Interior with an Old Woman Cutting Bread and Two Children in Prayer

1640 - 1645

Object data

oil on panel

support: height 70.5 cm × width 55 cm
outer size: depth 5.5 cm (support incl. SK-L-3344)

Inscriptions

signature, lower right, on the table stretcher: K. SLABBA[…]

Technical notes

Support The single, vertically grained oak plank is approx. 0.9 cm thick. The right edge has been trimmed slightly at the bottom. The reverse is bevelled on all sides and has irregularly spaced saw marks. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1615. The panel could have been ready for use by 1626, but a date in or after 1632 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The single, beige ground extends up to the edges of the support. It consists of earth pigments with an addition of white pigment particles varying in size.
Underdrawing Some lines of underdrawing are visible with infrared reflectography, for example in the hemlines of the skirts, the book on the floor and the tablecloth.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the edges of the support. A greyish-brown, initial lay-in of the composition has remained visible in a few places, for example the thinly executed area around the woman’s eye. The foreground scene was for the most part reserved, as was the rack with coats. The woman’s cloak was first laid in with opaque, bright red paint before a red glaze was added for the shadows. The wall behind the woman and children, as well as the white tablecloths were laid in with dark paint and then scumbled over with grey or white. The table carpet was elaborately worked up from dark to light with an intricate pattern of orange and ochre colours, followed by final, delicate, white highlights. Infrared reflectography revealed two small figures in the left background that were painted over with the map on the wall. The two figures in the view through on the right were placed on top of the background. The brushwork is finely executed and the paint surface is very smooth with just some impasto in the clothing.
Anna Krekeler, 2024

Scientific examination and reports

dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 28 January 2011
infrared reflectography: A. Krekeler, RMA, 28 July 2011
paint samples: A. Krekeler, RMA, nos. SK-A-375/1-2, 28 July 2011
technical report: A. Krekeler, RMA, 28 July 2011

Condition

Good. The plank has a slight convex warp. The varnish is extremely thick, has severely yellowed and saturates moderately.

Conservation

W.A. Hopman, 1874 - 1875: varnish regenerated

Provenance

…; sale, Baroness Hermina Jacoba van Leyden van Warmond, née Comtesse de Thoms (1744-1814), Warmond, sold on the premises (P. van der Schley et al.), 31 July 1816, no. 33, as H. Slabbaert (‘Une femme assise devant une table couverte de commestibles, est occupée à trancher du pain à ses enfants qui font leur prière. La chaleur du coloris, la beauté des détails, la vérité de l’expression, prouvent que ce maître, dont les tableaux sont rares, peut-être rangé parmi les peintres du premier mérite. Sur bois, haut 26 pouces, large 21 pouces [66.8 x 54 cm]), fl. 841, to De Vries, for the museum¹

Object number: SK-A-375

The artist

Karel Slabbaert (Zierikzee 1618/19 - Middelburg 1654)

At his betrothal on 8 April 1645 Karel Slabbaert stated that he was 26 years old, so he must have been born in 1618 or 1619. He also indicated that he came from Zierikzee. His parents had settled there in 1601 as immigrants from Bruges in the southern Netherlands. It has been suggested that the young Slabbaert was a pupil of the Zierikzee portrait painter Jacob Lambrechtsz Loncke. He probably completed his training in Leiden, where he is mentioned in 1640 and 1641. On the evidence of his choice of subjects and certain motifs in his work it is thought that he could have been taught by Gerrit Dou. It is clear from certain documents in the Leiden archives that he knew Pieter Potter and was a friend of Isaac Koedijck. His earliest dated painting, of 1641, is a simple still life with a rummer and smoking paraphernalia.² At some point in the first half of the 1640s Slabbaert must have moved to Amsterdam, where he signed a marriage contract to Cornelia Bouwers of Rotterdam on 9 March 1645 and their banns were posted a month later. That same year he joined the Guild of St Luke in Middelburg, of which he became a warden in 1649-50 and dean in 1653. He was buried in that city on 6 November 1654.

Slabbaert’s small painted oeuvre embraces several genres, among them portraits and still lifes. He also etched the likenesses of two Middelburg dignitaries. The city’s guild registers list several pupils whom he taught in 1653-54: Abraham Borm (c. 1618/38-1667/68), Eeuwout Adriaensz van Schagen (c. 1637/41-1664/66) and Abraham Bastiaensz (c. 1638/42-1658/78).

Gerdien Wuestman, 2024

References
J. Immerzeel Jr, De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, beeldhouwers, graveurs en bouwmeesters: Van het begin der vijftiende eeuw tot heden, III, Amsterdam 1843, p. 92; C. Kramm, De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, beeldhouwers, graveurs en bouwmeesters: Van den vroegsten tot op onzen tijd, V, Amsterdam 1861, pp. 1526-27; A. Bredius, ‘De gildeboeken van St. Lucas te Middelburg’, in F.D.O. Obreen, Archief voor Nederlandsche kunstgeschiedenis: Verzameling van meerendeels onuitgegeven berichten en mededeelingen betreffende Nederlandsche schilders, plaatsnijders, beeldhouwers, bouwmeesters, juweliers, goud- en zilverdrijvers [enz.], VI, Rotterdam 1884-87, pp. 106-264, esp. p. 182; A.D. de Vries, ‘Biografische aanteekeningen betreffende voornamelijk Amsterdamsche schilders, plaatsnijders, enz. en hunne verwanten’, Oud Holland 3 (1885), pp. 55-80, 135-60, 223-40, 303-12, esp. p. 137; Gerson in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XXXI, Leipzig 1937, p. 128; L.J. Bol, ‘“Goede onbekenden”: Hedendaagse herkenning en verkenning van verscholen, voorbijgezien en onderschat talent: Karel Slabbaert’, Tableau 4 (1982), pp. 582-88; J.G.C.A. Briels, Vlaamse schilders in de Noordelijke Nederlanden in het begin van de Gouden Eeuw 1585-1630, Haarlem 1987, p. 384; A. van der Willigen and F.G. Meijer, A Dictionary of Dutch and Flemish Still-Life Painters Working in Oils, 1525-1725, Leiden 2003, p. 181

Entry

This scene is among the most important works in the small oeuvre of Karel Slabbaert, who died young.³ He appears to have had a preference for painting children like the two in this interior, who look on as a seated old woman cuts a loaf of bread.⁴ The eldest, who has a footwarmer with an apple on top hanging from her arm, has joined her hands in prayer, while the little boy is praying in the way that men used to do, with his hat in front of his chest. These poses place the scene in the tradition of saying grace before a meal.⁵ The motif of the woman cutting bread and the two children occurs in a similar manner in a print from a series depicting the four times of the day by Hendrick Goltzius.⁶

In the right background there is a view through to another room. Hanging on the wall in the main interior is a map with an ornamental border and a lengthy legend, which unfortunately cannot be identified.⁷ This intimate scene is executed in warm shades of red and brown.⁸ Slabbaert paid close attention to details such as the bobbin lace pillow on the chair on the left and to the imitation of various materials, including those of the woman’s headscarf, the girl’s dress and the carpet and linen cloths on the table.

The picture shows that Slabbaert was receptive to the work of his contemporaries. The composition comes from the Leiden tradition,⁹ while the lighting effect and palette are more Rembrandtesque.¹⁰ The artist rarely dated his paintings, but the distinctively Leiden look of this one suggests that it was made in or just after his time there, i.e. in the first half of the 1640s.

Gerdien Wuestman, 2024

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

L.J. Bol, ‘“Goede onbekenden”: Hedendaagse herkenning en verkenning van verscholen, voorbijgezien en onderschat talent: Karel Slabbaert’, Tableau 4 (1982), pp. 582-88, esp. p. 587

Collection catalogues

1843, p. 55, no. 286 (‘in good condition’; as H. Slabbaert); 1853, p. 25, no. 258 (fl. 500); 1858, p. 129, no. 289; 1880, pp. 283-84, no. 329; 1887, p. 159, no. 1340; 1903, p. 247, no. 2202; 1976, pp. 514-15, no. A 375

Citation

Gerdien Wuestman, 2024, 'Karel Slabbaert, Interior with an Old Woman Cutting Bread and Two Children in Prayer, 1640 - 1645', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5462

(accessed 14 November 2024 17:14:00).