Allegory of Painting
Jacob Toorenvliet(Leiden 1640 – 1719 Leiden)

ca. 1675–79
oil on copper
24.6 x 31 cm
possible traces of signature, bottom left
JT-106

How to cite
Aono, Junko. “Allegory of Painting” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.
and Lara Yeager-Crasselt. New York, 2020–23. https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/ (archived December 2023).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed by apermanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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A recurrent theme in Jacob Toorenvliet’s oeuvre is that of common people engaged inComparative Figures

everyday activities, but on at least six occasions he painted abstract allegories, one of
the finest of these being Allegory of Painting.[1] Although seemingly situated within anordinary Dutch interior complete with a table covered with a colorful carpet,bookshelf, hanging curtain, and an inquisitive dog, numerous pictorial elements inthis work have symbolic associations that distinguish it from Toorenvliet’s genrepictures. The objects near the woman in the light blue dress, including a palette withbrushes, a mahlstick, and a painting on an easel in the background, indicate that she isan allegorical figure personifying the art of painting. As she points to the open bookshe holds with her left hand, she turns her head toward the old man in a mantle who isabout to crown her with a laurel wreath. He wears a similar wreath and rests his handon a celestial globe, as if trying to draw the viewer’s attention to it.
The identity of the bearded old man is made clear through a comparison of thisFig 1. Detail of plaster castof Bacchanal with Children and a
Goat in Jacob Toorenvliet, Allegory ofPainting (JT-106)

painting with Toorenvliet’s Allegory of Painting Inspired by Poetry.[2] In this latterwork, a bearded man similarly adorns a female personification of painting with awreath of laurel, but here he not only wears a laurel branch but also a label identifying
him as Poesia (Poetry). The message is clear: poetry inspires the art of painting, aconceit that had its origins in Horace’s dictum that poetry and painting should beconsidered as sister arts (ut pictura poesis).[3] The relationship of painting to poetry
was articulated as “Poetry in painting keeps silent, while painting in poetry speaks” inthe text describing the allegorical concept of Painting in Cesare Ripa’s popular
Iconologia, an emblem book with which Toorenvliet was well acquainted.[4] TheFig 2. Detail of sketchbook in Jacob
Toorenvliet, Allegory ofPainting (JT-106)

celestial globe on which the old man rests his hand is also an appropriate attribute foran allegorical figure of Poetry. In his discussion of the concept, Ripa describes Poetry
as wearing a laurel wreath, since the origin of verse is in Heaven.[5] Furthermore, thebook to which the woman points signifies that the art of painting should be based onliterary tradition, thereby proclaiming the absolute superiority of the category ofhistory painting.
Toorenvliet probably executed this skillfully finished painting in Vienna around
1675–79, where he lived and worked from the late 1660s until 1679. He produced
most of his copper paintings during that period of his career.[6] In Vienna, moreover,Toorenvliet further developed his ability to distinguish between a wide variety ofmaterials and textures, evident here in the smooth surface of the plaster, the soft fluffof the carpet, the sharp highlight on the brown skull, and the slightly creased pages ofthe old sketchbook. At the same time, he became interested in rendering complex
allegorical subjects. Here, for example, he purposely juxtaposed a skull with a plastercast of a classical female head, thereby contrasting the symbol of the transience ofhuman existence with the ideal of timeless beauty, a fundamental concern for the art© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Allegory of Painting
Page 3 of 9of painting. The small, brown sculpture of a male figure behind the plaster head ismost likely an example of an écorché, a model of the body with its skin removed andouter muscles displayed. Such models were important for the study of humananatomy, which was of vital interest for artists working within the classicaltradition.[7]The relief behind these objects is a partial plaster cast of Bacchanal with Children anda Goat (fig 1), one of the most famous works by the illustrious seventeenth-century
classicizing Flemish sculptor, François Duquesnoy (1597–1643).[8] Duquesnoy’s
contemporaries so esteemed his sculptural works that they described them as rivaling
those of the ancient masters.[9] Plaster casts of his sculptures were made for artists tostudy alongside casts of classical sculpture, as can be seen in a painting by Michiel
Sweerts (1618–64), Painter’s Studio with a Model.[10] Bacchanal with Children and a
Goat was well known to Dutch painters, and Gerrit Dou (1613–75), Toorenvliet’s
uncle-in-law, often incorporated an image of this relief sculpture into hispaintings.[11] One reason Dou chose to include this relief in his work was to display
his ability to simulate different materials and objects, including stone sculpture, butanother was undoubtedly the allegorical message about the power of illusionism that itconveyed. In this relief, the realistic appearance of the mask held by a putto at the left
so fooled a goat that he had to be restrained by a host of putti from charging it.
It is thus fully understandable that Toorenvliet, who so emulated Dou, inserted thisrelief into his picture.[12] Remarkably, however, Toorenvliet omitted the left portionof Duquesnoy’s relief that included the image of the putto holding a mask to“deceive” a goat. One explanation for this omission is that Toorenvliet sought toextend Duquesnoy’s allegory into the broader pictorial image. The goat now appears
to rush toward the woman, who, having the ability to create compellingly illusionistic
images, both literally and symbolically takes the putto’s place.
The open sketchbook, which practically slides off the table, is the last piece of thepictorial puzzle in Toorenvliet’s intriguing allegory. On the right page are several
sketches of human eyes and ears (fig 2). Such sketches of individual body parts had
their origin in Italian drawing books of the sixteenth century, and were important instudio practice as well as in art theory.[13] This kind of drawing book could also befound in northern Europe, for example Abraham Bloemaert’s (1566–1651) famous
sketchbook, engraved and published by Frederik Bloemaert in installments beginningaround 1650.[14] Toorenvliet’s depiction of the sketchbook shows his interest in the artof disegno as important for comprehending both human anatomy and ideal
proportions of the human body.
Toorenvliet left Vienna and returned to the Netherlands around 1679, subsequently
moving around 1686 from Amsterdam to his native Leiden, where he helped to© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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establish a drawing academy.[15] Toorenvliet, an esteemed artist of internationalexperience, founded this academy for “fine painters” with the younger artists Carel deMoor (1655–1738) and Willem van Mieris (1662–1747). Toorenvliet’s greatemphasis on drawing as the practical and theoretical foundation of painting must havebeen stimulated by the growing taste for classicism during this period, partiallyinspired by Gerard de Lairesse’s guiding principles. De Lairesse’s Grootschilderboek (1707) recommended that painters use books and plaster casts of ancient
sculpture to learn the general principles of classical beauty and the perfectproportions of the human body. Allegory of Painting, which Toorenvliet probably
painted before he returned to his native country, can be considered a prelude to therole this important painter and draughtsman had in founding this new drawing
academy.

- Junko Aono, 2017

© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Allegory of Painting
Page 5 of 9Endnotes
1. Susanne Henriette Karau, “Leben und Werk des Leidener Malers Jacob Toorenvliet (1640–1719)” (PhD
diss. Universität Berlin, 2002), 134, nos. A56 and 57 (as a pendant), 91, B12, 13, 14, 15.
2. Jacob Toorenvliet, An Allegory of Painting Inspired by Poetry, ca. 1680, oil on panel, 39 x 29 cm,present location unknown. Susanne Henriette Karau, “Leben und Werk des Leidener Malers Jacob
Toorenvliet (1640–1719)” (PhD diss. Universität Berlin, 2002), 147–48, no. B14.
3. Horace, Ars Poetica, v. 361. Ut pictura poesis (poetry is like painting) is considered a key concept inRenaissance artistic theory, though the inverse form of “painting is like poetry,” is more often
encountered in the humanistic tradition. For seventeenth-century Dutch painting, this concept offers theimportant theoretical foundation for the iconographic interpretation of didactic meaning of the visible
world. See Eddy de Jongh, Tot lering en vermaak: betekenissen van Hollandse genrevoorstellingen in dezeventiende eeuw (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Amsterdam, 1976), 20–26.
4. Cesare Ripa, Iconologia of Uytbeeldinghe des Verstands (Amsterdam, 1644; reprint, Soest, 1971),
452–53. Toorenvliet’s familiarity with Ripa’s Iconologia is confirmed by his Allegory of Rhetoric, inwhich a figure holds a copy of the volume. See Susanne Henriette Karau, “Leben und Werk desLeidener Malers Jacob Toorenvliet (1640–1719)” (PhD diss. Universität Berlin, 2002), B12.
5. Appropriately, Ripa’s Poetry wears a blue dress embroidered with stars. Ripa’s personification of Poetry
is a woman, which Toorenvliet changed into an old man, a figure that is often found in his paintingsfrom around 1675 to 1679. Cesare Ripa, Iconologia of Uytbeeldinghe des Verstands (Amsterdam, 1644;reprint, Soest, 1971), 88–89; and Susanne Henriette Karau, “Leben und Werk des Leidener Malers
Jacob Toorenvliet (1640–1719)” (PhD diss. Universität Berlin, 2002), 148.
6. I am grateful to Susanne Karau for updated information on the possible dating of this picture. For newly
confirmed information about Toorenvliet’s stay in foreign countries, see Piet Bakker’s biography in thiscatalogue.
7. Charles Avery and Anthony Radcliffe, Giambologna 1529–1608: Sculptor to the Medici (Exh. cat.
Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Museum; London, Victoria & Albert Museum; Vienna, KunsthistorischesMuseum) (London, 1978), 198–99, no. 192; Laura Olmstead Tonelli, “Academic Practice in theSixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in Children of Mercury: The Education of Artists in the Sixteenthand Seventeenth Centuries, ed. Laurie Rubin (Exh. cat. Providence, R.I., Brown University and theMuseum of Art) (Providence, R.I., 1984), 104–6, figs. 77, 80. Examples of écorché have survived in avariety of materials, like plaster, bronze, wax, terra cotta, ivory, and wood.
8. François Duquesnoy, Bacchanal with Children and a Goat, marble, 62.5 x 87.5 cm, Galleria Doria
Pamphilj, Rome. See Marion Boudon-Machuel, François du Quesnoy 1597–1643 (Paris, 2005), no. 64b.
9. Michael Sweerts, Painter’s Studio with a Model, oil on canvas, 82 x 106 cm, Fondation Rau pour le TiersMonde, Zürich. See Peter Hecht, “Art Beats Nature, and Painting Does So Best of All: The Paragone© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Allegory of Painting
Page 6 of 9Competition in Duquesnoy, Dou and Schalcken,” Simiolus 29 (2002): 192–93; Marion Boudon-Machuel,François du Quesnoy 1597–1643 (Paris, 2005), 45–47, 175–86. Duquesnoy arrived in Rome in 1618 andbecame one of the key figures of classicism in that city, together with the French painter NicolasPoussin, who moved to Rome in 1624.
10. Rolf Kultzen, Michael Sweerts: Brussels 1618–Goa 1664 (Doornspijk, 1996), no. 1. The presence ofDuquesnoy’s popular relief in this picture may even reflect actual studio practice that Toorenvliet
encountered during his visit to Italy in the 1660s.
11. In their paintings, Dou and his followers used the relief to decorate the lower wall of a stone window,
which framed a genre scene. Marion Boudon-Machuel, François du Quesnoy 1597–1643 (Paris, 2005),53–55, 204–7.
12. By depicting the relief, Dou probably intended to demonstrate the superiority of the art of painting overthat of sculpture, a traditional theme of the Paragone. Ronni Baer, “The Paintings of Gerrit Dou(1613–1675),” 3 vols. (PhD diss. New York University, 1990), for instance, no. 63. Eric Jan Sluijter,
Marlies Enklaar, and Paul Niewenhuizen, eds., Leidse Fijnschilders: van Gerrit Dou tot Frans van Mieris
de Jonge, 1630–1760 (Exh cat. Leiden, Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal) (Zwolle, 1988), 101–3; Peter
Hecht, “Art Beats Nature, and Painting Does So Best of All: The Paragone Competition in Duquesnoy,
Dou and Schalcken,” Simiolus 29 (2002): 194–97; Annegret Laabs in The Leiden fijnschilders fromDresden, ed. Christiaan Vogelaar (Exh. cat. Leiden, Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal; Dresden,
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen) (Zwolle, 2000), 41; Marion BoudonMachuel, François du Quesnoy 1597–1643 (Paris, 2005), 205–6.
13. Chittima Amornpichetkul, “Seventeenth-Century Italian Drawing Books: Their Origin andDevelopment,” in Children of Mercury: The Education of Artists in the Sixteenth and SeventeenthCenturies, ed. Laurie Rubin (Exh. cat. Providence, R.I., Brown University and the Museum of Art)
(Providence, R.I., 1984), 110–12. A famous example is Il vero modo et ordine per dissegnar tutte le partieet membra del corpo humano (1608) by Odoardo Fialetti. Johannes Gellee’s Tyrocinia artis pictoriae
caelatoriae ac sculptoriae is one example of the northern copies executed after early seventeenth-century
academic drawing books from Italy (mainly that of Fialetti), which were published by Claes Jansz.
Visscher in Amsterdam. See Jaap Bolten, Method and Practice: Dutch and Flemish Drawing Books,
1600–1750 (Landau, 1985), 132–35.
14. Jaap Bolten, Abraham Bloemaert c. 1565–1651: The Drawings, 2 vols. (2007), 1: 366, no. 1152; 2: 391.
15. Rudi Ekkart, “Van Willem van Mieris tot Cornet,” in Leids Kunstlegaat: Kunst en historie rondom Ars
Aemula Natura, ed. R. E. O. Ekkart (Leiden, 1974), 7–14; and Eric Jan Sluijter, Marlies Enklaar, andPaul Niewenhuizen, eds., Leidse Fijnschilders: van Gerrit Dou tot Frans van Mieris de Jonge, 1630–1760(Exh. cat. Leiden, Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal) (Zwolle, 1988), 33.

Provenance© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Private collection, Europe (sale, Sotheby’s, London, 4 December 1997, no. 135 [Bernheimer Fine Old
Masters, Munich, 1998–2002; Bernheimer-Colnaghi, London, 2002–5; Jack Kilgore, New York,2002–3]).
Private collection, Europe, by 2005 [Bernheimer-Colnaghi, London, by 2008].
From whom acquired by the present owner.

Exhibition History
Munich, Bernheimer. “Musen, Mütter, Models: Das Bild der Frau in der Kunst,” 22 June–3 August
2007, no. 3.
London, Colnaghi, “The Artist in Art,” 26 November 2007–1 February 2008, no. 63.
Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpiecesof The Leiden Collection,” 28 March 2018–22 July 2018 [lent by the present owner].
St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces ofThe Leiden Collection,” 5 September 2018–13 January 2019 [lent by the present owner].
Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces fromThe Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre,” 14 February–18 May 2019 [lent by the presentowner].
Amsterdam, Hermitage Amsterdam, “Rembrandt and his Contemporaries: History Paintings from The
Leiden Collection,” 4 February–27 August 2023, no. 32 [lent by the present owner].

References
Bernheimer, Konrad O. Bernheimer Fine Old Masters, Paintings. Munich, 1999, 38–39.
Karau, Susanne Henriette. “Leben und Werk des Leidener Malers Jacob Toorenvliet (1640–1719).” PhD
diss. Universität Berlin, 2002, 146–48, no. B13.
Bernheimer. Musen, Mütter, Models. Das Bild der Frau in der Kunst. Exh. cat. Munich, Bernheimer.
Munich, 2007, 3, 12, no. 3.
Colnaghi. The Artist in Art. Exh. cat. London, Colnaghi, in association with Emanuel von Baeyer.
London, 2007, unpaginated, pl. 12, no. 63.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Allegory of Painting.” In The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces ofThe Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 218–19; 247, no. 76. Translated by Daria Babichand Daria Kuzina. Exh. cat. Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts; St. Petersburg, The State© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Allegory of Painting
Page 8 of 9Hermitage Museum. Moscow, 2018.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “The Leiden Collection and the Dutch Golden Age.” In Rembrandt, Vermeer andthe Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Edited byBlaise Ducos and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 25. Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019.
[Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]
Ducos, Blaise, and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, eds. Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age.
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre AbuDhabi. London, 2019, 174–75, no. 90. [Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]
Lores-Chavez, Isabella. “Plaster Casts in the Life and Art of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painters.” PhD
diss., Columbia University, 2022, 155; 339, fig. 3.22; 430.
Van Cauwenberge, Caroline. “Jacob Toorenvliet, Allegory of Painting.” In Rembrandt and His
Contemporaries: History Paintings from The Leiden Collection. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. andCaroline Van Cauwenberge, 142–13, no. 32. Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Hermitage Amsterdam. Zwolle,
2023. [Exhibition catalogue also published in Dutch.]

Versions
Versions and Copies
1. Jacob Toorenvliet, An Allegory of the Art, oil on panel, 23.5 x 30 cm, present location unknown (sale,Sotheby’s, New York, 5 June 2002, no. 25).

Technical Summary
The support, a rectangular copper sheet, has subtle undulations, a slight convex bow, and flexes whenhandled. Two shallow diagonal creases emanate from the left vertical edge and intersect left of the female
figure’s upper arm. There is one paper label, a black stencil, and numerical inscriptions but no wax seals ormaker’s marks.
A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied with vertical brushwork. The paint has been
extremely smoothly applied with delicate modeling, intricate detailing, and low brushmarking through thelight highlights, flesh tones, and blue drapery.
The painting is recorded as having traces of signature in the lower left, however these traces are not readily
apparent.[1]No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers. Compositionalchanges visible in the images include a change in position of the female figure’s proper right arm, which had© 2024 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

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originally been outstretched, her hand by the dog’s head, a slight shift of her profile to the viewer’s right, anda shift in position of the male figure’s entire proper left hand, i. e. his pointer finger, his bent knuckles, andthe angle of the back of his hand. A pentimento through the mahlstick indicates it was added after the book
was painted.
The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition in 2008 and remains in a goodstate of preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. Not readily apparent. Possibly in brown paint along the brown vertical plane between the row of books
and the dog’s head.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection