Peasant Woman Spinning

c. 1660 - c. 1670

Object data

oil on panel

support: height 36.4 cm × width 35.4 cm
outer size: depth 6 cm (support incl. SK-L-6579)

Inscriptions

signature, lower left, on the baby chair (T and w ligated): Twyck

Technical notes

Support The single, vertically grained oak plank is approx. 0.5 cm thick. The reverse is bevelled on all sides, though only slightly at the bottom, and has some irregularly spaced saw marks and plane marks. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1639. The plank could have been ready for use by 1648, but a date in or after 1658 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The single, smooth, off-white ground extends over the edges of the support. It consists of white pigment with a small addition of earth pigments.
Underdrawing Infrared photography and infrared reflectography revealed a cursory underdrawing in a dry medium, also partly visible to the naked eye in light areas. It consists of sketchy, short, rather thick lines that roughly indicate all compositional elements, but were not always followed in the painting phase. The head of the child, for instance, was planned further up and more to the right, and the arms of the woman were higher up. There is an unidentified shape behind her, possibly another figure, which was not executed in the final paint layer.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the edges of the support. The composition was built up from the back to the front and from dark to light. The main figures were reserved in the background, which appears to consist of only one or two layers of thin, rather transparent paint. The edges of the reserves were left open in a few places, showing the ground. Infrared photography revealed that the shape behind the woman, present in the underdrawing but never executed, was initially also reserved in the background; microscopic examination of the paint surface showed that some modelling was furthermore carried out before it was painted over. The figures and elements were undermodelled, introducing dark and light areas, with rather opaque, smooth paints in subdued red, yellow, grey and white, applied wet in wet. Small, white and brightly coloured, somewhat oily, impasted brushstrokes and dabs of paint were applied to finalize the modelling and indicate highlights, and short black lines were added to enhance contours and deepen the darkest shadows.
Ige Verslype, 2024

Scientific examination and reports

dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 17 March 2009
infrared photography: S. Meloni / I. Verslype, Mauritshuis, 17 March 2009
paint samples: I. Verslype, RMA, nos. SK-A-488/1-2, 17 March 2009
technical report: N. Bord / I. Verslype, RMA, 17 March 2009
infrared reflectography: I. Verslype, RMA, 18 July 2013

Condition

Fair. Some small discoloured retouchings are apparent throughout the paint surface. The paint layer is slightly abraded overall. The varnish is somewhat discoloured and has an uneven gloss.

Provenance

…; from Jan van Ravenswaay (1789-1869), Hilversum, fl. 350, to the museum, 1829¹

Object number: SK-A-488

The artist

Thomas Wijck (Beverwijk c. 1616/21 - Haarlem 1677)

Houbraken thought that Thomas Wijck was born in 1616, but there are no contemporary records to confirm this. Since Wijck registered with the Haarlem Guild of St Luke in 1642 it can be assumed that he was at least 21 years old at the time. His place of birth was probably Beverwijk, where his parents were still living in 1642. Wijck married Trijntgen (Catharina) Adamsdr in Haarlem in 1644, and because she was a Catholic the ceremony was carried out in the presence of the aldermen.

There is still a debate as to whether the artist ever visited Italy, as reported by Houbraken. Since his early work was informed by the Haarlem School it is unlikely that Wijck went there before joining the guild. The Haarlem influence, and that of Adriaen van Ostade in particular, is taken as evidence that he was the latter’s pupil. Wijck’s earliest dated picture, View in an Italianate Courtyard, a drawing of 1643, betrays a southern approach in the depiction of the courtyard.² With this subject, he was following in the footsteps of Pieter van Laer, who had returned to the Netherlands from Rome in 1639. The style, though, is still entirely that of Van Ostade. Although there is no documentation of a sojourn in Italy, neither is there any evidence that Wijck was in Haarlem between his marriage in 1644 and 28 April 1653, when he acted as a witness in a case of theft. Such a trip is supported by the fact that drawings of his on Italian paper are known, as well as by the existence of a series of sketches of the same courtyard that was very probably made on the spot.³

Wijck served as warden of the Haarlem Guild of St Luke in 1657-58, 1668-69, 1671-72 and 1676, and as dean in 1660 and 1669-70. In 1663 he deputized his wife to look after his affairs. This was very probably necessitated by his trip to England, where he was during the Great Fire of London in September 1666. According to Horace Walpole, the artist made several paintings of the event.⁴ Wijck was appointed warden of the guild for the second time in 1668, so he was back in Haarlem by then. He travelled to London again in 1674, probably in connection with the enrolment of his son Jan (1644-1702) in the city’s guild. Jan, who made his career in England and remained there until his death, was trained by his father, as were Jan van der Vaart (1642-1727) and Jan van Huchtenburg (1647-1733). Wijck died in Haarlem, where he was buried in the Grote Kerk on 19 August 1677.

In addition to southern courtyards and Italianate harbour scenes, Wijck painted peasant interiors, philosophers’ studies and alchemists’ laboratories. He rarely dated his works. The last one, a drawing of the ruins of the palace of Septimus Severus on the Palatine Hill in Rome, is from 1670.⁵

Richard Harmanni, 2024

References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, II, Amsterdam 1719, pp. 16-17; H. Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting in England: With Some Account of the Principal Artists, and Incidental Notes on Other Arts: Collected by the Late Mr. George Vertue, II, Strawberry-Hill 1762, p. 234; A. van der Willigen, Geschiedkundige aanteekeningen over Haarlemsche schilders en andere beoefenaren van de beeldende kunsten, voorafgegaan door eene korte geschiedenis van het schilders- of St. Lucas Gild aldaar, Haarlem 1866, p. 245; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstler-Lexikon, II, Leipzig/Vienna 1910, pp. 906-07; U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XXXVI, Leipzig 1947, pp. 324-25; Blankert in A. Blankert, H.J. de Smedt and M.E. Houtzager, Nederlandse 17e eeuwse Italianiserende landschapschilders, exh. cat. Utrecht (Centraal Museum) 1965, pp. 144-45; H. Miedema, De archiefbescheiden van het St. Lucasgilde te Haarlem, 1497-1798, 2 vols., Alphen aan den Rijn 1980, passim; A.C. Steland, ‘Thomas Wijck als italienisierender Zeichner: Beobachtungen zu Herkunft, Stil und Arbeitsweise’, Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch 48-49 (1987-88), pp. 215-47, esp. pp. 215-17; P. Schatborn, Drawn to Warmth: 17th-Century Dutch Artists in Italy, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2001, pp. 117-22; I. van Thiel-Stroman, ‘Biographies 15th-17th Century’, in P. Biesboer et al., Painting in Haarlem 1500-1850: The Collection of the Frans Hals Museum, coll. cat. Haarlem 2006, pp. 99-363, esp. pp. 347-48

Entry

Although developments in the textile industry meant that spinning at home gradually died out in the seventeenth century, it was still depicted regularly in genre scenes.⁶ Spinning symbolized virtue in general or the virtue of domesticity in particular, which was considered to be an extremely important female quality in the seventeenth century.⁷ In this painting it is related to motherhood. The spinning woman looks lovingly at her child in its chair, where it is trying to attract the dog’s attention. The underdrawing visible in the infrared images shows that the artist had initially planned to have what appears to be a standing figure behind the mother, and the infant’s head was originally turned more to the right,⁸ but the artist modified the composition to put all the focus on the woman and child. The person in bed in the room at the back and the man sitting in front of him by the hearth also allude to the housewife’s caring duties.

Wijck painted many interiors, predominantly alchemists’ laboratories, such as The Alchemist in the Rijksmuseum.⁹ Domestic scenes such as this one are in the minority in his oeuvre. Despite the exemplary role that the main figure seems to be playing here, the many objects in the room make a disorderly impression. Most of his laboratories are also packed with items. It was part of his artistic vocabulary, so the apparent mess in the spinning woman’s home has less to do with the iconography of the subject than with Wijck’s own visual tradition.

The interiors with domestic scenes and those with alchemists are sometimes related in composition. For example, Wijck used the curvature in the ceiling of Peasant Woman Spinning in many of the latter depictions as well. A more detailed vaulted ceiling can be seen in his painting of a family in Rotterdam.¹⁰ The opening at the top left with what appears to be a wooden trapdoor also features in the Rijksmuseum scene. The Rotterdam work is probably from around 1665,¹¹ while the dendrochronology indicated that the panel of the present picture was most likely ready for use in or after 1658. The impasted handling links Peasant Woman Spinning stylistically to Wijck’s Rijksmuseum Alchemist, which can be assigned to the 1660s, like the painting in Rotterdam. The dendrochronology thus fits in with the stylistic dating to the same decade.

In 1995 a panel with exactly the same dimensions and scene was offered as a genuine Thomas Wijck in Turin.¹² It is impossible to make out from the photograph in the dealer’s catalogue whether it is a copy or a replica.

Richard Harmanni, 2024

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

Lammertse in F. Lammertse, J. Giltaij and A. Janssen, Dutch Genre Paintings of the 17th Century, coll. cat. Rotterdam (Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen) 1998, p. 188

Collection catalogues

1832, p. 83, no. 365; 1843, p. 72, no. 365 (‘in good condition’); 1853, p. 32, no. 338; 1858, p. 169, no. 374; 1880, pp. 356-57, no. 419; 1976, p. 617, no. A 488

Citation

Richard Harmanni, 2024, 'Thomas Wijck, Peasant Woman Spinning, c. 1660 - c. 1670', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6556

(accessed 27 December 2024 04:47:06).