Fisherman and His Wife in an Interior
Quiringh van Brekelenkam(Zwammerdam [?] after 1622 – ca. 1669Leiden)

1657
oil on panel
47 x 60.3 cm
signed and dated in brown paint along loweredge, right of center: “Q. Brekelenkam__.1657”
QB-100© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Fisherman and His Wife in an Interior
Page 2 of 5

How to cite
Henel, Jennifer E. “Fisherman and His Wife in an Interior” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd ed.
Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/a-fisherman-andhis-wife-in-an-interior/ (archived May 2020).
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.

Illuminated by light streaming from an open window into a simple room with

Comparative Figures

an earthenware floor, a fisherman descales a pail full of herring under thewatchful eyes of his wife who stands, hands on hips, before the couple’s box
bed. To their right sits a simple meal of bread, cheese, and a beverage in anearthenware pitcher. A cooking pot hangs in the hearth at the far right of thiscozy interior. When Quiringh van Brekelenkam painted this work in 1657, hewas already an established artist, having joined the Guild of Saint Luke in1648.[1] Although he frequently depicted artisans such as tailors and spinners
in their workshops, in this instance he represented a domestic scene of afisherman cleaning his catch while his wife waits patiently for him to finish histask.
Van Brekelenkam’s paintings are stylistically less refined than those of histeacher Gerrit Dou (1613–75), which is more appropriate considering thesocial status of his subjects. As an anonymous eighteenth-century author

Fig 1. Quiringh van Brekelenkam,The Fishwife, 1666 (?), oil on
panel, 50 x 39.7 cm, Museum der
Bildenden Künste, Leipzig, inv.
992

noted, “his brushwork and treatment were loose and fluent, true to life, andof a benign nature, being a disciple of Dou, whom he followed in a vagueway.”[2] Van Brekelenkam painted for a less affluent art market than hismaster, with the hope that his domestic subject matter would appeal to theburgeoning middle class in Leiden. Unfortunately, it seems that his paintings
did not command very high prices, which may have been one cause for his
persistent financial problems.
In this scene, Van Brekelenkam features the fisherman’s wife as the primary
caretaker and probably the dominant personality of the home.[3] HerFig 2. Gabriel Metsu, The
Vegetable Market in Amsterdam(detail), ca. 1661–62, oil oncanvas, Musée du Louvre, Paris,inv. 1460, photo: Franx Raux, ©
RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource,© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Fisherman and His Wife in an Interior
Page 3 of 5character reflects a well-known passage from the book of Proverbs: “the wifeof noble character . . . selects wool and flax and works with eager hand. She
is like the merchant ships, bringing her food from afar. She gets up while it isstill dark; she provides food for her family and portions for her servant girls”(Prov. 31:13–15). As she waits for her husband to prepare the fish, it isevident that she has prepared the simple meal of bread and cheese and that
her house is in clean condition and good order. It is unclear whether all thefish is meant for their own consumption. The wife may also have a role inselling the fish at market. Van Brekelenkam suggests this role through her
assertive stance as she gazes at her husband with hands on her hips. Tenyears later, Van Brekelenkam depicted a fishmonger at market in a similarNYfashion (fig 1). Gabriel Metsu (1629–67) also used this body language in theFig 3. Quiringh van Brekelenkam,
Sentimental Conversation, early1660s, oil on panel, The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NewYork, The Friedsam Collection,
Bequest of Michael Friedsam,
1931,
32.100.19, www.metmuseum.org

confrontational exchange between two female merchants in his painting The
Vegetable Market in Amsterdam, which he executed in the early 1660s (fig 2).
Although Van Brekelenkam painted for a largely middle-class market in the1650s, he sought to expand his clientele in the 1660s by painting upper-classscenes in a more refined style, similar to those being painted by Dou, Metsu,and Frans van Mieris (1635–81). For example, Sentimental Conversation of
the early 1660s (fig 3) displays Van Brekelenkam’s ability to depict finefabrics in both the gentleman’s jerkin and the fur-trimmed jacket of his
elegant companion. Despite their thematic and stylistic differences,
Sentimental Conversation and Fisherman and His Wife in an Interior exhibit
the same sensitivity to rendering the dynamic relationships between figures
and to capturing light effects in interior settings.

- Jennifer E. Henel, 2017

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Fisherman and His Wife in an Interior
Page 4 of 5Endnotes

1. See Van Brekelenkam’s biography in this catalogue; and Elizabeth Alice Honig,“Brekelenkam, Quiringh van,” Grove Art Online: Oxford Art Online, accessed 5 April 2014.
2. As translated by Angelika Lassius, Quiringh van Brekelenkam (Doornspijk, 1992), 10–11, andcited in footnote 13, Adversaria Liedsche Schilders (18th-century notes, anonymous author),
Gemeentearchief, Leiden.
3. He depicted the wife of a fisherman in much the same pose in another painting dated tenyears later. See Quiringh van Brekelenkam, Kitchen Interior with Two Figures, 1667, oil on
panel, Musée J.-P. Pescatore, Luxembourg, inv. 52.

Provenance
Willem Smits et al. (sale, The Hague, 18 May 1785, lot 79 [J. D. Nijman]).
Frederik Willem Greebe (sale, Amsterdam, 8 December 1788, no. 23).
Gerrit Muller (sale, Amsterdam, 2 April 1827, no. 11).
Private collection, Philadelphia, until 1930, [W. E. Duits Ltd., London, 1930].
Private collection, Belgium, 1930–95 [Johnny van Haeften, London (sale, Maastrict, 1995)].
Private collection, Boston [Salomon Lilian, Amsterdam, by 2005].
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2005.

Exhibition HistoryIthaca, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, “An Eye For Detail: Dutch
Painting From The Leiden Collection,” September 2014–May 2015 [lent by the presentowner].

References
Havard, Henry. “Quiringh Brekelenkam.” In L’Art et Les Artistes Hollandais. 4 vols. Paris,
1881, 4: 118, as ‘Le Vieux Cuisinier.’© 2020 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Fisherman and His Wife in an Interior
Page 5 of 5Lasius, Angelika, Quiringh van Brekelenkam. Doornspijk, 1992, 102–3, no. 79.
Berry Drago, Elisabeth. Painted Alchemists: Early Modern Artistry and Experiment in theWork of Thomas Wijck. Amsterdam Studies in the Dutch Golden Age. Amsterdam, 2019,
119–20, fig. 3.10.

Technical Summary
The support is a rectangular-shaped composite panel comprised of two horizontally grained oakplanks.[1] The horizontal panel joint, about 5 cm above the lower edge, passes through the toe ofthe male figure’s shoe. The panel has no bevels and has been thinned and cradled. A previously
repaired horizontal split, along the upper third of the composition, runs through the female figure’sshoulders. A small triangular wood insert has been applied to the lower left corner and a small
notch has been cut in the lower right corner.[2] A numerical chalk inscription appears on thereverse, but there are no wax seals, stencils, import stamps, labels or panel maker’s marks.
A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied, followed by paint applied in broad, fluid
brushstrokes with slightly blurred faces and strongly modeled folds in the clothing.
No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers. The
images and X-radiograph reveal a few minor compositional changes. From left to right: ahorizontally oriented rectangular form originally depicted in the lower left corner is now obscuredby the broom bristles; the leaded window appears to have originally been shaped like aparallelogram, with parallel vertical sides (rather than the trapezoid seen now); the round plate on
the floor with the fish in the foreground was originally oval shaped; and the woman’s proper left
arm from shoulder to wrist was shifted to the left during the paint stage.
The painting is signed and dated in brown paint along lower edge, right of center: “Q.
Brekelenkam__ .1657.”
The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition, although a repaired
horizontal split and the small triangular wood insert along the lower left edge indicate previouspanelwork. The panel remains in a good state of preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The characterization of the wood is based on visual examination only.
2. The wood insert is ca. 0.6 cm H x 3.2 cm W.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection