Young Man Seated on a Book on a Bench

? Gouda, c. 1650 - c. 1660

Object data

black chalk; framing lines in black chalk and brown ink (lower border, partially trimmed)

height 205 mm × width 218 mm

Inscriptions

inscribed on verso: lower left, in an eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century hand, in graphite, Uit de Verzameling van / Slingerland / [...] 50 wvo; below that, by Goll van Franckenstein, in brown ink, N 4146 (L. 2987); next to that, in a nineteenth- or early twentieth-century hand, in pencil, G. METSU
stamped on verso: lower left, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

watermark: none

Condition

Thin spots along left border

Provenance

...; sale, Jan Lucas van der Dussen (1724-1773, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (J.S. Hendriks et al.), 31 October 1774, no. 709 (‘Gabriel Metzu. Een Jongeling, zittende op een Bank, met een Tinne Wynkan in zyn hand; fraay met zwart Kryt getekend’), fl. 5:-;¹ …; ? collection Johan van der Linden van Slingeland (1701-1782), Dordrecht;² ...; collection Jonkheer Johan Goll van Franckenstein (1756-1821), Amsterdam and Velzen (L. 2987); his son, Jonkheer Pieter Hendrik Goll van Franckenstein (1787-1832), Amsterdam and Velzen; his sale, Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 1 July 1833 sqq., Album K, no. 7 (‘Gabriel Metzu. Een Man, zittende op eene bank, en hebbende een bierkan in de hand. Breed met zw. krijt’), fl. 40, to the dealer C.F. Roos, Amsterdam;³ ...; collection Jonkheer Johan Adriaan Repelaer van Driel (1889-1966), The Hague;⁴ his sale, The Hague (Venduehuis der Notarissen), 7 November 1967 sqq., no. 169, to the museum (L. 2228), with the support of the Stichting tot Bevordering van de Belangen van het Rijksmuseum, 1967

Object number: RP-T-1967-92

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Stichting tot Bevordering van de Belangen van het Rijksmuseum

The artist

Constantijn Verhout (active Gouda c. 1663 - 1667)

Little is known about this genre painter, also known as Constantijn Voorhout. In 1666 and 1667, he is documented in Gouda and was probably also active in Delft. He was described by Houbraken as a ‘nice painter of modern history’ (‘fraai schilder van Modern Historien’) and as the first master in Gouda of Johannes Voorhout (1647-1723), who was perhaps a relative.⁵ Only two dated paintings by Verhout are known, the Portrait of Cornelis Abrahamsz Graswinckel (1662), formerly in the collection of Alfred and Isabel Bader, Milwaukee⁶ and a Sleeping Student (1663) in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (inv no. NM 677).⁷

Annemarie Stefes, 2019

References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, III (1721), p. 224; R. van Eijnden and A. van der Willigen, Geschiedenis der vaderlandsche schilderkunst, 4 vols., Haarlem 1816-40, I (1816), p. 283; J. Immerzeel, De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1842-43, II (1843), p. 326; C. Kramm, De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, beeldhouwers, graveurs en bouwmeesters van den vroegsten tot op onzen tijd, 7 vols., Amsterdam 1857-64, IV (1861), p. 1312; A.D. de Vries, ‘Biografische aanteekeningen betreffende voornamelijk Amsterdamsche schilders, plaatsnijders, enz. en hunne verwanten (I)’, Oud-Holland 3 (1885), p. 69; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, 3 vols., Vienna/Leipzig 1906-11, II (1910), p. 770; A. Bredius (ed.), Künstler-Inventare: Urkunden zur Geschichte der holländischen Kunst des XVIten, XVIIten und XVIIIten Jahrhunderts, 8 vols., The Hague 1915-22, IV (1917), p. 1399; A. Bredius, ‘Pictures by Constantyn Verhout’, Burlington Magazine 41 (1922), no. 235, pp. 174-77; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XXXIV (1940), p. 254; P. Schatborn, ‘Dutchmen Found in Copenhagen: Figure Drawings by Simon Kick and Constantijn Verhout’, in V. Villadsen (ed.), European Drawings from Six Centuries: Festschrift to Erik Fischer, Copenhagen 1990, pp. 194-204; A. van der Willigen and F. Meijer, A Dictionary of Dutch and Flemish Still-life Painters Working in Oils, 1525-1725, Leiden 2003, p. 206; D. De Witt, The Bader Collection: Dutch and Flemish Paintings, coll. cat. Kingston (ON) (Agnes Etherington Art Centre) 2008, pp. 308-10; P. Groenendijk, Beknopt biografisch lexicon van Zuid- en Noord-Nederlandse schilders, graveurs, glasschilders, tapijtwevers et cetera van ca. 1350 tot ca. 1720, Utrecht 2008, p. 621; https://rkd.nl/explore/artists/64531; http://www.vondel.humanities.uva.nl/ecartico/persons/1238

Entry

This drawing was traditionally attributed to Gabriel Metsu (1629-1667), the name under which it entered the Rijksmuseum. In 1990 Schatborn reassigned it and two other sheets in the museum to Constantijn Verhout (inv. nos. RP-T-1937-70 and RP-T-1885-A-496), both also previously given to Metsu.

Schatborn identified five drawings in other collections that could also be attributed to the little-known Verhout, who, as a painter, specialized in genre scenes with one or two half-length figures: Standing Boy Wearing a Hat in the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (inv. no. Tu 54,1), also formerly given to Metsu;⁸ Seated Boy Looking for Fleas in his Jacket in the Kupferstich-Kabinett, Dresden (inv. no. C 2042), where it is catalogued as by Jan Miel (1599-1664);⁹ Standing Boy at a Table in the Kupferstichkabinet, Berlin (KdZ 14004), formerly classified as manner of Gerard ter Borch II (1617-1681);¹⁰ Elegant Young Man Seated on a Block, which appeared on the Amsterdam art market as by Metsu in 1991,¹¹ but was offered as Verhout when it resurfaced on the New York art market in 2007;¹² and Young Man Seated on a Bench, in the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris (inv. no. Mas 1888), formerly given to Anthonie Palamedesz (1602-1673).¹³

This initial group of eight sheets has been augmented by three others, bringing the artist’s possible drawn oeuvre to eleven works. The proposed additions are: Young Man Seated on a Low Plinth, Turned to the Left in the Special Collections, Universiteit Leiden (inv. no. PK-T-AW-1301), a proposal advanced by Leonore van Sloten;¹⁴ and two re-attributions suggested by the present writer, the Rijksmuseum’s Seated Boy, Drawing (inv. no. RP-T-1902-A-4579), previously given to Godefridus Schalcken (1643-1706); and and a Seated Young Man, which was on the London art market in 2005 and in 2014 with the dealer Otto Naumann, New York.¹⁵

Several of these drawings, including the present sheet and inv. nos. RP-T-1967-92 and RP-T-1902-A-4579, may have been drawn from the same young male model, with only minor variations in dress. Based on clothing, facial features and hairstyle, Schatborn hypothesized in 1990 that the same model was depicted in Verhout’s Sleeping Student, a signed and dated painting (1663) by the artist in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (inv no. NM 677),¹⁶ whose foreground is dominated by a still-life of stacked books.

Another recurring motif is a book used as a studio prop in all four of the Rijksmuseum’s drawings. In the present sheet, a book serves as seat cushion; in inv. no. RP-T-1885-A-496, a book is being read by the female figure; in inv. no. RP-T-1937-70, a young man is apparently recording sums in an account book; and in inv. no. RP-T-1902-A-4579, a portfolio is propped up on the desk against the wall.

Another common feature of the drawings now given to Verhout is the attention paid to the rendering of surface textures through the soft handling of the chalk, as in the hard, shiny metal of the jug contrasting with the soft fabrics of clothes.

Annemarie Stefes, 2019

Literature

‘Keuze uit de aanwinsten’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 16 (1968), p. 39, fig. 15 (as Metsu); 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. 65 (as Metsu); P. Schatborn, ‘Dutchmen Found in Copenhagen: Figure Drawings by Simon Kick and Constantijn Verhout’, in V. Villadsen (ed.), European Drawings from Six Centuries: Festschrift to Erik Fischer, Copenhagen 1990, pp. 194-204 (fig. 12); P. Schatborn and L. van Sloten, Old Drawings, New Names: Rembrandt and his Contemporaries, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 2014, no. 59; J. Schaeps and J. van der Veen (eds.), Leiden viert feest! Hoogtepunten uit een academische collectie, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 2014-15, p. 142 (fig. 60a); E. Brugerolles and O. Savatier Sjöholm (eds.), Dessiner le quotidien: La Hollande au siècle d’or, exh. cat. Paris (Musée du Louvre) 2017, p. 86 (n. 4), under no. 29

Citation

A. Stefes, 2019, 'Constantijn Verhout, Young Man Seated on a Book on a Bench, Gouda, c. 1650 - c. 1660', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.60985

(accessed 24 November 2024 02:55:13).