Leiden Fijnschilders and the Local Art Market in the Golden Age
How to cite
Bakker, Piet. “Leiden Fijnschilders and the Local Art Market in the Golden Age” (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 December 2023).
A PDF of every version of this essay is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed by apermanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

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Leiden Fijnschilders and the Local Art Market in the Golden Age
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The year 1631 marked a turning point for painting in Leiden.[1] An abrupt end came toa period during which, sustained by a favorable economy, the number of painters had
grown without interruption. This growth began in all of the cities in the Dutch
Republic (fig 1) around 1610 and lasted until around mid-century in most of them.
This was also true in Leiden, although it ground to a temporary halt in 1631 with thesudden departure of several painters, ushering in a period of artistic stagnation lastingclose to a decade. By far the best-known painter to leave Leiden was Rembrandt van
Rijn (1606–69) (fig 2), who moved to Amsterdam to run the workshop of the famousFig 1. Graph: The Number ofPainters in Six Cities in Holland:
1590¬–1710.

art dealer Hendrik Uylenburgh (ca. 1587–1661). His friend Jan Lievens (1607–74) (fig3) headed to London shortly thereafter in the hope of being appointed a court
painter.[2] In that year, Leiden lost even more painters who today rank among the mostimportant of the seventeenth century. For instance, the highly successful landscapist
Jan van Goyen (1596–1656) traded in his native city for The Hague; and even though
the still-life painter Jan Davidsz de Heem (1606–84) was not born in Leiden, he had
been working there for quite some time when he left to try his luck in Antwerp in
1631.
This exodus cannot be attributed to deteriorating economic circumstances. On thecontrary, around 1630 the textile industry in Leiden—the mainstay of the local
economy well into the eighteenth century—entered a period of spectacular expansionthat would last until the late 1650s.[3] The reasons for leaving, thus, would have been
personal, motivated by the belief of finding greater success elsewhere; this is certainly

Fig 2. Rembrandt van Rijn, SelfPortrait with Shaded Eyes, 1634, oil
on panel, 71.1 x 56 cm, The Leiden
Collection, New York, inv. no.
RR-110.

true for Rembrandt and Lievens. Regardless, this loss of talent was a serious drain on
Leiden’s artistic life.[4] By the end of the 1630s, however, the situation changed withthe success of Gerrit Dou (1613–75) (fig 4), whose star would rise rapidly in Leiden
and shine beyond the country’s borders. Dou would found a local school of painting inLeiden that would extend late into the eighteenth century—Louis de Moni
(1698–1771) was the last important artist—whose “members,” since the nineteenth
century, have been known as the “Leidse fijnschilders” (Leiden fine painters).[5] Theterm fijnschilder refers to a specific manner of painting: a highly precise and extremely
detailed facture and a small-scale format. This essay examines their position in thelocal art market, as well as the liefhebbers, the “art lovers” or connoisseurs of theirwork.[6] It will not, however, focus on the two leading Leiden fijnschilders Gerrit Dou
and Frans van Mieris the Elder (1635–81), since they are discussed in separate essays.

Fig 3. Jan Lievens, Self-Portrait, ca.
1629–30, oil on panel, 42 x 37 cm,
The Leiden Collection New York,
inv. no. JL-105.

The artists considered in this essay are Quiringh van Brekelenkam (after 1622–ca.
1669), Jan Adriaensz van Staveren (1613/4–69), Dominicus van Tol (ca. 1635–76),
Peeter Leermans (1635–1706), Jacob Toorenvliet (1640–1719), Pieter Cornelisz van
Slingeland (1640–91), Carel de Moor (1655–1738), the brothers Jan (1660–90) andWillem van Mieris (1662–1747), and Frans van Mieris the Younger (1689–1763), all© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Leiden Fijnschilders and the Local Art Market in the Golden Age
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represented in The Leiden Collection. Before discussing these fijnschilders, however, it
is important to understand the nature of the Leiden painters’ community and thechanges it underwent in the course of the seventeenth century.

The Artistic Climate in Leiden in the Seventeenth Century
Until 1578, painting in Leiden, as elsewhere in the Netherlands, was done oncommission. With its constant need for altarpieces and other devotional paintings, theCatholic Church was the most important patron. When after 1578 the Dutch Reformed
Church became the official religion in the Northern Netherlands, demand fordevotional paintings virtually stopped, although altarpieces and devotional picturescontinued to be made for “hidden churches.”[7] The Lutherans similarly felt the need todecorate their churches, from which Joris van Schooten (1587–1651)—himself a

Fig 4. Gerrit Dou, Self-Portrait
Holding a Portrait of His Parents
and Brother, ca. 1649, oil on oval
panel, 27 x 23 cm, Herzog Anton
Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig,
inv. no. GG 303.

Lutheran—profited.[8] Artists, however, had to look for new markets. They found themin part in public institutions on a local and regional level.[9] For example, in 1594 theLeiden town council engaged Isaac Claesz van Swanenburg (1537–1614) to paint sevenmonumental allegories for the “Saaihal” (Serge Hall), which occupied the artist until
1612.[10] Other institutions, too, engaged artists. Leiden still boasts six civic guard
paintings by Joris van Schooten (1587–1651) and several group portraits of regents byPieter Leermans, Mathijs Naiveu (1647–1726), and Carel de Moor, among others.[11]Interestingly, except for Rembrandt and Lievens, the stadholder’s court in The Hague
did not patronize Leiden artists.[12] The fact that the court never granted Gerrit Dou orFrans van Mieris commissions, despite their international reputation and the interest
shown them by foreign rulers, may relate to the personal preference of Frederick
Henry (1584–1647) and Amalia van Solms (1602–1675) for painters from Utrecht,
Haarlem and the Southern Netherlands.[13] Timing, however, was also a factor. Dou

Fig 5. Gerrit Dou, Portrait of Dirck
van Beresteyn, ca. 1652, oil on oval
silver-copper alloy, 10.2 x 8.2 cm,
The Leiden Collection, New York,
inv. no. GD-111.

and Van Mieris garnered their great fame during the first Stadholderless period, whichlasted from 1650 to 1672.
Leiden painters found their most important new patrons among burghers, particularly
for portraiture (fig 5) and (fig 6). While burghers only rarely commissioned portraitsof themselves before 1600, they did so with increasing frequency in the seventeenth
century. Moreover, portraits were no longer the sole preserve of the elite. They could
be ordered in all shapes and sizes and for every imaginable price. In Leiden up to thirty
percent of all of the paintings in homes on and nearby the elegant Rapenburg were
portraits.[14]The Anonymous Mass Market and the Call for a Guild
Most Leiden painters pinned their hopes on the free market, which had become veryFig 6. Frans van Mieris, Portrait ofa Fifty-Two Year Old Man , 1665,
oil on panel, 19.2 x 15 cm, The
Leiden Collection, New York, inv.
no. FM-104.

active since the beginning of the Twelve Year’s Truce in 1609.[15] An important© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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consequence of the suspension of hostilities was that the free movement of people andgoods between the Northern and the Southern Netherlands was possible again for the
first time since the outbreak of the revolt. The Truce was a windfall for the art dealers
from the Southern Netherlands, who crossed the border to the Republic in droves tosell their wares. They not only did so at the various weekly and annual fairs—the only
days on which dealers from elsewhere were officially allowed to trade theirgoods—but also outside of the designated market days. This trade proved highly
lucrative, in part because the dealers could offer pictures they had brought with themfor relatively low prices.[16]Initially, the painters in the Northern Netherlands fell back on a proven recipe toprotect their interests: protecting local production by prohibiting imports. Painters inall of the cities of the Republic petitioned their local governments to protect them fromFig 7. Gerrit Dou, Self-Portrait, ca.
1645, oil on panel with arched top,
12.4 x 8.3 cm, Kremer Collection.

foreign imports. They generally found a ready ear, and were permitted to amend theguild privileges, mostly stemming from the Middle Ages, to suit their needs.[17]In Leiden the situation was somewhat different from the other Dutch cities. In 1609 agroup of painters presented itself at the town hall to found a painter’s guild. Despite
their efforts, the Leiden painters failed to convince the town council. The
burgomasters, however, did prohibit the import of paintings for a year. They also
promised to prolong the prohibition annually should it prove necessary, which they did
until 1617, when a rise in local demand for paintings made the prohibition
unnecessary. By then Leiden artists had also discovered that specialization and/or a
cost-reducing painting technique resulted in higher production and lower prices, whichplaced them in a better position in the market.[18]In 1642 Leiden artists once again sought to found a painter’s guild, this time to protect

Fig 8. Jan Adriaensz van
Staveren, Esther Before Ahasuerus,
ca. 1640–45, oil on panel, 86.7 x75.2 cm, The Leiden Collection,
New York, inv. no. JvS-100.

local artists from competition from their compatriots. The painters were enraged that“diversche personen woonachtich in andere Steden ende Provincien hen onderstaendagelijcx binnen dese Stadt te komen met hunne Schilderijen, ende daer mede buijten
d’Ordinarisen jaermarckten, niet alleen voorstaen, maer oock deselfde presenteren by
openbaere vendue te vercoopen, ende te gelde te maecken: ende in sonderheijt met
deselfde door dese Stadt omme-loopen ende vercoopen” (various persons living inother cities and provinces force them [the local artists] to endure their daily presence

Fig 9. Table 1: Number of Leiden
inventories with at least one
attributed painting: 1600–1709.

with their paintings in this city, and this in part outside of the official annual fairs, andnot only this, they present them [the paintings] for public sale to make money; andespecially wander around the city peddling them [their wares]).[19] On 14 April 1642,
the city council forbade non-Leiden painters from selling paintings, prints, anddrawings in Leiden outside of the annual fairs.[20]The request to establish a guild was submitted just two months after the publication of
Lof der Schilderkunst, a speech the painter Philips Angel (1616–83) delivered at a
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gathering of colleagues and art lovers in Leiden on 18 October 1641. The desire for aguild was fueled both by the need for protection and the desire for social status.[21]Angel’s treatise was intended to demonstrate the relevance and dignity of painting, andthe career of Gerrit Dou, Leiden’s leading artist in these years, was his greatest
example. According to Angel, an artist’s status was determined primarily by thedeference wealthy art lovers accorded an artist. A special example of such homage,
one without peer in the Republic, was the astonishing amount of 500 guilders that “theincomparable art lover” Pieter Spiering (1595–1652) paid Dou annually for the right offirst refusal for any painting he produced.[22] That Angel held up Dou’s work to his[23]

confreres as an example worth following is thus entirely understandable.

Fig 10. Table 2: Number of
attributions in Leiden inventories inorder of the number of listings:
1600–1710.

First Pupils, or Followers?
Around 1640 Dou was by far the most successful painter in Leiden. The price of his
work could run as high as a thousand guilders.[24] Even without Angel’s encouragement
he would have been a model worth emulating. That Dou had pupils is certain, but upon
reading the recollections of Dou’s workshop by the painter Joachim Sandrart(1606–88), it is unclear how a pupil with average talent could have learned the craftfrom a teacher who was so utterly absorbed in his own work.[25] Dou had such highpersonal standards when it came to discipline and neatness that one wonders whether
he was qualified to pass on the craft to others. Typifying his attitude to work was an
uncompromising perfectionism. Dou lived for his art; he was absent from his
workshop only when weather conditions prevented him from working. Moreover, he
performed certain tasks himself that other colleagues delegated to their pupils. For

Fig 11. Table 3: The mostmentioned artist painters in Leiden
inventories in order of the numberof inventories: 1600–1710.

instance, he prepared all of his own paints and ultimately ground the pigments on glass,according to Arnold Houbraken (1660–1719). He made his own brushes, and was so
afraid of irregularities in the paint surface from dust that after painting he stored his
palette, brushes and paint in a dust-free cabinet. When he resumed work the next day,he waited as long as was necessary for the dust to settle, and only then would he takeout his equipment from the cabinet with upmost care and begin to paint. That he wasalso fearful of dust while painting emerges from some of his self-portraits, in which
can be seen how he protected himself against it by placing a parasol above his easel (fig 7).
In 1642 Leiden was home to around thirty fine art painters, a number of whom worked

Fig 12. Quiringh van
Brekelenkam, Fisherman and His
Wife in an Interior, 1657, oil on
panel, 47 x 60.3 cm, The Leiden
Collection, New York, inv. no.
QB-100.

in Dou’s technique, among them Jacob van Spreeuwen (1609/10–after 1650), Jan
Adriaensz van Staveren (fig 8), Pieter Cornelisz van Egmondt (ca. 1614–64), and Isaac
Koedijck (1617/18–ca. 1668). An anonymous, late eighteenth-century Leiden
manuscript asserts that Dou trained Van Spreeuwen (“Discipel van G. Douw” [discipleof G. Dou]), Van Staveren (“de kunst geleerd bij Gerard Douw, en volgde zijn manier”[learned the art from Gerrit Dou, and followed his manner]); and Koedijck (“ook [was]© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Leiden Fijnschilders and the Local Art Market in the Golden Age
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uit het school van Gerard Douw” [also [was] from the school of Gerrit Dou]). The
author of this manuscript, who did not mention Van Egmondt, included Koedijck, Van
Staveren and Van Spreeuwen in a list of Dou pupils.[26]Surprisingly, if one is to judge from a study of seventeenth-century Leiden estate
inventories that contain at least one attributed painting, these Dou followers do notseem to have been very successful in selling their paintings.[27] As seen in Table 1 (fig9), a total of 3,756 paintings are listed in these inventories, 1,950 of which carry an
attribution. These works were attributed to 465 different artists, 147 of whom werefrom Leiden or worked there for some time.[28] Of this first generation of Dou’s
students, only Van Staveren is mentioned often enough in these documents that his
name recurs in Table 2 (fig 10).
Van Spreeuwen is mentioned but 15 times, while Van Egmondt’s name appears only 7

Fig 13. Gabriel Metsu, Young
Woman Seated in an Interior,
Reading a Letter, ca. 1658–61, oil
on panel, 25.8 x 21 cm, The Leiden
Collection, New York, inv. no.
GM-103.

times. Koedijck’s name is missing entirely; not only in Leiden, but also in Amsterdam,
where he probably spent more time between 1640 and 1652 than in his hometown.[29]However, if one is to judge by the number of inventories in which works by thesepainters occur, their place in the Leiden artistic firmament seems even less significant(fig 11).
For example, the majority of Van Staveren’s paintings belonged to a single owner who,
moreover, was related to him: the clergyman Eduard Westerneyn, the husband of thepainter’s sister Alida van Staveren, who had lived with her brother until she married in
1636 and was also his sole heir.[30]A cautionary note is nevertheless called for here since, with the exception of Van
Spreeuwen, most of Dou’s followers practiced a second occupation that provided an

Fig 14. Jan Steen, Prayer Before
the Meal, 1660, oil on panel, 54.3 x
46 cm, The Leiden Collection, inv.
no. JS-116.

additional source of income. Van Staveren came from a regent family, sat on the town
council, and even became a burgomaster. Koedijck, too, was from a distinguishedfamily, and was called a “merchant” on several occasions. Van Egmondt was also amerchant, a draper. He initially lived in comfortable circumstances, but went bankrupt
in 1650, at which time he may have begun to paint seriously: he paid his firstcontribution to the Guild of Saint Luke only in 1661, just three years before his
death.[31] Thus, with the exception of Van Spreeuwen, painting was not the main
pursuit of the first generation of fijnschilders working in Dou’s manner. This craft did
not determine their social success or failure.
Nevertheless, the work of these artists probably found greater favor than would appear
from the inventories. For instance, in the above-mentioned manuscript, Van Staveren
is glossed as follows: “men hier te lande [pleeg] veele fraaijen stukjes van hem te zien,
waar in men zeijde dat zijn meester [ = Dou] de laatste hand zoude gelegd hebben”

Fig 15. Pieter Cornelisz van
Slingeland, Portrait of a Man
Reading a Book, 1668, oil on
copper, 16.2 x 12.6 cm, The Leiden
Collection, New York, inv. no.
PvS-100.

(one was wont to say that they had seen many beautiful pieces by him in this country,
to which it was said that his master [Dou] had put the finishing touches). However,© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Leiden Fijnschilders and the Local Art Market in the Golden Age
Page 7 of 23“[d]e konsthandelaars hebben de meesten en besten (…) al overlang opgekogt enbuijtenlands voor schilderingen van Douw verkogt” (the art dealers had already long
ago bought up the most and best of them […] and sold them abroad as paintings by
Dou). This situation applied to Van Spreeuwen as well, of whom “[m]en zegt, dat er
hier te lande stukjes van hem plegen te zijn, die zeer na by die van zijn meester
kwamen, en door handelaars naar elders gevoerd zijnde, voor die van Douw zouden
verkogt zijn” (it is said that in this country there are pieces that come very close to
those by his master, which having been shipped elsewhere by dealers are apparently
sold as being by Dou).[32] The actions of these art dealers may explain why few works
by these painters are found in the Netherlands. It also seems plausible that the exportof their paintings assumed serious proportions after Dou’s death in 1675.
Another possible explanation for the dearth of references to these artists in Leiden

Fig 16. Jacob Toorenvliet, Doctor’s
Visit, ca. 1666–67, oil on copper,
52.3 x 41.3 cm, The Leiden
Collection, New York, inv. no.
JT-102.

inventories is that the attributions of their works were not known. Then, as now, it
would have been difficult for a notary’s clerk to distinguish between the work of Van
Spreeuwen, for example, and that of other Dou followers. Their paintings, particularly
their genre scenes, may have been listed as “anonymous.”[33]Adriaen van Gaesbeeck, Abraham de Pape, and Quiringh
van Breklenkam
Towards the end of the 1640s, three more fijnschilders joined the ranks of thosementioned above: Adriaen van Gaesbeeck (1621–50), Abraham de Pape (1620–66),
and Quiringh van Brekelenkam. As in the case of other fijnschilders, one seeks in vain
for their names in Houbraken’s Schouburgh, although they are similarly noted by the
anonymous eighteenth-century biographer who calls them pupils of Dou. The author isFig 17. Domenicus van Tol, Boywith a Mousetrap by Candlelight, ca.
1664–65, oil on panel, 30 x 23.3
cm, The Leiden Collection, New
York, inv. no. DT-100.

brief with respect to Van Gaesbeeck, who died young: “Hij is al mede uit het school
van G. Douw, dog blauwer en kouder van coloriet, gelijk ook wat swaarmoediger” (He,too, is from the school of G. Dou, although with a bluer and colder palette, andsomewhat more somber).[34] The author also deals summarily with De Pape, who“heeft zijn stukjes zeer uijtvoerig bewerkt in de manier van zijn meester” (whofashioned his pieces very elaborately in the manner of his master).[35] This observation
finds confirmation not only in De Pape’s extant work, but in the inventory of his
stock.[36] Among the almost 100 paintings in it, there were at least 16 copies of works
by Dou. Descriptions of subjects were present, too, such as “een vroutgen die een haenplockt” (a woman plucking a chicken), “een vioolspeelder” (a violin player), “een kleen
hermitgen” (a small hermit), and “een spelde werckster” (a bone lacemaker).
It is noteworthy that De Pape’s stock was also large in scope, which raises the questionof whether he, like Van Staveren, may have had difficulties in selling his paintings.

Fig 18. Jacob
Toorenvliet, Alchemist, 1684, oil on
copper, 31.6 x 25.3 cm, The Leiden
Collection, New York, inv. no.
JT-107.

Nevertheless, it is evident that De Pape did not have to make a living from painting.
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Leiden Fijnschilders and the Local Art Market in the Golden Age
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He had inherited so much real estate that he could live very comfortably from therental income. Aside from the twenty-seven houses he owned and a small fortune inbonds, he possessed a large library, which indicates that he must have been a cultivatedindividual.[37]The position of Adriaen van Gaesbeeck in Table 2 (fig 10) is also inflated, since fortythree pictures are part of a single estate, that of his father Cornelis van Gaesbeeck, who
was called a deputy bailiff in 1652.[38] Given that Adriaen died in 1650, it may be
assumed yet again that this represents his stock. As Van Gaesbeeck was active as apainter for only four years, the limited distribution of his work may have been due tothe brevity of his career.
The

first

fijnschilder

Brekelenkam.

[39]

to

developapersonal

style

was

Quiringhvan

Fig 19. Willem van Mieris, Diana,
Goddess of the Hunt, 1686, oil on
panel, 18 x 14.4 cm, The Leiden
Collection, New York, inv. no.
WM-101.

According to the anonymous eighteenth-century biographer, Van

Brekelenkam followed Dou “op eene lugtige manier” (in a light manner).[40] Dou’s
influence is evident in Brekelenkam’s work, but Hofstede de Groot noted correctly thatBrekelenkam derived his use of color, compositional structure, and rendering of
figures from Gabriel Metsu, his through-views in interiors from Pieter de Hooch(1629–in or after 1684), and his chiaroscuro from Nicolaes Maes (1634–93).[41]Brekelenkam succeeded in molding all of these influences into a style that garneredmuch success in Leiden (fig 12). His name is listed next to fifty-five paintings in no
fewer than twenty inventories. It is striking that two individuals owned an exceptional
number of his paintings: the wealthy Catholic merchant Hendrick Bugge van Ring had
eighteen pieces, and the innkeeper Pieter van Grient eleven, possibly as
many as sixteen.[42]Despite this success, Brekelenkam ended his years in poverty. According to his

Fig 20. Jan van Mieris, Courtesan
Counting Money, ca. 1680, oil on
panel, 28.4 x 22.6 cm, The Leiden
Collection, New York, inv. no.
JM-101.

eighteenth-century “biographer,” Brekelenkam had a large family which required ahigh production rate to support, “tgeen oorzaak is geweest dat veele slegte stukjes vanhem inde wereld zijn gekomen, die hij maar schielijk afgeroffeld heeft om maar geldin handen te krijgen” (leading him to produce many bad paintings, which he simply
dashed off to earn some money).[43] Indeed the prices that he charged for his work
were of a very different order than those commanded by Dou. The value of theassessed paintings in inventories varies from four to sixteen guilders, prices that do notnecessarily imply “dashed off” work, but certainly indicate that Brekelenkam was notworking for the high end of the market. Brekelenkam probably also suffered from thecrisis in the art market—already felt in other cities for some time—that affected
Leiden in the 1660s. Although he was not the only fijnschilder who faced financial
difficulties, the hardships were particularly acute in his case because his social
background was less elevated than that of, for example, De Pape and Van Staveren.
Brekelenkam’s father was a simple tailor without any assets.
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Leiden Fijnschilders and the Local Art Market in the Golden Age
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Years of Flowering and the First Signs of Decline
In the 1640s, when the second generation of fijnschilders appeared in Leiden, there
were no signs of a crisis in the art market. On the contrary, to judge from the growing
number of active painters, it would have appeared that the city was on the verge of aperiod of great flowering. Although the departure of Rembrandt, Lievens and otherpreeminent painters in the early 1630s did initially lead to artistic stagnation in Leiden,
the early 1640s welcomed the portraitist Pieter Dubordieu (1609/10–78), the still-life
painter Pieter de Ring (ca. 1615–60), and the portrait and history painter Abraham van
den Tempel (1622/3–72). Not long thereafter, Jan Steen (1626–79) and Gabriel
Metsu (fig 13) also became active in Leiden. The local painters’ community would
reach its maximum level in 1649 with a total of fifty-four painters.
The gradual rise in the number of painters would ultimately lead to some problems. As
mentioned above, in 1642 the request of the Leiden painters to found a guild had beendenied, but the town council would grant it in 1648. Prior to this date, thirty-one
Leiden artists had joined together in 1633 in an informal group that met every two
weeks, at which times they recorded the sales of their paintings. They also complained
about the swelling stream of paintings from elsewhere, which undoubtedly led the town
council to permit the painters’ community to found a guild. Yet it never became a guildin the real sense of the word.[44] While the painters annually elected to the board called
themselves “deken” (dean) or “hoofdman” (headman), in the eyes of the burgomasters
they were simply “opzienders” (supervisors), charged with regulating the painting
trade.
Considerable quantities of paintings had been imported to Leiden for a long time, as isindicated by the large share of non-Leiden painters represented in the 258 Leiden
estate inventories. Almost 49 percent of the 3,756 attributed paintings were works by
non-Leiden artists. Many of these imported paintings came from Haarlem: of the 1,806
non-Leiden attributions, 693 (more than 38 percent) have a Haarlem provenance.[45]This situation became acute in the early 1640s because of the marked rise in thenumber of artists in Leiden, who started saturating the market. A number of these
artists had moved to Leiden from other cities. For example, three painters from Delftsettled in Leiden in the 1640s, and no less than nine in the 1650s, including in 1655
Hendrick van der Burgh (1627–after 1664), the brother-in-law of Pieter de Hooch, andBarent Fabritius (1624–73), whose brother Carel had died in the disastrous gunpowder
magazine explosion in Delft. Jan Steen, who had left Leiden earlier in 1649, also
returned from Delft in 1657, although he only stayed in Leiden for a short period oftime.
It seems as though in 1642 painters did not realize that the arrival of ever more new© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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colleagues would overwhelm the Leiden market. Although the actual decline set in
only in the 1670s, when the Leiden textile industry had passed its peak, the first signs
were visible already in the 1650s, when more painters left the city than arrived there
from elsewhere. Gabriel Metsu was also among those who left Leiden in the 1650s.
Around 1655 he found his way to Amsterdam, where the demand for
paintings—judging from the number of painters—would stagnate only in the 1660s.[46]Jan Steen left Leiden, once again, in 1660 and settled in Haarlem (fig 14). The painters
who had earlier come from Delft, Van der Burgh and Fabritius, left for Amsterdamthat same year, as did Abraham van den Tempel. Moreover, the profession began tolose some of its appeal to the young local talent: the number of Leiden-born painters
who established a workshop in the 1650s was significantly lower than in the preceding
decade, a trend that persisted in the following decades.[47]Gerrit Dou and Frans van Mieris had no need or desire to leave Leiden. They did notwork for the open market but for a select group of art lovers who, even when they did
not live in Leiden, knew how to find their way to their workshops. Leiden was not the
only city where the diminishing demand for new paintings would seriously affect
employment opportunities: ultimately, not a single city would escape the decline.

Pieter Cornelisz van Slingelandt, Jacob Toorenvliet, andDominicus van Tol
Pieter Cornelisz van Slingelandt, like Frans van Mieris, belongs to the generation of
Leiden fijnschilders who embarked on their careers between around 1655 and 1665.
Like Van Mieris, Van Slingelandt was a pupil of Dou; the city chronicler, Simon van
Leeuwen (1625–82), held them both in high regard: in 1672 he noted “dat sy haar
Meester gelijk werden, ende waar het mogelijk, te boven sullen gaan” (that they are
equal to their master, and may possibly go on to surpass him).[48] He had achieved fameas early as 1663, when the French traveler Balthasar de Monconys (1611–65)
mentioned Van Slingelandt, only just then active as an independent painter, together
with Dou and Van Mieris, creating the impression that he viewed them as equals.
Slingelandt’s refined painting style is evident in his small-scale Portrait of a Man
Reading a Book (fig 15), now in The Leiden Collection. It is thus not so surprising thatalong with paintings by Dou and Van Mieris, Cosimo III de’ Medici also owned workby Van Slingelandt, even though no visit to his workshop is documented.[49]Van Leeuwen commented on the prices that Van Slingelandt charged for his work.
When De Monconys offered the painter “60 escus” for a small painting, the painterdemanded 400 guilders for it. Five years later, in 1668, his prices were even more
exorbitant, as he charged 1500 guilders for a portrait.[50] We associate these kinds ofprices only with Dou and Van Mieris. Like them, he based his prices in part on the© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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number of hours that he worked, which could add up. Regarding the above mentioned
portrait, Houbraken noted that “hy een maand of zes weken heeft zitten schilderen
over een Bef met kant” (he spent a month or six weeks painting a lace jabot).[51]All of this augured well for a successful career, yet in the end Van Slingelandt did not
attain the same fame that Dou and Van Mieris enjoyed both in and outside of the
Dutch Republic. Financially, too, his career left much to be desired.[52] A contributing
factor to his financial difficulties surely was “zyne tydslytende wyze van schilderen”(his time-consuming manner of painting), which kept production low.[53]Leiden estate inventories list only three owners of his paintings, with a total of sevenworks. Four of the paintings belonged to a single owner, the Mennonite cloth merchantCornelis van Houck, who, at his death in 1684, possessed two portraits and “tweeebbehoute kasjes” (two ebony cases) by Van Slingelandt.[54] The artist’s relationshipwith the cloth merchant must have been special, because Van Houck stood surety for
him in a protracted legal battle over a portrait.[55] In the wealthy Van Houck, Van
Slingelandt may have hoped to find a benefactor comparable to De Bye (for Dou), but
four paintings—no matter how expensive—are too few to justify such a conclusion.
That estate inventories, however, do not convey every detail about the distribution of
his work is evident from the fact that a few dozen portraits are attributed to the artist,
indicating that he did not lack for work.[56]Two of Van Slingelandt’s contemporaries, the slightly older Dominicus van Tol, andJacob Toorenvliet, who also had studied under Dou, had less artistic success.
Toorenvliet did not join the Guild of Saint Luke, probably because he worked in theworkshop of his father Abraham Toorenvliet (1620–92), the well-known glass painter.
He would leave Leiden, not in 1670 as has always been assumed, but much earlier, inor shortly after 1662; and not for Rome (although he would visit the Eternal City) but
Vienna (fig 16).[57] What exactly prompted him to do so is hard to gauge. He set off
for Vienna not long after a few pictures by Van Mieris and Dou entered the imperial
collection, and perhaps thought that as a pupil of Dou he stood a good chance offinding an appointment at or close to the court.[58] His hopes do not seem to havematerialized; however, much is still unknown about Toorenvliet’s Vienna period.
Upon completing his training Van Tol, who was Dou’s nephew, may have worked forsome time as his uncle’s assistant, for he joined the Guild of Saint Luke only in 1664,
thus at a relatively advanced age. The earliest mention of a painting by him, “eennachtje” (a nocturnal scene), occurs in the 1665 estate inventory of the wine merchant
Joris van der Lip.[59] One such night scene is in The Leiden Collection: Boy with a
Mousetrap by Candlelight (fig 17). According to the anonymous eighteenth-century
biographer, of all of the fijnschilders, Van Tol “’t allernaast bij zijn ooms maniergekoomen en heeft zig daar bij gehouden” (most closely approximated his uncle’s© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Leiden Fijnschilders and the Local Art Market in the Golden Age
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manner and stuck with it).[60] His public—the middle range of the market—was
entirely different however. Interest in his work seems to have been limited. His move
to Utrecht in 1669 appears to have been dictated by a lack of success. His situation did
not improve when he reestablished himself again in Leiden in 1675. In fact, hecontinued to be dogged by debt, and when he died in 1676, his widow had to hand over
his estate to his creditors.
Van Tol was not the only Leiden fijnschilder to feel the pinch in selling his work in the1660s. Johan van Swieten (1617–61), whose pictures appear only in his own estate
inventory, also experienced this difficulty in selling his works. Fortunately for him, hisfamily was well off and he could switch to a different occupation. As of 1657 he ismentioned in the archives only as a cloth merchant. Ary de Vois (1631–80)—the only
fijnschilder not trained in Leiden to be discussed here—could not ward off adversity
after a promising start when he first settled in Leiden in 1653. Only eighteen of his
paintings are found in six estate inventories, two of which were those of his colleagues
Abraham Toorenvliet and Johan van Swieten, who owned five and two of his paintings
respectively.[61] From other archival documents, De Vois appears to have regularly
stood surety for others who borrowed large amounts. De Vois’ situation seems to havechanged after 1673, when he divested some property, including fifty paintings, to settle
a debt to his brother.[62] From then on all of the documents relating to him concern
financial problems.

The Decline Persists
The misfortunes encountered by painters such as Van Tol, Van Swieten, and perhaps toa somewhat lesser extent by Van Slingelandt and De Vois, were caused by a number offactors that affected the entire Dutch art market in the 1670s (fig 9). The market for
new paintings had simply become saturated, and there was ever less space for them on
the walls of homes. The durability of works of art was also in part why painters were
progressively troubled by the secondary market. Rather than paintings being
distributed among heirs, probate estates came to be auctioned with increasing
frequency, which meant that the supply of second-hand paintings rose proportionally.
Bankruptcies, too, generated a growing supply of second-hand work and, given that
this financial instability intensified in times of war, the supply around 1672 wasenormous. Moreover, the shrinking economy reduced purchasing power, adevelopment with disastrous consequences for the lower range of the market. Whenthe economy collapsed in the Year of Disaster, the art market followed suit; it neverrecovered, except for the highest range, the one in which Dou and Van Mieris wereactive in Leiden.[63]Other contributing factors to this recession were new developments in interior© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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design.[64] Particularly influential were the refinements in the houses of the elite, theonly group to remain unaffected by the shrinking economy; in fact, fortunes in thisgroup only multiplied.[65] Many wealthy individuals retired from business life orassumed full-time board positions. With increasing frequency, meetings were held inprivate homes, and making a good appearance became paramount. There was evermore to choose from to display wealth and status. Paintings had to vie for a place on
the wall with other decorative objects, such as tapestries and gilt leather hangings, or
luxury colonial wares such as porcelain and lacquer ware.[66] Furthermore, painting
experienced increasing competition from other types of painted work such as painted
wall hangings, which became increasingly fashionable after 1660. Fixed paintings also
appeared more often above doors and mantelpieces, and on ceilings.[67] The growing
demand for ceiling paintings and for painted ornamental decorations signaled theradically changing role of the fine art painter in interior display.
Just as earlier growth had followed an independent pattern in every city, so too did theperiod of decline. The turning point was first reached in Delft (fig 9), which alreadytook place in the early 1640s, thus well before the city witnessed the achievements ofJohannes Vermeer (1632–75), Pieter de Hooch, and Carel Fabritius (1622–54). In
Leiden, this point was reached more than a decade later, around 1660. Between 1648,
the year in which the Guild of Saint Luke was founded, and 1655, the number ofpainters hovered around fifty. In the next ten years there were always around forty
painters active in Leiden, but this number only diminished thereafter, from thirty-ninein 1665 to eighteen in 1682 and around ten in the 1690s.
As can be seen in Table 1 (fig 1), the decline was not equally dramatic everywhere, but
it was, nonetheless, definitive. The good times were gone once and for all after 1660,
and fallout was inevitable. Several fine art painters switched to other professions.
Others developed from specialists into generalists in hopes of attracting a broader
public, or turned to decorating the houses of the wealthy. One such artist was Jan
Mortel (1652–1719) who, according to the anonymous eighteenth-century biographer,began painting portraits in Leiden in 1672, but soon stopped in order “bloemen en
fruijtstukken te maken, het zij voor schoorstenen of theetafels en al waar geld mede tewinnen was” (to paint flower and fruit pieces, whether for overmantles or tea-tables,
and anything that would make money).[68] It is hardly surprising that in the last quarterof the century a boy would think twice about becoming a painter. More and moreworkshops stood empty because painters had either left the city or had died and theirstudios were no longer taken over by a new generation.
Table 2 (fig 10) would seem to indicate that the fijnschilders as a group withstood thecrisis fairly well, yet, as has been seen, the crisis had a serious financial impact on
many fijnschilders. Not spared were members of the last generation of© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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fijnschilders who, with the exception of Abraham Snaphaen (1651–91) and Jacob vander Sluijs (1660–1732), had trained under Dou or Van Mieris. Mathijs Naiveu(1647–1726), Bartholomeus Maton (1641/5–after 1693) and Abraham Snaphaen, whobegan working as independent masters in 1670, all left Leiden around 1680 and moved
to Amsterdam, Stockholm and Dessau, respectively. Jacob van der Sluijs followed suita year later. He moved to Amsterdam to complete his training under Jacob van
Toorenvliet, who had just returned to the Republic after spending close to twenty years
abroad (fig 18). Both artists moved to Leiden in the 1680s, where they struggled
financially. Van der Sluijs supplemented his income by working as a bailiff.
In contrast, two other Leiden fijnschilders, Carel de Moor and Willem van Mieris (fig19), did find success in the last quarter of the seventeenth century andthereafter.[69] Like his father, Willem van Mieris became a famous painter who
commanded steep prices for his work and enjoyed privileged patronage, including thatof several foreign princes. His most important benefactor was the fabulously wealthy
Leiden cloth manufacturer Pieter de la Court van der Voort (1664–1739), who granted
him numerous commissions, chiefly after 1700. Willem’s brother Jan van Mieris also
benefited initially from the patronage of the De la Court family (fig 20), but in 1688
he decided to seek his fortune in Italy, where he died in 1690. Carel de Moor, who
studied with both Dou and Frans van Mieris, rapidly developed into a famous artist
whose reputation extended well beyond Leiden.[70] Much like Willem van Mieris, De
Moor was not dependent on the free market. He had wealthy patrons and amassed avast fortune primarily painting portraits. The Leiden elite eagerly frequented his
workshop and could easily afford the high prices he charged.

Conclusion: The Leiden Fijnschilders in Perspective
In examining the Leiden fijnschilders and their position in the local painters’community, it is useful to review the situation in Delft. Montias, in his book about theartistic character of Delft, touched on the concept of a “painters’ school.”[71] According
to him, a local “painters’ school” could develop only when the community was large
enough. The interaction between the artists would then be sufficient to give rise to a“painters’ school” with typical artistic features associated with the city. Montias did notindicate the size of this “critical mass,” although in Delft—where such a school had
arisen around Vermeer, De Hooch, and Fabritius circa 1650—the number of active
artists was about thirty-five.
At first sight the situation in Leiden seems comparable to that in Delft. Both cities
accommodated a school of painting with a recognizable individual character, whicharose in a painters’ community large enough to sustain it. Yet there are also
differences. The Delft school lasted only a few years, while the Leiden school endured© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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far into the eighteenth century. Montias explained the Delft school’s brief life as being
due to the rapid decline in the number of painters, which soon dropped below thecritical mass. Given how long the Leiden school held out, one might assume that thecritical mass in Leiden remained constant all these years, and yet as demonstrated inTable 2 (fig 10) this was definitely not the case.
Upon further consideration, the situations in these two cities have much less incommon than initially would seem to be the case. The Leiden school of painting wasnot, as in Delft, the result of mutual interaction and reciprocal influences, but chiefly
the work of two brilliant painters, Gerrit Dou and Frans van Mieris, teacher and pupil,in which the pupil (Van Mieris), after first working in the style of his teacher and thenderiving inspiration from painters from elsewhere, developed his own style. Gerrit Dou
was its bedrock. After Rembrandt’s departure in the early 1630s, he independently
developed the smooth and detailed manner of painting about which Angel waxed solyrical in his address of 1641. Some took Angel’s advice to heart and followed Dou’s
style, sometimes so literally that their work can hardly be distinguished from that of
their model. This desire to emulate Dou’s manner proved to be a windfall for art
dealers who, according to the anonymous eighteenth-century biographer, bought up thebest pieces and sold them abroad as originals by Dou.
The financial success of Dou’s followers fell far short of that of their master. Many ofthem had no need for such success per se, as they also plied another trade, particularly
painters of the first two generations. Brekelenkam was the first pupil of Dou to set his
own artistic course, a decision that, judging from the dissemination of his work, did
him no harm. Nevertheless, even he proved to be helpless in the face of the crisis in theart market that began to manifest itself seriously in Leiden as of the 1660s. The same
fate awaited most of Dou’s followers; not even Van Slingelandt could live up to thehigh financial expectations. Except for Dou and Frans van Mieris, commercial success
was granted to only two painters of the last generation: Willem van Mieris and Carel deMoor.
The success enjoyed by Willem van Mieris did not come of its own accord. Clothmerchant Pieter de la Court van der Voort’s patronage was doubtless dictated by theartist’s own work, but his ability to copy the work of Dou and his father had beenequally important. Van Mieris did this so skillfully that most of the copies cannot be
distinguished from the originals, and De la Court had no qualms about including themin his collection as such. There is a similar anecdote about De Moor. In 1773, the wellknown Leiden collector Johan Aegzn van der Marck owned no fewer than elevenworks by the artist. Regarding the finest painting of “een Juffertje die een briefgelezen hebbende in de hand heeft, en een oude koppelaarster, die haar dezelve gebragt
heft” (a young lady reading a letter, and an old procuress, who brought it to her), the© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Leiden Fijnschilders and the Local Art Market in the Golden Age
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eighteenth-century biography noted that it “… bij alle kenners [is] gehouden voor’talderbeste kabinetstukje dat hij ooit gepenseeld heeft, zijnde in’t Juffertje veel van deoude Frans van Mieris, en in’t oude vrouwtje van Gerard Douw die, (….), beide zijn
meesters geweest zijn” (… is considered by all connoisseurs as the very best cabinet
picture that he ever painted, with much of the old Frans van Mieris evident in theyoung lady, and of Gerrit Dou in the old woman, […] both of whom had been his
masters). These two stories illustrate that even the most accomplished and successful
Leiden fijnschilders after Dou and Van Mieris never managed to emerge fully from theshadows of their illustrious predecessors.

- Piet Bakker, 2017

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Endnotes
1. I would like to thank Willemijn Fock for allowing me to consult the hundreds of copies andtranscriptions of the Leiden estate inventories that she has collected in the course of the years for theinterdisciplinary research on the Rapenburg in Leiden.
For a more general survey of painting in Leiden in the 17th century, see Christiaan Vogelaar,“Schilderen en bouwen voor burgers en stad,” in Leiden: De geschiedenis van een Hollandse stad, ed.
Simon Groenveld (Leiden, 2003), 2: 148–171.
2. See the biographies of Rembrandt van Rijn and Jan Lievens in this catalogue.
3. Jan de Vries and Ad van der Woude, Nederland 1500–1800: De eerste ronde van moderne economischegroei (Amsterdam, 1995), 333–343. See Boudien de Vries, et al., “Het economisch leven: Spectaculair
succes en diep verval,” in Leiden: De geschiedenis van een Hollandse stad, ed. Simon Groenveld (Leiden,
2003), 2: 84–107.
4. This loss was compounded a year later when the highly successful marine painter Jan Porcellis (ca.
1585–1632) died in Zoeterwoude, near Leiden.
5. For a survey of the Leiden fijnschilders, see Eric Jan Sluijter, “Schilders van ‘cleyne, subtile endecurieuse dingen.’ Leidse fijnschilders in contemporaine bronnen,” in Leidse Fijnschilders: van Gerrit Dou
tot Frans van Mieris de Jonge, 1630–1760, ed. Eric Jan Sluijter, Marlies Enklaar, and Paul
Nieuwenhuizen (Exh. cat. Leiden, Museum De Lakenhal) (Zwolle, 1988), 15–55.
6. The question of who were their clients is not new; it has been posed frequently, and in the meantime haseven been the subject of a modest historiography. See: Eric Jan Sluijter, “Schilders van ‘cleyne, subtile
ende curieuse dingen.’ Leidse fijnschilders in contemporaine bronnen,” in Leidse Fijnschilders: vanGerrit Dou tot Frans van Mieris de Jonge, 1630–1760, ed. Eric Jan Sluijter, Marlies Enklaar, and Paul
Nieuwenhuizen (Exh. cat. Leiden, Museum De Lakenhal) (Zwolle, 1988), 36–46. For important Leiden
collections, see also Theodoor Herman Lunsingh Scheurleer, Cornelia Willemijk Fock, and A.J. vanDissel, eds., Het Rapenburg: Geschiedenis van een Leidse gracht, 10 vols. (Leiden, 1986–92), passim.
7. Xander van Eck, Clandestine Splendor. Paintings for the Catholic Church in the Dutch Republic (Zwolle,2008). For commissions extended by the Catholic Church, see the biographies of Pieter de Grebber (ca.
1603–1652/53) and Abraham Bloemaert (1566–1651) in this catalogue.
8. Lili Byvanck-Quarles van Ufford and J. Happee, Beeld en Gelijkenis. Schilderingen in een Schuilkerk. De
geschilderde panelen in de Evangelisch—Lutherse Kerk te Leiden (Leiden, 1980).
9. Marten J. Bok and Gary Schwartz, “Schilderen in opdracht in Holland in de 17e eeuw,” Oud Holland 23(1991): 189.
10. Rudolf E.O. Ekkart, Isaac Claesz. van Swanenburg 1537–1614. Leids schilder en burgemeester (Zwolle,
1998).
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11. All of these works are presently the property of the Museum De Lakenhal. See Maarten
Wurfbain, Catalogus van de schilderijen en tekeningen. Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal—Leiden (Leiden,1983).
12. Peter van der Ploeg and Carola Vermeeren, Princely Patrons: The Collection of Frederick Henry ofOrange and Amalia of Solms (Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis) (Zwolle, 1997); Koenraad Jonckheere,
The Auction of King William’s Paintings 1713 (Amsterdam, 2008).
13. Peter van de Ploeg and Carola Vermeeren, “‘From the ‘Sea Princes’ Monies’: The Stadholder’s Art
Collection,” in Princely Patrons: The Collection of Frederick Henry of Orange and Amalia of Solms,
ed. Peter van der Ploeg and Carola Vermeeren (Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis) (Zwolle, 1997),
34–60, esp. 55–58. See the biographies of Peter Paul Peter Rubens (1577–1640), Pieter de Grebber,
Abraham Bloemaert, Hendrick ter Brugghen (1588–1629), Rembrandt van Rijn, Jan Lievens,and Govaert Flinck (1615–60) in this catalogue.
14. According to an estimate by Marten Jan Bok and Gary Schwartz, portraits constituted around one
quarter of the total production of paintings in the seventeenth century. See Martin Jan Bok and Gary
Schwartz, “Schilderen in opdracht in Holland in de 17e eeuw,” Oud Holland 23 (1991): 183–195.
15. Marten J. Bok, “Vraag en aanbod op de Nederlandse kunstmarkt, 1580–1700” (PhD. diss., Utrecht
University, 1994), 97–130.
16. Eric Jan Sluijter, “Over Brabantse vodden, economische concurrentie, artistieke wedijver en de groei
van de markt,” in Kunst voor de markt 1500–1700, ed. Reindert Falkenburg, et al. Nederlands
Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 50 (Zwolle, 1999), 113–143.
17. G.J. Hoogewerff, De geschiedenis van de St. Lucasgilden in Nederland (Amsterdam 1947), passim.
18. A good Leiden example is Jan van Goyen, who with his monochromatic landscapes not only renewed
the genre, but also introduced a novel, timesaving technique. This innovation increased his productivity
substantially, allowing him to offer his generally high quality work for a relatively low price. A
successful strategy, as emerges from countless mentions of his work in estate inventories in Leiden andelsewhere, and the many painters who followed him. John Michael Montias, “The influence ofeconomic factors on style,” De Zeventiende Eeuw 6 (1990), 49–57; Eric Jan Sluijter, “Jan van Goyen als
marktleider, virtuoos en vernieuwer,” in Jan van Goyen, ed. Christiaan Vogelaar (Exh. cat. Leiden,
Museum De Lakenhal) (Zwolle, 1996), 38–59.
19. Regionaal Archief Leiden, Gildenarchieven, inv. 849 vol. 1, Deecken ende Hooftmansboeck van ’t
Gilde van St Luijcas Ordre beginnende anno 1648, fols. 3–5, published in Abraham Bredius andWilhelm Martin, “Nieuwe bijdragen tot de geschiedenis van het Leidsche St. Lucasgild,” Oud
Holland 18 (1904): 123–124.
20. Auctioning pictures in public was prohibited, with the exception of those in the estate of someone who
had died, or the stock of painters and dealers who had died in Leiden or closed down their business. The
town council also appointed three supervisors to ensure that the rules were strictly followed. G. J.
Hoogewerff, De geschiedenis van de St. Lucasgilden in Nederland (Amsterdam 1947), 177–178; Eric Jan© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Sluijter, “Schilders van ‘cleyne, subtile ende curieuse dingen.’ Leidse fijnschilders in contemporaine
bronnen,” in Leidse Fijnschilders: van Gerrit Dou tot Frans van Mieris de Jonge, 1630–1760, ed. Eric Jan
Sluijter, Marlies Enklaar, and Paul Nieuwenhuizen (Exh. cat. Leiden, Museum De Lakenhal) (Zwolle,
1988), 29–31; Klein maar fijn. De Leidse fijnschilders van Gerrit Dou tot Frans van Mieris de Jonge:
1630–1770 (Exh. cat. Leiden, Museum De Lakenhal) (Leiden, 1988), 29–31; Hessel Miedema, Kunst
historisch (‘s-Gravenhage, 1989), 189–91.
21. Hessel Miedema, “Kunstschilders, gilde en academie: Over het probleem van emancipatie van de
kunstschilders in de Noordelijke Nederlanden van de 16de en 17de eeuw,” Oud Holland 101 (1987):
1–34.
22. For Pieter Spiering, see the essay Gerrit Dou and His Collectors in the Golden Age in this catalogue.
23. See Eric Jan Sluijter, De lof der schilderkunst. Over schilderijen van Gerrit Dou (1613–1675) en een
tractaat van Philips Angel uit 1642 (Hilversum, 1993).
24. See the essay Gerrit Dou and His Collectors in the Golden Age in this catalogue.
25. Joachim von Sandrart. Joachim von Sandrarts Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675:
Lebem der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister, ed. Arthur R. Peltzer, (Nuremburg, 1675–79,
reprinted in Munich, 1925), 195. See the essay Gerrit Dou and His Collectors in the Golden Age in thiscatalogue.
26. Van Egmondt is missing in this “survey”. See Fred. G. Meijer, “Pieter Cornelisz van Egmondt, een
kennismaking,” Oud Holland 104 (1990): 256–69. On the anonymous manuscript, see Regionaal
Archief Leiden, Bibliotheek Leiden en omgeving, LB 254, port. 41a, Lijste van schilders, die binnen deStad Leyden gebooren zijn, off aldaar gewoond en de kunst geoeffend hebben, (anonymous, unpag.).
Although the author of the manuscript creates the impression of being well informed, there is no
supporting evidence that these artists, who were practically Dou’s contemporaries, trained with Dou.
Van Spreeuwen, for example, lived a mere hundred meters away from Rembrandt, and like Dou andIsaac de Jouderville (ca. 1612–48), may have studied with that master.
27. Several thousand inventories spanning the seventeenth century are preserved in the Regionaal Archief
Leiden in the archives of the Weeskamer, the Notarieel Archief, and a number of family archives.
Cornelia Willemijn Fock and her students systematically combed through the various protocols for theseventeenth century. A total of 258 inventories were collected with names of painters, among whichwere the 120 documents (the ones with the most interesting collections) used for the research on thepossession of paintings in Leiden for the Rapenburg project. See Cornelia Willemijn Fock,“Schilderijenbezit in Leiden in de zeventiende eeuw,” in Het Rapenburg: Geschiedenis van een Leidse
gracht, ed. Theodoor Hermann, Lunsingh Scheurleer, Cornelia Willemijn Fock, and A.J. van Dissel(Leiden, 1990), 5: 1–36. Attributed paintings occur chiefly in the estates of wealthy burghers. See John
MichaelMontias,Artists

andArtisans

in

Delft:A

Socio-Economic

Study

of

the

Seventeenth-Century (Princeton 1982), 222. The 120 inventories from the period 1600–99 for the
Rapenburg project counted a total of 2,130 attributions. That is approximately 60 percent of the 3,756
in the new selection, which with 258 documents is more than twice as large.
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28. Notaries recorded attributions only regularly as of the 1630s. This gradually came to an end after 1670,
and was rarely done anymore in the 1680s and 1690s. The same applies to describing the depictions. Asof the 1680s, notaries increasingly mention just the number of paintings. Only portraits are then still
distinguished.
29. Koedijck may have been primarily an art dealer (he is called a “koopman” [merchant] on several
occasions), as is suggested by his continual shuttling back and forth between Leiden and Amsterdam.
30. Van Staveren, who died in 1669, five years before an inventory of Westerneyn’s estate was drawn up,
had bequeathed the paintings from his studio to Alida. Thus, the large number of paintings in thisinventory point to the fact that Van Staveren lacked success as an artist. RAL, NA not. J. van der Stoffe,
inv. 1192, deed 34. An (incomplete) transcription of the holding of paintings is in Abraham Bredius andOtto Hirschmann, Urkunden zur Geschichte der Holländischen Kunst des XVIten, XVIIten und XVIIIten
Jahrhunderts (The Hague, 1915–22), 2183–86.
31. The guild’s records, however, note that: “d’voornoemde Egmont voor veele jaren een schilder geweestis” (the above-mentioned Egmondt had been a painter for many years). Regionaal Archief Leiden,
Gildenarchieven, inv. 849, Deeken ende Hooft-Mans Boeck, fol. 139.
32. Joachim von Sandrart, Joachim von Sandrarts Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675:
Lebem der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister, ed. Arthur R. Peltzer (Nuremburg. 1675–79,
reprinted in Munich, 1925), 195. See the essay Gerrit Dou and His Collectors in the Golden Age in thiscatalogue.
33. Until the 1630s the percentage of genre paintings in relationship to the total ownership of paintings inLeiden and Delft is about the same, fluctuating between 1 and 4.5 percent. The situation in Leidenchanged subsequently. The percentage of genre paintings there rises strongly from 6.4 percent in the1630s to 17.4 percent in the 1670s. An increase is also visible in Delft for the first time in the 1670s,
although it remained limited to 7.4 percent. Cornelia Willemijn Fock, “Schilderijenbezit in Leiden in dezeventiende eeuw,” in Het Rapenburg: Geschiedenis van een Leidse gracht, ed. Theodoor Hermann
Lunsingh Scheurleer, Cornelia Willemijn Fock, and A.J. van Dissel (Leiden, 1990), 5: 19; John MichaelMontias, Artists and Artisans in Delft: A Socio-Economic Study of the Seventeenth-Century (Princeton,
1982), 242.
34. Regionaal Archief Leiden, Bibliotheek Leiden en omgeving, LB 254, port. 41a, Lijste van schilders, diebinnen de Stad Leyden gebooren zijn, off aldaar gewoond en de kunst geoeffend hebben, (anonymous,
unpag.).
35. Regionaal Archief Leiden, Bibliotheek Leiden en omgeving, LB 254, port. 41a, Lijste van schilders, diebinnen de Stad Leyden gebooren zijn, off aldaar gewoond en de kunst geoeffend hebben, (anonymous,
unpag.).
36. Regionaal Archief Leiden, Notarial Archives Notary S. van Swanenburgh, inv. 611, deed 118. For an(incomplete) transcription of the inventory, see Abraham Bredius and Otto Hirschmann, Urkunden zur
Geschichte der Holländischen Kunst des XVIten, XVIIten und XVIIIten Jahrhunderts (Martinus Nijhoff,© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Leiden Fijnschilders and the Local Art Market in the Golden Age
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1915–22), 1858–61. Cf. Eric Jan Sluijter, “Schilders van ‘cleyne, subtile ende curieuse dingen.’ Leidse
fijnschilders in contemporaine bronnen,” in Leidse Fijnschilders: van Gerrit Dou tot Frans van Mieris deJonge, 1630–1760, ed. Eric Jan Sluijter, Marlies Enklaar, and Paul Nieuwenhuizen (Exh. cat. Leiden,
Museum De Lakenhal) (Zwolle, 1988), 196.
37. Regionaal Archief Leiden, Notarial Archives, Not. S. van Swanenburgh, inv. 611, deed 118. For an(incomplete) transcription of the inventory, see Abraham Bredius and Otto Hirschmann, Urkunden zur
Geschichte der Holländischen Kunst des XVIten, XVIIten und XVIIIten Jahrhunderts (Martinus Nijhoff,
1915-1922) 1858–61. Cf. Eric Jan Sluijter, “Schilders van ‘cleyne, subtile ende curieuse dingen.’ Leidse
fijnschilders in contemporaine bronnen,” in Leidse Fijnschilders: van Gerrit Dou tot Frans van Mieris deJonge, 1630–1760, ed. Eric Jan Sluijter, Marlies Enklaar, and Paul Nieuwenhuizen (Exh. cat. Leiden,
Museum De Lakenhal) (Zwolle, 1988), 196.
38. Regionaal Archief Leiden, Notarial Archives, Notary A. Raven, inv. 758, fol.188, 23 May 1652.
39. See the biography of Quiringh van Brekelenkam in this catalogue.
40. The quote is taken from Angelika Lasius, Quiringh van Brekelenkam (Doornspijk, 1992) 11.
41. Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of
the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith, ed. and trans. Edward G. Hawke (London,
1907), 1: 465–66. Cf. Angelika Lasius, Quiringh van Brekelenkam (Doornspijk, 1992), 13.
42. Regionaal Archief Leiden, Inventory Pieter de Grient, Archives of the Weeskamer, 1391d, 13
December 1656, and Regionaal Archief Leiven, Inventory Henric Brugge van Ring, Notarial Archives,
Notary L. van Swieten, inv. 1005, deed 10, 30 March 1667. If De Grient indeed owned sixteen
pictures—his inventory is not quite unequivocal on this point—then the total number of attributions to
Brekelenkam is sixty.
43. See Joachim von Sandrart, Joachim von Sandrarts Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste von1675: Lebem der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister, ed. Arthur R. Peltzer (Nuremburg.
1675–79, reprinted in Munich, 1925), 195. S See the essay Gerrit Dou and His Collectors in the Golden
Age in this catalogue.
44. This was different for the house painters. After initially functioning as a side car in the guild, as thecentury progressed they increasingly gained power and pressured the guild to meet their own needs. See
Piet Bakker, “Crisis? Welke crisis? Kanttekeningen bij het economisch verval van de schilderkunst in
Leiden na 1660,” De Zeventiende Eeuw 27 (2011): 232–70.
45. Followed by Amsterdam 242 (13 percent), The Hague 180 (10 percent), Utrecht 89 (5 percent), Delft
86 (5 percent), and Rotterdam 85 (5 percent). Attributed to foreign painters (Southern Netherlands,
Italy) are 188 paintings (10 percent). A relatively high number of attributions, 211 (11 percent), could
not be topographically located for a variety of reasons (painters with the same name; unidentifiablenames).
46. For the development of the Amsterdam art market in the period 1620–79, see John Michael Montias,“Works of Art in Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam. An Analysis of Subjects and Attributions,” in Art in© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Leiden Fijnschilders and the Local Art Market in the Golden Age
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History/History in Art. Studies in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Culture, ed. David Freedberg and Jan deVries (Santa Monica, 1992), 331–72; John Michael Montias, “Works of Art in a Random Sample of
Amsterdam Inventories,” in Economics and the Arts, ed. Michael North (Cologne, 1996), 67–88; John
Michael Montias, “Artists named in Amsterdam Inventories,” Simiolus 31 (2005): 322–47.
47. In 1640s 22 local painters set up a workshop, in the 1650s only 12, and in the 1660s only 9.
48. Simon van Leeuwen, Korte besgryving van het Lugdunum Batavorum nu Leyden (Leiden, 1672), 191–92.
49. The Bubble Blower, signed and dated 1661 (Gallery Uffizi, Florence).
50. Francois Meerman and His Family, 1668 (Musée du Louvre, Paris). See the biography of Pieter
Cornelisz van Slingelandt in this catalogue.
51. Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (The Hague,
1753; reprinted in Amsterdam, 1976), 3, 162.
52. Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (The Hague,
1753; reprinted in Amsterdam, 1976), 3, 162. In 1674 he, or rather he and his brothers as the heirs, were
taxed on a fortune of 7000 guilders. Naturally, this does not suggest poverty, but neither does it
represent great prosperity, certainly when we realize that the amount in part concerned four, or possibly,
five brothers and sisters. Jan Peltjes, Leidse Lasten: Twee Belastingskohieren uit 1674 (Leiden, 1995), 76.
53. Jan Peltjes, Leidse Lasten: Twee Belastingskohieren uit 1674 (Leiden, 1995), 76. For Cornelis van Houck,also see the biography of Pieter Cornelisz van Slingelandt in this catalogue.
54. Regional Archief Leiden, Notarial Archives, Notary L. van Overmeer, inv. 978, deed 125, 12 October
1684.
55. See the biography of Pieter Cornelisz van Slingelandt in this catalogue.
56. See Rudolf E.O. Ekkart, “Twee portretten door Pieter van Slingelandt,” Leids Jaarboekje (1992): 93–8.
57. On Jacob Toorenvliet’s sojourn in Vienna and Rome, see his biography in this catalogue.
58. See the essay Gerrit Dou and His Collectors in the Golden Age and the biography of Jacob Toorenvliet inthis catalogue.
59. Regionaal Archief, Leiden, Notarial Archives, Notary P.G. van Tielt, inv. 905, deed 156, 27 March
1665. Another four owners are apparent. Their estates date between 1688 and 1705 and concern
possible acquisitions from Van Tol’s second Leiden sojourn after 1675. See Dominicus van
Tol’s biography in this catalogue.
60. Joachim von Sandrart. Joachim von Sandrarts Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675:
Lebem der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister, ed. Arthur R. Peltzer (Nuremburg. 1675–79,
reprinted in Munich, 1925), 195. See the essay Gerrit Dou and His Collectors in the Golden Age in thiscatalogue.
61. Regionaal Archief Leiden, Inventory Van Swieten, Notarial Archives, Notary H. Brasser, inv. 416, deed
42, 31 March 1662, and Regionaal Archief Leiden, Inventory Toorenvliet, Bibliotheek. Leiden en
Omstreken, inv. 67504 (f) Aantekeningen over Leidse schilders en de kunsthandel, (unpag.), 1692.
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62. Regionaal Archief Leiden, Notarial Archives, Notary P.A. van Scharpenbrant, inv. 1103, deed 146, 6November 1673.
63. Marten J. Bok, “Vraag en aanbod op de Nederlandse kunstmarkt, 1580–1700” (PhD. diss., Utrecht
University, 1994), 121–127.
64. Cornelia Willemijn Fock, “Het interieur in de Republiek 1670–1750: (g)een plaats voor schilderkunst?,”in De Kroon op het werk: Hollandse schilderkunst 1670–1750, ed. Ekkehard Mai, Sander Paarlberg, andGregor M. Weber (Exh. cat. Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum; Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum;
Kassel, Museumlandschaft Hessen Kassel) (Zwolle, 2006), 63–84.
65. The share of the wealthiest 1 percent of the population in the total wealth rose from 33 to 59 percent inLeiden between 1623 and 1722. Lee Soltow and Jan Luiten van Zanden, Income and Wealth Inequality
in The Netherlands, 16th–20th Century (Amsterdam, 1998), 37–4, tables 3.6 and 3.7.
66. Cornelia Willemijn Fock, “Het interieur in de Republiek 1670–1750: (g)een plaats voor schilderkunst?,”in De Kroon op het werk: Hollandse schilderkunst 1670–1750, ed. Ekkehard Mai, Sander Paarlberg, andGregor M. Weber (Exh. cat. Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum; Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum;
Kassel, Museumlandschaft Hessen Kassel) (Zwolle, 2006), 64.
67. Cornelia Willemijn Fock, “Het interieur in de Republiek 1670–1750: (g)een plaats voor schilderkunst?,”in De Kroon op het werk: Hollandse schilderkunst 1670–1750, ed. Ekkehard Mai, Sander Paarlberg, andGregor M. Weber (Exh. cat. Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum; Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum;
Kassel, Museumlandschaft Hessen Kassel) (Zwolle, 2006), 68–71.
68. Joachim von Sandrart. Joachim von Sandrarts Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675:
Lebem der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister, ed. Arthur R. Peltzer (Nuremburg. 1675–79,
reprinted in Munich, 1925), 195. See the essay Gerrit Dou and His Collectors in the Golden Age in thiscatalogue.
69. Unless otherwise stated, for information on Willem van Mieris, the reader is referred to his biography inthis catalogue.
70. De Moor’s workshop had formerly been that of Dou, and he rented it from Anthonia van Tol. Regionaal
Archief Leiden, Bibliotheek Leiden en Omstreken, LB 67504, “Aant. over Leidsche schilders en overde kunsthandel.” In this document is a transcription of a document in which in 1715 Notary Dirck van
Torenvliet, as the guardian of the fideicommissary goods of Anthonia van Thol, rents Dou’s previous
house on the Galgewater to De Moor for another five years for 100 guilders annually. De Moor lived
here certainly as of 1710, and probably earlier. Toorenvliet rented the premises to someone else in 1720.
71. John Michael Montias, Artists and Artisans in Delft: A Socio-Economic Study of the Seventeenth-Century(Princeton, 1982), 179–82.

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