Two Studies of the Shell of a Green Sea Turtle (Chelonia mydas)

? Leiden, c. 1616

Object data

pen and brown ink, with opaque white, on light brown cartridge paper; framing line in graphite

height 381 mm × width 227 mm

Inscriptions

inscribed on verso: upper left, in graphite, f 15 -
stamped on verso: lower right, with the mark of Waller (L. 2760)

Technical notes

watermark: none

Condition

Several repairs throughout

Provenance

…; collection, François Gérard Waller (1867-1934), Amsterdam (L. 2760); by whom bequeathed, with 37 other drawings, to the museum, 1935 (as Jacques de Gheyn II)

Object number: RP-T-1935-51

Credit line: F.G. Waller Bequest, Amsterdam

The artist

Jacques de Gheyn III (? Haarlem/Leiden, ? 1596 - Utrecht, 1641)

He was the son of the artist Jacques de Gheyn II (1565-1629) and Eva Stalpaert van der Wiele (?-?). He grew up in The Hague, where his family maintained close ties with the House of Orange and Constantijn Huygens I (1596-1687), secretary to Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange (1584-1647). Between 1618 and 1620, De Gheyn III was in London with Huygens, whom he accompanied two years later to Stockholm, where he brought eight of his father’s drawings and paintings.¹ It is unclear why this expedition took place and what the outcome was.² He returned to London in 1622 and stayed there until 1627. While travelling abroad, he visited prominent collections, primarily to study Classical sculpture and further his skills.³

From 1627 to 1634, De Gheyn III worked in The Hague, probably alongside his father until the latter’s death in 1629.⁴ They shared a house at the Lange Houtstraat, next door to Constantijn Huygens.⁵ In 1634 he moved to Utrecht, where he became canon of the St. Mariakerk.⁶

De Gheyn III probably took up drawing at an early age; in drawings by his father, he is represented sketching. His first dated work is from 1614, Father Time, now in the collection of the Koninklijk Fries Genootschap, Leeuwarden.⁷ His oeuvre consists primarily of drawings and etchings, the latter considered his most original contribution.⁸

As a draughtsman and etcher, De Gheyn III followed in the tradition of his father and Hendrik Goltzius (1558-1617), who made pen-and-ink drawings, so-called Federkunststücke, that imitated the appearance of prints. It is sometimes difficult to differentiate the drawings of the younger De Gheyn from those of his father, but they are generally coarser in execution and reveal more attention to light and dark contrasts, using heavy pen lines, alternated with finer lines, abundant stipples and short streaks. Over the years, a small oeuvre of drawings has been established.⁹ He was also a collector and owned works by Rembrandt (1606-1669). The latter painted his portrait in 1632, now in the collection of the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London (inv. no DPG099).¹⁰

Constantijn Huygens II (1628-1697), in his autobiography, lamented the sudden breakdown of De Gheyn III’s work, because he had shown such promise as a young artist.¹¹ Indeed, only a few works are known after 1629 when his father passed away. De Gheyn III died on 5 June 1641 in Utrecht.

Carolyn Mensing, 2020

References
U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XIII (1920), p. 533 (as Gheyn, Jacob de (3)); F.G. Waller, Biographisch woordenboek van Noord Nederlandsche graveurs, The Hague 1938, p. 110; F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700, 72 vols., Amsterdam and elsewhere 1947-2010, VII (1952), pp. 193-200; H. Möhle, ‘Drawings by Jacques de Gheyn III’, Master Drawings 1 (1963), no. 2, pp. 3-12; I.Q. van Regteren Alterna, Jacques de Gheyn: Three Generations, The Hague 1983, pp. 109-31; E. Buijsen (ed.), Haagse schilders in de Gouden Eeuw. Het Hoogsteder Lexicon van alle schilders werkzaam in Den Haag, 1600-1700, Zwolle 1998, p. 307

Entry

De Gheyn III and his father, Jacques de Gheyn II (c. 1565-1629), were among the many seventeenth-century artists interested in recording natural phenomena. De Gheyn II counted several natural philosophers, botanists and physicians among his circle of friends, and drew several drawings of animals, four of which are in the Rijksmuseum’s collection: Four Studies of a Sick Mouse (inv. no. RP-T-1880-A-98), a study of A Blowfish (inv. no. RP-T-1898-A-3971) Four Studies of a Frog (inv. no. RP-T-1898-A-4036), and Two Studies of a Dead Bird (inv. no. RP-T-1898-A-3966).

The museum’s collection also includes four drawings of animals that are attributed to De Gheyn III; in addition to the present sheet and another drawing of the same turtle shell, inv. no. RP-T-1935-52, there is a drawing of a A Standing Donkey (inv. no. RP-T-1898-A-3967) and Three Studies of a Lion (inv. no. RP-T-1989-85(R).¹²

The drawings of the turtle shell were initially ascribed to De Gheyn II, but are more likely to be by his son, as they are rendered with the distinctive combination of dots and dashes that characterize the younger artist’s work.¹³ De Gheyn III clearly learnt from his father to be faithful to his model and drew the turtle shell from different viewpoints. Although the drawings are monochromatic (not to mention, lacking heads or fins of the turtle), it is possible to identify the shell as being of a Green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas), a Black sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) or a Flatback sea turtle (Natator Depressus). This identification is based on the round shape of the shell and the three vertebral scutes on the carapace that are roughly rectangular (rather than overlapping diamonds). We can, however, rule out both the Black and the Flatback, since these species are native to the East Pacific Ocean and Australia – regions that were unexplored by Dutch sailors in the seventeenth century.

Van Regteren Altena suggested that the actual prototype recorded by De Gheyn III was in the collection of the botanical gardens of Leiden University, where it was called Testa immanis testitudinis when represented in the margins of a print by Willem Isaacsz van Swanenburg (1580-1612), depicting the Hortus botanicus of Leiden University (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-1893-A-18089). Since De Gheyn III’s father had close ties with many Leiden intellectuals, he must frequently have been accompanied to the university by his son who studied its natural history collection.

Jane Shoaf Turner, 2020/Carolyn Mensing, 2020

Literature

I.Q. van Regteren Altena, The Drawings of Jacques de Gheyn, Amsterdam 1936, p. 59; K.G. Boon, Netherlandish Drawings of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, 2 vols., The Hague, 1978, nos. 243 (as Jacques de Gheyn II or III); I.Q. van Regteren Altena, Jacques de Gheyn: Three Generations, 3 vols., The Hague and elsewhere, 1983, vol. II, p. 174, no. III 81 (as attributed to De Gheyn III); J. Shoaf Turner, ‘De Gheyn’s Turtles and the Passion for Recording Natural Phenomena at the Turn of the 17th Century’, Looking through Art blog ed. by E. Hermans (online at https://lookingthroughartblog.wordpress.com/2020/07/14/de-gheyns-turtles-and-the-passion-for-recording-natural-phenomena-at-the-turn-of-the-17th-century)

Citation

J. Turner, 2020, 'attributed to Jacques de (III) Gheyn, Two Studies of the Shell of a Green Sea Turtle (Chelonia mydas), Leiden, c. 1616', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.29314

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