Singing Violinist
Jacob Ochtervelt(Rotterdam 1634 – 1682 Amsterdam)ca. 1666–70
oil on panel
26.9 x 19.5 cm
JO-100© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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How to cite
Surh, Dominique. “Singing Violinist” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd ed. Edited by Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/singing-violinist/ (archived May2020).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive ismanaged by a permanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative
occurs.

Dressed in the fanciful costume of a performer, this alluring musician sings toComparative Figures

the tune of his violin while leaning out of an open window. His festive attire
harks back to early sixteenth-century styles, including the dark red velvet
beret with plumed feathers, the luxurious satin brown shirt with slashedribbons, and the aubergine-colored velvet jacket slung casually over thewindow sill. With heartfelt engagement in his music, the young man peers at
his audience from the corners of his eyes. One can almost hear the tenor ofhis voice as it harmonizes with the notes of the violin and imagine themusic rising in crescendo before falling away into silence.
This captivating image, which was first published as an autograph work by
Jacob Ochtervelt in 1979, relates closely to a group of other half-length
figures that the artist executed between 1665 and 1675.

[1]

Ochtervelt

appears to have based one of these paintings, Singing Violinist, 1666, in theGlasgow Art Gallery and Museum (fig 1), on a work by the Leiden artist

Fig 1. Jacob Ochtervelt, Singing
Violinist, 1666, oil on panel, 26.7 x21.6 cm, Glasgow Art Museumand Gallery, © CSG CIC Glasgow
Museums and Libraries
Collections

Pieter van Noort (1622/25–72) (fig 2).[2] Van Noort’s Hearing from ca. 1635
is from a series devoted to the five senses, suggesting that Ochtervelt’s
painting in Glasgow, and by extension this work from The Leiden Collection,
may also have been conceived as Hearing in a now-lost series of the fivesenses.[3] Susan Donahue Kuretsky has identified these two depictions of aviolinist, as well as a third example, as self-portraits.[4]More than one third of Ochtervelt’s oeuvre is devoted to musical subjects,
perhaps because, as Kuretsky suggests, he was a musician himself.[5] The© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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majority of these paintings depict interiors with full-length figures absorbed inflirting, feasting, and playing music; all include precise representations ofinstruments and an informed knowledge of how they were played. In theLeiden Collection painting, Ochtervelt portrays himself at ease, holding theinstrument against his shoulder in accordance with how seventeenth-century
violins were played.[6] At the end of the violin’s neck, the frayed ends of thestrings hang in ringlets near the pegs. In all three of his self-portraits with aviolin, Ochtervelt portrays his left hand fingering the same chord, as though
he were representing a specific moment of a favorite song.
Ochtervelt executed two other paintings from this period in which half-length
figures appear in a window: Singing Woman, formerly on the art market inVienna (fig 3), and its presumed pendant, Man in a Niche, dated 1668, in theStädelsches Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt (fig 4).[7] Because of the similar size

Fig 2. Pieter van Noort, Sense ofHearing: Singing Violinist, ca.
1635, oil on panel, 88.4 x 67 cm,
Landesmuseum, Münster, 199-202
WKV

and corresponding musical subject matter of the Singing Woman with The
Leiden Collection’s Self-Portrait, Otto Naumann suggested that they may
have been conceived as pendants.[8] The similarity of the architectural nichein these two paintings, however, is somewhat misleading, since the present
painting has been largely reconstructed. During conservation treatment in2008 it became evident that the window element had suffered from abrasion
and that an earlier restorer had imaginatively overpainted the architecturewith an arched window (fig 5). When this overpaint was entirely removed, it
became clear that the niche was a originally configured as a rectangle (fig 6). The conservator therefore reconstructed the architectural details using theVienna and Frankfurt paintings as models, which is how the painting is seen
today.[9] The idea that Singing Violinist and Singing Woman were originallypendants is difficult to confirm, though possible. The suggestion that theSinging Violinist may have been part of a pair, rather than one of series

Fig 3. Jacob Ochtervelt, Singing
Woman, ca. 1668, oil on panel,
26.5 x 19.5 cm, signed (sale,Dorotheum, Vienna, Alte Meister,
15 October 2013, no. 526)

depicting the five senses, is also compelling.
Regardless, the artist’s treatment of the present Singing Violinist
demonstrates a deeper impact of the Leiden painting beyond the influence ofVan Noort’s example. Ochtervelt’s meticulous rendition of details andemulation of the interplay of light on different surfaces, including the soft
texture of his silk sleeves, flouncy quality of the feathers, and plushness ofthe velvet, connect this painting to the fijnschilder tradition of Leiden artists
such as Gerrit Dou (1613–75) and Frans van Mieris the Elder (1635–81).
[10]

Not only has Ochtervelt adopted a small-scale format similar to that of hisLeiden counterparts, but his use of a window derives from a motif thatappears frequently in Dou’s works. An exquisite painting by Dou from1653, Violin Player, now in the Princely Collections at Vaduz Castle,

Fig 4. Jacob Ochtervelt, Man in aNiche, 1668, oil on panel, 29 x 33
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Liechtenstein (fig 7), represents the type of painting—in scale, subject matter,and composition—that inspired Ochtervelt.[11]cm, Städelsches Kunstinstitut,Frankfurt, © Städel Museum –ARTOTHEK- Dominique Surh, 2017

Fig 5. Jacob Ochtervelt, SingingViolinist, JO-100, pre-cleaned
state before treatment

Fig 6. Jacob Ochtervelt, SingingViolinist, JO-100, actual state
during conservation in 2008

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Singing Violinist
Page 5 of 9Fig 7. Gerrit Dou, Violin Player,1653, oil on panel, arched top,
31.7 x 20.3 cm, The PrincelyCollections, Vaduz–Vienna© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Singing Violinist
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1. Previously attributed to Ary de Vois, Otto Naumann brought this painting to the attention ofSusan Kuretsky, who was completing her monograph on the artist. See Susan Donahue
Kuretsky, The Paintings of Jacob Ochtervelt (1634–1682) (Oxford, 1979), 20–22, 67, no. 34,fig. 63.
2. Hamish Miles, Dutch and Flemish, Netherlandish and German Paintings, 2 vols. (Glasgow,1961), 1: 101, no. 590, 2:67, ill.; Angelika Lorenz, Renaissance und Barock im Westfälischen
Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte Münster (Münster, 2000), 108–9.
3. Ochtervelt has also depicted himself as a smoker, which may have been intended torepresent the sense of taste; see Susan Donahue Kuretsky, The Paintings of Jacob
Ochtervelt (1634–1682) (Oxford, 1979), 21; Susan Donahue Kuretsky, “The OchterveltDocuments,” Oud Holland 87 (1973): 124–41, esp. 133–34.
4. On the entire group of paintings, see Susan Donahue Kuretsky, The Paintings of JacobOchtervelt (1634–1682) (Oxford, 1979), 20–22, 66–67, nos. 33–35, 149, figs. 61–64.
5. Some 39 of about 100 total paintings from Ochtervelt’s oeuvre have musical subject matter.
See Susan Donahue Kuretsky, The Paintings of Jacob Ochtervelt (1634–1682) (Oxford,1979), 20.
6. Edwin Buijsen and Louis Peter Grijp, eds.,The Hoogsteder Exhibition of Music and Painting inthe Golden Age (Exh. cat. The Hague, Kunsthandel Hoogsteder & Hoogsteder; Antwerp,Hessenhuis Museum) (Zwolle, 1994), 365.
7. For Singing Woman, see Susan Donahue Kuretsky, The Paintings of Jacob Ochtervelt(1634–1682) (Oxford, 1979), 21, 73, no. 47, fig. 70a; for Man in a Niche, see StädelschesKunstinstitut, Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Verzeichnis der Gemälde (Frankfurt, 1966), 91, no.
606, and Kuretsky, The Paintings of Jacob Ochtervelt, 21, 73–74, no. 48, fig. 70.
8. Personal correspondence with the author via e-mail, 3 October 2013, kept on file at The
Leiden Collection.
9. According to Nancy Krieg’s private conservation treatment notes consulted by AnnetteRupprecht, Susan Donahue Kuretsky examined the painting in person in May 2008 andsuggested the Vienna and Frankfurt paintings as plausible models for how the painting’s
niche was probably originally intended. See Annette Rupprecht, “Technical Notes of aSinging Violinist by Jacob Ochtervelt, JO-100,” unpublished report dated May 2012, curatorial
files, The Leiden Collection.
10. Susan Donahue Kuretsky, The Paintings of Jacob Ochtervelt (1634–1682) (Oxford, 1979),
20–21. See also the essay on the Leiden fijnschilders in this catalogue.
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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11. Ronni Baer, “Violin Player,” in Gerrit Dou, 1613–1675: Master Painter in the Age ofRembrandt, ed. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art;
London, Dulwich Picture Gallery; The Hague, Mauritshuis) (Washington D.C., 2000), 104–5,
no. 20.

Provenance
The Rev. J. M. Heath, Vicar of Enfield, by 1857, until at least 1880, as by Ary de Vois.
David Manin Currie, Kensington, London (his sale, Christie’s, London, 18 February 1921, no.
18, as by Ary de Voys [for 115.10 guineas to Spero]).
Private collection, Belgium (sale, Sotheby’s, London, 6 December 2007, no. 176 [Johnny van
Haeften, Ltd., London]).
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2007.

Exhibition History
Leeds, “National Exhibition of Works of Art,” 1868, no. 680 [lent by the Rev. J. M. Heath].
Dallas, Dallas Museum of Art, “Vermeer Suite: Music in 17th-Century Dutch Painting,” 17January 2016–21 August 2016 [lent by the present owner].
Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:
Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection,” 28 March 2018–22 July 2018 [lent by the presentowner].
St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:
Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection,” 5 September 2018–13 January 2019 [lent by thepresent owner].

References
Waagen, Gustav Friedrich. Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain: Being an account of
more than forty collections of painting, drawings, sculptures &c. &c. London, 1857, 318 (as byAry de Vois).
[James, R.N., and L. Lefèvre]. National Exhibition of Works of Art. Exh. cat. Leeds, 1868, 47,© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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no. 680 (as by Ary de Vois).
Graves, Algernon. A Century of Loan Exhibitions, 1813–1912. 5 vols. London, 1914, 1: 279(as by Ary de Vois).
Kuretsky, Susan Donahue. The Paintings of Jacob van Ochtervelt (1634–1682): with
Catalogue Raisonné. Montclair and Oxford, 1979, 21, 67, no. 34, fig. 63.
McCarthy, Alexa. “Singing Violinist.” In The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces ofThe Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 156–57; 241, no. 45. Translated by Daria
Babich and Daria Kuzina. Exh. cat. Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of FIne Arts; St.
Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Moscow, 2018.

Technical Summary
The support, a single plank of vertically grained, rectangular oak, has bevels on all four sides.[1]The panel is unthinned and uncradled and does not have machine tool marks. There are threerows of illegible black stencils but no wax collection seals, import stamps or panel maker’s marks.
A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied. The oil paint has been applied insuccessive thin layers with areas of fine detail along the figure, his elegant clothes, and theinstrument. Although the contours of these forms are slightly raised, there is no use of impasto
throughout the composition.
The painting is unsigned and undated.
The upper edge of the rectangular architectural niche has previously undergone a compositionalchange. At the time the painting was acquired, the upper edge of the niche had been falsely
reconstructed with a shallow arch.[2] During conservation treatment, the original rectangular shape
was revealed, and the upper edge of the niche was returned to its original rectangular format.
No underdrawing or compositional changes are readily apparent in infrared images captured at
780–1000 nanometers or in the X-radiograph.
The painting was cleaned and restored in 2008 and remains in an excellent state of preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The characterization of the wood is based on visual examination only. The front surface of thelower panel edge appears to have been prepared for dendrochronology sometime prior to thepainting’s acquisition.
2. A 2007 sales catalogue image of this painting and a February 2008 “before treatment” colortransparency both indicate the rectangular architectural niche previously had an arched upper© 2020 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

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© 2020 The Leiden Collection