Isaac de Jouderville(Leiden ca. 1612 – 1645/48 Amsterdam)

How to cite
Bakker, Piet. “Isaac de Jouderville” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.
and Lara Yeager-Crasselt. New York, 2020–23. https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/ (archived December2023).
A PDF of every version of this biography is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed bya permanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

The painter Isaac de Jouderville, son of Isaac de Jouderville (1581–ca. 1629) and Magdalena Jansdr (d. 1629), was born inLeiden in 1612 or 1613. His father, a Frenchman from Metz, was a soldier when he married in Leiden in 1607, but soonafter became an innkeeper and art dealer. The painter was born in the De Drie Haringen inn, on the corner of theNoordeinde and the Korte Rapenburg in Leiden. Later renamed ’t Schilt van Vranckrijck, it was one of the city’s mostrespectable establishments. When Prince Maurice (1556–1616) visited Leiden with his entourage in 1618, he stayed at
Jouderville’s inn. The building was diagonally opposite the parental home of Gerrit Dou (1613–75) and a stone’s throwfrom the Weddesteeg, the street where Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–69) was growing up at that time. That Rembrandt
would go on to teach both Dou and Jouderville in Leiden may in part be related to the fact that they lived in the sameneighborhood.
Jouderville is one of the few Rembrandt pupils whose apprenticeship is supported by primary sources. Six receipts signedby Rembrandt for the years 1630 and 1631 demonstrate that Jouderville received lessons from the master as of 1
November 1629. Considering Jouderville’s age at the time, however, he most likely had been studying with Rembrandt forlonger. The receipts are contained in the accounts handed over to Jouderville’s guardians after his parents died, one shortly
after the other.[1] The final receipt relating to his apprenticeship is dated 19 November 1631. This date suggests that
Jouderville accompanied Rembrandt to Amsterdam and assisted him on a portrait the master was commissioned to makein that year.[2] The few works by Jouderville himself from the early 1630s—Portrait of a Young Man and Bust of aLaughing Man with Gorget, both ca. 1631—are greatly indebted to Rembrandt’s “Leiden” style.[3]In April 1632 Jouderville enrolled at Leiden University, presumably strictly for form’s sake as Rembrandt had done twelve
years earlier, prompted by the privileges that came with enrollment, including tax exemption. In Leiden in 1636,
Jouderville married Maria le Febure (1617–ca. 1653), daughter of the art dealer Julius le Febure (1586–1645) and Mayckevan Houten (d. ca. 1639), both from Antwerp, who had immigrated for religious reasons to Amsterdam in 1600. Maria© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Isaac de JoudervillePage 2 of 4

was born there in 1617, but moved with her parents to Leiden prior to 1623. Three weeks after Maria’s marriage, her elder
brother, Pieter le Febure (1615–41), wed Magdalena de Jouderville (1607–67), Isaac’s sister, in Leiden. In 1641 Julius leFebure settled a debt he owed his brother-in-law, the Amsterdam painter Carel van Houten (ca. 1606–45), with five works
by Jouderville, including a market scene and a fruit still life.[4]In May 1641 Jouderville and his wife, holding a certificate of membership of the Dutch Reformed Church, moved toDeventer, in the province of Overijssel, where his brother-in-law Pieter had established himself as an apothecary. Within
two years, Jouderville and his wife moved again. A document dated 24 August 1643 states that Jouderville was about torelocate to Amsterdam, although it is possible he was already living there because a month earlier he witnessed the second
marriage of his sister Magdalena (after 1607–before 1667), this time to the Antwerp painter and art dealer Juliaen Teniers
II (1616–79), brother of the much more famous South Netherlandish genre painter David Teniers the Younger (1610–90).
Jouderville’s son Jacob was baptized in Amsterdam’s Nieuwe Kerk on 26 March 1645. The artist must have died not long
thereafter, because his widow married the art dealer Pieter van Meldert (1619–60) in 1648. When she died in 1653 andVan Meldert had an inventory drawn up of all their possessions, his professional stock contained almost ninety paintings,
including four by Jouderville: a tronie, a still life, a landscape, and a picture of a horse.[5] Also hanging in the house were
two miniature portraits of Jouderville and his wife. Their daughter Maria (1636–1719) married the famous painterFrederick de Moucheron (ca. 1633–86) in 1659, and her sister Isabella (1640–75) married the painter Abraham de Rijp
(1644–1720) in 1674.

- Piet Bakker, 2017

© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Isaac de JoudervillePage 3 of 4Endnotes
1. For these receipts, see Abraham Bredius, Künstler-Inventare: Urkunden zur Geschichte der holländischen
Kunst des XVIten, XVIIten und XVIIIten Jahrhunderts (The Hague, 1919), 6: 1950–58.
2. The interpretation of the relationship between Rembrandt and Jouderville after the latter’s training
ended in November 1631 depends on one’s view of where Rembrandt was living in 1631. If one assumes
that Rembrandt moved from Leiden to Amsterdam in 1631, then it stands to reason that Joudervillefollowed him and thus was Rembrandt’s first workshop assistant in Amsterdam; see Friso Lammertseand Jaap van der Veen, Uylenburgh & Son: Art and Commerce from Rembrandt to De Lairesse,1625–1675 (Exh. cat. London, Dulwich Picture Gallery; Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis)(Zwolle, 2006), 136, 183. If one assumes on the other hand that Rembrandt shuttled between Leiden andAmsterdam from 1631 to 1634, the year in which he married Saskia van Uylenburgh (1612–42), thenJouderville would be considered Rembrandt’s former pupil who accompanied the master when he had aportrait commission in Amsterdam, to execute its details; see Sebastien A.C. Dudok van Heel, De jonge
Rembrandt onder tijdgenoten. Godsdienst en schilderkunst in Leiden en Amsterdam (Nijmegen, 2006),
199. On this issue, also see Walter S. Liedtke, “Rembrandt’s ‘Workshop’ Revisited,” Oud Holland 117,nos. 1–2 (2004): 56.
3. Portrait of a Young Man, ca. 1631 (National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin), Werner Sumowski, Gemälde
der Rembrandt-Schüler. Vol. 2, G. van den Eeckhout – I. de Joudreville (Landau, 1983), 940; Bust of aLaughing Man with Gorget, ca. 1631 (Museum Bredius, The Hague); Werner Sumowski, Gemälde derRembrandt-Schüler, vol. 2, G. van den Eeckhout – I. de Joudreville (Landau, 1983), 941.
4. Regionaal Archief Leiden, Notarial Archives, inv. 619, Notary F. Doude, fol. 162, 15 January. 1641.
See Abraham Bredius, Künstler-Inventare: Urkunden zur Geschichte der holländischen Kunst des XVIten,XVIIten und XVIIIten Jahrhunderts (The Hague, 1917), 3: 1005.
5. For a transcript of the inventory of Pieter van Melder with the paintings by De Jouderville, see AbrahamBredius, Künstler-Inventare: Urkunden zur Geschichte der holländischen Kunst des XVIten, XVIIten undXVIIIten Jahrhunderts (The Hague, 1919), 6: 968–1973.

Literature
De Groot, Cornelis Hofstede. “Isaac de Jouderville, leerling van Rembrandt.” Oud Holland 17 (1899):
228–35.
Bredius, Abraham. Kunstler-Inventare: Urkunden zur Geschichte der hollandischen Kunst des XVIten,
XVIIten und XVIIIten Jahrhunderts. The Hague, 1915–22, 6:1940–73; 7:126–28.
Bruyn, Joshua, et al. A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings. Vol. 1: 1625–1631. Stichting Foundation© 2024 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Isaac de JoudervillePage 4 of 4Rembrandt Research Project. The Hague, Boston, and London, 1982, 502–7.
Sumowski, Werner. Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler. Vol. 2, G. van den Eeckhout – I. deJoudreville (Landau, 1983), 1434–38.
Van de Wetering, Ernst. “Isaac de Jouderville.” In The Impact of a Genius: Rembrandt, his Pupils andFollowers in the Seventeenth Century. Edited by Guido Jansen and Ernst van de Wetering, 59–69. Exh.
cat. Amsterdam, K. & V. Waterman Gallery; Groningen, Groninger Museum, Amsterdam, 1983.
Liedtke, Walter. “Reconstructing Rembrandt: Portraits from the Early Years in Amsterdam(1631–1634).” Apollo 129 (1989): 323–31, 371–72.
Sumowski, Werner. Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler. Vol. 6, Nachträge 2, Ortsregister, IkonographischesRegister, Bibliographie, Künstlerverzeichnis (Landau, 1994), 3720–21.
Briels, Jan. Vlaamse schilders en de dageraad van Hollands Gouden Eeuw 1585–1630. Antwerp, 1997,345, 388–89.
Liedtke, Walter. “Rembrandt’s ‘Workshop’ Revisited.” Oud Holland 117, nos. 1–2 (2004): 48–73 (esp.
68).

© 2024 The Leiden Collection