HOOGSTRATEN, Samuel van

This painting with an uncommon subject and comparatively small scale probably was painted for a private Catholic patron. Van Hoogstraten had worked for foreign Catholics and like other Protestant players in the Netherlands he also had Dutch Catholic clients and was capable of meeting their demands sympathetically.

The present picture, like some other painted for Catholic patrons, may be placed within the tradition of “Dutch Classicism,” which was rising about 1670 (G�rard de Lairesse being a key representative).

In Dutch painting there is a tendency towards imitation and rhe dissolution of the boundary between real space and pictorial space. Even Rembrandt painted “window pictures” in which the person portrayed is standing in a door or window whose frame is identical with the frame of the painting. The generation of artists who followed him took a particularly keen interest in trompe-l’oeil techniques. Hoogstralen was a specialist in this field and the work shown here is typical of the genre. Because such trompe-I’oeil effects do not work well in depth, but are most effective on the surface, the artist chose to portray flat objects that could be placed on the picture plane to which relatively flat items could be added.

Here, for example, we see a variety of everyday objects held by two leather straps over a wooden frame. That old chestnut about the spectator who is actually fooled by such painted objects is quite easy to imagine in this case, but we should not forget that such trompe-l’oeil paintings were actually intended as a joke and that they were meant to produce a sense of surprise on discovering that the objects were painted rather than real. Even so, this approach towards reproducing reality in painting does tell us something about Dutch painting in general: it is highly “figurative” in the sense that its content is conveyed entirely through the portrayal of objects.

Samuel van Hoogstraten was active as a painter in several different genres, and also an engraver and writer. In his treatise of 1678 he explained the importance of illusionism in painting and the need for perspective in the fine arts. He himself frequently practiced these skills and became one of the most important seventeenth-century creators of trompe-l’oeil paintings and perspective boxes. The eye-fooling artistry of trompe-l’oeil was extremely popular at the courts of Europe in the seventeenth century. The present painting was specially made for the emperor Ferdinand III during Van Hoogstraten’s four-year stay in Vienna.

The painting, signed with initials S.V.H. lower right, shows the influence of Pieteer de Hooch’s late works.

The painting is identified as a double portrait of Johan Cornelis Vijgeboom (died 1665), a wealthy Dordrecht grocer and his wife Anneken Joosten Boogaert. It depicts Vijgeboom handing his wife, Anneken Joosten Boogaert a tulip in the garden of their manor house near Dubbeldam (the vicinity of Dordrecht).

The painting is signed and dated left centre: S. v. Hooghstraten 1647.

The sitter of this portrait is possibly Caspar Calthoff (d. 1664).

In his ‘Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst’ (Introduction to the Art of Painting, 1678), van Hoogstraten discusses the optical theories of contemporary thinkers like Descartes, Bacon and Dighy, and adds his own comments. The scientists with whom he was in touch had a particular interest in optics, most notable was the Dordrecht mechanic and opticist Caspar Calthoff, whose portrait van Hoogstraten painted in 1650. Calthoff worked with important physicists like Christiaan Huygens, when he and his brother Constantijn decided to make their own lenses for their microscopes, it was Calthoff who supplied the grinding discs.

Hoogstraten painted himself at the age of eighteen, when he was an apprentice in Rembrandt’s workshop. He wears a gold chain which occurs in several Rembrandt self-portraits and was probably available as a prop in the workshop.

Van Hoogstraten’s most concentrated period of genre painting production occurred only during the last years of his career, around 1670—71. These later pictures exhibit limited subject matter focusing primarily upon domestic themes. Especially fascinating is his Anaemic Lady (and its pendant of Two Women by a Cradle, dated 1670, Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield). In the Anaemic Lady a taciturn physician examines a flask containing the urine of an ailing young woman while another man (her husband?) looks on. This event takes place in a well-appointed house; the recession of space through two rooms in the background allows the viewer to scrutinize some very interesting paintings hanging on the walls and a sliver of a brilliantly illuminated gilt-leather wall-hanging. The inclusion of gilt-leather wall-hangings (an expensive decorative accouterment at this time), costly paintings, and sumptuous fabrics enhances the aura of opulence exuded by the painting.

This is one of the deceptively realistic still-lifes by Van Hoogstraten. The objects the artist depicted in his trompe-l’oeil still-lifes reflect his life and social standing. This still-life shows a letter-rack, a flat shelf on which three strips of leather have been nailed to hold letters. In this rack the artist painted trophies and a nice arrangement of personal possessions, with a sealed document in the middle on which he placed his signature and the date.

Samuel van Hoogstraten, a pupil of Rembrandt, signed and dated this cupboard door piece.

This painting, representing a mother and her companion affectionately gazing at an infant resting in a wicker cradle, is the pendant of the Doctor’s visit (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). Both paintings depict events taking place in a well-appointed house with gilt-leather wall-hangings, costly paintings and sumptuous fabrics.

Hoogstraten had a keen interest in problems of perspective and illusionism. He made peep-boxes and large trompe l’oeil decorations for homes. Carel Fabritius, as well as other artists of his generation, shared these interests.

In this picture, imaginary lines drawn along the pavement tiles receding to the background seem to meet on the inside of the fireplace, at top right. This one-point perspective construction creates a convincing sequence of rooms.

The painting is also known under the title The Slippers. On the wall in the background a painting by Gerard Terborch can be seen.