Bacchanal

1653

Object data

oil on canvas

support: height 63 cm × width 54.7 cm
outer size: depth 8 cm (support incl. SK-L-4263)

Inscriptions

signature and date, bottom right: I.V. Loo / 1653

Technical notes

Support The plain-weave canvas has been wax-resin lined. All tacking edges have been removed. Shallow cusping is present on the left.
Preparatory layers The double ground extends up to the current edges of the canvas. The first, red layer contains some coarse bright red and small black pigment particles. The second, warm grey layer consists of coarse white and some large brown pigment particles, with a small addition of fine black and earth pigment particles.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared reflectography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the current edges of the canvas. The figures were left in reserve in the background. Cross-sections show a multi-layered structure. The purple cloth upon which the figures in the centre foreground sit, for example, was built up in five layers (two brown, one bright red and two of purple glaze), and the yellow drapery beneath the couple on the left with four (brown, green, yellow and orange respectively). The paint layers are thick and smooth, with soft transitions between the different colour passages, especially in the flesh tones. Cool light blues and greys for the shadows, and warm yellows and pinks for the lit areas were blended evenly with the light pinkish flesh colours. The reflected light on the bodies was suggested with quite bright yellows and pinks. Some contours of the figures were strengthened with a reddish-brown paint in what appear to be long, single brushstrokes. These are also visible in the draperies, where several lighter and dark brushstrokes were added on top of a basic modelling, enhancing the forms of the folds. The highlighted parts of the purple cloth in the foreground were indicated with light purple scumbles. Infrared reflectography revealed many small changes to the composition. The bell held aloft in the centre, for instance, was initially painted further to the left in a vertical position, and the triangle in the background was placed higher. The right arm of the reclining woman was applied over the finished foreground and over the foot of the squatting man next to her, while the purple drapery was painted over her left arm. Apart from these and other alterations to the contours and positions of compositional elements, the infrared reflectogram also shows that an earlier version of the trunks of the trees in the left background extended down to the figures and was only later covered with the dark green foliage.
Ige Verslype, 2024

Scientific examination and reports

technical report: I. Verslype / T. Žakula / E. Smeenk-Metz, RMA, 6 January 2010
infrared reflectography: I. Verslype, RMA, 7 January 2010
paint samples: I. Verslype, RMA, nos. SK-A-3483/1-2, 7 January 2010

Condition

Good. The paint layer is slightly abraded. There are small, discoloured retouchings along the edges. The varnish is somewhat discoloured and has a distinct crack pattern.

Conservation

M. van de Laar, 1996: loose paint consolidated; small, damaged areas retouched

Provenance

…; sale, Von Bernatzky (†, Edinburgh), Cologne (J.M. Heberle), 10 October 1905, no. 23, as dated 1655;…; sale, Hermann Gisbert Graf von Bocholtz-Meschede zu Alme und Niesen (1887-1916) et al., Cologne (Lempertz) 26 February 1918 sqq., no. 63, as dated 1641;…; anonymous sale, Cologne (Lempertz), 8 May 1928, no. 26, as dated 1641 (ill.);…; sale, A. Salm (Parkstrasse 29, Cologne), Cologne (Lempertz), 7 (8) May 1931 sqq., no. 364, as dated 1641 (ill.);…; sale, Frank D. Stout et al., New York (Parke-Bernet Galleries), 3 December 1942, no. 18, $320, to the dealer H. Schaeffer;¹ by whom donated to the museum, 1947

Object number: SK-A-3483

Credit line: Gift of H. Schaeffer, New York

The artist

Jacob van Loo (Sluis 1614 - Paris 1670)

A baptismal record for Jacob van Loo has not survived, but his age and place of birth are consistently stated in a number of documents, including his wedding banns, according to which he was born in the small town of Sluis in the province of Zeeland in 1614. His father was a notary and both of his parents were active as real estate brokers. In addition to Sluis, Van Loo spent his childhood in Vlissingen and Middelburg. Nothing is known about his training but, because his earliest works are portraits, he may have received instruction from a portraitist in Middelburg, such as Salomon Mesdach (active 1617-32), or perhaps one in nearby Antwerp, such as Cornelis Willemsz Eversdijck (1583-1649).

The first mention of Van Loo is a contract that the Amsterdam merchant and art lover Marten Kretzer drew up in 1635 for two tulip bulbs and 180 guilders in exchange for ten pictures by or obtained from one Jacob van Loo. It is not certain whether this was the artist from Sluis. By 1642, however, he had definitely moved to Amsterdam, for a document of that year records his encounter with a 15-year-old prostitute, who falsely claimed that she acted as his model. In 1643 Van Loo married Anna Lengele from The Hague, herself a painter and sister of the portraitist Marten Lengele.

Van Loo’s earliest signed and dated painting is a 1644 portrait of a family, traditionally identified as that of Rutger van Weert and his wife Maria Beels.² A depiction of Christ’s Apostles sleeping in the Garden of Gethsemane from the first half of the 1630s, which recalls the styles of Lambert Jacobsz and Jacob Pynas, has been attributed to Van Loo,³ and there are a number of genre scenes in the manner of Anthonie Palamedesz and Pieter Codde that must also be from before 1644. Around 1650, Van Loo, together with Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, introduced a new, very elegant form of the conversation piece, often with sensual and erotic overtones. He also transformed his portrait style from one reflecting the manner of Thomas de Keyser to the graceful Van Dyckian mode that was also practised by his wife’s cousin Jan Mijtens in The Hague. Van Loo’s earliest signed and dated history is Diana with her Nymphs of 1648,⁴ but he probably tried his hand at mythological subjects well before then, for in 1647 or 1648 Constantijn Huygens placed him on a list of artists worthy of decorating the Oranjezaal (Orange Hall) in Huis ten Bosch in The Hague. Van Loo and Jacob Backer were the only two Amsterdam painters considered by Huygens, but ultimately neither participated in the project. In the first half of the 1650s Van Loo concentrated on mythological scenes featuring nude figures in a style indebted to that of Jacob van Campen and Jacob Backer. The latter’s work also informed his tronies in this period. In 1652 Van Loo acquired Amsterdam citizenship in the hope of receiving a commission for the new Town Hall that was being built at the time. It was not forthcoming, however. Jan Vos included him among the 15 most important artists in Amsterdam in his 1654 poem Zeege der Schilderkunst (Triumph of Painting). In 1658 and 1659 Van Loo executed group portraits of the regents and regentesses of the Alms, Poor and Work House in Haarlem.⁵

In the autumn of 1660 Van Loo was involved in a fight with a belligerent wine merchant named Hendrik Breda, whom he fatally stabbed in the stomach. The artist was twice summoned to appear before the Amsterdam city sheriff, but failed to show up. On 7 July 1661 he was sentenced in absentia to exile for life from the provinces of Holland and West Friesland and his belongings there were confiscated. His sizeable possessions in Zeeland, which he had inherited from his parents, were spared, however. Van Loo fled to Paris, where he was admitted to the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1663, and concentrated on portraiture, now influenced by the work of Philippe de Champaigne and Claude Lefèbvre. Despite his banishment, he received numerous portrait commissions from compatriots connected to the embassy of the Dutch Republic in Paris. His clientele also included members of Parisian high society and the French court. A portrait of Louis XIV and his family is now known only from a copy.⁶ Another group portrait, of Paris city councillors, was probably destroyed during the Revolution. Van Loo never took French citizenship. He died in Paris on 26 November 1670 and was buried in the Protestant cemetery of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

Van Loo’s eclectic oeuvre consists of around 150 works. According to Houbraken, Eglon van der Neer (1635/36-1703) was apprenticed to him in Amsterdam. Van Loo also undoubtedly taught his sons Abraham (Louis) Vanloo (1652-1712) and Johannes (Jean) Vanloo (1654-?), both of whom established themselves as painters in France. Abraham’s sons and grandsons were among the leading eighteenth-century French artists.

Jonathan Bikker, 2024

References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, III, Amsterdam 1721, p. 172; P. Scheltema, Rembrand: Redevoering over het leven en de verdiensten van Rembrand van Rijn, met eene menigte geschiedkundige bijlagen meerendeels uit echter bronnen geput, Amsterdam 1853, p. 69; A. Bredius, ‘Waarom Jacob van Loo in 1660 Amsterdam verliet’, Oud-Holland 34 (1916), pp. 47-52; U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XXIII, Leipzig 1929, pp. 363-64; J.G.C.A. Briels, Vlaamse schilders en de dageraad van Hollands Gouden Eeuw 1585-1630, Antwerp 1997, p. 354; D. Mandrella, Jacob van Loo 1614-1670, Paris 2011, pp. 21-42, 237-46 (documents); J. Noorman, ‘A Fugitive’s Success Story: Jacob van Loo in Paris (1661-1670)’, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 63 (2013), pp. 302-23; Römer in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, LXXXV, Munich/Leipzig 2015, p. 254; E.J. Sluijter, Rembrandt’s Rivals: History Painting in Amsterdam 1630-1650, Amsterdam/Philadelphia 2015, pp. 374-79

Entry

Of the four extant paintings of bacchanals by Jacob van Loo, the one in the Rijksmuseum is the most classicizing, with its use of primary colours and pyramidal composition.⁷ Two of the four nude and semi-nude couples are amorous, while the man of the central pair jingles a small bell as he gazes into his beloved’s eyes, and the one on the far right presses grape juice into a shell. The firmly delineated, sinuous contours of the figures create an overall rhythmic pattern and are typical of Van Loo. This 1653 canvas is, however, a transitional work.⁸ Van Loo’s earliest mythological scenes, executed between the late 1640s and 1653, feature large figures shown close to the picture plane, and therefore resemble bas-reliefs. The ones in the later mythologies are smaller in scale and dispersed more in the centre of the composition and background. The Rijksmuseum painting has the large-scale foreground figures of the earlier works, but also some that gradually recede into space. This recession was accomplished not only by their diminution but also by a very nuanced use of light and shade.

Also typical for Van Loo are the figures’ blond tonality, their rather squat, compact bodies, and their relatively individualistic facial features. All the poses were probably studied from life. One such session was recorded in 1658, when Catarina Jans, the daughter of a needle manufacturer, testified that she had ‘modelled stark naked’ for Van Loo and four other Amsterdam painters, including Ferdinand Bol and Govert Flinck.⁹ Von Moltke tentatively attributed a drawing of a female nude in the same pose as the reclining woman on the right in the present scene, but reversed, to Van Loo.¹⁰ The pose with an arm placed behind the head may have been inspired by that of the recumbent nymph on the right of Titian’s Bacchanal of the Andrians,¹¹ which Van Loo could have known from a reproductive engraving. The motif of the arched arm of the man holding a bell in Van Loo’s picture may also have been derived from the similar pose in Titian’s composition of a male nude pouring wine into a shallow drinking cup. It has been suggested that Pieter Lastman’s 1609 Ulysses and Nausicaa, in which a startled female figure flees the scene, was the source for the pose of the young woman playing the triangle in the background of Van Loo’s painting, but the similarities may be coincidental, especially given the very different subject matter of the two works.¹²

Jonathan Bikker, 2024¹³

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

J.W. von Moltke, Govaert Flinck, 1615-1660, Amsterdam 1965, pp. 48-49; P. Schatborn, Dutch Figure Drawings from the Seventeenth Century, The Hague 1981, p. 94; A. Blankert, ‘Lastman kijkt naar Caravaggio en inspireert Rembrandt en Van Loo’, Oud Holland 107 (1993), pp. 117-22, esp. pp. 120-21; Giltaij in A. Blankert et al., Dutch Classicism in Seventeenth-Century Painting, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen)/Frankfurt (Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie) 1999-2000, p. 164; A. Blankert, Selected Writings on Dutch Painting: Rembrandt, Van Beke, Vermeer and Others, Zwolle 2004, pp. 265-66; D. Mandrella, Jacob van Loo 1614-1670, Paris 2011, pp. 64, 154-55, no. P. 60

Collection catalogues

1960, p 181, no. 1482 A2; 1976, p. 352, no. A 3483

Citation

Jonathan Bikker, 2024, 'Jacob van Loo, Bacchanal, 1653', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8925

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