Cornelis de Man(Delft 1621 – 1706 Delft)

How To CiteBakker, Piet. "Cornelis de Man." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. NewYork, 2017.
https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/.
This page is available on the site's Archive. PDF of every version of this page is available on the Archive,
and the Archive is managed by a permanent URL. Archival copies will never be deleted. New versions areadded only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

Cornelis de Man was baptized in Delft on 2 July 1621. His parents were Willem Cornelisz de Man and Sara
Doen de Vries. Cornelis’s father was a successful goldsmith (a craft practiced by three generations ofthe family) who had risen to the position of dean of the Guild of Saint Eligius. The De Spiegel apothecary
shop established by Cornelis’s grandfather in 1584 also remained in the family.[1] Two of Cornelis’s aunts
married clergymen: Jacobus Crucius (1579–1655) and Johannes Stangerus (d. 1636), both of whom
became teachers. Crucius was headmaster of the Latin school in Delft from 1619 to 1655, and his brotherin-law, Stangerus, was deputy headmaster there from 1630 to 1636.[2] De Man, therefore, came from an
educated family, most of whose members practiced professions that generally guaranteed a higher than
average level of prosperity.
De Man would have received drawing lessons from his father, but his painting teacher is not known. He
became a member of the Guild of Saint Luke on 29 December 1642 and a year later left for Italy, where hestayed for some time. “Paris was the first city where he stayed to practice his art, but because he desired togo to Rome, he did not allow himself to remain there for longer than a year.”[3] Via Lyon and Lombardy, De
Man ended up in Florence, where he came into contact with “a great nobleman, in whose service heremained for two years.”[4] He then continued his journey to Rome “where following illustrious examples hepracticed his craft for a number of years.” Before returning to Delft, he traveled to Venice, “where there wasno shortage of patrons, who richly rewarded his art.”[5]Around 1653 De Man was once again back in Delft, where he soon garnered artistic and professional
praise. This is apparent from the many offices he held: from 1657 to 1695 he was dean of the guild no lessthan thirteen times; in 1672 he shared the position with Johannes Vermeer (1632–75). In 1661 De Man andLeonard Bramer provided paintings for the Guild of Saint Luke’s meeting room free of charge; De Man wasresponsible for the mantelpiece and Bramer for the ceiling. He also received paid commissions. In 1675 hecopied several portraits of the stadholders for the city council.[6] In 1682 he also painted a mantelpiece
picture with a scene of Caritas for the Camer van Charitate (Chamber of Charity) of which hiscousin/nephew, the apothecary Cornelis Anthonie de Man, was regent for some time.
Despite his apparently comfortable position, Delft painters in general were struggling to support themselves© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Cornelis de Man
Page 2 of 6

at this time. The situation De Man met on his return from Italy differed greatly from the one he had left
behind in 1643. In that year, the Delft painting community had been larger than at any other time thanks to athirty-year period of uninterrupted growth.[7] Thereafter, a fall in the demand for paintings led to a decline in
the number of painters, gradually at first, but after 1654—the year of the catastrophic Delft explosion, orThunderclap, when a gunpowder store exploded—numbers began to drop rapidly. By 1706, the year De
Man died, only seven painters remained in Delft.[8] This decline was not limited to Delft, but that city was thefirst to feel the effects of the crisis, followed soon by the other cities in Holland.[9]Despite the decline, De Man, unlike Vermeer, never seems to have suffered financially, in part due to hisversatility, which enabled him to paint in many genres.[10] The talented De Man may not have been aninnovator, but he did have a keen understanding of the market. Not until 1660, long after Hendrick van Vliet(1611/12–75) and Gerard Houckgeest (ca. 1600–61) had become successful in the 1650s with their novel
paintings of church interiors, did De Man become versed in this genre as well.[11] He also only began topaint genre pieces once Pieter de Hooch’s (1629–84) and Vermeer’s innovations of the 1650s and 1660s
had proven successful. Yet De Man was not a slavish imitator. Although he did not distinguish himself in
relation to Van Vliet and Houckgeest with regard to his church interiors, De Man developed his own style ingenre painting. De Man derived many themes and motifs from Vermeer and De Hooch, but his own idiomand character make his work easy to distinguish.[12]The only genre De Man practiced throughout his entire career, portraiture was a particular focus of his in
the 1650s upon his return from Italy.[13] After the Disaster Year of 1672 he had little competition as aportraitist in Delft other than Johannes Verkolje (1650–93), who arrived in Delft in that year.[14] A fineexample of De Man’s talent is a monumental portrait he painted around 1673 of the family of Reyer van derBurch (1630–95), clerk of ammunition at the General Depot.[15] Other likenesses suggest that he benefited
from his family’s contacts. It is striking, for instance, that apart from the portrait of his uncle, Jacob Crucius(1655), he also portrayed three other (Delft) clerics in prints.[16]De Man’s connections in the apothecary trade led to several commissions from members of the medicalprofession. The commission for a group portrait of three apothecaries would have come from his family’s
immediate circle.[17] However, his most famous “doctor’s portrait,” The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Cornelis’s
Gravesande of 1681, features numerous local physicians and scholars, including Antonie van
Leeuwenhoek, who enjoyed renown beyond Delft. That his family’s contacts were not limited to this city isapparent from the portrait De Man painted of the Rotterdam doctor and apothecary Ysbrand Ysbrands(1635–1705), scion of a prominent family and, following his mother’s third marriage in 1651, stepson of thefamous Rotterdam admiral, Witte de With (see: CdM-100).[18]Cornelis de Man, like his sister Jannetje, twelve years his junior, never married. They lived together for
many years and, from 1684, wrote a number of wills together. According to some authors, De Man also
worked in The Hague toward the end of his life, but no proof of his living there has been found.[19] He died in
Delft where, on 15 March 1706, the dead body of “Cornelis Willem de Man, elderly bachelor in theGekroonde Pelikaan on the Marktveld” was taken from his home by six pallbearers and laid to rest “in thechoir of the Nieuwe Kerk.”[20]© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Cornelis de Man
Page 3 of 6-Piet Bakker

Endnotes
1. The founder of De Spiegel was Cornelis Gerritsz, a cobbler’s son who married Jannetje
Anthonisdr Puffliet in 1584. After his death in 1600, Jannetje married the apothecary Arent
Dircksz van den Bosch. Her son Anthonie eventually took over the apothecary with his wife
Cornelia van Halmael. He retired from the business in 1649 and was succeeded by his son
Cornelis—often confused with the painter—and his wife Maria Blaeu. See H. A. BosmanJelgersma, Vijf eeuwen Delftse apothekers. Een bronnenstudie over de geschiedenis van defarmacie in een Hollandse stad (Amsterdam, 1979), 76, 148. When Cornelis Anthonie died in
1679, the apothecary closed because his son, Cornelis, had decided to become a goldsmith. In
this Cornelis Cornelisz de Man was following in the footsteps of his grandfather Willem Cornelisde Man and his uncle Doede Willems de Man, who had both practiced this profession.
2. E. P. de Booy, “Het onderwijs in Delft van 1572 tot het midden van de 17de eeuw,”De StadDelft, cultuur en maatschappij van 1572 tot 1667 (Exh. cat. Delft, Stedelijk Museum Het
Prinsenhof, 1981), 114. The scholar Jacobus Crucius, who was born in Antwerp in 1585 and fled
to the Dutch Republic with his parents, was the second son of Maria Cornelisdr de Man, who hadbeen married to Gerrit Dircksz van Roon, a town mason. In 1613 her elder sister Trijntje
Cornelisdr de Man married Johannes Stangerus, who was a clergyman in Rijsoord in that year.
3. “Parys was de eerste stadt daar hy stil hield om zyn Konst te oeffenen; maar om den trek dienhy naar Rome had, liet hy zig daar niet langer dan een jaar ophouden.” Arnold Houbraken,Degroote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen , 3 vols. (Amsterdam,1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague, 1753; reprint, Amsterdam, 1980), 99.
4. “Een groot Edelman in wiens dienst hy twee jaren bleef.” Arnold Houbraken, De grooteschouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen , 3 vols. (Amsterdam, 1718–21;rev. ed., The Hague, 1753; reprint, Amsterdam, 1980), 99.
5. “Daar hy zig verscheide jaren naar doorluchtige voorbeelden oeffende” and “waar hem geen
Mecenassen ontbraken, die zyne konst rykelyk beloonden.” Arnold Houbraken, De grooteschouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen , 3 vols. (Amsterdam, 1718–21;
rev. ed., The Hague, 1753; reprint, Amsterdam, 1980), 99.
6. John Michael Montias, Artists and Artisans in Delft: A Socio-Economic Study of theSeventeenth-Century (Princeton, 1982), 187.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Cornelis de Man
Page 4 of 6

7. From around 1610, the Delft painting community had grown steadily from twenty to forty-sevenpainters. Piet Bakker, “Crisis? Welke crisis? Enkele kanttekeningen bij het economisch vervalvan de schilderkunst in Leiden na 1660,” De Zeventiende Eeuw 27 (2011): 232–70.
8. Piet Bakker, “Crisis? Welke crisis? Enkele kanttekeningen bij het economisch verval van deschilderkunst in Leiden na 1660,” De Zeventiende Eeuw 27 (2011): 232–70.
9. Marten J. Bok, Vraag en aanbod op de Nederlandse kunstmarkt, 1580–1700 (Ph.D. diss.,
Utrecht University, 1994), 121–27.
10. In addition to the genres mentioned here, a few landscapes, fruit still lifes, seascapes, andallegorical works by De Man are known. His earliest known work is an atypical signed and dated
painting from 1639, The Whale-Oil Factory of the Amsterdam Chamber of the GreenlandCompany on Amsterdam Island off Spitsbergen , oil on canvas, 106 x 205 cm, Rijksmuseum,Amsterdam.
11. Walter Liedtke, Architectural Painting in Delft (Doornspijk, 1981), 118–24 (including asummary of church interiors attributed to De Man). See also Michiel Kersten, Daniëlle Lokin, andMichiel Plomp, Delftse Meesters. Tijdgenoten van Vermeer: een andere kijk op perspectief,
licht en ruimte (Delft, Stedelijk Museum Het Prinsenhof) (Zwolle, 1996), 83–86.
12. For a comparison of the work of De Man with that of De Hooch and Vermeer, see MichielKersten, Daniëlle Lokin and Michiel Plomp, Delftse Meesters. Tijdgenoten van Vermeer: eenandere kijk op perspectief, licht en ruimte (Delft, Stedelijk Museum Het Prinsenhof) (Zwolle,1996), 190–201.
13. Five portraits are known from this period. Moreover, only ten portraits in total can beattributed to De Man with certainty. Laura Bassett, The Paintings and Career of Cornelis deMan: Art and Mercantile Culture in Seventeenth-Century Delft (Ph.D. diss., University ofMichigan, 2003), 118.
14. Around 1680 Verkolje painted the famous Portrait of Antoni van Leeuwenhoeck(1632–1723), oil on canvas, 56 x 47.5 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Cornelis de Man
Page 5 of 615. De Man must have had more than one commission from this family. Reyer van der Burch wasmarried to Geertruida Graswinckel. That her relative Theodorus Graswinckel also owned aportrait by De Man is apparent from a will in which he bequeathes “het pourtrait van zijn Heere
testaeurs vader zal. op een plaetje geschilderd door C. De Man tot Delft” (the portrait of thetestate’s late father painted on a plate by C. De Man in Delft) to a family member. GA Den Haag,NA P. de Cretser, 23 July 1680.
16. This refers to Samuel de l’Echerpière, Jean Pechlinus, and Volckert Oosterwijck.
17. Oil on canvas, 90 x 112 cm, Warsaw, National Museum.
18. See E. A. Engelbrecht, De Vroedschap van Rotterdam 1572–1795 (Rotterdam, 1973), 181,243–44.
19. See: Michiel Kersten, Daniëlle Lokin, and Michiel Plomp,Delftse Meesters. Tijdgenoten vanVermeer: een andere kijk op perspectief, licht en ruimte (Delft, Stedelijk Museum HetPrinsenhof) (Zwolle, 1996), 191.
20. “Cornelis Willem, z. De Man, Bejaarde vrijer op ‘t Marcktvelt in de Gekroonde Pelikaan” and“op t Choor’ in de Nieuwe Kerk.” GA Delft, Begraafboek Nieuwe Kerk 46, fol. 356, 15 March
1706.

Literature
Bosman-Jelgersma, H. A. Vijf eeuwen Delftse apothekers. Een bronnenstudie over degeschiedenis van de farmacie in een Hollandse stad. Amsterdam, 1979.
Houbraken, Arnold. De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en
schilderessen.

3 vols. Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague, 1753; reprint,Amsterdam, 1980.
De Booy, E. P. “Het onderwijs in Delft van 1572 tot het midden van de 17de eeuw.”De StadDelft, cultuur en maatschappij van 1572 tot 1667. Exh. cat. Delft, Stedelijk Museum Het
Prinsenhof, 1981, 112–21.
Liedtke, Walter. Architectural Painting in Delft. Doornspijk, 1981.
Montias, John Michael. Artists and Artisans in Delft: A Socio-Economic Study of theSeventeenth-Century. Princeton, 1982.
Bok, Marten J. Vraag en aanbod op de Nederlandse kunstmarkt, 1580–1700. Ph.D. diss.,
Utrecht University, 1994.
Kersten, Michiel, Lokin, Daniëlle and Plomp, Michiel. Delftse Meesters. Tijdgenoten van© 2017 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Cornelis de Man
Page 6 of 6

Vermeer: een andere kijk op perspectief, licht en ruimte. Delft, Stedelijk Museum Het
Prinsenhof. Zwolle, 1996.
Bakker, Piet. “Crisis? Welke crisis? Enkele kanttekeningen bij het economisch verval van deschilderkunst in Leiden na 1660.” De Zeventiende Eeuw 27 (2011): 232–70.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection