Pieter van Laer

(Haarlem 1599 – 1642 Italy?)

How to cite
Bakker, Piet. “Pieter van Laer” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd ed. Edited by Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/artists/pieter-van-laer/ (archived June2020).
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.

Pieter van Laer—or Pieter Boddingh, as he was originally called[1]—was baptized in Haarlem on 15 December
1599. His parents were the schoolmaster Jacob Boddingh (b. ca. 1571) of Haarlem and Magdalena Heyns (b.
ca. 1573), whose father was a respected literary scholar and a schoolmaster in Antwerp, Pieter Heyns(1537–98).[2] Van Laer’s older brother Roeland (1598–ca. 1635) also became a painter and lateraccompanied Pieter to Italy where, according to Theodorus Schrevelius (1572–1649), he suffered a tragic fallwith his mule from a bridge in Genoa. Pieter’s younger brother Nicolaes followed in his father’s footsteps andbecame a schoolmaster and later a minister. He also enjoyed a modicum of fame as a writing master, in which
capacity he published two books.
According to the Italian biographer Giovanni Battista Passeri (1610–79), Van Laer learned to paint in
Holland.[3] His teacher was not recorded, but judging from a drawing signed “P. Boddink inventor” from before
1625, the most plausible candidate is Esaias van de Velde (1587–1630), who was active in Haarlem between
1611 and 1618.[4] No paintings from Van Laer’s first Haarlem period have been identified; however, inaddition to the drawing just mentioned, there are another dozen sheets in a songbook, the provenance of
which is not known.[5]Van Laer’s stay in Haarlem was brief. Following a trip through France, in 1625 he settled in Rome, on the Via
Margutta, the very heart of the Roman painters’ community, which was close to the Piazza del Popolo.[6] Van
Laer joined the Schildersbent, the famous artists’ fraternity in Rome whose members called
themselves the Bentvueghels (“birds of a feather”), and was nicknamed “de Snuffelaar,” or the sniffer,
doubtless on account of his oversize nose.[7]Disproportion characterized Van Laer’s entire body. According to Arnold Houbraken, who relied on Joachim© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Pieter van Laer
Page 2 of 7

von Sandrart’s (1606–88) Teutsche Academie, Van Laer’s “lower body was three times larger than his torso,[and he] had a short chest, with a head that sunk into his shoulders and no neck.”[8] This odd physique led theItalians to dub him “il Bamboccio,” a name, according to Houbraken, “they use to call such people, which inthe manner of Italian jest means a strange way of bending or twisting of the body, and striking amusing
poses.”[9] This sobriquet would come to stand for an entirely new type of painting “patented” by Van Laer,
which earned him great fame both in Rome and in the Netherlands. These bambocciante—Roman street
scenes with genre figures such as beggars, peddlers, vendors, and artisans—are generally painted in darktones and with a Caravaggesque chiaroscuro. Van Laer attracted many followers in Italy, known as
the Bamboccianti. The association of his nickname with this genre is not without irony. In the 1960s a serious
attempt was made to chart his oeuvre, from which it emerged that this definition applies only to a small part ofit. The subjects are mostly taken from life in the Campagna: Italian landscapes populated with men on
horseback, farmers, and herdsmen. Thus Albert Blankert’s observation that, in addition to being a genre
painter, Van Laer was an important landscape painter is entirely apt.[10]Van Laer met with great success in Rome; buyers were eager to purchase his work, which allowed him tocharge substantial prices.[11] He also shipped part of what he produced to the Netherlands, where it fetchedeven higher prices.[12] Van Laer regularly kept company with fellow countrymen, including Herman vanSwanevelt (1603–55), Leonard Bramer (1596–1674), and Andries Both (1612/13–42), and also had contact
with the French painters Claude Lorrain (1604/05–82) and Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), with whom heventured into the countryside around Rome to paint or draw landscapes from life.[13] Another good friend wasSandrart who lived in Rome between 1629 and 1635. Sandrart drew a portrait of Van Laer in his workshop,
which he later included in his Teutsche Academie.
Finally submitting to Sandrart’s repeated insistence that he return to his fatherland because there he “could
live more comfortably than in Italy,” Van Laer left Rome in 1639. After a brief stop in Amsterdam, where he“was well received and duly shown all honor, affection and good wishes,” he arrived in Haarlem and moved inwith his brother Nicolaes.[14] He met Sandrart again, with whom, according to Houbraken, he “oncevisited Gerrit Dou [in Leiden], who received them and showed them some of his works which he had partly orentirely finished, and which they praised.”[15]Little else is known about Van Laer’s second sojourn in Haarlem. What is certain is that he did not stay therelong. According to Schrevelius, he left the city again shortly after he had arrived “and where he went andwhere in the world he may be, following the example of Empedocles, is not known to this day.”[16] This isconfirmed by Van Laer’s sister who, in her will of 1654, noted that he had already been abroad for twelve
years and that she had not heard from him in all that time.[17] Van Laer must have left in or shortly after 1641,
for a drawing by him from that year occurs in the same songbook to which he contributed before his firstdeparture from Haarlem.[18]Van Laer’s work exerted a powerful influence on other Haarlem landscape painters, such as the celebrated
Philips Wouwerman (1619–68). The latter responded to Van Laer’s bambocciatas, or depictions of ambushes
and scenes of travelers at rest, to such an extent that one wonders if Houbraken’s comment that Wouwerman
had appropriated Van Laer’s drawings contains a kernel of truth.[19] The veracity of Houbraken’s information is© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Pieter van Laer
Page 3 of 7

doubtful, however. At the time of his death in 1667, the Haarlem painter Frederick Vroom (ca. 1600–67),
whose father was the famous marine painter Hendrick Vroom (ca. 1563–1640), possessed two little bookswith sketches, twenty-one loose sheets with primarily studies of animals, and a few paintings including a tronie
by Van Laer and “een groor paert” (a large horse) by his brother Roeland.[20] Before leaving Haarlem, VanLaer evidently either sold or gave the contents of his workshop to Vroom.

- Piet Bakker, 2017

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Pieter van Laer
Page 4 of 7Endnotes

1. Albertus Welcker, “P. Boddink alias Pieter van Laer, Orlando Bodding alias Roeland of
Orlando van Laer, Nicolaes Bodding alias N. Boddingh van Laer of Ds. Nicolaes
Boddingius,” Oud Holland 59 (1942): 80–89.
2. Heyns opened a school in Antwerp in 1555 and was also dean of the education guild,lieutenant in the civic guard, a district supervisor, and a member of the Berchem chamber ofrhetoric De bloeyende Wyngaert. He fled his native city in 1585 and subsequently, certainly
as of 1594, was working in Haarlem, once again as a schoolmaster. Heyns provided Frenchand Dutch translations of geographical works, and also wrote books for educational purposes.
3. On Giovanni Battista Passeri as a biographer, see Ernst Wilhelm Moes, “Een te weinig
opgemerkte bron voor het leven van Pieter van Laer,” Oud Holland 12 (1894): 95–106.
4. Albertus Welcker, “P. Boddink alias Pieter van Laer, Orlando Bodding alias Roeland ofOrlando van Laer, Nicolaes Bodding alias N. Boddingh van Laer of Ds. Nicolaes
Boddingius,” Oud Holland 59 (1942): 89; Albertus Welcker, “P. Boddink alias Pieter vanLaer,” Oud Holland 62 (1947): 207. That the drawing was made before 1625 can be inferredfrom the copy that his brother Roeland made dating from that year.
5. D.P. Snoep, “Een 17de eeuws Liedboek met tekeningen van Gerard ter Borch de Oude en
Pieter van Laer,” Simiolus 3 (1968–69): 77–134. See also the biography of Gerard ter Borch
the Elder in this catalogue.
6. G.J. Hoogewerff, “Pieter van Laer en zijn vrienden [Part 1],” Oud Holland 49 (1932): 3–4.
7. For example, see his Self-Portrait in Galleria Pallavicini, Rome, illustrated in Ludovica
Trezzani, “Pieter Boddingh van Laer,” in I Bamboccianti: Pittori della vita quotidiana a Romanel Seicento, ed. Giuliano Briganti, et al. (Rome, 1983), 77.
8. “[Was] zyn onderlyf driemaal grooter dan zyn bovenlyf, [en] had [hy] een gans korte borst
daar’thoofttusschen

deschouders

inzonk,enoverzulks

geenhals.”

Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen(Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague, 1753; reprint, Amsterdam, 1980), 1: 360;
Joachim von Sandrart, Joachim von Sandrarts Academie der Bau-, Bild- und MahlereyKünste von 1675: Lebem der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister, ed. Arthur R.
Peltzer (Nuremburg, 1675–79; reprint, Munich, 1925), 184.

9. “Daar [mee] zy zulke luiden [benoemen], die zig op ’t maken der Italiaansche grappen,vremden aart van buigingen of vervringingen der lichamen, en geestige figuurmakeryen
verstaan.” Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en
schilderessen (Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague, 1753; reprint, Amsterdam, 1980),© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Pieter van Laer
Page 5 of 7

1: 360.
10. Albert Blankert, “Over Pieter van Laer als dier- en landschapschilder,” Oud Holland 83 (1968):
117–34; Ludovico Trezzani, “Pieter Boddingh van Laer,” in I Bamboccianti: Pittori della vita
quotidiana a Roma nel Seicento, ed. ed. Giuliano Briganti, et al. (Rome, 1983), 41–42.
11. G.J. Hoogewerff, “Pieter van Laer en zijn vrienden [Part 1],” Oud Holland 49 (1932): 219; G.J.
Hoogewerff, “Pieter van Laer en zijn vrienden [Part 2],” Oud Holland 50 (1933): 250.
12. G.J. Hoogewerff, “Pieter van Laer en zijn vrienden [Part 1],” Oud Holland 49 (1932): 17.
13. Joachim von Sandrart, Joachim von Sandrarts Academie der Bau-, Bild- und MahlereyKünstevon 1675: Lebem der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister, ed. Arthur R.
Peltzer (Nuremburg, 1675–79; reprint, Munich, 1925), 184.
14. “Mehr vergnügt leben könte als in Italien”; “wol empfangen und ihm alle Ehr, Liebs und Guts
[wurde] erwisen.” Joachim von Sandrart, Joachim von Sandrarts Academie der Bau-, Bildund Mahlerey-Künstevon 1675: Lebem der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister, ed.
Arthur R. Peltzer (Nuremburg, 1675–79; reprint Munich, 1925), 184; Albertus Welcker, “P.
Boddink alias Pieter van Laer, Orlando Bodding alias Roeland of Orlando van Laer, Nicolaes
Bodding alias N. Boddingh van Laer of Ds. Nicolaes Boddingius,” Oud Holland 59 (1942): 80.
15. “Gerard Dou eens ging bezoeken [in Leiden], die hen wel ontfing, en vertoonde, ’t gene hy
van zyne konstwerken zoo ten halven als ten vollen voltooit had, ’t welk zy presen.” Arnold
Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen(Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague, 1753; reprint, Amsterdam, 1980), 2: 3.
16. “En waarheen hij gegaen is en waar ter wereld hij vertoeft, weet men, naar het voorbeeld van
Empedocles op de huidige dag nog niet.” This is taken from Welcker’s Dutch translation of
Schrevelius’s text about Pieter van Laer in his 1647 city chronicle of Haarlem, which he wrotein Latin. See Albertus Welcker, “P. Boddink alias Pieter van Laer, Orlando Bodding alias
Roeland of Orlando van Laer, Nicolaes Bodding alias N. Boddingh van Laer of Ds. Nicolaes
Boddingius,” Oud Holland 59 (1942): 84. According to Passeri, without mention of a year, Van
Laer died of syphilis in Haarlem. See Ernst Wilhelm Moes, “Een te weinig opgemerkte bronvoor het leven van Pieter van Laer,” Oud Holland 12 (1894): 96; G.J. Hoogewerff, “Pieter van
Laer en zijn vrienden [Part 1],” Oud Holland 49 (1932): 8. Sandrart reported that Van Laerdied a natural death, but had been diminished by melancholy. See Joachim vonSandrart, Joachim von Sandrarts Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675:
Lebem der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister, ed. Arthur R. Peltzer (Nuremburg,1675–79; reprint, Munich, 1925), 184. Houbraken believed that the artist had returned to Italy,
where suffering from melancholy, he took his own life between 1670 and 1675. See Arnold
Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen(Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague, 1753; reprint, Amsterdam, 1980), 1: 363. In his
biography of Philips Wouwerman, Houbraken mentions Van Laer’s death again, this time
placing his suicide in Haarlem. The melancholy underlying this act was thought to have been
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Pieter van Laer
Page 6 of 7

reinforced in his second Haarlem period by the following conditions: “1. Dat hy niet
spaarzaam was wanneer hy geld had, 2. Dat hy syn geld niet tot lager prys geven wilde, danhy gewoon was te Rome daar voor t’ontfangen, 3. Dat hy weinig voorkruyers had, 4. Dat hy
voor keelbeulen (konsthandelaren wilde ik zeggen) niet wilde schilderen of hun eenig
voordeel geven, die hem dan ook gevolgelyk lieten driven” (1. That he was not thrifty when
he had money, 2. That he did not want to lower his price below what he had beenaccustomed to receiving in Rome, 3. That he had very few people to promote his interests, 4.
That he did not want to paint for cutthroats [I meant to say art dealers] or give them any
special treatment, and who as a consequence turned their backs on him). For instance, Van
Laer refused the art dealer Jan de Wet’s offer of 200 guilders for one of his paintings. SeeArnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen(Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague, 1753; reprint, Amsterdam, 1980), 2: 74–75. Van
Hoogstraten, to whom Houbraken refers, also suggests that Van Laer took his own life out of“mistroosticheyt” (dejection). See Samuel van Hoogstraten, Inleyding tot de Hooge Schooleder Schilderkonst. Anders de Zichtbaere Werelt (Rotterdam, 1678), 311; Hoogerwerff, “Pietervan Laer en zijn vrienden [Part 1],” Oud Holland 49 (1932): 9.
17. G.H. Kurtz, “Archiefsprokkeling. Nog eens: Bodding (van Laer),” Oud Holland 73 (1958): 232.
18. He may have spent some time in Utrecht in 1640. There, on 18 August of that year, a deed
was drawn up by notary Hendrick Ruysch concerning a debt that a certain Steven Huyberts ofCulemborg owed Van Laer. He stated that he was “woonachtich tot Haerlem” (living inHaarlem) at the time. Paul Huys Janssen, “Pieter van Laer, Benjamin Cuyp, Gerard Douffet,and Karel Dujardin in Utrecht,” The Hoogsteder Mercury 11 (1990): 53.
19. Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen(Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague, 1753; reprint, Amsterdam, 1980), 2: 75.
Houbraken suggests in this passage that Wouwerman had unjustly appropriated thesedrawings after Van Laer’s “schandige dood” (scandalous death), which, following thereasoning of the text, must have taken place after 1640. This date differs greatly from that in
Van Laer’s biography (see note 16) and also contradicts the testimony of Van Laer’s sister(see note 17). For Van Laer’s influence on Wouwerman, see Frederick J. Duparc, “Leven en
werk van Philips Wouwerman (1619–1668),” in Philips Wouwerman 1619–1668, ed. Quentin
Buvelot (Exh. cat. Kassel, Gemäldegalerie; The Hague, Mauritshuis) (Zwolle, 2009), 23.
20. G.J. Hoogewerff, “Pieter van Laer en zijn vrienden [Part 1],” Oud Holland 49 (1932): 17. OnVan Laer’s paintings and drawings, and other studio equipment, in Vroom’s estate, see
Pieter Biesboer, Collections of Paintings in Haarlem 1572–1745, ed. Carol Togneri (LosAngeles, 2001), 196–204.

Literature© 2020 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Pieter van Laer
Page 7 of 7

Houbraken, Arnold. De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konst-schilders en
schilderessen. Amsterdam, 1718–21; revised edition published in The Hague, 1753; reprintedin Amsterdam, 1980, 1: 359–64.
Von Sandrart, Joachim. Joachim von Sandrarts Academie der Bau-, Bild- und MahlereyKünste von 1675: Lebem der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister. Edited by Arthur
R. Peltzer, 183–84. Nuremburg. 1675–79; reprinted in Munich, 1925.
Hoogewerff, G.J. “Pieter van Laer en zijn vrienden [Part 1].” Oud Holland 49 (1932): 1–17,205–20.
Hoogewerff, G.J. “Pieter van Laer en zijn vrienden [Part 2].” Oud Holland 50 (1933): 103–17,250–62.
Welcker, Albertus. “P. Boddink alias Pieter van Laer, Orlando Bodding alias Roeland of
Orlando van Laer, Nicolaes Bodding alias N. Boddingh van Laer of Ds. Nicolaes Boddingius.”
Oud Holland 59 (1942): 80–89.
Welcker, Albertus. “P. Boddink alias Pieter van Laer.” Oud Holland 62 (1947): 206–8.
Kurtz, G.H. “Archiefsprokkeling. Nog eens: Bodding (van Laer).” Oud Holland 73 (1958):
231–32.
Janeck, Axel Herbert. Untersuchung über den holländischen Maler Pieter van Laer, genannt
Bamboccio. Würzburg, 1968.
Michalkowa, Janina. “Quelques remarques sur Pieter van Laer.” Oud Holland 86 (1971):
188–95.
Trezzani, Ludovica. “Pieter Boddingh van Laer.” In I Bamboccianti: Pittori della vita quotidianaa Roma nel Seicento. Edited by Giuliano Briganti, et al., 39–86. Rome, 1983.
Levine, Davide, Giuliano Briganti, and Ekkehard Mai. I Bamboccianti: NiederländischeMalerrebellen im Rom des Barock. Exh. cat. Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum; Utrecht,Centraal Museum. Milan, 1991, 188.
Briels,Jan.

VlaamseschildersendedageraadvanHollands

GoudenEeuw

1585–1630. Antwerp, 1997, 349.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection