Caspar Smits, also known as Ludowyk Smits or Gaspar Smitz, with the surname sometimes spelt "Smith", and the Latin form "Casparus" sometimes used (1635–probably 1688), was a

Dutch Golden Age painter Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history roughly spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) for Dutch independence. The new Dutch Republi ...

, whose main interest today is that he was one of the first painters of any stature to work in Ireland, where he probably moved in the 1660s and died around 1688. His few surviving attributed works are mostly portraits of the English and Irish

gentry Gentry (from Old French , from ) are "well-born, genteel and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past. ''Gentry'', in its widest connotation, refers to people of good social position connected to Landed property, landed es ...

and aristocracy, but early sources say he did

history painting History painting is a genre in painting defined by its subject matter rather than any artistic style or specific period. History paintings depict a moment in a narrative story, most often (but not exclusively) Greek and Roman mythology and B ...

s and flower paintings as well.

Biography

He was probably born around 1635 in

Zwartewaal Zwartewaal is a village in the Dutch province of South Holland, The Netherlands. It is a part of the municipality of Voorne aan Zee and lies about 5 km south of Maassluis. History The village was first mentioned in the middle of the 13t ...

in the south of Holland. According to

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 ...

he was called Ludowyk Smits, nicknamed Hartkamp, and was the teacher of the painters Simon Germyn and possibly Garret Morphy. Smits came to live in Dordrecht for a few years with the organist Joan Kools, whose wife traded in paintings, when he was 40 in 1675.Ludowyk Smits Biography
in ''De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen'' (1718) by

, courtesy of the Digital library for Dutch literature He started by making "penitent Maria Magdalenes", but made his living primarily by painting fruit and flower still lifes in the manner of

Jan Davidsz de Heem Jan Davidsz. de Heem or in-full ''Jan Davidszoon de Heem'', also called ''Johannes de Heem'' or ''Johannes van Antwerpen'' or ''Jan Davidsz de Hem'' (c. 17 April 1606 in Utrecht – before 26 April 1684 in Antwerp), was a still life painter wh ...

and

Willem van Aelst Willem van Aelst (16 May 1627 – buried 22 May 1683)Aelst, Willem van< ...

. He used cheap paint that faded quickly, and when his customers complained he said that the paint lasted longer than the money that was paid for them. The leading London

mezzotint Mezzotint is a monochrome printmaking process of the intaglio (printmaking), intaglio family. It was the first printing process that yielded half-tones without using line- or dot-based techniques like hatching, cross-hatching or stipple. Mezzo ...

er John Smith published a ''Penitent Magdalen'' in 1691, after "C. Smits", and the Dutch mezzotinter Jacob Gole published a print of a different composition of the same subject. Both have the same model, with a single breast exposed, and a large

thistle Thistle is the common name of a group of flowering plants characterized by leaves with sharp spikes on the margins, mostly in the family Asteraceae. Prickles can also occur all over the planton the stem and on the flat parts of the leaves. T ...

in the foreground, apparently a trademark motif. The Gould/Walpole/Virtue ''Dictionary of Artists'' claims that "an English gentlewoman, of an agreeable person, who passed for his wife, was his model for all the Magdalens he painted". Various

miniature portrait A portrait miniature is a miniature portrait painting from Renaissance art, usually executed in gouache, Watercolor painting, watercolor, or Vitreous enamel, enamel. Portrait miniatures developed out of the techniques of the miniatures in illumin ...

s are attributed to him, including one of the three works belonging to the

National Trust The National Trust () is a heritage and nature conservation charity and membership organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley to "promote the ...

that are attributed to him. According to the RKD he was known under the names Lodewyk, Gaspar, and Magdalen Smits, as well as the alias Theodorus Hartkamp.Caspar Smits
in the

RKD 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 ...

Abraham Bredius Abraham Bredius (18 April 1855 – 13 March 1946) was a Dutch art collector, art historian, and museum curator. Life Bredius travelled widely, visiting various art collections in his youth, and worked at the Dutch Museum for History and Art be ...

found Dordrechtse documents in the archives there to prove that Houbraken's Ludowyk Smits and

Horace Walpole Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (; 24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English Whig politician, writer, historian and antiquarian. He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twickenham, southwest London ...

's Gaspar Smits were the same person Oud Holland 1915, p. 118 He was a member of the Guild of St. Luke in Dublin from 1681 to 1688, and according to Walpole he was active in Ireland until his death in 1707. However, his final entry, for 1688, in the guild records is annotated ''mort'' ("dead") in the margin, and it is thought more likely that he died around then.

References

*
A Dictionary of painters, sculptors, architects, and engravers
page 328 (lists Magdalen Smith and Ludowick Smith side by side), by John Gould, Horace Walpole, and

George Vertue George Vertue (1684 – 24 July 1756) was an English engraver and antiquary, whose notebooks on British art of the first half of the 18th century are a valuable source for the period. Life Vertue was born in 1684 in St Martin-in-the-Fields ...

, London, 1810, on

Google books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...

Theodorus Smits
in the RKD (listed with alias Casparus Smits and states he was a member of the Antwerp guild as a follower of Jan Davidsz. de Heem)
Gaspar Smits/Smith/Smitz
an
Theodorus (Dirk) Smits
on

Artnet Artnet.com is an art market website. It is operated by Artnet Worldwide Corporation, which has headquarters in New York City. It is owned by Artnet AG, a German publicly-traded company based in Berlin that is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Ex ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smits, Ludowyk 1635 births 1688 deaths Dutch Golden Age painters Dutch male painters People from Brielle Painters from Antwerp Painters from Dublin (city)