Ludolf De Jongh
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Ludolf de Jongh or Ludolf Leendertsz. de Jongh (
Overschie Overschie () is a neighborhood of Rotterdam, Netherlands, formerly a separate village with its own municipality. The village of Overschie was located on the intersection of four rivers called "Schie": the Delftsche Schie, Schiedamsche Schie, Delfs ...
, 1616 –
Hillegersberg Hillegersberg () is a neighbourhood of Rotterdam, Netherlands. Primarily a green residential area with lakes, canals and parks, it was incorporated into the city of Rotterdam in 1941. Settlement around its Hillegonda church was first established ...
, 1679) was a Dutch painter, known for his
genre Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other fo ...
scenes, hunting scenes, history paintings, landscapes, cityscapes and portraits.Ludolf de Jongh
at the
Netherlands Institute for Art History The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: ), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center in the world. The center specializes in document ...
He was further a merchant, an officer in the civil guard of Rotterdam and a ''
schout In Dutch language, Dutch-speaking areas, a ''schout'' was a local official appointed to carry out administrative, law enforcement and prosecutorial tasks. The office was abolished with the introduction of administrative reforms during the Napoleon ...
'' (sheriff) of Hillegersberg.Ludolf de Jongh
at Jean Moust
He was in the 1650s the leading genre painter in Rotterdam whose work influenced artists such as
Pieter de Hooch Pieter Hendricksz. de Hooch (; also spelled ''Hoogh'' or ''Hooghe''; 20 December 1629  – after 1683), was a Dutch Golden Age painter famous for his genre works of quiet domestic scenes with an open doorway. He was a contemporary, in the ...
.Walter A. Liedtke, Michiel Plomp, Axel Rüger, ''Vermeer and the Delft School''
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001, pp. 318-322
He was active as a
staffage In painting, staffage () are the human and animal figures depicted in a scene, especially a landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often c ...
painter and added the figures in the works of artists such as the church interior painter Anthonie de Lorme and the landscape painter
Joris van der Haagen file:Beaux-Arts de Carcassonne - Environs d'Arnhem - Joris van der Haagen.jpg, ''Surroundings of Arnhem'' Fine Arts of Carcassonne Joris Abrahamsz. van der Haagen (c. 1615 – 23 May 1669 (buried)) was a Dutch Golden Age painter specialize ...
.Anthonie de Lorme and Ludolf de Jongh, ''Interior of the St. Laurenskerk in Rotterdam''
at the
Netherlands Institute for Art History The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: ), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center in the world. The center specializes in document ...


Life

De Jongh was born in Overschie (then a village near Rotterdam, which has now become part of Rotterdam) as the son of Leendert Leendertsz de Jongh and Annetje Leuvens. The family later moved to Rotterdam where the father was mentioned in 1647 as an inn-keeper. The de Jongh family was rather well-off as at the death of the father in 1670 he owned several houses.P. Haverkorn van Rijsewijk, 'Ludolf (Leuff) de Jongh', Oud-Holland 14 (1896), pp. 36-46 The early Dutch biographer
Arnold Houbraken Arnold Houbraken (28 March 1660 – 14 October 1719) was a Dutch people, Dutch Painting, painter and writer from Dordrecht, now remembered mainly as a biographer of Dutch Golden Age painters. Life Houbraken was sent first to learn ''threadt ...
who is the main source on de Jongh's life claims that the young artist was a pupil of the versatile genre and landscape painter Cornelis Saftleven.Ludolf de Jongh
at
Getty Center The Getty Center, in Los Angeles, California, United States, is a campus of the Getty Museum and other programs of the Getty Trust. The $1.3 billion center opened to the public on December 16, 1997, and is well known for its architecture, garde ...
)
Houbraken also states that he studied under the genre and portrait painter Anthonie Palamedesz. in
Delft Delft () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam, to the southeast, ...
and subsequently with the Caravaggist painter
Jan van Bijlert Jan Hermansz van Bijlert (1597 or 1598 – November 1671) was a Dutch Golden Age painter from Utrecht, one of the Utrecht Caravaggisti whose style was influenced by Caravaggio. He spent some four years in Italy and was one of the founders of th ...
in
Utrecht Utrecht ( ; ; ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city of the Netherlands, as well as the capital and the most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Utrecht (province), Utrecht. The ...
.Ludolf de Jong biography
in
Arnold Houbraken Arnold Houbraken (28 March 1660 – 14 October 1719) was a Dutch people, Dutch Painting, painter and writer from Dordrecht, now remembered mainly as a biographer of Dutch Golden Age painters. Life Houbraken was sent first to learn ''threadt ...
, ''De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen'', 1718
Some doubts have been raised about his study with Jan van Bijlert as in his early works the influence of the Utrecht Caravaggisti is not discernible and only appears in his works from the late 1640s onwards.''Ludolf de Jongh'', ''Portrait of a boy, full-length, with a dog''
at Christie's (London) on 2 December 2008, lot 3
Wayne E. Franits, ''Seventeenth-century Genre Painting: Its Stylistic and Thematic Evolution'', Yale University Press, 2004 Houbraken claims that de Jongh travelled in 1635 at the age of 19 to
France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
in the company of a certain Frans Bacon. He stayed in France for seven years and only returned to the Dutch Republic in 1642 upon learning that his mother had fallen ill. He took up residence in Rotterdam the same year and his earliest signed paintings date from that year. He married on 6 February 1646 in Rotterdam Adriana Pietersdr. Montagne, the daughter of Pieter Montagne who was reportedly a member of the highest circles of Rotterdam. In the 1650s he became one of the most fashionable painters of Rotterdam achieving success with innovations in portraiture. He was awarded the rank of major in the schutterij (civil guard) of Rotterdam in 1652. In 1659 he was appointed to the College of the Oude-mannenhuismeesters (Board of the Masters of the Old Men's Home) on which he served for two years. In 1665 he was appointed the ''
schout In Dutch language, Dutch-speaking areas, a ''schout'' was a local official appointed to carry out administrative, law enforcement and prosecutorial tasks. The office was abolished with the introduction of administrative reforms during the Napoleon ...
'' of Hillegersberg ( a village near Rotterdam), a position he fulfilled until his death. He sold his house in Rotterdam and moved to Hillegersberg to exercise his duties as a ''schout''. From 1660 onwards he painted less, possibly because of his various responsibilities as a major, a merchant, and later, a ''schout'' in Hillegersberg. He was the master of Johannes van der Meer and the more famous genre and portrait painter
Jacob Ochtervelt Jacob Ochtervelt (1634–1682) was a Dutch Golden Age painter. Biography Ochtervelt's contemporaries included Vermeer, Ter Borch, and De Hooch. Despite his prolific work, he was ignored by the three major 17th century art bibliographers, And ...
. He died in Hillegersberg between 27 May 1679 and 8 September 1679.


Work


General

De Jongh was a very versatile painter who practised most genres popular in the Dutch Republic except still life painting. This versatility is possibly explained by the fact that he was of independent means due to his inheritance and did not need to cater to the varying tastes of his patrons or specialise in a specific genre such as landscapes in order to ensure a steady income. Due to the broad scope of genres in which he painted, his frequent changes of style and his habit not to sign his works often, attributions of work to the artist have been difficult. None of his works from his French period are known. He probably created portraits during that period. His earliest known paintings are genre scenes and portraits dating from his return to Rotterdam around 1642. By the 1660s he had moved away from genre scenes of peasants, taverns and guardrooms towards elegant, even aristocratic subjects such as hunts. In the 1650s he was one of the most fashionable painters of Rotterdam.


Genre scenes

His genre scenes from the early 1640 typically depict peasants or soldiers in dark and monochromatic interiors with some bright color accents. This shows a similarity with the genre paintings of his presumed master Cornelis Saftleven and the Delft painter Anthonie Palamedesz. His genre subjects and hunting scenes of the late 1640s show an indebtedness to the Dutch followers of
Caravaggio Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (also Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi da Caravaggio; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), known mononymously as Caravaggio, was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the fina ...
, the so-called Utrecht Caravaggisti, especially Jacob Duck. Like his master Palamedesz. he painted guardroom scenes, which show soldiers in guardrooms who are engaged in recreational activities. This genre was particularly popular in the Dutch Republic although it was also practised in Flanders by artists such as
David Teniers the Younger David Teniers the Younger or David Teniers II (bapt. 15 December 1610 – 25 April 1690) was a Flemish Baroque painter, printmaker, draughtsman, miniaturist painter, staffage painter, copyist and art curator. He was an extremely versatile artist ...
. The principal exponents in this genre were Pieter Codde, Willem Duyster and Simon Kick in Amsterdam, Jacob Duck in Utrecht and Anthonie Palamedesz. and Jacob van Velsen in Delft. Often referred to in the Dutch language as 'cortegaerdje', guardroom scenes showed interiors with soldiers at rest. The genre became popular after 1621 when the
Twelve Years' Truce The Twelve Years' Truce was a ceasefire during the Eighty Years' War between Habsburg Spain, Spain and the Dutch Republic, agreed in Antwerp on 9 April 1609 and ended on 9 April 1621. While European powers like Kingdom of France, France began tre ...
with Spain ended. Stationed throughout the Dutch Republic, soldiers would often have long periods during which there was no military action. They used this leisure time to interact with the local population or entertain themselves.Anthonie Palamedesz., ''A Guardroom Interior with a Company of Pikemen, card players, and a woman with a child''
at Sotheby's
Jochai Rosen, ''Masculinity Pacified: Women as Mothers in the Guardroom Scenes of Anthonie Palamedes (1602-1673)''
De Zeventiende Eeuw. Jaargang 24(2008), pp. 181-195
Examples of paintings of de Jongh broadly falling into this genre are the ''Tavern scene'' (1650,
National Gallery Prague The National Gallery Prague (, NGP), formerly the National Gallery in Prague (), is a state-owned art gallery in Prague, which manages the largest collection of art in the Czech Republic and presents masterpieces of Czech and international fine a ...
) and the ''Soldiers at reveille'' (1653,
North Carolina Museum of Art The North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) is an art museum in Raleigh, North Carolina. It opened in 1956 as the first major museum collection in the country to be formed by state legislation and funding. Since the initial 1947 appropriation that ...
).


Portraits

While now known mainly for his genre work, de Jongh's principal area of activity was portraiture. He started out painting portraits in the more traditional Dutch style characterised by its formal depiction of the sitters. He likely trained in this style with his teacher Anthonie Palamedesz. who had studied it himself under his presumed master
Michiel Jansz. van Mierevelt Michiel Janszoon ( Jansz.) van Mierevelt (; also spelled Miereveld or Miereveldt; 1 May 1566 – 27 June 1641) was a Dutch painter and draftsman of the Dutch Golden Age. Biography Van Mierevelt was born and died in Delft, as a son of a goldsm ...
. De Jongh's later works reflect a development in the mid-17th-century Dutch Republic towards a more opulent style and a greater plasticity of handling of which the Amsterdam painter
Bartholomeus van der Helst Bartholomeus van der Helst (1613 – buried 16 December 1670) was a Dutch painter. Considered to be one of the leading portrait painters of the Dutch Golden Age, his elegant portraits gained him the patronage of Amsterdam's elite as well as th ...
was the principal proponent. He experimented with various innovations in portraiture in this period, both in his use of space and light effects as well as by paying more attention to the psychological expression of his sitters. This approach in his works had a significant influence on the young
Pieter de Hooch Pieter Hendricksz. de Hooch (; also spelled ''Hoogh'' or ''Hooghe''; 20 December 1629  – after 1683), was a Dutch Golden Age painter famous for his genre works of quiet domestic scenes with an open doorway. He was a contemporary, in the ...
. An example of a portrait from his later period is the ''Portrait of a boy, full-length, with a dog'' of 1648 (At Christie's (London) on 2 December 2008, lot 3) depicting a boy wearing a rich silken doublet and skirt. The modelling of the brushwork in this work is fluid and confident. The portrait shows three typical elements of his portraiture: the restricted palette used for the sitter, the careful delineation and representation of the features and the inclusion of a dog. In the latter he shows a knowledge of van Dyck’s portraits. He painted a '' schuttersstuk'' (a group portrait of officers of the civil guard) of Rotterdam. Houbraken saw the work in the target practice hall of the ''schutterij'' in the 18th century. The current location of the work is unknown.


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Jongh, Ludolf Leendertsz de 1616 births 1679 deaths Dutch Golden Age painters Dutch portrait painters Dutch male painters Painters from Rotterdam