Object data
oil on panel
support: height 75.5 cm × width 106.5 cm
depth 5 cm
Jan Woutersz Stap
The Notary’s Office
c. 1629
Inscriptions
- signature, upper left: Iohan [...] woute [...]
- inscription, on the open book: Anno 1.29 den 13 / J[.]nnewarij hebbe ick / ontvangen van Pieter / Pietersen op dat nase / dorp 29 gul 7 stuver / noch 8 gul x stuij (The 13th of January Anno 1.29 I received from Pieter Pietersen of that village on the ness 29 guilders and 7 stuivers, leaving 8 guilders and 10 stuivers)
Technical notes
The support consists of three horizontally grained oak planks and is bevelled on all sides. The light-coloured ground appears orange because the wood of the support shows through. Brushmarking is apparent throughout. There is a pentimento in the woman’s right arm, the position of which has been lowered.
Scientific examination and reports
- technical report: W. de Ridder, RMA, 3 November 1998
Condition
Fair. The varnish layers and old retouchings have discoloured.
Provenance
...; sale, J.H. Cremer (1813-85, Arnhem and Ixelles), Amsterdam (F. Muller et al.), 26 October 1886, no. 48, as inscribed 1571(?), fl. 700, to the museum1
Object number: SK-A-1341
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Jan Woutersz Stap (Amsterdam 1599 - ? Amsterdam c. 1663)
Although it was known that Johannes Woutersz was born in 1599, scholars hesitated in identifying him as one of the two children with this name baptized in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam in that year. The painter, however, is undoubtedly the Johannes Woutersz baptized on 22 July 1599,2 as his mother, Altje Thijssen, is later repeatedly documented as godmother to his children.3 Stap’s father, Wouter Jansen, was a bricklayer. In 1622, the painter married Barbara Andriesdr. Around 1630 he began using the surname Stap, with which he also signed some of his paintings. The source for the February 1663 date of his death, recorded in the literature, has not been traced.
Stap’s earliest dated painting is a Landlord’s Steward of 1614.4 In addition to such genre paintings, Stap also painted biblical scenes. It is not known with whom he trained, and his retrograde style, especially apparent in his genre paintings, has made it difficult to attach him to any early 17th-century school. Blankert has associated his archaism with that of Hendrick ter Brugghen. It is significant, therefore, that Stap’s Pilate Washing his Hands5 was modelled after Ter Brugghen’s painting of this theme.6
Jonathan Bikker, 2007
References
De Vries 1886, p. 301; Bredius 1935b, p. 48; Van Schendel 1937, pp. 269-72; Van Schendel in Thieme/Becker XXXVI, 1947, p. 262; Blankert 1986, p. 28
Entry
As is the case with Stap’s other painting in the Rijksmuseum, the present painting is based on the 1539 Landlord’s Steward attributed to Jan Massijs (fig. a). Significantly, Van Mander recorded the presence of a painting, presumably the one of 1539, showing moneychangers by Jan Massijs in Warmoesstraat in Amsterdam in his 1604 Schilder-boeck.7 The costumes worn by Stap’s figures are very similar to those in the 1539 painting. Stap’s figures also resemble those in the earlier painting, although his interest is solely in the naturalistic rendering of the grooved and wrinkled faces. Unlike the 16th-century artist, Stap’s approach to his figures is sympathetic, as he avoids making caricatures of them. The exaggeration of other elements in the present painting taken over from the prototype makes Stap’s restraint in this respect all the more remarkable. Even more than in the 16th-century painting, the figures are crammed together in his composition – to such an extent, in fact, that the table appears to intersect in a most uncomfortable way with the woman on the right, whose anatomy in general is hopelessly mangled. Unlike the interior in the 1539 work, Stap’s does not have windows, increasing the sense of claustrophobia. The tilted perspective of his table is also greater than in the prototype, and the gesturing hands, another feature in the 1539 painting, have been given greater prominence as well. From a contemporary document it appears that Stap actually painted these leathery, arthritic hands from life.8 It is difficult, therefore, to decide to what extent the exaggerated, clumsy features of the present painting reflect Stap’s artistic intent or his artistic short-comings.
As in Stap’s painting of c. 1636 in the Rijksmuseum and the 1539 prototype attributed to Jan Massijs, an indication of the painting’s date is recorded in a document within the painting – in this case an open book on the table. The document in the Rijksmuseum painting concerns a debt of Pieter Pietersen, of which 29 guilders and 7 stuivers has been paid, and 8 guilders and 10 stuivers is still outstanding.
Jonathan Bikker, 2007
See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements
This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 275.
Literature
Van Schendel 1937, pp. 270, 274, no. 8
Collection catalogues
1887, p. 193, no. 1644; 1903, p. 302, no. 2702; 1934, p. 323, no. 2702; 1960, p. 346, no. 2702; 1976, p. 613, no. A 1341 (as on canvas); 2007, no. 275
Citation
J. Bikker, 2007, 'Jan Woutersz. Stap, The Notary’s Office, c. 1629', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6589
(accessed 13 November 2024 03:02:22).