Samuel van Hoogstraten(Dordrecht 1627 – 1678 Dordrecht)

How to cite
Bakker, Piet. “Samuel van Hoogstraten” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd ed. Edited byArthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/artists/samuel-van-hoogstraten/(archived June 2020).
A PDF of every version of this biography 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 narrativeoccurs.

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 toArnold 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 hiswritings—not one of the many poems or plays he penned during his life, but Inleyding tot de Hooge Schooleder Schilderkonst, the most extensive seventeenth-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 his younger 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 ismerely an Introduction, we would argue that not only will it help pupils to attain the height of art with a moresecure footing, but even 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 van
Hoogstraten (ca. 1596–1640) and Mayken de Koning (1598–1645).[6] Soon after his birth, the family moved toThe 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© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Samuel van Hoogstraten
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met his “fellow pupil” Carel Fabritius (1622–54),[8] whose exceptional skill in rendering perspectival throughviews 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 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 thephysician Bernardus Pandelaert (ca. 1600–53) dated 19 January 1648. Three months later, in April, he wasbaptized into the Mennonite community in Dordrecht. In 1651 he ran afoul of Mennonite 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 wasVienna. On 6 August he was granted an audience with Emperor Ferdinand III (1608–57), who was greatly
impressed by his art.[11] He showed the emperor and his entourage three paintings he had brought with himfrom 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 the still life at length, conceded that Van Hoogstraten “was thefirst 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 and a medallion of honor, which from thatpoint on figured as the artist’s personal trademark in many of his trompe-l’oeil still lifes.
Although Van Hoogstraten’s fame as a painter rests primarily on this genre, it was only a small part of hisentire 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 order to look into the interior.” No examples of these rooms have comedown to us, but Houbraken saw a number of them “that were 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 theBentveughels (“Birds of a Feather”) and was given the Bent nickname “Batavier” (Batavian). In 1653 he wasback in Vienna, and in the fall he followed Emperor Ferdinand to Regensburg for an Imperial Diet. InRegensburg he met an acquaintance of Joachim von Sandrart (1606–88), the learned Benedictine monk andabbot 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 paint an altarpiece for the St. John Church atFeldkirch, 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 the names—in hisview—of the leading artists in Europe.[16] After returning to Vienna from Rome, Van Hoogstraten was joined byhis 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 ofindividuals who had visited Rome. Soon thereafter he was invested as master of the Mint of Holland. In thesame year he married Sara Balen (d. 1678), a niece of the town historian Matthijs Balen (1611–91), whowould later write Beschryvinge der stad Dordrecht (1677) and for which Van Hoogstraten would design theprints. In September 1656 Van Hoogstraten was expelled 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,© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Samuel van Hoogstraten
Page 3 of 6and one of his fellow masters of the Mint. This was followed in 1674 by a second portrait of the officers andmasters 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 theRepublic at the end of 1667, and was 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 ahouse in Dordrecht along the Steegoversloot, where Levecq, Maes, and Abraham van Dijck (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 monthlater. On 21 March 1679 “many splendid paintings” were auctioned in his house.[19]- Piet Bakker, 2017

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Samuel van Hoogstraten
Page 4 of 6Endnotes

1. “De eerste offerde hy zyn beste uuren, de tweede zyne uitspanningen op.” ArnoldHoubraken, De groote schouburgh 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 vangesigneerde schilderijen (Leiden, 1993), 83–87.
3. Van Hoogstraten mentions Rembrandt on pages 13, 75, 176, 183, 191, 212, 228, 257, 268,273, and 291; 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 deleerlingen hier door zullen geholpen worden, om met een zekerder voet nae den top derkonst 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 denlezer” (To the Reader). An analysis of Van Hoogstraten’s ideas is found inCeleste

Brusati,ArtificeandIllusion:

TheArtandWritingof

Samuelvan

Hoogstraten (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 vangesigneerde

schilderijen(Leiden,1993),

41.

For

Maes’steachers,

seethebiography of Nicolaes Maes in this catalogue. See also the biographies of Godefridus
Schalcken and Arent de Gelder in this catalogue.
6. Unless otherwise noted, all biographical information on Samuel van Hoogstraten is takenfrom 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 haveentered the master’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 derSchilderkonst. Anders de Zichtbaere Werelt (Rotterdam, 1678; reprint, Doornspijk, 1969), 11.
It is assumed that Fabritius spent some 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 biography of Carel Fabritius in this catalogue.
9. Samuel van Hoogstraten, Inleyding tot de Hooge Schoole der Schilderkonst. Anders deZichtbaere Werelt (Rotterdam, 1678; reprint, Doornspijk, 1969), 274.
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Samuel van Hoogstraten
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10. The exact dates of Van Hoogstraten’s stay with Rembrandt are not known. He would haveentered the master’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.
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 notknown who introduced him at the court in Vienna. Perhaps someone in Dordrecht wrote him aletter of introduction. It seems to have 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 grooteschouburgh 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 vertrek om door te zien gemaakt werd) te schilderen” / “die in een kleen vertrek
geschildert, een geheel paleis, met overwelfde bogen, en Galeryen, onderschraagt vanmarmerekolommenvertoonden.”ArnoldHoubraken,

DegrooteschouburghderNederlantsche 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 this catalogue.
16. For this list, see Robert Schillemans, “Gabriel Bucelinus and ‘The Names of the Most
Distinguished European Painters,’” Hoogsteder-Naumann Mercury 6 (1987): 25–37.
17. The Mintmasters and Wardens of the Mint of Holland in Dordrecht, signed and 1657(Dordrechts Museum); Werner Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler. Vol. 2, G. vanden Eeckhout – I. de Joudreville (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 Rembrandt-Schüler. Vol. 2, G. van den Eeckhout – I. deJoudreville (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, Deschilder & schrijver Samuel van Hoogstraten 1627–1678. Eigentijdse bronnen & oeuvre vangesigneerde schilderijen (Leiden, 1993), 61, doc. 73.
19. “Eene partij schoone schilderijen.” Michiel Roscam Abbing, De schilder & schrijver Samuel© 2020 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Samuel van Hoogstraten
Page 6 of 6vanHoogstraten

1627–1678.

Eigentijdsebronnen&oeuvrevangesigneerde

schilderijen (Leiden, 1993), 82. This auction was announced in the Opregte Haarlemse
Courant of 16 March 1679.

Literature
Van Hoogstraten, Samuel. Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst; anders dezichtbare werelt. Rotterdam, 1678.
Houbraken,Arnold.

De

grooteschouburgh

derNederlantsche

konstschilders

enschilderessen. Amsterdam, 1718–21; revised edition published in The Hague, 1753; reprinted
in Amsterdam, 1980.
Sumowski, Werner. Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler. Vol. 2, G. van den Eeckhout – I. de
Joudreville. Landau, 1983, 1286–387.
Marijnissen, Peter et al., eds. De Zichtbaere Werelt: Schilderkunst uit de Gouden Eeuw inHollands 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,
Ikonographisches Register, Bibliographie. Landau, 1994, : 3102–3, 3227–35.
Sumowski, Werner. Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler. Vol. 6, Nachträge 2, Ortsregister,
Ikonographisches Register, 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.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection