The Meeting of Granida and Daifilo

c. 1655 - c. 1660

Object data

oil on canvas

support: height 110.4 cm × width 141.7 cm

Inscriptions

signature, bottom right (j, A, N and M ligated): jANMijtens F:

Technical notes

Support The plain-weave canvas has been wax-resin lined. The tacking edges have been partially preserved. Slight cusping is visible on all sides. Vague linear crack patterns parallel to the left and right edges, and a more pronounced vertical linear crack pattern in the centre may correspond to the bars of the original strainer. The initial sight size of the painting must have been larger, since the picture plane is folded over the current stretcher by 1.5 cm at the bottom.
Preparatory layers The single, warm light grey ground extends over the tacking edges, completely covering the one at the bottom. It consists of white pigment with an addition of earth pigments and fine black pigment particles.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the tacking edges at the top and on the left and right, completely covering the one at the bottom. A sketchy first lay-in executed in earth colours ranging from black to grey, red and brown can be seen in thin, dark areas; wide contour lines are clearly visible beneath the fountain. Infrared photography revealed faint lines, probably part of the initial lay-in as well, under the figures and the horse. The composition was built up from the back to the front and from dark to light, leaving reserves for the tree in the middle ground and the figures and animals. The landscape was thinly and sketchily rendered, not accurately following the reserves for individual branches and leaves. The layer of dark clouds does not abut on Granida’s hair, leaving a subtle, light halo around her head, whereas the hem of her dress and her left foot extend beyond their reserves. Ochre-coloured underpainting is apparent along the edges of the flesh tones. The skin and facial features were blended wet in wet, though the transitions were carefully defined with final contours in brown. The blue and gold fabrics were constructed from mid-tones with impasted highlights, and deepened with dark contours. The butt end of the brush was used to make incisions into the wet paint of the foremost sheep, possibly to mark a spot where more foliage was to be added. The fingers of Daifilo’s right hand were elongated, his nose shortened and a curl at his left temple removed.
Gwen Tauber, 2023

Scientific examination and reports

infrared photography: G. Tauber, RMA, 12 February 2009
paint samples: G. Tauber, RMA, nos. SK-A-1856/1-2, 12 February 2009
technical report: G. Tauber, RMA, 12 February 2009

Condition

Fair. The paint in the thinner sections is abraded. Large areas of old overpainting are present throughout.

Conservation

J.A. Hesterman, 1900: canvas lined
H. Plagge, 1961: treated

Provenance

…; collection Mrs A. and Mrs C.J. Amiabel, The Hague, as Isaac and Rebecca;¹ bequeathed by Mrs C.J. Amiabel to the museum, June 1900

Object number: SK-A-1856

Credit line: C.J. Amiabel Bequest

The artist

Jan Mijtens (The Hague c. 1613/14 - The Hague 1670)

Jan Mijtens was born in The Hague at the end of 1613 or in January 1614 as the son of David Mijtens and Judith Hennicx. His father was a saddler and a member of the prosperous middle class. The extended family came from Flanders originally and produced numerous painters who remained active in various European countries until the eighteenth century. Jan Mijtens very probably started his apprenticeship with his uncle Isaac Mijtens and trained in all likelihood briefly with the latter’s elder brother, Daniel Mijtens, who returned to The Hague in 1635 after many years in England.

In 1639 Mijtens registered as a master painter with the Guild of St Luke in The Hague. His earliest dated pictures, two group portraits, are from 1638.² In 1642 he married his cousin Anna, the London-born daughter of his uncle Daniel. One of the couple’s children, named Daniel as well, followed in his father’s footsteps. Other pupils of Mijtens were Julius de Geest (1638/39-1699), son of the Frisian portraitist Wybrand de Geest, Nicolaes Lissant (1639/40-after 1696), Gerard de Nijst (dates unknown), Adriaen Stalpert van der Wiele (dates unknown), Pouwels van de Velde (dates unknown), Andries Thijsz de Wit (dates unknown) and Urbanus Talibert van Yperen (c. 1630-in or after 1682). Only the first two left works that have survived.

Mijtens became one of the first members of the newly founded artists’ society Confrerie Pictura in 1656, and he was then immediately elected warden, a post which he held again in 1658-59, and another three times in 1665-69. Although repeatedly nominated as dean he only occupied that position in 1669-70. The Pictura archives also state that he was a captain in the civic guard. Mijtens had certainly been an active member of the White Banner company of the St Sebastian civic guard since 1644. He was then the ensign, and was probably made its commander in 1660. In addition to these functions, he was a church councillor from 1646 to 1654 and a deacon of the Reformed Church.

Mijtens was primarily a portraitist, but he also made some history paintings in the form of biblical scenes and pastorals, and a few genre pieces. He received commissions from the Hague elite and members of the stadholder’s court, as well as from the daughters of Stadholder Frederik Hendrik living in Leeuwarden and Germany. Mijtens’s last dated pictures are the pendants of 1668 of Cornelis Tromp and his wife Margaretha van Raephorst.³ It is known from the sources that even in 1670, the year he died, he was working on portraits for Henriette Catharina, the princess consort of Anhalt-Dessau. After Mijtens’s death on 19 December and burial in the family grave in The Hague’s Grote Kerk on the 24th, one of these likenesses was completed by his son Daniel, who had moved back from Italy shortly before.⁴ Mijtens was reasonably well-off. In 1669 his wealth was assessed at 20,000 guilders for tax purposes. It had not all been earned from painting; some of it came from various legacies.

Richard Harmanni, 2023

References
J. van der Does, ’s-Graven-Hage, met de voornaemste plaetsen en vermaecklijckheden, The Hague 1668, pp. 91-92; J. von Sandrart, Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675: Leben der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister, ed. A.R. Peltzer, Munich 1925 (ed. princ. Nuremberg 1675), p. 350; F.D.O. Obreen, Archief voor Nederlandsche kunstgeschiedenis: Verzameling van meerendeels onuitgegeven berichten en mededeelingen betreffende Nederlandsche schilders, plaatsnijders, beeldhouwers, bouwmeesters, juweliers, goud- en zilverdrijvers [enz.], IV, Rotterdam 1881-82, passim; ibid., V, 1882-83, pp. 82, 84, 145-48, 153; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstler-Lexikon, II, Leipzig/Vienna 1910, pp. 211-12; Lundberg in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XXV, Leipzig 1931, p. 317; Ekkart in E. Buijsen et al., Haagse schilders in de Gouden Eeuw: Het Hoogsteder Lexicon van alle schilders werkzaam in Den Haag 1600-1700, exh. cat. The Hague (Haags Historisch Museum) 1998-99, pp. 206-10; A.N. Bauer, Jan Mijtens (1613/14-1670): Leben und Werk, Petersberg 2006, pp. 20-28, 129-50 (documents); Bauer in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, LXXXIX, Munich/Leipzig 2016, p. 424

Entry

When this painting by Jan Mijtens was first exhibited in The Hague in 1881 it was said to be the biblical story of Isaac and Rebecca.⁵ On entering the museum it was called Shepherd Idyll,⁶ but shortly afterwards it was renamed Jacob and Rachel.⁷ Although Stechow recognized the subject in 1929 as the meeting of Granida and Daifilo it took until 1956 for that to be recorded in a collection catalogue.⁸

This is a depiction of the third scene of the first act of the pastoral play Granida by Pieter Cornelisz Hooft, which was initially performed in 1605 and was published in 1615. It was a great success and was staged in Amsterdam almost annually between 1642 and 1663. The printed version had its eighth edition in 1679.⁹

While the shepherd Daifilo and the shepherdess Dorilea are bickering over her feeling that he is merely wooing her for the fun of it and not out of love, the Persian princess Granida appears. She has lost her way after becoming separated from her hunting party. Here she is holding the bowl that Daifilo will shortly fill with water from the fountain. He is totally smitten by her charms, which infuriates Dorilea, who can be seen between them in the background. Granida is delighted by the simplicity of the pastoral life, which is in stark contrast to the corruption and dishonesty at court. That, though, does not prevent Daifilo from accepting her invitation to accompany her there. The fact that these events are set outdoors, whereas the next three acts take place in a Persian palace, made this a very popular scene for seventeenth-century Dutch painters,¹⁰ who produced at least 32 pictures of the encounter between Granida and Daifilo.¹¹

When the Rijksmuseum acquired the canvas in 1900 it was thought to be a portrait historié,¹² but it was only in 1935 that Martin described it as such in the literature.¹³ That view persisted for a long time, and was still being supported by Van den Brink in 1993 on the grounds that the figures of Granida and Daifilo are given greater prominence than they would get in an ‘ordinary’ history piece.¹⁴ In 2006, however, Bauer rightly observed that, compared to Mijtens’s other likenesses, here the physiognomies are in fact highly standardized.¹⁵ Of all 32 known paintings of the subject in Dutch art it is the one by Dirck van Baburen of no earlier than 1623 that can unequivocally said to be a portrait historié, and that is on the evidence of written sources.¹⁶ Its protagonists are depicted far larger, relatively speaking, than in the present scene. In every other case the portrait nature is rendered uncertain by the small size of the figures or the lack of adequate reference material.

With 10 works as opposed to 150 likenesses, the genre of history painting was clearly a very minor part of Mijtens’s output.¹⁷ Like the group portraits, they are set against a landscape background which plays an essential role in the scene, as it does in this Meeting of Granida and Daifilo. Here it is presented as an Arcadia, with the addition of a fountain with sculpted putti of the kind that could be found in parks. The topmost one is winged like a cupid and is holding a pitcher. The connotation of a fountain of love is thus unmistakable in this context.

The picture is not dated, but the warm tones and flowing execution place it stylistically in Mijtens’s later oeuvre, so it can be assigned to the latter half of the 1650s.¹⁸ Van den Brink pointed out that there was once an overmantel in the Princessehof in Leeuwarden that was probably either a replica or a copy after the Rijksmuseum painting.¹⁹ Judging by a photograph in which it appears, it was a little narrower and lacked the fountain on the right.

Richard Harmanni, 2023

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

W. Stechow, ‘Review of I. Budde, Die Idylle im holländischen Barock, Cologne 1929’, Kritische Berichte zur kunstgeschichtlichen Literatur 1-2 (1928-29), pp. 181-87, esp. p. 185; W. Martin, De Hollandsche schilderkunst in de zeventiende eeuw, I, Amsterdam 1935, p. 162; S.J. Gudlaugsson, ‘Representations of Granida in Dutch Seventeenth-Century Painting, III’, The Burlington Magazine 91 (1949), pp. 39-43, esp. p. 43; R. Wishnevsky, Studien zum ‘portait historié’ in den Niederlanden, diss., Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich 1967, p. 100; A. McNeil Kettering, The Dutch Arcadia: Pastoral Art and its Audience in the Golden Age, Montclaire 1983, pp. 105-06; Van den Brink in P. van den Brink and J. de Meyere (eds.), Het gedroomde land: Pastorale schilderkunst in de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Utrecht (Centraal Museum)/Frankfurt (Schirn Kunsthalle)/Luxembourg (Musée National d’Histoire et d’Art) 1993-94, pp. 231-33; A. McNeil Kettering, ‘Gender Issues in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Portraiture: A New Look’, in R.E. Fleischer and S.C. Scott (eds.), Rembrandt, Rubens and the Art of their Time: Recent Perspectives, Penn State University Park 1997, pp. 144-75, esp. pp. 147, 149; A.N. Bauer, Jan Mijtens (1613/14-1670): Leben und Werk, Petersberg 2006, pp. 277-78, no. A152

Collection catalogues

1903, p. 189, no. 1703 (as Jacob and Rachel); 1934, p. 204, no. 1703 (as Jacob and Rachel); 1960, p. 223, no. 1703; 1976, p. 407, no. A 1856

Citation

Richard Harmanni, 2023, 'Jan Mijtens, The Meeting of Granida and Daifilo, c. 1655 - c. 1660', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.4550

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