Object data
oil on canvas
support: height 75.1 cm × width 64.4 cm × thickness 4.1 cm (incl. backboard)
outer size: depth 11.2 cm (support incl. frame)
Govert Flinck
Shepherd
c. 1636
Inscriptions
- signature, lower right (formerly): G. Flinck f
Technical notes
Support The plain-weave canvas, with an average of approx. 12 horizontal (weft) by 14 vertical (warp) threads per centimetre, has been wax-resin lined. All tacking edges have been preserved and there is a selvedge on the left, where cusping is visible.
Preparatory layers The coarse double ground extends up to the tacking edges. The first, orange-red layer is followed by a cool light grey ground consisting of white pigment and charcoal black.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the tacking edges. The cursory, dark initial lay-in indicated contours and facial features, while strong black flicks defined the moustache and lips. Opaque, coarse umber and ochre-coloured paints were used for the undermodelling. The painting was built up from the back to the front and from dark to light, leaving the figure, hair and crook in reserve. The sash was added on top of the coat. The arms and hands were reserved in the clothing. The grey of the ground, visible here and there, was used as a light mid-tone. The flesh tones were built up with long impasted strokes, wet in wet. The undermodelling was left uncovered in parts of the face, arms and hands to serve as shadows. Red paint was added parallel to the lids and inside the corners of the eyes. The laurel wreath was executed over the background. The coat extends over the edge of its reserve, increasing the figure’s bulk on the left and the transitions between coat, sleeve and background were corrected. Tiny white highlights in the pupils and along the upper edges of the lower lids were added in the final stage. X-radiography and infrared photography showed that adjustments were made to the position of the figure’s left hand, the fingers and the flute, which was originally longer at the top and placed lower.
Gwen Tauber, 2023
Scientific examination and reports
- technical report: G. Tauber, RMA, 6 November 2008
- infrared photography: G. Tauber, RMA, 28 November 2008
- paint samples: G. Tauber, RMA, nos. SK-A-3451/1-2, 28 November 2008
- X-radiography: RMA, no. 1934 (1-5), 27 September 2011
Condition
Fair. Numerous old damaged areas to canvas and paint have been heavily restored. The paint layers are slightly abraded throughout.
Conservation
- G. Tauber, RMA, 1993: retouchings adjusted; revarnished
Provenance
...; ? sale, Amsterdam, 8 October 1700, no. 48 (‘Twee Tronitjes, Herder en Herderin, van dito [Govert Flinck]’), fl. 15-5;1...; ? collection August Wilhelm (1715-1781), Duke of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel-Bevern, Schloss Salzdahlum;2...; sale, Schloss Ober-Mörlen et al. [anonymous section], Frankfurt am Main (Frankfurter Kunstmesse), 7 October 1920 sqq., no. 420;...; sale, Berlin (Lepke), 10 May 1921, no. 162;...; the dealer T. van Wijngaarde, The Hague, 1923;3...; collection A.H. de Haas, Wassenaar, 1923-41;4...; the dealer François Parry, The Hague;5...; from the dealer Paul Brandt, Amsterdam, fl. 31,000, to the museum, 1942; on loan to Museum Het Rembrandthuis, Amsterdam, 1971-78
Object number: SK-A-3451
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Govert Flinck (Cleves 1615 - Amsterdam 1660)
The exact date of Govert Flinck’s birth, 25 January 1615, is known from a medal issued at the time of his death. He was born into a Mennonite family of some standing in the German town of Cleves, where his father may have been a cloth merchant. According to Houbraken, the young Flinck had a fervent desire to become an artist, which his parents did their utmost to suppress until the Dutch painter and fellow Mennonite Lambert Jacobsz, who was on a preaching tour in Cleves, persuaded them to allow their son to study with him in Leeuwarden. Another of his pupils and Flinck’s ‘companion in art’ (‘gezelschap in de Konst’) was Jacob Backer, who was about seven years his senior.6 Having advanced far enough to stand on their own feet, the two young artists went to Amsterdam. Although Houbraken’s text has been interpreted as meaning that they made the move at the same time, Backer is first documented there in 1633, while the earliest record of Flinck living in Amsterdam is from 1637. On 13 March of that year, he bought some prints at an auction and his address was given as the home of the art dealer Hendrick Uylenburgh. Von Sandrart informs us that after a period of study with Rembrandt, which according to Houbraken lasted only a year, Flinck ‘spent many long years with the famous art dealer Uylenburgh, with whom he left many exquisite, beautiful portraits from his own hand’.7 This chronology implies that he had already trained with Rembrandt, or was training with him, when he painted his earliest signed and dated works in 1636.8 Vestiges of Jacobsz’s style are apparent in these pictures, making Houbraken’s assertion that Flinck fully mastered Rembrandt’s manner in the year he was taught by him appear somewhat exaggerated.
Flinck’s most accomplished Rembrandtesque paintings date from the late 1630s and early 1640s. In addition to the portraits mentioned by Von Sandrart, he executed histories and landscapes while he worked for Uylenburgh. His documented clientele consisted to a large degree of fellow Mennonites, including his cousins Ameldonck and Dirck Jacobsz Leeuw. It is not known when Flinck stopped running Uylenburgh’s studio and set up shop on his own. In 1644, he purchased two houses on Lauriersgracht (nos. 76 and 78) for 10,000 guilders, installing his studio and gallery on the top floors. In the meantime, he had already received the first of three commissions for group portraits from the Amsterdam civic guard, the Portrait of the Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen of 1642;9 the other two are dated 1645 and 1648.10 In the latter year he was awarded his first order from an aristocrat, an allegory for the Elector of Brandenburg, Friedrich Wilhelm von Hohenzollern.11
In June 1645 Flinck married Ingeltje Thoveling, the daughter of a vice-admiral and director of the Rotterdam branch of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). Although she was a Remonstrant, it was only after her death in early 1651 that Flinck had himself baptized in her faith. He remarried in 1656, his second wife being Sophia van der Houve of Gouda. Houbraken points out that Flinck had many influential friends, including Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen, governor of Cleves, the burgomasters Cornelis and Andries de Graeff, and the art lovers Pieter and Jan Six and Joannes Wtenbogaert.
A fully-fledged Flemish Baroque style, inspired initially by Amsterdam artists who had adopted it, first appears in Flinck’s work in 1645.12 It is also apparent in the many important commissions Flinck received in the 1650s, which included portraits of the Elector of Brandenburg13 and of Johan Maurits,14 as well as the Allegory in Memory of Frederik Hendrik.15 It may have been the trip that the artist made to Antwerp, reported by both Baldinucci and Houbraken, that encouraged him to continue down this path.
In 1656 Flinck completed the enormous Marcus Curtius Dentatus Refusing the Gifts of the Samnites for the newly built Town Hall in Amsterdam, followed in 1658 by Solomon’s Prayer for Wisdom.16 In late 1659 he was asked to paint twelve monumental canvases for the Great Gallery of the Town Hall, but Flinck died on 2 February the following year before completing any of them.
A witness stated that a number of assistants and apprentices were working in Flinck’s studio in 1649, which was probably the case in other years as well. Nevertheless, the names of only four, rather obscure pupils are known with certainty: the Düsseldorf painter Johannes Spilberg (1619-1690), who spent a few years with him in the 1640s, Johannes Buns (dates unknown), Bartholomeus Hoppfer (1628-1699) and Steven Sleger (dates unknown).
Jonathan Bikker, 2023
References
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. 194; A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, II, Amsterdam 1719, pp. 18-27; F. Baldinucci, Notizie de’ professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua secolo V. dal 1610. al 1670., Florence 1728, p. 484; H. Havard, L’art et les artistes hollandais, II, Paris 1880, pp. 71-174, 191-202; D.C. Meijer Jr, ‘De Amsterdamsche schutters-stukken in en buiten het nieuwe Rijksmuseum’, Oud Holland 7 (1889), pp. 45-60, esp. pp. 45, 46; A. Bredius, Künstler-Inventare, I, The Hague 1915, p. 128; Hofstede de Groot in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XII, Leipzig 1916, pp. 97-100; A. Bredius, Künstler-Inventare, IV, The Hague 1917, pp. 1254-55; J.W. von Moltke, Govaert Flinck, 1615-1660, Amsterdam 1965, pp. 9-12; S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, ‘Doopsgezinden en schilderkunst in de 17e eeuw: Leerlingen, opdrachtgevers en verzamelaars van Rembrandt’, Doopsgezinde Bijdragen 6 (1980), pp. 105-23, esp. pp. 109-10; S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, ‘Het “schilderhuis” van Govert Flinck en de kunsthandel van Uylenburgh aan de Lauriergracht te Amsterdam’, Jaarboek Amstelodamum 74 (1982), pp. 70-90; W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, II, New York 1984, pp. 998-99; W. Liedtke, ‘Rembrandt and the Rembrandt Style in the Seventeenth Century’, in W. Liedtke et al., Rembrandt/not Rembrandt in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Aspects of Connoisseurship, exh. cat. New York 1995-96, II, pp. 3-39, esp. pp. 16-20; Von Moltke in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, XI, New York 1996, pp. 168-70; P. Jeroense, ‘Govaert Flinck (1615-1660): Eine Künstlerbiographie’, Niederdeutsche Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte 36 (1997), pp. 73-112; Beaujean in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, XLI, Munich/Leipzig 2004, pp. 240-43; W. Liedtke, ‘Rembrandt’s “Workshop” Revisited’, Oud Holland 117 (2004), pp. 48-73, esp. pp. 52, 68, 70, note 34; J. van der Veen, ‘Het kunstbedrijf van Hendrick Uylenburgh in Amsterdam: Productie en handel tussen 1625 en 1655’, in F. Lammertse and J. van der Veen, Uylenburgh en Zoon: Kunst en commercie van Rembrandt tot De Lairesse, 1625-1675, exh. cat. London (Dulwich Picture Gallery)/Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 2006, pp. 117-205, esp. pp. 160-69; R. Lambour, ‘Het doopsgezind milieu van Michiel van Musscher (1645-1705) en van andere schilders in zeventiende-eeuws Amsterdam: Een revisie en ontdekking’, Oud Holland 125 (2012), pp. 193-214, esp. pp. 197-98; T. van der Molen, ‘Das Leben von Govert Flinck/The Life of Govert Flinck’, in E.-J. Goosens et al., Govert Flinck – Reflecting History, exh. cat. Cleves (Museum Kurhaus Kleve) 2015-16, pp. 10-21; E.J. Sluijter, Rembrandt’s Rivals: History Painting in Amsterdam 1630-1650, Amsterdam/Philadelphia 2015, pp. 97-110
Entry
Crowned with a laurel wreath and holding a flute and a shepherd’s crook, this half-length figure is one half of Govert Flinck’s earliest known essays in the pastoral mode. The painting – also on canvas and of similar dimensions – of a young woman shown half-length now in Braunschweig was most likely the pendant (fig. a). Together they may have been the ‘Tronitjes’ of a shepherd and shepherdess by Flinck that were put on the block at an anonymous sale in Amsterdam in 1700 and recorded in the 1776 catalogue of the Duke of Braunschweig’s collection at Salzdahlum.17 It was apparently during the Napoleonic occupation that the pair became separated, the Braunschweig picture eventually returning to its rightful owner and the Rijksmuseum painting only being documented again in 1920, when it was on sale from an anonymous collection in Frankfurt.18
Dated 1636, the Braunschweig Shepherdess is one of Flinck’s three earliest signed and dated works.19 It was probably in that year or the previous one that he spent time in Rembrandt’s studio in order to assimilate the style that, in Houbraken’s words, ‘was universally praised, such that everything had to be made on that last were it to please the world’.20 Flinck’s model for the Shepherdess was his teacher’s 1634 Flora in St Petersburg.21 The similarities in costume and pose – the latter including the placement of the woman’s left hand on her protruding abdomen, signifying nature’s fecundity – are unmistakable. Flinck, however, reduced his prototype to a half-length figure and provided her with a different iconographic identity by means of a shepherd’s crook. While the Shepherd does not follow a Rembrandt model, the chiaroscuro and pudgy limbs and facial features in both works are obviously indebted to that master. The rather slack, broadly brushed treatment of the light purplish-blue coat worn by the shepherd recalls the style of Flinck’s first teacher, Lambert Jacobsz.
In depicting the shepherd and shepherdess as pendants Flinck followed a trend initiated by such Utrecht painters as Abraham Bloemaert and Paulus Moreelse in the 1620s.22 By 1636, however, such pairs were also being produced by Amsterdam artists, including Jacob Backer, with whom Flinck had spent time in Jacobsz’s workshop.23 Unlike most of the shepherdesses from Utrecht, those by Backer do not have revealing décolletés. Compared to the Utrecht pendants, that by Flinck is very chaste; even his shepherd does not reveal any flesh, which cannot always be said for those by Backer.
Flinck’s Shepherd and Shepherdess have been traditionally considered to be likenesses of Rembrandt and his wife Saskia Uylenburgh. However, comparison with the only documented portrait of Saskia, a 1633 silverpoint drawing by Rembrandt,24 makes this identification of the shepherdess questionable.25 The resemblance of the shepherd to Rembrandt’s self-portraits, especially a 1630 etching, is much greater.26 Notwithstanding the possibility that Rembrandt, and perhaps even Saskia, served as models, the pendants were unlikely to have been conceived as formal portraits, but rather as types in the well-established pastoral genre.
Jonathan Bikker, 2023
See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements
Literature
Verslagen omtrent ’s Rijks verzamelingen van geschiedenis en kunst 1942 (annual report of the Rijksmuseum), pp. 3-4; J.W. von Moltke, Govaert Flinck, 1615-1660, Amsterdam 1965, pp. 15, 94, no. 130; A. McNeil Kettering, The Dutch Arcadia: Pastoral Art and its Audience in the Golden Age, Montclair 1983, pp. 64, 78; W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, II, New York 1984, pp. 1002-03, 1030, no. 665; Kelch in C. Brown, J. Kelsch and P. van Thiel, Rembrandt: The Master and his Workshop: Paintings, exh. cat. Berlin (Altes Museum)/Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/London (The National Gallery) 1991-92, p. 318, no. 61; 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)/Luxemburg (Musée National d’Histoire et d’Art) 1993-94, pp. 155-59, no. 23b, with earlier literature; Krog in L. Bøgh Rønberg and E. de la Fuente Pedersen (eds.), Rembrandt? The Master and his Workshop, exh. cat. Copenhagen (Statens Museum for Kunst) 2006, pp. 236-37, no. 33; E.-J. Goosens et al., Govert Flinck – Reflecting History, exh. cat. Cleves (Museum Kurhaus Kleve) 2015-16, p. 129, no. 2; R.E.O. Ekkart, ‘Govert Flinck and Ferdinand Bol: The Portraits’, in N. Middelkoop (ed.), Ferdinand Bol and Govert Flinck: Rembrandt’s Master Pupils, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis; Amsterdam Museum) 2017-18, pp. 142-63, esp. p. 144; D. de Witt, ‘Govert Flinck Learns to Paint like Rembrandt’, in N. Middelkoop (ed.), Ferdinand Bol and Govert Flinck: Rembrandt’s Master Pupils, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis; Amsterdam Museum) 2017-18, pp. 18-39, esp. p. 27
Collection catalogues
1960, p. 104, no. 930 A 3; 1976, pp. 228-29, no. A 3451; 1992, p. 53, no. A 3451
Citation
Jonathan Bikker, 2023, 'Govert Flinck, Shepherd, c. 1636', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8429
(accessed 22 November 2024 16:22:52).