Sheet of Studies with Hunters, Horses and Dogs

c. 1650 - c. 1654

Object data

red chalk

height 130 mm × width 166 mm

Inscriptions

inscribed on mount, in pencil: lower centre, by an eighteenth- or nineteenth-century hand, Nicola Berghem del:; lower right (unidentified mark), J (?)
inscribed on mount, on verso, in pencil: upper right, 185-393; centre right (with the sheet turned 90°), L07 / 276
stamped on mount, on verso: lower centre, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)

Technical notes

Watermark: None visible through lining

Condition

In the corners, stains from adhesive; several small ink (?) stains in black and grey all over the paper

Provenance

…; sale, Einar Perman (1893-1976, Stockholm) [Section ‘‘Various Properties’’], Amsterdam (Mak van Waay), 10 June 1975, no. 92, as Attributed to Pieter van Laer, fl. 1,500, to the museum

Object number: RP-T-1975-50

The artist

Jan Blom (Amsterdam c. 1621/22 - Amsterdam 1684)

He is first mentioned in 1726 by Casparus Commelin as a painter from Amsterdam who specialized in landscape, grottos and Roman courtyards and who also served as Provost of the militia company of the Orange Regiment. Several documents can be associated with the artist, but there is also some confusion with namesakes.¹ In 1651 he married Wybrecht Claesdr (?-?), and the same year they drew up a will appointing each other as beneficiary.² This was perhaps prompted by his intention to travel to Italy. A painting by Blom dated the following year, showing the Gardens of Villa Farnese, Rome, formerly on the art market),³ is probably based on first-hand experience. Another testament was registered on 5 February 1658, witnessed by the painter Albert Jansz Klomp (1625-1688). It was probably Blom who on 18 September 1662 sold a house to the painter Johannes Lingelbach (1622-1674), with whom he often collaborated.⁴ Between 1662 and 1666, Blom is documented as living in Amsterdam on the Singel, suggesting that he was then well off. In 1672 he was among the artists invited by the dealer Gerrit Uylenburg (c. 1625-1679) to appraise a selection of Italian paintings in a lawsuit against Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg (1620-1688). On this occasion, Blom stated that he has seen comparable paintings in Holland and Italy, confirming his presumed trip to the south.⁵ In 1673, Blom was appointed Provost of the Amsterdam Guild of Arquebusiers. At the end of his life, he, like so many of his fellow artists, suffered from financial woes. On 7 December 1675, he drew up an inventory of his property. According to Bredius, he was buried on 27 December 1684 in the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam,⁶ and another inventory of his properties was requested by his widow on 1 January 1685.

Jan Blom had four children: Anna (?-?), who in 1671 married the notary Nicolaes Hemminck (?-?), Jan the younger (?-?), Claas (1654-?), Dirck (1656-?) and Harmen (?-1727). Harmen’s estate inventory includes paintings by his father, confirming Commelin’s statement that his children inherited paintings by their father.⁷ Besides Italianate landscapes and park views (the themes for which he is best known), there is a striking share of plants (‘Kruiden’) – as listed in the more scantily formulated inventories of the artist’s own properties.⁸ Blom also left paintings by fellow artists such as Klomp, as well as Frederik de Moucheron (1633-1686) and Otto Marseus van Schrieck (1614/20-1678). Only a few drawings have been tentatively associated with Blom’s name.

Annemarie Stefes, 2018

References
C. Commelin, Beschryvinge van Amsterdam, zynde een naukeurige verhandelinge van desselfs eerste oorspronk uyt den Huyse der Heeren van Amstel, en Amstellant, haar Vergrooting, Rykdom, en Wyze van Regeeringe, tot den Jare 1691, 2 vols., Amsterdam 1726, II, p. 868; A.D. de Vries, ‘Biografische aantekeningen betreffende voornamelijk Amsterdamsche schilders, plaatsnijders, enz. en hunne verwanten I’, Oud Holland 3 (1885), p. 64; A. Bredius (ed.), Künstler-Inventare: Urkunden zur Geschichte der holländischen Kunst des XVIten, XVIIten und XVIIIten Jahrhunderts, 8 vols., The Hague 1915-22, V (1918), pp. 1531-48; E.W. Moes, ‘Jan Blom’, in U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, IV (1910), p. 130, with earlier literature; L. Salerno, Pittori di paesaggio del Seicento a Roma, 3 vols., Rome 1977-80, II (1978), pp. 600-01; R. Trnek, Die Niederländer in Italien: Italianisante Niederländer des 17. Jahrhunderts aus österreichischem Besitz, exh. cat. Salzburg (Residenzgalerie)/Vienna (Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der Bildenden Künste) 1986, p. 67; U.B. Wegener, ‘Jan Blom’, in A. Beyer et al. (eds.), Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, Munich 1992-, XI (1995), pp. 559-60; 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. 115

Entry

Although initially this might give the impression of being a collection of figurative motifs copied from various sources, the presence of several pentimenti, for instance in the contours of the dog at lower left and in the hind legs of the horse, speaks in favour of a sheet of original studies, randomly assembled. Three different scenes can be discerned: an elegantly dressed hunter accompanied by three greyhounds; a man talking to a mounted horseman, the latter wrapped in his cloak while his horse and a dog are drinking from a trough, watched by another man standing behind; and two hunters being greeted by a dog descending from a stair.

Passages such as the stiffly rendered hat of the standing hunter in the foreground or the ill-defined cloak of the man on horseback exclude the authorship of any of the artists with whom the drawing was previously associated: Nicolaes Berchem (c. 1621/22-1638), according to an old inscription; Pieter van Laer (1599-after 1641), according to the 1975 sale catalogue; or Karel Dujardin (1626-1678), according to the museum’s inventory book. Moreover, none of the motifs can be linked to works by any of these artists.

However, a near identical detail of an elegantly dressed hunter, with one of his greyhounds seated on the ground and looking up at him, appears in a painting by Jan Blom, Resting Hunters outside of a Country Estate, dated 1660, in the Ferdinandeum, Tiroler Landesmuseen, Innsbruck (inv. no. 667), except that there the staff he holds was replaced by a rifle.⁹ The figure, with minor variations, also features in the background of Blom’s Hunters with Dogs in front of a Country Estate of 1654, formerly on the London art market,¹⁰ and the rider letting his horse drink from a trough occurs in a painting, Hunting Company at a Well in front of a Palace dated 1656, formerly in the Wallach collection, which was also once on the London art market.¹¹ The man greeted by his dog at the bottom of a stairway is a constant feature in all these works.

As a draughtsman, Blom is still largely unstudied. The only drawing traditionally attributed to him, View in an Italian Garden (Villa Borghese?), in the Rijksmuseum (inv. no. RP-T-1897-A-3351), differs in subject-matter and technique and may have been intended as an autonomous drawing; it nonetheless reflects the kind of elegant Italianate garden setting in which Blom’s figures are normally placed. Closer in style is Two Footboys in the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg (inv. no. 22585), a black chalk figure drawing recently attributed to Blom by this writer.¹² It not only is comparable in subject-matter, it also betrays a certain stiffness – a reflection of his lack of experience as a figural artist – that seems to be a distinguishing feature of the artist’s hand. Blom may have been trying to learn from his contemporary colleague Johannes Lingelbach (1622-1678), to whom he sold a house and who often supplied the elegant hunters and other figures in Blom’s paintings of Italianate garden scenes.

Annemarie Stefes, 2018

Literature

M. Gruijs, De tekeningen van Karel Dujardin (1626-1678), Utrecht 2003 (Thesis, Universiteit van Utrecht), no. IV-4 (as not by Dujardin)

Citation

A. Stefes, 2018, 'Jan Blom, Sheet of Studies with Hunters, Horses and Dogs, c. 1650 - c. 1654', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.36755

(accessed 14 November 2024 19:06:14).