Samuel van Hoogstraten(Dordrecht 1627 – 1678 Dordrecht)

How to cite
Bakker, Piet. “Samuel van Hoogstraten” (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/ (archivedDecember 2023).
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.

Samuel van Hoogstraten served two muses: that of Pictura and that of Poetry. Although many examples of hisachievements in both art forms have been preserved, each had a different significance for him. According to Arnold
Houbraken (1660–1719): “he sacrificed his best hours to the first, and his spare time to the second.”[1] Even if, for Van
Hoogstraten, primacy resided with painting, his present fame rests largely on one of his writings—not one of the many
poems or plays he penned during his life, but Inleyding tot de Hooge Schoole der Schilderkonst, the most extensiveseventeenth-century painting treatise to appear after Karel van Mander’s Schilder-boeck of 1604.[2] Inleyding, in which Van
Hoogstraten refers regularly to his teacher Rembrandt, was published mere months before his death in 1678 by hisyounger brother, François van Hoogstraten (1632–96), a bookseller in Rotterdam.[3]Inleyding was intended as a manual, but, as Van Hoogstraten stated in his preface, “even though this work is merely
an Introduction, we would argue that not only will it help pupils to attain the height of art with a more secure footing, buteven masters of art will garner a lightness to instruct its [Art’s] disciples well.”[4] Van Hoogstraten also had pupils, possibly
including Jacobus Levecq (1634–75) and Nicolaes Maes (1634–93), and certainly Godefridus Schalcken (1643–1706)
and Arent de Gelder (1645–1727).[5] Houbraken too, studied with Van Hoogstraten and wrote extensively in his
Schouburgh about his experience in the latter’s workshop.
Van Hoogstraten was born in Dordrecht in August 1627. His parents were the Mennonite silversmith Dirck vanHoogstraten (ca. 1596–1640) and Mayken de Koning (1598–1645).[6] Soon after his birth, the family moved to The
Hague, where Samuel received his first painting lessons from his father. The family returned to Dordrecht in August 1640,
just a few months before Dirck died. Around 1643 Samuel moved to Amsterdam to complete the second part of his
training under Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–69).[7] While working in the master’s shop he met his “fellow pupil” CarelFabritius (1622–54),[8] whose exceptional skill in rendering perspectival through-views he praises in Inleyding.[9] Van
Hoogstraten’s pupillage with Rembrandt probably lasted until 1646, but he may still have been working in his studio in© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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1647, even though we have no information about him in those two years.[10] The earliest evidence of Van Hoogstraten’s
return to Dordrecht is a poem he wrote about the physician Bernardus Pandelaert (ca. 1600–53) dated 19 January 1648.
Three months later, in April, he was baptized into the Mennonite community in Dordrecht. In 1651 he ran afoul ofMennonite proscriptions when two fellow believers caught him carrying arms in daylight, which was strictly forbidden.
On 16 May 1651 Van Hoogstraten left Dordrecht for a lengthy sojourn abroad. His first destination was Vienna. On 6
August he was granted an audience with Emperor Ferdinand III (1608–57), who was greatly impressed by his art.[11] Heshowed the emperor and his entourage three paintings he had brought with him from Dordrecht, including a trompe-l’oeil
still life of the kind he “painted so naturally that many were deceived by it.”[12] The emperor himself, after studying thestill life at length, conceded that Van Hoogstraten “was the first painter to have deceived him.”[13] The emperor admired
the picture so much that he was reluctant to give it back. In exchange for it, he presented Van Hoogstraten a gold chain anda medallion of honor, which from that point on figured as the artist’s personal trademark in many of his trompe-l’oeil stilllifes.
Although Van Hoogstraten’s fame as a painter rests primarily on this genre, it was only a small part of his entire oeuvre.
Houbraken noted that even though such paintings were lucrative at the time, Van Hoogstraten had “too great a mind to stop
there,” painting “portraits, histories, and perspectives in rooms for which a hole was made in the room’s outer wall in orderto look into the interior.” No examples of these rooms have come down to us, but Houbraken saw a number of them “thatwere painted in a small space depicting an entire palace with vaulting, and galleries with marble colonnades.”[14]Van Hoogstraten left Vienna in 1652 and traveled via Venice and Genoa to Rome, where he joined the Bentveughels(“Birds of a Feather”) and was given the Bent nickname “Batavier” (Batavian). In 1653 he was back in Vienna, and in thefall he followed Emperor Ferdinand to Regensburg for an Imperial Diet. In Regensburg he met an acquaintance ofJoachim von Sandrart (1606–88), the learned Benedictine monk and abbot Gabriel Bucelinus (1599–1681), who was also
there between the fall of 1652 and the spring of 1654. Bucelinus helped Van Hoogstraten secure the commission to paintan altarpiece for the St. John Church at Feldkirch, which he worked on together with Nicolaes Roosendaal (1634/35–86)
in Vienna.[15] The abbot included Van Hoogstraten in his Pictorum Europae Praecipuorum Nomina, a manuscript with thenames—in his view—of the leading artists in Europe.[16] After returning to Vienna from Rome, Van Hoogstraten wasjoined by his brother Jan (1629/30–54), also a painter, who lived with him until his sudden death in 1654.
Van Hoogstraten was back in Dordrecht in 1656 and joined the Broederschap der Romeynen, a society of individuals whohad visited Rome. Soon thereafter he was invested as master of the Mint of Holland. In the same year he married Sara
Balen (d. 1678), a niece of the town historian Matthijs Balen (1611–91), who would later write Beschryvinge der stad
Dordrecht (1677) and for which Van Hoogstraten would design the prints. In September 1656 Van Hoogstraten wasexpelled from the Mennonite community for unbecoming behavior. Shortly thereafter, in January 1657, he and his wife
joined the Dutch Reformed Church. In this year Van Hoogstraten painted two group portraits, including one (now lost) of
the Broederschap der Romeynen, and one of his fellow masters of the Mint. This was followed in 1674 by a second
portrait of the officers and masters of the Mint, in which he featured himself displaying the medallion and chain awarded
him by Emperor Ferdinand III.[17]From 1662 to 1667 Van Hoogstraten lived in London, where he had contact with members of the Royal Society. For
Thomas Povey (1613/14–ca. 1705), secretary of the Duke of York, he made a perspective painting, which Samuel Pepys(1633–1703) admired in his famous diary.[18] Van Hoogstraten was back in the Republic at the end of 1667, and was© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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recorded in January 1668 as a member of Pictura, the painters’ confraternity in The Hague. The elite of the court city lined
up to sit for him; for example, the tax collector Maarten Pauw (1616–80) and his family sat for the artist eight times. In
1671 Van Hoogstraten purchased a house in Dordrecht along the Steegoversloot, where Levecq, Maes, and Abraham vanDijck (1635–80) lived as well. In 1673 he was elected provost of the Mint. He suffered a serious illness in the last years of
his life, and died on 19 October 1678. Van Hoogstraten was buried in the Munterskapel; his wife died a mere month later.
On 21 March 1679 “many splendid paintings” were auctioned in his house.[19]- Piet Bakker, 2017

© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Samuel van Hoogstraten
Page 4 of 6Endnotes
1. “De eerste offerde hy zyn beste uuren, de tweede zyne uitspanningen op.” Arnold Houbraken, De grooteschouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague,1753; reprint, Amsterdam, 1980), 2: 156.
2. For a survey of Van Hoogstraten’s publications, see Michiel Roscam Abbing, De schilder & schrijver
Samuel van Hoogstraten 1627–1678. Eigentijdse bronnen & oeuvre van gesigneerde schilderijen (Leiden,1993), 83–87.
3. Van Hoogstraten mentions Rembrandt on pages 13, 75, 176, 183, 191, 212, 228, 257, 268, 273, and291; see Michiel Roscam Abbing, De schilder & schrijver Samuel van Hoogstraten 1627–1678.
Eigentijdse bronnen & oeuvre van gesigneerde schilderijen (Leiden, 1993), 78.
4. “Schoon dit werk maer een Inleiding is, zoo maecken wy ons sterk, dat niet alleen de leerlingen hier door
zullen geholpen worden, om met een zekerder voet nae den top der konst op te stappen: maer dat zelfs
meesters in de konst hier uit een lichtigheit zullen raepen, om haere Discipelen wel te onderwijzen.”
Van Hoogstraten, 1678, in his preface “Aen den lezer” (To the Reader). An analysis of Van
Hoogstraten’s ideas is found in Celeste Brusati, Artifice and Illusion: The Art and Writing of Samuel vanHoogstraten (Chicago, 1995), 218–60.
5. For Maes’s and Levecq’s supposed apprentices, see Michiel Roscam Abbing, De schilder & schrijver
Samuel van Hoogstraten 1627–1678. Eigentijdse bronnen & oeuvre van gesigneerde schilderijen (Leiden,1993), 41. For Maes’s teachers, see the biography of Nicolaes Maes in this catalogue. See also thebiographies of Godefridus Schalcken and Arent de Gelder in this catalogue.
6. Unless otherwise noted, all biographical information on Samuel van Hoogstraten is taken from Michiel
Roscam Abbing, De schilder & schrijver Samuel van Hoogstraten 1627–1678. Eigentijdse bronnen &oeuvre van gesigneerde schilderijen (Leiden, 1993), 31–82.
7. The exact dates of Van Hoogstraten’s stay with Rembrandt are not known. He would have entered themaster’s workshop in 1642 or 1643, and left it in 1646 or 1647. See Walter Liedtke, “Rembrandt’s‘Workshop’ Revisited,” Oud Holland 117, nos. 1–2 (2004): 68.
8. “Mijn meedeleerling.” Samuel van Hoogstraten, Inleyding tot de Hooge Schoole der Schilderkonst. Andersde Zichtbaere Werelt (Rotterdam, 1678; reprint, Doornspijk, 1969), 11. It is assumed that Fabritius spentsome time with Rembrandt from the second half of 1641 until around April 1643; Walter Liedtke,“Rembrandt’s ‘Workshop’ Revisited,” Oud Holland 117, nos. 1–2 (2004): 68. See also the biographyof Carel Fabritius in this catalogue.
9. Samuel van Hoogstraten, Inleyding tot de Hooge Schoole der Schilderkonst. Anders de ZichtbaereWerelt (Rotterdam, 1678; reprint, Doornspijk, 1969), 274.
10. The exact dates of Van Hoogstraten’s stay with Rembrandt are not known. He would have entered themaster’s workshop in 1642 or 1643, and left it in 1646 or 1647. See Walter Liedtke, “Rembrandt’s© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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‘Workshop’ Revisited,” Oud Holland 117, nos. 1–2 (2004): 68.
11. Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (Amsterdam,1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague, 1753; reprint, Amsterdam, 1980), 2: 157. It is not known who introduced
him at the court in Vienna. Perhaps someone in Dordrecht wrote him a letter of introduction. It seems tohave been a single meeting; there is nothing to indicate that Van Hoogstraten was active as a court
painter in Vienna.
12. “Zoo natuurlyk schilderde dat hy er velen door bedroog.” Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der
Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague, 1753; reprint,Amsterdam, 1980), 2: 157.
13. “Der eerste Maler [ist] die mir betrogen heft.” Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh derNederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague, 1753; reprint,Amsterdam, 1980), 2: 158.
14. “Te grooten geest [had], om zig daar mee op te houden” / “maakte voornamentlyk zyn werk van
Pourtretten, Historien, en Perspectiven in Kamers (waar toe dan een gat in den muur buiten het vertrekom door te zien gemaakt werd) te schilderen” / “die in een kleen vertrek geschildert, een geheel paleis,met overwelfde bogen, en Galeryen, onderschraagt van marmere kolommen vertoonden.” Arnold
Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (Amsterdam,1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague, 1753; reprint, Amsterdam, 1980), 2: 158.
15. For Nicolaes Roosendael and his Vienna period, see the biography of Jacob van Toorenvliet in thiscatalogue.
16. For this list, see Robert Schillemans, “Gabriel Bucelinus and ‘The Names of the Most DistinguishedEuropean Painters,’” Hoogsteder-Naumann Mercury 6 (1987): 25–37.
17. The Mintmasters and Wardens of the Mint of Holland in Dordrecht, signed and 1657 (DordrechtsMuseum); Werner Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, vol. 2, G. van den Eeckhout – I. deJoudreville (Landau, 1983), no. 877; The Mintmasters and Wardens of the Mint of Holland in Dordrecht,
signed and dated 1674 and 1677 (Dordrechts Museum); Werner Sumowski, Gemälde der RembrandtSchüler, vol. 2, G. van den Eeckhout – I. de Joudreville (Landau, 1983), no. 878.
18. View Through a House, signed and dated 1662 (National Trust, Dyrham Park, Gloucestershire); Werner
Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, vol. 2, G. van den Eeckhout – I. de Joudreville (Landau,1983), no. 895. See Michiel Roscam Abbing, De schilder & schrijver Samuel van Hoogstraten
1627–1678. Eigentijdse bronnen & oeuvre van gesigneerde schilderijen (Leiden, 1993), 61, doc. 73.
19. “Eene partij schoone schilderijen.” Michiel Roscam Abbing, De schilder & schrijver Samuel vanHoogstraten 1627–1678. Eigentijdse bronnen & oeuvre van gesigneerde schilderijen (Leiden, 1993), 82.
This auction was announced in the Opregte Haarlemse Courant of 16 March 1679.

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Samuel van Hoogstraten
Page 6 of 6Literature
Van Hoogstraten, Samuel. Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst; anders de zichtbare werelt.
Rotterdam, 1678.
Houbraken, Arnold. De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen. Amsterdam,
1718–21; revised edition published in The Hague, 1753; reprinted in Amsterdam, 1980, 2: 155–70.
Sumowski, Werner. Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler. Vol. 2, G. van den Eeckhout – I. deJoudreville. Landau, 1983, 1286–387.
Marijnissen, Peter et al., eds. De Zichtbaere Werelt: Schilderkunst uit de Gouden Eeuw in Hollands oudste
stad. Exh. cat. Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum. Zwolle, 1992, 188–209.
Roscam Abbing, Michiel. De schilder & schrijver Samuel van Hoogstraten 1627–1678. Eigentijdse
bronnen & oeuvre van gesigneerde schilderijen. Leiden, 1993.
Sumowski, Werner. Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler. Vol. 5, Nachträge, Ortsregister, IkonographischesRegister, Bibliographie. Landau, 1994, : 3102–3, 3227–35.
Sumowski, Werner. Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler. Vol. 6, Nachträge 2, Ortsregister, IkonographischesRegister, Bibliographie, Künstlerverzeichnis. Landau, 1994, 3714–16.
Brusati, Celeste. Artifice and Illusion: The Art and Writing of Samuel van Hoogstraten. Chicago, 1995.
Liedtke, Walter. “Rembrandt’s ‘Workshop’ Revisited.” Oud Holland 117 (2004): 48–73.
Weststeijn, Thijs, Beverly Jackson, and Lynne Richards. The Visible World: Samuel van Hoogstraten’s
Art Theory and the Legitimation of Painting in the Dutch Golden Age. Amsterdam Studies in the Dutch
Golden Age. Amsterdam, 2008.
Blanc, Jan. Peindre et penser la peinture au XVIIe siècle: la théorie de l’art de Samuel van Hoogstraten.
Bern, 2008.
Weststeijn, Thijs. The Visible World: Samuel van Hoogstraten’s Art Theory and the Legitimation ofPainting in the Dutch Golden Age. Amsterdam, 2008.
Weststeijn, Thijs, ed. The Universal Art of Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627–1678): Painter, Writer, andCourtier. Amsterdam, 2013.
Van Hoogstraten, Samuel. Samuel van Hoogstraten’s Introduction to the Academy of Painting; or, TheVisible World. Edited by Celeste Brusati. Translated by Jaap Jacobs. Los Angeles, 2021.
Horn, Hendrik J. and Rieke van Leeuwen. Houbraken Translated: Arnold Houbraken’s Great Theatre oftheNetherlandishPainters

andPaintresses.

TheHague,2021,2:

155–70[https://houbraken-translated.rkdstudies.nl/2-120-179/page-150-159/] (accessed October 31, 2022)© 2024 The Leiden Collection