Rijksmuseum

Object data

pen and brown ink, with watercolour; framing line in dark brown ink

height mm × width 120 mm

Inscriptions

monogrammed: upper right, possibly in a later hand, in grey ink, HA (in ligature)
inscribed on verso of mount, in grey ink: lower left, HA (in ligature); below that, Hendricus Avercamp sijnde De stom van Kampen
stamped on verso of mount: upper right, with the mark of the museum, (L. 2228); lower right, with the mark of F.G. Waller (L. 2760)

Technical notes

watermark: none

Literature scientific examination and reports

Light brown stains throughout; laid down

Provenance

…; sale, Willem Frederik Piek (1838-1916, Oudshoorn), Amsterdam (F. Muller), 1 June 1897 sqq., no. 2 (‘Le portrait du maître. Avercamp s'est représenté en âge déjà avancé, vu des trois-quarts, assis et dessinant, la tête couverte d'un bonnet pointu. Au revers du dessin, on lit: Hendricus Avercamp sijnde de stom van Kampen. Plume et lavis. - Hauteur to, largeur 12 cent’), fl. 18, to ‘Valk for G[erritsen]’;¹ sale, Antonius Wilhelmus Mari Mensing et al. [section Hermanus Philippus Gerritsen (1850-1917, The Hague)], 29 November (1 December) 1939 sqq., no. 98, with over 2,100 other objects, bought in at fl. 3,000;² purchased from the auction house F. Muller, fl. 3,725, en bloc, to the dealer P. Brandt, Amsterdam, for the museum (L. 2228), 1940, with support from the F.G. Wallerfonds

Object number: RP-T-1940-2

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the F.G. Waller-Fonds

The artist

Hendrick Avercamp (Amsterdam 1585 – Kampen 1634)

The eldest son of the apothecary Barent Hendricksz Avercamp (1557-1602) and Beatrix Peters Vekemans (c. 1563-1633), he was baptized in the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam on 27 January 1585.³ In 1586 his father became the town apothecary of Kampen, and the family moved there. Hendrick has long been assumed to have been deaf and mute from birth, since he was commonly known as ‘de Stom’ or ‘de Stomme’ (‘the Mute’). Because one of the buyers at the 1607 studio sale of Pieter Isaacsz (1568-1625) in Amsterdam is mentioned as ‘de stom tot Pieter Isacqs’ (‘the mute at Pieter Isaacz’s’),⁴ it is thought that Avercamp was sent to Amsterdam to live and study with the history and portrait painter Pieter Isaacsz, who returned to his native Denmark in that year. By January 1613, but probably earlier, Avercamp must have returned to Kampen, where he remained for the rest of his life. Shortly before his mother died, she expressed in her will her concern about her unmarried eldest son, Hendrick, who she called ‘stom en miserable’ (‘mute and wretched’).⁵ Hendrick was buried on 15 May 1634 in the Bovenkerk (or St Nicolaaskerk) in Kampen.⁶

Avercamp painted and drew mainly winter scenes, which in the seventeenth century were called ‘wintertjes’. His early paintings, executed in 1608 and 1609, show the influence of Flemish landscape painters, such as Hans Bol (1534-1593), Gillis van Coninxloo (1544-1607) and David Vinckboons I (1576-1631/33), and a strong interest in narrative details in the tradition of Pieter Bruegel I (c. 1528-1569). The Flemish influence became less noticeable in his later works, with the horizon lines being lower and the perspective more natural. Although best known for his winter landscape paintings, he also drew and painted some summer and river landscapes.

Hendrick Avercamp was a prolific draughtsman, who worked mostly in pen, chalk and watercolour, creating figure studies that were recycled repeatedly in his paintings, as well as fully worked-out drawings as detailed as his paintings. The latter works were probably intended for sale. Paintings by artists such as Arent Arentsz (1585/86-1631), Adam van Breen (c. 1585-after 1642), Antonie Verstralen (c. 1594-1641) and Hendrick’s nephew Barent Avercamp (1612/13-1679) strongly resemble his work, but it is unclear whether those artists were taught by him or simply imitated his work.

Jan-Piet Filedt Kok, 2007

REFERENCES
E. Bénézit, ‘Hendrick Avercamp’, in U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, II (1908), pp. 276-77; C.J. Welcker, Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634), bijgenaamd ‘De Stomme van Campen’ en Barent Avercamp (1612-1679). ‘Schilders tot Campen’, Zwolle 1933, pp. 33-71; C.J. Welcker and D.J. Hensbroek-van der Poel, Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634), bijgenaamd ‘De Stomme van Campen’ en Barent Avercamp (1612-1679). ‘Schilders tot Campen’, Doornspijk 1979, pp. 33-71; A. Blankert, Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634), Barent Avercamp (1612-1679): Frozen Silence: Paintings from Museums and Private Collections, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Waterman Gallery)/Zwolle (Provinciehuis Overijssel) 1982-83, pp. 15-36; D.J. Hensbroek-van der Poel, ‘Hendrick Avercamp’, in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, 94 vols., Munich 1992-, V (1992), pp. 728-29; D.J. Hensbroek-van der Poel, ‘Avercamp Family’, in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, II, pp. 854-55; J. Bikker, ‘Hendrick Avercamp: “The Mute of Kampen”, in P. Roelofs et al., Hendrick Avercamp: Master of the Ice Scene, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 2009-10, pp. 11-21

Entry

The monogram at upper right was probably added by the same collector or dealer who wrote the monogram and the annotation in imitation of an old hand on the back of the mount. The style is vaguely reminiscent of Avercamp’s work of around 1620, but the resemblances are not so close that this little portrait can be attributed to him unreservedly. The thin, calligraphic pencil lines cursorily indicating the upper body, arms and hands are by no means characteristic of Avercamp. The rather heavy areas of grey wash lack plasticity and may be a later addition.

In the past, this was taken to be a self-portrait, but that is unlikely on the grounds of the age of the sitter, who appears older than the forty-nine years that were Avercamp’s full life span. There is nothing to support Welcker’s hypothesis that this is a portrait of the Kampen painter Gerrit van der Horst (1581/82-1629).

Marijn Schapelhouman, 1998

Literature

A. Welcker, ‘Gerryt (Gerard) van der Horst of Gerhard Horst’, Oud-Holland 68 (1953), pp. 41 (fig. 13), 42; H. van Hall, Portretten van Nederlandse beeldende kunstenaars, Amsterdam 1963, pp. 8 (Avercamp sub I), 145 (Van der Horst sub I); C.J. Welcker and D.J. Hensbroek-van der Poel, Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634), bijgenaamd ‘De Stomme van Campen’ en Barent Avercamp (1612-1679). ‘Schilders tot Campen’, Doornspijk 1979, no. T 21.1 (p. 303, no. T 518); 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. 19

Citation

M. Schapelhouman, 1998, 'attributed to Hendrick Avercamp, Head of a Man in a Cap, Drawing or Writing, c. 1620 - after c. 1620', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.52948

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