A Sculptor (?) with a Basket Full of Statuettes

Paris, 1615

Object data

red chalk, with pen and brown ink, over traces of graphite

height 138 mm × width 92 mm

Inscriptions

signed, annotated and dated: lower left, in brown ink, Jan Lutma van/ Embden In parijs den/ 8 (?) Augustij 1615; upper right, Rien sans peine
stamped: lower right, with the mark of Rolas du Rosey (L. 2237)
inscribed on verso: upper centre, in a seventeenth-century hand, in graphite, fragmentary inscription; lower left, in a modern hand, in pencil, dealer’s codes

Technical notes

watermark: none

Condition

Light brown stains; lower left corner damaged and made up

Provenance

…; collection Freiherr Carl Rolas du Rosey (1784-1862), Dresden (L. 2237); his sale, Leipzig (R. Weigel), 5 September 1864, no. 4653 (‘Janus Lutma. Ein Mann, welcher ein schweres Gefäss mit beiden Händen vor sich trägt. Leicht, aber zart mit Rothsteinfarbe und bezeichnet: ‘Jan Lutma van Embden In. fecyt den 8 Aug. 1625.'' H . 5" 1 "'. B. 3" 4’);¹ …; from H.C. Valkema Blouw (1883-1953), fl. 50, to the museum (L. 2228), 1953

Object number: RP-T-1953-9

The artist

Johannes Lutma (I) (Emden 1584 – Amsterdam 1669)

He was a silver- and goldsmith and possibly an engraver whose Auricular style (‘Kwabstijl’) was briefly influential among a group of artists in the Netherlands, Germany and possibly Denmark.² Based on this drawing of a sculptor in the Rijksmuseum’s collection, he was in Paris around 1615. He established himself in Amsterdam in 1621. Lutma’s younger brother, Joost Lutma (?-?), who was likewise a silversmith, also moved to Amsterdam and probably collaborated with him.³ Lutma married twice, to Mayken Roelants (?-?) in 1623 and to Saera de Bie (?-?) in 1638.⁴ By his first wife, he had two sons, Johannes Lutma II (c. 1624-1689) and Jacob Lutma (after 1624-1654), both of whom would later make engravings after their father’s designs. A well-known example is the design for the choir-screen in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-1892-A-17495).⁵ Lutma I was a friend of Rembrandt (1606-1669), who etched his portrait (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-OB-550).⁶ Lutma was buried in Amsterdam on 29 January 1669.⁷

With the exception of the present drawing, the few known drawings attributed to Lutma are all studies for his ornamental designs in silver and gold. These drawings reveal his thinking as a sculptor. The designs are quickly sketched in black chalk: he concentrated mostly on rendering a sense of volume and used highlights to convey the reflective qualities of the metal.⁸

Carolyn Mensing, 2020

References
A.D. de Vries, ‘Biografische aanteekeningen betreffende voornamelijk Amsterdamsche schilders, plaatsnijders, enz. en hunne verwanten (III)’, Oud-Holland 3 (1885), p. 226; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, vol. XXIII (1929), p. 481; J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, vol. XIX, p. 817; R. Baarsen and I. Castelijns van Beek, Kwab. Ornament als kunst in de eeuw van Rembrandt, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2018, pp. 89-157; R. Baarsen, ‘Johannes Lutma de oude als tekenaar’, Tijdschrift voor Interieurgeschiedenis en Design 42 (2020), pp. 83-98

Entry

The motto, the prominence of the detailed signature and date, and the small size of the drawing suggest that it was made for an album amicorum. It is impossible to say whether the motto Rien sans peine (‘Nothing without effort’) was that of the donor or the recipient.⁹

The drawing – Lutma’s earliest known work (predating his earliest examples of silver by nearly twenty years) – is mainly of documentary value, for so far it is the only evidence that the artist was in Paris in 1615. The meaning of the scene is not entirely clear. Is the man a silversmith, as was assumed in the Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum at the time when the drawing was purchased, or is he a sculptor carrying a basket of plaster or terracotta models?¹⁰ He cannot be a bronze-founder, for no one would have the strength to carry three or four bronze statuettes of this size. Or is that just the point, given the motto: that the man is doing something that is actually impossible?

Nothing is known about Lutma’s apprenticeship, and this drawing leaves us little the wiser. There is perhaps an echo of the School of Fontainebleau in the stylization of the figure. The meticulous manner, the way in which the red chalk has been stumped to create the effect of a mirror-smooth surface, recalls a red chalk drawing by Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem (1562-1638) in the Hessisches Landesmuseum in Darmstadt (inv. no. AE 2159), but the likeness could be coincidental.¹¹

Marijn Schapelhouman, 1998

Literature

A.D. de Vries, ‘Biografische aantekeningen betreffende voornamelijk Amsterdamsche schilders, plaatsnijders, enz. en hunne verwanten (III)’, Oud-Holland 3 (1885), p. 226 (n. 1); C. Hofstede de Groot, ‘Johannes Lutma van Groningen’, Groningsche volksalmanak (1895), p. 101; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, 3 vols., Vienna/Leipzig 1906-11, II (1910), p. 72; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50 , XXIII (1929), p. 481; ‘Aanwinsten’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum I (1953), no. 1/2, p. 38; 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. 228; R. Baarsen and I. Castelijns van Beek, Kwab. Ornament als kunst in de eeuw van Rembrandt, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2018, p. 91, fig. 105; R. Baarsen, ‘Johannes Lutma de oude als tekenaar’, Tijdschrift voor Interieurgeschiedenis en Design 42 (2020), p. 86, fig. 4

Citation

C. Mensing, 2020, 'Johannes (1584-1669) Lutma, A Sculptor (?) with a Basket Full of Statuettes, Paris, 1615-08-08', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.54744

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