Jacob Adriaensz Ochtervelt(Rotterdam 1634 – 1682Amsterdam)

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Bakker, Piet. "Jacob Adriaensz Ochtervelt." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017.
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The quality of much of Jacob Ochtervelt’s work—his oeuvre counts around one hundred paintings—is sogreat that it is difficult to understand why Gerard van Spaan (1651–1711) makes absolutely no mention of
the painter in the list of local artists in his 1698 history of Rotterdam.[1] While Arnold Houbraken does referto Ochtervelt, he does so only briefly and in connection with Pieter de Hooch (1629–84). Houbraken wrotethat unlike De Hooch, Ochtervelt painted his “Kamergezichten” (interior views) “without using muchperspectival depth to the background views, which requires mathematical insight and close observation,”talents that Ochtervelt evidently did not possess. He “derived satisfaction from the fact that he could depict
small companies of young ladies and gentlemen or a woman sewing or lace-making naturally andelaborately.”[2]Ochtervelt’s work garnered more appreciation from Jan van Gool (1685–1763). After noting with surprise(thus erroneously) in his Nieuwe Schouburg (1753) that “not a single writer has devoted attention to theman’s origins and artistry,” he describes Ochtervelt as a painter “whose manner and handling are veryreminiscent of Metsu, and may have issued from that school,” because “the images of clothing andhousehold trappings are clear evidence that he must have lived around that time.”[3]Van Gool was only partly right: although Gabriel Metsu (1629–67) and Ochtervelt were indeed
contemporaries, Metsu was not Ochtervelt’s teacher. According to Houbraken, Ochtervelt trained, together
with De Hooch, under the Haarlem painter Nicolaes Berchem (1620–83). This statement, however, is now
seriously doubted. The early work of both Ochtervelt and De Hooch displays so many stylistic parallels withthat of the Rotterdam painter Ludolph de Jongh (1616–79) that an apprenticeship with their fellow
townsman is far more likely.[4]Jacob Ochtervelt was baptized in Rotterdam on 1(?) February 1634. His parents were Lucas Hendricks, acobbler and the bridgekeeper of the Roobrugge over the Nieuwe Haven, and Trijntje Jans, a skipper’s
daughter.[5] He grew up in humble circumstances, as is indicated not only by his father’s occupation, butalso that of his brothers and brothers-in-law, who all but one were involved in seafaring. Two of them wereemployed by the Dutch East India Company (VOC), including his brother Pieter, who was a gunner on the© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Jacob Adriaensz Ochtervelt
Page 2 of 6Schiedam.[6] Given Ochtervelt’s modest background, it is ironic that our present appreciation of his work isbased primarily on his faithful renderings of elegant companies in lavish interiors. It should be noted,
however, that he became familiar with upper middle class circles when he married Dirckje Meesters in1655. His father-in-law, Jan Meesters, made sails and compasses and his mother-in-law, Maria de Gelder,
was the daughter of a Dordrecht merchant.[7] While the Meesters lived in comfortable circumstances,
Ochtervelt’s brother-in-law Dirck Meesters had a major impact on his career. This notary developed into an
excellent administrator and held numerous public offices, including that of burgomaster.[8] Dirck’s success
was based on his marriage to Barbara Elsevier (1640–89), scion of a celebrated Leiden printers’ family who
was related to several Rotterdam regent families.[9] She would have introduced Ochtervelt to the merchantIsaack Elsevier—her father’s first cousin—whose family the artist portrayed in 1664.[10] Moreover,
Ochtervelt may have had the Elsevier family to thank for his most important patron. In that same year,
Isaack’s sister Maria Elsevier married the Rotterdam landscape painter Willem Viruly IV (ca. 1636–78), a
close relative of the wine merchant Hartlief van Cattenburgh, who owned no fewer than ten paintings byOchtervelt, presumably all pendants, at the time of his death in 1669.[11]Ochtervelt would also have been acquainted with Viruly, as well as with the painter Pieter de Bloot(1601–58), whose widow he accompanied when she had her will drawn up in 1661.[12] In 1667 Ochtervelt,
together with Abraham Westerveld (ca. 1620–92) and Cornelis Saftleven (1607–81), was nominated for theheadman of the Guild of Saint Luke, but he lost the election to Saftleven. In that same year he rented ahouse in the Hoogstraat for a four-year period. He was still in Rotterdam in 1672 when he witnessed thebaptism of one of the children of his brother-in-law Dirck Meesters, but moved to Amsterdam shortly
thereafter, presumably because the economic decline affecting the market for paintings that had set inearlier in cities such as Delft, Haarlem and Leiden was also now making itself felt in Rotterdam.[13]Ochtervelt must have hoped to find a healthier market for his art in Amsterdam, but even there the situation
was no longer ideal. This notwithstanding, in 1674 he was engaged to portray the regents of the Leper
House, and thus seems to have been faring reasonably well. He and his wife rented a house on theKeizersgracht, near the Spiegelstraat, and lived next door to the celebrated landscape painter Willem
Schellinks (1623–78).[14] In 1677 Ochtervelt was owed money by a colleague, Lodewijk van Ludick(1627–ca. 1697). He only lived in Amsterdam for one decade. After trading the Keizersgracht for the“Schapemarckt bij de Munt” (Sheepmarket near the Mint) in the beginning of 1681, he died in 1682 andwas buried in the Nieuwezijds Kapel on 1 May. His marriage had remained childless, and not long after
Ochtervelt’s burial, his widow moved back to Rotterdam, where she died in 1710.
-Piet Bakker

Endnotes
1. For the list of Rotterdam painters, see Gerard van Spaan,Beschryvinge der stad Rotterdam
en eenige omleggende dorpen (Rotterdam, 1698; 3rd ed., 1738), 411–15.

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Jacob Adriaensz Ochtervelt
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2. “Zonder veel doorzichtkunde tot zyn agterwerken te gebruiken, ’t geen een maatkundig
oordeel en naauwe opmerking vereist;” “genoegde [zig alleen] dat hy natuurlyk en uitvoerig
kleine gezelschappen van Juffertjes en Heeren, of een Vroutje dat zit te naajen, of tespeldewerken schilderen konde.” Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche
konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols. (Amsterdam, 1719), 2:27.
3. “Men niets by eenig Schryver van ’s Mans oorspronk of kunstvermogen geboekt [vint] … wiens
manier en behandeling veel gelykheit naer Metzu heeft, en die mogelyk uit die Schole isvoortgekomen … al de vertoningen van klederen en huissieraden geven klaere blyken, dat hy
omtrent dien tyt geleeft moet hebben.” Jan van Gool,De Nieuwe Schouburg der Nederlantsche
kunstschilders en schilderessen, 2 vols. (The Hague, 1751), 2:488–89.
4. Roland E. Fleischer, “Ludolf de Jongh and the Early Work of Pieter de Hooch,” Oud-Holland
92 (1978), passim.
5. That Lucas Hendricks, in addition to being a bridgekeeper, was also a cobbler (for a fewyears) emerges from a deed dated 11 April 1650 in which he is called an “oud-schoenmaker”(former cobbler). In the same document, Trijntje Jans is called the daughter of a bargeman
sailing the Purmerend route. See Gemeentearchief Rotterdam (GAR), Notarieel Archief (NA) not.
Jacobus Delphius, inv. 383, deed 36/68. A deed dated 20 February 1662 confirms that theLucas Hendricks and Trijntje Jans mentioned in this document are certainly the parents of theartist. See GAR, NA not. Jacob Duyfhuysen, inv. 235, deed 14/24; and Alan Chong, “Jacob
Ochtervelt’s Rotterdam Patron,” in A. Golahny et al.,In His Milieu: Essays on Netherlandish Art
in Memory of John Michael Montias (Amsterdam, 2006), 114 n. 20.
6. Pieter Ochtervelt worked for the Delft chamber of the VOC as a “busschieter” (gunner) on the“Schiedam” (Schiedam), and died in the East Indies in 1657. His brother Jan, presumably asailor, seems to have died during the fleet’s return voyage from Batavia to Rotterdam in 1666.
And his sister Aechje married a sailor. In 1666 her husband, Olivier Meyersz, was “aengenomenom te varen voor bootsgesel op ‘t schip ‘De Spiegel’ met den vice-admirael Van der Hulst” (washired as a sailor on board De Spiegel under Vice-Admiral Van der Hulst). See S. Donahue
Kuretsky, The Paintings of Jacob Ochtervelt (1634–1682) (Oxford, 1979), 4. The husband ofOchtervelt’s sister Sytge was initially also destined for seafaring. In a document from 1643 hewas called a “koksmaat” (galley boy), and in 1646 a “bottelier” (steward). His time at sea,
however, seems to have ended in 1653 when he was called an “arbeyder aen de weg” (roadworker). The only non-seafaring relative was Willem Jans Verwissel, the husband of Henderickje
Ochtervelt, who was a “schrijnwerker” (cabinetmaker).

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7. Jan Meesters seems initially to have been a merchant in French wines and semitropical fruit,and an associate of his brother-in-law Cornelis de Gelder, a merchant in Nantes. See
Gemeentearchief Rotterdam, NA not. A. Wagensvelt, inv. 140, deed 342/569, 7 April 1628. Hisname occurs regularly in the notarial archives as living on the Hoogstraat, and (starting in 1630)
as a maker of sails and compasses.
8. He was town councilman and burgomaster until 1692, the year he took a second wife,
Margrieta van Yck, whose father was Johan van Yck, councilman between 1658 and 1692 andburgomaster for several terms. See E. A. Engelbrecht, De vroedschap van Rotterdam,1572–1795 (Rotterdam, 1973), 267–68.
9. Barbara Elsevier’s parents were Louis Elsevier (1617–40) and Adriana Bosman, aburgomaster’s daughter. See E. A. Engelbrecht, De vroedschap van Rotterdam, 1572–1795(Rotterdam, 1973), 136. She was the granddaughter of Isaack Elsevier (1596–1651), thefounder of the Leiden publishing house on the Rapenburg and the official printer of the LeidenAcademy. Until his move to Rotterdam in 1629, he ran the company with his brother Abraham(1592–1652). Abraham continued running the business, and after his death in 1652 was honored
by Leiden University with a special medal for his great contribution to typography. The medal isillustrated in Alphonse Willems, Les Elzevier: histoire et annales typographiques (Brussels,1890), 188.
10. Portrait of the Elsevier Family , probably 1664,oil on canvas, 76 x 61 cm, Wadsworth
Atheneum, Hartford, Conn. (S. Donahue Kuretsky, The Paintings of Jacob Ochtervelt(1634–1682) [Oxford, 1979], 60, no. 19, Family Portrait). The earliest known reference to theElseviers family portrait is in an 1832 auction in Paris (Lugt 12703, lot 36). According to thedescription, the moment depicted is when “Elsevier” is being honored for his great contribution totypography; the medal hangs from the shoulders of the child at his knee.
10. Donahue Kuretsky questioned the correctness of this description. See S. Donahue Kuretsky,“Two Paintings by Ochtervelt in the Wadsworth Atheneum,” Bulletin of the Wardsworth
Atheneum 5 (1969): 46–49. Van Kretschmar, however, identified the family as being Isaack
Elsevier (1627–1684), his wife, Anna Willemsdr van der Mast, and their four children. See Th. H.
Scheurleer Lunsingh et al., Het Rapenburg: Geschiedenis van een Leidse gracht , 10 vols.
(Leiden, 1986–92), 5:188–90. Their eldest son, Abraham (1654–1707), who later was appointed
burgomaster, was about ten years old in 1664 (the probable date of the painting), and theyoungest child, Catharina, had just been born. The two portraits in the background in that caseare of Isaack’s parents: Abraham Elsevier, the original receiver of the mark of honor (see note 9above), and Catharina van Waesbergen, the daughter of Jan van Waesbergen, printer for theAdmiralty of Holland and West-Friesland. For the composition of Isaack Elsevier’s family in 1664,
see E. A. Engelbrecht, De vroedschap van Rotterdam, 1572–1795 (Rotterdam, 1973), 264.
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11. Willem (IV) Viruly’s parents were Willem (III) Viruly (1605–77) and Aeltge Rijckwaert, a firstcousin of Magdalena Rijckwaert, the wife of Hartlief van Cattenburgh. See Alan. Chong, “JacobOchtervelt’s Rotterdam Patron,” in Amy Golahny et al., In His Milieu: Essays on Netherlandish
Art in Memory of John Michael Montias (Amsterdam, 2006), 108–9; P. Haverkorn van Rijsewijk,“De schilders Viruly,” Rotterdamsch Jaarboekje, vol. 4 (1894): 180–81.
12. At the time of his marriage in 1655 Ochtervelt was living on the Westerwagenstraat, thestreet on which various members of the Viruly family owned various properties and continued tolive well into the seventeenth century. See P. Haverkorn van Rijsewijk, “De schilders Viruly,”
Rotterdamsch Jaarboekje, vol. 4 (1894), passim. For other Rotterdam painters he may have
known, see J. Briels, Vlaamse schilders en de dageraad van Hollands Gouden Eeuw,
1585–1630 (Antwerp, 1997), 300 (Pieter de Bloot).
13. Between 1650 and 1705 the number of inhabitants in Rotterdam grew from 30,000 to50,000. P. Lourens and J. Lucassen, Inwonerstaantallen van Nederlandse steden, ca.
1300–1800 (Amsterdam, 1997), 117. The Rotterdam painters’ community reached its height in1660, with sixty-four active painters. By 1674, the probable year of Ochtervelt’s departure, thisnumber had dropped to fifty. In 1682, the year of his death, only thirty-two painters were still
active in Rotterdam, after which the situation remained stable until the first quarter of theeighteenth century, when it fell yet again. See P. Bakker, “Crisis? Welke crisis? Enkele
kanttekeningen bij het economisch verval van de schilderkunst in Leiden na 1660,” De
Zeventiende Eeuw 27 (2011): fig. 2.
14. The “200ste penning” (a municipal tax of one penny on every two hundred) levied in
Amsterdam in 1674 shows that Ochtervelt’s assets were worth about 1,000 guilders. They musthave consisted of securities, for he and his wife were living in a rented house on theKeizersgracht which the owner would sell for 4,100 guilders in 1681. See S. Donahue Kuretsky,
The Paintings of Jacob Ochtervelt (1634–1682) (Oxford, 1979), 5; I. H. van Eeghen, “De Kerk
het Vredesduifje,” Maandblad Amstelodamum (1957): 145–49.

Literature
Kuretsky, Susan Donahue. “The Ochtervelt Documents.” Oud-Holland 87 (1973): 124–41.
Fleischer, Ronald F. “Ludolf de Jongh and the Early Work of Pieter de Hooch.” Oud-Holland
92 (1978): 49–67.
Kuretsky, Susan Donahue. The Paintings of Jacob Ochtervelt (1634–1682. Oxford, 1979.
Schadee, Nora, ed. Rotterdamse Meesters uit de Gouden Eeuw. Exh. cat. HistorischMuseum Rotterdam. Zwolle, 1994, 290–91.
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Jacob Adriaensz Ochtervelt
Page 6 of 6Chong, Alan. “Jacob Ochtervelt’s Rotterdam Patron.” In A. Golahny et al., In His
Milieu: Essays on Netherlandish Art in Memory of John Michael Montias. Amsterdam,2006, 101–22.

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