The present sheet belongs to a group of twelve studies of dogs, with one exception drawn in black and white chalk on toned paper (inv. nos. RP-T-1900-A-4451 to RP-T-1900-A-4461 and RP-T-00-442). They were offered in the 1900 Godefroy sale as by Frans Snijders (1579-1657) and were inventoried under that name. Robels, in 1989, accepted this attribution.⁷⁷H. Robels, Frans Snyders: Stilleben- und Tiermaler (1579-1658), Munich 1989, pp. 420-21, nos. Z 63-74. Inv. no. RP-T-00-442, inventoried only in the 1970s, apparently escaped her attention.

However, this global attribution, including inv. no. [RP-T-1900-A-4456], on blue paper and clearly by another hand, was apparently based on the mere fact that dogs feature prominently in the oeuvre of the Flemish artist. The drawings, however, are neither linked by motif to any painting by Snijders, nor is there a stylistic connection to his few black-and-white chalk studies, such as Study of a Dog Thrown on its Back in the British Museum, London (inv. no. Oo,9.38),⁸⁸Ibid., no. Z 50. or Howling Dog Lying on the Ground, in the Courtauld Gallery, London (inv. no. D.1952.RW.2924).⁹⁹Ibid., no. Z 52. (Snijders mostly used pen and brown ink for his drawings, and his dogs – both painted and drawn – are almost always shown in action.)

An alternative attribution to Ludolf de Jongh was first suggested by the present writer (2011), based on two similar studies of greyhounds in the same technique in the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, traditionally given to that artist (inv. nos. 22867 and 22868).¹⁰¹⁰A. Stefes, Niederländische Zeichnungen, 1450-1800, 3 vols., coll. cat. Hamburg 2011 (Die Sammlungen der Hamburger Kunsthalle, Kupferstichkabinett, vol. 2), I, nos. 488-89. Several of these dozen Rijksmuseum studies appear to have been made from life after the same dog, the artist evidently trying to capture his subject from different perspectives. In the present case, the re-attribution can be verified by comparison with an untraced painting by De Jongh from circa 1650, Travellers Resting on a Road,¹¹¹¹Sale, London (Christie’s), 11 December 2002, no. 67; R.E. Fleischer and S. Reiss, ‘Attributions to Ludolf de Jongh: Some Old, Some New’, Burlington Magazine 135 (1993), no. 1087, p. 670 (fig. 5). where the dog appears in the foreground. De Jongh closely followed the present sketch; the only minor changes are found in the position of the legs that are given more space in the painting. That same painting features a reclining dog related to an oil sketch in the Amsterdam Museum (inv. no. TA 10322),¹²¹²Cf. M.C. Plomp, ‘Drawing and Printmaking in Delft during the Seventeenth Century’, in W. Liedtke et al., Vermeer and the Delft School, exh. cat. New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art)/London (National Gallery) 2001, pp. 182-83 (fig. 198). Before 2011, this was the only other animal study given to De Jongh. The present drawing may also have served as a model for a seated dog lifting its head to be caressed by its master in De Jongh’s painted Rest on the Hunt of the 1650s that appeared on the Munich art market in 2017.¹³¹³Sale, Munich (Karl & Faber), 19 May 2017, no. 8; cf. R.E. Fleischer, Ludolf de Jongh (1616-1679): Painter of Rotterdam, Doornspijk 1989, p. 50 (fig. 43).

The Amsterdam Museum’s oil sketch of a reclining dog also occurs in an untraced painting with a fragmented signature of Hendrick Verschuring (1627-1690), which was formerly on the London art market.¹⁴¹⁴Cf. B.P.J. Broos and M. Schapelhouman, Nederlandse tekenaars geboren tussen 1600 en 1660, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1993 (Oude tekeningen in het bezit van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, waaronder de collective Fodor, vol. 4), p. 205 (figs. a-b). For that reason, Schapelhouman gave the oil sketch to Verschuring, but according to Plomp¹⁵¹⁵‘Drawing and Printmaking in Delft during the Seventeenth Century’, in W. Liedtke et al., Vermeer and the Delft School, exh. cat. New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art)/London (National Gallery) 2001, p. 584, n. 45. that second painting is also by De Jongh.

Verschuring may not have been the only artist influenced by De Jongh’s dogs. A similar greyhound as in the present drawing is found, in reverse, in a painting by Emmanuel de Witte (1617-1692), View of the Tomb of Willem of Orange in the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft (1656) in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lille (inv. no. 902).¹⁶¹⁶W.A. Liedtke et al., Vermeer and the Delft School, exh. cat. New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art)/London (National Gallery) 2001, p. 64 (fig. 48). L.B. Harwood, Adam Pynacker (c. 1620-1673), Doornspijk 1988, p. 24, suggested that the figures in De Witte’s church interiors may have been derived from De Jongh. Further examples of De Jongh’s influence can be seen in the untraced painting by Jacob Ochtervelt (1634-1682) of Granida and Daifilo (c. 1655), recently on the Paris art market.¹⁷¹⁷Sale, Paris (Bonhams), 9 April 2025, no. 24; R.E. Fleischer, Ludolf de Jongh (1616-1679): Painter of Rotterdam, Doornspijk 1989, p. 43 (fig. 34); on De Jongh’s influence on Ochtervelt, cf. ibid., pp. 43-44. the Rijksmuseum’s Portrait of a Greyhound and a Spaniel (inv. no. SK-C-263) by Jan Weenix (1641-1719) and the Landscape with Sportsmen and Game (c. 1665) by Adam Pynacker (c. 1620/22-1673) in the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London (inv. no. DPG086).¹⁸¹⁸L.B. Harwood, Adam Pynacker (c. 1620-1673), Doornspijk 1988, no. 77.

Annemarie Stefes, 2021