David Pierre Giottino Humbert de Superville (

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...

, 18 July 1770 –

Leiden Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration w ...

, 9 January 1849) was a Dutch artist and art scholar. He was a draughtsman, lithographer, etcher, and portrait painter, and also wrote treatises on art, including the influential work ''Essai sur les signes inconditionnels dans l'art'' (Leiden, 1827). His 1815 painting of the jurist and statesman Johan Melchior Kemper is now part of the collection of the

Rijksmuseum The Rijksmuseum () is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history and is located in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough of Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the ...

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

. His 1801 etching ''Allegory'' may have been a direct visual inspiration for Paul Gauguin's ''

Spirit of the Dead Watching ''Spirit of the Dead Watching (Manao tupapau)'' is an 1892 oil on burlap canvas painting by Paul Gauguin, depicting a nude Tahitian girl lying on her stomach. An old woman is seated behind her. Gauguin said the title may refer to either the girl ...

''. Although no direct connection has been made, de Superville was cited by

Albert Aurier Gabriel-Albert Aurier (5 May 1865 – 5 October 1892) was a French poet, art critic and painter, associated with the Symbolist movement. Career The son of a notary born in Châteauroux, Indre, Aurier went to Paris in 1883 to study law, but his at ...

as one of the forerunners of

Symbolist Symbolism was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and realis ...

painting and de Superville's book ''Unconditional Signs in Art'' (1827–32) was widely known to that group.Gamboni (2003) A portrait of Humbert de Superville uit 1848, painted by Jacobus Ludovicus Cornet, is now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The biography ''David Pierre Giottin Humbert de Superville, 1770-1849'' by Cornelia Magdalena de Haas was published by A.W. Sijthoff in Leiden in 1941. In 1988, an exhibition of Humbert de Superville's work was held at the Musée Fabre in

Montpellier Montpellier (, , ; oc, Montpelhièr ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the department of Hérault. In 2018, 290,053 people l ...

(France) and at the Institut Néerlandais in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

Biography

D.P.G. Humbert de Superville was a son of Jean Humbert, a Dutch painter of Swiss and French extraction. His brother, military engineer

Jean Emile Humbert Jean Emile Humbert (23 July 1771 in The Hague – 20 February 1839 in Livorno) was a Dutch lieutenant-colonel who can be credited with rediscovering ancient Carthage. As an agent for the Dutch government he procured vital parts of the collecti ...

, is credited with rediscovering the lost city of

Carthage Carthage was the capital city of Ancient Carthage, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classi ...

. Humbert de Superville's assumed name of Giottino was originally a nickname he was given in Italy because his work showed similarities with the Italian master

Giotto Giotto di Bondone (; – January 8, 1337), known mononymously as Giotto ( , ) and Latinised as Giottus, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence during the Late Middle Ages. He worked during the Gothic/ Proto-Renaissance period. G ...

. He also took the last name de Superville after his grandmother Emilie de Superville, daughter of the eminent French

Calvinist Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John C ...

theologian Daniel de Superville, who had fled to the Dutch republic in 1685. He left the Netherlands for

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

from 1789 and lived there until 1800, when the Papal State was restored and Humbert de Superville was forced to leave the city because he had supported the 1798 occupation of Rome by French revolutionary troops. In 1812 he settled in the Dutch town of Leiden and became a lecturer at the

University of Leiden Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, as a reward to the city of Le ...

. He served as head of the Leiden drawing academy Ars Aemula Naturae (1814–1823) and as first director of the Leiden cabinet of prints, drawings and plaster statues (1825–1849). Humbert de Superville married Elisabeth Paradijs in 1816. They had two sons, one of whom died at a very young age; the other son died of

typhoid Typhoid fever, also known as typhoid, is a disease caused by ''Salmonella'' serotype Typhi bacteria. Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure. Often there is a gradual onset of a high fever over several d ...

at the age of 24.

Gallery

Images from the collection of the

Leiden University Library Leiden University Libraries is a library founded in 1575 in Leiden, Netherlands. It is regarded as a significant place in the development of European culture: it is a part of a small number of cultural centres that gave direction to the developme ...

: File:Humbert 1.jpeg File:Humbert 2.jpeg File:Humbert 3.jpeg File:Humbert 4.jpeg File:Humbert 5.jpeg File:Humbert de Superville - Allegory.jpg , ''Allegory'', 1801

References

External links

Portrait of Johan Melchior Kemper, painted by David Pierre Giottino Humbert de Superville

Portrait of David Pierre Giottino Humbert de Superville, painted by Jacobus Ludovicus Cornet

David Pierre Giottino Humbert de Superville at arthistoricum.net
(German)

Sources

*

(Dutch)
Musée Fabre
(French) * Thorbecke-archief, Vol. 2 (1820–1825), Historisch Genootschap (Utrecht) (Dutch) {{DEFAULTSORT:Humbert De Superville, David Pierre Giottino 1770 births 1849 deaths Dutch draughtsmen 19th-century Dutch painters Dutch male painters Artists from The Hague 19th-century Dutch male artists