© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Salmacis and Hermaphroditus
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Salmacis and Hermaphroditus
Samuel van Hoogstraten(Dordrecht 1627 – 1678 Dordrecht)

ca. 1671–76
oil on canvas
95.7 x 75.5 cm
signed in dark paint, lower rightcorner: “S.v.H.”
SH-101

How to cite
Van Tuinen, Ilona. “Salmacis and Hermaphroditus” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd ed. Edited
by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/salmacis-andhermaphroditus/ (archived May 2020).
A PDF of every version of this entry 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 narrative
occurs.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Salmacis and Hermaphroditus
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In this seemingly idyllic scene, Samuel van Hoogstraten renders a moment
leading

up

to

one

of

the

most

surprisingstoriesComparative Figuresin

Ovid’s Metamorphoses (4.308–88), in which a young man is sexuallyassaulted by a female nymph.[1] Salmacis, one of Diana’s vain water
nymphs, fell in love with Hermaphroditus, the youthful and beautiful son of
the gods Hermes and Aphrodite, when she noticed him traveling through her
territory in Asia Minor. After a futile attempt to seduce her introverted
heartthrob, she pretended to leave, only to spy on him from behind a tree.
Hermaphroditus, unaware of Salmacis’s presence and still dumbfounded by
the nymph’s unabashed flirtation, took off his clothes and bathed in a
stream. Unable to control her lust at seeing Hermaphroditus’s perfect, naked
body, Salmacis jumped into the water and forced herself onto the struggling

Fig 1. Detail of Salmacis andHermaphroditus, showing
Hermaphroditus’s right elbow withthe yellow brushstroke
accentuating the contour of theelbow, actual-state photograph,
2003

youth. Before Hermaphroditus could break free, Salmacis asked the gods tounite them forever. Her plea was heard, and the two bodies were molded intoa single androgynous being.
The story of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus was a less common subject thanwere other stories from Metamorphoses, such as Apollo and Daphne orPerseus and Andromeda. Nevertheless, Van Hoogstraten was undoubtedly
familiar with several depictions of this scene by Jan Gossaert (1478–1532),
Bartholomeus Spranger (1546–1611) and Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617).
Unlike these earlier compositions, in which the nude figures of Salmacis andHermaphroditus are equally visible and often entwined, Van Hoogstraten’s
depiction focuses instead on the young Hermaphroditus during his lastFig 2. Samuel van Hoogstraten,
Triumph of Truth and Justice,1670, oil on canvas, 209 x 204 cm,
Finspong Castle, Sweden

moments as a separate being, blissfully unaware of the imminent peril
awaiting him.[2]Hermaphroditus, seated on the mossy shore of a gently rippling stream, dips
the toes of his outstretched right leg into the water. His proper left hand leanson the ground, while his right hand holds up his white undergarment,
revealing his smooth, beautifully formed limbs. His downcast eyes and slightsmile emphasize his youthful vulnerability. Suspended from the tree branchabove his head are his discarded clothes: a red velvet hat adorned with red
and white feathers and a bright yellow, heavy satin robe. Salmacis stands
behind the tree branch, her body almost entirely concealed behind
Hermaphroditus’s yellow mantle. Crowned by a garland of flowers, shepeers over the branch, with eyes fixated on the youth.
Van Hoogstraten used several means to focus the viewer’s attention on

Fig 3. Samuel van Hoogstraten,
Resurrection of Christ, ca. 1670,
oil on canvas, 81 x 64.9 cm, The
Art Institute of Chicago, Sophia P.
Morton Purchase Fund, 1969.110

Hermaphroditus. In addition to depicting him in a conspicuous white garment,© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Salmacis and Hermaphroditus
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Van Hoogstraten framed his head with the leaves of the bush behind him
and placed the red hat directly above him. Lastly, he painted a pale yellow
area to the left of Hermaphroditus’s robe to set him apart from the dark tree
behind him, a visual ploy to allude to the figure’s isolation. That this yellow
color was Van Hoogstraten’s conscious design element is evident by theyellow brushstroke visible along the contour of the boy’s right elbow (fig 1).
Salmacis and Hermaphroditus is the only extant painting by Van Hoogstraten
with a narrative derived from classical antiquity.[3] Although the artist is
known primarily for his trompe l’oeil paintings, portraits and biblical scenes,archival sources reveal that Van Hoogstraten, who had an excellent
command of Latin and often alluded to antiquity in his writings, did execute
other classical scenes as well.[4] Salmacis and Hermaphroditus was deemedlost until it emerged from obscurity in 2003.[5] It is most likely the “Salmasis
en Hermaphroditus door [Hoogstraten]” painting listed in a 1721 archival

Fig 4. Samuel van Hoogstraten,
The Annunciation of the Death of
the Virgin, ca. 1670, oil on canvas,
66 x 52.7 cm, The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York,
Purchase, Rogers Fund andJoseph Pulitzer Bequest,
1992.133, www.metmuseum.org

document as having belonged to the prominent Dordrecht physician Johande Jongh, who died in 1676.[6] De Jongh lived on the Marktveld, very close to
the Steegoversloot where Van Hoogstraten had purchased a house in 1671
after his return from The Hague.[7] De Jongh owned four other works by Van
Hoogstraten, which were probably executed in or around 1671.[8] It istherefore likely that Van Hoogstraten also painted Salmacis andHermaphroditus after moving back to his native Dordrecht.
A dating of around 1671–76 fits within Van Hoogstraten’s oeuvre. The
smooth finish and palette of evenly distributed reds, greens and blues inSalmacis and Hermaphroditus are comparable to the finish and coloring of
three other late works by the artist, the 1670 Triumph of Truth and Justice inSweden (fig 2), the Chicago Resurrection of Christ dated to ca. 1670 (fig 3),
and the New York Annunciation of the Death of the Virgin dated to ca. 1670
(fig 4).[9] More specifically, the foliage and the facial features of Justice in thepainting in Sweden are similar to the foliage and features of Salmacis.
Furthermore,theexecutionoftheangel’s

yellow

robe

in

the

Chicago Resurrection, with the distinct light-yellow highlights on the edges ofthe folds, corresponds closely to Hermaphroditus’s yellow garment.
Around the same time that Van Hoogstraten executed Salmacis andHermaphroditus, he was also working on his famous handbook for young
painters, Inleyding tot de Hooge Schoole der Schilderkonst, which hecompleted just before his death in 1678.[10] Although his first biographer andformer student Arnold Houbraken observed that in his late history paintings
Van Hoogstraten would sometimes paint in ways he himself condemned in© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Salmacis and Hermaphroditus
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his handbook, in Salmacis and Hermaphroditus the artist generally followed
his own instructions.[11] With regard to landscapes, Van Hoogstraten advised
young artists to render carefully foreground vegetation and to executebackground elements with much looser brushwork. He also recommended
that painters include a winding road receding into the background and adorn
clear pools of water with rocks.[12] Adherence to these three instructions canbe observed in Salmacis and Hermaphroditus.
Despite these recommendations to record nature accurately, including
knowing which types of trees grow in mountainous or swampy settings, Van
Hoogstraten firmly believed that artists should carefully select whichlandscape elements to render.[13] Nature should be depicted in a beautiful
and idyllic way, where one might imagine nymphs and satyrs roaming thecountryside.

This classicizing impulse is fully evident in the generalized

landscape Van Hoogstraten painted for Salmacis and Hermaphroditus.
Trees, fields and distant hills, as well as the quiet waters of the stream, havean idealized character appropriate for the mythological story being depicted.
This restrained, arcadian setting accords well with the demeanor of the two
protagonists, as Hermaphroditus tests the still waters with his bare foot,unaware that Salmacis hides behind a tree, entranced by his beautiful body.

- Ilona van Tuinen, 2017

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Endnotes

1. For an English translation of this passage, see Paul Negri, ed., The Metamorphoses:
Selected Stories in Verse (Mineola, NY, 2003), 38–42.
2. In Antonio Tempesta’s Metamorphoseon Ovidianarum, which was published in Amsterdam in
1606 and provided an important source for visual representations of Ovid’s Metamorphoses
in the seventeenth century, Hermaphroditus and Salmacis are depicted embracing in a
stream, with a deer in the background. See the facsimile edition with a preface by Stephen
Orgel (New York and London, 1976), pl. 36. In Jan Gossaert’s Salmacis and Hermaphroditus,
ca. 1520, oil on panel, 32.8 x 21.5 cm, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, the two
naked bodies are entwined. In Bartholomeus Spranger’s Salmacis and Hermaphroditus, ca.
1585, oil on canvas, 110 x 81 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, which Van
Hoogstraten could well have seen during his stay in Vienna in the early 1650s, Salmacis’s
nude body functions as a repoussoir in the left foreground as she spies on Hermaphroditus
bathing in the right background. For Van Hoogstraten’s sojourns in Vienna, see theartist’s biography in this catalogue. For Goltzius’s engraving, in which the nude
Hermaphroditus has just noticed the nude Salmacis behind him, see his Salmacis andHermaphroditus, 1617, 17.9 x 25.4 cm. The relatively uncommon occurrence of this scene in
the visual arts is also emphasized by its absence from the Christianized version of
Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the so-called Ovide Moralisé. For the 1484 Burges edition, see M. D.
Henkel, ed., De houtsneden van Mansion’s Ovide Moralisé, Bruges 1484 (Amsterdam, 1922).
3. Van Hoogstraten also painted a bust of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, 1660, oil on panel,
40 x 30 cm, Mittelrhein-Museum, Koblenz, Werner Sumowski, Gemälde der RembrandtSchüler, 6 vols. (Landau and Pfalz, 1983–94), 2:1292, no. 825.
4. For a discussion of Van Hoogstraten’s erudition as a painter and poet, see Michiel Roscam
Abbing, De schilder & schrijver Samuel van Hoogstraten 1627–1678: Eigentijdse bronnen &oeuvre van gesigneerde schilderijen (Leiden, 1993), 13–14. In his writings, Van Hoogstraten
frequently makes reference to classical authors. As for other classical scenes by Van
Hoogstraten, see for instance the archival documents mentioning two other scenes from
Ovid’s Metamorphoses: Michiel Roscam Abbing, De schilder & schrijver Samuel van
Hoogstraten 1627–1678: Eigentijdse bronnen & oeuvre van gesigneerde schilderijen (Leiden,1993), 94, no. 36, listed as “1 stuk uit Ovidius van Hoogstraten” from the domestic inventoryof Elisabeth Pauli, widow of Alexander de Hoogh, 9 October, 1705, and p. 90, no. 8, “In thebeste camer, een van Perseus gedaen door Hoochstraten,” taken from the inventory of Mariavan Neurenberch, wife of merchant Dirck de Sondt, 11 July 1663. Both documents are kept at
the Dordrecht City Archives.
5. See the Provenance section; the painting was auctioned at Sotheby’s, London on 10 July
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Salmacis and Hermaphroditus
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6. For a transcription of the relevant passages in this document, currently held in the Old
Notarial Archive at the Dordrecht City Archives, no. 851, fol. 105r-v and 106r-v, dated 21 June
1721 and describing the household effects of Johan de Jongh’s daughter, Johanna deJongh, see Michiel Roscam Abbing, De schilder & schrijver Samuel van Hoogstraten
1627–1678: Eigentijdse bronnen & oeuvre van gesigneerde schilderijen (Leiden, 1993),
94–95, no. 39. See also pp. 73–74, no. 107, for a document of 9 October 1676, kept in the
Old Notarial Archive at Dordrecht City Archive, no. 197, fol. 33, listing Johan de Jongh’shousehold goods at the time of his death. This document does not list the paintings his
daughter Johanna inherited.
7. See Michiel Roscam Abbing, De schilder & schrijver Samuel van Hoogstraten 1627–1678:
Eigentijdse bronnen & oeuvre van gesigneerde schilderijen (Leiden, 1993), 73–74, no. 107.
According to the archival document of 1676, De Jongh lived on the Marktveld close to thestock exchange and the Orangieboom pub (“een geheel huijs ende erfve met allen sijn
toebehooren, staende en[de] gelegen opt’Marcktvelt bij de Beurs, tusschen de huijs ende
brouwerije genaempt den Orangieboom”). As for Van Hoogstraten’s purchase of a house on
the Steegoversloot, see the artist’s biography in this catalogue.
8. See Michiel Roscam Abbing, De schilder & schrijver Samuel van Hoogstraten 1627–1678:
Eigentijdse bronnen & oeuvre van gesigneerde schilderijen (Leiden, 1993), 94–95, withcommentary. The document mentions a “Sibilla Pithia,” a “Royal Wedding,” a “Rest on the
Flight to Egypt,” and a “Hunting Scene” by Van Hoogstraten, as well as a portrait by Van
Hoogstraten’s father. The “Hunting Scene” is possibly the “Hunting Scene” dated 1676 andauctioned on 20 August 1806, no. 177.
9. For Triumph of Truth and Justice, signed and dated, bottom right, “S. v. Hoogstraten / 1670,”
oil on canvas, 209 x 204 cm, Finspong Castle, Sweden, see Werner Sumowski, Gemälde derRembrandt-Schüler, 6 vols. (Landau and Pfalz, 1983–94), 2: 1293, 1313, no. 830. For the
Resurrection, ca. 1670, signed “S.v.H,” oil on canvas, 78.7 x 63.2 cm, Chicago Institute ofArts, see ibid., no. 835, where Sumowski dates it to ca. 1665–75. For the Annunciation of the
Death of the Virgin, ca. 1670, oil on canvas, 66 x 52.7 cm, signed lower left, “S.v.H,” The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, see Walter Liedtke, Dutch Paintings in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2 vols (New York, 2007), 1:374–76, no. 91, where Liedtke dates
it to ca. 1670.
10. Samuel van Hoogstraten, Inleyding tot de Hooge Schoole der Schilderkonst: Anders deZichtbare Werelt (Rotterdam, 1678). For an elaborate critical discussion of Van
Hoogstraten’s art theory, see Thijs Weststeijn, The Visible World: Samuel van Hoogstraten’s
Art Theory and the Legitimation of Painting in the Dutch Golden Age (Amsterdam, 2008).
11. “en hy in de laatste jaren van zyn leven, om onverstandigen tot zyn voordeel te vleyen,somtyds dingen in zyn stukken gebragt heeft, die hy in zyn Boek van de gronden der© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Salmacis and Hermaphroditus
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Schilderkonst wraakt.” Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche
konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols. (Amsterdam, 1718–21; revised edition published in
The Hague, 1753; reprinted in Amsterdam, 1980), 1:158–59.
12. “Neem naukeurich acht op de klaere voorgront, met Doornen en Distelen en breede blaren
bewerkt, laet ze klaer en groot, vry een hoek van uw werk vervullen, en beeldt de verre
gezichten met een zachte handt uit”; “Laet het kromme wagespoor, of ter rechter ofslinkerhandt, zachtelijk rijzen, hier week en flikkerich, en ginder ten heuvel op, of in mulle
zanden, of barre heyden, vlak leggen”; “Laat de klaere beeken met keyen, en de mosachtige
poelen en slooten met Endefroost, Kannebladeren, en Biezen versiert zijn.” Samuel van
Hoogstraten, Inleyding tot de Hooge Schoole der Schilderkonst: Anders de Zichtbare Werelt(Rotterdam, 1678), fifth chapter of fourth book, 140–41.
13. Samuel van Hoogstraten, Inleyding tot de Hooge Schoole der Schilderkonst: Anders deZichtbare Werelt (Rotterdam, 1678), 138, where he also laments the fact that most landscapepainters do not share this ideal: “Duizent ongemeense aerdicheden zien wy dagelijks in dit
aengename deel der Natuer, maer men behoorde altijts na ‘t schoonste uit te zien, en, indien‘t aen my lach, ik zouw veel Landschapschilders van haere al te gemeene en slechte
verkiezingen afleiden.”

Provenance
Probably Johan de Jongh (d. 1676), Dordrecht; by descent to his daughter, Johanna deJongh (1661–1739), Dordrecht, by 21 June 1721; by descent to her son, Abraham Wensch.
Possibly Captain Oulsing, Amsterdam (his sale, Hotel Drouot, Paris, 12 February 1853, no.
18).
Private collection (sale, Sotheby’s, London, 10 July 2003, no. 24 [to Jack Kilgore & Co., Inc.,New York]).
Private collection, Europe [Jack Kilgore & Co., Inc., New York, 2007].
From whom acquired by the present owner.

References
Roscam Abbing, Michiel. De schilder & schrijver Samuel van Hoogstraten 1627–1678.
Eigentijdse bronnen & oeuvre van gesigneerde schilderijen. Leiden, 1993, 94–95, no. 39.
Brusati, Celeste. Artifice and Illusion: The Art and Writing of Samuel van Hoogstraten.
© 2020 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Salmacis and Hermaphroditus
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Chicago and London, 1995, 376, no. D-34.
Enenkel, Karl. “Salmais, Hermaphrodite, and the Inversion of Gender: AllegoricalInterpretations and Pictorial Representations of an Ovidian Myth, ca. 1300–1770.” In The
Figure of the Nymph in Early Modern Culture. Edited by Karl A.E. Enenkel and Anita
Traninger, 103, 130, 132, 135-38, no. 3.28D. Leiden: 2008.

Technical Summary
The support, a single piece of medium-weight, plain-weave fabric with an arched upper edge, hasbeen lined. The tacking margins have been removed except for a narrow remnant of primed
canvas along the arched upper edge, and paper tape extends into the face of the paintings along
all four sides.
The lined painting was previously vandalized and sustained two punctures where the central
figure’s eyes were poked out. A rectangular strip of paper tape along the upper left quadrant of
the lining reverse reinforces the repair. There are no wax seals, canvas stamps, stencils,
inscriptions, or labels along the lining or stretcher.
A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied followed by a brown underlayer, which
remains exposed along the arched upper edge. The paint has been applied smoothly in opaquelayers blended wet into wet with no use of impasto except for an area of slightly raised brushwork
in the areas of highlight along the gold drapery that hangs over the tree branch on the right side of
the composition.
No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers. Minor
compositional changes are revealed along the contours of the central figure’s white garment,
legs, and proper right foot.
The painting is signed in dark paint along the lower right corner but undated.
The painting was cleaned and restored in 2003 and remains in a good state of preservation.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection