watermark: Strasbourg lily (lower half); cf. Heawood, no. 1730 (Amsterdam: 1646)

…; sale, Abraham Nicolaas Godefroy (1822-99, Amsterdam) et al., Amsterdam (De Vries), 8 May 1900 sqq., in no. 253 (as by ‘F. Snijders’), with twelve other drawings, fl. 19, to the dealer F. Muller, Amsterdam;¹¹Copy RKD. from whom, with twelve other drawings, fl. 22.40, to the museum (L. 2228a), 1900

Object number: RP-T-1900-A-4450

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.⁸⁸H. 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),⁹⁹Ibid., no. Z 50. or Howling Dog Lying on the Ground, in the Courtauld Gallery, London (inv. no. D.1952.RW.2924).¹⁰¹⁰Ibid., 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).¹¹¹¹A. Stefes, Niederländische Zeichnungen, 1450-1800, 3 vols., coll. cat. Hamburg 2011 (Die Sammlungen der Hamburger Kunsthalle, Kupferstichkabinett, vol. 2), I, nos. 488-89. This attribution can be verified by the fact that several of the Amsterdam studies are closely related to details in paintings by the artist. The related study of a defecating greyhound (inv. no. [RP-T-1900-A-4452], for instance, is similar to one that appears in the foreground of an untraced painted Small Hunting Group of circa 1655,¹²¹²Cf. R.E. Fleischer, Ludolf de Jongh (1616-1679): Painter of Rotterdam, Doornspijk 1989, p. 52 (fig. 48). Several of the 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. A lost study of the same model seems to have served for the defecating greyhound in Hunters in the Field, formerly in the Cees Roodenburg collection, Schiedam.¹³¹³Ibid., p. 50, fig. 44; sale, Amsterdam (Christie’s), 24 May 2016, no. 98. The fact that inv. no. [RP-T-1900-A-4455] is linked to another untraced painting by De Jongh, Landscape with Diana and her Nymphs, this one from 1644,¹⁴¹⁴Ibid., p. 4 (fig. 31); sale, Amsterdam (Christie’s), 9 November-15 December 2010, no. 114. suggests that the whole group may have been done in the mid-1640s and kept by De Jongh for future study material and incorporation into works from the 1650s.

As a draughtsman, Ludolf de Jongh was previously known mostly for figure studies related to his paintings.¹⁵¹⁵Cf. P. Schatborn, ‘Figuurstudies van Ludolf de Jongh’, Oud Holland 89 (1975), no. 2, pp. 79-85; P. Schatborn Dutch Figure Drawings from the Seventeenth Century, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet)/Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 1981-82, pp. 77, 138; R.E. Fleischer and S. Reiss, ‘Attributions to Ludolf de Jongh: Some Old, Some New’, Burlington Magazine 135 (1993), no. 1087, pp. 668-70; P. Schatborn and L. van Sloten, Old Drawings, New Names: Rembrandt and his Contemporaries, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 2014, pp. 147-49. Some of these were also done on toned paper, such as the Violin Player (c. 1652) in the Albertina, Vienna (inv. no. 8743).¹⁶¹⁶R.E. Fleischer and S. Reiss, ‘Attributions to Ludolf de Jongh: Some Old, Some New’, Burlington Magazine 135 (1993), no. 1087, p. 671 (fig. 7). With at least twelve dog studies now securely attributed to him, De Jongh’s drawn oeuvre is considerably enlarged and enriched in subject-matter. Before 2011, only one animal study was given to the artist, an oil sketch of a Reclining Dog in the Amsterdam Museum (inv. no. TA 10322),¹⁷¹⁷Cf. 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). a motif that appears in De Jongh’s painting Travellers Resting on a Road.¹⁸¹⁸Sale, 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). The same dog also occurs in an untraced painting with a fragmented signature of Hendrick Verschuring (1627-1690), which was formerly on the London art market.¹⁹¹⁹Cf. 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 Plomp²⁰²⁰‘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.

Annemarie Stefes, 2021

H. Robels,_Frans Snyders: Stilleben- und Tiermaler (1579-1658), Munich 1989, no. Z 70 (as by Snijders); A. Stefes, ‘Dogs by the Dozen: New Attributions to Ludolf de Jongh’, _ Master Drawings_ 60 (2022), no. 1, p. 69, fig. 1

A. Stefes, 2021, 'Ludolf de Jongh, _, Rotterdam, c. 1644', in J. Turner (ed.), _Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20012350