Object data
black chalk
height 136 mm × width 174 mm
Pieter Bodding van Laer (after)
Hunter with Seven Dogs
1636 - 1699
Inscriptions
Technical notes
watermark: none
Provenance
…; sale, M.N. La Haye et al., Amsterdam (Bernard Houthakker and F.W.H. Hollstein), 21 February 1939, no. 28, as Albert Cuyp (?), to the dealer P. Brandt; from whom, fl. 110, with the aid of the F.G. Wallerfonds, to the museum (L. 2228), 1939
Object number: RP-T-1939-8
Credit line: Purchased with the support of the F.G. Waller-Fonds
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Pieter Bodding van Laer (Haarlem 1599 - ? in or after 1642)
Pieter van Laer was probably trained by Esaias van de Velde (1587-1630) in his native town of Haarlem. His first works, a series of drawings for a songbook which can be dated 1624, show the strong influence of Van de Velde. According to Von Sandrart, Van Laer and his brother Roeland travelled to Italy, where he stayed for sixteen years. He is first recorded as living in Rome in 1625, and he was still there three years later. Von Sandrart, who arrived in Rome himself in 1629, gives a detailed account of Pieter’s awkward appearance, which gained him the nickname ‘Bamboccio’ (rag doll) amongst the Bentvueghels. Von Sandrart also describes Van Laer’s working method as precise, and states that he did not draw from life, nor did he use prints; instead he painted mainly from memory. Indeed, there are very few known drawings by the artist. Van Laer returned to Haarlem in 1639, but according to Schrevelius soon left on a second journey to Italy. This was probably in 1642, because the 1654 will of Van Laer’s sister mentions that he had left Haarlem twelve years earlier. It is not known where or when he died.
Van Laer mainly painted small canvases. According to Passari he invented the distinct genre of Bambocciate, a version of low-life painting that has a strong naturalistic style and subjects indebted to Italian popular culture. Only one signed and dated painting is known, A Blacksmith in a Roman Ruin of 1635,1 and only thirty can be firmly attributed to him. Van Laer also produced about twenty small etchings with subjects related to his painted oeuvre.
Amongst his patrons were the Viceroy of Naples, Ferdinand Afan de Ribera (1583-1637) and Cardinal Francesco Maria Brancaccio (1592-1675). His paintings were also much sought after on the open market, however, and he soon developed a large following that produced Bambocciate. Many of these were at one time attributed to Van Laer himself, but are in fact the work of his followers, the most important of whom were Jan Miel (1599-1664), Johannes Lingelbach (1622-1674), Michelangelo Cerquozzi (1602-1660), and to a certain extent Michael Sweerts (1618-1664). His prints may have also contributed to his influence on Dutch artists of the following generation like Jan Asselijn (1610-1652), Karel Dujardin (1626-1678) and Nicolaes Berchem (1621-1683). Houbraken’s remark that Philips Wouwerman (1619-1668) owned drawings by Van Laer is supported by the latter’s borrowing of a figure in a drawing by Van Laer for one of his paintings.2
Taco Dibbits, 2007
References
Th. Schrevelius, Harlemum, sive urbis Harlemensis […], Leiden 1647, p. 290; C. de Bie, Het gulden cabinet vande edele vry schilder-const, Antwerp 1661, p. 169; J. von Sandrart, Joachim von Sandrarts Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675: Leben der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister (ed. A.R. Peltzer), Munich 1925 (orig. edn. 1675) , pp. 183-84; G.B. Passeri, Die Künstlerbiographien von Giovanni Battista Passeri (ed. J. Hess), Leipzig 1934 (orig. edn. 1679), pp. 72-74 (fols. 36r-37v); A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, I (1718), pp. 359-64; G.J. Hoogewerff, ‘Pieter van Laer en zijn vrienden’, Oud Holland 49 (1932), pp. 1-17, 205-20; G.H. Kurtz, ‘Archiefsprokkeling: nog eens Bodding (van Laer)’, Oud Holland 73 (1958), pp. 231-32; A. Blankert in A. Blankert et al., Nederlandse 17e eeuwse italianiserende landschapschilders, exh. cat. Utrecht (Centraal Museum) 1965 (1978), pp. 92-94; A. Janeck, Untersuchung über den holländischen Maler Pieter van Laer, genannt Bamboccio, Würzburg 1968, pp. 1-64; P. Schatborn in P. Schatborn, with J. Verberne, Drawn to Warmth: 17th-century Dutch Artists in Italy, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2001 , pp. 85-87
Entry
This composition corresponds in reverse to an etching from a series of eight that Van Laer made in 1636; see the impression in the Rijksmuseum (inv. no. RP-P-OB-46.824000).3 It is unlikely, however, that the drawing was a preliminary study for the print, for the rather fuzzy chalk lines indicate that it is a counterproof of another drawing, which would not have been reversed relative to the etching. The sheet from which it was offset was therefore probably a copy after the print. For one thing, it follows the printed forms almost too precisely, and, secondly, some lines behind the figure and the dogs match elements of the print’s background, albeit very fragmentarily, without making much sense without further context. Additional evidence that the drawing was made after the etching is provided by the man's staff, which ends abruptly at exactly the same height as in the print, where it is truncated by the edge of the composition.
Another copy after the print, this time in red chalk and in the same orientation as the etching, is preserved in the Albertina Vienna (inv. no. 9243), and there is a third version in the British Museum in London, of the dogs alone, which is in red chalk and brown ink (inv. no. 1895,0915.1195).4 It, too, is in the same sense as the print and was probably copied from it.
The truncated inscription A. Cuijp at lower right suggests that the present sheet was once attributed to that artist. That is not so surprising, for there are some points of resemblance with figure studies by Cuyp.5
Marijn Schapelhouman, 1998
Literature
L.C.J. Frerichs, Berchem en de Bentgenoten in Italië, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet) 1970, no. 33 (as [???]); P. Schatborn and K.G. Boon, Dutch Genre Drawings of the Seventeenth Century: A Loan Exhibition from Dutch Museums, Foundations and Private Collections, exh. cat. New York (Pierpont Morgan Library)/Boston (Museum of Fine Arts)/Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago) 1972-73, no. 57 (as Pieter van Laer); P. Schatborn, Hollandse genre-tekeningen uit de zeventiende eeuw, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet) 1973, pp. 26-27, 110, 157 (as Pieter van Laer); M. Schapelhouman and P. Schatborn, Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: Artists Born between 1580 and 1600, 2 vols., coll. cat. Amsterdam 1998, no. 223
Citation
M. Schapelhouman, 1998, 'after Pieter Bodding van Laer, Hunter with Seven Dogs, 1636 - 1699', in J. Turner (ed.), (under construction) Drawings 2, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200141599
(accessed 14 December 2025 05:49:53).