Dominicus van Tol(Bodegraven? ca. 1635 – 1676 Leiden)

How to cite
Bakker, Piet. “Dominicus van Tol” (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 December2023).
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.

Dominicus van Tol’s parents were Simon van Tol (d. ca. 1660) and Catharina Vechters (ca. 1602–74). When and where
Van Tol was born cannot be established with certainty. He is thought to have been born around 1635 in Bodegraven, where
his father worked as a notary public between 1630, the year he married in Leiden, and 1643, when the family moved toLeiden.[1] Van Tol came from a long line of notaries, including his father, grandfather and brother Roeland.
Van Tol’s mother, Catharina, was the daughter of glassmaker Vechter Vechtersz van Strijtvelt (d. 1604) and MarytgenJansdr van Roosenburg (1585–1651). After her father died in 1604, her mother took a second husband, the glassmaker
Douwe Jansz de Vries van Arentsvelt (1584–1656), with whom she had two sons. One of them was Gerrit Dou (1613–75),
who was thus Van Tol’s uncle. Because of this connection, Dou is assumed to have been Van Tol’s teacher.[2] The close ties
between Gerrit Dou and the Van Tol family manifested themselves in other ways as well; by the mid-1650s Anthonia vanTol (d. ca. 1684), Van Tol’s younger sister, lived in Gerrit Dou’s house. She was in charge of the housekeeping, which led
Dou to name her the sole heir of his considerable estate a year before his death.
Van Tol established himself as an independent painter relatively late in life, only becoming a member of the Guild of SaintLuke in 1664.[3] It does not seem that he prospered as an artist in Leiden; he left the city in 1669.[4] The declining market
for painting may have prompted him to seek his fortune elsewhere.[5] He chose Utrecht, the home of his aunt Machtelt vanTol, who was married to the well-to-do, influential Frederick van Beeck, steward of the Carthusian Order, from whose
network Van Tol may have hoped to benefit.[6] In 1670 he married Maria Pollion (d. 1679), a preacher’s daughter fromWoudenbergh, near Utrecht.[7] Van Tol’s tracks in Utrecht can be traced up to 1672, the Rampjaar, when the French armythat had invaded the Dutch Republic also occupied the town. Van Tol did not wait for the siege, but fled with his wife and(presumably) his infant son Simon Petrus (1672–1720) to Amsterdam.[8] Van Tol certainly lived in Amsterdam for sometime; his daughter Johanna Catherina was born there in 1674.[9] Yet whether he resided there continuously until 1675—theyear he returned to Leiden—is uncertain.[10] There are indications that he stayed in Leiden regularly prior to 1675.[11]© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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The family was definitely back in Leiden in 1675, when Van Tol registered again with the Guild of Saint Luke. It is highly
doubtful, however, that he fared better there this time. Nearly all of the archival documents relating to him after hereturned to Leiden point to great financial problems.[12] In 1676 his dire situation prompted him to seek permission fromthe city council to sell beer from his house, de Blauwe Werelt, located on the Bierkay along the Oude Vest opposite theLakenhal. His request was granted on 6 February, but Van Tol died in December of that same year and was buried in thePieterskerk on 26 December 1676. He left behind so many debts his widow declared “that she forwent the estate andrelinquished it for the sake of the creditors while her aforementioned husband’s corpse was still . . . above the ground, andaccordingly laid the keys on the coffin and left wearing her everyday clothes.”[13] Shortly thereafter Maria Pollion moved
to Westzaandam, where she married Pieter Milius from Amsterdam in 1679.

- Piet Bakker, 2017

© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Dominicus van Tol
Page 3 of 5Endnotes
1. W.I.C. Rammelman Elsevier, “Dominicus van Tol, schilder te Leiden, geb. 1631, overl. 1676,” inArchief voor Nederlandsche kunstgeschiedenis, ed. F.D.O. Obreen (Rotterdam 1887), 5: 344. If Van Tol
was born in Bodegraven, this would explain the absence of a birth certificate, as baptismal registers werekept there only as of 1642. However, it should be taken into account that after marrying in 1630, hisfather seems to have first been a notary in Woerden, and in 1633 he is mentioned twice in documents,
both as secretary of Katwijk and secretary of ‘t Sandt. Hence, the family did not live uninterruptedly inBodegraven between 1630 and 1643.
2. This tutelage, however, is not documented. Although Van Tol’s training with Dou is not discussed here,
it should be noted that Dominicus was related to another renowned Leiden painter and glassmaker,Abraham Toorenvliet (ca. 1610-92), the father of the painter Jacob Toorenvliet (1640–1719), see hisbiography in this catalogue. According to Arnold Houbraken, Abraham was also a reputable drawing
teacher, whose pupils included his son Jacob, Frans van Mieris (1635–81), and Mathijs Naiveu(1647–1727); see the biography of Frans van Mieris in this catalogue. In 1650 Abraham Toorenvliet
married Geertrui de Somer (d. 1656), the widow of Jan Dou (1609– ca. 1647), Gerrit’s brother. And asister of Geertrui, Catelijn de Somer (d. 1626), was married to glassmaker Vechter Vechtersz(1599–1657), an uncle of Van Tol. See Regionaal Archief Leiden, Leiden Baptism, Wedding and BurialRegisters.
3. If Van Tol was indeed born around 1635, then he joined the guild at the rather late age of twenty-nine.
He could have worked as an assistant to another painter in the years prior to registering with the guild.
The most likely candidate would have been Van Tol’s uncle Gerrit Dou, whose work he emulated. If hewas born in 1640 or 1641, which is theoretically possible given that his father moved to Leiden only in
1643, then the timing of his guild registration is more consistent with the customary pattern.
4. According to Abraham Bredius Van Tol left Leiden in 1669. Perhaps Bredius noticed that Van Tol did
not pay his guild contribution that year, which is indeed the case. He was not alone, however, for not asingle other painter paid: the contributions were not collected in 1669 or 1670; Hans
Vollmer, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenen Künstler (Leipzig, 1939), vol. 33.
5. Piet Bakker, “Crisis? Welke crisis? Kanttekeningen bij de economische neergang van de schilderkunst
in Leiden na 1660,” De Zeventiende Eeuw 27 (2011): 232–70.
6. A brother of Frederick was a member of the Utrecht town council in the 1660s and later served as analderman. Two of his sons were also on the town council in the years when Dominicus van Tol resided
in Utrecht; information kindly provided by Marten J. Bok.
7. The couple drew up a marriage contract in Utrecht on 22 March 1670. Dominicus van Tol was assistedby his widowed mother Catharina Vechters, among others, and his future wife Maria Pollion wasassisted by her father Petrus Pollion, preacher in Woudenbergh, and her mother Johanna van Goor. See© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Dominicus van Tol
Page 4 of 5Het Utrechts Archief, Notarial Archives, Notary J. Duerkant, inv. U070b001. The couple posted theirbanns in Leiden on 4 April and subsequently probably married in Woudenbergh. The name “Pollion”
does not occur in Leiden and none of her relatives seem to have been residents there, so we may assume
that the couple met and became acquainted in Utrecht in 1669.
8. The birth certificate of Simon Pieter (“Simon Petrus”) known to have been born in 1672, has not yet
been found either in Utrecht or in Amsterdam, and so his place of birth cannot be established, as is thecase for Dominicus himself.
9. Stadsarchief Amsterdam, Doopboek 66/294 NZK.
10. In a Leiden deed of 16 September 1672, in which his sister Anthonia authorizes her uncle Frederick van
Beeck to hand over to Van Tol in Amsterdam 1,000 guilders from the inheritance of his grandparents
Mathias van Tol and Anthonia Gerrits, the artist was said to be “residerende in Amsterdam” (residing inAmsterdam). See Regionaal Archief Leiden, Notarial Archives, Notary D. de Fries, inv. 1223, deed 93.
Another Leiden document, dated 1 January 1675, regarding an outstanding debt to the brewer Jacob
Heyns, states that the painter was “woonactich” (living) in Amsterdam. However, as he signed thisdocument himself, he must have been in Leiden at that moment. See Regionaal Archief Leiden, NotarialArchives, Notary J. Gerstecoren, inv. 1150, deed 1.
11. Portrait of an officer of the Leiden civic guard, 1673 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), for example, showsan unknown militiaman posing before the gate of the Saint George Civic Guard headquarters in Leiden.
Two other individual civic guardsman portraits display the exact same background and have virtuallyidentical dimensions. One of the sitters has been identified as Jacobus van den Bergh, who was captainof the civic guard in Leiden between 1667 and 1674l; Portrait of Captain Jacobus van den Bergh before
the Doelenpoort in Leiden, 1673 (Private Collection). There is also a fourth portrait of the same size andwith the same gate in the background; the sitter, an officer, is shown in three-quarter view rather thanfull face, as is the case in the other portraits (photograph at the Netherlands Institute for Art History,RKD, The Hague). Together these pictures seem to constitute a group commission granted in 1673 (orthereabouts) that may have included several more portraits of officers, which have been lost. If, in fact,
there was a group commission, Van Tol would then have spent a protracted period of time in Leiden
around 1673.
12. To give an example of his troubles, one can point to three loans: 600 guilders, Regionaal Archief
Leiden, Notarial Archives, Notary J. Gerstecoren, inv. 1150, deed 1, 1 January 1675; 800 guilders,
Regional Archief Leiden, Notarial Archives, Notary J. Stam, inv. 1270, 11 July 1675; and 600 guilders,
Regionaal Archief Leiden, Notarial Archives, Notary D. de Fries, inv. 1227, deed 14, 23 January 1676,
all of which he was unable to repay. Illustrative of the financial problems that seem to have dogged him
throughout his career is the bill that Utrecht grocer Michiel Baudart (d. 1703) sent him in 1675 “tersaecke van geleverde waren bij hem comp[aran]t aende voornoemde Sr. Toll inden jare 1671 ende 1672
gelevert” (regarding goods delivered by him, the party appearing here, to the aforementioned Mr. Tol in
the years 1671 and 1672). See Het Utrechts Archief, Notarial Archives, Notary W. van Velpen, inv.
U072a006, deed 164. The thousand guilders he inherited from his grandparents in 1672 as well as the© 2024 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Dominicus van Tol
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thousand guilders that devolved to him from his uncle Gerrit Dou’s estate in 1675 were not sufficient toalleviate his financial worries; see note 10.
13. “Dat sij den boedel abandonneerde en daervan afstant dede ten behoeve van de Crediteuren terwijl het
lyck van haer voornoemde man alsnoch … boven aerde stont, leggende mitsdien de sleutels op de kisteen uytgaende in hare dagelyxsen klederen.” Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD), The Hague,
Abraham Bredius Archive referring to Regionaal Archief Leiden, Stedelijk Archief II, Dingboek, 22
December 1676.

Literature
Elsevier, I.C. Rammelman. “Dominicus van Tol, schilder te Leiden, geb. 1631, overl. 1676.” In Archiefvoor Nederlandsche kunstgeschiedenis. Edited by F.D.O. Obreen, 5: 343–46. Rotterdam, 1887.
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,
234–38.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection