Gerbrand van den Eeckhout(Amsterdam 1621 – 1674 Amsterdam)

How to cite
Bakker, Piet. “Gerbrand van den Eeckhout” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd ed. Edited byArthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/artists/gerbrand-van-deneeckhout/ (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.

Gerbrand van den Eeckhout was baptized in Amsterdam on 22 August 1621. His parents were the goldsmith
Jan Pietersz van den Eeckhout (1584–1652) and Grietje Claes Leydeckers (1586–1631).[1] Gerbrand’s father
was born in 1583 in Harlingen (in the province of Friesland), but was not Frisian. His father Pieter Lodewijcks(1544–1619), a Mennonite peddler, came from Brussels, from which he had fled for religious reasons. After
temporary sojourns in ‘s-Hertogenbosch and Harlingen, where Pieter married Marritge Jans van Winterswijk,
he ultimately acquired citizenship in Amsterdam in 1588. Five years later, Gerbrand’s father and the latter’selder brother Lodewijck were both baptized as Protestants.
In 1612 Jan Pietersz van den Eeckhout bought two buildings on the Kalverstraat. He turned them into a single
residence called ’t Vliegend Paert, which was home to three generations of the family. Gerbrand, who nevermarried, may have lived there well into adulthood, for he gave the Kalverstraat as his address in documents
up to 1662.[2] This is also the address where his father was taxed for assets worth 4000 guilders in 1631,
indicating that the family’s circumstances were modest in these years.
Jan Pietersz van den Eeckhout’s affluence and social standing grew substantially when, in 1633, two years
after the death of Grietje, he took a second wife, namely Cornelia Dedel (1594–1660) from Delft. Her parents
were Willem Dedel (1552–1638) and Ida Bruyns van der Dussen (1557-99), the daughter of a well-to-do
brewer. Dedel—himself a brewer in Delft and a director of the Dutch East India Company—was affluent, and as
the son of a Leiden draper and burgomaster, belonged to the local patriciate. His brother-in-law was Isaac
Claesz van Swanenburg (1537–1614), the famous Leiden portrait painter and burgomaster, and father ofRembrandt’s first teacher.[3]According to Arnold Houbraken (1660–1719), Van den Eeckhout was “a pupil of Rembrandt van Rijn.”[4] He© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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would have gone to study under him at the age of fourteen.[5] He painted his earliest work in 1640.[6] This
usually suggests independence, but given his young age, it is unlikely that he already had his own studio.
Upon finishing his training, he may have stayed on for a while with his master, enjoying a privileged position.
Perhaps he worked side by side with Ferdinand Bol (1616–80) in Rembrandt’s workshop, as his early
paintings display a great similarity with works by Bol.[7] Whatever his position, Van den Eeckhout must havebeen on good terms with his master, for in his biography of Roelant Roghman (1627–92), Houbraken notedthat Roghman “along with Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, [was] a great friend of Rembrandt van Rijn in histime.”[8] That Roghman and Van den Eeckhout were good friends emerges from the will that the latter
executed in 1674, in which he calls Roghman “an old acquaintance” and remembers him with 50 guilders.[9]Van den Eeckhout was an exceptionally productive and versatile artist. About two hundred paintings havebeen attributed to him, along with countless drawings, etchings, book illustrations, and—doubtless inspired byhis father’s profession—pattern books for gold- and silversmiths. He painted primarily history scenes, generallyof biblical subjects, as well as portraits. His treatment of light and his handling of paint in these portraits recall
Rembrandt, but in terms of composition he followed the prevailing fashion. Many commissions came from hisimmediate surroundings, such as the portraits of his stepmother, Cornelia Dedel (1644), and of his father(1644, 1651), among others.[10] In addition, in 1657 and 1673 he portrayed the officers of the Coopers andWine Rackers’ Guild; the former commission would have come via his brother Jan Jansz van den Eeckhhout(1619–69), who was a wine merchant.[11]Van den Eeckhout was a history and portrait painter, but from the early 1650s he also acquitted himself well
as a genre painter. This turn was no doubt dictated by the deteriorating market, which led to increasingly fierce
competition and spurred artists to pursue new avenues.[12] If he was a follower as a history and portrait
painter, he proved to be an innovator as a genre painter. His guardroom scenes from 1651 onward are stillindebted to other artists, such as Anthonie Palamedesz (1601–73), but Van den Eeckhout’s depictions ofelegant companies disporting themselves on terraces or in elegant interiors were ahead of their time.
In addition to Rembrandt and Roghman, Van den Eeckhout was also acquainted with the landscape painterWillem Schellinks (1626–78), the poet David Questiers (1623–63), and the bookseller Hieronymus Sweerts(1629–96). They all loved poetry and exchanged poems they had penned themselves.[13] Moreover, he was intouch with the well-known rector Jacob Heyblock (1620–90), making several contributions to his
famous Album Amicorum. For instance, in 1654 Van den Eeckhout wrote some lines of verse for a finedrawing he had made of Hermes and Argus, and next to an Ysvermaakje (scene of amusement on the ice)drawn by Jan van de Cappelle (1626–79). In these lines Van den Eeckhout honored the artist “who hadtaught himself to paint of his own volition”[14] and whom he had portrayed one year earlier.[15]During the last years of his life, Van den Eeckhout lived with Maria van Schilperoort, the widow of his brother
Jan, on the elegant Herengracht (nowadays number 525), close to the Vijzelstraat.[16] In September 1674 hefell seriously ill and drew up his will. To his sister Ida (1634–78) he left “a picture painted by him, the testator,and already hanging in her house,” and to his sister Margaretha “a picture equal in worth to the one hebequeathed to his sister Ida, to be taken from the works he will leave behind and which will be assessed bysomeone who is knowledgeable about paintings.” To his nephew/cousin and godchild, Gerbrand, he© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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bequeathed “all of his art on paper and works in clay, consisting of prints, drawings, and sculpted figures andanimals, so that he might enjoy the proceeds he will gain by putting them up for auction.”[17] Van den Eeckhout
died a few days later, and was taken from the Herengracht to the Oudezijds Kapel to be buried in the family
grave on 26 September 1674.

- Piet Bakker, 2017

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Gerbrand van den Eeckhout
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1. Her parents were the cobbler Claes Gerbrandts and Marie Willems, whose brother Jan Claes
Leydeckers witnessed Gerbrand’s baptism and was later portrayed by Rembrandt van Rijn inthe Nightwatch.
2. Moreover, in 1655 he was appointed sergeant of the civic guard in the district to which theKalverstraat belonged. See Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD), The Hague, Abraham
Bredius Archive.
3. Cornelia’s cousin/nephew, Huybrecht Dedel (d. 1635), is called a painter in a few Leiden
documents, but no work by him is known.
4. “Een Leerling van Rembrant van Ryn.” Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh derNederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague,1753; reprint, Amsterdam, 1980), 2: 100.
5. Ulrich Thieme, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler (Leipzig, 1914), 10: 355.
6. Gideon Visited by the Angel, signed and dated 1640 (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm).
7. Ferdinand Bol’s apprenticeship with Rembrandt lasted from 1636 to 1642 and so overlapped
considerably with that of Van den Eeckhout. See Walter Liedtke, “Rembrandt’s ‘Workshop’Revisited,” Oud-Holland 117 (2004): 68. After his training with Rembrandt, Van den Eeckhout
is thought to have worked for some time with a follower of Pieter Lastman (1583–1633), forexample Claes Moyaert (1592–1655), given that his approach to biblical themes, andprimarily his rendering of figures, are definitely indebted to Lastman.
8. “In zyn tyd, met Gerbrant van den Eekhout, een groot vriend [was] van Rembrant van Ryn.”
Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen(Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague, 1753; reprint, Amsterdam, 1980), 1: 174.
9. “Een oude bekende.” See Stadsarchief Amsterdam, Notarial Archives, Notary A. Lock, no.
2179, fol. 97–104, 19 September 1674.
10. Portrait of Cornelia Dedel, 1644 (Private Collection). Portrait of Jan Pieterz van den Eeckhout(1584–1652), 1644 (Musée de Grenoble); see Adolph Staring, “Portretten door Gerbrand vanden Eeckhout,” Oud Holland 63 (1948): 180. Portrait of the artist’s father, Jan Pietersz vanden Eeckhout (1584–1652), half-length, 1651 (Private Collection); see Adolph Staring,“Portretten door Gerbrand van den Eeckhout,” Oud Holland 63 (1948): 182.
11. Officers of the Coopers and Wine Rackers’ Guild, signed and dated 1657 (National Gallery,London), in which his brother Jan van den Eeckhout is also portrayed. Officers of the Coopers
and Wine Rackers’ Guild, signed and dated 1673 (Amsterdams Museum).
12. Piet Bakker, “Crisis? Welke crisis? Enkele kanttekeningen bij het economisch verval van de© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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schilderkunst in Leiden na 1660,” De Zeventiende Eeuw 27 (2011): 232–70.
13. A.D. de Vries, “Willem Schellinks,” Oud Holland 1 (1883): 151–52.
14. “Die de schilderkunst by hem selfs uyt eygen lust [heeft] geleert.” Kees Thomassen and J.A.
Gruys, eds., The Album Amicorum of Jacob Heyblocq: Introduction, Transcriptions,Paraphrases, and Notes to the Facsimile (Zwolle, 1998), 173–74.
15. Portrait of Jan van de Cappelle (1626–79), signed and dated 1653, (Amsterdams Museum).
This portrait may be identical to the one listed in Jan van de Capelle’s 1680 inventory.
Hanging in the voorhuis (front parlor) was “Een conterfeytsel sijnde den Overleden [van]Eeckhout” (a likeness of the deceased [by] Eeckhout). See Abraham Bredius, “De schilder
Johannes van de Cappelle,” Oud Holland 10 (1892): 29.
16. H.F. Wijnman et al., Vier eeuwen Heerengracht, oneven (Amsterdam, 1976), 346. According
to Wijnman, Van den Eeckhout lived with his stepmother, Cornelia Dedel, yet this isimpossible given that she died in 1660. On the basis of (possibly) his will of 1674, drawn up
on the Herengracht, Manuth assumes that Van den Eeckhout lived with Maria vanSchilperoort, his brother’s widow. He bequeathed her 300 guilders and stipulated that“ingevalle hij op sijn Overlijden noch bij sijn voornoemde behout-suster mochte inwoonen” (inthe event that at his death he was still living with his above-mentioned sister-in-law), shewould receive room and board from him for the period he lived with her prior to his death. See
Stadsarchief Amsterdam, Notarial Archives, Notary A. Lock, no. 2179, fol. 97–104, 19
September 1674.
17. “Een stuck schilderij door hem testateur geschildert ‘t haeren huys alreede hangende”; “eenstuck schilderij van gelijcke waerde als aen sijne suster Ida gelegateert, te nemen uyt deschilderijen die hij sal comen naer te laten tot seggen van yemandt kennisse van schilderijen
hebbende”; “alle sijn Papiere Kunst en geboetseert goet, bestaende in Printen,
Teyckeningen en geboedseerde beeltgens en beesges, om de penningen die daervan bypublique vendutie sullen comen te procederen by hem genooten te werden.” See
Stadsarchief Amsterdam, Notarial Archives, Notary A. Lock, no. 2179, fol. 97–104, 19
September 1674.

Literature
Houbraken,Arnold.

Degrooteschouburgh

derNederlantsche

konstschilders

enschilderessen. Amsterdam, 1718–21; revised edition published in The Hague, 1753; reprinted
in Amsterdam, 1980, 2: 100–1.
Scheffer, J.H. “Eenige bijzonderheden betrekkelijk de familie van den beroemden
Nederlandschen Schilder Gerbrand van den Eeckhout.” Algemeen Nederlandsch Familieblad© 2020 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Gerbrand van den Eeckhout
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Van der Crab, A.J.E. “Het geslacht van den Eeckhout.” De Nederlandsche Leeuw 13 (1895):
61–63.
Van Gelder, Jan Gerrit. “Gerbrand van den Eeckhout als portrettist.” Kunsthistorische
mededelingen van het Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorisch Documentatie 1 (1946): 56–58.
Staring, Adolph. “Portretten door Gerbrand van den Eeckhout.” Oud Holland 63 (1948):
180–88.
Manuth, Volker. “‘Een kindskontrefeijtsel, antycqs gedaen’ und ‘een … van Scipio
africanus’. Zu zwei neuidentifizierten Gemälden des Gerbrand van den Eeckhout.” OudHolland 112 (1998): 139–50.
Manuth, Volker. “Twee portretten van de Amsterdamse boekhandelaar-historicus Isaac
Commelin door Gerbrand van den Eeckhout en Pieter van Anraedt.” Amstelodamum 89(2002): 3–11.
Manuth, Volker. “Gerbrand van den Eeckhout.” In Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden
Künstler. Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker. Edited by Günter Meissner, 32: 235.
Leipzig, 2002.
Liedtke, Walter. “Rembrandt’s ‘Workshop’ Revisited.” Oud Holland 117 (2004): 48–73, esp.
68.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection