Jan Adriaensz van Staveren(Leiden 1613/14 – 1669 Leiden)

How to cite
Bakker, Piet. “Jan Adriaensz van Staveren” (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/ (archivedDecember 2023).
A PDF of every version of this biography is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed bya permanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

Jan Adriaensz van Staveren was born in 1613 or 1614. His parents were Adriaen Jansz van Staveren (d. 1651) and
Machtelt Symons van Borsen (d. 1640), an oil miller and soap boiler.[1] Evidently Adriaen was not satisfied with theseoccupations alone, for his name appears in connection with a wide variety of public offices. He was a member of theLeiden city council in 1621 and was elected alderman no less than ten times and mayor five times between 1626 and1646.[2] Although little is known about Adriaen’s financial situation, given his highly successful administrative career, Janand his siblings most likely grew up in comfortable circumstances.[3]Van Staveren was registered in the Album Studiosorum of the Leidse Academie (Leiden University) in October 1628. This
did not mean that he enrolled as a student; after all, he was just fourteen at the time. It was customary to enter in theAlbum the names of not only regular students, but also the pupils of the highest class of the Latin school, which was thegateway to the university.[4] However, like Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–69) eight years earlier, Van Staveren elected topursue an artistic rather than an academic education.[5] Who taught Van Staveren to paint cannot be firmly established, buton the basis of his style and subject matter, he is generally thought to have trained with Gerrit Dou (1613-75).[6] This must
be taken with a grain of salt, for the two painters were almost the same age. In 1644 Van Staveren was involved infounding the Guild of Saint Luke in Leiden. When the Guild was finally organized in 1648, he registered as a member andis recorded as paying his guild dues until his death.
In addition to his skill as a painter,Van Staveren was also an accomplished administrator. Following in his father’sfootsteps he eventually rose to become mayor in 1667. To that end he followed a career path typical of many young
patricians. He started out in 1641 as captain of a civic militia guard, a position he held for eight years. In 1651 he becamea member of the city council and by 1656 had served ten terms as alderman. His appointment as mayor in 1667 was thecrowning achievement of his administrative career.[7] Van Staveren must have been an influential man, especially after
1648, when his younger sister Cunera married Pieter van Assendelft (1622–88), scion of an eminent patrician family that© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Jan Adriaensz van Staveren
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had been spawning city administrators since the mid-sixteenth century.[8] In 1674 Van Assendelft, a draper and owner of astone quarry, was taxed on a capital of 35,000 guilders.[9] Van Staveren, too, was a man of means. In the will he and hissister Alida, with whom he lived until she married in 1663, drew up in 1650, they bequeathed 12,000 guilders to theirrelatives.[10]Van Staveren is known primarily for his genre scenes and portraits, as well as a few other subjects. His depictions ofhermits in caves, many versions of which have been preserved, are entirely in keeping with the Dou tradition. Thisaffinity, however, is less evident in his history pieces and landscapes, which often include anachronistic-looking castles.
His work varies in quality and generally lacks the high level achieved by some of Dou’s other followers. Perhaps it was hisaverage talent that forced him to pursue an administrative career. The fact that he gained professional momentum in themid-1650s may not have been a coincidence, for precisely in those years it became increasingly difficult for a painter tomake a decent living in the Leiden art market.[11] For Van Staveren painting may, thus, have increasingly become an(important) side job. If so, then Van Leeuwen’s omission of the artist in his city chronicle of 1672 is quite understandable.
His name is also missing from Arnold Houbraken and Jacob Campo Weyerman’s publications. Van Staveren appears onlyin an anonymous manuscript with biographies of Leiden painters, which was probably written by a Leiden art lover in thelast quarter of the eighteenth century.[12] About Van Staveren he noted that: “many splendid works by him [could once] beseen in this country, which were said to have been finished by his master. The art dealers already acquired the most andbest [works] long ago, as well as many others by various pupils of Dou, and sold them abroad as paintings by Dou.”[13]If his biographer is correct, Van Staveren’s best works could well lie hidden in the oeuvre of his putative teacher.[14] VanStaveren died at the end of April in 1669 and was buried in the Pieterskerk in Leiden. He never married, and as his soleheir, his sister Alida inherited all of his paintings. After the death of Alida’s husband, the minister Eduardus Westerneyn,
an inventory of his possessions was drawn up in 1674. It appeared that the couple owned more than 200 paintings, 72 ofwhich were by Van Staveren.[15] That so much of his work remained unsold suggests that it was not in demand. Yet thisalso illustrates his success as an administrator. Given the time and energy required by his career, selling his work would
have become less of a priority. Clearly he did not need to sell his paintings, since he died a wealthy man.

- Piet Bakker, 2017

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Jan Adriaensz van Staveren
Page 3 of 4Endnotes
1. He gave his age as fourteen when he enrolled in the Album Studiosorum of the Leidse Academie (LeidenUniversity) on 28 October 1628. See Eric J. Sluijter, Marlies Enklaar, and Paul Nieuwenhuizen, eds,Leidse fijnschilders: Van Gerrit Dou tot Frans van Mieris de Jonge 1630–1760 (Exh. cat. Leiden,Museum de Lakenhal) (Zwolle, 1988), 226. No birth certificate has been found. His parents married in
1606 and the Leiden baptismal registers have been preserved only from 1621 on. Thus, the number ofchildren born between 1606 and 1621 cannot be determined. From later sources we learn that in that
period not only was Jan born, but his brother François and sister Alida as well. His sister Cunera wasbaptized on 22 December 1622. Furthermore, there are records of two Aeltjes, in 1624 and 1626, and aMarrigje in 1621, all three of whom probably died shortly after birth.
2. Naamwyser, Waar in vertoond werden de Naamen van de Ed. Achtbare H. H. Regenten der Stad
Leyden (Leiden, 1688–99), covering the period 1641–99. From the same list of names it emerges thatfrom 23 July 1637 to 1640 he served as a delegate of Leiden on the board of the Amsterdam Admiralty,and in 1643 as head of an orphanage. Other sources relate that he was head of poor relief forhomebound people in 1623. See Regionaal Archief Leiven, Notarial Archives, Notary J. Mote,,inv. 284,
deed 23. He was also a member of the Council of Forty in 1626
3. While his father indeed served as a city administrator for a large part of his adult life, this does notnecessarily mean that he derived his wealth from this position. In the first half of the 17th century
patricians generally held these offices alongside their actual profession, and an academic backgroundwas not yet considered a prerequisite. Only after 1650 did the patriciate in Leiden evolve into an
academically educated governing elite and amass the enormous fortunes nowadays perceived ascharacteristic of this social class. See Jaap Moes and Dirk Jaap Noordam, Macht, aanzien en welzijn.
Nieuwelingen in het stadsbestuur, 1200–1795 (Leiden, 2003), 56.
4. Willem Frijhoff, Wegen van Evert Willemsz. Een Hollands weeskind op zoek naar zichzelf,
1607–1647 (Nijmegen, 1995), 125.
5. Gary Schwartz, The Rembrandt Book (Zwolle, 2006), 42. See also the biography of Rembrandt van Rijnin this catalogue.
6. Eric Jan Sluijter, Marlies Enklaar, and Paul Nieuwenhuizen, eds, Leidse fijnschilders: Van Gerrit Dou tot
Frans van Mieris de Jonge 1630–1760 (Exh. cat. Leiden, Museum de Lakenhal) (Zwolle, 1988), 226.
7. Furthermore, he was regent of the Elisabeth Gasthuis from 1654 to the end of 1656, “Commissaris vande Echt-saecken” (commissioner of marital affairs) in 1655 and 1656, and “royeermeester” (comptrollergeneral) in 1666. See Naamwyser, Waar in vertoond werden de Naamen van de Ed. Achtbare H. H.
Regenten der Stad Leyden (Leiden, 1688–99).
8. Dirck Jaap Noordam, Geringde buffels en heren van stand. Het patriciaat van Leiden
1574–1700 (Hilversum, 1994), 36–41.
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Jan Adriaensz van Staveren
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9. Gerrit J. Peltjes, Leidse Lasten. Twee belastingkohieren uit 1674 (Leiden, 1995), 41. Other family
members were taxed for far greater amounts.
10. Stadsarchief Amsterdam, Notarial Archives, Notary F., inv. 2092, (film 2234) deed 67, p. 134, 22 July
1655. This will (but not its content) is mentioned in Abraham Bredius, Künstler-Inventare: Urkunden zurGeschichte der holländischen Kunst des XVIten, XVIIten und XVIIIten Jahrhunderts (The Hague, 1916),
2: 187.
11. Piet Bakker, “Crisis? Welke crisis? Enkele kantteteningen bij het economische verval van deschilderkunst in Leiden na 1660,” De Zeventiende Eeuw 27 (2011), 232–69.
12. See Eric J. Sluijter, Marlies Enklaar, and Paul Nieuwenhuizen, eds, Leidse fijnschilders: Van Gerrit Doutot Frans van Mieris de Jonge 1630–1760 (Exh. cat. Leiden, Museum de Lakenhal) (Zwolle, 1988), 40.
This manuscript is in the library of the Gemeentearchief Leiden 254 (portefeuille 41a). The biographiesof Leiden painters such as Jan Adriaensz van Staveren, Abraham de Pape (before 1621–66), Dominicus
van Tol (ca. 1635–76), Jacob van Spreeuwen (1611–ca. 1665), Adriaen van Gaesbeeck (1621–50),
Quiringh Brekelenkam (after 1622–ca. 1669), and Bartholomeus Maton (1641–after 1684), who wereignored by earlier biographers, are in a dust jacket bearing the title “Adversaria Leidsche schilders.”13. Gemeentearchief Leiden 254 (portefeuille 41a) “Hier te lande veele fraaije stukjes van hem te zien
[waren], waar in men zeyde dat zijn meester de laatste hand zoude gelegd hebben. De konsthandelaars
hebben de meesten en besten, benevens meer anderen van verscheijde leerlingen van Douw, al overlang
opgekogt en buijtenlands voor schilderijen van Douw verkogt.”
14. For an illustrative example, see Jan Adriaensz van Staveren (?) after Gerrit Dou, The Doctor, 1650–69(Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum); see Eric J. Sluijter, Marlies Enklaar, and Paul Nieuwenhuizen, eds, Leidse
fijnschilders: Van Gerrit Dou tot Frans van Mieris de Jonge 1630–1760 (Exh. cat. Leiden, Museum deLakenhal) (Zwolle, 1988), 267.
15. Regionaal Archief Leiden, Notarial Archives, Notary Van der Stoffe, inv. 1192, deed 34, 22 February
1674. This inventory is also in Abraham Bredius, Künstler-Inventare: Urkunden zur Geschichte derholländischen Kunst des XVIten, XVIIten und XVIIIten Jahrhunderts (The Hague, 1916), 2: 183, but isfar from complete: he forgot to include fifteen works by Van Staveren.

Literature
Bredius, Abraham. Künstler-Inventare: Urkunden zur Geschichte der holländischen Kunst des XVIten,
XVIIten und XVIIIten Jahrhunderts. The Hague, 1916, 2: 183–88, n218.
Sluijter, Eric Jan, Marlies Enklaar, and Paul Nieuwenhuizen, eds. Leidse Fijnschilders: Van Gerrit Dou
tot Frans van Mieris de Jonge, 1630–1760. Exh. cat. Leiden, Museum De Lakenhal. Zwolle, 1988,
226–29 and 266–67.

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