Recumbent Pig

Adriaen Verdoel I (Poortugaal, near Rotterdam 1623 – Vlissingen 1675)

He was the son of a corn miller, Joris Claesz. Verdoel (1585-1631/37), and Susanna IJsbrantsdr. van Bijlant (c. 1583-1650). Houbraken’s claims that he was born c. 1620 in Overmaas (on the other side of the River Maas) and was a pupil of Rembrandt (1606-1669) have now been discounted.¹ We now know that he came from a small village near Rotterdam, that he was baptized on 9 April 1623 and that the Verdoel family moved to Schiedam in 1625.² Houbraken was, however, accurate about his training under two other artists, first Leonaert Bramer (1596-1674) and later (1640) Jacob de Wet the elder (c. 1610-1677/91). In 1649 VerdoelAdriaen became a member of the Guild of St Luke in Haarlem, where he remained active until 1660. He married Cornelia Willemsdr (?-1655), with whom he made a will in Haarlem in February 1654, while she was pregnant.^{Ibid., p. 355.] She must, however, have died during childbirth or shortly after having given birth to their son Nicolaes Verdoel (1655-?), since Adriaen signed a prenuptial agreement with his second wife, Maria Cornelisdr van Warmondt (?-?), on 21 August 1655, and exactly a week later was described as a widower with a twenty-week-old son, Nicolaes.³

Verdoel’s move to Vlissingen must have taken place before 1666. He is assumed to be the same ‘Adriaen Verdoel’ who was apparently buried there on 19 January 1675, the year that, according to Houbraken, he was awarded the top prize as a member of the local Chamber of Rhetoric.⁴ His interest in poetry and literature also shows in his disposition to paint history themes. He also created landscapes and animal pieces, the latter mostly devoted to pigs and clearly influenced by Paulus Potter (1625-1654), who had also studied with De Wet.⁵ Verdoel’s paintings are rarely dated, and there are no other drawings attributed to himVerdoel besides the one in the Rijksmuseum.

Adriaen Verdoel was the teacher of Jan de Groot (1650-1726).⁶ It is not known whether his son, the still-life painter Adriaen Verdoel II (?-1700/1720), was the child of Verdoel’s first or second marriage, most likely the second, given his documented period of activity (1691–1700) and his recorded membership of the Guild of St Luke of Middelburg (1695–96).

Jane Shoaf Turner, 2019

References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, II (1719), pp. 57-58; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, 3 vols., Vienna/Leipzig 1906-11, II (1910), p. 765, with earlier literature; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XXXIV (1940), p. 235, with earlier literature; L.J. Bol, Holländische Maler des 17. Jahrhunderts nahe den großen Meistern: Landschaften und Stilleben, Braunschweig 1969, p. 230-31; W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, 6 vols., Landau 1983-1994, IV (1989), p. 2728; A. van der Willigen and B. Meijer, A Dictionary of Dutch and Flemish Still-life Painters Working in Oils, 1525-1725, Leiden 2003, p. 203; G. Seelig and D. Blübaum (eds.), Kosmos der Niederländer: Die Sammlung Christoph Müller: Bestandskatalog Staatliches Museum Schwerin, coll. cat. Schwerin 2013, pp. 286-87; A. Jager, ‘Galey-schilders’ en ‘dosijnwerck’. De productie, distributie en consumptie van goedkope historiestukken in zeventiende-eeuws, Amsterdam 2016 (PhD diss., Universiteit van Amsterdam), pp. 354-57; A. Jager, ‘The Workshop of Jacob de Wet (1610-1675) and his Mass Production of History Painting’, Oud Holland 131 (2018), no. 2, p. 104