Seated Woman with a Book in her Lap

c. 1654 - c. 1658

Object data

black chalk, with stumping, on vellum; framing line in black chalk or graphite

height 266 mm × width 203 mm

Inscriptions

signed: lower right, in black chalk, C. Visscher / fecit
inscribed on verso: centre, in pencil, 24; lower left, by Goll van Franckenstein, in brown ink, N 3870 (L. 2987); lower centre, in pencil (with the numbering of Hofstede de Groot), T 98 186 / h 271 / b 205

Condition

Laid down

Provenance

… ; sale, Louis Philipsz Metayer (1728-99, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 16 December 1799 sqq., Album A, no. 6 (‘Een ditto [zittende] vrouw, houdende de eene hand op een boek, is alles als de voorige fraai behandeld met ditto [zwart kryt geteekend op pergament]; door dezelfden [Visscher]’), fl. 45, to Johan Goll van Franckenstein II (1756-1821), Amsterdam (L. 2987); his son, Jonkheer Pieter Hendrik Goll van Franckenstein (1787-1832), Amsterdam; sale, Johan Goll van Franckenstein, Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 1 July 1833 sqq., Album P, no. 16 (‘Eene jonge Vrouw in losse Kleeding. Breed en fraai met zw. krijt op pergament, door C. Visscher’), fl. 10:10:-, to the dealer J. de Vries, Amsterdam;¹ …; ? sale, Jan Gijsbert, Baron Verstolk van Soelen (1776-1845, The Hague and Soelen, near Tiel), Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 22 March 1847 sqq., Album I, no. 346 (‘Une liseuse, légèrement vétue. Dessin d’une exécution large, mais en même temps d’un grand fini, à la pierre noire, par Corneille Visscher’), fl. 16, to the dealer C.F. Roos, Amsterdam;²…; collection Leonard Marius Beels van Heemstede (1825-82), Amsterdam;³ his wife, Agnes Henriette Beels van Heemstede-van Loon (1829-1902), Amsterdam; by whom donated to the museum (L. 2228), 1898

Object number: RP-T-1898-A-3685

Credit line: Gift of A.H. Beels van Heemstede-van Loon

The artist

Cornelis Visscher (Haarlem 1628/29 - 1658 Amsterdam)

Little is known about his early life. Information regarding his birth is based on two surviving self-portraits, one from 1649 in the British Museum, London (inv. no. 1895,0915.1343), and the other, dated 10 April 1653, in the Rijksmuseum (inv. no. RP-T-1902-A-4624). He was presumably born in Haarlem, where he became a member of the Guild of St Luke in 1653. His father – who cannot be identified – must have been an artist as well, because in the admission book of the guild Visscher is described as ‘plaetsnijder en Meester outste zoon’ (‘engraver and the master’s oldest son’). Two younger brothers, Jan Visscher (1633/34-1712) and Lambert Visscher (1630/32-after 1690), also pursued artistic careers. The relationship between Cornelis and the relatively unknown painter Cornelis de Visscher (c. 1530-c. 1586) of Gouda is unclear. According to Van Mander, the latter was a skilled portraitist, but had some mental issues and died in a shipwreck on the North Sea.⁴ Perhaps the same person can be identified with Cornelis de Visscher, whose money was managed (presumably on behalf of his under-age children) by the orphans’ board of Gouda because he was considered mentally ill; in 1622, the widow of Cornelis’ brother, the painter Gerrit Gerritsz. de Visscher II (c. 1559-before 1622), collected the money from the orphans’ board on behalf of Cornelis’ two nephews, her sons Gerrit de Visscher III (?-?), a goldsmith living in Gouda, and Barent de Visscher (?-?).⁵

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

Marleen Ram, 2019

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

Entry

For the most part, Visscher’s drawn oeuvre consists of official portraits; a second group of significant size includes drawings that vary from genre portraits to tronies (character head studies). The present sheet probably falls into this second group. It depicts an informally dressed woman, who is looking up from her book at something to her right, outside the composition. In general, Visscher’s official portraits show formally dressed sitters looking directly at the viewer. In this instance, the woman could have been a regular model for the artist. For example, the same young woman may be represented in both the Allegory of Transience by Visscher in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. no. RP-T-1888-A-1533),⁶ and the Head of a Young Woman Looking to the Left, which appeared on the London art market in 2014.⁷ Her characteristic nose, with its long, slightly bumpy bridge and wide nostrils, and the symmetrical, rounded eyebrows are strikingly similar.

According to Schatborn, an autograph replica of the present drawing is also preserved in the museum’s collection (inv. no. RP-T-1879-A-11).⁸ That drawing, which is smaller and set within an oval format, depicts only the woman’s head and upper torso. The present drawing is sketchier and less refined, especially in the rendering of the sitter’s face and hair. Moreover, the shadows and contour lines have been emphasized with strong, boldly applied chalk lines. This draughtsmanship is characteristic for Visscher in the second half of the 1650s. However, the Seated Woman with a Book in her Lap also reveals some weaknesses, such as the rather clumsily drawn nose and the sitter’s lap, which appears to be too large for the rest of her body. One wonders if the other sheet, in which the woman’s face is more refined and naturalistically modelled, was not made first. Yet the rendering of her clothes, especially her left sleeve, is less convincing and detailed than in the present sheet. Perhaps a third, as yet unidentified drawing served as the starting point for the two works in the museum’s collection.⁹

Bonny van Sighem, 2000/Marleen Ram, 2019

Literature

P. Schatborn, Dutch Figure Drawings from the Seventeenth Century, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet)/Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 1981-82, pp. 24, 101 (fig. 1), no. 97; W.W. Robinson, Seventeenth-century Dutch Drawings: A Selection from the Maida and George Abrams Collection, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet)/Vienna (Graphische Sammlung Albertina)/New York (Pierpont Morgan Library)/Cambridge (MA) (Fogg Art Museum) 1991-92, p. 200, under no. 91 (n. 1); V. Sadkov et al., Netherlandish, Flemish and Dutch Drawings of the XVI-XVIII Centuries, Belgian and Dutch Drawings of the XIX-XX Centuries: The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, coll. cat. Moscow 2010, p. 274, under no. 432

Citation

B. van Sighem, 2000/M. Ram, 2019, 'Cornelis (II) Visscher, Seated Woman with a Book in her Lap, c. 1654 - c. 1658', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.63630

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