the image of a Dutch painter that emerges from recent economic studies of the art market. Analyzing a sample of 120 inventories of Amsterdam residences in the 1640s, Montias concludes that the average price of all the paintings, which he further divides into five categories according to size and attribution, was only 6.8 guilders.27 He compares his results to the prices recorded in a large auction held in The Hague in 1647, where the average price for the 850 paintings designated as “originals” was 9.3 guilders.28 Similar studies of inventories from other Dutch towns also show that the values of most of the paintings were estimated at or below ten guilders; an unattributed landscape could sell for mere stuivers.29 Since his prices were astronomical by comparison, Dou has been regarded as a painter who operated outside the market proper. Indeed, citing the painter’s agreement with Spiering as evidence, historians of both art and economics tend to view Dou as an artist who painted for select patrons.30 As Sluijter has explained, however, the relationship between Dou and Spiering was different from traditional forms of patronage that involved commissions or employment. The 500 guilders only gave Spiering the first choice of Dou’s works, and should not be considered a stipend.31 This kind of arrangement reflected the desire of purchasers to secure a portion of an artist’s output, precisely because they had little direct control over his production. Enthusiasts such as Spiering and Sylvius clearly provided support for Dou, not only purchasing his works but likely also helping him develop a network of potential buyers. Yet there is little evidence to suggest that Dou relied on a single patron at any one time in his career, as Montias has posited.32 Instead, the value of Dou’s works depended on his ability to manipulate the specific conditions of a market segment where, contrary to the open market economic model often used to describe the Dutch art market, anonymity did not apply.

The Niche Picture In the 1640s, Dou began experimenting with a compositional format—the so-called “niche picture.” In the standard formula he had settled on by 1650, an arched window frames a view into an architectural interior, with one or two principal figures occupying a shallow space immediately behind the window. The depictions of violinists we have already encountered are but two examples (Plates 5 and 6). In these paintings,

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Fig. 6. Gerrit van Honthorst, The Merry Fiddler, 1623. Oil on canvas, 108 × 89 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

the foreground elements are rendered with Dou’s trademark precision, while the background often contains a dimly lit, spatially ambiguous secondary scene. Ronni Baer has documented more than forty surviving paintings in this format,33 and the inventory of De Bye’s collection lists at least six pictures of figures “in a niche” or “in a window.” What made the niche picture such a success among Dou’s discerning customers? To address this question, we need to consider the conditions—both cultural and physical—under which the paintings were viewed. An artist such as Dou, who was internationally famous in his own time, moved among the Dutch social elite and foreign nobility. As I discuss in the previous chapter, building connections with well-known liefhebbers strengthened a painter’s reputation, while the ownership and/or knowledge of a coveted piece by a renowned master enhanced the liefhebber’s cultural capital. As individuals convened in a communal viewing of paintings, they forged a network by assuming their role as the ­cultural elite, a process that was facilitated and mediated by the paintings. These activities took place in physical spaces, where paintings, along with other objects,

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were displayed according to accepted conventions. The visual and physical characteristics of the exhibition space in turn shaped how liefhebbers would have interacted with the paintings. The Violin Player in Liechtenstein (Plate 5) serves as a good example of how this distinctive composition accentuates Dou’s technical strengths as a painter. The painting is conceived as a view through a window, seemingly allowing a glimpse into a deep, dark interior. We see a solitary male figure standing just behind this opening, resting his left elbow on the ledge in such a way that his left forearm and part of his violin project beyond the face of the depicted wall. The wall is shown parallel to the picture plane, while the molding around the window closely follows the physical contour of the panel. This correspondence between the depicted and actual boundaries visually conflates the fictive wall and the picture plane, so that objects and figures that seem to protrude out of the window also threaten to breach the pictorial threshold. Apart from the violinist, who is leaning out of the window, these strategically positioned elements include a carpet, which is draped over the window sill, and a large book on the right, a corner of which overlaps the edge of the window. Dou’s painting asks for a specific kind of contemplative looking, which shapes its relationship with the viewer. His Violin Player has often been compared to Gerrit van Honthorst’s Merry Fiddler (1623, Fig. 6). The conceit in Honthorst’s picture is that a laughing, inebriated fiddler has emerged from behind a curtain through a window. Honthorst creates a sense of exuberance and spontaneity by accentuating the grin on the fiddler’s face and his dramatic pose.34 The figure’s extravagant costume of gleaming blue and silver stripes contrasts with the deep red and yellow in the tapestry, creating a palette of primary colors that enhances the feeling of a theatrical encounter. Dou’s much smaller panel calls for a different kind of looking. His violinist, wearing a serious, pensive facial expression, does not engage the viewer’s gaze, while the meticulous description of details negates any sense of movement. The stillness invites the viewer to linger over the expertly rendered textures of stone, textile, paper, and human flesh. The combination of the shallow foreground dominated by the violinist, and a secondary scene in deep pictorial space asks the viewer to ponder the formal and thematic connections between the two zones. It is thus a painting that demands to be inspected from a short distance, resulting in an intimate viewing experience. Since the arched masonry window was not a common feature in Dutch domestic architecture in the seventeenth century, Dou’s repeated use of the motif begs questions about the artist’s initial choice of, and subsequent attachment to, the compositional formula. Two general explanations have been proposed. The first is related to the formal qualities of the motif. Peter Hecht suggests that the motif of the niche window allows Dou to showcase his technical prowess, which is the artist’s primary concern. Dou is able to demonstrate his skills at creating illusionistic effects, with the window ledge forming a display area for carefully described objects, some of which

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Fig. 7. Rogier van der Weyden, Altarpiece of St. John, 1440s. Oil on panels, each 77 × 48 cm. Staatliche Museen, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. bpk, Berlin/Gemäldegalerie, Berlin/Jörg P. Anders/Art Resource, NY.

seem to penetrate the picture plane. According to Hecht, the niche window was seen by Dou’s contemporaries simply as an element in a “plausible” representation of everyday reality.35 Martha Hollander likewise emphasizes the niche window as a compositional device that highlights Dou’s surface illusionism, but which does not carry meaning in itself.36 Other scholars, while accepting that Dou’s technique is a major part of his pictures’ appeal, draw attention to the tradition of framing an interior view with an arched opening in Netherlandish painting. They observe that this scheme has been associated with the presentation of religious or allegorical figures since the fourteenth century.37 Ute Kleinmann, for example, maintains that the framing window monumentalizes the figures and enhances the prestige of the depicted scene.38 Stephanie Sonntag agrees with Kleinmann about the ennobling function of the window, but acknowledges the contrast with what she characterizes as comic elements of the figural scenes while also emphasizing the latter’s connections to theater.39 My reservation about the interpretation of the window as a monumentalizing feature, at least in relation to the genre paintings, is that it seems incongruous with the playful tone of some of the pictures. Kleinmann and Sonntag try to connect their suggestion to a larger project on the artist’s part to elevate the status of genre painting, but whether a hierarchy of genres had been codified by the mid-seventeenth century is a matter of debate.40 Instead, what is more interesting to me is their observation that the window is a device that produces illusionistic effects and separates the pictorial world from the viewer’s space.41 I would push their idea further and suggest that the niche window, which has accrued certain connotations through its use in the depictions of Biblical or allegorical themes, can be used to enrich or comment on the peculiar visual effects created

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in the niche pictures. Kleinmann and Sonntag take the meaning of the motif to be the nobility and honor accorded to religious subjects, and they attempt to transpose that meaning onto genre scenes. I suggest, instead, that the association was mobilized for a different purpose. The honorific arched opening or niche places the sacred narratives or personages in another order of space. In Rogier van der Weyden’s Altarpiece of St. John (1440s; Fig. 7), for example, the historiated portal, decorated with religious carvings, appears to stand at the threshold between the pictorial and physical realms. Yet at the same time, the exact placement of the arches is less certain upon closer inspection. The upper portions of the arches trace the top boundary of the panels, creating the impression that they are flush with the picture plane. At the bottom of the composition, however, Van der Weyden includes a step, which shows that the arches are actually rooted in a platform that stands slightly behind the picture plane. The arches, at first glance, seem to provide a strong visual boundary between the depicted world and the physical world, but the uncertainty of their exact placement suggests a fluidity in that separation. The ambiguity is heightened as the striding figure of Christ in the right panel, and the folds of the Virgin’s robe in the center, seem poised to breach the pictorial threshold. The ornate portals thus provide a link between the viewer and the holy personages in the paintings. It is this function of the arched opening—to separate the picture from the viewer but also to mediate between them—that Dou’s paintings invoke to suggest a permeable boundary between the framed scenes and the viewer’s realm. Dou returns time and again to the niche picture format for almost three decades, using the window to anchor the composition for a variety of subjects, including grocers, musicians, doctors, scholars, schoolmasters, as well as self-portraits.42 The artist’s reliance on the scheme suggests its popularity with his audience. I propose that there are two main factors that made the niche picture effective in the setting of an early modern collection. First, the compositional scheme offers a combination of visual effects and meaningful allusions that underscore Dou’s mimetic skills. Second, the prominent arched window tracks the shape of the panel and functions as an internal frame for the figural scene. With this emphasis on framing, the niche picture references its own status as a discrete object destined for an early modern collection, where the picture frame was a crucial part of the display apparatus. The niche picture can thus be regarded as a visual commentary on the artist’s personal expertise and the manner of display in a collection, with its virtuosic effects and witty pictorial allusions especially attractive to the liefhebber’s learned eye.

Learned Conversations in the Collection To understand the appeal of Dou’s niche picture format, it is necessary to consider the visual and physical environment in which the paintings were viewed. Based on the

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value attributed to his work, Dou would have expected his paintings to be displayed in substantial collections of paintings, even if he did not know exactly who would buy any given piece. Records in the Getty Provenance Index and the seventeenthand eighteenth-century auction catalogues compiled by Gerard Hoet and Pieter Terwesten show that the collections featuring works by Dou were relatively large.43 Most of the inventories list at least fifty paintings, with between half and three quarters attributed to specific artists. By the mid-seventeenth century, an attributed painting would usually be more expensive than an anonymous one of comparable size and subject. We can therefore assume that the collections featuring Dou were not only large, but also valuable. There was no equivalent of the Antwerp gallery picture (such as Van Haecht’s depiction of Van der Gheest’s cabinet) in Dutch painting, hence the principal pictorial evidence would be genre scenes set in domestic interiors. Like the Antwerp pictures, however, images of Dutch interiors were artificial constructs rather than transcriptions of life in the Republic. As Loughman and Montias rightly point out, the depicted environment most likely conforms to actual decorations in some respects and deviates from them in others.44 The hanging of pictures in symmetrical patterns, as shown in the paintings, was practiced in the seventeenth century. At the same time, pictorial representations of Dutch homes, even well-appointed ones, rarely show clutter, while information from inventories suggests that rooms in some residences contained between twenty and sixty paintings. For example, Hendrick Bugge van Ring, a wealthy resident of Leiden, owned 237 paintings, with the front room on the upper floor housing sixty-four.45 Although it is possible that objects had been moved from within the residence to aid the taking of inventories, it is reasonable to assume that in substantial collections a considerable number of paintings were hung in some rooms. The inventory of Sylvius’s possessions gives us a glimpse into a seventeenth-­ century Dutch collector’s cabinet, the stage on which liefhebbers performed. Sylvius’s home was designed and constructed from 1664 to 1667 on the Rapenburg, a prestigious address in the city of Leiden. There were 185 paintings recorded in the probate inventory, an impressive collection that was largely assembled, rather than inherited, by Sylvius. Paintings were found in almost every room, but the costliest were concentrated in the areas used for receiving guests.46 In the voorhuis were twelve paintings, including a Quack Doctor by Adriaen Brouwer, landscapes by Aert van der Neer and Jacob van Ruisdael, and a tronie by Simon Luttichuys.47 The zijkamer, which was located next to the voorhuis, contained twenty-seven paintings. A painting by Dou could be seen here, along with works attributed to such well-known artists as Roelant Savery, Van der Neer, and Adam Pynacker.48 The main entertaining space on this floor was the groot salet (grand salon). Four works by Dou and three by his pupil Frans van Mieris were found among the thirty-three paintings listed in this large room. The pieces by Dou and Van Mieris, together with the famous Dead Adonis by Hendrick

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Fig. 8. Herman Doomer, Ebony chest, c. 1635–45. Ebony, mother-of-pearl inlay, 220.5 × 206 × 83.5 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Goltzius, two paintings of horses by Paulus Potter, a battle scene by Philips Wouwerman, two “pen paintings” by Experiens Sillemans,49 and a still-life by Luttichuys, must have been worth a fortune. But the room that contained the largest number of paintings, forty-two, was the large front room on the upper floor (the ­voorbovencamer). Dou was represented by three paintings in this room; also featured were Anthony van Dyck, Van Mieris, the landscape artists Cornelis van Poelenburgh, Wouwerman, and Jan Porcellis, and the still life specialists Jan Davidsz de Heem, Balthsar van der Ast, and Abraham Mignon. Sylvius’s collection featured mostly painters who were active from the late sixteenth century to the 1660s. Many, though not all, were known for finely detailed and highly polished paintings. A painting was not only seen among other paintings in an early modern residence; instead it would have been displayed with other luxury objects and furnishings in well-appointed interiors. The main rooms of wealthy residences could be crammed full of lavish furniture, which replaced the modest pieces from previous centuries.

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Large “linen cases” were, for example, mentioned among the assets of Sylvius, Van Bambeeck, Temmink, and others. These large wooden cupboards, often decorated with deep, intricate carving, bulbous feet, and veneers of tropical woods, became increasingly popular in wealthier homes (Fig. 8). Also listed in substantial quantities in those rich inventories were Chinese porcelain and Delft ceramics, often displayed on top of the cupboards. Makers and buyers were beginning to differentiate between dining, gaming, and side tables, many of which were, like the cupboards, decorated with carvings. The well-to-do could now afford chairs covered with fine fabrics or leather, adding comfort to splendor. Mirrors, which could be fitted with gilded frames, were hung alongside paintings on walls or placed on tables.50 Although their collections could not compete with princely Wunderkammern of the European courts, Dutch burghers nevertheless showed a keen interest in antiquities and curiosities. As discussed in Chapter One, the collecting of paintings was an integral part of a liefhebber’s quest to gain knowledge in the arts and sciences. These members of the elite endeavored to become learned amateurs, as was expected of individuals of their station, by building collections of the works of natural and human artistry. For example, the notary recorded shells and horns—popular objects of exotic and scientific interests—in Sylvius’s inventory. The journals of Pieter Teding van Berkhout, Balthasar de Monconys, and Cosimo de’ Medici also mention collections of “Indian” curiosities, as well as shops that sold such items.51 Anthony Grill, the banker who had two expensive paintings by Dou in his collection, owned a cabinet filled with medals, naturalia, and rarities.52 Furthermore, the growing import trade fueled the demand for Japanese lacquered boxes, Chinese porcelain, and Turkish textiles. In this respect, Dutch private collections bore a resemblance to the idealized and embellished images presented in the gallery pictures. With their works displayed alongside objects of human ingenuity and natural wonder, painters in the seventeenth century therefore had to consider how such juxtapositions shaped the reception of their works. In this physical environment, an enterprising painter like Dou had to accomplish two things. First, he had to invite viewers to draw formal and thematic connections between his paintings and other objects through witty pictorial allusions. Second, he had to set his own work apart from the surrounding collectibles, which, I shall argue below, Dou achieved through the use of framing devices. In the previous chapter I explained that one of the goals of building a fine art collection was to attract knowledgeable enthusiasts to pay a visit.53 Paintings therefore played a significant role in mediating relations among various individuals in the richly appointed reception room of a liefhebber’s residence. Van Haecht’s depiction of Van der Gheest’s collection (Fig. 5) illustrates the kind of social interactions to which liefhebbers aspired. Cornelis van der Gheest, standing on the left foreground, points to his prized possession, a Madonna and Child by the sixteenth-century Netherlandish master Quentin Massys. He is presenting the painting to the regents of the

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Southern Netherlands, Archduke Albert and Archduchess Isabella, who were documented to have called on Van der Gheest in 1615. Standing behind Albert, Peter Paul Rubens, the most famous Flemish painter of the age, turns to speak to the noble couple. Behind Van der Gheest and also gesturing towards the painting is Anthony van Dyck. The other figures populating the gallery include members of nobility, state officials, prominent burghers, and artists.54 Although each of them was recorded as actually having visited Van der Gheest, the individuals seen in the painting could not have been present all at the same time. Moreover, some of the paintings shown on the walls were created after 1615, the year of Albert and Isabella’s visit. Van Haecht’s painting is thus neither a representation of a historical event nor a documentary record of the collection at a particular moment.55 Rather, it celebrates Van der Gheest’s status as a liefhebber, which enabled him—a spice merchant—to attract the nobility and other illustrious individuals to his home. Van Haecht’s depiction resembles many of the imaginary collections, which also feature elegantly dressed men gesticulating and examining specific pieces. These paintings thus present the gallery as a social space where informed viewers inspect, admire, and converse about art. Unfortunately, direct records of specific discussions in a collection are extremely rare. We can, however, try to reconstruct the general content of the liefhebbers’ conversations by analyzing art treatises, connoisseurship manuals, and artists’ biographies, such as those by Van Mander, Vasari, Cornelis de Bie, and Willem Goeree, which were catalogued in substantial private libraries.56 We may surmise that these writings verbalized concepts about artistic value and excellence that were circulating among artists and connoisseurs. By examining what the authors emphasize, it is possible to speculate on the liefhebbers’ preoccupations as they inspected art in a cabinet. Two related themes stand out in the written discourse: authorship and the measures of artistic excellence. The seventeenth-century Dutch art market had developed into a sophisticated system in which many transactions were conducted through dealers or other owners. As Honig explains in relation to the Antwerp market, authorship and authenticity became concerns due to the convergence of three phenomena: the increasing value placed on the identity of the maker of a painting, the formation of a canon and the elevation of specific artists to exemplary status, and a high volume of mediated sales in that market.57 The high demand for and finite supply of works by celebrated artists fostered a profitable trade in copies not only in the Low Countries, but in early modern Europe in general. Most of these copies were made and sold as such, often functioning as substitutes for originals that were too costly or unavailable. However, when a purchaser bought a painting from a dealer or a previous owner rather than directly from the painter, doubts could arise as to the authenticity of the work. There was a risk that a buyer could invest his money in a painting, believing that it was an original, only to subsequently find that it was a copy.58 It would be reductive to describe the development of connoisseurship as a direct result of this

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anxiety, but it is important to point out that the practice evolved in these commercial circumstances. Not surprisingly, then, the texts on connoisseurship from this period stress the ability to distinguish between originals and copies as an indispensable skill for the connoisseur. This issue is addressed in Giulio Mancini’s Considerazioni sulla pittura, written around 1620.59 By drawing the analogy between brushwork and handwriting, Mancini asserts that each artist has an inimitable individual manner.60 The engraver Abraham Bosse echoes this idea in his Sentimens, a popular manual of connoisseurship, arguing that copies lack the spontaneous grace of the first recording of an artist’s idea.61 Although the Dutch Republic produced no equivalents to Bosse’s manual, there were other indications of the importance placed on identifying the producer of a painting. For example, it became more common for notaries to attach names of artists to paintings and to assess their quality in inventories.62 There are records of legal disputes over purchases, with buyers and sellers arguing over the attributions—and therefore the values—of pictures. An infamous and well-documented case was the 1671 sale of some paintings by Italian masters and antique sculptures by Gerrit Uylenburgh to Elector Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg. When one of his court painters, Hendrick Fromantiou, questioned the authorship and quality of these works, Friedrich Wilhelm sought to annul the sale. In the subsequent row between Uylenburgh and Fromantiou, artists and connoisseurs in Amsterdam, The Hague, and Rotterdam were divided into camps supporting one or the other.63 This incident also shows that Dutch dealers, artists, and liefhebbers shared the views on authorship held by their European counterparts. By the early eighteenth century, Bernard Mandeville, a Dutch intellectual residing in England, would opine that the “name” of the artist was one of the major factors that influenced the value of a painting.64 Although Mandeville somewhat cynically declares that “the best Pictures bear not always the best Prices”, authors of treatises do attempt to establish criteria for judging the quality of a painting. There seems to be an effort to define different standards for the various genres that had emerged in the early modern period, although seventeenth-century Netherlandish treatises do not show a strong bias for or against specific genres. For figural scenes, the authors stress a sense of richness and variety that is appropriate for the subject. While they call for painters to develop a thorough knowledge of the stories they are depicting, the emphasis is ultimately on how to represent the scene in a natural, lifelike manner.65 Much of Van Mander’s didactic poem, Den grondt der edel vry schilderconst, is devoted to the convincing depiction of a range of objects and phenomena, such as the human figure, drapery, and the reflections and refractions of light.66 Philips Angel’s criteria for good painting—the proper rendering of light and shadow, careful observation of different objects, and knowledge of perspective and proportion—reveal the importance he places on the imitation of the visible world.67 The ability of painting to imitate and even rival nature is thus a theme that runs through much of Netherlandish writings on the art.

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Attribution and artistic skill, then, were major interests for liefhebbers and artists alike. Dou and his peers were not separate actors responding to the liefhebbers’ wishes, but were instead participants in, and shapers of, the cultural milieu. The collection was a setting where there could be dozens of paintings, hung in registers and close to one another, vying for the viewer’s attention. Also present, and often of greater monetary value, were fine pieces of furniture, vessels made of precious metals, objects of exotic origins, and antiquities. A painting was thus seen as part of an elaborate ensemble, and the painter was faced with the task of distinguishing his or her work from a vast array of visual stimuli. To thrive in these circumstances, painters had to produce works that conformed to contemporary standards of excellence, commanded attention in a crowded assembly of collectibles, and gave connoisseurs something to talk about. Given the value placed by liefhebbers on the authorship and quality of paintings, a distinctive artistic identity, embodied in a personal style and favored motifs, could help a painter stand out in a crowded display of images and objects. This, I argue, was the context in which Dou developed his niche picture.

Dialogue with Rembrandt: Carving a Niche in the Leiden Market For Dou, part of establishing himself in the Leiden market for refined paintings involved coming to terms with the reputation of Rembrandt—not only the dominant figure in Dutch painting in the first half of the century, but also Dou’s teacher. Dou was only eighteen when Rembrandt left for Amsterdam in 1631, but within ten years he would assume the latter’s mantle as the leading painter in Leiden. The contrasting styles between the two most renowned—and highest paid—Dutch artists of their time have been much discussed since the eighteenth century, yet they were also responding to each other’s paintings. From the late 1630s to around 1650, when Dou was developing the niche picture into one of his signature pictorial types, Rembrandt was also experimenting with the window as a compositional device. Each artist explored the possibilities of the formal element in different ways, however, as their paintings formed a probing dialogue about painterly illusionism. For Dou, this was also an opportunity to remind liefhebbers of his connection to, while at the same time differentiating himself from, his teacher. Dou’s adaptation of the window both establishes a visual link to Rembrandt and underscores the difference between the two artists’ manners. An early use of the window by Rembrandt in a non-narrative painting is his Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl (1639; Fig. 9), now in the Rijksmuseum. A comparison with Dou’s Woman Hanging a Rooster at a Window (1650; Fig. 10) sheds light on the distinctive approaches by the two painters. Whereas Dou renders all the foreground features in finely observed detail, down to the individual feathers of the rooster or the transparent spherical surfaces of the woman’s eyes, Rembrandt

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Fig. 9. Rembrandt, Still-Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl, c. 1639. Oil on canvas, 145 × 135 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

evokes textures with broad, bold brushstrokes in his far larger canvas. Beyond the clear divergence in paint handling, Dou’s later picture also departs from Rembrandt’s treatment of space. Rembrandt here pushes the window back from the picture plane. The dead peacocks, one hanging from the window shutter and one lying on a shelf underneath, dominate the foreground. Through the open window we see a girl, who folds her hands on the window ledge and gazes at the birds. The abrupt change in scale between the birds and the diminutive figure seems out of sync with the perspectival rendering of the window shutter, making it difficult to gauge the distance between the various elements in the composition. Dou manipulates pictorial space too, but the distortions happen behind the window. The figure and the still life elements are all presented on roughly the same plane, silhouetted against an undefined

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Fig. 10. Gerrit Dou, Woman Hanging a Rooster at a Window, 1650. Oil on panel, 26 × 20 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Photo: Hervé Lewandowski. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource.

background. Both pictures display an interest in spatial illusion, but address the topic in different ways. Rembrandt’s Girl at a Window in Dulwich (1645, Fig. 11) has often been compared to Dou’s niche pictures. In this later painting, Rembrandt has moved the figure and

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Fig. 11. Rembrandt, Girl at a Window, 1645. Oil on canvas, 81.6 × 66 cm. Dulwich Picture Gallery, Dulwich. © By permission of the Trustees of Dulwich Picture Gallery/Dist. RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY.

the window into the immediate foreground, which makes the composition more similar to Dou’s Woman Hanging a Rooster. Roger de Piles celebrated the lifelikeness of Rembrandt’s picture in an oft-cited anecdote in his 1708 publication: Rembrandt, for instance, amused himself one day by painting the portrait of his serving-maid. He then wanted to place it in the window, so that passers-by would think she was really there. It worked, for the deception was only discovered several days later.68

Rembrandt places the window at an angle to the picture surface, however, thereby maintaining a clear distinction between the two. Interestingly, comparing Rembrandt’s picture and Dou’s at the Louvre, the former is much closer to life-size and therefore fulfills the first criterion for a trompe l’oeil piece.69 Yet Dou, by effacing the traces of his brush, produces convincing surface descriptions that were closer to the

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Fig. 12. Rembrandt, Girl at a Window, 1651. Oil on canvas, 78 cm × 64 cm. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. © Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Sweden/Bridgeman Images.

requirements of trompe l’oeil than Rembrandt’s fluid, visible brushwork. De Piles’s remark that passers-by were fooled into mistaking the painted figure for a real person was a well-worn trope by this time for praising a painter’s skill, and in this case it was likely made in reference to the lively expression and sense of spontaneity rather than actual eye-fooling effects. In a later depiction of a girl at a window in Stockholm (1651, Fig. 12), Rembrandt turns the composition so that the window is now parallel with the picture plane. It is tempting to speculate on whether Rembrandt was responding to Dou’s early niche pictures of the 1640s, but once again the two artists probe the enterprise of illusionistic painting in different ways. Scholars have remarked on Rembrandt’s increasingly bold and thick brushstrokes in the 1650s, which Dou did not adopt. Rembrandt’s Stockholm painting differs from Dou’s niche picture in another respect, namely, the cropping of the window at the left and the top, precluding the conflation of the picture plane and the face of the window.

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Fig. 13. Rembrandt, Agatha Bas, 1641. Oil on canvas, 105.4 × 83.9 cm. Royal Collection, London. © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2016/Bridgeman Images.

The picture that may be even closer in spirit to Dou’s niche picture, despite not featuring a window, is Rembrandt’s portrait of Agatha Bas (1641; Fig. 13).70 The sitter, a member of a prominent Amsterdam family, is seen through a depicted ebony frame, transforming the portrait into a painting of a painting. Agatha Bas is not totally contained by the frame, however: she rests her left hand on the right side of the frame, while her fan overlaps the lower edge. In keeping with Rembrandt’s treatment of formal portraits for the Amsterdam elite in this period, the figure and her costume are rendered in fine detail and with carefully modulated chiaroscuro, creating a vivid sense of verisimilitude. The placement of Agatha Bas’s hand and fan is a familiar pictorial trick that implies the lifelike figure is emerging from the canvas, but it disrupts the illusion of a physical ebony frame around the picture. Rembrandt is therefore using one trompe l’oeil device to interrogate the effect of another. Dou plays with the paradox of eye-fooling artistry in a different way in his niche pictures. His Violin Player, for example, also suggests the breaching of the pictorial boundary, as the figure’s

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left arm and other objects protrude beyond the face of the window. Yet the size of Dou’s panel ensures that it will not literally fool the eye. The suggestion of the transgressions of the picture plane is a characteristic feature of trompe l’oeil painting, but neither picture provides straightforward illusionism. Both Rembrandt and Dou are therefore offering not just exemplary demonstrations of lifelike artistry, but also commentaries on the contradictions inherent in naturalism. One can think of the two artists as responding to each other’s use of the window during the 1640s to 1650s, with each purposeful repetition contributing to the shaping of the artists’ “brands.” This dialogue between Rembrandt and Dou unfolds in the liefhebbers’ collections, where, as we have seen, distinctive creative personas were prized. The perception of individual works was shaped by the objects in the physical surroundings and in the liefhebber’s memory, which rendered the need for singular authorial identities acute even as the viewing conditions also made such identities unstable. We need not assume that Dou’s use of the window was the result of conscious calculations; we can, however, observe the result: a signature compositional format that helped Dou establish an identity that was associated with but also distinguished from Rembrandt’s.

Ideal Painting: Semblance without Being In The Violin Player (Plate 5), the rendering of the figure and objects, the careful descriptions of different textures, and the suggested breaching of the picture plane, all underscore Dou’s mimetic artistry. Yet it is also important to point out certain distortions that appear to undermine this impression. The violinist, by turning to the left, directs our attention to two small, shadowy figures in the background. One of those figures is grinding pigment, the other is seated and smoking a pipe. Next to them a panel can be seen resting on an easel. The conceit is that this vignette is gratuitously revealed as the violinist leans to the right, but the transition between the foreground and background is left undefined, resulting in a jarring disjunction between the two zones. As a result, the foreground and background scenes almost look like two separate images contained within one frame. This image-like quality of the secondary scene is more emphatically articulated in a later painting, The Trumpeter (1660–65; Plate 11).71 In this picture, a male figure stands behind the left side of an arched window. A curtain has been pulled to the right to reveal two pairs of male and female figures seated at a table, with a fifth standing and pouring wine from a pitcher. The difference in scale between the foreground and background is even more pronounced in this picture. The “merry company” scene is also more clearly framed by the diagonal of the drawn curtain on the right, the length of the trumpet at the top, and the body of the trumpeter on the left. Different sources of illumination—the foreground figure is brightly lit by a strong raking light from the

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Fig. 14. Gerrit Dou, A Girl with a Basket of Fruit at a Window, c. 1657. Oil on panel, 37.5 × 29.1 cm. Waddesdon, The Rothschild Collection (The National Trust), Bequest of James de Rothschild, 1957; acc. no. 2573. Photo © The National Trust, Waddesdon Manor.

upper left, whereas the scene behind is illuminated by the light entering through a window deeper in pictorial space—further enhance the separation. These features combine to give the secondary scene the appearance of an image within an image.

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Similarly, A Girl with a Basket of Fruit at a Window (1657; Fig. 14), now at Waddesdon Manor, presents the viewer with a complex composition that defies the rules of perspective. In this painting, a smiling young maid leans over the ledge of a window, holding a basket of flowers and fruit in her left hand while pulling back a tapestry curtain with her right. Behind the girl, deep in the architectural interior, is a scene of a man playing a violin and a woman with a songbook. Most scholars agree that this scene, squeezed artificially into the space between the curtain and the girl’s extended right arm, is a key to understanding the “meaning” of the picture. The woman’s gesture of keeping time to the music is a common visual metaphor of moderation, while the music-making pair may refer to marital harmony.72 Other elements in the painting point to an amorous theme, suggesting an erotic reading of the engaging young female figure who gazes openly at the viewer. The flowers and fruit may symbolize sensual pleasure as well as transience, while the dead bird on the ledge and the empty bird perch both carry sexual connotations.73 While, iconographically, the genteel image of the music making couple in the background complements the foreground figure and objects, it is not at all clear how the two zones relate to one another spatially. The room does not recede gradually into depth in a succession of planes; instead the small distant figures are juxtaposed with the prominent figure of the girl with no transitional devices to ease the abrupt change in scale. The background vignette is further set off from the crisply described foreground by its looser brushwork and separate light source. Dou showcases his trademark skill in describing surface textures, differentiating carefully between the woven tapestry, the bird’s plummage, the chipped ceramic flowerpot, and the girl’s delicate skin. Yet just as he does in The Trumpeter, Dou combines this precise rendering with compression and distortion of space. The peculiar spatial construction of the niche pictures has been compared to illustrations in emblem books,74 the interior of a cabinet,75 and the view seen through a telescope.76 Implicit in these discussions is the assumption of a lack of interest or ability on Dou’s part to depict perspectival space. Although I agree that Dou’s fame lies in his ability to mimic textures and materials, I believe that Dou is not simply neglecting the representation of depth. A painting like The Young Mother77 should dispel any notion that Dou is incapable of, or uninterested in, creating legible space. He may not have been concerned with mathematically accurate perspective, but he is certainly able to create the impression of gradually receding depth by arranging zones of light and shadow. This suggests that the abrupt spatial transition in The ­Violinist, The Trumpeter, and A Girl with a Basket is the result of strategic manipulation, not technical deficiency. The fact that the background scenes resemble embedded images more than ­convincing vistas raises interesting questions about Dou’s conceptualization of pictorial illusionism. Even though contemporaries praise his paintings as miraculously ­lifelike, Dou’s pictures are not designed to literally confuse image and reality.

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They  are far too small to operate as “true” trompe l’oeil, and the unusual window presents an improbable setting for a scene in everyday life.78 At the same time, Dou is able to evoke the sense of touch in his detailed simulations of surface textures. I argue that this seeming paradox between persuasive realism and overt artifice creates a commentary on the contemporary ambivalence about the seductive appeal and the inherent deception of naturalistic painting. We have already seen that the ability of painting to deceive the viewer with illusionistic representations is a major theme in seventeenth-century Dutch treatises.79 Eric Jan Sluijter has persuasively argued that Dou’s paintings constitute a pictorial counterpart to Angel’s Lof der Schilderconst. Despite, or perhaps because of, his lack of theoretical sophistication, Angel’s text unwittingly offers insights into a practicing painter’s view of his profession, as well as the actual reception of paintings in Dou’s milieu.80 Angel states that the objective of the painter is to captivate the liefhebber’s eye. He explains that this is to be achieved through a “decorative richness” (aerdigh-vercierende Rijckelijckheydt) and a natural arrangement of illusionistically rendered objects.81 Indeed, convincing, lifelike representation is regarded as the key to arousing the liefhebber’s desire for art.82 Even Van Mander’s more learned Schilder-Boeck (1604), from which Angel draws liberally, emphasizes the convincing imitation of nature’s appearance. Van Mander regards history painting as the highest genre not only because of its didactic function or affinity to literature, but, perhaps more importantly, because it encompasses all other genres—the representations of human figures, portraiture, landscape, still life, and so forth.83 A painter’s descriptive skill is thus treated in Van Mander’s influential text as an integral part of a history painting. Following Van Mander, Van Hoogstraten defines a “perfect painting” as a science for representing all the ideas or concepts that the visible world can offer, and of fooling the eye with contours and colors … like a mirror of nature which makes things which do not actually exist appear to exist, and thus deceives in a permissible, pleasurable, and praiseworthy manner.84

Van Hoogstraten thus urges painters to master the representation of all elements of nature in order to create vivid visual fictions. Dou’s virtuosic rendering of objects certainly satisfies this criterion of excellence, but he also includes features that signify the very idea of illusionism in the niche pictures. The play with the integrity of the picture plane, the evocation of a raking light that throws foreground elements into sharp relief, and the inclusion of curtains are all techniques and motifs associated with trompe l’oeil still lifes set in niches. The type was already popular in the early seventeenth century and could be traced back to fourteenth-century manuscript illumination.85 Dou himself executed a number of pictures in this genre, including the Still Life with Candlestick, Pipe, and Pocketwatch (Fig. 15) and the Still Life with Ewer, Basin and Cloth (Fig. 16), both from the 1660s.

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Fig. 15. Gerrit Dou, Still Life with Candlestick, Pipe, and Pocketwatch, c. 1660. Oil on panel, 43 × 35.5 cm. Gemäldegalerie, Dresden. bpk, Berlin/Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden/Hans-Peter Klut/Art Resource, NY.

Despite the fact that the niche picture opens into an architectural interior, the crowding of figures and objects into a very shallow foreground is similar to the arrangement in the still life paintings. Perhaps more importantly, the niche picture and the trompe l’oeil still life share a similar goal: neither truly seeks to literally deceive the viewer, but to cause him to vacillate between accepting the illusion and recognizing

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Fig. 16. Gerrit Dou, Still Life with Ewer, Basin and Cloth, c. 1660. Oil on two panels, each 102 × 42 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Photo: Hervé Lewandowski. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY.

the deception. Samuel Pepys, the English statesman and diarist, captures this unsettling effect of trompe l’oeil in his description of viewing a picture of “several things painted upon a deal Board.” He muses: “even after I knew it was not board, but only the picture of a board, I could not remove my fancy.”86 Pepys’s comment registers a sense of persisting doubt and suggests an inability to reconcile conflicting sensory perceptions caused by the painting. The fact that Dou uses motifs associated with trompe l’oeil paintings in pictures that were too small to achieve the actual effects adds another dimension to the paradox of illusionism. The Trumpeter (Plate 11) illustrates Dou’s exploration of this tension between fiction and reality. The painting is quite small (38 by 29 centimeters), but it satisfies Angel’s demand for the painter to imitate all manners of materials. For example, Dou lightly blends his thin, small brushstrokes to suggest the texture of skin on the trumpeter’s face. His emphasis on textural differentiation can be seen in the rendering of the carpet lying on the parapet and the curtain hanging on the right. The former is described using short, parallel strokes to simulate the weave of

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the woolen fabric, while the leather curtain has stronger highlights and angular folds to suggest its reflective and rigid material. Angel asserts that a good painter should be able to imitate different kinds of metal;87 a pictorial parallel to that discussion can be seen in Dou’s treatment of the ewer and dish. The artist softens the highlights on the silver body of the ewer for a diffused glow, which differs from the sharper reflections off the gilded decorations. Angel and his contemporaries no doubt had this kind of detailed rendering in mind when they praised Dou’s paintings as “true to life.”88 Yet the niche picture format did not just conform to the demand for deceptive, lifelike images; it actually sought to set new standards in imitating nature. Viewed at close range, Dou’s picture reveals microscopic details that would have eluded the naked eye. Indeed, Dou’s pictures, which have been called works of wonder and curiosity in his time, inspired fanciful descriptions of his working method. Joachim von Sandrart recounts that Dou wore glasses when he was painting, and spent days on the most minor details in his paintings. He also claims that Dou waited for the dust to settle when he sat down to paint, and was fastidious in protecting his pigments and brushes.89 Arnold Houbraken, in his series of Dutch artists’ biographies, speculates that Dou created his meticulously detailed pictures with the help of “a frame strung with [horizontal and vertical] strings.”90 The French author Roger de Piles meanwhile claims that Dou used a convex mirror when he painted.91 These assertions that Dou went to extraordinary measures to create his paintings suggest that the artist’s achievement exceeded what was thought possible in the realm of painting. Dou produces the effect of illusionism by mimicking the individual objects and figures in minute detail, while the niche window, through its association with trompe l’oeil, communicates the concept of deceptive lifelikeness to liefhebbers who were familiar with the pictorial type. Yet the niche window also evokes the pictorial tradition of religious representations, thus removing the genre scene from the everyday world, a separation that is further strengthened through spatial disjunction. Juxtaposing impeccable surface description with spatial distortions and an unrealistic setting, a niche picture, such as The Violinist or The Trumpeter, simultaneously seduces the liefhebber’s eye and exposes itself as nothing more than an illusion. This tension can be seen as Dou’s play on seventeenth-century understanding of painting not as a perfect copy of visible nature, but as a persuasive image that is nevertheless recognized as fictive. In Angel’s words, such a picture offers a “semblance without being (schijn zonder zijn).”92

The Reflexive Image in the Gallery By painting a niche window around the figural scene, Dou creates a second frame inside the image. To be clear, I am not suggesting that the window resembles a picture frame; Dou’s careful rendering of the masonry clearly presents the motif as an

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architectural feature. I am arguing, instead, that in closely following the borders of the panel, the arched window draws attention to the physical boundaries of the painting. As the philosopher and critic Louis Marin explains, the frame is a mechanism of reflexivity. In delineating the perimeters of the picture, the frame underscores its physical limits, and therefore its constructed nature.93 In this sense, the window, by referencing the theme of framing, complements the spatial compression, discussed above, in presenting the circumscribed scene as an illusory realm. In The Violin Player, Dou formulates his commentary on framing through repetition within the composition. The arched window emphasizes the borders of the picture and serves as a secondary frame to the violinist and the dark, deep interior. The violinist appears to be looking at the front of the birdcage on the left, its arched shape echoing that of the panel. Beneath the window is a stone relief set within a rectangular enclosure, its base coinciding with the lower edge of the painting. The painting thus consists of a series of framed images. In The Trumpeter (Plate 11) and A Girl with a Basket (Fig. 14), the more pronounced spatial compression and overt demarcation of the background vignettes make the theme of framing even more evident. The emphasis on the frame underscores the physical limits, and therefore materiality, of the paintings. The fact that the niche picture addresses this topic is significant, because framing took on a new importance in early modern Europe, when the concept of painting was undergoing some profound changes. Victor Stoichita explains that after the Reformation, painters in Protestant Europe worked chiefly for the market, producing works that had no ceremonial purpose or predetermined location. Having lost its religious function, painting became “an object made for a different kind of contemplation.”94 This new kind of painting, the “tableau”, developed as the private collection replaced the church as the primary exhibition space for art. Stoichita contends that many artists in this period explored in their work the very identity and function of painting itself. One of the devices used in the self-definition of painting as this new type of object—an object to be appreciated as “Art”,95 seen among other such objects—was the frame. In the context of a private collection, without the architectural structure that would have housed a picture in a church, the frame became an important device in establishing each painting as a discrete entity. It separated the painting from that which was outside, and clarified its status as an autonomous representation.96 The frame did not form part of the representation, but it provided a physical bridge between the wall and the painting support, and it conditioned the reception of the painting.97 The presentation of individual paintings in a collection was evidently on the minds of elite artists and collectors in early modern Europe. In a letter accompanying a painting that he sent to Paul Fréart de Chantelou in 1639, Nicolas Poussin implores his friend and patron to provide a suitable frame for the work. Poussin explains that with a proper frame embellishing the picture, “the eye shall remain concentrated, and not dispersed beyond the limits of the picture” by objects displayed around it.98

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Dou also seemed to be cognizant of the efficacy of a more dramatic presentation of his works, which was especially important given their miniature sizes. In the inventories of De Bye’s and Sylvius’s collections are descriptions of Dou’s paintings placed in cases or fitted with shutters. While Poussin’s letter implies that it was his patron who provided the frame for the painting, Dou was likely responsible for designing and procuring at least some of the framing devices for his panels. For example, the Still Life with Candlestick and a Watch in Dresden (Fig. 13) is listed in the De Bye inventory as a lid of a box that held a painting of a wine cellar.99 Also from De Bye’s collection is the Still Life with Ewer, Basin and Cloth (Fig. 16), which is painted on two panels that served as the shutters for the so-called Dropsical Woman (Fig. 51).100 These devices compelled contemporary viewers to position themselves at a specific distance from, and to physically interact with, the works. The acts of covering and revealing that the viewer had to perform also conferred a sense of prestige on a painting by creating a “veiling effect.” The veiling of images has been a common practice in Christian worship since the Middle Ages, with miracle-working images kept from view to heighten their efficacy when they are displayed in times of need.101 Just as the acts of concealment and revelation deepened the divine mystery in a religious setting, covering cabinet pictures with shutters or curtains generated a sense of anticipation and enhanced their impact.102 As Poussin’s words and Dou’s practice suggest, in the seventeenth century, the frame was a vital accessory that ensured the proper presentation of a painting, offering it to the viewer as an object of contemplation in a room full of other such objects. Dou’s use of the niche picture format to allude to framing further accentuates the value of Dou’s artistry, for it highlights the niche picture as an object crafted by the artist and references the prestigious collection as its intended display environment.

Repetition and Authorial Identity The niche picture format thus combines Dou’s virtuoso technique and witty allusions to pictorial conventions for the enjoyment of a discerning audience. A niche picture presents itself not only as an outstanding performance in lifelike painting, but also as a work containing multiple layers of meaning that would appeal to the liefhebber’s learned eye. By creating variations around the basic elements, I argue, Dou is able to amplify the impact of this distinctive compositional formula. On a basic level, the recurring window would have helped the viewer spot Dou’s work on a wall full of paintings. I would propose, however, that the compositional scheme was more than a quick identifier or “logo” in its original setting.103 The repetition of a particular set of motifs prompted knowledgeable viewers to compare paintings they saw in various locations, making it a self-referential ploy for Dou. As they recalled specific pictures from their memory, the viewers also demonstrated their familiarity

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with acclaimed collections, and perhaps even their ownership of works by the master. In other words, the repetition of a signature format like the niche picture enabled the viewers to engage in the high-stakes game of connoisseurship. Monetary rewards or losses could be on the line for a connoisseur who invested in paintings, but the social payoff—and risks—could be equally high for those who self-identified as liefhebbers.104 My argument rests on the supposition that liefhebbers had access to a substantial number of Dou’s paintings, if not all at once then at least over time. In addition to the fact that several collectors—Spiering, Sylvius, De Bye—owned multiple paintings by Dou, it was also possible for liefhebbers to see each other’s collections. A spectacular occasion to do so was De Bye’s exhibition, which, incidentally, included no fewer than six representations of “a maiden in a window.” A more common opportunity was offered by the established custom of visiting renowned collections in small groups, which is discussed in Chapter One. On such visits, a viewer’s cultural capital was on display as he participated in the rituals surrounding art collecting. I do not mean to suggest that these individuals saw collecting only (or even primarily) as a means of climbing the social ladder, nor do I dismiss the possibility that they derived pleasure from looking at assemblies of objects of artistic and scientific wonder. What I am positing, however, is that the customs that developed around the ownership of art objects were socially significant.105 A painting that could be effective in such a setting would assert the artist’s identity; satisfy or, better yet, surpass the expectations of the viewers; and function as a conversation piece. Dou’s purposeful and creative repetition made the niche picture a successful “brand-name” product—a type of composition that was widely associated with his name. Through the manipulation of a familiar set of motifs, he references contemporary artistic discourse to draw attention to his famous illusionistic rendering and polished finish. One of the elements that appear in several niche pictures, including The Violin Player (Plate 5) and The Trumpeter (Plate 11), is a stone relief under the window. The motif, recognizable as an adaptation of a work by the Flemish sculptor Francois Duquesnoy (1597–1643), shows a group of putti restraining a goat on the right, and a putto teasing the animal with a mask on the left (Fig. 17). Dou creates a series of variations around this relief, in combination with depicted tapestries, which forms an inter-pictorial narrative that not only advertises the artist’s skill, but also participates in the discourse of the art of painting itself. Painted in grisaille to mimic the monochromatic stone, the fictive sculpted relief was a stock motif of illusionistic painting. To a liefhebber who was familiar with the contemporary artistic discourse, it would also be seen as a nod to the paragone between painting and sculpture, which had occupied artists and scholars on the Italian peninsula since the sixteenth century. In Lof der Schilderkonst, Angel exploits the debate to emphasize the supreme status of painting. Unlike the Italian proponents of painting, however, Angel pays little attention to the contrasts between painting as

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an intellectual art and sculpture as a manual craft. Instead, he constructs his comparison entirely around the potential of each medium to imitate the physical world. Angel maintains that painting is superior because its great practitioners can imitate materials and visual phenomena, such as various atmospheric and lighting effects, that would be beyond the sculptors’ capabilities. Moreover, since painting lacks the three-dimensionality of sculpture, its capacity to evoke tangible qualities purely through the simulation of appearances makes it the highest form of illusion.106 Dou enters this debate by incorporating the Duquesnoy relief in his niche pictures. Most of the existing studies of Dou’s use of this element focus on iconographic interpretations of individual paintings. Earlier analyses tend to see the relief as a moralizing allegory. For example, in his essay on The Trumpeter, J. A. Emmens argues that the goat and the mask in the relief symbolize lust and deceit, respectively. Emmens is trying to prove that the merry company in the background of the picture represents the indulgence in earthly pleasures, whereas the trumpeter is a reference to the Last Judgment.107 His interpretation of the motif is therefore tied to his reading of the painting as a whole. More recent studies regard the relief as a metaphor for the illusionistic power of painting. In separate articles, Sluijter and Peter Hecht both note the analogy between music and painting in The Violin Player. Observing that music is commonly associated with the idea of harmony, a quality that the painter also strives to achieve, Sluijter proposes that the picture can be seen as a celebration of the power of art to delight the senses. In this context, the mask held by the putto in the relief functions as a reference to the pleasurable deceptiveness of painting.108 Hecht, meanwhile, argues that by juxtaposing a piece of sculpture with tapestry, metal vessels, books, and foodstuff, all rendered in paint, Dou asserts the triumph of painting over sculpture.109 According to Hecht, this is most clearly articulated in The Violin Player. In this painting, the putto in the relief teases the goat with his mask (which represents sculpture), the violinist tries to trick the bird with music, but Dou deceives the human viewer with his painting.110 Hecht concludes that while the Duquesnoy relief appears in a number of paintings of different subjects, it generally serves to “show what art can do.” More specifically, it shows what Dou can do. What these studies do not fully address, however, is the fact that the appearance of the relief differs from painting to painting. In The Violin Player, the putto holding a mask is on the immediate left of his companion, who is grasping the horn of the goat. In The Trumpeter, the distance between the two figures is extended, with the intervening space taken up by a swag of drapery. In The Doctor from 1653 (Plate 12), Dou again lengthens the relief, this time inserting a carpet between the climbing putto on the left and the one teasing the goat. Looking at all three paintings, it is clear that the dimensions of the relief and the configuration of the elements have been freely altered. By manipulating the appearance of the relief, Dou alludes to a known work by Duquesnoy but claims the motif as his own. The variations emphasize that what Dou offers are only appearances, but they are painted in such a way

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Fig. 17. Copy after Francois Duquesnoy, Bacchanal, 19th century. Ivory, 11.5 × 16 cm. Victoria and Albert Museum, London. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

that contemporaries would consider them to be true to life. Dou thus sets up a dialectic between verisimilitude and artifice, just as he does with the contrast between the meticulous rendering of materials and the spatial compression. A piece of fabric is frequently shown draped over the Duquesnoy relief in Dou’s paintings. Hecht sees in this a general reference to the contest between ancient Greek painters Zeuxis and Parrhasius, a legend recounted by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History. Although Zeuxis was able to paint fruit so lifelike it attracted birds, Parrhasius was deemed the superior painter when he deceived Zeuxis himself with a counterfeit picture curtain.111 By the seventeenth century, this story had become a topos for discussing illusionistic painting in Netherlandish commentary, so much so that a piece of fictive drapery hanging over an image would have been understood as an allusion to the legend. Hecht and Hollander both state that Dou places the tapestry in a certain way to reveal the important elements of the relief.112 However, an examination of the paintings shows that Dou has actually painted the elements around the tapestry. If we compare the relief as depicted by Dou to an ivory copy of the Duquesnoy work (Fig. 17), we can see that hardly any of the features are hidden. The carpet conceals nothing: it has become Parrhasius’s curtain. The strategic combination of the two motifs is even more significant when we consider that Dou was called the Dutch Parrhasius by the Leiden poet Dirk Traudenius.113

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The variation of the relief thus emphasizes the illusionism of Dou’s art by evoking the legend of Parrhasius. The act of repetition, as much as the iconographic significance of the motif itself, which refers to disguise and deception, is an important means of communicating with the viewer. The relief appears in pictures featuring musicians, shops, and urinomancers, and in each case the subject matter works with the meaningful motifs to make a specific comment on the eye-fooling potential of painting. As I mention above, the niche pictures that depict musicians and the Duquesnoy relief suggest the paragone between the arts. They refer to the capacity of painting to produce harmonious, pleasurable effects through an analogy to music.114 The Liechtenstein Violin Player, for example, involves comparisons between the deceptive powers of music, painting, and sculpture. The picture becomes a celebration of Dou’s artistry, as he evokes the senses of hearing and touch through the visual medium of painting. In The Trumpeter, while the subject matter may be associated with the concept of vanitas,115 the power of painting is nevertheless asserted, for the ephemeral has been captured and preserved in pictorial form.116 The moralizing meaning is further complicated by the fact that The Trumpeter is itself a costly object that rewards careful visual consumption. This emphasis on vision is also present in the Vienna Doctor (Plate 12). The surviving pictures of doctors by Dou all depict piskijkers (urinomancers) in consultation.117 In the Vienna picture, the doctor examines a vial of urine, presumably brought to him by the maidservant on the left. He holds up the flask to the light and gazes at its contents. The detailed rendering of the scene calls for a similarly attentive study by the viewer. The meticulous description of light passing through the transparent container and the colored liquid underscores Dou’s mastery of the technique of painting reflections and refractions. Dou uses a variety of brushstrokes to render the objects on the windowsill: he applies soft but visible brushstrokes to mimic the weave of fabrics, while effacing the marks of the brush marks to simulate the smooth surface of the copper basin. The characterization of the piskijker thus thematizes the act of attentive looking, while Dou’s execution invites the viewer to mirror the figure’s action by conducting his or her own inspection and evaluation of the painting. I don’t want to treat Dou as an intellectual philosophizing about the nature of representation, however.118 From what we know of Dou’s career trajectory and commercial practice, it is probably more fruitful to look at him as a painter-merchant who unites artistic vision with shrewd business sense. Contemporary commentaries see Dou’s commercial success as the result and proof of his artistic excellence. The legends of Dou laboring over every part of his paintings, and his practice of charging by the hour, suggest his pride in his craftsmanship and mercantile enterprise.119 The liefhebber, a viewer versed in artistic tradition and familiar with Dou’s oeuvre, would be able to appreciate the multivalent features and layers of deception. Dou’s play with meaningful elements in a series of paintings was also a self-promotional statement to these historical viewers.

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Dou the Painter-Entrepreneur I have argued that the window acts as a signifier of illusionism and artifice by virtue of its association with trompe l’oeil still life and religious painting. The combination underscores the painter’s ability to conjure persuasive images that the viewer knows to be fictitious, a mastery that is the main source of the paintings’ value. But there is a more direct reference to the notions of value and commerce in Dou’s niche picture, for the window had long been associated with trade by the seventeenth century.120 In particular, Jost Amman’s illustrations for Hans Sachs’s Ständebuch have been identified as a specific source for Dou, although the significance of this appropriation has yet to be fully explored.121 Amman adopts the late medieval and Renaissance convention of showing customers gazing into shop windows in several of the woodcuts, including fourteen that feature a frontal view into a shop space through a window.122 In the example shown here, the viewer looks through an arched masonry window into a woodturner’s workshop, where the artisan is working at the lathe while his products are displayed on the sill (Fig. 18). Dou’s niche pictures, circumscribed by an arched opening parallel to the picture, recall these printed representations of the trades. I suggest that Dou evokes this association to comment on his identity as a successful painter-entrepreneur, offering at his windows perfectly simulated surrogates of perishables, metal vessels, and exotic carpets as his merchandise. The Quack (Fig. 19) is arguably Dou’s most elaborate statement of his role as an artist and a purveyor of painted illusions. Signed and dated 1652, this largest surviving painting by Dou contains an impressive assemblage of figures and motifs that serve as visual metaphors for deceit and folly.123 While The Quack departs compositionally from The Violin Player or The Trumpeter, Dou himself is seen leaning out of a window, as if the artist has placed the viewer at a distance and at an angle to a niche picture. His self-portrait is juxtaposed with a quack doctor, who is trying to sell false remedies to the gullible crowd around him. The quack’s venture mobilizes the commercial association of the window, as his attempt to fool the crowd becomes a metaphor for the painter’s own enterprise, namely, the sale of deceptions. Dou’s merchandise is the complex scene itself, put on display at his shop window. His audience is, of course, not the foolish crowd but the liefhebbers who desire to be deceived by the painter’s eye-fooling artistry. A subject with an explicitly commercial theme that Dou introduced into Dutch genre painting was the shop, which was also a relatively new way of conducting business in early modern Europe. Dou may have drawn inspiration from the changes in the methods of trade in the period, but it does not mean that he recorded the commercial practice in a literal way. Despite the beguiling naturalism of the depicted objects, Dou derives his images of shops from pictorial precedents. The monumental stone window presented in the 1647 Grocer’s Shop (Plate 4) and in several later interpretations has little to do with the layout of actual seventeenth-century shops;

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Fig. 18. Jost Amman, “Der Holzdreschser (The Turner),” from: Eygentliche Beschreibung aller Stände auff Erden … (Ständebuch), by Hans Sachs. Woodcut, Frankfurt am Main, 1568. bpk, Berlin/Art Resource, NY.

instead, it refers back to the same tradition of representing trade and commerce mentioned above. Dou’s paintings are designed not to show actual Dutch shops in the seventeenth century, but to thematize the importance of judgment and the value of artistic virtuosity.124

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Fig. 19. Gerrit Dou, The Quack, signed and dated 1652. Oil on panel, 112 × 83 cm. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. Kavaler/Art Resource, NY.

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Dou, as we have seen, sought to control the monetary value of his paintings by charging his buyers an hourly rate. Once the painting began circulating on the market, the direct contact between painter and buyer was disrupted, leaving the former with limited influence over the price of the work. As Honig has argued, Dou uses the shop—where the sale of goods is mediated by the merchant—as a metaphor to address the questions about authenticity and value that arise in mediated trade. The Poulterer’s Shop in London (Fig. 20), for example, stresses the issue of judgment in assessing the value of a product. A transaction is taking place in the picture: the shopkeeper shows a hare to the young maidservant, who, considering her pointing gesture and smile, seems pleased with the proffered merchandise. The prospective buyer of Dou’s picture was likewise asked to inspect the product and to recognize the value of the painter’s virtuosity. On the windowsill are four birds, the plucked skin of three piled in the middle juxtaposed with the soft feathers of a larger one on the right. The textures of these in turn contrast with the fur of the hare, which the artist has articulated with short, radiating strokes. The maidservant rests her right hand on a polished metal pail, on which clear reflections of the surrounding objects can be seen. The inclusion of this motif is by no means arbitrary. The mirror was a well-known metaphor for painting in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century discourse, and the rendering of distorted reflections on a curved surface was a trope for demonstrating painterly skill.125 The two principal figures are on display too, just like the poultry on the window ledge. Dou differentiates between youth and age by simulating the wrinkled skin and sagging cheeks of the old woman, and the smooth flesh of the maidservant. The scene, with its proliferation of objects of different materials, is a tour-de-force of illusionistic painting put up for sale at the shop window, awaiting the judgment of the liefhebber. Why would Dou, in his imagery, technique, and business practices, assert labor and handicraft as critical factors of value? This question is intriguing because painters and theorists had been forcefully arguing for the intellectual nature of their profession since the sixteenth century. By extension, we may ask what prompted readers and viewers—most likely not members of the artisan class—to purchase the Ständebuch or Quiringh Gerritsz. van Brekelenkam’s paintings of tailors and smiths, when manual labor was traditionally seen as inferior to mental endeavors. A consideration of an evolving view of work in the period and the connection of Dutch painting to craft traditions can help us address these questions. Representations of trades, such as the Ständebuch and later prints and paintings ­produced in the Dutch Republic, were not simply factual records of crafts and ­professions but selective and idealized visualizations of men engaging in work. As Benjamin Rifkin and Alison Kettering explain, the book also served a didactic function: to praise work as an antidote to the sin of sloth and part of a virtuous life. ­Kettering further observes the emergence of a more “worldly” attitude towards work

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Fig. 20. Gerrit Dou, The Poulterer’s Shop, c. 1665–70. Oil on panel, 58 × 46 cm. National Gallery, London. © National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY.

in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic, where prosperity came to be considered a deserved reward for personal industriousness.126 Moreover, by diligently ­performing his work, the tradesman fulfilled his civic duty and contributed to maintaining the social order. In the Dutch towns, where craft guilds played an integral role in social and economic life, a positive cultural value was thus attributed to labor and work.

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At the same time, Dutch painters were, on the whole, less preoccupied than their contemporaries in Italy or France with distancing themselves from other craftspeople or shunning the guild system.127 Over the course of the century, some Dutch painters would adopt humanist ideas about painting, but the claim of painting as a liberal art did not preclude the admiration of fine craftsmanship. Instead, as Brusati argues, painting was characterized as the supreme craft, one that was capable of offering illusionistic surrogates of other crafted objects on a two-dimensional surface.128 As Angel’s misinterpretation of Jacob Cats’s comparison between poetry and painting shows, the painter’s colleagues in Leiden did not find it problematic to present their creations as valuable commodities.129 Understood within this context, Dou’s allusions to the world of craft and commerce thus add another layer of meaning to his niche pictures, tapping into the favorable view of work in his culture to accentuate the skill and labor invested in the making of his paintings. This emphasis on technical virtuosity is fused with references to antiquity, which underscore the learned aspects of Dou’s art. The Duquesnoy relief, for example, functions in these paintings not only as a trademark for Dou, but also as a visual mechanism that connects his paintings. Placed at the critical juncture along the window ledge at the threshold of depicted space, its iconography refers to deceit and illusion, and, as a fictive stone relief, it evokes the paragone between painting and sculpture. The representations of different subjects each emphasize a particular aspect of painting: its capacity to stimulate the senses, its ability to captivate the liefhebber’s eye, its status as a valuable object of desire. The combination of the Duquesnoy relief and the framing window forms a link among the works, generating an inter-pictorial dialogue that comments on the art of painting. Dou, one of the most admired Dutch painters of his day, fell from favor in the later eighteenth century when the hierarchy of artistic genres, with large-scale history painting at the pinnacle, was codified in academic theory. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the meticulous technique that earned Dou his reputation during his lifetime was dismissed as superficial and pedantic in the critical literature.130 In this chapter, I have argued that what has been seen as derivative and repetitious in Dou’s paintings can instead be regarded as strategic moves made to establish his artistic identity. Dou’s finest paintings were destined for the cabinets of wealthy and knowledgeable liefhebbers, and he, an enterprising artist, took into account the physical characteristics of the space and the social rituals that took place within it. The niche picture format, centered on a framing window, became an identifier of his authorship in a space filled with paintings, precious objects, and fine furniture. It served as a vehicle for Dou to showcase his refined techniques, and offered viewers a chance to prove their artistic acumen by articulating their appreciation of the visual effects and teasing out the multivalent allusions. By building a brand-name product around meaningful motifs, such as the Duquesnoy relief, Dou weaves a self-referential narrative

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through the paintings, which the liefhebber, accustomed to seeing works in each other’s collections in Dutch towns and beyond, could discern. The niche picture thus illustrates how cultural practices of collecting and connoisseurship, the economic forces on the art market, and the contemporary discourse on art converged to make creative repetition a successful strategy.

3. The Pleasure of Novelty: Gerard ter Borch’s Innovation Gerard ter Borch has long been regarded by scholars as a pivotal figure in the history of Dutch painting. The Music Lesson in Toledo (Plate 7), mentioned in Chapter One, illustrates the novel elements that Ter Borch introduced to Dutch genre painting in the mid-seventeenth century. Three figures are shown gathered around a velvet-­ covered table. A young man, clad in an officer’s costume, sits on the left and plays the lute. Facing him is a young woman, who is also holding a lute and reaching out to turn the page in a book of music. Standing behind the table and leaning on a chair is a third figure, a young man who looks wistfully down in the direction of the officer. The setting is spacious but simple, with only a few items of furniture, classicizing molding on the wall on the right, and a couple of picture frames on the distant back wall to suggest an affluent domestic setting. The spare background helps focus the viewer’s gaze on the triangular group of foreground figures, with Ter Borch not only rendering their facial expressions and body language with care, but also lavishing attention on their costumes. The artist uses short, tiny strokes of light-colored paint to simulate the shimmering silver embroidery on the seated man’s sleeves and collar, which contrasts with the heavy wool of his brown vest. The focus, however, is the female figure. Here Ter Borch demonstrates his masterful description of textures: the smoothness of the figure’s skin, the velvety sheen of the gold jacket, and the softness of the fur trim are meticulously differentiated. Ter Borch’s trademark, the gleaming satin skirt, is here depicted in crisp detail against the dark ground. Compared to the boisterous depictions of the young idle rich popular in the 1620s and 1630s, such as the Merry Company by Willem Buytewech in Berlin (c. 1622–24; Fig. 21), Ter Borch’s Music Lesson creates a far different emotional tone. In contrast to the theatrical gestures of the figures in Buytewech’s painting, the body language of Ter Borch’s figures is understated. The female figure at the center of Buytewech’s composition, for example, appears to be sitting on her companion’s lap, as they hold hands and lean towards one another. To underscore the theme of erotic desire already intimated by this interaction, Buytewech places several oyster shells—­oysters being a known aphrodisiac—prominently on the floor. Such a conspicuous display of intimacy is absent from Ter Borch’s painting, as the foreground figures make no physical contact. Although the man looks intently at the woman, she does not return his gaze. Apart from the activity of music making, which was firmly associated with love and courtship by the seventeenth century, only a partially visible foot-warmer may be seen as an amorous allusion.1 It is a subtle clue, however, as much of it is concealed under the woman’s skirt. Moreover, it has the same brown tint as the timber floor,

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Fig. 21. Willem Buytewech, Merry Company, c. 1622–24. Oil on canvas, 61 × 81 cm. Staatliche Museen, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. bpk, Berlin/Gemäldegalerie Berlin/Jörg P. Anders/Art Resource, NY.

the similarity in color further rendering it an unobtrusive element in the painting. Ter Borch’s use of accessories (what contemporary sources call bywerken) is therefore more subtle; the possibly symbolic elements provide hints rather than declarations of meaning. Ter Borch enhances this sense of quiet restraint through his palette, which, dominated as it is by earth tones, is strikingly different from Buytewech’s saturated primary and secondary colors. Ter Borch began producing such pictures of genteel refinement and understated eroticism around 1650, qualities that would come to define his artistic identity in the subsequent decades. He generally limits the number of figures in these pictures to three or four, and presents them in quiet, contained poses. Some of these paintings, such as The Music Lesson and The Introduction (c. 1662; Plate 13), show the figures in an encounter or incident. Other compositions show the protagonists occupied in letter-writing or personal grooming, with Curiosity (c. 1655; Fig. 40) and A Lady at her Toilet (c. 1655; Plate 2) being representative examples. Ter Borch includes a few items of costly furnishing, such as carved marble fireplaces, Turkish carpets, and luxurious table and chair coverings, to signal the wealth of the household. Otherwise, however, he paints the interiors in subdued hues and with broad brushstrokes that

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contrast with the detailed, refined treatment of the figures. This juxtaposition directs the viewer’s attention to the latter, especially the ubiquitous young woman in a satin dress.2 The remarkable differences between Ter Borch’s work and those of his immediate predecessors have led art historians to place him at the forefront of a “seismic stylistic and thematic shift” in mid-century genre painting.3 The question of how Ter Borch invented these images, which also seem so different from his earlier depictions of soldiers in inns or on horseback, has been more difficult to answer. Some commentators investigate personal or poetic inspirations,4 while others see a connection between Ter Borch’s idealized portrayals of patrician life and the new codes of civility being cultivated by the wealthy Dutch burghers in the mid-seventeenth century.5 In this chapter, I approach Ter Borch’s groundbreaking genre scenes from another angle, namely as works about painterly virtuosity and explorations in artistic conventions. These were paintings that asked viewers to appreciate the artist’s citation of, and departure from, traditions. They were thus more than reflections of standards of behavior among the upper class, but instead were works of artifice that allowed their audience to play a role in the rituals of civility. In order to understand Ter Borch’s creative strategy and its reception by its historical audience, I borrow a term from economic theory: “product innovation.” The study of the economics of art has of course been a lively avenue of inquiry in recent decades, most prominently in the statistical analysis of the art market. When Montias introduced the notion of innovations in 1987, he used it to consider how artists competed by lowering production costs and capturing market share. I would argue, however, that the concept of innovation goes beyond concerns of monetary costs and benefits. Combined with more recent research on consumer behavior, the notion of innovation can elucidate the demand for novelty in a complex society, and the forms such novelty might take in luxury products. To be clear, I am not claiming that Ter Borch’s invention could be explained purely, or even primarily, as a result of business calculations; I am instead suggesting that such considerations cannot be easily disentangled from cultural and social factors. My goal is to examine how Ter Borch’s artistic process, the economic impetus for innovation, and the setting in which affluent citizens performed as liefhebbers converged in the artist’s innovative paintings.

Invention through Repetition: Ter Borch’s Artistic Process Although the elegant interior scenes, which lack direct precedents in Netherlandish painting, seemed to emerge suddenly in his oeuvre, Ter Borch’s training in ­traditional workshop procedures and his exposure to certain established pictorial subjects formed the foundation for their creation. The earliest examples of Ter Borch’s treatment of domestic life in patrician households date to around 1650,6 more than a

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decade after he registered as a master in the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke. By this time he was already an accomplished painter of portraits and guardroom scenes. In addition to his travels abroad to England, and possibly Spain, Ter Borch accompanied the Dutch delegates to Münster in 1648 for the signing of the treaty that officially recognized the independence of the Dutch Republic, a historical event commemorated in a painting he created using small oval portraits of individual delegates.7 Ter Borch’s invitation to travel to Münster for this important occasion suggests that he had established himself as a popular portraitist by 1648. Like other young pupils in the period, Ter Borch learned the visual languages of various genres by studying prints and paintings by older masters. The practical processes of copying and replication that he would have also used in the workshop would aid him in melding motifs, figural types, expressions, and gestures from disparate pictorial themes into modular ensembles in his professional career. In o­ utlining Ter Borch’s travels and training, my intention is not to trace the various “influences” in his work. Rather, I would like to argue that these experiences helped define the set of artistic options from which he drew, which in turn could help us understand his innovations in genre painting. Drawings by the young Gerard preserved in the Ter Borch family estate, with their focus on local sites and ostensibly everyday events, may suggest that he was simply recording what he saw in daily life. His economic use of line, where forms seem to be delineated with rapid strokes of the pen, creates an impression of spontaneity. Closer inspection reveals that Ter Borch combined the observation of his physical surroundings with the study of prints and drawings. Wheelock notes that some of the ink drawings were executed over faint chalk sketches, which indicates that they were made in a more deliberate manner.8 Apart from making drawings of anonymous figures and local buildings, Ter Borch also copied prints by artists such as Jacques Callot and Pieter Quast,9 an exercise that informed the young draughtsman’s rendering of human figures. Even in the so-called landscape sketchbook, in which Ter Borch made drawings of deceptive naturalism and simplicity, he was clearly familiar with the conventions of the genre.10 Ter Borch would continue to build his repertoire of motifs and techniques as he traveled within the Republic and beyond. During the 1630s and 1640s, he encountered paintings of refined figures and luxurious materials, features which would become fundamental building blocks of his own novel genre scenes. Ter Borch left his hometown of Zwolle for Amsterdam in 1633. Although art historians’ speculation about a possible apprenticeship with Pieter Codde or Willem Duyster cannot be verified, a drawing from the period (Fig. 22), as well as his lasting interest in the figure of the soldier, suggests that merry companies and guardroom scenes made popular by those two masters made an impression on Ter Borch.11 After completing his apprenticeship in Haarlem with Pieter de Molijn in 1635,12 Ter Borch traveled to London to work with his step-uncle, Robert van Voerst. Even though he did not stay long in England, Ter Borch had the opportunity to observe first-hand the portraits of Anthony van

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Fig. 22. Gerard ter Borch, Young people around a table drinking, smoking and making music, 1632. Pencil, pen in brown ink, 16.1 × 21.3 cm. Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Dyck.13 Van Voerst was appointed engraver to Charles I in 1635, granting him and his nephew access to the art produced in the English court. Van Voerst not only made engravings after Van Dyck’s court portraits, but the two artists also collaborated on The Iconography series.14 Ter Borch’s free copy of Van Dyck’s preparatory study for Van Voerst’s own portrait gives us a glimpse into the young artist’s engagement with the Flemish master’s work in London (Fig. 23). Ter Borch was thus introduced to an art of opulence and elegance quite different from Dutch portraits and genre paintings he had previously seen. Ter Borch was a highly successful portrait painter throughout his career, and it is evident that his expertise in that genre informed his inventions in genre painting. A source of inspiration for Ter Borch’s portraiture could well have been Diego Velázquez. A number of contemporary sources recounted that Ter Borch traveled to Spain in 1637, where he found success at the court of Philip IV. A poem written in 1654 by Joost Roldanus, a schoolmaster from Zwolle, claimed that Philip himself sat for Ter Borch,15 while Houbraken’s biography of the artist likewise described his acquaintance with the nobility of the Spanish court.16 Beginning in the 1640s, Ter Borch adopted the full-length format for his portraits, and set his somberly dressed

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Fig. 23. Gerard ter Borch, Portrait of Robert van Voerst, 1635–36. Black chalk, 22.7 × 18.2 cm. Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

sitters against neutral backgrounds. Such characteristics recall Velázquez’s court portraits, even though Ter Borch’s paintings are of a much smaller scale. Ter Borch probably also saw the full-length portraits of prosperous burghers by Amsterdam artists such as Thomas de Keyser, Codde, and Duyster, as well as the Haarlem painter Hendrik Gerritsz. Pot.17 Through his practice as a portraitist, Ter Borch would have gained an understanding of the language of poses and gestures in conveying status and relations. This intimate knowledge of the codes of behavior, as I shall argue below, allowed him to choreograph complex and titillating genre scenes. Rather than treating the appearance of the so-called “high-life” genre scenes around 1650 simply as an expression of Ter Borch’s unique artistic vision, or as a response to external circumstances—such as the increased prosperity in the ­Republic—I see his pictorial strategy as the result of a confluence of factors: the techniques he learned in his youth; his exposure to the more refined merry companies by painters in Amsterdam early in his career; his knowledge of the work of Van Dyck

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Fig. 24. Gerard ter Borch, Two Boys seen from the Rear, c. 1631. Black chalk, 21.3 × 16.6 cm. Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

and possibly Velázquez; and the cultural and social rituals developing around the ownership of paintings in this period. Ter Borch developed new pictorial types as he drew from this repertoire of artistic sources, and he found success in an environment

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Fig. 25. Gerard ter Borch, Standing boy, seen from the rear, 1631. Black chalk, 16.5 × 9.6 cm. Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

where buyers had the art historical knowledge to appreciate his unique inventions. The practical methods of replication he was exposed to under his father’s tutelage, and probably in the workshops of De Molijn and Van Voerst, would inform his practice as an independent master. The repetition of motifs in Ter Borch’s paintings, often quite exact, suggests that the artist transferred drawings onto multiple supports, and drawings from the

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Fig. 26. Gerard ter Borch, Rider on a Rearing Horse, 1630s. Black chalk, 15 × 19.8 cm. Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

1620s and 1630s show that Ter Borch learned the techniques in his early training. For example, the verso of a sheet in the Rijksprentenkabinet contains two figures seen from the back (Fig. 24, RPK inv. 00:55). The one on the left is identical to a figure in a drawing dated 1631 (Fig. 25, RPK inv. A786). The faintness of the chalk marks suggests that the figure may have been traced from a third, pre-existing drawing.18 In a drawing showing a rider on a rearing horse, the blurred, velvety lines indicate that it is a counterproof (Fig. 26, RPK inv. A1208).19 The series of skating scenes from the 1630s, although bearing no evidence of tracing, consist of a number of stock figures in different combinations. For example, a figure seen from the back, pushing with his left leg and lifting his right off the ice, appears in all the drawings made in Zwolle (Figs. 27–9, RPK inv. A833, A831, A832). The mirror image of the figure can be seen to the left of center in a skating scene Ter Borch made in Haarlem (Fig. 30, RPK inv. A1132). This method of repeating, modifying, and rearranging a set of recurring elements, which he developed in his early drawings, would be used in more elaborate ways throughout Ter Borch’s professional career.20 Ter Borch sometimes would replicate an exact motif in multiple paintings but change the implied narrative by varying the rest of the composition. The resemblance between the female figures in The Music Party in Cincinnati (Plate 8) and The Music Lesson in Toledo (Plate 7) has attracted

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Fig. 27. Gerard ter Borch, Officer, seen from behind, watching skaters, 1633–34. Pen in brown, brush in black, over black chalk, 10.1 × 15.8 cm. Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

the attention of both art historians and conservators.21 Except for minor differences—the direction of her gaze and her hair ornament—the pose of the woman is the same in both paintings. Even more striking is the identical depictions of the satin skirts. In each painting, the folds of the dress fall in a series of arcs from the brilliantly lit area of the figure’s knee. A comparison of the tracings made from the paintings shows that the patterns of the folds and reflections of the skirts are not in exact alignment, but they are quite close.22 The same observation has been made of the satin skirts worn by the central female figures in The Suitor’s Visit, now in Washington (Plate 3), and A Lady at her Toilet in Detroit (Plate 2). The likely explanation is that in each case the motifs in the two related paintings were derived from the same preliminary drawing.23 Arie Wallert and Gwen Tauber posit that since the figures in the Toledo and the Cincinnati pictures are of the same scale, an intermediate drawing or tracing was probably used to transpose the motif from a single study onto both supports. In this procedure, a sheet of transfer paper would be covered on one side with powdered pigment, then placed between the drawing and the painting support. With a stylus or other pointed tool, the artist traces the contours of the drawing, pressing the powdered pigment from the transfer paper onto the support.24 The reuse of a detailed study allows the painter to bypass the observation stage of the making of a picture, thereby offering a way to maximize the utility of a detailed preparatory drawing. Drawings and patterns, ranging from small studies of individual motifs to large full-scale cartoons, have long been regarded as standard tools in

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Fig. 28. Gerard ter Borch, Man, seen from behind, watching skaters, c. 1633. Pen and brush in brown, over black chalk, 11.7 × 12 cm. Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

painters’ studios.25 Such drawings, whether single sheets kept in portfolios or bound into books, were listed in inventories of painters’ assets.26 A detailed drawing was thus not merely a preliminary step in the making of a particular painting, but was akin to an investment made in a piece of studio equipment. Painters continued to derive benefit from this initial expenditure in time and effort by using the drawn study multiple times. Moreover, drawings could also aid the painter in constructing compositions, as they facilitated the mixing and matching of motifs.27 What began as an economizing measure could, in some artists’ hands, be a tool for developing new kinds of artistic products. In addition to combining close replicas of particular motifs, Ter Borch also produced complete or partial replications of entire compositions. One of the subjects featured prominently in Ter Borch’s oeuvre was music making in well-appointed

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Fig. 29. Gerard ter Borch, Skaters outside the Zwolle city walls, late 1630s. Pen and brush in black, pen in brown, brush in grey, pencil, 15.1 × 29 cm. Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Fig. 30. Gerard ter Borch, Ice activities by Zijlpoort, Haarlem, 1634. Black chalk, 16.8 × 32.8 cm. Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

interiors. A young female figure, dressed in shimmering satin and often playing a lute, is a motif that recurs in numerous variations in the 1660s. In a painting now in Kassel (Fig. 31), the figure appears alone in a vaguely defined room. She leans forward, gazing at the songbook in front of her as she plays the lute. The furnishings in the room—the map on the wall, velvet coverings for the chair and the table—suggest a wealthy household, but Ter Borch as usual has kept such paraphernalia to a minimum. The plain setting, painted broadly in neutral earth tones, serves as a foil to the

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Fig. 31. Gerard ter Borch, The Lute Player, c. 1667–70. Oil on canvas, 53 × 39 cm. Staatliche Museen, Kassel. bpk, Berlin/Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Kassel/Art Resource, NY.

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meticulously described female figure. Ter Borch has carefully modeled the figure’s face, hands, and arms, articulating the underlying anatomy with blended strokes. Various shades of ochre are used to simulate the shiny gold velvet jacket, while the fur trimming comprises small, multi-directional strokes of white, ochre, and a cooler grey. Ter Borch displays most clearly his masterful ability to render luscious fabric in the satin skirt. A painter like Frans Hals suggests the sheen of satin by juxtaposing highlights and shadows, but Ter Borch opts to describe the detailed tonal transitions created as the cloth dips and rises. In the Kassel picture, the passage below the ­figure’s right knee shows a particularly complex variety of folds. In some places, Ter Borch produces a polished finish to accentuate the smooth surface of the satin; in others he leaves traces of the brush visible for a more lively texture. The lute player reappears in other paintings, often in the company of male figures, with their relationships characterized through body positions and the directions of their gazes. Ter Borch not only presents the lady in satin in each case, but he also composes the rest of the scene using similar figures and architectural elements. The Kassel lute player is present—with a more upright posture—in a three-figure group in the London National Gallery (Fig. 32). A seated male figure occupies the right of the canvas, looking down at a songbook in his left hand and keeping the beat of the music with his right. Behind him stands another male figure who also looks at the songbook. In contrast to the gleaming costume worn by the woman, the men are dressed fashionably in black. The placements of the doorway and the foreground furniture closely follow those in the Kassel painting. The tablecloth is here replaced by a Turkish carpet, its pattern and texture meticulously rendered in small and lightly blended brushstrokes. Ter Borch changes the costume and other accessories and, at times, as he does in the Music Lesson at the Getty in Los Angeles, reverses the orientation of the entire foreground unit of young woman at a table (Fig. 33). The visual evidence of the paintings points to practices of reproducing and modifying stock elements in Ter Borch’s studio. Procedures such as pouncing and tracing, which had a long history in the European artist’s workshop, had been discussed by Vasari, Borghini, and Van Mander.28 Moreover, evidence unearthed from the technical examinations of underdrawings indicates that such procedures were commonly used to transfer designs onto multiple devotional paintings in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.29 It is less clear, however, how extensively seventeenth-century Dutch genre painters used these techniques. Merry company painters certainly reused drawings to build images using stock motifs and quickly produced copies of popular compositions, but there is little evidence to confirm whether these artists and their studio assistants actually traced designs from cartoons to painting supports. Elmer Kolfin finds that painters such as David Vinckboons, Buytewech, and Esaias van de Velde laid out their compositions in underdrawings or painted sketches in varying levels of detail, but these appear to be freely executed. Given the wet-in-wet technique and visible brushstrokes characteristic of merry company paintings, it may not have been

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Fig. 32. Gerard ter Borch, Woman Playing the Theorbo to Two Men, c. 1667. Oil on canvas, 68 × 58 cm. National Gallery, London. © National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY.

necessary to seek the precision offered by tracing or pouncing. By contrast, precise and detailed underdrawings suggest that still life painters made use of mechanical transfer methods to create intricate compositions and vividly lifelike motifs.30 If the exactitude of the repeated motifs in Ter Borch’s paintings indicates that he indeed traced the images onto multiple supports, then he may have been following practices that were more common among still life specialists than genre painters of the preceding generation. Offering painstakingly described effects of light over

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Fig. 33. Gerard ter Borch, The Music Lesson, c. 1668. Oil on canvas, 67.6 × 59.4 cm. The Getty, Los Angeles. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

luxurious materials, Ter Borch’s paintings were arguably closer in desired visual effects to carefully observed still lifes than vivacious merry company paintings. Findings regarding the painters working in a more refined, detailed manner are rather sparse. Dou, for example, began his painting process with an underdrawing of varying levels of detail, but Wadum and Annetje Boersma both believe that he drew directly onto the panels.31 Van Mieris likewise laid out his compositions under the

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final paint layers, and it also seems unlikely that he transferred designs directly from preparatory drawings to the panels.32 In the absence of conclusive evidence from the scientific studies, it is difficult to determine whether Ter Borch was an outlier among genre painters in the second half of the seventeenth century. In either case, the interesting question concerns the uses to which he put those techniques. I would argue that while those practices may have brought Ter Borch cost-saving benefits, they also aided him in generating pictorial innovations.

Elegant Enigma: Ter Borch’s Novel Genre Paintings The novelty of Ter Borch’s genteel genre scenes lies not only in a heightened level of refinement, but also in the artist’s subtle treatment of the themes of love and courtship. By deploying diverse visual codes and mixing figural types in unusual combinations, Ter Borch distinguishes his new paintings from the conventional images of love and eroticism. The visual clues that may have facilitated an iconographic reading are often more suggestive than declarative, and the gestures and actions of the figures understated and sometimes even contradictory. This tension between elegant restraint and subtle erotic undertones marks Ter Borch’s work as distinct from the merry companies and guardroom scenes from the previous generation, and even the slightly earlier high-life musical parties by Duyster and Codde. This combination of exquisite craftsmanship and narrative uncertainty is exemplified by the Gallant Conversation, arguably Ter Borch’s most famous painting. The  source of irresolution—and therefore novelty—lies the recontextualizing of stock figures appropriated from existing pictorial subjects. The composition survives in two versions, one in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (Plate 9) and the other in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin (Fig. 34). Each painting centers around a group of three figures, similarly disposed in almost identical interiors. The Amsterdam picture has a more horizontal format, with the extra thirteen centimeters on the right occupied by a large dog in the foreground and a doorway in the background. A female figure, dressed in brilliant white satin and seen from the back, stands to the left of the center of the painting. To the right, a seated male figure in military garb, with his gesturing right hand and slightly parted lips, addresses the young woman. Between them, a seated female figure lowers her eyes and sips from a wine glass. Ter Borch has left the setting relatively plain, but the furnishings indicate a level of elegance commensurate with the presentation of the two female figures. For example, the ­fabric-covered chairs recall those in his formal portraits of the Deventer patricians (Figs. 35 and 36). The change in the name of the painting highlights the ambiguity of the pictorial narrative, a distinguishing feature of Ter Borch’s genre works. The Gallant Conversation

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Fig. 34. Gerard ter Borch, Gallant Conversation, c. 1654. Oil on canvas, 70 × 60 cm. Staatliche Museen, Gemäldegalerie Berlin. bpk, Berlin/Gemäldegalerie Berlin/Art Resource, NY.

used to be called Paternal Admonition. The previous title originated from the caption to an engraving made by J. G. Wille in 1765 after the version that is now in Berlin.33 In his novel Wahlverwandtschaften (Elective Affinities, 1809), Goethe adds to the picture’s fame by describing a tableau vivant modeled on the composition. Goethe’s passage also affirms Wille’s reading of the picture: the seated man represents a father admonishing his daughter, who stands with her head bowed, while the mother looks down in silence.34 Goethe’s interpretation, although largely dismissed in the current literature, nevertheless points to a desire to construct a moralizing story out of the pictorial elements, a goal that is shared by some commentators today. The fact that

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Fig. 35. Gerard ter Borch, Jan van Duren, c. 1666. Oil on canvas, 81.5 × 65.5 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Robert Lehman Collection, 1975 (1975.1.141), New York. Photograph by Schecter Lee. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

there is no consensus on the interpretation of the painting reflects its enigmatic, tantalizing character. Much of the commentary on the Gallant Conversation remains focused on attempting to establish its “meaning.” One of the most widely discussed readings regards the composition as a representation of a high-class brothel.35 This theory

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Fig. 36. Gerard ter Borch, Margaretha van Haexbergen, c. 1666. Oil on canvas, 81.3 × 65.1 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Robert Lehman Collection, 1975 (1975.1.141), New York. Photograph by Schecter Lee. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

acknowledges the erotic overtones of the painting, and, by analyzing the possible identity of each figure in the painting, draws attention to the picture’s formal ties to bordello scenes in the Netherlandish tradition. In her 1993 article, Alison Kettering complicates this reading, suggesting that the painting shows a courtship scene was

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informed by Petrarchism in Dutch culture. Her analysis underscores the role of the viewer and provides insights into the social and cultural contexts in which the painting was made and received.36 A third approach maintains that Ter Borch’s paintings, including the Gallant Conversation, serve as vehicles for the painter to display his skills in rendering fine fabrics.37 This argument contends that the satin was the raison d’être of the painting and downplays the iconographic and contextual significance of the imagery. None of these analyses, however, account for all the elements in the painting. Indeed, to varying extents the image resists each of the readings. Perhaps it is beside the point to attribute a conclusive meaning to the Gallant Conversation. That is the argument put forward by Svetlana Alpers and Elizabeth Honig, who posit that the painting represents Ter Borch’s explorations of the processes of defining gender roles and relations in the new Republic.38 The mystery regarding the precise identity of the young woman—is she a modest maiden or a courtesan?— reflects the tensions in the clear-cut categories of womanhood prescribed in contemporary moralizing literature. The question I want to address in this chapter is how this ambiguity is created. I suggest that Ter Borch generates a sense of uncertainty by referring to, but also departing from, existing pictorial types, such as the merry company and the bordello picture. This subversion of the viewer’s expectations constitutes in large part the novelty of Ter Borch’s genre paintings. Like many other paintings by Ter Borch, the Gallant Conversation offers an openended narrative around just a few figures and minimal accessories. The standing female figure dominates the composition. The woman’s erect posture and slightly slanting neck conform to contemporary notions of female grace.39 Ter Borch’s detailed description of her shimmering satin dress gives it a vivid, tangible quality. The strong highlights stand out sharply from the dark earth tones of the rest of the picture, further attracting the viewer’s attention. Ter Borch also provides indications that the scene takes place in her boudoir. To her left, a mirror, a powder puff, and combs sit on a table, marking it as a woman’s dressing table. The proximity of these objects to the standing woman presents the room as her domain. If the pose of the standing female figure bespeaks grace and decorum, the presentation of the male figure is less certain. He sits with his legs crossed, which was deemed indecorous by writers on civility in the period.40 An exception, where such a pose was considered suitable for a respectable individual, was in informal portraiture. A comparison of Frans Hals’s portraits of Willem van Heijthuysen can illustrate the diverse conventions governing different types of portraits. In one depiction Van Heijthuysen is shown leaning back in his chair with his legs crossed (Fig. 37). It is instructive to compare this small painting with Hals’s earlier portrait of the same sitter.41 In an earlier portrait, Hals shows the same sitter standing upright in a contrapposto stance. The positioning of his feet, with the left one in front of and at an angle to his right, echoes the poses of gentlemen in courtly and formal portraits.42 In his discussion of the two paintings, Roodenburg suggests that the cross-legged pose

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Fig. 37. Frans Hals, Portrait of Willem van Heijthuysen, c. 1637. Oil on panel, 46.9 × 37.5 cm. Musée Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels. Scala/Art Resource, NY.

connotes comfortable ease in the informal piece. Indeed, documentary evidence indicates that this picture was hung in a more private part of Van Heijthuysen’s residence.43 Ter Borch himself has portrayed a male sitter with his legs crossed in a space that, with writing implements on the table next to the figure, is characterized as a place for quiet study.44 Hence the pose, while regarded as inappropriate for formal settings, could be used in painting to suggest relaxation or contemplation in a private context. The seated man in the Gallant Conversation also references the popular merry companies, in which the male figure seated with crossed legs appears regularly. Extravagantly dressed young men strike the pose self-consciously in the works of Willem Buytewech and Dirck Hals, for example, to emphasize the exuberance of the gathering of youthful courting couples. Their works contain allusions to love and eroticism within spaces that straddle the private and public spheres.45 Some art historians, pointing to moralizing texts that denounce indulgence in luxuries and fashion,

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have interpreted merry companies as pictorial criticisms of contemporary youth’s pursuit of worldly pleasures. This view has not been universally accepted, however, as sophistication in dress and manners could well be seen as a mark of status.46 As H. Rodney Nevitt has argued, songbooks, romances, and paintings attest to a “youth culture” of courtship and love among the elite in the seventeenth-century Republic.47 This is not to suggest that the paintings reflect actual behavior by the youthful elite of the day, or that they illustrate the ideas expressed in songbooks. Rather, paintings of merry companies, like the other media, played a role in constructing that image of the young idle rich. As Nevitt explains, a sense of ambivalence was integral to the discourse on youth and love, which acknowledges the “potential for sin [that] lurks beneath the surface of seemingly polite activities.”48 The presence of the cross-legged pose in a merry company could therefore be seen as an expression of informality and a carefree attitude among the youthful elite. It became associated with this pictorial type, which was delicately placed at the boundaries of decorum. Ter Borch’s innovation lies in placing the male figure, seated with his legs crossed, in an unusual context in the Gallant Conversation. As I explain above, the artist has provided various clues that the room belongs to the young woman. The man’s informal pose, then, cannot be explained as an expression of comfort in his own space. Moreover, his casual body language contrasts with the quiet, introspective attitudes of the two women. He is looking at the standing woman, but, judging from the angle of the inclination of her head, she is not returning his gaze. Ter Borch does not show the viewer her facial expression, but her closed, erect form contrasts with those of the figures in works by Dirck Hals and Buytewech. The officer’s pose could thus be seen as a “blatant breach of decorum” in formal social interaction, making it difficult to see the scene as a depiction of genteel courtship.49 Scholars who read this painting as a brothel scene rely on the configuration of figures and the possibility that the man might be holding a coin in his right hand.50 The speculation about the existence of the coin has now been refuted, as technical teams in both Amsterdam and Berlin failed to find evidence of abrasion or overpainting in that area of either canvas.51 The seated female figure thus becomes the most important piece of evidence. Art historians who champion this theory point to the combination of two female figures and one male as typical of traditional representations of bordello scenes. Yet, compared to her counterparts in pictures with overt references to illicit sex, such as Dirck van Baburen’s Procuress in Boston (Fig. 38) and Gerrit van Honthorst’s paintings of merry parties,52 the identity of the seated woman in Ter Borch’s painting is not at all clear. Although historical research has shown that procuresses in the Dutch Republic were only slightly older than the prostitutes,53 the former are traditionally portrayed in the pictorial arts as old women. The role of the old woman in Van ­Baburen’s painting would thus have been immediately clear to the beholder. In contrast, Ter Borch’s figure bears little resemblance to this stereotype. Rather than haggling with the soldier, the woman lowers her eyes and sips from a glass. Nothing in her pose or action suggests anything disreputable; even the way she holds

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Fig. 38. Dirck van Baburen, The Procuress, 1622. Oil on canvas, 101.5 × 107.6 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Photograph © 2017 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

the glass—by the foot of the stem—conforms to the rules of polite behavior. Her facial features and demure demeanor resemble the virtuous widow in Woman Peeling an Apple (Fig. 39)54 and the elegant lady writing a letter in Curiosity (Fig. 40), more than the women carousing with soldiers in Ter Borch’s own earlier tavern and guardroom scenes. In the later paintings, however, the type of the honorable, graceful lady has been “normalized”, i. e., she inhabits a less problematic domestic milieu that accords with her dress and disposition. Indeed, there is a risk of falling into a circular argument that identifies the seated woman in the Gallant Conversation as a procuress based on the interpretation of the subject of the picture as a bordello scene, and the same figure is then used to confirm the subject matter.55 Ter Borch’s Gallant Conversation defies the viewer’s expectations—and thus presents itself as something inventive—in several ways. The actions and gestures of the three figures do not allow the beholder to construct an intelligible narrative. I would argue, however, that a more specific source of the ambiguity stems from the fact that the figures cannot be assigned to established pictorial categories. Ter Borch’s characterization of the standing woman is clearly different from the complying prostitutes or temptresses of Van Baburen and Honthorst. Nor does she resemble the exuberant young women in merry companies from the 1620s and 30s. The closest visual parallels to the two female figures are depictions of women reading, writing, or at their dressing tables, with Pieter Codde’s Lady Holding a

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Fig. 39. Gerard ter Borch, Woman Peeling an Apple, 1660–61. Oil on canvas, 36 × 30.5 cm. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

Letter seated at a Virginal (Fig. 41) being a striking precedent.56 The seated man, on the other hand, resembles the soldiers in guardroom pictures more than his music-playing counterparts in later paintings by Ter Borch.57 In effect, Ter Borch has combined in one painting figural types invested with diverse associations drawn from several conventional subjects. The recontextualization of these types, in an encounter without interaction, generates the sense of mystery that in turn defines the novelty of Ter Borch’s approach.

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Fig. 40. Gerard ter Borch, Curiosity, c. 1660. Oil on canvas, 76.2 × 66.2 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The Jules Bache Collection, 1949 (49.7.38). Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Innovations and Repetitions Ter Borch’s high-life genre scenes, refined in visual effects and subtle in narrative, not only found an appreciative market, but would be emulated by numerous genre painters in the second half of the seventeenth century. I have suggested that we can

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Fig. 41. Pieter Codde, Lady Holding a Letter seated at a Virginal, early 1630s. Oil on panel, 40.3 × 31.7 cm. Private collection, Boston. Collection RKD‐Netherlands Institute for Art History, The Hague.

find his sources in his knowledge of artistic conventions, exposure to the courtly art of Van Dyck, and practice as a portraitist for affluent citizens in Deventer. Identifying the sources in itself, however, fails to adequately account for the way Ter Borch melded existing types into novel creations or how those images resonated with liefhebbers

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and other artists. To address these questions, this section draws from the economic theories of innovations and consumer behavior. In doing so, I do not mean to suggest that seventeenth-century Dutch artists behaved in identical ways to modern firms, or that commercial considerations alone could explain artistic strategies. Instead, I propose that certain general principles gleaned by economic theorists of the demand for novelty can shed light on the reception of Ter Borch’s creations. The concept of innovation is familiar to historians of Dutch art. As John Michael Montias explains in his seminal article from 1987, historians of economics and technology recognize two main types of innovations: process and product. Process innovations “lower the costs or otherwise improve the technology of making products that were already available or whose characteristics are essentially similar”; product innovations involve the introduction of “totally new products or products whose characteristics depart significantly from those known in the past.”58 For example, master painters devised ways to speed up production to take advantage of an emerging mass market for painting in early sixteenth-century Bruges and Antwerp. The use of templates to reproduce motifs and patterns, sometimes by mechanical means such as pouncing or tracing, allowed a workshop to produce popular compositions quickly.59 Reducing the time necessary to complete a painting lowered per unit cost, which allowed the master to either gain a higher profit margin or sell more pictures than his competitors. In economic parlance, this would be considered a “process innovation.” In the absence of legal protection, a successful innovation is susceptible to being imitated. If a producer finds a way to generate a popular product at lower costs, his or her competitors would be compelled to adopt the same techniques in order to survive in a sizeable and growing market. Assuming that consumers are not swayed by the individual reputation or manner of a particular artist, imitation would quickly eliminate any initial profits brought by the innovation. Following this argument, the end result would be the reduction of the general prices of all paintings of the same genre, as well as a certain uniformity among the works by different artists. This t­ heory goes against the modern view of a painting as a repository of an artist’s expression and invention. Instead, it contends that in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic, painting was seen as a consumer good, and the qualities of originality and uniqueness did not hold the same importance as they do today. Although he introduces two kinds of innovations in his article, Montias’s analysis focuses primarily on the effects of cost reduction, an emphasis that, I believe, may be explained by his use of the neoclassical microeconomic model to describe the Dutch art market.60 Neoclassical economic analysis is based on the premises that all economic agents, having full access to the relevant information, will reach rational decisions. All consumers and producers strive to maximize utility and profit, respectively, by efficiently allocating finite resources. Applied to the production and consumption of paintings, this model relies on a number of assumptions. First, producers and

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consumers have to be anonymous; that is, no one is able to influence the market through his/her reputation or disproportionate market share. Second, products created by different painters have to be seen as more or less interchangeable, so that price becomes the determining factor in the consumer’s decision making. These two conditions were not always met in the Dutch art market.61 More recent research, including Montias’s many contributions, points to the ­multi-layered structure of the Dutch art market. The methods of sale, for example, ranged from estate auctions through which cheap paintings were bought and sold in bulk, to private arrangements between buyers and painters for expensive works. The lower end of the market was supplied by obscure painters mass producing generic pictures, which some notaries labeled as “work by the dozen” (dozijn werk) or “ordinary work” (slechte schilderijen).62 By contrast, as I explained in the previous two chapters, the artist’s fame and personal expertise trumped price as the key factors for liefhebbers in the upper echelons of society. Consumers in the Dutch Republic did not form one homogeneous group, and neither did painters. Neoclassical analysis of supply and demand could, at best, only provide an approximation of a portion of the market. Given that he was not situated in the mass market for cheap paintings, it is worth asking how Ter Borch uses techniques usually associated with process innovation, e. g., tracing and pouncing, in his creative practice. Ter Borch’s repetition of a specific set of motifs—especially if he did mechanically transfer designs onto multiple supports—would have saved him time and therefore labor cost. It also meant that he managed to derive greater benefit from the initial investment of time and effort in making a detailed drawing. With that being said, by the mid-seventeenth century these standard methods would not have given Ter Borch a competitive advantage over other painters. Instead, the procedures of copying and transferring designs may have facilitated Ter Borch’s modular approach to composition. As the example of the Gallant Conversation shows, he takes some figures out of their ordinary usage and places them in new contexts, thereby disrupting their conventional meanings. He can thus be seen as using process innovations introduced in the past to create a product innovation in a different cultural environment. The creation of a novel pictorial type cannot stop with an isolated experiment, and indeed Ter Borch continues to employ this process of recontextualizing stock figures. Moreover, the artist develops a number of distinctive elements, such as the seated satin-clad lute player, which he then reuses in different combinations across his own paintings. In this way, he creates a series of pictures that celebrates his invention of the elegant interior scene and his unparalleled ability to render satin. For example, The Introduction (c. 1662; Plate 13) is a variation on the theme established in the Gallant Conversation. Ter Borch focuses the viewer’s attention on the central young couple through various pictorial devices. The pair takes up most of the foreground space, blocking visual access to the background. The young w ­ oman’s gleaming satin dress and the man’s gold sleeve are spotlighted by a selective, frontal light source,

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Fig. 42. Willem Duyster, Soldiers Fighting over Booty in a Barn, c. 1623–24. Oil on panel, 37.6 × 57 cm. National Gallery, London. © National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY.

producing the strongest highlights in the composition. A brass c­handelier—an unlikely item of furnishing in a domestic interior63—hangs above the two figures, forming a vertical axis that runs through the length of the canvas. At first glance, this scene appears to be one of courtship performed by figures with graceful, courteous gestures in an upper-class setting. However, several elements raise questions about this interpretation. First, the soldier is an ambivalent figure in Dutch painting.64 Military glory was rarely celebrated in painting, while the guardroom scene, a popular genre from the 1620s to the 1640s, presents the army soldier as a marginal figure in Dutch society. The pictures by Duyster (Fig. 42) and Jacob Duck, for instance, show soldiers gambling, fighting, and carousing with women in inns or barn-like interiors. After 1650, artists such as Ter Borch, Nicolaes Maes, and Vermeer began placing soldiers in urban middle-class interiors. Some art historians have suggested that a more positive portrayal of the soldier was being developed in genre painting in this period, with Ter Borch being an especially important figure in this process.65 Yet while Ter Borch’s letter-writing or music-playing officers did acquire an air of refinement, their counterparts in other paintings are presented in more equivocal terms. For example, Ter Borch’s own Gallant Officer (Fig. 43) recalls the soldier’s association with prostitution. His contemporary Maes portrays an officer in a more humorous light in The Eavesdropper (Fig. 44), but the figure is nonetheless presented as an intruder dallying with the maid in an otherwise orderly domestic space.66 If the setting influences our

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Fig. 43. Gerard ter Borch, The Gallant Officer, c. 1662. Oil on canvas, 67 × 55 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Photo: Gérard Blot. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY.

perception of a figure, it is also valid to ask how the figure, which carries meanings accrued through its use in pictorial traditions, shapes our understanding of the pictorial space it inhabits. Instead of regarding the placement of the soldier in domestic spaces as a simple process of gentrification of the guardroom scene, it may be more interesting to consider how it alters the character of a depiction of a burgerlijk home.67

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Fig. 44. Nicolaes Maes, The Eavesdropper, 1656. Oil on canvas, 84.7 × 70.6 cm. The Wallace Collection, London. By kind permission of the Trustees of the Wallace Collection, London/Art Resource, NY.

The meaning of The Introduction is further complicated by the fact that the secondary figures comment on, yet do not clarify, the relationship between the foreground figures. Ter Borch places a shadowy figure of an old woman in a strategic position, so that she can be seen between the two principal figures. This figure recalls the procuress in bordello scenes, and her presence brings to mind an association with the pictorial treatment of sexual transgressions. On the left, a young man plays a lute while a woman looks up from a songbook. The relationship of these

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figures—possibly another courting couple—to the foreground pair is unclear, as is the role of the older woman in this scene. She may be a chaperone to the young women or a procuress in an upscale brothel, and it is this uncertainty that gives the painting an added sense of mystery. The Introduction, like the Gallant Conversation, thus alludes to pictorial types established in the previous generations—musical companies, guardroom pictures, bordello scenes—but stands distinct from them. The juxtaposition of characters taken from these disparate subjects transforms Ter Borch’s composition into something novel, injecting it with a sense of ambiguity and nuance that defies straightforward interpretation. In “Realism and Seeming Realism”, Eddy de Jongh explains that the tone of a picture or one unambiguous motif would guide the iconologist in determining the meaning of each element that the artist intends to evoke.68 Ter Borch’s paintings, however, often lack such a clear tone or key feature, making it difficult to attribute to them one definitive interpretation. This may explain why commentators have speculated about the presence of a coin between the fingers of the cavalier in the Gallant Conversation since the eighteenth century. Even in The Gallant Officer, a painting with more overt references to prostitution, there is uncertainty in the nature of the figures’ interaction. The soldier, with his unkempt appearance and ungainly pose, is certainly not a respectable figure, while his offer of coins to the young woman is an unmistakable gesture. The woman’s reaction is harder to read, however.69 It is true that the oysters could be an allusion to lust, and wine is frequently present in bordello scenes, but her modest demeanor, so different from that of the compliant women in the paintings by Van Baburen and Honthorst, seems incongruous with the indicators of sexual license. When figural types are taken out of their conventional contexts, new juxtapositions could generate multiple, possibly contradictory, meanings. At the same time, they carry residual meanings through their association with specific pictorial traditions. For seventeenth-century viewers familiar with Netherlandish pictorial tropes, Ter Borch’s imagery would have subverted their expectations and offered intriguing encounters. This novelty is, moreover, underscored by the serial production of variations around a common theme. The result is a new kind of genre painting, pictures that depict elegant figures acting out indeterminate narratives in seemingly genteel domestic spaces. Furthermore, Ter Borch introduces variations into his use of the motifs to produce a range of emphases and connotations, as a comparison of The Introduction (Plate 13) and The Suitor’s Visit (Plate 3) demonstrates. The courting couple in the latter do not make physical contact, but, unlike her counterpart in The Introduction, the satin-clad lady returns her visitor’s gaze.70 Ter Borch omits the shadowy figure of the old woman in The Suitor’s Visit, removing a possible reference to the bordello. The interaction characterized in each painting therefore differs slightly from the other. But Ter Borch’s process of mixing and modifying a restricted number of figures not only enabled him to create subtle variations on his own invention, it

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was also an efficient means of production. In other words, his particular forms of repetition both accentuated his creativity and yielded cost savings.

The Allure of Novelty: Rethinking the Economic Approach Although I borrow concepts from the discipline of economics to examine Ter Borch’s strategies of invention, my approach differs from the application of a supplyand-­demand model or data mining, methods that have been more commonly used in the study of Dutch art. The gathering and statistical analysis of data had proven fruitful for examining larger trends in the prices and volume of production, or the scale and breadth of a particular market.71 The model is best used to analyze how producers and consumers effectively allocate their resources, and how the market as a whole arrives at the optimal volume and price of a product. Once the equilibrium levels are reached, it is difficult to use the model to explain or describe the demand for new goods. Or, to put it another way, it is more difficult to account for product innovations using this framework. This means that the impetus to generate novel products, like Jan van Goyen’s evocative landscapes in the 1630s and 1640s or Ter Borch’s genre scenes in the 1650s, is usually attributed to exogenous factors, such as the artist’s creative impulse or the invention of new technology. More recently, some economists have sought to remedy the limitation of the neoclassical theory of market economics, and I believe their research can add nuance to the concept of product innovation and thus elucidate the allure of the particular form of novelty exhibited in Ter Borch’s paintings. Since the 1960s, scholars have tried to improve the traditional open market model to account for empirically observed behavior in the marketplace. Especially relevant for my purposes here, scholars of consumer behavior emphasize the multiple motivating factors of consumption (instead of the single, abstract notion of utility) and the ways in which past experiences and the observed practices of other consumers might influence choice. The traditional mass market model assumes that a consumer rationally spends his or her finite income over a range of discrete goods in order to maximize “utility.” One of the interventions that recent studies of consumer behavior made was to break down the abstract concept of “utility.” Informed by the findings of behavioral psychology and neurophysiology, these studies maintain that novelty, complexity, surprise, and other stimuli all constitute elements of utility. This is especially evident after the consumer’s basic needs have been fulfilled.72 Novelty is, of course, a temporary trait, so that the desirability of an item based on its novel aspects necessarily changes over time. Experiments measuring the brain’s processing of stimulation suggest that the pleasure a subject derives from a new product is not constant: the level of measurable pleasure starts quite low, then rises as the subject becomes familiar with the item. Satisfaction plateaus at some point, however, and then declines with

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repeated exposure thereafter.73 The same product or experience could thus provoke different responses from a consumer over time. Research conducted by economic theorists suggests that this phenomenon can explain the consumer’s continuing pursuit of novelty and the producer’s incentive to innovate. The studies of consumer behavior go further to determine the forms of novelty that are seen as desirable, an endeavor that involves the recognition that a consumer good is not simply a single, discrete item but a bundle of different characteristics, some of which are shared between related goods. To facilitate this analysis, Marina Bianchi and Neil de Marchi distinguish between global and component goods.74 For example, clothing is a global good, which is made up of a vast array of components such as dresses, coats, shirts, different designer labels, etc. According to the authors, stimuli such as novelty, variety, and complexity are achieved at the level of the component goods. For our purposes, “painting” is a global good, but artists can create numerous variations and novel features, resulting in an endless variety of pictures. Ter Borch, for example, creates a new, distinctive component good—the elegant interior scene—that is still clearly related to the works of other painters. Novelty, therefore, does not have to involve an overhaul of the larger category of painting, but can be produced by introducing new characteristics or reconfiguring existing ones—which, I argue, is what Ter Borch has done. While their genteel and contemplative tone may indeed be influenced by the prosperous circumstances of the Dutch patricians, Ter Borch’s depictions of elegant interior scenes, I would argue, were more important as valuable works of expert craftsmanship and inventiveness that provided the occasion for liefhebbers to demonstrate their artistic knowledge. Although his mature genre paintings may have struck viewers as a new, unique pictorial type, Ter Borch balances recognizable characteristics with novel elements. This combination of the familiar and the new also had an economic logic. Studies in economics and psychology find that a product that lacks the stimulating effects of novelty and surprise causes boredom, while another that strays too far from related goods causes confusion and bewilderment. In other words, novelty is only pleasant within bounds, and a blending of the new and the familiar has the best chance of succeeding in the marketplace.75 Following this line of reasoning, an artist has to balance stimulation and comfort in order to appeal to viewers. Ter Borch, in works like the Gallant Conversation and The Introduction, may have developed just such a pleasing innovation: a kind of painting that is novel but that simultaneously alludes to established traditions. It thus provides the viewer points of reference for understanding the imagery, but still offers an element of surprise by subverting some of his or her expectations. These views on stimulation and comfort of consumption seem to accord with our own experiences, but is it because they are bound to today’s consumer society?76 To what extent can conclusions drawn from laboratory experiments conducted in recent decades be applied to another period? Interestingly, some of the important

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features of modern Western consumer demand have been traced back to early modern Europe. Rapid economic expansion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries fueled social and cultural transformations.77 With the proliferation of consumer goods—both domestically manufactured and brought in from outside Europe— what Jan de Vries calls the “actively searching consumer” emerged. The explosion in the amount and variety of household goods recorded in inventories from the 1650s onward reveals the exercise of choice and exploration by this active consumer. Moreover, a considerable portion of the population beyond a small traditional elite now had the disposable income necessary to acquire luxury goods.78 In the growing urban centers of Europe, a symbiotic relationship developed between producers striving to carve out market niches by creating novel products and consumers who sought excitement and stimulation of the new. This propensity to pursue novelty can be found in the seventeenth-century Dutch consumer. De Vries argues that the behaviors traditionally associated with technological changes of the Industrial Revolution were already observed much earlier in Europe. He contends that what occurred in the early modern Dutch Republic was an “industrious revolution”, in which a broader spectrum of the population, especially in urban centers, sought to maximize their income to purchase market goods. Consumers sought pleasure and constructed new group identities through consumption, which in turn generated growing demand for new goods—goods that were distinct from those that had previously satisfied the aristocratic elite’s desire for grandeur.79 Producers both responded to and played a part in shaping that demand through innovations. Historical studies on the exchange and trade in exotic floral specimens, for instance, observe this interdependence between the buyer’s interest in novelty and the producers’ efforts to arouse that interest in the Dutch market for the tulip, a flower originally introduced to the Low Countries from Turkey. Dutch horticulturalists created “limited editions” of colorful varieties, emphasizing the visual appeal, novelty, and rarity of the flower to enthusiasts.80 Horticulture was far from the only industry where this dynamic was present; imported textiles and porcelain from Asia similarly introduced novel elements to the global goods of “clothing” and “ceramics”, and local manufacturers capitalized on the new demand by producing less expensive local alternatives and marketing them to a wider customer base.81 Amid the societal and commercial transformations of urban economies, then, new consumers of varying backgrounds created rapidly growing demand for not only material goods but also novelty in material goods. Novelty, the forms it took, its value and problems, and its relation to tradition, were very much on the minds of artists, writers, and collectors in seventeenth-­century Europe. One indication was the emergence of the notion of intellectual ownership north and south of the Alps in the sixteenth century. For instance, Albrecht Dürer applied for privileges in major print markets to protect his inventions, while the printmaker Ugo da Carpi sought to do the same for his chiaroscuro woodcut technique.82

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There was thus a sense that novel inventions, be they visual or technical, carried a special value that was worth protecting. But the most famous incident of a debate playing out between novelty and tradition was arguably the controversy surrounding Domenichino’s Last Communion of St. Jerome, which involved accusations of plagiarism directed at the artist by his fellow Carracci pupil Lanfranco. Lanfranco claimed that Domenichino stole Agostino Carracci’s invention of The Last Communion of Saint Jerome (1592) in composing his own altarpiece of the same subject (1614). Lanfranco might have been motivated by personal reasons, as he made the charges when the two artists were competing for prestigious commissions in Sant’Andrea della Valle in Rome. But it is worth noting that the initial dispute led to a protracted critical debate among artists and theorists in Rome and beyond. As Elizabeth Cropper has demonstrated, that the “Domenichino affair” had such widespread and lasting resonance indicates that the imitative model of invention—a model that was, moreover, emphasized by the Carracci as the foundation of a modern style—was being challenged at the time. Indeed, Cropper argues that a “cult of the new” was developing in literature, science, and art, as evidenced in the work of Galileo, Caravaggio, and the poet Giambattista Marino.83 The theorists’ defense of Domenichino or praise of Caravaggio represent attempts to grapple with the shifts in the understanding of novelty and the values—artistic, cultural, even moral—attributed to it. Caravaggio’s claim to novelty rests on distinctive pictorial effects, such as dramatic tonal contrasts, seemingly unidealized presentations of religious or mythological figures, and his exploration of new subjects. Working in very different circumstances, Dutch artists also exploited and encouraged consumers’ craving for innovative works. Historians have mostly couched such novelty in commercial terms. Dutch artists, they argued, worked in a new economic landscape—a proto-capitalist market that was conducive to innovation. No longer creating religious or ceremonial pieces for specific patrons, painters sought to open up markets by introducing new subjects and techniques.84 If we accept the idea that novel products and effects were in part driven by commercial concerns, it remains a question whether they would be a combination of the familiar and the unexpected, as predicted by modern consumer behavior theory. Consider, for example, Adriaen van de Venne’s pioneering of a type of monochromatic painting in the 1620s and 1630s. The grauwtjes (little gray ones), with their combination of lowlife theme, monochromatic palette, and witty use of textual ­inscriptions, became a distinctive invention firmly associated with Van de Venne. These small paintings, as Westermann demonstrates, explore the paradox between the socially marginal characters depicted with the use of the grisaille technique, which was considered a test of an artist’s intellectual and technical prowess. The grauwtjes were more than likely aimed at a sophisticated and cosmopolitan clientele in The Hague, who would have been able to appreciate the complex art historical and verbal allusions planted by Van de Venne.85 I would characterize Ter Borch’s

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refined interior scene as a comparable artistic invention, which impressed the affluent buyers with superlative craftsmanship and strategic, often ambiguous, references to pictorial conventions. Both artistic innovations offered something new, but also retained strong connections to the Netherlandish artistic traditions. The drive to innovate made economic sense only if novelty itself was valued. We have seen that the tensions between traditional studio practices and evolving notions of originality generated debates among artists, theorists, and collectors in Europe. In the Dutch Republic, the demand for novelty might indeed have been fueled by underlying societal changes, as consumers sought the pleasures of the “New Luxury” in unprecedented numbers. The goods brought to Europe from the Americas, Africa, and Asia through trade and conquest amplified this enthusiasm. Ter Borch’s and Van de Venne’s inventive artistic types were created in this milieu, which accorded novelty positive cultural and economic values. Yet, even though both artists worked in a period of an expanding mass market, they targeted their novel paintings not at new customers but at high-end buyers already familiar with art. In what ways, then, did the broadbased market encourage innovative practices? To address this question in relation to Ter Borch’s work, it is necessary to go beyond the general argument that proto-capitalist conditions engendered competition, and consider how stratified social structure and art market may have shaped the function of art in a particular social segment.

Ter Borch’s Audience: The “Skilled Consumer” Some art historians have pointed to the connection between Ter Borch’s imagery and the economic conditions in the Republic after 1648 as a reason for the artist’s success. In this view, Ter Borch’s descriptions of cultured activities among upperclass figures reflect the increasingly sumptuous lifestyle of Dutch patricians, who in turn made up the artist’s primary audience. A more nuanced variation of this theory proposes that codes of civility developed among the Dutch elite amidst the growing prosperity. As the patricians adopted courtly standards of polite behavior, some scholars argue, their preference in art also shifted from the so-called low-life genre scenes to Ter Borch’s subtle, genteel narratives.86 While I do not dismiss them, I find these arguments incomplete in several respects. For a start, they implicitly assume that the historical viewer wanted to see their norms and ideals depicted. Yet in this period, Jan Steen, Frans van Mieris, and others continued to make paintings full of rather crude sexual innuendos, and sophisticated liefhebbers had Adriaen Brouwer’s decidedly unrefined pictures of peasants in their collections. Furthermore, as my analyses of the Gallant Conversation and The Introduction show, to see Ter Borch’s imagery as genteel runs the risk of overlooking its complexity. Instead of treating Ter Borch’s paintings as visual parallels to the rules of behavior in the Dutch upper class, I regard them as cultural objects that aided the latter’s participation in the discourse

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of civility. To understand Ter Borch’s play of images, the viewer needed to have a certain level of art historical knowledge. He or she had to be familiar with Netherlandish pictorial conventions and the code of manners being developed in the period. Ter Borch’s inventive product was effective in a milieu where informed viewers gathered to consume artistic creations. There are various indications that Ter Borch’s works were sought after by liefhebbers in his own lifetime. He evidently found a market in Amsterdam, even though he spent most of the 1650s and 1660s in Deventer.87 Biographies and contemporary testimonies also point to Ter Borch’s reputation outside the Dutch Republic. Gesina ter Borch’s epitaph for her half-brother, in which she celebrates his fame “in every land”, emphasizes the renown of his representation of the ratification of the Treaty of Münster and his success at the Spanish Court.88 Houbraken likewise stresses Ter Borch’s connections with these important patrons in the Grote schouburgh.89 When Guasconi, Grand Duke Cosimo III’s agent in Amsterdam, procured works by well-known artists for his employer’s gallery of self-portraits, he sought out three Dutch painters: Gerrit Dou, Gerard ter Borch, and Frans van Mieris.90 After purchasing a small portrait by Ter Borch for 250 florins, Guasconi and the painter then negotiated over a second commission, presumably for a larger and/or more elaborate picture. According to Guasconi, Ter Borch explained that he would need four months to complete the painting, and set an asking price of 1,000 florins. He eventually agreed to an offer of 630 florins, but it appears that the deal fell through.91 Even though it did not come to a successful conclusion, this episode gives us a glimpse into Ter Borch’s business practice. The artist evidently felt that he had considerable bargaining power, which suggests that he had an established reputation and a degree of financial security. Although his prices were lower than Dou’s, Ter Borch’s paintings appear to have been painted for a similar audience of liefhebbers.92 As I argued in Chapter One, these individuals constructed their group identity around shared tastes in art. Taste was not a static phenomenon, however, as liefhebbers continually performed their role as connoisseurs and trendsetters. Indeed, the most discerning collectors seemed to be the ones supporting up-and-coming artists—witness Huygens’s praise for the young Rembrandt and Lievens, or Sylvius’s support for Dou and Van Mieris—and appreciating new kinds of paintings, e. g., Dou’s “fine” style or Ter Borch’s refined genre scenes. Consumers in different segments of the multi-layered Dutch art market not only faced varying budget constraints, but they also had diverse preferences and goals for buying paintings. In a highly complex market for paintings—a luxury good—product differentiation became increasingly important. Ter Borch’s genteel genre scenes were designed for consumption by the upper cultural and social strata, not only because they were well crafted and therefore expensive, but because they demanded a certain skill set from the viewer. The novel aspects of Ter Borch’s works offered the intended beholder the opportunity to exercise—and

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display—that skill, which, I contend, was an important part of the paintings’ appeal. Elizabeth Honig has made a similar argument about the popularity of collaborative painting in seventeenth-century Antwerp. She explains that even though the practice seems to contradict modern preoccupation with an artist’s singular vision in a work of art, collaborative creations were historically seen to be the aggregate of the expert inventions of two or more masters. Honig further maintains that the presence of multiple hands in a painting allowed the informed beholder to play the “connoisseurship game”; that is, to demonstrate his learned eye by identifying the artists. The paintings thus represented not only “two (or more) for the price of one”, but also the occasion for value to be realized in the process of critical viewing.93 In my analysis of high-value Dutch genre paintings, I also find that the successful artists produced works that facilitated the liefhebber’s demonstration of his knowledge and taste. In this period, the novelty of Ter Borch’s paintings, like the artistic collaborations in Antwerp, had a reflexive effect. It drew attention to Ter Borch’s inventive transformations of pictorial traditions, which only a knowledgeable viewer could appreciate. The liefhebber’s understanding of the painter’s artistic strategy in turn confirms his cultural capital. The idea that a particular kind of buyer of paintings—the liefhebbers—sought out innovations and were influenced by other consumers in making their purchases contradicts the basic assumptions of the traditional economic account of consumption. The neoclassical model does not adequately account for the skills possessed by consumers, except for the ability to allocate resources efficiently to maximize utility. Scholars in the field of economics, as we have seen, grapple with these problems by rethinking basic terms, such as “goods” and “utility.” To address the discrepancy between the theoretical autonomous consumer and his empirical counterpart, some scholars strive to understand ­consumers as socially situated individuals whose motivations and choices were, in the words of economist J. S. Duesenberry, “interdependent.”94 In other words, consumers’ knowledge extends beyond prices, budgets, and scarcity to encompass the understanding of their own past actions and the preferences of others. Moreover, these authors argue that acts of consumption are not undertaken simply to satisfy isolated needs, but that they constitute a strategy to create a desired lifestyle.95 A lifestyle is not merely a private affair, however; instead it functions as visible reference to other consumers. This “demonstration effect” means that the pursuit of a particular lifestyle is also closely linked to the construction of social identities.96 Such observations may seem intuitively true, but what some economists have done is to offer data to support these propositions and to provide a framework for systematically describing and analyzing consumers’ decision making. It is the process of defining identities that interests me here, because it is especially relevant in an increasingly complex society such as the seventeenth-century Dutch

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Republic. Montias has persuasively demonstrated that the volume of paintings produced there reached critical mass, so that the forces of an open market took effect. Yet where did novelty and product innovation fit into the picture? The conventional account, that artists devised new pictorial types to open new ­markets, implies that the initiative came from the supply side. More recent consumer behavior theory posits that in a rapidly expanding economy, “the very pressure towards homogenization of consumption patterns experienced with mass production pushes individuals and groups to look for some distinctive character by means of differentiated products.”97 The pressures on both the supply and demand sides could create a feedback loop between producers and consumers, making innovation an interactive process between the two. The development of new products is thus spurred not only by the growth in the size of the market, but in its complexity. Ter Borch’s novel interpretations of the genre scene, with its reserved but titillating character, and its combinations of figural types drawn from existing themes, were aimed at collectors and connoisseurs who were the “skilled consumers” in the art world. They were the ones trying to distinguish themselves from other buyers who might be more recent entrants into the cultural arena.98 The Dutch art market expanded in a period of explosive growth in wealth in the mid-century, and some painters and dealers exploited this broader customer base by offering mass-produced paintings. For the elite buyers who were already accustomed to buying paintings, however, this flooding of the market with inexpensive works also created a need for them to search for expertise and novelty. Ter Borch’s inventive scenes of courtship and domesticity succeeded in an environment where artistic consumption was one of the means by which the heterogeneous financial elite in the large Dutch cities defined their group identities.

The Sheen of Quality: Ter Borch’s Satin So far I have stressed the novelty of Ter Borch’s imagery, which is still closely entwined with artistic conventions, and may therefore have struck the ideal balance between novelty and familiarity for the seventeenth-century viewer. But Ter Borch also blends the traditional with the surprising in his other signature feature: the satin dress. This trademark motif puts a personal stamp on his product innovation, a stamp that asserts the quality of his craftsmanship and helps him make his mark in the upper stratum of the seventeenth-century art market. In his attention to the simulation of textures, Ter Borch is firmly situated in the Netherlandish tradition of descriptive artistry. Contemporary authors, of course, exhort artists to perfect their skills in imitating all visual phenomena, but some also

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specifically point to the rendering of fabric as a test of the painter’s skill. Van Mander, for example, discusses at length the depiction of drapery in the Grondt. He urges the painter to strengthen the highlights in the “glittering cloth”, and to arrange the colors for a harmonious effect.99 Angel states that the painter must distinguish between different kinds of textiles, and “should be able to render this variety in the most pleasing way for all eyes with his brushwork, distinguishing between harsh, rough clothiness and smooth, satiny evenness.”100 In addition to these commentaries, various technical manuals from the period offer instructions for painting satin and provide lists of pigments that should be used, further suggesting the interest in mimicking the sheen of the reflective material.101 What Ter Borch demonstrates in his depiction of satin is his ability to capture the action of light over the material, a skill that, as Walter Melion has convincingly argued, is a crucial critical category in Van Mander’s Grondt. Devoting the seventh chapter of his poem to reflexyconst (the art of depicting reflections), Van Mander explains at length how painters in the distant and recent past evoked different times of the day, atmospheric conditions, and the physical environment through the play of light. He employs a number of terms to describe the various kinds and degrees of reflection. For example, the term spiegheling denotes the “mirroring” of images, glans refers to the sheen of smooth surfaces, and weerglans describes the effects when reflected light, colored by the object it first strikes, bounces off a second surface.102 The emphasis on the art of reflection is closely related to Van Mander’s stated goal for painting, namely, the imitation of nature. Ter Borch’s detailed and varied technique creates the impression that he has studied the dress under specific lighting conditions, so much so that it engendered a debate over whether he painted the satin literally “from life”; that is, with a satin dress draped over a model or a mannequin before him. It is true that painting naer het leven (“after life”) had a theoretical significance in the period, and that it would have appealed to sophisticated collectors. Scholars like Ernst van de Wetering also point to texts that advise painting with the fabric “before one’s eyes.”103 However, the meaning of the prescription is not as clear-cut as it may first appear. The contemporary texts could be recommending that the painter observe the fabric at the preparatory stage, or that the student should learn to draw drapery from life. As Melion has demonstrated, drawing from life and from the mind (uyt den gheest) are interrelated concepts.104 In Het Schilder-Boeck, Van Mander urges the young painter to study the visible world and build a stock of images in his memory. As the painter understands the properties of things in nature by observing and representing them, he would be able to make vivid, lifelike inventions by combining images stored in his memory. Statements that ostensibly prescribe painting with the drapery before one’s eyes could well be related to the rhetorical trope emphasizing the diligent study of the visible world.

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I would argue that it was more important for Ter Borch to make his satin so vivid that it appeared to have been done from life. Visual evidence from Ter Borch’s paintings indicates, instead, that he based his paintings on detailed preliminary drawings. Not only is the young woman in satin an ever-present feature in Ter Borch’s genre paintings, but, as discussed earlier, the identical satin dress is sometimes seen in multiple pictures. In reusing stock motifs, Ter Borch follows studio practices adopted by the painters of merry companies in the first half of the century.105 Elmer Kolfin’s study of the merry company suggests that the arrangement of a few motifs to form new compositions was designed to maximize productivity.106 Kolfin’s conclusion is based on the varied quality and prices of the surviving pictures of painters such as Dirck Hals and Willem Buytewech. While the painters had distinctive manners of painting, they generally applied the paint in quick strokes. The reproduction of Ter Borch’s female figure in a satin dress, or just the satin dress itself, raises different issues. Technical studies of his paintings show that Ter Borch meticulously builds up his image of the satin dress in several layers of glazes.107 The folds of the dress gather in uneven bunches, interrupted by tiny, irregular creases. Such details can only be rendered with small, variegated strokes of numerous shades of grey.108 The difficulty of the task increases when we consider that the folds could cast shadows or project reflected light onto adjacent areas of the dress. The complicated, non-uniform shape of the dress, as well as the reflective nature of the material depicted, means that even if a template were used to transfer the initial design, it was no simple matter to execute it in paint. The application of paint calls for an understanding of the structure of the drapery, the physical properties of satin, and the action of light. Whether motifs were transferred by tracing or with a pantograph, such methods facilitated the replication of the contours of a figure or object, but not the articulation of tone and texture. The mechanical aids therefore helped the painter in what was arguably the easiest part of the operation: the transposition of the general shape of the motif. It would still have taken the skill of an experienced painter to render complex elements such as the shimmering satin dress. For the informed viewer, Ter Borch’s satin dresses would have had special significance. The liefhebbers, well versed in contemporary artistic discourse, would have understood the emphasis on the depiction of reflective surfaces as a demonstration of the artist’s masterful skill.109 The fact that light-colored satin gowns were not a common item of everyday attire further suggests that their appearance in Ter Borch’s paintings was a matter of choice, rather than realism, for the artist. While Van Mander provides the terminology and framework for discussing the rendering of light, the interest in the topic can be seen clearly in the paintings themselves. The seeming naturalism of the works belies the selective, often theatrical lighting effects created by the artists. As Brusati has demonstrated in relation to seventeenth-century Dutch still life painting, painters employ formulaic features—such as the reflections off a

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Fig. 45. Willem Duyster, The Tric-Trac Players, c. 1625. Oil on canvas, 31.1 × 41 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

glass roemer, or the passage of light through colored liquid onto another surface—to create the appearance of a faithful record of visible reality.110 Genre painters like Dou and Ter Borch devise similar strategies. In The Doctor (Plate 12), for example, Dou describes the foreground elements in minute detail, showing the viewer every crease in the pages of the book, tiny spots of reflection in the figure’s eyes, and the veins in the stone vase. Ter Borch offers a similar excess of detail in the satin dresses, describing minute folds that can be seen only on close, prolonged inspection. Both painters go beyond what is necessary to create naturalistic depictions, presenting details that would have escaped normal vision. Their paintings, like the telescope or microscope, extend vision and reveal how light makes nature visible.111 Ter Borch was neither the only nor the first artist to be known for his simulation of satin, however. Angel, for example, names Willem Duyster as a master in painting the luxurious fabric, and the justification for the author’s praise can be seen in The TricTrac Players (c. 1625; Fig. 45).112 The painting shows three extravagantly attired youths playing a board game while a fourth plays a lute on the right. Duyster juxtaposes strong highlights with deep shadows in the folds of the figures’ sleeves and sashes, offering a striking impression of glittering, brilliantly colored satin. Ter Borch adopts a more painstaking approach, depicting tiny folds and creases with small, varying

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strokes of many tones. Even more than Duyster, Ter Borch offers minute details that would have eluded the naked eye. In the motif of the satin dress, then, Ter Borch also combines the familiar with the new: the depiction of the reflective cloth alludes to the value attributed to such technical performances in the current discourse, while at the same time going further than his predecessors in achieving an uncommon sense of tactility and lifelikeness. In his pioneering genre paintings, Ter Borch melds elements drawn from existing subjects into something new. The soldier from the guardroom scene, the ambiguous figure of the older woman, the young lady in satin, all appear as if caught in a moment in a narrative that lacks a definitive script supplied by the artist. With subtle variations, and the presence of the expertly crafted signature motif of the satin dress, this new type of genre painting became firmly associated with Ter Borch’s authorship. This formula brought the artist commercial success and inspired imitation by other painters, suggesting that it struck an attractive balance between stimulating novelty and comforting familiarity. But it does something more: it invites the liefhebber to draw on his knowledge of pictorial traditions, artistic styles, and current ideas of technical excellence. It therefore demands skills from the learned viewer, who in turn derives part of his pleasure in exercising those skills. By revisiting the notion of product innovation in considering Ter Borch’s work after 1648, I ask how an interplay of cultural, social, and economic forces shaped the uses of painting in certain segments of the Dutch art market in the period. Drawing from more recent theories of consumer choice, I have tried to show that artistic theory of imitation intersects with the nature of the demand for novelty in consumption. In so doing, I hope to demonstrate that the paintings did not merely reflect social reality or even ideals, but instead functioned as a luxury good that served the buyers’ identity needs.

4. Invention through Repetition: Imitation and Emulation in the Work of Frans van Mieris So far in this study, the examples of Dou and Ter Borch have illustrated how certain seventeenth-century artists, working under specific cultural and economic conditions, underscored their creative personas through various practices of repetition. Dou’s niche picture, which exists in numerous variations, became a signature composition that served as a vehicle for exhibiting his prized fine technique. Ter Borch rearranges stock figures from established pictorial subjects in new combinations, generating a new, distinctive kind of “high-life” genre painting. This chapter explores a different form of strategic repetition, namely, creative—and eristic—imitation. My focus is on Frans van Mieris the Elder, a younger artist who appropriated from, and transformed, the novel imagery and effects found in the works of Dou and Ter Borch. Van Mieris became one of the most prominent artists of his generation, earning the reputation of an innovator of the “elegant modern” mode of genre painting. I have argued that painters had to develop distinctive authorial identities to appeal to the learned collectors in the privileged segments of the market. If the liefhebbers were constantly seeking novelty and uniqueness for the purposes of defining their group identity, what was the appeal of the citations and borrowings in paintings by Van Mieris? The perception of the intertwined concepts of invention and imitation in early modern Europe will be the starting point for addressing this question. This chapter begins with an examination of Van Mieris’s adaptations and quotations through the lens of contemporary theories of imitation and invention. The Cloth Shop (Plate 10), in particular, not only demonstrates the painter’s melding and transformation of fashionable artistic models, but it also, as I shall argue, challenges the viewer to compare the new creation to its sources. That Dutch artists studied and borrowed from one another is certainly no surprise. Many studies have analyzed the transmission of technical, stylistic, and thematic knowledge in terms of the influence of a prominent artist. Dou, for instance, attracted a group of students and followers in Leiden, while Ter Borch’s novel high-life interior scenes inspired other artists to explore similar subjects. Scholars have also considered commercial motivations behind the adoption of successful artistic subjects or production practices. According to Montias’s concept of innovation, producers are compelled by financial necessity to adopt a formula that has found success in the market.1 The question is whether, and to what extent, these two explanations adequately account for the various strategies adopted by artists in the topmost layer of the art market, where reputation and quality mattered more than cost or volume of sales.

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Early modern authors understand imitation as the foundation of invention, with the most accomplished artists, such as Van Mieris, seeking to surpass their predecessors in the spirit of emulation.2 Instead of evaluating if and how these artists transcended their models in individual paintings, I am more interested in examining the cultural and social conditions in which imitation became the paradigmatic mode of invention. My investigation in this chapter concerns how the theory of imitation—with its emphasis on the knowledge, selection, and synthesis of artistic precedents—served the interests of both liefhebbers and artists. Specifically, I ask how aemulatio, or emulation, which involves self-aware allusions to one’s artistic models, helped an artist assert his/her distinctive identity to an informed audience. The example of Van Mieris’s Cloth Shop will elucidate the fraught relation between imitation and novelty, a newly important critical concept in the seventeenth century. The theory of artistic imitation has been seen as pertinent in the Dutch context primarily to the consideration of narrative paintings, especially the work of Rembrandt, who was clearly measuring himself against Italian and Flemish masters. Until recently, the ideas of inventive emulation have not been systematically examined in relation to Dutch genre painting.3 Yet Van Mieris and his colleagues who prospered in the late seventeenth century painted for an audience who would have been well versed in the humanist theories of imitation and invention. Many of the liefhebbers in these circles would also, as I mention in Chapter One, have had classical texts on rhetoric, as well as Dutch, Italian, and French art treatises in their libraries. I am not positing that the artists themselves necessarily read Vasari, Van Mander, or Franciscus Junius, but I am pointing out that they worked in an environment where viewers understood and appreciated judicious and witty citations of famous precedents. What also makes Van Mieris a compelling case study is the perceptible transformation in his style as his career progressed, even though his thematic range remained quite constant. In this way, the similarity in subject matter draws further attention to the difference in his execution. The chapter will then situate Van Mieris’s late work, which has been characterized as “mannerist” in the art historical literature, in the shifting economic and social landscape after the heyday of the mid-century art market. Artists who began their careers around 1660 were faced with declining demand for new paintings, which was triggered and exacerbated by a number of historical developments. Some nevertheless built successful careers by appealing to the wealthiest buyers, who could still afford, and were motivated to purchase, paintings. The dramatic changes in the art market after 1660 meant that working painters had to compete not only against each other, but also against works by past artists who were already celebrated in compilations of biographies and connoisseurship manuals. The desire for the “old masters” reflected an art

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historical awareness fostered in a culture of collecting, an idea with which artists working for liefhebbers had to contend.

The Cloth Shop: An Invitation to Compare Van Mieris seems to have made an effort to establish a singular artistic identity—in terms of both iconography and technique—from his early days as a master painter.4 He was apprenticed to several artists in his youth, before finishing his training in the studio of Gerrit Dou in the late 1650s. According to Houbraken, Dou—by then the most famous artist in Leiden—named Van Mieris “the prince of his pupils”, who “took away the crown from them all.”5 The relationship between Van Mieris and Dou has already been described as one of imitatio-aemulatio in several early modern texts. Sandrart states that Van Mieris sought to exceed Dou, and Roger de Piles claims that Van Mieris was superior in drawing, compositions, and color.6 De Lairesse, presenting him as the master of an elevated modern style, declares that Van Mieris “not only imitated his master Dou in a curious and beautiful manner, but far surpassed him in some things.”7 Modern art historians point out that Van Mieris’s practices corresponded to contemporary notions of imitation, while at the same time they continue to employ the familiar trope of the pupil emulating and surpassing the master to discuss Van Mieris’s work.8 The question I want to ask is how Van Mieris’s allusions to, and transformations of, his artistic sources helped him meet the particular challenges of satisfying his sophisticated viewers. The Cloth Shop, an intricate painting signed and dated 1660, is an instructive example, for in its combination of motifs and execution, the picture constitutes a pictorial statement by the artist on the process of imitation. In the late 1650s, just as he was about to become an independent master, Van Mieris followed two tracks in his production. On the one hand, he was experimenting with formats and subjects that were clearly related to Dou’s work, such as scholars, musicians, and artists, sometimes framed with a niche window; modest interior scenes staffed with old women, working housewives, and maidservants; and doctors and quacks. Van Mieris (as Dou himself allegedly observed) had already demonstrated mastery of his teacher’s detailed, smooth rendering in these accomplished early works. On the other hand, Van Mieris was also exploring the courtship scenes in elegant settings popularized by Ter Borch in the mid-century. The Cloth Shop has long been regarded as a landmark painting in Van Mieris’s career. As discussed in Chapter One, the circumstances of the sale of the painting created a network of relations between the artist, Sylvius, and Archduke Leopold Wilhelm. The painting’s elaborate execution and innovative imagery reflect the ambitious young artist’s attempt at distinguishing his works from those by his competitors in the eyes

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of the two renowned liefhebbers. The painting purports to represent the interior of a shop, a spacious and well-appointed room with bolts of fabric lining its walls. The opulence of the space is matched by two richly dressed figures in the foreground. A grinning man, clad in an officer’s costume, fingers a sample of silk with his left hand and caresses the chin of a young woman with his right. She returns the officer’s gaze and leans towards him, making clear the amorous nature of their interaction. At first glance, then, The Cloth Shop reads as yet another erotic encounter in a sumptuous interior, the kind that Dutch artists—including Van Mieris himself—made popular in the mid- to late seventeenth century. His Duet, for example, presents an elegant couple playing music—an activity associated with courtship—in luxurious surroundings (Plate 1). The idealized interior and the decorous interaction between the protagonists can also be seen in contemporary works by Ter Borch and Metsu. Yet a closer inspection of The Cloth Shop reveals that, unlike The Duet, the composition consists of an idiosyncratic combination of motifs. The lavish setting bears little resemblance to actual shops in the seventeenth century, or indeed to conventional representations of shops in Dutch paintings. The young woman presents some cloth swatches to the officer, an act that would seem to identify her as the storekeeper. Yet her elegant dress and the atypical characterization of the interior make her identity ambiguous. Also puzzling is the appearance of a seated old man in the recesses of the dim background. His dour expression contrasts with the lively exchange between the foreground figures, and his plain, coarse clothing makes him an anomalous presence in such ornate surroundings. Above this background figure hangs a painting depicting Adam and Eve mourning the death of Abel, a somber biblical subject that seems at odds with the jocular character of the scene playing out between the young couple. The improbable setting, surprising juxtapositions, and shifts in tone all emphasize the painting as a highly artificial image. Instead of treating The Cloth Shop as a coherent narrative, I contend that the painting contains a collection of figural types and motifs that visually articulate specific concepts about critical viewing and artistic competition.9 The practice of assembling “visibly accessible meanings” in the same pictorial space was a characteristic of the Netherlandish tradition.10 In The Quack (Fig. 19), for example, Dou depicts stereotypical peasants and laborers acting out various proverbs about folly and deceit in a meticulously described yet ultimately fantastical setting. Van Mieris’s acquaintance Jan Steen likewise creates intricate compositions filled with symbolic motifs, of which In Luxury, Look Out can serve as an example (Fig. 46). Even though Steen has carefully rendered the appearance of each object and figure, the composition is a highly theatrical combination of enacted commonplaces. Artists accumulate signifying elements in their paintings, but they do not always do so in a way that preserves narrative or even spatial coherence. Following traditional practice in using the additive approach to composition, Van Mieris has constructed an unusual and conspicuously artificial image in The Cloth Shop.

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Fig. 46. Jan Steen, In Luxury, Look Out, 1663. Oil on canvas, 105 × 145 cm. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

This assembly of visual elements, I suggest, addresses the themes of judgment and comparison. Among the pile of fabrics on the table at the right is a standard that bears a partially legible Latin inscription: “COMPARAT CUI VULT.” As De Jongh has demonstrated, the first word is most likely a form of the verb comparare, which could mean “to compare” or “to purchase.”11 Either of these translations could describe the interaction between the two principal figures on the left, their physical contact and facial expressions leading the viewer to surmise that the officer is comparing, and eventually could purchase, both the silk and the young woman. Although most scholars have followed De Jongh in identifying the inscription as the “key” to understanding the picture, it is worth noting that the text actually does not necessarily point to a moralizing intent on the painter’s part. The words do not warn or reprimand, but simply point to the officer’s action in written form. Moreover, Van Mieris depicts the text as part of a crafted object, underscoring its status as an integral component of the visual image. Rather than a commentary or explanation, the inscription can be seen as a form of representation that is parallel to, but distinct from, the figural motif. The background elements, which seem so incongruous in appearance and tone to the foreground scene, likewise address the theme of judgment. The elderly man, who seems out of place in the refined room, serves as a foil to the dashing officer. The latter’s robust physique and erect posture contrast with the old man’s stooping pose,

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a juxtaposition that calls to mind the contrast between old age and youth. The old man is positioned directly in front of the fireplace, the reddish glow of the embers reflected on the brass sphere to his left. His overall presentation recalls the personification of winter.12 Because winter was also understood as a metaphor for the waning stages of human life, its invocation reinforces the difference in age between the two male figures. The old man’s costume, which, in keeping with traditional representations of winter, consists of dull cloth and pelt, stands in stark contrast to the fine embroidered black coat and feathered hat worn by the officer. The peculiar presence of the old man prompts viewers to draw on their knowledge of established iconography and to consider the meaning of his inclusion. The biblical subject of the painting hanging above the fireplace is also centered on a comparison, namely, God’s judgment of the strength of each brother’s faith. The Book of Genesis recounts that God looked favorably upon Abel’s offering but rejected Cain’s. In a fit of jealous rage, Cain murdered his brother.13 In addition to the figures and the inscription, the painting within the painting becomes yet another way to address the themes of judgment and comparison, this time in the form of a biblical narrative. The juxtaposition of an amorous genre scene, an allegorical figure, an inscription, and a history painting invites viewers to admire Van Mieris’s mastery of the different modes of picturing in the Dutch tradition, as well as his ingenuity and daring in combining these in one picture.

Imitating Nature, Imitating Art If the assembly of motifs in The Cloth Shop thematizes the acts of judging and comparing, the manner of paintings also asks viewers to make a series of comparisons: between the different textures simulated in paint, between the rendered objects and their counterparts in the physical world, and between Van Mieris’s innovative treatment of the genre scene and transformations of the works by established artists from which he draws. In other words, in addition to the symbolic meanings of individual objects and figures, the way these elements are characterized and executed contributes to Van Mieris’s pictorial statement on the emulation of nature and art. In his description of Van Mieris’s Cloth Shop, Sandrart remarks on all the silk, wool, and fabrics that are so “realistically and powerfully and naturalistically constructed.”14 The meticulously described costumes of the figures on the left encourage viewers to linger over the rendering of the various luxuriant textures. The placement of the inscription, “COMPARAT CUI VULT”, among the carefully arranged pile of fabrics on the right is telling. The tiny words appear as embroidery on the standard, with the folds revealing and interrupting the sequence of letters. As viewers move closer to the picture surface to read the fragmented text, they become aware of the diverse materials assembled in this small area in the painting. Covering the table is

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a Turkish carpet that Van Mieris renders with short parallel strokes to imitate the weave. He switches to thin glazes to distinguish the silky sheen of the green standard from the matte appearance of the wool carpet. His precise and smooth brushwork evokes the textures of threads and cloth, presenting a persuasive fiction that the standard was carefully observed and faithfully replicated in paint. There is variation within this motif too, for the highlights on the embroidery are described with more opaque marks. Van Mieris again uses a combination of translucent glazes and thicker highlights, with minute traces of the brush left visible in places, for the gleaming silks lying on top of the standard. A range of brushstrokes is thus used to articulate the diverse textures, leading viewers to replicate the officer’s action as they compare and evaluate the proffered products—Van Mieris’s elaborate pictorial illusions. The choice of a cloth shop as subject was fitting for a painter seeking to demonstrate his technical proficiency, since the depiction of drapery was recognized as a test of the painter’s skill in the seventeenth century. Van Mander, as we have already seen, provides advice on the representation of textiles and drapery in the Grondt.15 Near the end of Lof der Schilderkonst, Angel states that a good painter must be able to “make a proper distinction between silk, velvet, wool and linen stuffs.”16 All these textures can be seen not only in the still-life arrangement on the table, but also in the costumes of the three figures. The delicate feathers along the brim of the officer’s hat, the brilliant gold sword belt across his black coat, the soft fur lining the woman’s Dutch jacket, her gleaming white satin skirt—these sumptuous materials stand in contrast to the dull cloth worn by the old man in the shadows. As the officer compares the luxuriant cloth and the softness of the woman’s skin, a silk ribbon dangles from her left hand and touches his left wrist. These passages in the painting thus draw attention to the painter’s ability to evoke the sense of touch and the sensuality of the encounter. Given the emphasis on the dexterity required to paint lifelike drapery, The Cloth Shop provides a commentary on Van Mieris’s painterly excellence in two ways. First, Van Mieris achieves a net finish that sustains the illusionism of the image down to the tiniest detail. Second, the imagery of fine fabrics itself evokes the association of artistic virtuosity. The artist’s craftsmanship is visually demonstrated and signified through the strategic deployment of motifs. Van Mieris’s attention to vivid description echoes much of what early modern art theorists claim to be the highest goal of art: the imitation of nature. The same writers, however, lay out extensive arguments for the judicious imitation of exemplary works of art. How can the dual emphases on the imitation of nature on the one hand, and on the imitation of art on the other, be reconciled? The two were not as incompatible as they might appear to the modern reader. In Italy, Giovan Pietro Bellori, the biographer and antiquarian, explains that artists should strive to imitate not the exact appearance but the “Idea” of nature. By studying great masters of the past who succeeded in this endeavor, artists can produce works that “emend nature.”17 In Flanders, Rubens explains that it is necessary to consult ancient statues, because by his time,

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the human figure has been “decay’d and corrupted by a succession of so many ages, vices, and accidents.”18 He stresses, however, that painters must acquire a thorough knowledge of antique art, instead of merely copying the stone figures in their works. The rendering of nature and the study of art are therefore presented as complementary rather than contradictory. As I have mentioned in the preceding chapters, the importance of an artist’s ability to convincingly imitate nature is a leitmotif in early modern Dutch treatises. Just like their counterparts in Italy, France, and Flanders, however, the Dutch writers are not recommending the transcription of a slice of reality. Instead, they are urging painters to produce persuasive simulations of eyewitness accounts. In the Grondt, Van Mander explains that painters should invent compositions by ordering elements in a pleasing and lifelike manner.19 Achieving this goal requires knowledge of the action of light, human anatomy, and the physical properties of things, which painters can acquire through studying nature. By observing and drawing objects, figures, and other visible phenomena, the painter builds a store of images in his or her memory. He or she can then draw from this supply of images in composing paintings. Working naer het leven (from life) and working uyt den gheest (from memory) are thus mutually reinforcing in a painter’s process of imitating nature.20 Almost thirty years later, Philips Angel repeatedly stresses in the Lof der Schilderkonst the importance of “following life.”21 Angel may seem to be discussing the transcribing of visible reality, as his criteria for good painting dealt with the convincing rendering of a three-dimensional world on a flat surface. Yet a closer reading of his text reveals a description of painting as an act of artifice, as he advises that painters become versed in perspective, mathematical matters, and anatomy. Following nature, then, means understanding the properties of things, which enables the painter to produce “ingenious inventions” that approximate the visible world.22 This artifice of painting is also clearly articulated in an oftquoted passage from Van Hoogstraten’s Inleyding (1678). The painter-author defines painting as “a science for representing all the ideas or concepts that the visible world can offer, and of fooling the eye with contours and colors … a mirror of nature that makes things that do not exist appear to exist and deceives in a pleasurable, permissible, and praiseworthy manner.”23 Once again, painting is here conceived of not as a reproduction of what is actually seen at one point in time. Instead, using various means (pigments, contours), the painter aims at creating a fictional presence that could persuade the viewer with its ostensible verisimilitude. Furthermore, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, nature and art were not the oppositional categories that they are understood to be today. Nature was seen as the realm of creation, exhibiting the work of God, the divine artisan. At the same

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time, human artifice was understood to be “mirroring the natural world’s acts of creation, transforming what was implicit but unrealized into art and artifacts.”24 This understanding of the interrelation between art and nature is evident in the encyclopedic collections of curiosities in this period. Not only did these princely Wunderkammern contain both naturalia and artificialia, but they also featured objects that combined natural and human artifice.25 The boundaries between nature and craft were thus understood as porous, and were indeed deliberately transgressed, as precious natural materials were reshaped through human ingenuity to create new and surprising forms. What is stressed in art theory, especially in the treatises written from a classicist perspective, is the way in which the study of artistic models can serve the purpose of representing nature. Since the visible world encompasses products of human artifice, the distinction between imitating nature and imitating art can become blurred.26 De Lairesse, a highly successful specialist in monumental narrative paintings and murals from the 1660s until he lost his sight in about 1690, discusses in his treatise how this process of imitation can lead to advancement in Dutch art. A proponent of the classicizing style, De Lairesse distinguishes between “antique” and “modern”, which are associated with history and genre painting, respectively. He privileges the antique mode—which depicts lofty historical or allegorical subjects and emends nature by following classical rules of art—and criticizes the “modern” mode—which deals with contemporary life, presented through anonymous figures in modern dress—as uncritical portrayals of reality. While he acknowledges the importance of genre painting in the Dutch tradition, he believes that these “modern” pictures can and should be improved by adapting some elements of the antique mode. Having denounced Adriaen Brouwer, Pieter van Laer, and Adriaen van Ostade for painting vulgar peasant subjects that accentuate the deformities seen in nature, De Lairesse urges artists to instead depict patrician life in a way that extols beauty and virtue.27 Although he instructs painters to avoid the inappropriate mixing of antique and modern elements, De Lairesse maintains that painters can create an elegant modern manner by adopting the principles of the antique manner. For example, painters should select urbane, uplifting scenes, and endow the figures with beauty and grace. They should also strive to instill a sense of timelessness in designing the draperies, and not slavishly follow the fashion of the day. In order to achieve these desired effects, De Lairesse advises artists to study casts of classical sculpture, treatises on ideal human proportions, and the works of masters such as Anthony van Dyck and Rubens.28 In other words, the genre artists are encouraged to practice selective imitation, choosing from admired sources in order to raise the modern manner to a status comparable to the antique. An artist De Lairesse praises as having mastered the elegant modern manner was Frans van Mieris.

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Imitation, Invention, Progress By stating that Van Mieris built on, then surpassed, Dou’s achievements, De Lairesse casts the relationship between the two Leiden masters in the framework of imitation and emulation. I suggest that Van Mieris visually presents this competitive dialogue in The Cloth Shop, in which he draws attention to the “fine” technique introduced by Dou, and the elegant interior scene pioneered by Ter Borch. For late s­ eventeenth- and early eighteenth-century authors, the prospect of progress was ­inextricably tied to the practice of imitation. Imitation in the service of advancing art was not a new idea in the writings on art, as Vasari had set the narrative in motion in the mid-­sixteenth century. Vasari claims in Le Vite that the principles of the art of antiquity were revived by Tuscan artists at the turn of the fourteenth century. Art ascended towards perfection as practitioners built on and surpassed their models ancient and modern, until it reached the pinnacle in Vasari’s own time, especially in the work of Michelangelo. Vasari’s history is based on a biological model—art is (re)born, matures, and reaches its prime, but it can also stagnate and perish. The artist’s task was to prevent decline by continually seeking to improve upon the already fine achievements of his predecessors.29 We find a similar encouragement to engage competitively with one’s models in writings of Dutch authors working in the following century. Van ­Hoogstraten, for example, states that “[i]t was emulation that stirred Zeuxis to excel in painting such that the birds were deceived by his grapes … the same ardour aroused Raphael Urbino to surpass the great Buonarotti; and spurred Michelangelo to ascend to incomparable heights.”30 Junius, writing forty years earlier, also discussed how an artist should emulate his forerunners in order to create his own manner.31 Early modern discussions about artistic imitation draw from theories of poetics and rhetoric, which identify several progressing categories of imitation: following or translation, imitation, and emulation.32 Young apprentices would learn their craft by copying drawings, prints, and paintings in their master’s workshop. At the next stage of their education, they would select and fuse a range of models to create a personal style.33 Vasari’s appraisal of Raphael’s art encapsulates this idea of inventing by selecting and imitating worthy models.34 He explains that Raphael, recognizing that he could not match Leonardo’s “sublimity” and Michelangelo’s rendering of the male nude, achieved success by turning to “various methods chosen from the finest works of other painters to form from many different styles a single manner which he made entirely his own and which always was and always will be the object of tremendous admiration.”35 Vasari’s account of Raphael’s development portrays an artist who was keenly aware of his strengths and shortcomings, as well as the need to measure up to his peers.36 Raphael would become the model for synthetic imitation, an artist who absorbed and digested the best sources, then melded them into his own inventions. His example sanctioned, indeed encouraged, the practice of selective imitation.

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A term at the center of investigations into imitation in Dutch art is rapen, used by seventeenth-century Dutch authors to denote “borrowing” or “stealing.”37 As Miedema and Sluijter explain, Van Mander encourages young pupils to steal—or to copy— the work of masters as they learn, but urges them to do so with care. He explains that rapen—which is also the plural form of turnip (raap)—must be “well cooked” to make a good dish. In other words, the imitator succeeds when he conceals his use of models.38 Junius, Angel, and Van Hoogstraten follow Van Mander in stressing the importance of imitating with good judgment and assimilating the borrowings so that the derivations would be undetectable.39 Van Hoogstraten, for example, explains that copying good models could improve a student’s understanding of the principles of art and his handelingh, but he also warns against following another artist’s handelingh too closely.40 Junius, who was educated in Leiden and later became the Earl of Arundel’s librarian, discusses the close but fraught relationship between imitation and invention in art. Citing Quintilian, Junius explains that “ordinary” imitation, which corresponds to copying or transcribing, will not allow the student to “goe further than his predecessors had gone alreadie.”41 Instead, the young artist needs to seek out the “best and most approved Artificers” and master the spirit, rather than the mere appearance, of their art. Junius invokes the metaphor of digestion to illustrate his argument: … it is not possible that out of a rash and raw observation, there should ever arise a good and lively Imitation: even as we never use to swallow downe our meate, before it be sufficiently chewed and almost melted in our mouthes, seeing this is the way to helpe our digestion, and to have it quickly turne into most wholesome bloud.42

Writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries also use Seneca’s figure of the bee to describe this process of synthesizing and transforming one’s sources. Just as the bee collects and transforms pollen from different flowers into honey, the author ought to gather materials from a variety of sources and integrate them into a new invention.43 Both the apian and digestive metaphors emphasize not only the judicious selection of eclectic models, but also the transformation of those models. Imitation, however, was a contested concept both in theory and in practice. There are instances in Netherlandish writings about art that are less insistent on the transformation of visual sources. Describing Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s travels in the Alps, Van Mander writes: “he swallowed all those mountains and rocks which, upon returning home, he spat out again on to canvases and panels, so faithfully was he able, in this respect and others, to follow Nature.”44 The image of regurgitation subverts the digestion analogy used in theories of imitation. Moreover, in Van Mander’s “Life of Hendrick Goltzius”, imitation becomes an end in itself. This point is most

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Fig. 47. Hendrick Goltzius, The Circumcision, c. 1594. Engraving, 50.5 × 36.8 cm. National Gallery of Art, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, Washington, DC.

clearly expressed in his account of Goltzius’s Meesterstukjes. Executed after Goltzius’s sojourn in Italy from 1590 to 1591, the series consists of scenes from the life of the Virgin, each engraved in the manner of a different artist. Goltzius does not

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Fig. 48. Rembrandt, Self Portrait Leaning on a Stone Sill, 1639. Etching, 20.6 × 16.3 cm. National Gallery of Art, Rosenwald Collection, Washington, DC.

reproduce existing works by those artists, but imitates their rendering in making new compositions. Van Mander states that when Goltzius’s Circumcision (Fig. 47) was displayed at the Frankfurt Fair, it was taken to be a previously unknown engraving by Albrecht Dürer.45 Van Mander thus suggests that Goltzius not only successfully imitates Dürer’s technique, but he produces a work that seemed to issue from Dürer’s invention.46 Van Mander praises Goltzius for his ability to subsume his own manner into that of his model, thus turning on its head the advice to painters to create a new manner by seamlessly disguising multiple sources. This latter form of imitative practice, which relies on the viewer to recognize the sources for the work, is referred to as aemulatio in the literature. Variously translated as “heuristic” imitation, “eristic” imitation, or emulation, it implies an element of competitiveness in the artist’s engagement with his sources.47 By deliberately calling attention to his or her borrowings, the artist asks the viewer to evaluate the present work in relation to its models. The process is thus transformative without being

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Fig. 49. Rembrandt, Self-Portrait, 1640. Oil on canvas, 102 × 80 cm. National Gallery, London. © National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY.

dissimulative, and it rewards viewers who have the competence not only to identify the borrowings and transformations, but also to judge the relative merits of the new and old creations. While it is true that early modern Netherlandish authors say little explicitly about masters competing by citing one another, the notion of surpassing one’s predecessors or contemporaries is clearly present.48 For instance, Van Mander often proclaims an artist’s talent by recounting how he surpassed his master at a young age, which was by the seventeenth century a well-worn trope,49 and the idea that artists should strive to outshine each other and their predecessors is found in the writings of Theodorus Schrevelius, Constantijn Huygens, and Van Hoogstraten.50 This form of engagement can also be seen in the paintings themselves.51 Ernst van de Wetering has demonstrated in a series of publications that Rembrandt cited other artists at all stages of his career, borrowing from but also competing against Pieter Lastman, Jan Lievens, Titian, and, above all, Rubens.52 Eddy de Jongh also argues that Rembrandt’s etched self-portrait from 1639 (Fig. 48), and the related painted self-portrait executed

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Fig. 50. Titian, Portrait of a Man, c. 1508–11. Oil on canvas, 81 × 66 cm. National Gallery, London. © National ­Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY.

one year later (Fig. 49), engaged Titian’s portrait of a man (c. 1508–11; Fig. 50) in a competitive dialogue. Furthermore, De Jongh suggests that Rembrandt’s self-portrait also takes up the poet’s challenge to make painting “speak.”53 Like Rembrandt, Van Mieris asserts his artistic identity in a self-portrait. In the painting from 1667 (Fig. 51), Van Mieris meets the viewer’s gaze with a somber expression, his brow creased and lips slightly parted to heighten the vividness of the portrait. He leans against a honorific, classicizing parapet, on which his signature, age, and the date of the painting appear as illusionistic carved inscriptions. The dual references to painting (the panel sitting on the easel and the palette and brushes in the artist’s left hand) and drawing (the prominently displayed sheet on the left foreground) assert Van Mieris’s knowledge of classicist theory of art. The painter’s pose, with the body turned toward the right and the elbow resting on the parapet, looks back to Rembrandt’s 1640 self-portrait, and by extension to sixteenth-century masters such as Raphael and Titian. Van Mieris thus defines his persona in relation to the great masters, claiming kinship with them and simultaneously distinguishing

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Fig. 51. Frans van Mieris, Self-Portrait, 1667. Oil on panel, 17.7 × 13.3 cm. Polesden Lacey, National Trust Estate, UK National Trust Photo Library/Art Resource, NY.

himself with his trademark painstaking description of details. His self-presentation claims his place in the artistic tradition but also accentuates the value attached to the artist’s authorial identity, displaying his inventiveness in the renewal of tradition. Van Mieris similarly invokes well-known prototypes in The Cloth Shop, asserting the value of his creation vis-à-vis his artistic models. As Junius counsels, if an artist does not hide his or her sources, then the appropriation must “seeme to be done purposely: which is onely of learned and well-experienced Artificers.”54 Clearly, theoretical writings on imitation should not be regarded as instructions on, or descriptions of, actual practice. The texts do, however, provide clues to ideas about invention shared by artists, critics, and collectors. Recognizable citations worked especially well within the environment of art collecting, where artists could structure a viewing experience by drawing visual and thematic connections among paintings in the same space or in the viewer’s memory. The theoretical basis for imitation, the social

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implications of cultural consumption, and traditional workshop procedures thus intersect in complex ways in the work of an artist like Van Mieris.

Accentuating the Value of Virtuosity and Invention It seems reasonable to assume that Van Mieris’s Cloth Shop was intended for enthusiastic collectors such as Sylvius, if not directly commissioned by Leopold Wilhelm himself. The painting would therefore have been displayed alongside other works of art and collectibles in a sumptuous architectural space. In that context, staging the curious scene in a shop takes on special significance, both for the reference to notions of value and exchange, and for the explicit allusion to Dou. Dou, Van Mieris’s famous teacher, was a pioneer in developing the representation of shops.55 As I mention in Chapter Two, Dou produced several paintings of grocery shops from the 1640s to the 1670s, each seen through an arched stone window. In his distinctive scheme, brightly illuminated figures of the vendor and customers standing just behind the window are juxtaposed with other figures and objects deep in pictorial space (see, for example, Plate 4). A diverse range of goods is either neatly placed on wall shelves or strategically positioned on the windowsill. Dou’s constructed image became a conventional way to represent shops in Dutch genre painting, even if it did not replicate reality. For The Cloth Shop, Van Mieris borrows Dou’s template, lining part of the back wall with merchandise. This choice establishes the space as a commercial one, where goods are displayed and sold. On one level, the mercantile setting can be seen as commenting on the nature of the interaction between the amorous couple. Their behavior is certainly contrary to the courtship etiquette described in visual and textual form at the mid-century.56 But the man is not just making sexual advances. His action is also one of judgment of desirability, an act that is in turn a playful allusion to the relationship between the viewer and the painting. The shop is a specific kind of space that implies the mediated exchange of commodities. Honig has posited that Dou’s depictions of grocery shops could be seen as the artist’s attempt to assert the value of his work amidst the uncertainties of a complex art market.57 Van Mieris’s painting, like Dou’s, challenges the viewer to recognize its “true” worth, a challenge thematized by the officer’s comparison of the silk and the woman. Since the inscription can also be read as an invitation to purchase, the pun again finds its pictorial parallel in the officer’s action, as he seems likely to acquire both the fabric and the woman’s affection. Playing on the well-established analogy between the desire for art and erotic desire, Van Mieris draws a connection between the seductiveness of the young woman and the polished allure of his own painting. For Van Mieris’s sophisticated audience, The Cloth Shop alludes to, but distinguishes itself from, two fashionable pictorial types. Although Van Mieris borrows some of Dou’s motifs to designate his setting as a shop, the character of his space

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differs significantly from Dou’s. While Dou sets his grocery stores behind a window and compresses the space, Van Mieris here showcases his skill at creating an expansive room through the distribution of light and shadows. Moreover, instead of the dense display of merchandise favored by Dou, the fabric bolts in The Cloth Shop take up only half of the back wall. The other half is given over to the marble fireplace and the large history painting above the mantel. These features are more commonly found in the idealized elegant homes portrayed in the work of Ter Borch in the 1650s. There are similarities, for example, between the settings of The Cloth Shop and Ter Borch’s so-called Curiosity (Fig. 40), both completed around the same time. Each room exudes an affluent ambience with a mixture of luxuriant materials, a lavish fireplace, and an unlikely chandelier.58 Like The Cloth Shop, Ter Borch’s picture addresses the theme of love, albeit in a very different manner. The young woman seated at the center of the composition engages in letter writing, one of the increasingly popular cultural activities in the seventeenth-century Republic. The epistolary theme, like music, became a metaphor for love and courtship in contemporary genre paintings.59 Both the letter writer and the standing figure on the left are presented as beautiful ladies of marriageable age, their features rendered with soft, smooth brushwork. Each figure wears an exquisite costume, the highlight being the glittering white satin skirt on the standing young woman. Ter Borch adds a light-hearted touch with the young girl on the right, who tries to steal a peek at the letter. The overall tone, however, is one of restrained elegance, with the female figures ensconced in a domestic setting with no sign of male presence, and love and desire expressed through the mediation of writing. Van Mieris draws on, but at the same time transforms, popular courtship pictures in The Cloth Shop. The rituals of decorous love have been replaced by the overtly erotic exchange between the officer and the young woman. In terms of execution, Ter Borch describes selective focal points, such as the figures, in great detail while rendering secondary elements in a more summary fashion. Van Mieris departs from this approach and brings all parts of the painting to a level of polished resolution, thereby stylistically distinguishing his work from Ter Borch’s. Van Mieris further exploits the thematic possibilities of a mercantile space to enter into a current artistic dialogue about contemporary gender relations. Not only does the setting of The Cloth Shop resemble the idealized burgher’s home depicted in numerous genre paintings, but the young woman—with her satin skirt, erminelined jacket, and white cap—also recalls the housewives in the works of mid-century genre painters like Ter Borch, Gabriel Metsu, and Nicolaes Maes. As Alpers and Honig have argued, many of these paintings appealed to viewers with their probing of gender categories as well as illusionistic execution.60 As social norms and relations were being formulated in the young Republic, domesticity became an important concept in Dutch ideology. Popular authors such as Jacob Cats characterized the home as a microcosm of the state, where virtues of piety and modesty must be preserved by female guardians.61 The image of a burgher’s home was thus constructed as a realm

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separate from the external world, where men labored to support the family. This description of a domestic interior as a feminized space was a well-established trope in Netherlandish painting by the 1650s. In reality, however, the boundary between home and world was much more fluid, and the tension between theory and practice was a theme that painters explored. For example, Maes’s Eavesdropper (Fig. 44), now in the Wallace Collection, literally positions the housewife between two worlds: the genteel burgher household upstairs and the potentially corrupt—and corrupting—realm of the maid downstairs.62 Maes emphasizes the affinity between the mistress and the maid by presenting both as youthful figures. Instead of making a clear admonitory gesture, the housewife wears an amused expression and raises a finger to her lips, inviting viewers to spy on the flirtation between the maid and the soldier in the kitchen below. As Alpers has maintained, Maes’s series of paintings of eavesdroppers do not so much warn against immoral behavior as register the tensions within the constructed social categories. Van Mieris participates in this exploration of gender roles in The Cloth Shop, setting his painting in conversation with the works by other contemporary genre painters. His treatment of the female figure seems at first more explicit than those in the paintings by Ter Borch and Maes. Injecting a dose of ribald humor, Van Mieris shows the young woman compliantly smiling and gazing at the officer. By incorporating Dou’s iconography of commercial activity, however, Van Mieris makes the identity of the woman even harder to categorize: she is dressed as the lady of the house, she acts as a storekeeper, and her response to the officer suggests that she is also a commodity for sale. The resulting ambiguity adds to the titillating character of the painting. By citing pictorial types pioneered by Dou and Ter Borch—the shop and the elegant interior—in creating this ambitious work, Van Mieris underscores his inventive strategy and prompts viewers to compare his own accomplishment to that of his compatriots.

Captivating an Informed Audience The Cloth Shop, Sandrart and Houbraken tell us, was sold to Leopold Wilhelm for a princely sum, barely two years after Van Mieris registered for guild membership.63 Even though he did not begin to collect on a large scale until he became the governor of the Southern Netherlands in 1646, Leopold Wilhelm was recognized as a great liefhebber by mid-century.64 The sale of The Cloth Shop was an opportunity for a young artist to impress an important collector, and the painting itself contains clues that call attention to Van Mieris’s aspirations. We have already looked at the inscription on the standard that invites viewers to compare the artist’s work to its models, but the standard also features other symbolic motifs. At the top is a lion in an oval cartouche, next to which a putto stands silhouetted against blue feathers arranged

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in a fan-like pattern. Together these form the coat-of-arms of Holland. Under this arrangement is the shield of Leiden, with crossed keys on a shield flanked by two lions. A string of letters—GDUNUM—can be seen along the border. As De Jongh has convincingly argued, the standard is folded in such a way that suggests this is an incomplete word. Given its placement, it might presumably read [LU]GDUNUM [BATAVORUM], the Roman name of the city of Leiden. This part of the standard, then, refers to Van Mieris’s hometown.65 Some scholars have maintained that the opulence of the depicted space was meant to leave Leopold Wilhelm with an impression of Dutch prosperity and, in particular, of the famed textile industry of Leiden.66 The problem is that the tone of the illuminated foreground scene, with a leering officer flirting with a young woman, does not lend itself to the purpose of glorifying either the Republic or Leiden. Instead, the invocation of place could be a reference to the artist’s identity and artistic lineage. Even though designations such as the “Leiden school” are categories devised by modern art historians, a sense of regional achievement was evident in the seventeenth century. The impetus for authors to count artists among the illustrious individuals in a town suggests that artistic accomplishments were a source of pride for an urban community.67 Moreover, Van Mieris could well have been eager to invoke his association with Dou, one of the most famous Dutch masters of the period. The arms of Holland and Leiden are thus doubly self-referential, providing information about the artist’s origins and his professional pedigree. The use of these symbolic devices also brings to mind the achievements of Dutch painting and situates Van Mieris within its tradition. Van Mieris thus builds an identity in multiple layers in The Cloth Shop. He defines himself thematically and stylistically by emulating Dou and Ter Borch, but also through inscriptions and insignia nestled in the still life elements. The various citations and symbolic references could only have been fully appreciated by viewers who were knowledgeable about artistic traditions and personal styles of canonical artists. Such familiarity would enable the viewers to evaluate Van Mieris’s skills relative to his predecessors’, and the demonstration of this competence would in turn send a positive cultural message about the beholders.68 The sale of The Cloth Shop to a famous liefhebber was by no means an exception in Van Mieris’s career; indeed his target audience consisted primarily of liefhebbers who were prepared to spend lavishly on paintings. Contemporary accounts of Van Mieris’s life invariably stress the exorbitant prices his paintings commanded. According to Sandrart, Cornelis de Bie, and Houbraken, Van Mieris’s work was sought after by wealthy buyers from the beginning of his career. He cultivated important connections to prominent local citizens, including Sylvius and the burgomaster Cornelis Paets, as well as foreign aristocratic collectors.69 Inventories and sale catalogues from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries reveal that Van Mieris’s prices were comparable to Dou’s, and his works were frequently among the most expensive

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in individual collections.70 For instance, in the 1707 inventory of Petronella de la Court, three multi-figure compositions by Van Mieris were valued at 410, 650, and 1105 guilders, while there were two genre pieces by the artist in Jan van Beuningen’s collection estimated at 970 and 640 guilders in 1708.71 The labor-intensive technique exhibited in surviving paintings by Van Mieris indicates that the painter expected to be rewarded for his skill and diligence.72 This means that his finest works would have been created exclusively for the affluent collectors. Evidence from inventories suggests that, with a few exceptions, his highly polished paintings even became too expensive for most buyers in Leiden.73 In elite collections, the physical conditions of display—a dense pattern of hanging, juxtapositions of different genres, styles, and subjects—encouraged viewers to draw connections among the paintings present. Since it had become a social custom in the seventeenth century for individuals of high social standing to visit renowned collections, viewers could even draw on their memory in identifying citations and variations.74 In this way they could demonstrate the knowledge that they were assumed to have cultivated through a long period of exposure to art. The artistic dialogue with Dou and Ter Borch initiated in The Cloth Shop emphasizes Van Mieris’s creativity and virtuosity, and could reward viewers who had the proficiency not only to identify the sources, but also to appraise the artist’s engagement with his models. If the painting constituted a performance by the artist, it was also an occasion for viewers to perform their shared identity as connoisseurs.75 Van Mieris continued to execute the maneuvers that brought him success in The Cloth Shop—the inventive intervention into a fashionable subject and conspicuous citations of well-known sources—in the 1660s and beyond. In his later paintings, however, the attention shifts increasingly from verisimilitude to his idiosyncratic manner. The Doctor’s Visit, signed and dated 1667 (Plate 14), reinterprets Dou’s pictures of doctors, especially the Dropsical Woman (1663; Fig. 52). Following Dou’s model, and in contrast to Van Mieris’s own earlier treatment of the subject,76 the doctor here is examining the patient’s urine instead of taking her pulse. Van Mieris’s composition is more compact, however, with the pyramidal arrangement of figures occupying almost the entire width of the panel. The limp figure of the fainting young woman, with her red, ermine-lined jacket and glittering, gold-colored satin skirt, commands the viewer’s attention. Her physical state, the weeping servant, and the gesturing doctor accentuate the theatricality of the scene. The doctor’s pose, including the lifting of the open left palm, is similar in both pictures, but Van Mieris presents the figure in frontal view and places him at the apex of the triangular grouping of figures. The viewer’s attention is thus drawn to the doctor’s exaggerated, almost caricatured, facial features and expression, which align the figure with Jan Steen’s quacks more than Dou’s serious physicians. Dou’s famous Dropsical Woman belonged to Johan de Bye, and, as one of the works displayed in the 1665 exhibition mentioned in Chapter Two, would have been known to liefhebbers in Leiden.77 A few years later,

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Fig. 52. Gerrit Dou, “Dropsical Woman”, c. 1663. Oil on panel, 86 × 67.8 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Erich Lessing/ Art Resource, NY.

Van Mieris made this painting for another Leiden collector, burgomaster Cornelis Paets, who reportedly paid 1,500 guilders for it.78 The commission would have triggered a comparison between the paintings, the two famous Leiden artists, and the two liefhebbers, making the literal quotations and equally noticeable differences the key to appreciating Van Mieris’s painting.

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The commission of The Doctor’s Visit may represent a specific situation which emphasizes Van Mieris’s relationship to Dou, but in general artists working in the elite circles would have been evaluated against one another. Paintings by Van Mieris were often found in the same collections with works by other artists who produced genre paintings in the “elegant modern” mode. In Van Mieris’s own time, as we have seen, Sylvius avidly collected paintings made in the fine manner. Cosimo III also sought paintings from several Dutch genre painters, including Dou, Ter Borch, Van Mieris, and Netscher. Inventories taken at the turn of the eighteenth century indicate that it was common for collectors to purchase paintings of similar themes and styles by artists resident in different Dutch cities. For example, the catalogue of the paintings owned by the collector Jan van Beuningen lists works by Dou, Van Mieris, Pieter van Slingelandt (also a Leiden fijnschilder), Netscher, and Adriaen van der Werff.79 Mattheus van den Brouke, the burgomaster of Dordrecht, owned works by Van Mieris, Godfried Schalcken and Gabriel Metsu, while a collection put up for auction in Amsterdam in 1708 contained paintings attributed to Van Mieris, Netscher, Eglon van der Neer, and the Leiden fijnschilder Jan Toorenvliet.80 This tendency to assemble pictures of related subjects—such as courtship and domesticity—may point to a preference for certain popular themes, but it also suggests an appreciation for diverse interpretations of those themes. This kind of pictorial dialogue among artists complicates the traditional narrative of “influence”, which implies a linear transmission of ideas from an “original” artist to “followers.” Michael Baxandall has already criticized this notion in Patterns of Intention, arguing that it reduces the complex and varied engagement an artist can have with his or her sources to a passive receiving of “influence.”81 In the production and viewing of late seventeenth-century high-life genre paintings, motifs and technical knowledge were appropriated, modified, and re-circulated by artists and liefhebbers. Moreover, when they were found in the same physical and cultural settings, each work would have been assessed in relation to the others, regardless of chronological priority. It also meant that the artists, faced with informed viewers, had to define their artistic personas through the creation of differences. Van Mieris was only one of the artists who exploited inter-pictorial dialogue between genre painters engendered by the particular collecting practices of the period.82 Caspar Netscher, Ter Borch’s pupil, likewise combines the refined interior scenes developed by Ter Borch with the fijnschilderij technique made famous by Dou, while adding his own heightened sense of luxury.83 For example, the knowledgeable viewer would have been able to recognize Netscher’s synthesis of several formal sources in his Young Woman Feeding a Parrot (Fig. 53). The artist creates an ambience of affluence and refinement by dressing the young woman in sumptuous attire, and supplying her with an exotic pet in the parrot, and a young servant on the right. The hairstyle and facial type, as well as the silk dress, all recall Ter Borch’s works. Unlike Ter Borch’s young women though, Netscher’s figure engages the viewer’s gaze. The arched window that frames the figure is a clear quotation from Dou’s niche pictures,

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Fig. 53. Caspar Netscher, A Young Woman Feeding a Parrot, 1666. Oil on panel, 45.7 × 36.2 cm. National Gallery of Art, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, Washington, DC.

while the careful description of the Turkish carpet and the precise, tight rendering of the metal birdcage also bring to mind the Leiden master. The vehicle for demonstrating Netscher’s refined manner, a woman feeding a parrot, was a popular motif in Dutch genre painting by the 1660s. The combination of young women and birds, with its range of possible meanings, seems to appeal to painters and collectors alike

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Fig. 54. Frans van Mieris, A Woman Feeding a Parrot, c. 1663. Oil on copper, 22.5 × 17.3 cm. National Gallery, ­London. © National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY.

in this period.84 Netscher was not only taking advantage of the popularity of the subject in this painting, but, like Van Mieris, he was also inviting comparisons with the interpretations of other renowned painters. Indeed, Van Mieris himself produced two well-known versions of the motif, one in the National Gallery in London, the other in a private collection in England (Figs. 54 and 55).85 Van Mieris’s representations of interactions between youthful men and women, which fuse the theme of courtship from Ter Borch and the polished technique of Dou, would themselves become sources of inspiration for contemporaries such as Netscher, Metsu, Jacob Ochtervelt, and Eglon van der Neer. These artists in turn generated distinctive variations on these familiar pictorial subjects. Ochtervelt’s Musical Company in an Interior (c. 1670; Fig. 56), for example, features a sumptuously dressed young woman and the striking figure of a standing young man, both of which are familiar from the musical companies of Ter Borch and Van Mieris. The light entering through the windows on the left and the door opening to a secondary scene on

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Fig. 55. Frans van Mieris, A Woman Feeding a Parrot, c. 1663. Oil on panel, 22.5 × 17.5 cm. Private collection, UK. Collection RKD‐Netherlands Institute for Art History, The Hague.

the right recall the work of De Hooch. Observing that the unusual display of female portraits in a row on the back wall appears both in this painting and in contemporary printed illustrations of bordellos, Wayne Franits has argued that the picture is a “sublimated” image of prostitution.86 Netscher’s Song with Harpsichord Accompaniment in Dresden,87 on the other hand, puts the emphasis firmly on elegance and material richness. A young woman standing near the center of the picture captures the viewer’s eye with her gleaming satin gown and engaging gaze. The seated man on the left, with his elaborate and finely painted long coat, is another visual focus. The fashionably dressed figures are placed in a grand architectural interior supported by soaring Corinthian columns. The artists therefore offer interpretations ranging from images with explicit erotic overtones to more genteel representations. The customs of displaying and viewing of pictures in collectors’ cabinets ensured that liefhebbers had the chance to see a work of art that might have served as a model and its imitations—if not in the same physical space then recalled from memory or

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Fig. 56. Jacob Ochtervelt, Musical Company in an Interior, c. 1670. Oil on canvas, 58.5 × 48.9 cm. Cleveland ­Museum of Art, Cleveland. Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund/Bridgeman Images.

observed in prints.88 I am not dismissing the possibility that it was simply expedient for some artists to borrow formulae and solutions from successful predecessors, but the most ambitious painters cited and transformed their sources for the liefhebbers’ appreciation. In a collection such a strategy could underscore an artist’s lineage and at the same time accentuate novelty and difference. In the 1660s, painters like Van Mieris and Netscher appropriated Ter Borch’s and Dou’s innovations and moved

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them towards increasingly luxurious imagery. This could indeed be partly explained by the Dutch elite’s adoption of aristocratic lifestyle, but I would suggest that the shift could also be the result of an artist’s need to differentiate his work from that of his predecessors and colleagues. By this decade, however, the character of the art market was already changing. Outside the top stratum, demand began to slow, a contraction that would culminate in a collapse of the broader market in the 1670s. The challenging circumstances facing painters would play a role in shaping Van Mieris’s late work.

The “End of the Golden Age”? Van Mieris’s Late Works in Context In May 1675, a painting by Van Mieris entered the collection of Cosimo III de’ Medici in Florence (Plate 15).89 The painting, known as The Family Concert, depicts six figures in a spacious interior adorned with classical architectural features. The composition revolves around two satin-clad female figures, whose brightly illuminated forms dominate the foreground as the surrounding elements recede into shadow. The standing woman holds a string instrument under her arm, while her seated counterpart takes a sip from a wine glass. A male figure standing just behind them smiles and points at his viola da gamba. Under a monumental archway in the background, a young couple gazes at each other. The velvet-covered chairs and table, the still life of glass and silver objects on the right, and the ornate marble mantelpiece resting on Ionic columns all create a sense of luxurious grandeur commensurate with the figures’ sumptuous attire. The catalogue accompanying the Van Mieris exhibition in 2005 describes The Family Concert as “disappointing” in quality, characterizing the figures as “exaggerated”, “stiff-looking”, and unconvincing.90 Van Mieris’s composition, which presents a few finely dressed youthful figures in a well-appointed room, again echoes Ter Borch’s innovative genre paintings from the 1650s and 1660s. Yet compared to Ter Borch’s treatment of the young lady in satin, the proportions of Van Mieris’s female figures do appear distorted. The arms of both the standing and seated women in The Family Concert look elongated and impossibly elastic, and with Van Mieris’s smooth finish, the skin resembles marble more than human flesh. Citing these characteristics, scholars describe Van Mieris’s paintings from the mid-1670s to c. 1680 as “mannerist”, and indeed inferior to the artist’s exquisite early paintings, such as The Cloth Shop or The Duet. Yet commentaries from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries express sentiments that are quite different. Houbraken, for example, writes about The Family Concert approvingly in his biography of Van Mieris. The author judges the figures to be “depicted with the greatest skill”, and the various objects “so magnificently soft and boldly painted as to vie with nature in their beauty.”91 Guasconi, Cosimo III’s agent who dealt with Van Mieris in Leiden, opines that the objects and figures are “all of excellent proportions” (“tutto benissimo proporzionato”).92

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Cosimo himself was evidently satisfied with the result, as he paid Van Mieris the princely sum of 2,500 guilders for his efforts.93 Accounting for the disparity between the contemporary esteem for and modern evaluations of Van Mieris’s painting requires a scrutiny of the historiography of late seventeenth-century Dutch painting. The genre scenes set in patrician interiors by Van Mieris and his contemporaries, with their elaborately dressed figures in increasingly ornate interiors, have been perceived in the past as betraying the influence of foreign—especially French—fashions. To nineteenth-century commentators, works produced by painters in the mid-seventeenth century, such as Dou, Ter Borch, Nicolaes Maes, and Johannes Vermeer, were more authentically Dutch.94 This view implies the existence of a relatively closed sphere of artistic production in the Republic prior to the 1660s, after which foreign, classicizing imagery intruded on a native style.95 Dutch painting circa 1670 and later thus came to be seen as both derivative of the innovative creations of the previous generation and contaminated by foreign influence. This narrative of the waning of the Golden Age was also embedded within a larger moralizing account of Dutch history that emerged in the nineteenth century, when Dutch historians, in their search for national identity, constructed an idealized characterization of the early Republic.96 Holding up the first half of the seventeenth century as the Golden Age, scholars argue that the complacency and love of luxury developing in the late century corrupted the spirit of the Dutch people, a degeneration that was in turn manifested in the art produced in the period. The criticism of post-1670 painting as a superficial variation of “true” Golden Age art thus corresponds closely to the disapproval of the increasingly “aristocratic” lifestyle of contemporary Dutch burghers. Such a sweeping narrative has been criticized and discarded in the twentieth century, yet the generally negative view of Dutch paintings produced after the 1660s often persists.97 More recent scholarship has sought to re-evaluate later seventeenth-century Dutch art, and, in the process, challenge the view of earlier Dutch genre painting as an authentic art for the middle class. As Marjorie E. Wieseman has argued, it is more fruitful to consider Dutch paintings produced in this period as “part of a directed movement towards a particular aesthetic goal of idealized elegance and refinement.”98 This suggestion is related to the idea that Dutch burghers underwent a process of “aristocratization”, during which they adopted the lifestyle and aesthetic preferences of the nobility in other parts of Europe. The resulting demand for opulence is reflected in their taste in both the content and style of paintings. Wieseman maintains, moreover, that this tendency towards more ostentatious display could have been influenced by many factors, such as the subscription to humanist theories of art by the Dutch.99 Indeed, eighteenth-century authors write favorably about the heightened refinement of later seventeenth-century genre painting. Gerard de Lairesse, for instance, thinks of the beginning of the seventeenth century as an artistically inferior period.

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De Lairesse maintains that artists such as Adriaen Brouwer led painting away from rules of decorum and classicist ideals, a course that his own generation is finally able to correct.100 Jan van Gool dismisses the paintings by later Leiden fijnschilders, but he finds them wanting not so much in comparison to earlier paintings, but to the more classicizing work of Philip van Dyck.101 What looks like stagnation to modern eyes was thus seen as progress by authors such as De Lairesse, Willem Goeree, and Houbraken. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century authors saw the dwindling demand for new paintings, not a decline in the quality of the pictures, as the major problem faced by painters in the late seventeenth century. Houbraken and Van Gool lamented buyers’ preference for old masters over living artists, for which Van Gool especially blamed self-serving dealers.102 Interestingly, such anecdotal descriptions of a contracting market for paintings recorded in the historical sources have found support in recent archival studies. Houbraken and Van Gool also claimed that new trends in interior decorations damaged the painters’ business prospects.103 Recent research on the history of architectural interiors shows that the preferences in domestic furnishings were evidently changing in the later seventeenth century, with wall hangings becoming fashionable. The hangings came in a variety of forms and materials, ranging from tapestry (the most expensive and exclusive) to much cheaper painted sail cloth. There was also growing demand for painted linen hangings (kamerbehangsels), which commonly depicted landscapes or mythological scenes.104 Another striking form of covering was gilt leather, which reached the peak of its popularity in the second half of the century.105 Since households commonly refrained from hanging pictures over kamerbehangsels, the latter’s popularity had an impact on the quantities of paintings acquired for domestic decoration. Applying techniques of statistical analysis to historical data, several studies have shown that the population of active painters and the volume of their production fell sharply in the second half of the seventeenth century. Jan de Vries, for example, concludes that the number of painters increased from the turn of the seventeenth century to the 1640s, then declined rapidly after 1660.106 Marten Jan Bok reaches a similar conclusion for Amsterdam from 1585 to 1700, noting a “spectacular growth” in absolute numbers of painters that had stopped by 1670.107 Other scholars gauge the scale of the art market by estimating the painters’ output in the period. Despite the difference in approach, Ad van der Woude and Montias reach similar results regarding the high volume of paintings produced between 1640 and 1659.108 Even allowing for the wide margins of error in these studies, the numbers point to a flourishing art trade in the period. Developments of new methods of marketing and selling paintings are further reflections of the growing complexity of the industry. These include auctions, which facilitated the circulation of large quantities of inexpensive works, and the mediation of dealers, who played an increasingly important role in coordinating the supply and demand of high-end paintings.

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What brought this spectacular growth to a halt? Montias and Bok both suggest that economic stagnation, exacerbated by the political and military crises in 1672, had dire consequences for the art market.109 Bok suggests that not only did the calamitous events reduce resources available for acquiring goods and services, but they also had an impact on short-term consumer behavior. Painting, Bok explains, is “a marginal economic activity subject to a high elasticity of demand.”110 This means that the demand for paintings fluctuates more widely than that for necessities when economic conditions change. As trade and finance boomed in the first half of the seventeenth century, the art market witnessed unprecedented growth. Conversely, in the subsequent decades of political and economic reversals, the sale of paintings fell sharply. Yet there is consensus among scholars that the demand for inexpensive works began to slow as early as 1660, that is, when the Dutch economy was still in relatively robust health.111 An explanation has been proposed in recent studies for this seeming contradiction: structural overproduction. The idea is that the demand for paintings—durable products that do not require frequent replacement—has to outpace supply in order to absorb the production of new works. Failing that, the market would eventually reach a saturation point and demand would begin to slow. In the second half of the seventeenth century, second-hand paintings were also circulating in the Dutch market, further crowding out new works. The neoclassical microeconomic model predicts that prices of new paintings will fall to a level at which it is no longer viable for individuals to stay in the profession.112 According to the predominant view expressed in current scholarship, the market reached this point in the later 1650s.113 Logical as this account might appear, it does not deal adequately with the multi-layered character of the Dutch art market. By advancing the argument of the lack of a need for frequent replacement, the model also assumes that paintings were considered interchangeable. It is well documented that the production of new paintings as a whole decreased in the second half of the century, yet it is also evident that several artists had lucrative careers. The success of these artists in spite of the general statistical trend of contraction points to a specific set of conditions at play in the circles of elite collecting. It appears that the top layer of the market survived the problems of falling demand, just as the upper stratum of the economy did not feel the full effects of slowing growth. Instead of a general economic downturn, it may be more accurate to speak of a change in the patterns of wealth distribution in the Republic. Scholars now believe that per capita income continued to rise well into the eighteenth ­century, even though output slowed after 1650. However, it was income from investment rather than wages that grew from 1650 to 1800.114 Individuals with sufficient funds to invest in government and foreign loans benefited from the rising returns, while real wages remained at best constant.115 The disposable resources of the economic elite, then, did not necessarily decrease due to the stagnation that set in after

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the middle of the century. At the same time, artisans and small merchants saw a drop in their real income, which eroded their ability to purchase luxury items, such as paintings. My argument is, however, that the consumers in the top income bracket continued to buy paintings not only because they could afford to do so, but because paintings and the act of acquiring them served certain signaling functions in these circles.116 After all, buyers were quite specific in their preferences, and the attraction of old masters appears to be more than an excuse conjured by Van Gool. ­Historians have stated that painters who remained in the profession during this period became dependent on the support of individual patrons, suggesting that the market conditions underwent major changes. Franits has rightly argued that we should not overstate the shift in commercial practices after 1670, as several artists (including Dou and Van Mieris) already had close working relationships with specific collectors in earlier decades.117 I would go further and suggest that the implied contrast between patronage and an open speculative market warrants closer scrutiny. It is true that after 1660, painters increasingly had to compete for business from rich collectors in order to survive in the profession. As I mention in Chapter One, however, separating the transactions for paintings into anonymous sales and private commissions would be an oversimplification. The more pertinent question is what this smaller, more exclusive clientele meant for the painters’ creative strategies.118 As Dou and Ter Borch had done in the 1640s and 1650s, artists had to showcase their superlative skills and unique painterly manner, but the need may have become more acute as market contraction accelerated. Artists including Van Mieris, Netscher, Schalcken, and Van der Neer were rewarded for increasingly opulent imagery, polished finishes, and a certain wit and novelty that could inspire conversation and interest among liefhebbers. Van Mieris’s career stretched from the late 1650s—just as the demand for paintings began to shift—to his death in 1681, by which time only the wealthiest layer of the market remained more or less intact. In these circumstances, artists’ primary audience was the very top layer of the once-thriving art market. As I have shown throughout this study, displaying one’s cultural capital through consumption was a process shaped by changing standards and fashions. The prestige accorded to masters from the recent past, whose works have now been established as part of the Dutch canon, created further challenges to active artists. Yet the liefhebbers who wanted to maintain a sense of exclusivity had to not only show their awareness of the established masters, but also an eye for innovations. In doing so, they were also continually justifying their inclusion in the circle of the elite. Artists drove this demand for novelty by offering works that combined the comfort of the familiar with the excitement of the new, and their ability to rouse the interest of liefhebbers became imperative in the later 1660s as the middling and lower end of the market collapsed.

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Focus on handelingh: Imitation, Difference, and Identity Purposeful and witty borrowings could catch a liefhebber’s eye in a collection, but product differentiation was the key to stimulating demand. An important way for an artist to draw attention to the uniqueness of his or her creations was through distinctive effects of execution, or handelingh. Van Mander uses the term, which is a derivative of “hand”, to refer to the manner of an artist. For example, he points out in his discussion of Goltzius’s Meesterstukjes that the series of engravings shows the artist’s imitation not of existing compositions, but of the characteristic rendering of figures and drapery and the quality of line associated with each of his models.119 Handelingh can thus refer specifically to brushwork or engraved line, or more broadly to an artist’s personal style.120 An idiosyncratic painting like The Family Concert should be seen in this context. Compared to The Cloth Shop or even The Doctor’s Visit, The Family Concert reveals both continuities and marked differences in Van Mieris’s manner. Van Mieris’s virtuosic rendering of materials can still be seen in the finely detailed marble mantel on the left and the still life arrangement on the table on the right. Like Ter Borch, Van Mieris invokes the well-established association between music making and love to suggest the amorous nature of the figures’ interactions, but he also includes more overt symbolic elements. The hanging sculpture of a flying Cupid, the sculpted relief of a bacchanal on the fireplace, and a small monkey on the right all allude to bodily pleasures. In enhancing the sense of luxury in the costumes and objects, Van Mieris’s painting is part of a broader tendency in genre painting in this period, echoing the elements of aristocratic luxury found in the works of contemporaries such as Netscher, as well as some of the paintings by Dou and Ter Borch from the 1660s. The Family Concert shares familiar features with numerous mid- to late-century elegant interior scenes, but there are characteristics that separate the painting from the works of other specialists in the subgenre, and indeed Van Mieris’s own earlier paintings. The most striking and unique trait is probably Van Mieris’s treatment of the human form. The proportions of the two principal female figures have clearly been manipulated. Van Mieris has given them small heads, elongated necks, sloping shoulders, and attenuated arms to generate a sense of grace and elegance. The underlying skeletal and musculature structures are downplayed, resulting in curving joints and limbs that defy the rules of anatomical accuracy. In place of the softly articulated faces in The Cloth Shop or The Duet, Van Mieris delineates the stylized facial features with more pronounced contours in this later painting. The image is generally marked by a strong sense of artifice, with the surface taking on an enamel-like brilliance that is quite different from the fastidious simulations of materials and textures in Van Mieris’s earlier paintings.

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Even though Van Mieris’s Family Concert and other late works strike many of today’s commentators as affected and overwrought, they were well received by contemporary viewers. Van Mieris’s continued exploration of the sumptuous interior scene suggests that he, along with Netscher, Metsu, and others, were promoting the fashion for what De Lairesse called an elevated mode of genre painting. The Family Concert was praised in De Lairesse’s Het groot schilderboek as a successful attempt at elevating a painting of modern, burgerlijk subject to something more noble. At the same time, the stylistic changes visible in his later works moved the viewer’s attention from the lifelikeness of depicted figures and objects to the artist’s effects of execution. This two-pronged strategy, I argue, has to be considered in relation to the engaged viewers’ appreciation of creative repetition and the multiple distinctions it produced. The project of constructing an artistic persona was a complex affair in a collector’s cabinet, where a painting is seen in connection to others placed physically around it or that belong to the same genre. Furthermore, the addition of new objects or changes in the configuration of the collection could also alter the perception of a painting.121 Van Mieris was not the only artist whose work became more stylized in the final quarter of the seventeenth century. Other commercially successful painters likewise rendered elegantly dressed figures staged in ornate interiors in a polished manner. Moreover, contrary to Philips Angel’s recommendation in the 1640s, Van Mieris and his contemporaries did not hide a personal style in the service of naturalism. The conspicuous citations of celebrated masters and a new, elevated sense of splendor can be seen, for example, in Matthijs Naiveu’s painting of children blowing bubbles (Fig. 57). Naiveu was a pupil in the studios of Abraham van Toorenvliet and Dou in the 1660s, and the legacy of the Leiden fijnschilders is evident in his genre paintings.122 The staging of two principal figures in a window, complete with the Duquesnoy relief at the base, immediately brings to mind Dou’s niche pictures, as well as Van Mieris’s vivid painting of a young boy blowing bubbles at a window in the 1660s (Fig. 58). In Naiveu’s picture, however, the window is adorned with classical architectural elements and high relief sculpture, additions that complement the elaborate costumes worn by the children. The ornate decorations also push the opening back from the picture plane, so that the window is no longer presented as identical to the picture surface. Dou’s play with the ideas and effects of illusionism in his niche pictures is here transformed into a richly ornamented frame for the figures. A notable difference between Naiveu’s picture and the earlier works by Dou and Van Mieris lies in the treatment of the figures. Gone are the naturalistic soft features of the youth in Van Mieris’s earlier painting; the faces in Naiveu are almost mask-like with more rigid contours and hard surfaces. These characteristics are indeed closer in effect to Van Mieris’s Family Concert and other late paintings. Another painting by Naiveu, Newborn Baby (Fig. 59), draws on a theme treated by Gabriel Metsu (Fig.  60),123 but again the younger artist dresses the figures in more extravagant

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Fig. 57. Matthijs Naiveu, Boy and Girl Blowing Soap Bubbles, c. 1700. Oil on canvas, 50 × 42 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Photograph © 2017 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

costumes and lavishes attention on every decorative detail in the composition. The small heads and stylized features of the figures also depart from Metsu’s more naturalistic rendering. The young woman holding the infant, with her complicated twisting pose and shimmering satin skirt, reaches an almost contrived level of elegance. An artist who carved out a niche in the market with his expertise in rendering a specific visual effect was Godfried Schalcken, who attracted the admiration of

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Fig. 58. Frans van Mieris, Boy Blowing Bubbles, 1663. Oil on panel, 26 × 19 cm. Mauritshuis, The Hague. Scala/Art Resource, NY.

wealthy Dutch citizens and foreign princely patrons in the last quarter of the century. A pupil of Van Hoogstraten and Gerrit Dou, Schalcken’s mimetic skills reflect the teachings of his two masters.124 As the leading portraitist in Dordrecht and then

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Fig. 59. Matthijs Naiveu, Newborn Baby, 1675. Oil on canvas, 64 × 80 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Purchase, 1871 (71.160). Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Hague, Schalcken was experienced in presenting upper-class figures in luxurious settings, but his fame rested primarily on his expertise in depicting the effects of artificial illumination. He probably found inspiration when completing his training in Dou’s studio in the 1660s, when the Leiden master painted several nocturnal scenes. Schalcken became so closely associated with his rendering of candlelight that he staged not just genre scenes, but also religious subjects and even formal portraits in darkened rooms, dimly lit by a lamp or a candle. In A Girl Reading a Letter in Dresden (Fig. 61), Schalcken uses a popular pictorial subject to showcase his handelingh. A young female figure sits at a marble bench, holding a letter up to a candle flame while engaging the viewer’s gaze. Schalcken’s brushwork in the costume and drapery is broader than Dou’s or Van Mieris’s, but his finish on the face and arms is smooth and polished. Schalcken carefully articulates the decreasing intensity of brightness and hue of objects as they move further away from the flame, giving the scene a strong impression of verisimilitude. At the same time, as Van Mieris does in his later work, Schalcken simplifies the anatomical structure of the woman’s shoulders and arms to accentuate her voluptuous form, while giving her small, delicate features in a smooth face. The result is a contrived but beautifully crafted scene that fuses a

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Fig. 60. Gabriel Metsu, The Visit to the Nursery, 1661. Oil on canvas, 78 × 81 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

by-then conventional subject (young woman reading a letter) with virtuosic craftsmanship, a combination evidently favored by artists and collectors of the period. The stylization of Van Mieris’s renderings in the 1670s was therefore not an isolated incident or simply a personal case of creative decline. Instead the shift in emphasis in his work was in keeping with the increasing attention to artists’ handelinghen in this period. In A Woman Tuning a Lute (c. 1680; Fig. 62), a bust-length female figure rests her elbow on a table as she tunes her lute with a delicate gesture. She turns her gaze upward, a somewhat theatrical expression that echoes the depiction of the lute player in the tiny Serenade (c. 1680; Fig. 63) in New York and the figure in A Man Tuning the Lute (1680) in a private collection.125 Once again Van Mieris renders the figure in an abstracted way, leaving the anatomical transition from the neck to the back, and from the left forearm to the wrist, undefined. This is one of the nocturnal scenes that Van Mieris made in the last few years of his career, and the

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Fig. 61. Godfried Schalcken, A Girl Reading a Letter. Oil on panel, 27 × 20.5 cm. Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, ­Dresden. bpk, Berlin/Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden/Elke Estel, Hans-Peter Klut/Art Resource, NY.

candles—one in the foreground on the table and the other in the secondary room in the ­background—offer the artist the occasion to create dramatic tonal contrasts.126 The minute highlights on the voluminous, slit sleeve worn by the woman show off the artist’s facility with the brush and meticulous attention to detail.

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Fig. 62. Frans van Mieris, A Woman Tuning a Lute, c. 1680. Oil on panel, 21 × 17.5 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

The emphasis on the artist’s hand is even more pronounced in The Letter Writer (1680; Plate 16), another small painting from the same period in the Rijksmuseum. Van Mieris’s composition recalls the influential picture by Ter Borch in the Mauritshuis (Fig. 64). Both pictures show a young woman seated at a table in the foreground, bending over as she writes on a sheet of paper. The table, placed at a slight angle to the picture plane, acts as a repoussoir that leads the viewer’s eye into the depicted space. At the same time, it forms a partial boundary between the viewer

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Fig. 63. Frans van Mieris, The Serenade, c. 1678–80. Oil on panel, arched top, 14.6 × 11.1 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Bequest of Lillian S. Timken, 1959 (60.71.3). Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

and the young woman, whose lower body it obscures. The distancing device visually emphasizes the private nature of the letter writer’s absorption in her task. The woman’s costume, the furnishings in the room, and the act of writing itself, indicate that she is in an affluent burgerlijk setting. Both artists use selective lighting to illuminate the female figure and the material riches that surround her: the fine clothing and pearl earring, the Turkish carpet and the carved table in Ter Borch; the sumptuous

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Fig. 64. Gerard ter Borch, The Letter Writer, c. 1655. Oil on panel, 39 × 29.5 cm. Mauritshuis, The Hague. Kavaler/Art Resource, NY.

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golden cloak, velvet tablecloth, and the lapdog in Van Mieris. In both pictures, the background—a bed that frames Ter Borch’s writer and a glimpse through a doorway behind Van Mieris’s figure—fades into deep shadow. Despite the affinity between the two paintings, there is no mistaking the distinctive hand in each work.127 Ter Borch renders the young woman’s features with a delicate touch, creating subtle tonal transitions yet leaving tiny, soft brushstrokes visible. He further demonstrates his technical mastery by differentiating between the textures of the carpet, the salmon pink jacket worn by the young woman, the feather of the quill pen, and the gleaming metal of the inkstand. Van Mieris, on the other hand, effaces the traces of the brush in the figure’s face and costume. While Ter Borch describes the transition between his figure’s jaw line, neck, shoulder, and collarbone, Van Mieris has simplified his figure’s neck into a cylinder, and her shoulders and chest into one undefined, voluptuous form. Van Mieris also gives the stylized features of the figure a hard, marble-like appearance, which contrasts with Ter Borch’s soft, subtle brushstrokes. Ter Borch’s directed lighting has been transformed into a bright spotlight by Van Mieris, allowing the latter to create artificial highlights in the foreground elements. In Van Mieris’s picture, the folds of the costume and the tablecloth seem to take on a life of their own. Highlights swirl and twist amidst areas of dark shadows, producing passages that celebrate virtuosic and imaginative brushwork more than approximate the textures of the objects. Ter Borch’s innovation of the female letter writer inspired not only Van Mieris, but also Metsu, Netscher, Van der Neer, and Vermeer. Van Mieris himself created several variations around the epistolary theme, including placing the letter writer in a candlelit scene.128 Given that, as I discuss earlier, liefhebbers often had paintings by many of the representatives of the refined modern mode in their collections, The Letter Writer can be seen as a painting that emphatically presents Van Mieris’s personal manner around 1680. The stylization of the figures, the exaggerated description of drapery folds, and the ultra-smooth polish of the surfaces are found in other Van Mieris pictures from the period, including portraits and history paintings. The treatment of a familiar, popular subject helps situate Van Mieris in the Dutch tradition, while at the same time it encourages comparison between Van Mieris’s works and those by his colleagues. For the liefhebbers, what seemed like derivative subjects could have served as vehicles for Van Mieris’s demonstration of his handelingh. In this chapter I have considered how the process of identity construction—for both artists and liefhebbers—evolved in the 1660s and 1670s. Artists had fewer outlets for their products in this period, when the lower or middling income groups were no longer buying on a scale comparable to pre-1660 levels. Many of the rich liefhebbers, who were still acquiring paintings, had already assembled collections of works by famous masters. In order to succeed in such challenging economic conditions, ambitious artists sought to create paintings that exploited, and encouraged, the practices of collecting and connoisseurship. That meant producing pictures that were

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recognizably the inventions of particular artists, and that could spark conversations among liefhebbers. As Svetlana Alpers suggests, for painters who worked with subjects that were not text-based (i. e., landscape, still life, genre, etc.), their invention could not be judged in relation to their interpretation of a known narrative. Instead, each painter’s handelingh became the locus of invention.129 The comparison of their distinctive executions of the elegant high-life scene, which was popular and promoted by theorists such as Lairesse as a classicizing improvement on genre painting, was made possible in the setting of a collection. Although it may be true that Van Mieris and his contemporaries did not offer new genres and subjects, they demonstrated their inventiveness through the practice of eclectic and competitive imitation. In the competitive arena of elite genre painting in the late seventeenth century, it was through clear references to illustrious predecessors that an artist’s own work was to be distinguished and through imitation that his artistic persona became apparent.

Epilogue: On Signature Products, Knock-Offs, and Product Lines This book begins with the question of why and how creative repetition came to be an esteemed form of invention to artists and viewers in the seventeenth-century Dutch art market. The three case studies consider how, and under what conditions, appropriations, citations, and reiterations were closely tied to innovation and the p ­ rojection of unique artistic identities. While collectors in the seventeenth century certainly did not demand originality in the form of radical departures from artistic tradition—that idea would not emerge until the late nineteenth century—I suggest that viewers found certain forms of repetition not merely acceptable, but indeed desirable in paintings. The paintings by Dou, Ter Borch, and Van Mieris demonstrate that prominent artists in the period engaged in practices of inventive repetition—in the form of strategic appropriations from artistic precedents and purposeful self-citations—to enhance the value of their work. I would like to conclude this study, however, with a look at forms of repeated imagery that were more readily attributable to commercial motives. These practices, including close imitations of a famous master’s work to take advantage of his/her celebrity, and the use of templates in workshops, serve as a foil to underscore the deliberate nature of the creative repetitions explored in this book. Dominicus van Tol’s Woman in a Window, Holding a Dead Fowl (Fig. 65), now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, illustrates the artist’s strong affinity with Dou. The composition bears a resemblance to Dou’s Girl with a Basket of Fruit at a Window at the Waddesdon Manor (Fig. 14) and Woman Hanging a Rooster at a Window in the Louvre (Fig. 10). Van Tol borrows Dou’s niche picture format, framing the female figure in an arched window. He also imitates Dou’s meticulous technique in this painting. The face of the female figure is executed with considerable care through fine, softly blended brushstrokes. Her eyes are fully modeled, and the strands of her hair are articulated through individual curving strokes. Van Tol’s delicate touch is most clearly visible in the rendering of the bird. Numerous short, tapering strokes are used to simulate the feathers, and the layering of the strokes of different hues enhances the sense of volume. Other parts of the painting do not, however, show the same level of skill. The torso of the female figure is stiff and awkward, the foreshortening unconvincing. The drapery is, in general, more broadly painted than the figure’s face or the bird. Although Van Tol uses stippling to depict part of the carpet on the windowsill, he did not use short parallel strokes, as Dou does, to indicate the weave of the cloth. The flower pot before the wall recalls Dou’s Old Woman with a Jug in Vienna,1 but the modeling of the flowers here looks mechanical, with no textural differentiation between leaves and petals. The description of the wicker basket under the

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Fig. 65. Dominicus van Tol, Woman in a Window, Holding a Dead Fowl. Oil on panel, 41.6 × 30.2 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Photograph © 2017 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

woman’s arm also looks labored. Van Tol has used parallel strokes of different tones of grey to suggest that texture of the plastered wall, but he has not done so with Dou’s meticulous precision.

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Whether Van Tol’s work represents a copy of a lost painting by Dou or a combination of various motifs familiar from the older master’s works in one image, the younger artist stays very close to his artistic model. The compositional scheme, the contrast between brightly lit foreground and deep, dark background, and the smooth finish all clearly recall Dou’s works. Even the facial type of the female figure, her disposition, and the theme of a kitchen maid at a window are all appropriated from Dou’s work. The achievements of later seventeenth-century Dutch genre painters were often discussed in terms of their assimilation of the influences of different masters. Van Mieris is therefore praised for creatively absorbing and transforming his various sources, whereas Van Tol is often regarded as a follower who worked within the confines set by his illustrious predecessor. The ways in which these later artists engaged their sources thus become reduced to a matter of qualitative judgment. Yet, as Michael Baxandall explained in Patterns of Intention, “when Y has recourse to or assimilates himself to or otherwise refers to X there are causes: responding to circumstances Y makes an intentional selection from an array of resources in the history of his craft.”2 To characterize the relationship between Dou and Van Tol as one of “influence” casts the latter as the passive party who was “acted upon”, but in reality he was the agent who engaged with Dou’s example in making his painting. Furthermore, the framework of influence hinders our attempt to differentiate between various ways in which artistic engagements took place and understand the possible motivations behind those engagements. We are left with the implicit assumption that Van Tol somehow “succumbed” to Dou’s influence because of his limited ability. Yet I believe that Van Tol’s strategy of closely imitating Dou—and others like it—could provide insights into collecting practices and the assessment of pictures in the period. I therefore draw this comparison neither to place Van Mieris and Van Tol in a hierarchy of excellence nor to present the latter as a forgotten master. Rather, my goal is to use this juxtaposition to suggest the range of strategies painters could adopt as they targeted specific consumer groups. Van Tol was far from an isolated example among later seventeenth-century genre painters. Johan van Staveren, Abraham de Pape, and others who studied with Dou in Leiden placed emphasis on their association with the revered master. Moreover, anonymous painters who might not have been connected to prominent masters supplied the market with copies and pastiches. Who constituted the intended audience for these artists? How did their works compare to those of Van Mieris, the most famous of Dou’s pupils, in terms of price? Van Tol, for example, did not achieve the same level of fame enjoyed by Dou and Van Mieris, especially outside his hometown of Leiden.3 His name appeared only six times in the Getty Provenance Index, four in connection with the 1669 inventory of Hendrick Pietersz. van Dusseldorp. There were eleven transactions involving paintings by Van Tol in Hoet’s Catalogus, six in volume one (1752) and five in volume three (1770). Dou’s name was invoked in three of the transactions; one describing Van Tol as a follower of Dou, two comparing the

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painting in question to Dou’s work.4 The prices for the paintings mentioned in volume one, sold in the 1730s, ranged from 5 to 87 guilders, with the average at 50. In the transactions listed in volume three, which covered sales from the 1760s, the average jumped to about 225 guilders, with the most expensive at 445. The descriptions of the paintings indicate that the ones in the 1730s catalogues were not resold at higher prices in the 1760s. It is impossible to determine if the works sold later were simply judged to be of higher quality, or if there was a surge of interest in Van Tol’s work. Nevertheless, the prices of Van Tol’s paintings did not reach the exorbitant levels commanded by Van Mieris’s works. The prices recorded by Hoet for Van Staveren are lower, and unattributed copies or variations were on the whole cheaper still.5 Judging from extant paintings and data, it would seem that (1) these painters produced works that were closely modeled on those by famous older artists such as Dou, Ter Borch, and Van Mieris; and (2) their paintings were sold at lower prices, thus in theory they could have had a wider customer base. Such copies or works “in the style of” well-known artists could be made for modest collections,6 but sometimes they were listed side-by-side with what were judged to be autograph works by the same artists.7 Wealthy collectors may have acquired copies as surrogates for original works that were no longer available, thus filling a gap in the collection. The paintings could also be well-crafted works in their own right that appealed to the purchaser who was partial to pictures in that style. While it is impossible to pinpoint the exact motivation behind each purchase, it is evident that a demand existed for copies or works that closely followed a famous model. Even Dou, Ter Borch, and Van Mieris, whose innovations have been the focus of this study, may have relied on proven formulae or “trademark” motifs in negotiating a multilayered market. For example, of the 180 transactions involving paintings by Dou listed in the Catalogus, 58 were estimated at between 100 and 300 guilders, and 60 at less than 100. A painting valued at 50 to 100 guilders was by no means “cheap”, but that figure was far below the price range for Dou’s paintings quoted by Sandrart and Houbraken. Similar fluctuations in prices can also be seen in the sale of paintings by Ter Borch and Van Mieris. A question that might come to mind immediately concerns what the designation “Dou” or “Ter Borch” actually means in a probate inventory or sale catalogue. These could represent “knock-offs” by obscure painters that were not recorded as such by notaries, but they could also have come from the masters’ studios. Since mechanical transfer of design elements from a model to multiple works was a common procedure, master painters would often copy their own inventions or supervise the production of copies and variants in their workshops.8 It is possible that the artist’s name attached to some of the inexpensive paintings functioned more as a stylistic or thematic label than an actual attribution. The niche window and the satin dress were firmly associated with Dou and Ter Borch, respectively, even in their own time. The niche window, for example, was part of a strategy to comment on Dou’s artistry in a witty manner that would have

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appealed to a sophisticated audience. But the window also offered economizing possibilities. In the less expensive niche pictures, the framing device provides an effective frame for a compact composition.9 Moreover, it functions as an identifying mark for Dou. Similarly, the satin dress serves as the visual focal point of a Ter Borch, or Ter Borch-inspired, high-life painting. As such, it can invoke the artistry of Ter Borch even when the rest of the picture might be summarily painted. The signature elements worked as insignia: they refer to the artists and signify the qualities associated with their art, even as the actual effects achieved in the painting fall short of those standards.10 The presence of a recognizable feature could help the viewer connect the picture to a particular master, thus enhancing its name value. The examples discussed above—students’ adherence to the formulae of a famous teacher, a master’s use of an identifiable motif to connect works of varying quality to his own authorship—were more overtly motivated by economic concerns. That such forms of repetition were widely practiced further highlights the purposeful nature of the inventive variations and competitive emulation that form the focus of this book. The recurring motifs in the work of Dou and Ter Borch are ones that draw attention to their respective expertise. Dou, the painter known for his ability to imitate life in miniature, uses the niche window to play with the effects and contradictions of illusionism. Ter Borch, as Joshua Reynolds remarks, “seldom omitted to introduce a piece of white sattin in his pictures.”11 The vivid description of the shimmering material, which is still a major part of his appeal to modern audiences, underscores his mastery of reflexyconst. The reuse of these signature motifs augmented the impact of the innovations they introduced to Dutch genre painting by providing a thread through their paintings, each individual work reinforcing the oeuvre as a whole. Van Mieris, a generation younger, reckoned with these achievements by engaging each of the older masters at his own game. The Duet, with which this book begins, illustrates the ambitious young artist’s strategy: to fuse the characteristic techniques and motifs of Dou and Ter Borch in his own inventions while leaving the borrowings visible. This sparks a dialogue between the paintings, so that not only did Van Mieris define his own artistic manner in relation to his models, but his new work would also modify the perceptions of the older artists’ pictures. The inter-pictorial dialogue could only take place if historical viewers had the opportunity to observe the connections among multiple paintings, and my research suggests that they did. Inventories and auction catalogues indicate that such related images were often housed in the same prestigious collections, and travel journals and art treatises demonstrate that it was a social custom among the Dutch patrician class to call on artists and collectors. This study asks why and how viewers came to value these visual exchanges in this particular context. Addressing this leads to consideration of other, broader issues, including the significance paintings held for the Dutch upper class, and the purposes they served in social negotiation. Patrons had long used artistic commissions to convey messages about themselves. The installation of

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an expensive altarpiece in a church, for example, spoke to the donor’s piety, wealth, generosity to the community, aesthetic discernment, and so on.12 But what might buying a costly genre painting and then hanging it in one’s residence communicate about the purchaser? Who else was supposed to see it, and what benefits might the owner, the visitor, and the artist derive from such viewings? The assembling and display of paintings in a private setting was a relatively new phenomenon in the Northern Netherlands in the seventeenth century, where a non-noble urban elite controlled the economic operations of the state. These prosperous commoners sought ways to convert financial capital into cultural and social capital, and the acquisition of art objects, and perhaps more importantly the engagement with them, became a means for achieving this goal. I would argue that it went beyond a desire to “keep up with the Joneses”; rather, it concerned a need to continually perform the role of the sophisticated liefhebber. Individuals in the same elevated social circles were expected to be aware of each other’s collections and to know how to evaluate the objects. Communal viewing of paintings in collectors’ cabinets and artists’ studios had become a forum for displaying one’s position as a liefhebber and cultivated gentleman. Such social calls also provided the networking opportunities for collectors, with paintings as the objects mediating their interactions. Consumption of paintings and the rituals surrounding them served to erect and stabilize social boundaries, which could also be traversed as the excluded learned to acquire the markers of the liefhebber identity. To maintain the exclusive nature of the liefhebber identity, the established elite refined their taste, demanding innovations and ever finer displays of virtuosity from the artists. Group preferences were therefore not constant. Through their contacts with liefhebbers, the artists discussed in this book were also cognizant of the role their works played in the collections. This was not simply a matter of knowing what subjects appealed to buyers, but how to create paintings that satisfied the expectations for artistic skill, clever references to traditions and precedents, and the element of novelty. The multidisciplinary research on consumer behavior concludes that those on the top rung of the financial and social ladder were more inclined to prefer the stimulation of the new than the middling or lower income groups.13 Since novelty is by definition impermanent, it may be more accurate to say that artists did not just meet the liefhebbers’ demand for innovative images, but they shaped or even created that demand. Dou’s “fine” manner, for example, offers viewers precise rendering of minute details that surpassed the accepted standards for illusionistic images, while it remained rooted in the Netherlandish tradition of descriptive artistry. Ter Borch creates distinctive, idealized, scenes of patrician life that simultaneously underscore his ability to simulate luxurious fabrics, which was mentioned by Van Mander, Angel, and Van Hoogstraten as a measure of painterly skill. The increasingly narrow market in the 1660s and 1670s then created

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a competitive environment in which Van Mieris accentuated his handelingh in his emulation of Dou and Ter Borch. The third quarter of the seventeenth century witnessed the emergence and development of a novel type of genre painting, a story of innovation in which Dou, Ter Borch, and Van Mieris played important roles. Their idealized representations of patrician life, executed in a refined technique, became models for subsequent generations of artists. However, the socioeconomic circumstances had changed in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The middle and lower end of the market for new paintings had all but collapsed by the last two decades of the seventeenth century, causing a steep decline in the number of practicing painters and restricting their clientele to the very wealthy. At the same time, both artists and collectors had developed an art historical awareness that already regarded the early to mid-seventeenth century as a Golden Age of Dutch art.14 Junko Aono argues in her recent book that the seemingly derivative character of early eighteenth-century Dutch genre painting was not a reflection of personal failings of the painters, but a result of the necessity to accommodate the wishes of collectors who coveted works by the old masters. Indeed, liefhebbers commissioned painters to make copies of well-known paintings that were no longer available for purchase or to produce paintings that complemented prized seventeenth-century genre pieces already in their collections.15 Artists from 1680 to 1750 also modified formulae inherited from old masters to suit the contemporary buyers’ preference for idealized imagery and polished techniques.16 Writers such as De Lairesse urged artists to “ennoble” the contemporary, anonymous figures and scenarios in genre paintings by borrowing from history painting. Inventive acts of repetition continued, but the set of possibilities had changed. Innovations would now take place in the engagement with a bygone Golden Age on the one hand and the tenets of humanist art theory on the other.

Notes Introduction 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

15. 16.

Hoet 1752, vol. 1, p. 388; Buvelot 2005a, p. 120, cat. 17. Otto Naumann has identified Ter Borch’s Two Women Making Music in the Louvre as a close parallel, but Van Mieris has assembled elements from several of the older master’s paintings. See Naumann 1981, vol. 1, pp. 52–53. An inscription on the harpsichord above the keyboard reads “AEGERTS ME FECIT ANTVERPE,” which identifies the maker of the instrument as Cornelius Hagaerts of Antwerp. See Naumann 1981, vol. 2, pp. 24–25; Buvelot 2005a, p. 120. Naumann 1981, vol. 1, pp. 52–54; Buvelot 2005a, p. 122. In the art historical literature, the term “Leiden fijnschilders” refers to Dou and the genre painters in his circle who produced detailed, smoothly finished pictures. Hoet 1752 vol. 1, pp. 388–89. The paintings by Ter Borch, Metsu, and Netscher were described as “companies” (gezelschap), likely scenes of leisure among patrician figures like the one presented in Van Mieris’s painting. Sylvius’s collection and his relationship with the leading artists of Leiden will be discussed in the following chapters. In 1676, Giovacchino Guasconi, the agent of Grand Duke Cosimo III of Tuscany, informed his employer that he had commissioned self-portraits from three famous Dutch painters for the Grand Duke’s gallery: Gerrit Dou, Gerard ter Borch, and Frans van Mieris. See Gudlaugsson 1959, vol. 2, pp. 29–30. Van Mander discusses the art of painting different kinds of reflections in chapter seven of Den grondt der edel vry schilder-const (1604). See Van Mander/Miedema 1973, pp. 182–203; Melion 1991, pp. 70–77. See also Chapter Three of this book for further discussion. Wallert 2004, pp. 32–41. See, for example, Muller 1989, pp. 141–49; Tummers 2011. Honig 1998a, pp. 108–14 and 180–82; Montias 1988, pp. 245–46. Douglas and Isherwood 1996, pp. xxi, 38, 43. Jonathan Nelson and Richard Zeckhauser seek to develop an analytical framework based on such recent economic research to study artistic commissions in early modern Italy. Using game theory and theory of signaling, the authors examined the patron’s costs, benefits, and constraints in social and cultural (rather than strictly monetary) terms. See Nelson and Zeckhauser 2008, esp. Part I. For discussion see Uusitalo 1998, p. 227. Uusitalo 1998, p. 223.

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Key Concepts

Portions of the following has been incorporated with permission: Angela Ho, “An Invitation to Compare: Frans van Mieris’ Cloth Shop in the Context of Early Modern Art Collecting,” Renaissance Studies 23 (2009): 694–717. 1. Honig 1998b, p. 51. 2. Hecht 2002, pp. 191 ff; Sluijter 1988a, pp. 101–3; Sluijter 2000b, pp. 269–71. 3. Montias 1987; North 1997. 4. Montias himself acknowledges this problem when he puts Dou, Van Mieris, and Johannes Vermeer in the category of artists who worked for patrons. See Montias, 1987. For the prices of Dou’s paintings, see Chapter Two. 5. More recently, economists who study consumer behavior have questioned the description of consumers as individuals who focus exclusively on maximizing the utility gained from acquiring goods. Some scholars cite Thorstein Veblen’s notion of conspicuous consumption to examine how consumers influence each other in their choices, while others draw on psychobiology to analyze how people derive pleasure from goods, and the implications of these findings for product design. See for example Duesenberry 1949; Scitovsky 1992; Bianchi 1998. I will discuss the applicability of this method further in Chapter Three. 6. Franits 2004, p. 1. Lawrence Goedde and Celeste Brusati likewise analyze the wellestablished repertoire of elements and compositional formulae used to achieve vivid lifelikeness in landscapes and still life. See Goedde 1997, pp. 129–43; Brusati 1997, pp. 144–57. 7. Franits 2004, p. 1. In her recent book, Junko Aono explains that the reliance on patrons became even more acute in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. See Aono 2015. 8. For example, Wayne Franits explains that these apparently unassuming representations are persuasive but formulaic fictions that are based on favored subjects and made deceptively lifelike through the descriptive skills of the painters. See Franits 2004, pp. 1–2. 9. See, for example, Montias 1987; Bok 2001, pp. 186–209. 10. A notable attempt to depart from a rigid view of “market” is the 1994 article by Neil de Marchi and Hans van Miegroet. The authors argue that the market was “not a fixed, static entity, defined by a single, undifferentiated product,” but was instead a “forum for and the tentative results of experimental interactive behavior among many individuals and groups.” They point out that the model of an open market was an abstraction that focused on the end result of economic processes, i. e., the production and price levels at competitive equilibria. In reality, participants were constantly changing the very terms of competition by introducing new products and technologies. See De Marchi and Van Miegroet 1994. 11. For discussion, see for example Studies in the History of Art 20 (1989), a volume of articles addressing the issue of originals and originality in art history; Shiff 1996, pp. 104–8; Loh 2006, pp. 238–39. 12. Krauss 1985; Solomon-Godeau 1984.

Notes

13.

14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

27.

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Loh uses the seicento Italian painter Padovanino as a case study to explore how an artistic persona could be created and projected through the imitation and reinterpretation of canonical figures from the past. Meanwhile, Cropper’s meticulous analysis of the controversy surrounding Domenichino’s Last Communion of St. Jerome reveals the tension between the long-standing acceptance of imitation as a mode of invention and the emerging concept of novelty (novità) in seventeenth-century Rome. Cropper shows that, on the one hand, imitation, repetition, and invention were traditionally understood as interdependent in theory and practice; on the other hand, a “cult of the new,” exemplified by the careers of Caravaggio and Federico Zuccaro, began to offer a different vision. See Loh 2007; Loh 2004, pp. 477–78 and 496–97; Cropper 2005, pp. 129 ff, 158–59. Deleuze 1994, p. 1. Deleuze, 1994, pp. 186–88 and 28–33. For further discussion of this comparison please see Chapter Three. On the figure of the rhizome, see Deleuze and Guattari 1987, pp. 5–25. On the categories of imitation, see, for example, Pigman 1980, pp. 1–32; Warners 1956, Warners 1957a; Warners 1957b; Greene 1982; Muller 1982; Cropper 2005; Loh 2004. Here I am drawing on Bruce Kawin’s definition of “repetitive” as opposed to “repetitious.” See Kawin 1989, p. 4. See also Loh 2007, pp. 53–64. Gudlaugsson has documented several adaptations and pastiches that feature the woman in satin as their central element. See Gudlaugsson 1959–1960, vol. 2, pp. 116–20. Brusati 2011, pp. 326–41. Brusati 2011, pp. 326–41; Stone-Ferrier 1985, pp. 177–81. Alpers 2005, p. 104. Alpers 2005, pp. 94–104. Alpers 2005, p. 101. Alpers writes: “It might be objected that it makes no sense to speak of repetition when the artist never intended viewers to see, and indeed viewers never saw, a large number of his paintings hanging together.” Johan de Bye, a collector in Leiden, built a collection of twenty-seven paintings by Dou, which he put on display in an exhibition in 1665. Franciscus de le Boe Sylvius, a professor in Leiden, had eleven works by Dou and six by Frans van Mieris in his collection. We also know of collectors who secured the right of first refusal for artists’ works; Pieter Spiering Silvercroon had such an arrangement with Dou, as did Sylvius with Van Mieris. These would have been examples of a considerable number of works by the same artist hanging in the same cabinet. For more detailed accounts of De Bye’s and Sylvius’s collections of paintings by Dou, see Chapter Two. It is also believed that a handful of collectors in Delft each owned multiple works by Vermeer. Montias posits that Pieter van Ruijven was an important patron who owned more than twenty works by Vermeer, but Arthur Wheelock suggests that the archival evidence does not definitively support this hypothesis. See Wheelock 1996, pp. 22–23; Montias 1989, pp. 246–57. Bok argues that in Van Mander’s usage of the term, money alone was not sufficient to earn an individual the title of liefhebber, nor was a substantial collection of paintings, if s/he inherited it. See Bok 1993, pp. 136–66.

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28. De Marchi and Van Miegroet 1994, pp. 460–64. In this section of their article De Marchi and Van Miegroet use the terms liefhebber and kenner interchangeably, suggesting that such individuals were informed by art theory in their evaluation of paintings. By contrast, merchants were more ready to reduce quality to saleability. 29. Marten Jan Bok has investigated the social and economic circumstances of individuals designated by Van Mander as liefhebbers and found that they had substantial financial resources and occupied prominent social positions. Furthermore, Bok’s analysis shows that a larger proportion of the paintings owned by liefhebbers were by living masters. See Bok 1993, pp. 141–47 and appendix II; Ho 2009, p. 700. 30. Angel 1972, pp. 40, 43. Translations of the key phrases are from Miedema and Hoyle 1996, pp. 244–45. Angel also addressed his text to these “art lovers,” whom he called liefhebbers or konst-beminders, imploring them to follow the great patrons from Alexander to the Renaissance princes and support the painters working in Leiden. 31. “… hy [Dou] de Lief-hebbers vande Konste in grooter waerden gehouden ende dier vercocht warden.” Orlers 1781, p. 380. Orlers’s book is a substantial project, detailing history and description of city. The biographical account of Dou appears in Chapter 13 of volume 1, entitled: “Verhael ende beschrijvinge van alle de Doorluchtige, Gheleerde, ende vermaerde Mannen, die welcke binnen der Stede Leyden gheboren ende voortghecomen zijn: Eeniger leven, daden, ende sterven beschreven ende verhaelt” (Account and description of all the illustrious, learned, and celebrated men, who were born and originated from the city of Leiden. Lives, deeds, and deaths described and narrated). In addition to Dou, the list of seventeenth-century painters includes David Bailly, Joris van Schoten, Jan van Goyen, Pieter Pieterz. De Neyn, Rembrandt, and Jan Lievens. 32. Filipczak 1987, p. 51 33. Filipczak 1987, p. 51. 34. Honig 1998a, p. 202. 35. Luijten 1999, pp. 75–76; Filipczak 1987, pp. 52–53; Honig 1998a, p. 202. 36. Filipczak 1987, pp. 53–54. 37. The “guild letter” of the guild in The Hague, dated 21 October 1656, refers to liefhebbers alongside the categories of painters, sculptors, engravers, and glass engravers. All five were to pay the same dues to the confrerie, suggesting that liefhebbers had some official capacity in the organization. See Obreen 1877–90, vol. 4, p. 49. The Book of Confrerie of 21 July 1661 states that liefhebbers were to be included in the fraternity, but specifically as liefhebber and not as broeder (Obreen 1877–90, vol. 4, p. 80). 38. Sluijter 1999a, pp. 117–18; Goldgar 2007, pp. 24–25. Cf. earlier studies, such as Briels 1987, which stress the impact of the influx of artists from Flanders and Brabant on the Dutch art market in the early seventeenth century. 39. As Goldgar demonstrates in her research on the tulipmania, collectors acquiring and exchanging rare plants in the Low Countries included noblemen, courtiers, regents, and wealthy merchants. See Goldgar 2007, pp. 51–53. 40. Evelyn 1955, vol. 2, p. 39. Evelyn records seeing a large number of landscapes and “drolleries” for sale at the annual fair in Rotterdam, expressing surprise at the quantity of paintings offered for sale at fairs, markets, and shops. He goes on to speculate that the shortage of land in the Republic led the Dutch to invest their wealth in paintings. Peter Mundy was another English traveler who commented on the abundance of paintings in ordinary Dutch houses.

Notes

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41. Cook 2007, p. 72. 42. Henry Peacham, Earl of Arundel’s secretary, treated virtuoso and liefhebber as equivalent terms in his Compleat Gentleman (1634). See Woodall 2003, pp. 14–15; Zell 2003, p. 336. For an analysis of the term curieux, see Pomian 1990, pp. 53–60. Pomian notes that the Académie in France reserved the term amateur for lovers of paintings. On the understanding of these terms in the Dutch context, see Van Gelder 1992, p. 289. 43. Arnold Houbraken’s Groote schouburgh, published 1718–21, was supposed to be a supplement and continuation of Van Mander’s Het Schilder-Boeck. Comprising the biographies of more than 600 artists, the three-volume publication played a pivotal role in the historiography of Netherlandish art, despite criticisms of biases and inaccuracies. 44. Sandrart 2008, II, Book 3, p. 321. 45. Houbraken 1976, Book III, p. 3. 46. Sandrart 2008, II, Book 3, p. 321. Houbraken acknowledges Sandrart as one of the major sources for his own book. 47. Peter Hecht argues that, contrary to his reputation as biased and unreliable, Houbraken was actually quite careful in verifying and presenting the artists’ lives. Hecht points out that Houbraken frequently mentioned his sources and made corrections to his text as new facts were unearthed. See Hecht 1996, pp. 259–74. 48. Sylvius was an immigrant of Flemish origins, both of his parents hailing from distinguished merchant families who resided in the southern Netherlands. Born near Frankfurt in 1614, Sylvius traveled widely and pursued his studies in various European cities, receiving his doctorate in Basel in 1637. He then taught briefly in Leiden around 1638 before establishing a highly successful practice in Amsterdam. In 1658 he returned to the University of Leiden, where he attracted many students from the Republic and abroad. See Baumann 1949, pp. 2–20; Sluijter 2001, p. 106. 49. For an analysis of Sylvius’s collection of paintings, see Sluijter 2001, pp. 105–16. Sluijter suggests that all the works were purchased, not inherited, by Sylvius. The inventory of his paintings and other moveable goods has been published in Lunsingh Scheurleer 1988, vol. IIIb, pp. 335–42. 50. Goldgar 2007, pp. 52–53. 51. With the Twelve Years Truce, which began in 1609, Spain retained control over the southern provinces, but unofficially acknowledged the independence of the north. The Netherlandish leaders did not set out to establish a fully independent state, and at various points of the Revolt they sought the protection of foreign monarchs. In 1581, the States General accepted the Duke of Anjou, the younger brother of the King of France, as sovereign. He lacked the provinces’ support, however, and after deadly confrontations with the rebels in Antwerp, Anjou left for France in 1583. As the Spanish reconquest of the southern provinces progressed, the States General of the United Provinces in the north then petitioned Queen Elizabeth I of England for help, in return for which she had the right to nominate the military and political leader of the emerging state. She named Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, to the role. Leicester came into conflict with the regents of Holland, led by Johan van Oldenbarnevelt and Prince Maurits. Leicester also gave up and returned to England after his plan to subjugate Holland collapsed. Only after these two failed attempts to offer sovereignty to foreign rulers did the Dutch set about building a republic. The classic study on the

196 

52.

53.

54.

55. 56. 57.

58.

Creating Distinctions in Dutch Genre Painting

Dutch Revolt is Geyl 1958 (2nd ed.). For more recent studies, see, for example, Israel 1995, pp. 129–275; Prak 2005, pp. 7–24; Arnade 2008; Darby 2001; Hart 1993; Davids and Lucassen 1995. Roodenburg states that positions on government councils were closed to immigrants from the southern Netherlands. Both Israel and Burke also note that very few wealthy families from the south gained entry into the regents class. See Roodenburg 2004, pp. 33, 37; Israel 1995, p. 341; Burke 1994, p. 22. The Berkhout family serves as a good example of such rapid social ascent. Pieter Teding van Berkhout was a close acquaintance of Huygens. Pieter’s father, Paulus, became one of the wealthiest men in Delft, leaving a considerable fortune at his death. Born into affluent circumstances, Pieter received a classical education, which he finished with a Grand Tour of France and a university degree in Orléans. Following in his father’s footsteps, Pieter became a full-time public officeholder and a financier. Despite the trappings of an aristocratic lifestyle, however, the Berkhouts were nonnobles. Cornelis Schmidt’s study reveals that the Berkhout family went from being modest business owners to prominent officeholders in little more than a century. See Blaak 2009, pp. 113–20; Schmidt 1987, pp. 130–34. The traditional view that the Republic was dominated by a broad “middle class” has been substantially revised in the more recent scholarship, for even in the absence of a monarch or powerful nobility, a hierarchical structure nevertheless emerged in Dutch society. See Aerts 2001, pp. 5–22. Aerts discusses the formation of the nineteenthcentury view of the Golden Age Dutch Republic as a middle-class society. In a classic study from 1961, D. J. Roorda divides the population of Holland and Zeeland into five classes, with the elite group of nobility, regents, and wealthy merchants at the top, and “the rabble” at the bottom. Gerrit Groenhuis modifies Roorda’s scheme into six classes. See Roorda 1979, pp. 37–59; Groenhuis 1977. See also North 1997, pp. 47–48; De Vries and Van der Woude 1997, pp. 561–64. Bryson 1998, pp. 281 – 83. On the demonstration of virtue and respectability through consumption, see also Smith 2002. Bryson 1998, p. 136. Peter Burke, for example, uses the emulation model to explain the shift from “entrepreneur attitudes” to “rentier attitudes” among the elites in Venice and Amsterdam. Quoting Adam Smith, Burke argues that leading merchants (the entrepreneurs) wanted to model themselves on the nobility, who were rentiers. See Burke 1994, pp. 135 ff. My examination of the intersections between socioeconomic conditions and the production and consumption of paintings is informed by the work of Pierre Bourdieu. His formulations of habitus and field provide a framework for considering the artist’s efforts at positioning himself as a function of the possibilities and constraints in production on the one hand, and of the artist’s own dispositions on the other. Such a framework offers an alternative to a narrative of autonomous artistic creation and economic determinism. See Bourdieu 1993; Bourdieu 1984. I am mindful of Bourdieu’s tendency to create clear-cut, binary categories, for which he has often been criticized. It is also important to point out that Bourdieu’s idea of the opposition between economic capital and cultural capital might be more applicable to twentiethcentury France than to the early modern Dutch Republic. Nevertheless, used with

Notes

59. 60.

61. 62.

63.

64.

65. 66. 67.

68.

69. 70. 71.

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caution, Bourdieu’s concepts could yield valuable insights into the cultural and social significance of art in the Republic. Bourdieu 1984, p. 6. American economist Thorstein Veblen produces an extended study of the sociological implications of consumption in The Theory of the Leisure Class. Veblen’s model explains that conspicuous consumption of specific commodities conferred on members of the leisure class the visible distinction from those of lower economic and social status. See Veblen 1973, pp. 31–40. On consumers’ preferences within particular product categories, see Bourdieu, 1984; Smith 2002. Honig 1998a, pp. 205–6. Since Alpers’s study of the role of the pictorial arts in the development of empirical science and David Freeberg’s 1991 essay call for more interdisciplinary studies, there has been a substantial and growing literature on the intersections between art, science, and commerce in the Dutch Republic. See Alpers 1983, Freedberg 1991. For more recent scholarship on the topic, see, for example, Impey and Macgregor 1985; Kenseth 1991; Bergvelt and Kistemaker 1992; Smith and Findlen 2002; Daston and Park 2001; and Goldgar 2007. For Dutch collectors’ ambitions to amass encyclopedic collections, see, for example, Van der Veen 1992a; Van der Veen 1992b; Van Gelder 1992; Goldgar 2007, Chapter Two. Jonathan Brown, however, argues that painting became the dominant art form in cabinets later in the seventeenth century. See Brown 1994, Chapter Six. Elizabeth Honig concludes from her study of inventories that the number of paintings in wealthy Antwerp households increased considerably from 1600 to 1625. In his statistical analysis of a random sample of Amsterdam inventories, Montias finds that the average collection doubled in size from 1600–20 to 1650–60. C. Willemijn Fock, focusing more explicitly on the high end of the Leiden market, also finds that individual collections became progressively larger in the course of the century until 1670. Fock derives a sample of 12 inventories per decade for a total of 120 inventories over the seventeenth century. The average number of paintings rose from 14.2 in 1600–09 to a peak of 116.2 in 1660–69, then moving to between 77.7 and 93.1 in the last three decades. See Honig 1998a, p. 191; Montias 1996, pp. 77–79; Fock 1990, pp. 4–5. Huygens 1994, pp. 7–73. Huygens 1994, pp. 70–71. Translations from Van de Wetering 2001, p. 28. As Bok points out, the word “currently” (Bok translates it as “nowadays” in his article) implies that the ubiquity of paintings was a relatively recent phenomenon. See Bok 1993, p. 136. For the impact of immigrants from the Southern Netherlands on the collecting practices in the Dutch Republic, see Sluijter 1999a. Huygens 1994, pp. 74–94. Huygens was also known to have advised Stadhouder Frederik Hendrik and Amalia van Solms, and later William III, on the selection of artists to decorate their palaces. See Roodenburg 2004, p. 57; Nieuwenhuis-van Berkum 1987, pp. 113–26. Roodenburg 2004, p. 58. The sale catalogue of Huygens’s library records 2,930 volumes in total, although it is believed that this represented only about a quarter to a third of the total number of books owned by Huygens. See Leerintveld 1998, pp. 166–68. Roodenburg 2004, p. 59. Gruys and de Kooker 1990, cat. 784.

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72. Gruys and de Kooker 1990, cat. 1093. 73. Gruys and de Kooker, 1990, cat. 1783. 74. For the relationship between art patronage and politics, see, for example, Kaufmann 1995; Scheicher 1979. On the role of collecting in diplomacy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, see Kaufmann 1978, pp. 103–23. 75. For Willem van Haecht and his relationship to Cornelis van der Gheest, see Van Beneden 2009, pp. 58–92. 76. For discussion on the design of Dutch interiors from 1600 to 1700, see Fock 2001b, pp. 16–111. 77. Loughman and Montias 2000, pp. 28–29. C. Willemijn Fock points out, however, that the layout of the reception rooms did not follow any fixed pattern or coherent system. See Fock 2000, pp. 104–109. 78. Loughman and Montias 2000, p. 32. 79. Each space contained a mix of different genres, subjects, and sizes, with no apparent thematic organizational guidelines. See Loughman and Montias 2000, pp. 51–69. 80. From Pieter Teding van Berkhout’s diary in 1669, dated Monday, 30 December: “… nous fûsmes voijer le fameux peijntre Douw, qui nous fit voijer 3 ou 4 belles pieces de son art ….” Berkhout kept a diary from 1669 to 1713, in which he noted his activities on an almost daily basis. The manuscript is in Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague (Hs. 129 D 16). 81. Ben Broos and Roodenburg surmise that Huygens probably accompanied Berkhout on his first trip to Vermeer’s studio in Delft, but Montias has reservations about this claim. See Broos 1995, p. 50; Roodenburg 2006, pp. 385–86; Montias 1998, pp. 99–100. Berkhout’s journal mentions that he traveled with three men on his first trip to see Vermeer on 14 May 1669; he paid the artist a second visit just a few weeks later on 21 June (Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague, Hs. 129, D 16). 82. Monconys’s diary entry on 13 August 1663 mentions that he invited Huygens to travel with him to Leiden, but Huygens had to leave for Zeeland. In Leiden, Monconys met Frans van Mieris and saw Johan de Bye’s collection of paintings by Dou. See Monconys 1666, pp. 150–57. In a letter dated 5 May 1625, Huygens declined an invitation to visit the collection of Matthijs van Overbeke. See Worp 1911, p. 181. 83. See, for example, Monconys 1666, Book II; Hoogewerff 1919. C. Willemijn Fock states that wealthy citizens in Leiden evidently opened their collections to artists and other interested visitors. See Fock 1990, p. 3. 84. Sluijter 2001, pp. 229–30 n. 45. Cosimo apparently saw Sylvius and Van Mieris on the same day. See Hoogewerff 1919, pp. 251 and 311–12. 85. Roodenburg 2006, pp. 386–87. 86. Filipczak 1987, p. 62; Brown 1994, p. 178. 87. Brown 1994, p. 180. 88. See also Gibson-Wood 1982, pp. 44–45. 89. For the Reynst collection, see Logan 1979. 90. Van Gelder 1992, pp. 270–71; Logan 1979, pp. 38–54. 91. Bikker 1998, p. 289; Logan 1979, pp. 20 and 58. The last foreign visitor recorded at the Reynst collection was Cosimo de’ Medici in 1668. See Van Gelder 1992, p. 271; Logan 1979, pp. 66–67. 92. Logan 1979; Goldgar 2007, p. 70.

Notes

93. 94. 95. 96. 97.

98. 99.

100. 101. 102. 103.

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“De man is rijk, maar hij lijkt mij erg gewoon.” (Worp 1911, p. 181.) Gibson-Wood 1982, p. 49. Worp 1911, pp. 272–73. Bourdieu 1977, p. 78. Castiglione 2002, p. 32. Castiglione goes on to explain, through the Count, that “we may call that art true art which does not seem to be art; nor must one be more careful of anything than of concealing it, because if it is discovered, this robs a man of all credit and causes him to held in slight esteem.” Bourdieu 1984, pp. 65–92 and 283–95. Bosse’s book is interesting in that it goes beyond technical matters and provides information about connoisseurship as a cultural activity. He tells the reader, for example, that connoisseurship had become a newly popular pursuit. His stated purpose for writing the book is to instruct curieux (the term may be translated as “enthusiasts” or “collectors” in this context) about the quality and authorship of paintings, and to educate “ignorant artists” on these matters. He also provides a vocabulary for discussing the attribution and quality of paintings. The need to distinguish between copies and originals seemed to be an important issue for his intended readers. Beyond this though, Bosse set out the standards for evaluating paintings, and listed specific artists whose works his readers should try to collect. Bourdieu 1984, pp. 6–7. Baxandall 1988, p. 1. Alfred Gell has argued that works of art could act as secondary agents through which the viewers comprehend the agency of the primary agent, i. e., the artist. See Gell 1998. On objects as mediators of social relations, see also Latour 2007; Zell 2011; Ho 2015. Bourdieu 1984, pp. 65 ff; Pomian 1990, pp. 39–41.

2. A Niche of One’s Own Gerrit Dou’s Brand-Building Project Portions of the following have been incorporated with permission: Angela Ho, “Gerrit Dou’s Enchanting Trompe-l’Oeil: Virtuosity and Agency in Early Modern Collections.” JHNA 7:1 (Winter 2015), DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2015.7.1.1. 1. “Alle Heeren en liefhebbers zij kennelijk, dat ten huyze van Mons. Hannoth, over ‘t Raethuys der stede Leyden, yder dagh behalve sondags van 11 – 12 uren, sonder noodsakelyck belet, kunnen worden gezien 29 stucken, op ‘t alderheerlyckst geschildert Mr. Gerard Dou uytghevoert; verzoekende, dat een yder in ‘t particulier, in ‘t uygaen niet nalatig zij, en overgrooten noot der armen met een liberale gift, voor het gesicht der selvige, te gedenken, tot welker eynde een bos in deselve kamer sal hangen, en soo yemant in die geheele kunst gadinge heeft, gelieft den eygenaer daerover aen te spreecken.” The advertisement is quoted in Martin 1901, p. 72. 2. It may be tempting for us in the twenty-first century to think of the event as a “oneman show” for Dou, but there are fundamental differences between the arrangements made by De Bye and modern gallery exhibitions of an artist’s work. Dou was not, as far as we can tell, directly involved in the staging of the exhibition.

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3. 4.

5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

13.

14.

Creating Distinctions in Dutch Genre Painting

Monconys 1666, II, p. 156. Monconys mentions this in the entry on 17 August 1663. Hans Floerke states that De Bye intended to attract liefhebbers to acquire his paintings. Michael North, citing Floerke, sees De Bye’s purchases as a “secure investment” in an artist with an established reputation. Sluijter also suggests that the collector was prepared to negotiate with interested parties over the sale of the paintings. See Floerke 1905, p. 169; North 1997, p. 129; Sluijter 1988b, p. 37. The contract, dated 18 September 1665 and drawn up by the notary A. Raven, has been published in Martin 1901, pp. 171–73. It contains a list of twenty-seven paintings, two fewer than the twenty-nine mentioned in the advertisement. From the contract: “Belove voorts de sleutel van de voorgenoemde camer eenich te sullen geven in handen van de voorsz. de Bye, sonder daervan een doublet to houden, ende ooc de voorseyde camer voor niemant te openen als in sijne de Bye’s tegenwoordicheyt ofte met sijne schrifteliycke ordre en onderteyckhninge, ende sall voorts de Bye selffs, ende ooc met diegeenen, die het hem sal believen, dagelicx tot de voorsz. schilderyen toegangh mogen hebben, uytgesondert des Sonnendachs.” See Martin 1901, pp. 171–72. “Verbindende tot verseeckertheyt van alles wat voorsz. staet mijn persoon en alle mijne tegenwoordige en toecomende goederen, geen uitgesondert, enz.” See Martin 1901, p. 172. For more detailed discussion of Dou’s life and career, see Martin 1901; Baer 1990; Baer 2001b, pp. 26–52. Orlers 1781, p. 403. “… hij daarin een uitnemend Meester geworden is/ inzonderheid in kleine/ subtile en curieuse dingen/ … zulks zij by de Liefhebbers van de Konst in groote waarde gehouden en duur gekocht worden.” Angel 1972, p. 23. Sandrart 1925, p. 196; Sluijter 1988b, p. 51; Baer 2001b, p. 31. According to the research of Jan de Vries and Ad van der Woude, the average daily summer wage for a master craftsman, e. g., a mason or carpenter, was about 27.57 stuivers in the western provinces in 1665. The work year was routinely over 300 days. The winter pay rate was conservatively estimated to be 20 to 25 percent lower, with the employers pushing to lengthen the winter-wage period over the course of the century. Taking these figures, and assuming that the master craftsman was paid at the winter rate for 15 weeks in the mid-century, his yearly pay would be about 400 guilders. See De Vries and Van der Woude 1997, pp. 609–20. On the collection of Hendrick Bugge van Ring, a prosperous Catholic citizen of Leiden, see Sluijter 2001, pp. 116–26. Unfortunately, the inventory of Isaak Gerard’s possessions, drawn up in 1697, has been lost, although part of Gerard’s testament is preserved in the Amsterdam Stadsarchief. The document in Amsterdam lists a “night piece” by Dou valued at 300 guilders. See GAA, NAA 4250, ff. 175–250; Naumann 1981, vol. 1, p. 24. The Gerard family was also related by marriage to the prominent Van Buren and Van Bambeeck families in Amsterdam. Members of those families held important posts in the East Indies Company, the Wisselbank, as well as the Amsterdam city council. See Elias 1963, vol. 2, pp. 729–30. Sluijter 1988b,pp. 38–39. Sluijter observes that although Dou was the most famous living artist in Leiden, not many of his works were found in inventories in that city

Notes

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

21.

22.

23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

29. 30. 31.

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in the second half of the century. Sylvius and De Bye were the notable exceptions. Otherwise, those works that appeared in Leiden inventories were often surprisingly inexpensive. Hoet 1752, vol. 2, p. 16; Elias 1963, vol. 2, p. 705. GAA, NAA 5653, ff. 215–73. Hoet 1752, vol. 1, pp. 325–30; Van der Veen 1992a, p. 320. The Van Bambeeck family came to prominence when Nicolaes’s grandfather, a wealthy textiles merchant, married Agatha Bas, daughter of burgomaster Dirk Bas. See Elias 1963, vol. 1, pp. 258–9. Jonckheere 2004, pp. 156–215. Montias 1988, pp. 249–56. Renialme’s assets were inventoried after his death in 1657. The paintings were assessed by Adam Camerarius, a painter, and Marten Kretzer, a “gentleman-dealer.” A picture of a young woman and a trony attributed to Dou were listed at 40 and 30 guilders, respectively. A third picture, a kitchen maid, was valued at 600 guilders. See Bredius 1915–1922, pp. 230–39. The inventory of Uylenburgh’s assets, taken in 1674, contained a St. Francis by Dou. See Bredius 1915–1922, 1662–73; Lammertse and Van der Veen 2006, Chapter 4. Gerrit Uylenburgh’s dealings with Elector Frederik Wilhelm of Brandenburg led to protracted legal disputes, which might have added to his financial difficulties in the 1670s. Uylenburgh was forced to declare bankruptcy and move to London in 1675. For an account of the affair, see Lammertse and Van der Veen 2006. The Dutch Gift was part of the Dutch efforts to build diplomatic relations with England. In 1660, after King Charles II’s visit to Breda and The Hague, the States of Holland and West Friesland, with agreement from the rest of the provinces, sent an extraordinary embassy with a gift to England. The gift was designed to be lavish, including valuable ancient and Italian art, and works by “modern” Dutch masters. To have his works selected undoubtedly burnished Dou’s already glittering reputation. See Logan 1979, pp. 75–86; Israel 1995, pp. 749–51. For the Reynst collection, see Logan 1979. See also discussion in Chapter One. Baer 2001b, pp. 31–32. For discussion of the Dutch Gift, see also Logan 1979, pp. 75–86; Lammertse and Van der Veen 2006, pp. 253–54. Hoogewerff 1919, pp. 251. Baer 2001b, p. 31. Montias 1990, pp. 68–9. Montias 1990,. 69. Montias notes that the majority of the paintings were designated as originals or copies after specific artists. The works by 109 artists, mostly from various Dutch towns, were included in the sale. The pictures identified as “copies” brought in 4.13 guilders on average. Montias argues that these painters were “representative of the community of Dutch painters in the 1640s,” except for portrait painters and the most famous masters, such as Rembrandt and Dou. The catalogue has been published in Bredius 1915–1922, pp. 457–520. Montias 1982; Loughman 1992, pp. 50–53, esp. tables 4 and 5; Goosens 2001, pp. 288–94; Sluijter 2001 pp. 227–28 n. 4. See, for example, Montias 1987; Bok 2001. Sluijter 2000a, pp. 216–17.

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32. Montias 1987, p. 462. By contrast, Ivan Gaskell points out that Dou did not depend on single patrons. He argues instead that Dou was able to enjoy the protection of guild restrictions in Leiden. However, the Leiden guild was not established until 1647, several years after Spiering’s agreement with Dou. See Gaskell 1982, p. 21. 33. Baer 1990. 34. For the affective power of the depiction of laughter, see Schiller 2010. 35. Hecht 1989, pp. 18–19. 36. Hollander 2002, pp. 53–67. 37. In his discussion of Dou’s self-portraits, Richard Hunnewell concludes that the association evoked by a framing window confers a sense of honor to his own image. See Hunnewell 1983, pp. 89–92. 38. Kleinmann 1996, pp. 56–73. 39. Sonntag 2006, pp. 105 ff. 40. Sluijter 1991, pp. 186–8; Brusati 1995, pp. 52–70. Approaching the question from a commercial perspective, De Marchi and Van Miegroet point out in their 1994 article that the market did not price paintings according to a theoretical hierarchy that privileged history painting. However, De Marchi and Van Miegroet believe that the theorists, such as Van Mander and Van Hoogstraten, codified a hierarchy of genres that less sophisticated merchants did not follow. I think the authors draw too clear a distinction between kenners—or the more knowledgeable connoisseurs—and merchants, which leads to an underestimation of the seventeenth-century audience’s esteem of descriptive artistry. See De Marchi and Van Miegroet 1994, pp. 460–63. 41. Kleinmann 1996, pp. 74–75, 83–96; Sonntag 2006. 42. Ute Kleinmann distinguishes between two types of niche pictures in her study. In the first, which Dou developed in the 1640s, an arched stone window frames a view into an interior. In The Grocer’s Shop (Plate 4), now in the Louvre, the overlapping figures lead the eye to the background, and the orthogonals of the table and the shelves on the right enhance the illusion of spatial recession. Even though Dou does not create a mathematically correct perspectival system here, he does offer the viewer a relatively legible space. The focus of my analysis is what Kleinmann identifies as the second type, which Dou favored after the early 1650s. In these paintings, Dou introduces abrupt changes in scale and spatial disjunctions, the effects of which I analyze in this chapter. See Kleinmann 1996, pp. 91–94. Hunnewell 1983, p.86; Sluijter 1988a, p. 101; Sonntag 2006, pp. 25–33. 43. Hoet 1752, Catalogus; Terwestern 1770. 44. Loughman and Montias 2000, pp. 109–10. 45. Sluijter 2001, p. 116. 46. Loughman and Montias 2000, pp. 28–29. 47. Lunsingh Scheurleer, Fock, and Van Diesel 1986–1992, vol. IIIb, p. 336. 48. Lunsingh Scheurleer, Fock, and Van Diesel 1986–1992, vol. IIIb, 336–37. 49. “Pen paintings,” called penwerken in Dutch, are made by drawing in ink on prepared canvas. Experiens Sillemans was among the best-known practitioners of this highly specialized and labor-intensive technique. 50. For discussions of furnishings in wealthy Dutch homes in the seventeenth century, see, for example, Baarsen 2007; Westermann 2001, pp. 15–81. 51. See Chapter One for a discussion of these sources.

Notes

52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58.

59. 60.

61.

62.

63. 64.

65. 66.

67. 68.

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Fock 1992, p. 90; Van der Veen 1992c, p. 58. Gibson-Wood 1992, p. 49. Held 1982, pp. 38–43; Van Beneden 2009, pp. 67–74. Held 1982, pp. 38–39. See my discussion in Chapter One. Honig 1998a, p. 197. In their 1996 article, Neil de Marchi and Hans van Miegroet seek to establish the commodity value of “invention” in the seventeenth century. They calculate the price ratio of originals to copies to average between 2:1 and 3:1 in the southern Netherlands. They cite Montias’s data from 1988, which shows a ratio of 2.4:1. The study by De Marchi and Van Miegroet contains some methodological limitations, such as the small size of the sample, and the lack of details about the cases. Nevertheless, they provide some interesting insights about the value of invention in the context of guild regulations and collecting practices. See De Marchi and Van Miegroet 1996. The sale catalogues and inventories I have consulted suggest that copies were often specified as such, and valued at a fraction of the prices of originals. Gibson-Wood 1982, p. 33. Mancini’s manuscript was not published until 1956–57. In a chapter titled “Ricognizione delle pitture,” Mancini instructs the reader to look for characteristic features such as hair, eyes, and beards. He argues that these elements were “like the strokes and groups of letters in handwriting which require a master’s boldness and resolution.” See Muller 1989, p. 143. Gibson-Wood 1982, p. 44; Bosse 1973, pp. 153–59. Like Mancini, Bosse sees copies as inherently inferior, for they were imitations of imitations of nature. He argues that the copyists could not attain the understanding of the things represented, which the original artist acquired through observation and measurements. For example, Montias finds instances of notaries hesitating when recording an attribution, or specifying works as copies after or made in the manner of known masters. Late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century inventories from Amsterdam and Haarlem sometimes list pictures as nae (after) or naa de trant van (in the style of) named masters. See Montias 1982, pp. 233–34. North 1997, pp. 96–97; Lammertse and Van der Veen 2006, pp. 79–101. The matter was not settled until 1673, when twelve of the paintings were returned to Uylenburgh. It is uncertain if the dealer refunded the Elector’s deposit of 2,000 rijksdaalers. The passage comes from Bernard Mandeville’s political satire, Fable of the Bees. Mandeville observes four factors that influenced the “value that is set on painting”: (i) the “name” of the master; (ii) the period of the artist’s life during which the work was made; (iii) the scarcity of the artist’s works; and (iv) the work’s provenance. See Mandeville 1723, p. 374; De Marchi and Van Miegroet 1994, pp. 454–55. Tummers 2011, p. 200. Van Mander/Miedema 1973. The disapproval of “low” subjects and imagery were expressed by more classically oriented writers in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, such as Jan de Bisschop and Gerard de Lairesse. See Kettering 2004, pp. 20–29; Sluijter 1991; Tummers 2011. Angel 1972, pp. 37–57. De Piles 1708, p. 10. Michiel Roscam Abbing has demonstrated that De Piles’s passage referred to this particular picture in Dulwich. See Abbing 1999, Chapter Three.

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69. The Rembrandt Research Project maintains that this painting was intended as a trompe l’oeil despite the view from an angle by comparing it to Sarah Waiting for Tobias (c. 1643). See Van de Wetering 2015, p. 589, no. 200. 70. This portrait is now in the Royal Collection in the UK. Its pendant, a portrait of Agatha Bas’s husband, Nicolaes van Bembeeck, is in the Musée Royal des Beaux-Arts, Brussels. 71. Martin 1901, p. 75; Baer 1990, pp. 104–106. The work was one of the twenty-seven exhibited by Johan de Bye in 1665. It was probably inherited by De Bye’s niece, Maria Knotter. The painting was recorded in a sale by Margareta Verhamme in 1757, for the price of 1,925 guilders. It was evidently well-known in the circle of collectors and recognized as a fine example by Dou by the first half of the eighteenth century. Pieter Terwesten feels compelled to comment on the high value of the picture in his 1770 publication. He explains that this picture, along with two others by Dou and one by Adriaen van der Werff, fetched high prices because they were acknowledged by all liefhebbers as masterpieces by the two famous painters. See Terwesten 1770, p. 169. 72. Baer 1990, cat. 70. 73. Baer 1990, cat. 70; Hollander 2002, p. 70; Sonntag 2006, p. 93. Sonntag also raises the possibility that the background couple may represent Platonic love, while the girl, surrounded by more overt erotic symbols, embodies carnal desire. For the use of a window as a frame in this painting, see also Sonntag 2006, pp. 241–42. 74. Hollander 2002, pp. 64–65. 75. Kleinmann 1996, p. 87. 76. Sonntag 2006, pp. 212–13. 77. The Young Mother (1658), now in the Mauritshuis in The Hague, was purchased by the States General as part of the “Dutch Gift” to Charles II. See Baer 2001a, cat. 21. 78. A rare “true” trompe l’oeil image in Dou’s oeuvre is The Painter with Pipe and Book in the Rijksmuseum. By including a feigned frame and curtain around a figural scene, Dou transformed a genre piece into a painting of a painting. For a discussion of the relationship between this painting and the niche pictures, see Ho 2015. 79. Sluijter 1991, pp. 175–207. 80. Sluijter 2000a, 201. 81. Karel van Mander has already discussed the importance of “abundance” (copia) and “variety” (varietas) in composing a history painting (Grondt, 5:25–26; Van Mander/ Miedema 1973, pp. 134 – 35). However, Van Mander also warns against superfluous details, and adds that some of the best painters chose to use few details in their compositions. Angel does not follow his predecessor in offering such a qualified recommendation. 82. Angel 1972, pp. 37–57. 83. Grondt, 5:20–26; Van Mander/Miedema 1973, pp. 133–35. Walter Melion argues that the notion of verscheydenheden (varieties) was central to Van Mander’s concept of history painting. See Melion 1991, pp. 5–12. I have reservations about Melion’s assertion that history and landscape “coalesce” in Van Mander’s text, but on the other hand, I think Hessel Miedema overemphasizes the importance of human figures in Van Mander’s discussion by translating Historien (histories) into figuurstukken (figural pieces). On the whole, it is reasonable to argue that Van Mander clearly considers landscape to be a vital component in history (Grondt 5:13; Van Mander/Miedema 1973, pp. 130–31). See also Brusati 1995, p. 237; Honig 1998a, pp. 186–87.

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84. Van Hoogstraten, Inleyding, 24–25: “De Schilderkonst is een wetenschap, om alle ideen, ofte denkbeelden, die de gansche zichtbaere natuer kan geven, te verbeelden: en met omtrek en verwe het oog te bedriegen. … als een spiegel van Natuer, die de dingen die niet en zijn doet schijnen te zijn en op een geoorlofde vermakelijke en prijzlijke wijze bedriegt.” Translation from Brusati1995, pp. 159 and 305 n. 1. 85. Stoichita 1997, pp. 17–29; Ebert-Schifferer 2002, pp. 17–37. 86. Pepys 1970–1983, vol. 9, pp. 118–19. See also Brusati 1999b, p. 65. 87. Angel 1972, p. 25. 88. Angel explains that the ability to imitate all kinds of objects and visual effects made painting the supreme craft (Angel 1972, pp. 24–26; Sluijter 2000a, p. 211). In his 1672 description of the city of Leiden, Simon van Leeuwen praises Dou as “the excellent painter of life in miniature” (“den uytnemenden klein-levend-Schilder”) whose images “can scarcely be distinguished from life” (“van het leven nauwlijks is te onderschyden”). See Van Leeuwen 1672, pp. 191–92; Sluijter 2000a, p. 205. 89. Sandrart 1925, p. 196. 90. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh, II: 3. See also Wadum 2003, p. 70. 91. De Piles 1969, p. 439; Wadum 2003, p. 70. 92. Angel 1972, pp. 24–25. 93. Marin argues that figurative paintings from the early modern period contain a reflexive dimension and a transitive dimension. When the transitive dimension dominates in a painting, the material and method of representation are downplayed, so that the image comes to be seen as a substitute for the represented object. A reflexive image, by contrast, presents itself as a constructed entity. The three major mechanisms of reflexivity identified by Marin are the frame, the plane, and the ground. See Marin 2001b, p. 352–57. 94. Stoichita 1997, p. xiv. See also Belting 1994, pp. 458–90. 95. Stoichita 1997, pp. 107–13. 96. Marin 2001a, p. 325; Marin 2001b, p. 353. 97. Stoichita 1997, p. 30. In fact, Pieter J. J. van Thiel goes further and argues that the frame “transforms the picture into a painting.” See Van Thiel 1995, p. 27. 98. Marin 2001a, pp. 321–22; Stoichita 1997, pp. 56–57. The painting Poussin sent from Rome to Paris was The Israelites Gathering the Manna, now in the Louvre. Poussin further suggested a simple gilded frame with a matt finish, which would “blend gently” with the colors in the painting. 99. Ronni Baer has suggested that The Wine Cellar, now in a private collection in Switzerland, was the picture originally protected by the still life. Annegret Laabs questions this argument, pointing out that neither the size nor the provenance of the painting in Switzerland supports the connection. The painting traditionally identified as the one held in the box in the De Bye collection was also in the Dresden collection, but was lost in 1945. See Baer 2001a, pp. 110–11; Laabs 2001, pp. 30–32 and 126. 100. Baer 1990, cat. 87. Both works are now in the Louvre. 101. Freedberg 1989, pp. 99–109. 102. Poussin, for example, explains that veiling the pictures would bring attention to the works one by one, so that the viewer does not become overwhelmed by too much visual material all at once. See Kemp 2003, p. 30; Stoichita 1997, pp. 60 and 290 n. 52.

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103. The idea that Dou fortuitously found a formula that appealed to the market, and therefore adhered to it, is rather reductive and leaves unanswered questions. For this opinion see Baer 2001a, pp. 82–83. 104. For a discussion of this idea in relation to paintings in early modern Antwerp, see Honig 1998a, pp. 202 ff. 105. As Anna Bryson argues in her study on manners in early modern England, the display of proper behavior qualifies a person for entry into the elite circles, but the individuals involved did not have to be conscious of the process of social differentiation. In fact, the process would be more effective if they viewed it as natural. See Bryson 1998, pp. 136–46. 106. Angel 1972, pp. 23–26. 107. Emmens 1981a. Hans-Joachim Raupp, in an analysis of The Violin Player, likewise emphasizes the goat as a symbol of lust. He also sees this painting as a warning against sensual pleasures. See Raupp 1978, pp. 109–11. 108. Sluijter 1988a, pp. 101–3. 109. Hecht 2002, pp. 191–201. 110. Hecht 2002, p. 191. 111. Pliny the Elder, Natural History 35:65. 112. Hecht 2002, pp. 198–99; Hollander 2002, p. 70. Kleinmann notes Dou’s manipulation of the appearance of the relief but focuses mainly on the painting/sculpture paragone, while Sonntag emphasizes the comic aspects of the relief’s iconography. See Kleinmann 1996, pp. 97–104; Sonntag 2006, pp. 102–4. 113. Martin 1901, p. 60; Sluijter 2000a, p. 209. 114. Sluijter 1988a, pp. 101–3. 115. Emmens 1981a, pp. 181–87; Hecht 2002, pp. 198–99. 116. On the relationship between vanitas symbolism and the power of painting to arrest the passage of time, see Brusati 1990–1991, pp. 175–78. 117. Baer 1990, pp. 63–65; Baer 2001b, pp. 37–38. Unlike Jan Steen and Frans van Mieris, Dou does not favor the subject of a doctor taking a patient’s pulse. Steen and Van Mieris create a comical tone in their representations by showing their doctors in outmoded dress, and by including accessories that point to the amorous nature of the lady’s illness. Dou, on the other hand, identifies the doctor as a man of learning by presenting him in the costume of scholars and through motifs such as the book and the globe. Dou’s focus is thus not on depicting lovesick women or incompetent quacks. Instead, his images of urinomancers—two similar examples are in Copenhagen and St. Petersburg, while the so-called Dropsical Woman in Paris combines the themes of the doctor’s visit and the urinomancer—all foreground the act of looking. 118. Stoichita’s exploration of the reflexivity of early modern painting, while thought provoking, does not take into account the actual production and exchange of the paintings. His argument is that once painting changed from a ceremonial object in a religious setting to a collectible object in its own right, painters in Protestant Europe took on the task of redefining the medium. Although the Reformation and the iconoclasm of 1566 were momentous events that certainly had a major impact on the visual arts, they may not have represented the sudden rupture that Stoichita suggests. Research in southern Netherlandish painting has shown that the sale of

Notes

119. 120. 121.

122.

123. 124.

125. 126. 127. 128. 129.

130.

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finished paintings on the market was well established as early as the late fifteenth century. See Ewing 1990, pp. 558–84; Honig 1998a; Vermeylen 2002; Wilson 2002. Much of seventeenth-century Dutch painting is reflexive, but the phenomenon needs to be considered in terms of economic as well as artistic motivations. Sandrart 1925, p. 196. Wolfthal 2010, p. 81. For the identification of Amman’s woodcuts as a source for Dou, see Hunnewell 1983, p. 91; Sluijter 2000a, p. 232; Sonntag 2006, pp. 94–95. The publication was likely known in the Dutch Republic, where it may have inspired print series of trades and crafts in the seventeenth century (Kettering 2007, p. 698–701). Paintings of bakers at a window by Gabriel Metsu from the 1650s and Job Berckheyde from the 1680s also evoked this association between the window and commercial activity. See Waiboer 2012, p. 108 and cat. A-104; Welu 1977. Eygentlische Beschreibung aller Stände auff Erden, popularly known as the Ständebuch, was published in 1568 in Frankfurt am Main. The text by Hans Sachs and woodcuts by Jost Amman combined to illustrate the various trades and crafts practised in Nuremberg. Benjamin A. Rifkin has argued that the idea of a popular book of the trades stemmed from the tradition of the medieval encyclopedia and representations of the mechanical arts. It also registered the contemporary interest in recording and classifying various aspects of urban social life. See Rifkan 1973, pp. ix –xxiv; Kettering 2007, pp. 697–98. For discussions of the painting and related emblems, see De Jongh 1967, pp. 70–74; Alpers 1983, p. 116; Lammertse 1998, pp. 63–67. Dou introduces the subject of the grocer’s shop into Dutch genre painting. Baer regards Dou’s development of the subject as a reflection of the changes in how everyday trade was conducted in the middle of the seventeenth century. She acknowledges, however, that Dou does not provide realistic depictions of actual shops of the period. Honig, by contrast, sees the shop as a metaphor for Dou’s own commercial enterprise. The general shop, which did become more common in this period, differed from the market stall in that the direct exchange between the producer of the goods and the consumer was severed. The sale was now mediated by the shopkeeper, which cast questions on quality and value. In a similar way, the value of Dou’s works, once they began circulating on the market, would be out of the artist’s direct control. According to Honig, Dou challenges the viewer to exercise his or her judgment in determining the value of his work. See Honig 1998b, pp. 45–51; Baer 2001b, p. 39. Brusati 1990–1991, pp. 172–75; Brusati 1997, pp. 151–55; Stoichita 1997, pp. 216–21. Kettering 2007, p. 696. Alpers 1983, pp. 112–16; Brusati 1990/1991, pp. 168–71. Brusati 1990/1991, pp. 171. Angel 1972, pp. 27–31. Turning Cats’s contrast between the poet’s lofty aims and the painter’s greed for profit on its head, Angel proclaims that the painter was superior precisely because of his ability to earn money. Angel even places the painter above the merchant, for the former makes his own products. For a survey of Dou criticism from the second half of the nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, see Wheelock 2001, pp. 12–24, esp. 13–17. In his 1901 monograph on Dou, Willem Martin places the artist in the proper historical context.

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Martin argues that Dou’s art must be understood in relation to the specific conditions of the Leiden art market. He also cautions that although the reader would “naturally think the modern taste the best which regards Dou as only fit to stand in Rembrandt’s shadow,” the former enjoyed immense popularity in his own time. Martin, however, confesses his own indifference to Dou’s art. His interest in Dou stems largely from the fact that the painter’s career was well documented, thus making him a suitable subject for the study of the conditions of an artist’s life in the Dutch Golden Age. See Martin 1901; Hecht 2002, p. 184.

3. The Pleasure of Novelty Gerard ter Borch’s Innovation 1.

2.

3.

4. 5.

6.

The presence of a footwarmer in genre paintings has often been related to an emblem from Roemer Visscher’s Sinnepoppen that contains an image of a footwarmer. The inscriptio refers to the footwarmer as mignon des dames (a favorite of women). In the subscriptio, Visscher discusss proper courting tactics, including entertaining the lady with witty conversation, “avoiding all boorishness and vulgarity,” and praising her in everything she did. See Franits 2004, pp. 176–77. The broadly painted settings resemble stage sets more than inhabitable spaces, and contrast strongly with the detailed rendering of the foreground figures. Several drawings of market scenes Ter Borch executed in Haarlem in the 1630s (see, for example, RPK Inv. no. A 825), as well as pages from his “Landscape Sketchbook,” show his ability to create the illusion of pictorial depth. The young artist suggests spatial recessions by depicting architectural lines that reach back into the distance, and distributing figures and objects in accordance with the principle of proportional diminution (Landscape sketchbook: RPK Inv. no. 1888: A 1797 folio 29 recto). This suggests that the flatness of the background of the later genre paintings is a matter of choice. The quotation is taken from Franits 2004, p. 102. Arthur Wheelock, for example, argues that there was no precedent in Dutch painting for the emphasis on “the human dynamics” of Ter Borch’s genre scenes after 1650. Wayne Franits likewise credits Ter Borch with introducing numerous innovations to Dutch genre painting in the late 1640s and early 1650s. See Franits 2004, p. 99; Wheelock 2004b, p. 10. For example, Arthur Wheelock suggests that Ter Borch’s refined imagery “probably evolved from a fortuitous combination of visual stimuli, intellectual and emotional maturity, and human contact.” See Wheelock 2004b, p. 10. In his survey of seventeenth-century Dutch genre painting, Wayne Franits links the work of Ter Borch and his pupil Caspar Netscher to the luxurious lifestyle and heightened sense of decorum among the Dutch patricians. Alison Kettering suggests, in her article from 1993, that Ter Borch’s paintings reflect Petrarchan views of love and courtship that were popular in Dutch society. See Franits 2004, pp. 102 ff; Kettering 1993; Kettering 2004, pp. 26–29. See, for example, Young Woman at her Toilet with a Maid at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which has been dated to 1650–51.

Notes

7.

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According to Houbraken, Ter Borch set an exorbitant price of 6,000 florins for this painting, which could explain why it remained in the artist’s possession. While the painting did not leave Deventer until the late eighteenth century, it served as the basis for a print intended for wider distribution. See Houbraken 1976, Book 2, p. 40; Wheelock 2004a, cat. 13, pp. 72–74; Gudlaugsson 1959–60, vol. 1, pp. 64–68, and vol. 2, cat. 57, pp. 81–85. 8. Wheelock 2004b, p. 5. For examples of Ter Borch’s early ink drawings executed over chalk, see Kettering 1988, vol. 1, cat. GJr 4, 6, 11, 13, 14, 18, 21, 28, 34, 36. 9. Kettering 1988, vol. 1, p. 87. 10. For the use of conventional elements to create naturalistic appearances, see Goedde 1997. Ter Borch’s father, Gerard Sr., had spent seven years in Italy, during which period he made topographical drawings in the sixteenth-century tradition of vedute. The elder Ter Borch’s detailed studies of Roman ruins served as a model of spatial description for the young Gerard. See Kettering 1988, vol. 1, p. 5. 11. For the speculation that Ter Borch studied with Codde or Duyster, see Gudlaugsson 1959–60, vol. 1, pp. 21–22; Wheelock 2004b, pp. 5–6. The drawing mentioned here depicts young men and women drinking and making music around a table, which bears a resemblance to merry companies by Codde and Duyster. On this drawing see Kettering 1988, vol. 1, cat. GJr 20. On the figure of the soldier in Ter Borch’s oeuvre, see Kettering 2000; Kettering 2004, pp. 24–26; Franits 2004, pp. 102–4; Wheelock 2004b, pp. 5–6. 12. Ter Borch was registered as a master in the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke in 1635 (Gudlaugsson 1959–60, vol. 2, p. 15). 13. Ter Borch’s father sent him a letter of advice, together with a trunk filled with clothing and art materials in July 1635, which suggests that Ter Borch had planned an extended stay in London. Van Voerst’s death in 1636 may have cut short Ter Borch’s sojourn in England. He was back in Zwolle by 1636. See Gudlaugsson 1959–60, vol. 2, p. 16; Wheelock 2004b, pp. 6–7. For transcription and translation of Gerard Sr.’s letter, see Wheelock 2004a, p. 189. For discussion of this letter, see Kettering 2004, pp. 20–22; Wallert 2004, pp. 38–40. 14. Gudlaugsson 1959–60, vol. 1, pp. 32–34; Kettering 1988, vol. 1 p. 86. 15. Gudlaugsson 1959–60, vol. 1, pp. 35–39, vol. 2, pp. 23–24; Wheelock 2004b, pp. 8, 13. The poem was written on the occasion of Ter Borch’s marriage to Geertruyt Matthys. In the poem, Roldanus not only claims that Ter Borch portrayed Philip IV, but also that the Dutch artist was knighted by the Count of Peñaranda. The Count of Peñaranda headed the Spanish delegation that ratified the Treaty of Münster, where Ter Borch made small oval portraits of delegates in preparation for his painted commemoration of the event. It is possible that Ter Borch was knighted and awarded a gold chain by the Count when he traveled with the Spanish delegates to the Court in Brussels. 16. Houbraken 1976, Book 3, pp. 34–36. 17. Wheelock 2004a, pp. 53–55. 18. Kettering 1988, vol. 1, p. 96. 19. Kettering 1988, vol. 1, pp. 126–27. Kettering dated this drawing to the 1630s. 20. Kettering 1988, vol. 1, cats. GJr 28, 33, 34, 35, 43. 21. Gudlaugsson 1959–60, vol. 2, p. 231–33; Wallert and Tauber 2004, pp. 316–27.

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22. Wheelock 2004a, pp. 176, 212 n. 6. Wallert and Tauber explain the slight differences between the skirts in the Cincinnati and Toledo paintings as a result of the shifting of the template during the transfer process. See Wallert and Tauber 2004, pp. 319–20. I would like to thank Dr. Majorie Wieseman for showing me the tracings at the Cincinnati Art Museum. 23. Wallert 2004, p. 176; Wallert and Tauber 2004, pp. 319–20. 24. Wallert and Tauber 2004, pp. 318–19. Wallert and Tauber note that this method was described in several Italian treatises, including Vasari in 1550. 25. Wallert 2004, p. 35. 26. For this practice in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, see Campbell 1981, p. 53; Wilson 1990, pp. 525–26. In 1519, a legal dispute arose in Bruges between the painters Ambrosius Benson and Gerard David. Benson accused David of withholding two chests containing his personal belongings. Among the items were “projections or patterns,” and studies of faces and nude figures. According to Benson, some of the patterns were taken from the house of Adriaen Isenbrant, and some were on loan from Aelbrecht, possibly Albrecht Cornelis. As Wilson points out, the patterns were treated as personal property, but at the same time, in the early sixteenth century, they were also rented out as commodities. 27. An example of an artist using a studio drawing as a reference tool involved Goossen van der Weyden, Rogier’s grandson. Goossen received a commission which called for the donors to be portrayed in historical dress. In order to achieve the archaizing appearance, he based his portrait on a drawing for or after a design by Rogier. See Campbell 1981, p. 53. 28. Van Mander describes the Italian method of tracing designs from cartoons onto painting grounds in Grondt, 12:12–15; see Van Mander/Miedema 1973, pp. 256–57. 29. Goddard 1985; Wilson 1990; Wilson 2002. 30. Wallert 1999, p. 12. 31. Boersma 2001, pp. 57–58; Wadum 2003, pp. 65–66. In the paintings where underdrawings are not detected through infrared reflectography, Dou likely used a medium that did not contain carbon. 32. Pottasch 2005. 33. J. G. Wille (1715–1808) added the inscription “Instruction Paternelle” to his engraving. See Kettering 1993, pp. 96, 116 n. 2. 34. Goethe 2011, p. 191. The translated passage reads: “A noble knightly father sits with one leg over the other and seems to be admonishing the daughter standing before him. His daughter, a magnificent figure in a white satin dress which hangs in abundant folds, is seen only from behind, but her whole attitude seems to indicate that she is restraining herself. That the admonition is not violent or shaming can be seen from the father’s expression and bearing, and as for the mother, she seems to be concealing a slight embarrassment by looking down into a glass of wine which she is in the act of drinking.” See also Gudlaugsson 1959–60, vol. 1, pp. 96–97; Kettering 1993, pp. 96–98. 35. Gudlaugsson 1959–60, vol. 1, pp. 97–98; Rosenburg, Slive, and Ter Kuile 1977, p. 219; Adams 1999, pp. 229–33. 36. Kettering 1993, pp. 95–124. Although I offer slightly different interpretations of some of the figures’ gestures and expressions, I agree with Kettering that the painting mediated the conflict between poetic notions of love, moralists’ ideals of gendered behavior, and actual lived experiences. See also Kettering 2004, pp. 26–29.

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37. Stone-Ferrier 1985, p. 176. Linda Stone-Ferrier argues against a moralizing reading of this painting, suggesting instead that the beautifully described satin was here “elevated to the main object of the viewer’s attention.” She also interprets the seated man as an “awed admirer,” but, as I argue in these pages, his pose and gesture seem to contradict this reading. 38. Alpers 1997; Honig 1997. 39. De Lairesse 1712, vol. 1, pp. 54–55; Roodenburg 2004, p. 125. 40. Roodenburg 2004, pp. 27, 133–38. 41. See Atkins 2012, pp. 183–84, fig. 109. 42. Roodenburg 2004, pp. 133–39. 43. Roodenburg 2004, pp. 135–38. 44. See Gudlaugsson 1959–1960, vol. 2, p. 207, cat. 224. 45. Art historians often describe the shallow, stage-like settings for merry companies as taverns. Such a designation is made based on the activities of drinking, smoking, and gambling depicted in the paintings. See, for example, Franits 2004, pp. 28–33; Kolfin 2005, pp. 107–9. 46. For critical discussion of moralizing interpretations of merry companies, see Nevitt 2001, pp. 94–95; Kolfin 2005, pp. 49–60, 215–22. 47. Nevitt 2003, pp. 1–20. 48. Nevitt 2001, p. 94. 49. Roodenburg 2004, p. 135. Kettering also notes the “carelessness” of the soldier’s body language. See Kettering 2004, p. 27. 50. Gudlaugsson mentions the presence of the coin, but suggests that it was overpainted in the Berlin version. See Gudlaugsson 1959–60, vol. 1, pp. 96–97; vol. 2, p. 117. 51. Kettering notes this in her entry in the catalogue of the 2004 Ter Borch exhibition at the National Gallery of Art and Detroit Institute of Arts. See Wheelock 2004a, pp. 116, 204 n. 3. 52. See, for example, Honthorst’s Merry Company in Munich (Judson and Ekkart 1999, cat. 283, pp. 219–20) and Procuress in Utrecht (Judson and Ekkart 1999, cat. 292, pp. 227–28). 53. Schama 1980, p. 7; Van de Pol 1988, p. 133. 54. Wayne Franits explains that the figure is wearing a black mourning veil, which indicates her widowed state. Carefully peeling an apple and with a sewing basket by her side, the woman is presented as a model of exemplary behavior to the young girl, who watches her attentively. See Franits 1993, pp. 189–91. 55. For example, Ann Jensen Adams states that the “presence and activity” of the seated woman “dispel any doubt about the nature of the encounter.” She acknowledges that the behavior of each character hardly conforms to pictorial conventions, but nevertheless argues that Ter Borch’s aim was to show the power of money to regulate passions and desires. Central to her thesis is the identification of the Gallant Conversation as a bordello scene. However, as I explain in my text, pictorial evidence does not support such a straightforward reading. It should be pointed out that Adams’s article was published before the assertion that the soldier holds a coin was disproved (although it has never been confirmed either). See Adams 1999, pp. 229–53. 56. Codde shows the lady from the back, thus denying the beholder the opportunity to gauge her emotions from her facial expression. However, the artist provides clues

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57. 58.

59. 60.

61.

62. 63. 64. 65.

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through the figure’s body language—her head slightly bowed, and her right arm hanging limply by her side—and the idle viola da gamba. Given the established association between music and love, the latter motif signals the nature of the letter in the woman’s hand. By contrast, Ter Borch omits such pictorial hints in Gallant Conversation. The guardroom scenes formed an important part of Ter Borch’s output, especially early in his career. Soldiers continue to feature prominently in his later music companies and courtship scenes. Montias 1987, pp. 456–60. Montias uses Jan van Goyen’s “tonal” landscape from the 1630s and 1640s as an example of how an originator could benefit from an innovation. He argues that compared to earlier, more detailed “mannerist” landscapes, such as Jan Brueghel’s River Landscape (1607; Washington DC), Van Goyen’s limited palette and simplified forms reduced the time required to complete a painting. His production costs were thus lower, which gave him a competitive advantage in the market. It is important to point out that Montias does not suggest that the impetus behind innovations in painting was purely economic. He acknowledges that Van Goyen’s evocative technique could well have appealed to buyers as a new product that was “rooted in the culture of the period.” Nevertheless, the economic benefit of increased productivity remained the same, even if cost reduction was not the artist’s only motivation. Goddard 1985; Wilson 1990; Wilson 2002. In painting, however, changes in process almost inevitably affect the appearance of the finished product. Adopting the more painterly technique of Van Goyen not only expedited production, but also resulted in landscape paintings that looked different from the more detailed works from a generation earlier. In other words, in painting, process and product innovations are frequently interwoven. Montias acknowledges this, although the emphasis on the article is still process innovation. See Montias 1987, p. 460. Montias’s own findings point to this conclusion. He observes, contrary to his expectations, that (i) paintings by the innovators of the tonal style did not appear more frequently than those by mannerists in inventories; and (ii) the introduction of tonal landscapes did not drive down the prices of earlier, more detailed works. Montias suggests that insufficient data from a small sample could account for these results, but I would argue that there were sufficient differences between the two that one could not be regarded as an economical alternative to the other. Indeed, it might have been possible to market “mannerist” landscapes as exclusive products to certain customers. Despite the problematic aspects of his method, Montias’s study provides important insights for the study of artistic production in the Dutch Republic. By investigating the economic motivation behind a painter’s practice, Montias offers an explanation for the pervasiveness of certain formal qualities in a period without relying on arguments about influence. See Montias 1987, pp. 461–62. Montias 1982, p. 230–38; Lunsingh Scheurleer 1986–92, vol. IIIb, p. 338. Fock 2001, pp. 95–6. See Helgerson 1997; Salomon 1998; Kettering 2000. See also Franits 2004, pp. 104–6. For the changes in the representations of soldiers in Netherlandish in the seventeenth century, see Salomon 1998; Kettering 2000; Kunzle 2002; Rosen 2010.

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66. For discussion of Maes’s Eavesdropper pictures, see Hollander 1994; Alpers 1997. 67. Helgerson 1997, pp. 55 ff. Richard Helgerson argues that in paintings such as Ter Borch’s Gallant Conversation, the soldier took the place of the absent husband or father. Since the home was seen as a microcosm of Dutch society, the replacement of the merchant householder with a soldier “was tantamount to replacing one form of government with another.” Helgerson’s attempt at reading the genre scenes as overtly political is partly based on the unsubstantiated assumption that burghers and soldiers had fundamentally opposing values. However, I agree with his view that these genre paintings did not simply show a more civilized or domesticated military figure. Instead, the insertion of the soldier casts doubt on the character of the space depicted. See also Salomon 1998. 68. De Jongh 1997, pp. 132–34. 69. Kettering 1993, pp. 114–15; Franits 2004, p. 106. Regarding The Gallant Officer, Kettering contends that the beauty of the satin skirt was compromised because it was partially obscured, an interpretation about which I have reservations. 70. Peter Sutton suggests that the young woman is making an obscene gesture with her overlapping hands, with her right thumb protruding between her left index and middle fingers. Wheelock’s catalogue entry for this painting in the 2004 exhibition follows Sutton’s interpretation. Kettering argues that such a reading is incongruent with the tone of the painting. She contends instead that the gesture was an ordinary one for a lady. Eddy de Jongh concurs with Kettering’s interpretation; he also points out that the ficus gesture was performed exclusively by male figures in genre paintings. I agree with Kettering and De Jongh that an overt erotic reference would be at odds with the rest of the picture. The way in which the woman holds her hands is not sufficiently legible for this detail to become a key element in interpreting the image. See Sutton 1984, p. xlv; Kettering 1993, p. 122 n. 66; Wheelock 2004a, p. 124; De Jongh 2005, pp. 30–31. 71. See, for example, Montias 1991; Montias 2006; Blondé and De Laet 2006; Van der Woude 1991; J. de Vries 1991. 72. Scitovsky 1992, p. 31. See also Bianchi 1998, pp. 73–74. 73. Berlyne 1971, pp. 193–96; Scitovsky 1992, pp. 32–6. 74. Bianchi and De Marchi 1997, pp. 182–83. 75. Scitovsky 1992, pp. 46–58; Bianchi 1998. 76. Berlyne and Scitovsky, for example, rely on findings from experiments conducted on human and animal subjects in the twentieth century. They argue that the large number of experiments that involved measuring EEG waves and eye movements in infants and animals yield results that are universal. I think, however, it would be problematic to assume that such findings are applicable to human agents in another period and culture. 77. See, for example, Goldthwaite 1993; Jardine 1996; Mukerji 1983; De Vries 2008. 78. De Vries 2008, pp. 44–55. 79. De Vries 2008, pp. 44 ff. De Vries differentiates between the royal or aristocratic demand for extravagant display (“Old Luxury”) and the urban consumer’s pursuit of comfort and pleasure (“New Luxury”). He argues that the New Luxury developed among a much larger portion of the population, and it eschewed the excesses characteristic of the Old Luxury. As such, the New Luxury could reconcile the

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80. 81. 82. 83. 84.

85. 86. 87.

88. 89. 90. 91. 92.

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contradiction between material consumption and the Christian virtue of austerity. De Vries thus also disputes the theory that emulation of the nobility or upperclasses was the principal motivation for these new consumers. Goldgar 2007, pp. 38–44; Bianchi and De Marchi 1997, pp. 187–88. The authors go further and compare the activities and likely motivations of collectors of tulips and art-lovers, although the two groups were of course not mutually exclusive. Hochstrasser 2007, pp. 140–41; De Vries and Van der Woude 1997, pp. 305–9. Pon 1998. Cropper 2005, pp. 122–35. De Vries 2008, p. 55. The artists’ efforts at producing innovations to expand their market share, or to open new markets, illustrate Schumpeter’s concept of a market in which producers and consumers seek to alter conditions in their favor, so that the basis of competition keeps changing before equilibrium is ever reached. See Schumpeter 1950, pp. 84 ff; De Marchi and Van Miegroet 1994. Westermann 1999. For instance, Franits writes: “The art of Gerard ter Borch (1617–1681) most completely embodies the new ideals of civility and refinement that slowly permeated Dutch culture in the decades following the Treaty of Münster.” See Franits 2004, p. 99. Montias’s database of Amsterdam inventories includes eight records in six inventories pertaining to paintings by Ter Borch. Montias’s sample is drawn from the Amsterdam notarial archives, covering the period from 1647 to 1678. Estimated prices were recorded for three of the works, all of which were substantially higher than the industry average calculated by Montias for Amsterdam in this period. Two of these paintings were in the inventory of Johannes Renialme. A picture of “soldiers” and another of a “shepherdess” were valued at 60 and 120 guilders, respectively. See Bredius 1915–22, vol. 1, pp. 230–39. In the 1678 inventory of J. Meurs, a painting of a young woman was listed at 40 guilders. See Montias Database, inventory number 1377. Transcription reads: “een Juffertje van Terburgh f40:—:—.” There are 31 paintings, at a total value of 362.2 guilders, in the inventory. Montias speculates that J. Meurs may be Jean Meurs (1604–72), the director of the Amsterdam Schouwburg. See also Bredius 1915–22, Künstler-Inventare, vol. 5, p. 1832. Gudlaugsson 1959–60, vol. 2, p. 9. Houbraken 1976, Book 3, pp. 33–40. Gudlaugsson 1959–60, vol. 2, pp. 29–30. Discussions of plans to acquire paintings from Ter Borch are found in the correspondence between Guasconi and Apollonio Bassetti, Cosimo’s secretary in Florence, from May to November 1676. See letters from Guasconi to Bassetti dated 14 August and 27 November 1675. Gudlaugsson 1959–60, vol. 2, p. 30. Out of the 87 records of Ter Borch paintings in Hoet/Terwesten, 54 were estimated at below 100 guilders. A further 17 fell between 100 and 199 guilders. The highest price I encountered in the records was a painting in the 1765 sale of Pieter Leendert de Neufville’s collection. See Terwesten 1770, p. 475. The piece, a music party with three figures, was valued at 990 guilders. The usual range for Ter Borch, however, was between 25 and 300 guilders in the early eighteenth century. These prices were still substantially higher than industry averages calculated by Montias.

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93. Honig 1998a, pp. 196–212. 94. Duesenberry 1949, pp. 14–15. Although Duesenberry’s study focuses primarily on the choice between saving and consumption, it provides an important critique of the traditional consumer theory. Duesenberry introduces the concept of the interdependence of preferences among consumers. Citing Thorstein Veblen, he suggests that emulation of the lifestyle of a higher income group is a factor in consumer choice. 95. See, for example, Earl 1986, chapters 3 and 4; Gualerzi 1998, p. 55. 96. These ideas, while representing a departure from traditional economic theory, thus correspond to the findings of anthropologists, historians, and social theorists, who have long argued that consumption served a communicative function. The literature on this topic is vast; see, for example, Bourdieu 1984; Bermingham and Brewer 1997; Brewer and Porter 1993; Douglas and Isherwood 1996; De Vries 2008; Smith 2002; Bryson 1998; McKendrick, 1982; Goodwin, Ackerman, Kiron 1997. 97. Gualerzi 1998, p. 57. 98. Interestingly, the economist Davide Gualerzi suggests that consumers with high income were crucial to the success of a new product. He explains that they have the available resources to experiment with new products, and are generally “more receptive to further learning and innovation.” See Gualerzi 1998, p. 59. 99. Grondt, 10:18–19, 10:23; Van Mander/Miedema 1973, pp. 240–43. In stanza 23, Van Mander told the reader that for painting satin, “Maer wat sijden Sattijnen mach betreffen van verf, k’en weet u geen Exempel milder als t’leven, meestresse van de schilder.” Van de Wetering took this advice to mean that satin should be painted from life, an interpretation that was, in my opinion, too narrow. 100. Angel 1972, p. 55. Translation from Miedema and Hoyle 1996, p. 248. 101. In a 1630 text, the physician Theodore de Mayerne describes certain tricks, as well as a list of pigments for painting satin. De Mayerne claims to have recorded the information from a conversation with a painter. In his manual from 1692, the painter Willem Beurs explains that to paint snow, black should be added to white as required, as well as some red lake for warmth. For the shadows, he suggests carbon black, white, and light ochre. He then indicates that the same pigments should be used for painting white satin, but emphasizes that there must be more glow to the highlights and greater tonal contrast. See Beurs 1692, pp. 30–31. See also Wallert 2004, p. 37. 102. Melion 1991, pp. 70–75. 103. See, for example, Kettering 1993, pp. 99–101; Van de Wetering 1993. 104. Melion1991, pp. 65–66. 105. The reuse of preparatory studies and the procedures of tracing and stenciling had a long history in the production of panel paintings. For the use of these techniques in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, see Goddard 1985; Wilson 1990; Wilson 1991. 106. Kolfin 2005, pp. 145–54. 107. Wallert 2004, pp. 36–41. 108. Wallert 2004, pp. 36–38. Wallert examined a sample taken from the area of the satin dress in Gallant Conversation. His analysis indicates that Ter Borch produced greys by mixing lead white, ochre, vine black, and umber.

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109. See Brusati’s argument in relation to Clara Peeters’s reflected self-portraits in her still life painting. Brusati 1997, pp. 151–53. 110. Brusati 1997, pp. 144–57. 111. Alpers 1983, pp. 72–118. 112. Angel 1972, pp. 55.

4. Invention through Repetition Imitation and Emulation in the Work of Frans van Mieris Portions of the following have been incorporated with permission: Angela Ho, “An Invitation to Compare: Frans van Mieris’ Cloth Shop in the Context of Early Modern Art Collecting,” Renaissance Studies 23 (2009): 694–717. 1. Montias 1987. 2. In his essay on Van der Neer’s eclecticism, Schavemaker dismisses the possibility that Dutch genre painters might be engaging one another in acts of emulation, stating that “chances are near to zero that the eventual buyer of his painting will ever see the prototype.” While this may be true of more modest buyers, I have argued in this book that the situation among the prominent collectors would have been different. Based on the patterns of collecting and the social ritual of visiting collections, liefhebbers would have had the opportunities to compare individual interpretations of similar subjects. See Schavemaker 2006. 3. Recent exceptions include Brusati 2011; Aono 2008; Aono 2015. 4. The Guild Book of the Guild of St. Luke records an entrance payment of 1 guilder 10 stuivers by Van Mieris on 24 May 1658. Naumann 1981, vol. 1, pp. 164–65. 5. “… Dou hem [Van Mieris] dikwerf noemde den Prins van zyne Leerlingen, en zeide: dat hy de kroon van hun allen weg droeg.” See Houbraken 1976, Book 3, p. 2. 6. Sandrart 1925, p. 196; De Piles 1767, pp. 441–42. 7. De Lairesse 1712, vol. 1, p. 175; Kemmer 1998, p. 97. 8. See, for example, Franits 2004, pp. 124–25; Naumann 1981, vol. 1, pp. 39–62. 9. This approach to understanding the painting builds on, but is different from, the interpretive method pioneered by Eddy de Jongh in the 1960s, which is based on the premise that deeper meaning is hidden beneath the illusionistic surface. The message of a painting—most often moralizing in nature—is to be decoded by viewers as they uncover the symbolic significance of seemingly mundane objects in the image. De Jongh draws on Erwin Panofsky’s notion of “disguised symbolism” in developing his interpretive approach. Panofsky initially formulated his ideas in discussing fifteenthcentury religious paintings, which were more closely related to textual sources. In response, Svetlana Alpers proposes that instead of acting as ciphers, individual motifs visualize meanings in readily comprehensible form. Stereotypical figures and motifs acquire connotations in established pictorial conventions, so that they become accepted signifiers of specific concepts. Rather than positing concealed messages in a realistic representation, Alpers suggests that pictures created by assembling these signifiers often result in artificial and curious compositions. See De Jongh 1976, pp. 53–54; Alpers 1983, pp. 229–33.

Notes

10.

11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

24. 25. 26.

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This additive approach to creating compositions reflects the structural similarity between certain Dutch genre paintings and popular Dutch emblems. Since the pioneering work of De Jongh and J. A. Emmens in the 1960s, the use of emblems as an interpretive tool has yielded a richer understanding of Dutch paintings. More recent scholarship questions the various assumptions on which this method relies. Iconographers who trace motifs in paintings to similar ones in contemporary emblem books, then use the text of the emblems to decipher the visual elements, implicitly assume that meanings remained constant across different media. Scholars such as Alpers and Eric Jan Sluijter argue for a more thorough consideration of the relationship between emblems and paintings in the period. Alpers proposes that more attention should be paid to the assemblage of visual motifs—which include text—in emblems and in paintings. See Alpers 1983, pp. 229–33; Sluijter 1991, pp. 190–92. For a more emphatic rejection of the use of iconographic method to interpret genre paintings, see Hecht 1997; Hecht 2004. De Jongh 1976, pp. 173–74. Ripa 1970, pp. 475–76. Ripa specified that winter was represented as a white-haired old man or woman, dressed in cloth and pelt, shown eating at a laid table and warming him- or herself by a fire. It is more common in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Netherlandish art for winter to take the form of an old man warming his hands before a fire. See Veldman 1980, pp. 151–63; Franits 1993, pp. 166–69. Genesis 4:1–4:16. “Die Bilder samt allen Waren von Seiden, Woll, Bändern und anderm sind eigentlich, kräftig und naturlich erhoben, auch die Haltung der Farben durchgehend, ….” See Sandrart 1925, p. 196. Grondt, chapter 10; Van Mander/Miedema 1973, pp. 234–47. Angel 1972, p. 55; Sluijter 2000a, p. 248. This was a lecture delivered to Accademia di San Luca in Rome in 1672. See Panofsky 1968, pp. 154–57. See also Duro 2009, pp. 363–65. See Muller 1982. Van Mander/Miedema 1973, pp. 126 ff; Melion 1991, pp. 7–12. See also Sluijter 1991, p. 186. Melion 1991, pp. 63–6. For the interconnections between memory, imitation, and invention, see also Muller 1982, pp. 244–47; Weststeijn 2008, pp. 135–36. Angel 1972, pp. 24–26. Angel 1972, pp. 34–35. Van Hoogstraten 1969, pp. 24–25. “De Schilderkonst is een wetenschap, om alle ideen, ofte denkbeelden, die de gansche zichtbaere natuer kan geven, te verbeelden: en met omtrek en verwe het oog te bedregen … een spiegel van de Natuer, die de dingen, die niet en zijn, doet schijnen te zijn, en op een geoorlofde, vermakelijke en prijslijke wijze bedriegt.” Translation from Brusati, 1995, p. 11. Meadow 2002, p. 130. See, for example, Kaufmann 1993; Kemp 1995; Daston and Park 2001. See also my discussion in Chapter One. Warners 1957a, p. 84. See also Kemp 1995, p. 178; Brusati 1997; Daston and Park 2001, pp. 276–90; Meadow 2002, pp. 129–30. For the debate over the agency of nature vis-à-vis God’s agency, see Daston and Park 2001, pp. 296–301.

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27. De Lairesse 1712, vol. 1, pp. 173–82; Kemmer 1998; De Vries 2011, p. 119. 28. De Lairesse 1712, vol. 1, p. 178; Kemmer1998 p. 97; De Vries 2011, pp. 119–20. 29. For discussion of Vasari’s approach, see, for example, Belting 1987, pp. 67–94; Rubin 1995a; Campbell 2008. 30. “Door naeryver quam Zeuxis tot zoo hoogen graet in de Schilderkonst, dat de vogelen door zijn geschilderde druiven bedrogen wierden. … Dit zelve vierontstak Raphaël Urbijn, om den grooten Buonarot de loef af te snijdé: En Michel Agnolo om een ongenaekbaere hoogte te beklauteren.” Van Hoogstraten 1969, p. 215. The translation is taken from Weststeijn 2008, p. 165. 31. Junius 1991, pp. 29–42. 32. An important study of the view of imitation expressed in early modern Dutch literature is Warners’s three-part study. See Warners 1956; Warners 1957a; Warners 1957b. 33. Pigman 1980. 34. Vasari 1987, vol. 1, pp. 315–18. 35. “… e mescolando col detto modo alcuni altri scelti delle cose migliori d’altri maestri, fece di molte maniere una sola, chef u poi sempre tenuta sua propria, la quale fu e sarà sempre stimata dagl’artefici infintamente.” See Vasari 1966, vol. IV, p. 207. Translation from Vasari 1987, vol. 1, p. 318. 36. Thijs Weststeijn argues that early modern theories of imitation in the Low Countries were closely related to the Neostoic ideal of self-knowledge. See Weststeijn 2005; Weststeijn 2008. 37. Much of the investigations into appropriations and borrowings in Dutch art have focused on the work of Rembrandt. See, for example, Bruyn et al. 1982–2015; De Jongh 1969; Van de Wetering 2001. Recent studies on the themes of imitation and emulation include Sluijter 2005; Weststeijn 2005; Blankert 2011; Aono 2008; Aono 2015. 38. “Steelt armen, beenen, lijven, handen, voeten / T’is hier niet verboden, die willen, moeten / Wel spleen Rapiamus personage / Wel ghecoockte rapen is goe pottage” (Grondt 1:46; Van Mander/Miedema 1973, pp. 86–87). See also Melion 1991, p. 27; Sluijter 2005, p. 270. 39. Junius 1991, p. 36; Warners 1957a, p. 84; Sluijter 2005, pp. 270–74; Weststeijn 2005, pp. 249–52. 40. Van Hoogstraten 1969, pp. 27, 175, 218; Sluijter 2005, pp. 274, 278. 41. Junius 1991, pp. 29–42. 42. Junius 1991, p. 34. 43. Pigman 1980, pp. 4–5, 32; Muller 1982, p. 231; Gombrich 1993, p. 123. 44. “In zijn reysen heeft hy veel ghesichten nae t’leven gheconterfeyt, soo datter gheseyt wort, dat hy in d’Alpes wesende, al die berghen en rotsen had in gheswolghen, en t’huys ghecomen op doecken en Penneelen uytghespogen hadde, soo eyghentlijck con hy te desen en ander deelen de Natuere nae volghen.” Van Mander/Miedema 1994, vol. 1, 190–91; Meadow 2002b, pp. 119–31. 45. Van Mander, Het Schilder-Boeck, fol. 284v–285r. See Van ManderMiedema 1994, vol. 1, pp. 396, 399. 46. An artist’s ability to assume the “hand” of another is also lauded in Vasari’s biography of Andrea del Sarto. Vasari writes that Andrea’s copy after Raphael’s Portrait of Pope Leo X with Cardinals Giulio de’ Medici and Luigi Rossi not only fooled the Duke of Mantua, but, more importantly, Giulio Romano, a pupil of Raphael. See Vasari 1966,

Notes

47.

48. 49. 50. 51.

52. 53. 54. 55.

56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64.

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vol. IV, pp. 378–81. Vasari 1987, vol. 2, pp. 153–55. Vasari reports these words from Giulio Romano when the painting was revealed to be a copy: “I value it no less than if it were from the hand of Raphael, indeed much more, because it is something out of the natural order that one man of excellence should imitate the work of another so well, and make something so similar (Io non lo tengo da meno che di man di Raffaello, anzi certo da più, perch’è cosa fuora di natura, a un che sia eccellente, imitar la maniera d’un altro a farla simile a lui).” Andrea, however, copied an existing painting by Raphael, which made his imitative act different from that of Goltzius’s in the Meesterstukjes. Pigman 1980; Greene 1982, pp. 43 ff. Greene distinguishes between heuristic and dialectical imitations, assigning the competitive character to the latter. He does acknowledge, however, that the boundaries between the two categories are far from clear. Warners 1957b; Sluijter 2005, pp. 273–89. Sluijter 2005, p. 279. Sluijter 2005, pp. 284–85; Van Hoogstraten 1969, p. 215; Huygens 1994, p. 78. Sluijter 2005, pp. 286–87. Anecdotes about Rubens’s engagement with sixteenthcentury Italian masters and Rembrandt’s references to Lastman and Rubens were the major exceptions. See also Van de Wetering 2001, pp. 41–55; Weststeijn 2005, pp. 256–61. Broos 1985; Van de Wetering 2001. De Jongh 1969. Junius 1991, p. 36. Baer 2001b, p. 39; Honig 1998b, pp. 49 ff. There have been portrayals of artisans and merchants in shops in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but Dou was responsible for formulating the conventions for depicting interactions between vendors and customers in these spaces. Franits 1993, pp. 57–61. Honig 1998b, pp. 49–52. Fock’s research into the inventories of prestigious households in Amsterdam, Leiden, and The Hague indicates that brass chandeliers were intended for churches and public buildings, and were very rare in private homes. Fock 2001, pp. 95–96. Alpers 1983, pp. 197–207; Sutton 2003. Alpers 1997; Honig 1997. Schama 1991, pp. 378–91. Alpers 1997, pp. 62–63; Hollander 2002, pp. 103–6. In a further career parallel to Dou, Van Mieris reportedly declined Leopold Wilhelm’s offer of the post of court painter. Houbraken 1976, Book 3, p. 3; Naumann 1981, vol. 1, p. 24; Buvelot 2005b, p. 19. The Archduke became active on the auction scene and managed to acquire the collection of the Duke of Hamilton, which formed the foundation of his famous Italian holdings. The 1659–1660 inventory of Leopold Wilhelm’s collection also lists 880 paintings by German and Netherlandish artists, out of which 330 were by artists active during the Archduke’s governorship in the Netherlandish provinces. The descriptions of the 70 works by Dutch artists suggest a preference for the polished cabinet pieces executed in the “fine” manner. Leopold Wilhelm shared a taste for such meticulously rendered pictures with many prominent collectors, making these works

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65. 66. 67.

68.

69. 70.

71. 72.

73. 74.

75. 76.

Creating Distinctions in Dutch Genre Painting

the most highly prized of Dutch paintings. For a discussion of Leopold Wilhelm’s collection, see Schütz 1999; Schreiber, 2004, pp. 89–129. For the inventory of the collection in 1659–1660, see Berger 1883. De Jongh 1976, p. 173. See, for example, De Jongh 1976, p. 173; Stone-Ferrier 1985, p. 267 n. 28; Franits 2004, p. 281 n. 98. For example, Jan Orlers’s description of the Leiden includes artists among the illustrious men of the city. Simon van Leeuwen’s brief history of Leiden, published in 1672, likewise refers to famous native artists. See Orlers 1641, p. 352; Van Leeuwen 1672, pp. 191–92; Baer 2001b, pp. 26–27; Sluijter 1988b, pp. 15–17; Sluijter 1996, p. 38. Cf. Maria Loh’s discussion of Bruce Kawin’s notion of the repetitive, which seems to me shares characteristics of eristic imitation. Loh points out that “repetitive” (as opposed to “repetitious”) works are addressed to “an informed spectator,” and their effectiveness hinges on “the viewer’s ability to recognize the referents staged within.” See Loh 2007, p. 56. Houbraken 1976, Book 3, p. 4; Naumann 1981, vol. 1, pp. 23–25; Buvelot 2005b, pp. 16–17. According to the information provided in Gerard Hoet’s compilation of auction catalogues, for instance, the average price for a painting attributed to Van Mieris from 1687 to 1728 was about 340 guilders. Several of the paintings mentioned were valued at between 600 and 1100 guilders, showing the high market value of Van Mieris’s works in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. See Hoet 1752. For inventory of Petronella de la Court’s estate, see GAA, NA 5338, ff.553–639. For the valuation of the pieces at auction, see Lugt 207; Hoet 1752, vol. 1, pp. 104–5. For Van Beuningen’s collection, see Hoet 1752, vol. 1, pp. 199–204. The most refined of Van Mieris’s paintings, like Dou’s, are so detailed and polished that it would have taken him or his best assistants considerable time to execute them. As Montias suggests, the investment of labour would have made it too risky for Van Mieris to produce such works entirely on speculation. It is likely that the artist, through his contact with collectors, was reasonably confident that his pieces would sell. See Montias 1987, p. 462. Sluijter 1988b, pp. 39–40. For the reception of guests in princely collections, see Chapters One and Two. There is evidence that prominent collections and artists’ studios in Dutch towns became attractions for gentlemen travellers. Authors such as Sandrart and Balthasar de Monconys, the French diplomat and scholar, wrote of visiting well-known private collections in Leiden and Rotterdam. See Sandrart 1925, pp. 195–96; Monconys 1666, vol. 2, pp. 131 ff; Fock 1990, p. 3. As I mention in the Introduction, inventories and auction catalogues from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries show that it was common for collectors to own paintings of similar descriptions by different painters. Van Mieris’s Doctor’s Visit, signed and dated 1657 and now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, shows a doctor in outmoded dress checking his female patient’s pulse. Another autograph version of the composition is now in Glasgow. See Naumann 1981, cats. I 20 and II 20; vol. 1, pp. 48–50; vol. 2, pp. 22–24. Buvelot 2005a, cat. 13, pp. 107–11.

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77. The painting was the first listed in the contract between De Bye and Hannot: “Een groot stuck daghlicht met vier beelden, een krancke vrouw met een doctor ende een urinael, van buyten met een lampeth.” See Martin 1901, p. 172. 78. Houbraken 1976, Book 3, p. 4. Van Mieris also made portraits of Cornelis Paets’s wife and son. See Buvelot 2005a, cat. 35, pp. 169–71, and cat. 36, pp. 172–74. 79. See Lugt 257, and catalogue in Hoet 1752, vol. 1, pp. 199–204. 80. For Mattheus van den Brouke’s collection, see Lugt 263, and Hoet 1752, vol. 1, pp. 211–13. For the 1708 auction in Amsterdam see Hoet 1752, vol. 1, pp. 124–30. There are numerous other examples in the Catalogus of such thematically and stylistically related paintings belonging to the same collections. 81. Baxandall 1985, pp. 58–59. 82. The exhibition “Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry” (2017–18; Paris, Dublin, Washington DC) also addresses the topic of exchanges among seventeenth-century Dutch genre painters. 83. Anticipating De Lairesse’s published remarks on his vision for Dutch painting, both Netscher and Van Mieris ventured into history painting and created a heightened sense of elegance in their genre paintings. They painted several historical subjects that feature figures dressed in fine but generic drapery. The vaguely antique costumes of Netscher’s Death of Cleopatra (1673; Karlsruhe) and Van Mieris’s Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham (1673; Philadelphia), for example, are supposed to evoke a sense of timelessness. 84. Wieseman 2002, p. 68. The parrot has multiple meanings in these paintings of young women. On the one hand, because a parrot can be taught to “speak,” it can be seen as a reference to the proper training of its young mistress. On the other hand, the bird was a common erotic symbol in Dutch paintings of the period. Netscher’s woman has freed the parrot from its cage. In the seventeenth century, a bird escaping its cage was a metaphor for lost virginity. The bird in Netscher’s painting is out of the cage but has not fled; instead, it perches on the hand of the woman, who smiles coyly at the viewer. The painting can thus be seen as an elegant but titillating image. For discussions of the symbolic significance of birds in Dutch genre painting, see Franits 1993, p. 24; De Jongh 2000, pp. 43–46. 85. Naumann 1981, vol. 2, cat. 54 I and II, pp. 64–69; Buvelot 2005a, cat. 33, pp. 163–65. 86. Franits 2004, p. 201. 87. For this painting see Wieseman 2002, cat. 53, pp. 65, 205–7. 88. Cf. Schavemaker 2006. 89. Naumann 1981, vol. 1, pp. 184–85. The painting was commissioned by F. Feroni in 1673, Cosimo III’s agent in Amsterdam at the time. Van Mieris delivered the painting on 5 May 1675, after two years of protracted negotiations with Guasconi, Feroni’s successor. 90. Buvelot 2005a, pp. 200–3. 91. Houbraken 1976, Book 3, pp. 5–6. 92. Naumann 1981, vol. 1, p. 185. 93. Naumann 1981, vol. 1, pp. 29, 176. 94. Wieseman 2002, pp. 45–51; Carasso 1999. 95. Wieseman 2002, pp. 45–51. 96. Van Sas, 1999; Koolhaas and De Vries 1999; Price 2011, pp. 252–54; Franits 2004, p. 219.

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97. Even Lyckle de Vries, in his analysis of the historical view of the Golden Age, suggests that “true innovations” in the eighteenth century began only in the second quarter, when artists were able to adopt a “freer, more independent attitude toward the seventeenth century.” See De Vries 1999, p. 38. 98. Wieseman 2002, p. 46. 99. Wieseman 2002, p. 50. 100. De Lairesse 1712, vol. 1, p. 171; De Vries 1999, pp. 34–35. 101. De Vries 1999, p. 32. 102. De Vries 1985, p. 12. 103. Houbraken 1976, Book 2, pp. 132–36; De Vries 1999, pp. 34–35; Wieseman 2002, pp. 46 ff. 104. Fock 2001b, p. 104; Thornton 1978, pp. 107–34; Loughman and Montias 2000, pp. 32–35. 105. Fock 2001b, pp. 103–4; Loughman and Montias 2000, pp. 100–101. 106. J. de Vries 1991. Jan de Vries reaches this conclusion by comparing and analyzing three sources of evidence—modern museum holdings in the United States and the Netherlands, probate inventories from the period, and the membership records of the St. Luke’s guilds. 107. Bok 2001. Bok uses the declarations of profession in the marriage registry from 1578 onward as his main source of data. 108. Using Thera Wijsenbeek-Olthuis’s analysis of eighteenth-century Delft inventories, Ad van der Woude extrapolates a figure of eight to nine million for the output of paintings in the Republic between 1580 and 1800. Meanwhile, Montias calculates the number of master painters in the Republic in 1650, then estimates their average income and output for that one year. See Van der Woude 1991; Montias 1990a. 109. Montias 1987, p. 463; Bok 2001. See also North 1997, pp. 97–98, 136. 110. Bok2001, pp. 204–5. 111. Montias 1987, pp. 463–64; Bok 2001, p. 208. Montias’s study of inventory samples from 1620 to 1680 and 1700 to 1714 indicates that the proportion of paintings by contemporary artists began to fall as early as the 1630s. 112. Bok 2001, pp. 206–7. 113. See, for example, Montias 1987, pp. 462–64; Bok 2001, pp. 208–9; De Vries 1999, pp. 35–36. 114. Jan de Vries and Ad van der Woude argue that there was an actual increase in the purchasing power of wages throughout the seventeenth century, but Jan Luiten van Zanden maintains that nominal wages did not keep pace with prices. See De Vries and Van der Woude 1997, p. 721. Van Zanden 1993, pp. 11–12, 16–18. 115. Van Zanden 1993, pp. 17–18. Van Zanden notes that investment in sectors that would boost output, such as industry and trade, declined from 1650 to 1800. He characterizes the period as “a phase of ‘accumulation without growth.’” 116. On signaling, see Nelson and Zeckhauser 2008, pp. 73–81. 117. Franits 2004, p. 220. 118. Junko Aono discusses the implications of this restricted customer base on the genre painters from 1680 to 1750, but I would argue that artists would have begun to feel the impact of the market downturn in the 1660s and 1670s. See Aono 2015. 119. Van Mander, Het Schilder-Boeck, fol. 284v–285r (Van Mander/Miedema 1994, pp. 396, 399.) See also Melion 1991, pp. 43 ff; Melion 1990, pp. 478–80.

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120. Anna Tummers, for example, maintains that Van Mander uses the terms “manier” and “handeling” more or less interchangeably. See Tummers 2011, pp. 116–29. See also Melion 1991, pp. 43–59; Brusati 1995, p. 249. 121. Deleuze 1994, p. 56. Although his philosophy of thought and subjectivity cannot be treated in depth here, Gilles Deleuze’s concepts of identity, difference, and repetition offers a theoretical frame for examining Van Mieris’s endeavor of identity construction through the practice of emulation. Deleuze defines difference not as an intermediate state that is understood in opposition to a fixed, prior identity, but as “the ultimate unity.” To Deleuze, an object or a thought does not have a fixed, prior existence, but it “must see its own identity swallowed up in difference, each being no more than a difference between differences.” The identity of a being is therefore not defined by some inherent quality or essence, but in terms of differentiation. These ideas find an interesting parallel in the early modern collection. See also Loh 2007. 122. For Matthijs Naiveu, see Sluijter 1988a, p. 186; Franits 2004, pp. 230–34. 123. This is Metsu’s Visit to the Nursery, signed and dated 1661, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. See Waiboer 2010, pp. 227–29, cat. A–86. 124. Franits 2004, p. 245. 125. Naumann 1981, vol. 2, pp. 124–25, cat. 120. 126. Houbraken points out that Van Mieris painted many “candlelight” scenes, evidently finding this aspect of the artist’s production worthy of mention. Naumann argues that Schalcken drew from Van Mieris in developing the nocturnal scene into his specialty. Netscher also produced several genre scenes in artificial light, indicating again the circulation of ideas among artists working for prominent collectors in the period. See Houbraken 1976, Book 3, p. 3; Naumann 1981, vol. 1, p. 79. 127. Sutton, Vergara, and Adams 2003, pp. 142–45. 128. See Naumann 1981, vol. 2, cat. 82, pp. 95–96, and cat. 83, p. 96; Buvelot 2005a, cat. 42, pp. 192–94. Both paintings are in private collections. 129. Alpers 2005, pp. 103–4.

Epilogue: On Signature Products, Knock-Offs, and Product Lines 1. 2. 3.

4.

Baer 1990, cat. 94; Baer 2001a, cat. 25, pp. 114–15. Baxandall 1985, p. 59. Sluijter 1988b, pp. 34, 40. Sluijter points out that Van Tol was not discussed in treatises or biographies published in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. However, Van Tol and other lesser-known fijnschilders—such as Johan van Staveren, Abraham de Pape, and Bartholomeus Maton—featured in an anonymous manuscript from the late 1770s or early 1780s, entitled “Lijste van Schilders, die binnen de Stad Leijden gebooren zijn, off aldaar gewoond en de kunst geoeffend hebben.” This suggests that their accomplishments were remembered in the local market of Leiden. In the sale of a princely collection from Saxony, conducted on 22 May 1765 in Amsterdam, Van Tol was mentioned as “disciple van G. Dou” (Terwesten 1770, p. 435). A piece depicting an old woman and a boy, sold as part of Robbert de

224 

5.

6.

7.

8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

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Neufville’s collection on 15 March 1736 in Leiden, was described as “niet minder als Dou” (Hoet 1752, p. 461). The most expensive transaction recorded, in the sale of Wierman’s collection on 18 August 1762 in Amsterdam, was for a painting representing a bespectacled old woman combing a boy’s hair. The entry read: “voorts is alles zo verstandig geordineert, correct en uitvoerig geschildert als of het van Dou was” (Terwesten 1770, p. 266). There are 39 mentions of copies or paintings after Dou in Hoet/Terwesten, with the bulk of the transactions occurring in the mid-eighteenth century. It is assumed that copies and versions were produced and sold in the seventeenth century, although it would be difficult to differentiate between studio works and copies made by artists not affiliated with Dou. For instance, four works by Van Tol featured in the 1669 inventory of Van Dusseldorp in Utrecht. Forty-two works were listed in the inventory, half of which were attributed to specific artists. Two “eight-sided pieces” were attributed to Brueghel, but the notary did not specify which member of the Brueghel family. There were also two pieces of unidentified subject by Roelandt Savery. Otherwise it did not contain the names that frequently appeared in major collections. See the Getty Provenance Index, Item 0001 in Document N-57 (Dusseldorp). For example, the 1722 sale of Jacques Meijers’s collection featured three copies at 46, 68, and 71 guilders, respectively, and two paintings attributed to Dou for 300 and 355 guilders. The substantial collection of Baron Schonborn auctioned on 16 April 1738 in Amsterdam included a copy after Dou at 25 guilder 15 stuivers, and a piece by Van Tol valued at 87 guilders. It also contained three autograph works by Dou at 355, 120, and 65 guilders, respectively, and two by Frans van Mieris for 620 and 905 guilders. See Hoet 1752, vol. 1, pp. 265–89, 506–18. For the pricing of workshop copies, see De Marchi and Van Miegroet 1996. As I mention in Chapter Two, Hollander surmises that the niche picture format allows Dou to bypass the difficult process of constructing perspectival space. I suggest here that it served the purpose of improving efficiency in the more modestly priced niche pictures, but it would still be reductive to make the same argument about Dou’s most elaborate creations. For further discussion of studio versions and multiple product lines offered by prominent genre painters, see Ho 2007, pp. 140–71. Reynolds 1996, p. 101. For recent analyses of how artistic patronage served a signaling function in the Renaissance, see, for example, Nelson and Zeckhauser 2008; Kent 2000; Rubin 1995b. See, for example, Gualerzi 1998; Bianchi 1998; Bianchi 2002. De Vries 1999; Aono 2015; Altes 2006. Fock 1983; Aono 2015, pp. 48–53, 73–92. Aono 2015, pp. 97–118; Gaehtgens 2006.

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Index References to pages with illustrations are in bold.  Alberti, Leon Battista 44 Alpers, Svetlana 38, 113, 157, 182 Amman, Jost 86 Der Holzdreschser 87  Angel, Philips 39, 66, 79, 134 Lof der Schilderkonst 55, 76, 82, 145, 146 Antwerp, art market 65 Aono, Junko 189 art and imitation of nature 145–6, 146–7 knowledge about 50 progressive nature of 148 see also paintings  art market see Dutch art market  attribution 49, 66, 67, 199n99, 203n62 authenticity and connoisseurship 65–6, 89 and value 23, 66 Baburen, Dirck van, The Procuress 115, 116  Baer, Ronni 58 Bailly, David 49 Bambeeck, Nicolaes van 56 Baxandall, Michael 51 Patterns of Intention 161, 185 Bellori, Giovan Pietro 145 Bentes, Albert 46 Berkhout family 43, 196n53 Berkhout, Pieter Teding van, diary 47–8 Beuningen, Jan van 56, 161 Bianchi, Marina 127 Boersma, Annetje 108 Bok, Marten Jan 38–9, 168 Borch, Gerard ter apprenticeship 96 artistic development 95–109 and consumer demand 128, 132 eroticism 94, 112 innovation 95, 121, 126–7, 129–30, 131–2, 133 interior scenes 130 international reputation 131 motifs 100–1, 102, 103–4, 121, 125 paintings and drawings A Lady at her Toilet 23, 94, 102, Pl.2 Curiosity 94, 118 Cloth Shop (van Mieris), similarities 156 Gallant Conversation 36, 109–116, 121, 110, 127, Pl.9  Ice activities by Zijlpoort, Harlem 104  Jan van Duren 111  Man, seen from behind, watching skaters 103  Margaretha van Haexbergen 112  Officer, seen from behind, watching skaters 102  Portrait of Robert van Voerst 98  Rider on a Rearing Horse 101 

Skaters outside the Zwolle city walls 104  Standing boy, seen from the rear 100  The Concert 18 Duet (van Mieris), comparison 17–18 The Gallant Officer 123  The Introduction 94, 121–2, 124–5, 127, Pl.13  The Letter Writer 180 handelingh demonstration 181 influence on other artists 181 Letter Writer (van Mieris), comparison  178–9, 181 The Lute Player 105  The Music Lesson (Toledo) 34, 93, 94, 101, Pl.7  The Music Lesson (Los Angeles) 106, 108  The Music Party 34, 101, Pl.8  The Suitor’s Visit 23, 102, Pl.3  Two Boys seen from the Rear 99  Woman Peeling an Apple 117  Woman Playing the Theorbo to Two Men 106, 107  Young people around a table drinking, smoking and making music 96, 97  satin dress motif 18, 22, 23, 26, 93, 102, 105, 106, 110, 113, 118, 133–7, 187, Pl.2–3, Pl.7–9, Pl.13  Bosse, Abraham 48 Sentimens 50, 66, 199n99 Bourdieu, Pierre 44, 49 Bout, Adriaan, art collection 17, 19 Bronzino, Agnolo 44 Brouwer, Adriaen 130, 168 Quack Doctor 62 Brusati, Celeste 91, 135 Bryson, Anna 43 Burch, Jacob van den 49 Buytewech, Willem, Merry Company 93, 94  Bye, Johan de 53–4, 56, 81, 159 Callot, Jacques 96 Caravaggio, claim to novelty 129 Carpi, Ugo da 128 Castiglione, Baldesar, Il Cortegiano 50 Cats, Jacob 91, 156 Charles II, King of England 56–7 Christina, Queen of Sweden 55 Codde, Pieter 22, 96 Lady Holding a Letter seated at a Virginal 116–17, 119  collections 45, 67 as cultural capital 188 purpose 64 collectors 46, 49, 53, 62, 161 see also liefhebbers  connoisseurship 48 and authenticity 65–6 disputes 66 guides 66

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Cook, Harold J. 40 courtship motif 94, 165, Pl.1, Pl.3, Pl.7–10, Pl.13 see also music making  Cropper, Elizabeth 129 Deleuze, Gilles, on repetition and difference 33 distinctiveness see handelingh  doctors, in paintings 62, 86, 88, 160, 206n117, Pl.12, Pl.14  Domenichino affair, plagiarism 129 domesticity, in Dutch ideology 157 Doomer, Herman, Ebony chest 63  Dou, Gerrit 19, 22, 29, 33, 34, 48 collections 62 framing devices 64, 79–81 niche picture 57–62, 91–2, 139 as painter-entrepreneur 86–92 paintings A Girl with a Basket of Fruit at a Window 74, 80  Dropsical Woman 81, 160  Old Woman with a Jug 183 Still Life with Candlestick, Pipe, and ­Pocketwatch 76, 77, 81  Still Life with Ewer, Basin and Cloth 76, 78, 81  The Doctor 83, 85, 136, Pl.12  The Grocer’s Shop 29, 30, 86, Pl.4  The Poulterer’s Shop 89, 90  The Quack 86, 88, 142  The Trumpeter 73–4, 78–9, 80, 82, 204n71, Pl.11  The Violin Player (1653) 29–30, 34, 59, 72–3, 82, 83, Pl.5  The Violin Player (1665) 34, Pl.6  The Young Mother 75 Woman Hanging a Rooster at a Window 67, 69  Rembrandt, comparison 67–73 reputation 91 self-portrait 86, 88  Douglas, Mary & Baron Isherwood 24 Duesenberry, J.S. 132, 215n94 Duquesnoy, François 82 Bacchanal (copy) 84, 91  Dürer, Albrecht 44, 128 Dutch art market 19, 23, 31, 32, 33 changes 140–1 and consumers 24–5, 170 and economic conditions 169–70 neoclassical economic analysis 120–1 and patronage 170 pricing criteria 202n40 structure 121 Dutch genre painting 21 appropriation and difference 22–3 de Lairesse on 147, 167–8 historiography 167–8 signature motifs 23 Dutch Gift (to Charles II) 56–7, 201n22 Dutch Republic and consumer demand 128 demand for novelty 25, 130 independence 96 and Spain 42–3, 195n51 Dutch Revolt 24, 40

Duyster, Willem 22, 96 satin motif 136–7, 136  Soldiers Fighting over Booty in a Barn 122  The Tric-Trac Players 136, 136  Dyck, Anthony van 65, 96–7 The Iconography 40, 97 Dyck, Philip van 168 elites identity construction 43–4, 51 and taste 44–51, 54 see also liefhebbers  Emmens, J.A. 83 emulation 151–2 van Mieris 36, 140 see also imitation  Fabritius, Carel 19 fijnschilders see Leiden school of fijnschilders  Filipczak, Zirka 39, 40 footwarmer motif 93–4, 208n1 Franits, Wayne 31–2, 33 Friedrich Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg 66 furnishings, depiction of 63–4, 63, 95, 110–12, Pl.7, Pl.9  Gerard, Isaak 56 Getty Provenance Index 62, 185 Gheest, Cornelis van der 64, 65 Goethe, J.W. von, Elective Affinities 110 Golden Age 51, 167, 189 Goltzius, Hendrick Dead Adonis 62 The Circumcision 150, 151  Gool, Jan van 168 Goyen, Jan van 126 Grill, Anthony 56, 64 Guasconi, Giovacchino 57, 166 guild system 90, 91 habitus concept 49 Haecht, Willem van, The Cabinet of Cornelis van de Gheest 46, 47, 64–5  Hals, Frans 106 Portrait of Willem van Heijthuysen 113–14, 114  handelingh A Girl Reading a Letter (Schalcken) 175, 177  achievement of 181–2 and invention 182 meaning 171 The Letter Writer (van Mieris) 181, Pl.16  Hannot, Johannes 53–4 Hecht, Peter 59–60, 83–84 Het Loo Palace 56 Hoet, Gerard 62 Catalogus 185 Hollander, Martha 60, 84, 224n9 Honig, Elizabeth 29, 65, 113, 132 Honthorst, Gerrit van 115 The Merry Fiddler 58, 59  Hooch, Pieter de 17, 19 Hoogstraten, Samuel van 76, 148, 152

Index

Inleyding 146 Slippers 36, 37  Houbraken, Arnold 42, 79, 166 De groote schouburgh 41, 131 Houckgeest, Gerrit 19 Huygens, Constantijn 45, 48, 49, 152 identity elites 43–4, 51 liefhebbers 24, 25, 41, 48, 55, 131, 188 and repetition 33–4, 81–5 imitation digestion analogy 149 and innovation 120 and invention 35, 65, 140 Junius on 149, 154 and personal style 148, 149, 165–6 and rapen 149 and transformation 149 see also emulation  innovation and imitation 120 process 120, 121 product 120 and repetition 22, 118–26 see also novelty  invention commodity value of 203n58 and imitation 35, 65, 140 through repetition 95–109, 183 inventories 57 Jongh, Eddy de 143, 152–3 “Realism and Seeming Realism” 125 Junius, Franciscus 148 on imitation 149, 154 Painting of the Ancients 45 Kettering, Alison 89–90, 112–13 Kleinmann, Ute 60 Kolfin, Elmer 135 Kunstkammer 46, 47 See also collections  Lairesse, Gerard de 22, 44, 141, 189 on Dutch genre painting 147, 167–8 Het groot schilderboek 172 Leiden school of fijnschilders 19, 22, 55, 191n5 Leonardo da Vinci 44 liefhebbers (art lovers) 38–44, 46–7, 49, 54 cultural capital 58, 188 definitions 38–9, 40–1 in Guild of St Luke (Antwerp) 39 identity 24, 25, 41, 48, 55, 131, 188 merchants, distinction 39 networks 25 in portraits 40 taste 50 van Mander’s use of term 39 Loughman, John & John Michael Montias 47, 62 Luttichuys, Simon 62

251 Maes, Nicolaes 156 The Eavesdropper 124, 157  Mancini, Giulio, Considerazioni sulla pittura 66 Mander, Karel van 23, 171 Den grondt der edel vry schilderconst 66, 134, 145, 146 Het Schilder-Boeck 39, 44, 45, 76, 134 Mandeville, Bernard 66 Marchi, Neil de 127 Marchi, Neil de & Hans van Miegroet 39 Marin, Louis 80 Medici, Cosimo III de’ 48, 57, 161, 166 Medici, Marie de’, Queen of France 49 Melion, Walter 134 Metsu, Gabriel 17, 156 The Visit to the Nursery 176  Mieris, Frans van artistic development 141 Dou, allusions to 35, 141, 155 emulation 36, 140 liefhebber audience 158 paintings A Man Tuning the Lute 176 A Woman Feeding a Parrot 163, 164  A Woman Tuning a Lute 176, 178  Boy Blowing Bubbles 174  Self-Portrait 153–4, 154  The Cloth Shop 41, 42, 49, 139, 140, 141–5, 148, 154, Pl.10  gender roles 157 invocation of place 158 motifs on standard 157–8 self-identity construction 158 Ter Borch’s Curiosity, similarities 156 The Doctor’s Visit Pl.14  Dropsical Woman (Dou), reinterpretation of 159 The Duet 17, 142, 187, Pl.1  Concert (ter Borch), comparison 17–18 inspiration for Young Woman Playing a Harpsichord (Steen) 19, 20  inspiration for Young Woman standing at a Virginal (Vermeer) 19, 21  The Family Concert 166, Pl.15  reception 172 unique features 171 The Letter Writer 178, Pl.16  Letter Writer (ter Borch), comparison 178–9, 181 The Serenade 176, 179  reputation 166–7 Molijn, Pieter de 96 Monconys, Balthasar de 48, 53 Montias, John Michael 26, 47, 57, 95, 120, 133, 139 motifs see courtship motif; footwarmer motif; niche window motif; parrot motif; satin motif  music making A Young Woman Playing a Harpsichord to a Young Man (Steen) 20  A Young Woman standing at a Virginal (Vermeer) 21  The Concert (ter Borch) 18 

252  The Duet (van Mieris) Pl.1  the Violin Player 29–30 (Dou) Pl.5  see also courtship motif  Naiveu, Matthijs Boy and Girl Blowing Soap Bubbles 173  Newborn Baby 175  Neer, Aert van der 62 Netscher, Caspar 19, 161, 163, 165 A Young Woman Feeding a Parrot 161, 162  Song with Harpsichord Accompaniment 164 Nevitt, H. Rodney 115 niche window motif 22, 24, 33, 57–61, 186–7, 202n42 Altarpiece of St. John (van der Weyden) 60, 61  Boy Blowing Bubbles (van Mieris) 174  Boy and Girl Blowing Soap Bubbles (Naiveu) 173  compositional device 60, 187 monumentalizing feature 60 religious connotations 60–1 The Grocer’s Shop (Dou) Pl.4  The Merry Fiddler (van Honthorst) 58, 59  The Violin Player (1653) (Dou) 29–30, 34, 59, 72–3, 82, 83, Pl.5  The Violin Player (1665)) (Dou) 34, Pl.6  trade association 86, 87  as trademark 25 as visual bridge 25–6, 61 Woman in a Window, Holding a Dead Fowl (van Tol) 183, 184  Young Woman Feeding a Parrot (Netscher) 161–2, 162  novelty Caravaggio’s claim to 129 in the Dutch Republic 25, 130 and tradition 129 see also innovation  Ochtervelt, Jacob, Musical Company in an Interior 165  originality, definition 32 Orlers, Jan Jansz., Description of the City of Leiden 39, 55 Overbeke, Matthijs van 49 Paets, Cornelis 160 painters, numbers of 168 paintings as consumer goods 120 demand for 24 display 47 inter-pictorial dialogue 161, 187 production 120 within paintings 74–5, 144 Pape, Abraham de 185 paragone 30, 82, 85, 91, 206n112 Parrhasius 84 parrot motif 162, 163, 164  patronage 32, 46, 51, 54, 57, 202n32 Pauw, Adriaan 46 Pepys, Samuel 78 Piles, Roger de 70, 79 plagiarism, Domenichino affair 129 Pliny the Elder, Natural History 84

Creating Distinctions in Dutch Genre Painting

Porcellis, Jan 49 Potter, Paulus 63 Poussin, Nicolas 80, 81 prices 57 criteria 202n40 Dou’s paintings 186 of genre paintings 41, 42 ter Borch’s paintings 214n92 van Tol’s paintings 186 Pynacker, Adam 62 Quast, Pieter 96 Raphael, artistic development 148 reception, meaning 38 reflection, depiction of 134 Rembrandt van Rijn 67 Agatha Bas 72, 72  Dou, comparison 67–73 Girl at a Window (1645) 69–71, 70  Girl at a Window (1651) 71, 71  Self Portrait 152  Self Portrait Leaning on a Stone Still 151  Song of Simeon 17 Still-Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl 68  Renialme, Johannes 56 repetition and difference 30–8 Deleuze on 33 as economizing measure 31 and identity 33–4, 81–5 and innovation 22, 118–26 invention through 95–109, 183 and mass art market 31 and self-repetition 36 Reynolds, Joshua 187 Reynst brothers 48, 49 Reynst, Jan 49 Rifkin, Benjamin 89 Ring, Hendrick Bugge van 56, 62 Roodenburg, Herman 48, 113–14 Rubens, Peter Paul 45, 49, 65, 145–6 Ruisdael, Jacob van 62 Sach, Hans, Städebuch 86, 207n122 didactic function 89 Sandrart, Joachim von 41, 55, 56, 79, 144 satin motif Duyster 136, 136  Naiveu 175  Netscher 164 ter Borch 18, 22, 23, 26, 93, 102, 105, 106, 110, 113, 118, 133–7, 187, Pl.2–3, Pl.7–9, Pl.13  van Mieris 166, Pl.14–15  Savery, Roelant 49, 62 Schalcken, Godfried, A Girl Reading a Letter 175, 177  Schrevelius, Theodorus 152 shops, in paintings The Cloth Shop (van Mieris) Pl.10  The Grocer’s Shop (Dou) Pl.4  The Poulterer’s Shop (Dou) 90 

253

Index

Sillemans, Experiens, “pen paintings” 63, 202n49 Silvercroon, Pieter Spiering 55 Six, Jan 46 Sluijter, Eric Jan 40, 56, 76 soldiers, in paintings 122, 122, 123, 124, 213n67, Pl.13  Sonntag, Stephanie 60 Spain, and Dutch Republic 42–3, 195n51 Staveren, Johan van 185, 186 Steen, Jan 17 A Young Woman Playing a Harpsichord to a Young Man 20 inspired by Duet (van Mieris) 19 In Luxury, Look Out 142, 143  Stoichita, Victor 80 Sylvius, Franciscus de le Boe 41, 42, 56, 62, 141, 195n48 collection 63

tradition, and novelty 129 Traudenius, Dirk 84

taste definition 44 and elites 44–51, 54 liefhebbers 50 Temmink, Maria 56 Teniers, David, Theatrum Pictorium 48 Terwesten, Pieter 62 Titian, Portrait of a Man 153  Tol, Dominicus van, Woman in a Window, Holding a Dead Fowl 183–5, 184 Girl with a Basket of Fruit at a Window (Dou), comparison 183 Woman Hanging a Rooster at a Window (Dou), comparison 183 Toorenvliet, Abraham van 172

Wadum, Jorgen 108 Wallert, Arie & Gwen Tauber 102 Wetering, Ernst van de 134, 152 Weyden, Rogier van der, Altarpiece of St. John 60, 61  Wheelock, Arthur K. 96 Wieseman, Marjorie E. 167 Wilhelm, Leopold, Archduke 42, 48, 56, 57, 141 as liefhebber 157 Wille, J.G. 110 Wouwerman, Philips 63 Wunderkammern 147

Uylenburgh, Gerrit 56, 66 Vasari, Giorgio 41, 44 on Raphael’s development 148 Trattato della pittura 45 Vite de’piu eccellenti pittori 45, 148 Vendramin, Andrea 49 Venne, Adriaen van de, painting technique 129 Vermeer, Johannes 48 A Young Woman standing at a Virginal 19, 21  Voerst, Robert van 96, 97 ter Borch’s portrait of 98  Vries, Jan de 128, 168

Zeuxis 84 Zwieten, Gerard Bicker van 56