Rommel Pot Player
Jacob Toorenvliet(Leiden 1640 – 1719 Leiden)1679
oil on copper
17.8 x 13.8 cm
JT-101© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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How to cite
Aono, Junko. “Rommel Pot Player” (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.

Wearing a wide-brimmed hat and tattered clothing with visible patchwork, an oldComparative Figures

man sings and plays a rommel pot. He turns his head toward the left, in the directionof the light source, as if addressing someone outside the pictorial space. Light
illuminates his wrinkled face and gray beard, while subtle shadows along his leftshoulder and the brim of his hat silhouette his form against an undefined background.
Jacob Toorenvliet painted this lifelike depiction of an old musician in 1679, the year
in which he returned to his native Leiden after a long stay in Vienna.[1] Whether hepainted this small copper panel in Leiden or Vienna, the painting is thematically,
compositionally and technically reminiscent of his works from the late 1670s.[2] For
example, in 1678 he had used a similar bearded model in two comparable half-length
depictions of a hurdy-gurdy player.[3]The rommel pot was a crude musical instrument made of an earthenware jar covered
with a pig’s bladder. The stick that punctures the bladder agitates the air inside,producing sounds that mimic the low grunting of a pig. Though this handmade

Fig 1. Frans Hals, Rommel Pot Player,ca. 1618–22, oil on canvas, 106 x 80.3
cm, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth,
Texas, ACF 1951.01

instrument could be played throughout the year, rommel pot playing was particularly
associated with the energetic celebration of Shrove Tuesday (Vastenavond), whenchildren went from door to door singing and dancing in exchange for money orsweets.[4] In seventeenth-century paintings and prints of such joyful festivities, therommel pot player was often accompanied by children or other street musicians. He
was often depicted with the attributes of a fool, recalling the folly of Carnival itself,
which concludes on Shrove Tuesday. In The Rommel Pot Player (fig 1), attributed toFrans Hals (1582/83–1666), for example, the player, surrounded by a crowd ofchildren, wears a hat with a foxtail, a traditional attribute of the fool.[5] A print by Jan
van de Velde shows a rommel pot player with a similar hat, and it bears an inscriptionthat reveals his role: “At Shrovetide, many fools walk about / For farthings [they]Fig 2. J. Dubois after J.
© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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grunt on a rommel pot.”[6]The figure in this picture is depicted neither as a fool nor accompanied by festive
children, and thus it is unlikely that Toorenvliet conceived his work within this well-Matham, Rommel-Pot Player,
engraving, 24.7 x 19 cm,
Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam, RP-P-BI-1959

established iconographic tradition. Other traditions, however, did exist for depictionsof rommel pot players, and Toorenvliet’s painting may belong to one of those. Forexample, a print by J. Dubois after J. Matham (fig 2), which depicts a half-length oldman playing a rommel pot, makes it quite clear that this musician’s motivation forplaying was financial gain: coins lie on the table before him and the inscription on theprint reads “I play a fool for the profit from this pot.”[7] However, as no coins are seenin Toorenvliet’s painting, it is unlikely that he conceived his work in the same vein.
More probable is that this copper panel formed part of a now lost series of the fivesenses, with this work depicting the sense of hearing. Toorenvliet did, in fact, paintsuch a series in the late 1670s, in which he depicted the sense of hearing as a man
singing and playing the lute.[8] The rommel pot would also have been an appropriate
attribute for the sense of hearing, perhaps for a group of lower-class personificationsof the senses. Whether as an individual painting or part of a series, Toorenvliet’s
lively depiction of a rommel pot player still has the power to make the spectator
vividly recall the ear-splitting sounds of this folksy instrument.

- Junko Aono, 2017

© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Rommel Pot PlayerPage 4 of 5Endnotes
1. For biographic information on Toorenvliet’s life, see Piet Bakker’s biography of the artist in thiscatalogue.
2. In particular, the depiction of a man in half-length close to the picture plane, the refined rendering oflight and texture, and the brownish palette with grey tones enlivened by white and red accents echo hispaintings from earlier in the decade.
3. Susanne Henriette Karau, “Leben und Werk des Leidener Malers Jacob Toorenvliet (1640–1719)” (PhDdiss., Universität Berlin, 2002), no. A89, A90; Annegret Laabs in The Leiden Fijnschilders fromDresden, ed. Christiaan Vogelaar (Exh. cat. Leiden, Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal) (Zwolle,2000), 123–25.
4. Seymour Slive, Frans Hals (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art; London, Royal
Academy of Arts; Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum) (London, 1989), 148–51; Pieter Biesboer and James
A. Welu, eds., Judith Leyster: A Dutch Master and Her World (Exh. cat. Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum;Worcester, Worcester Art Museum) (New Haven, 1993), 358–60; and Karel Moens and Iris
Kockelbergh, Muziek & Grafiek: Burgermoraal en muziek in de 16de- en 17de-eeuwse Nederlanden (Exh.
cat. Antwerp, Hessenhuis) (Antwerp, 1994), 125, 130–31, figs. 87c, 88.
5. Seymour Slive, Frans Hals, 3 vols. (New York, 1970–74), no. L3-1; idem, ed., Frans Hals (Exh. cat.
Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art; London, Royal Academy of Arts; Haarlem, Frans HalsMuseum) (Munich, 1989), no. 8.
6. “Op Vasten-avont Loopt menich Sotje / Om duytjes gnorren op ’t Rommel-potje.” Friedrich Wilhelm
Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, ca. 1450–1700 (Roosendaal, 1989),
33, 34, no. 132. See also Seymour Slive, Frans Hals (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery ofArt; London, Royal Academy of Arts; Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum) (London, 1989), 150–51, fig. 8c;
Pieter Biesboer and James A. Welu, eds., Judith Leyster: A Dutch Master and Her World (Exh. cat.
Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum; Worcester, Worcester Art Museum) New Haven, 1993), 358–59. The
pictorial tradition of rommel pot players such as these must have been familiar to Toorenvliet, as the1692 inventory of the collection amassed by his father Abraham Toorenvliet included a painting byDirck Druyf decribed as “one [picture of a] Shrove Tuesday fool.” For the inventory of Abraham, see
Bakker’s biography on Toorenvliet in this catalogue.
7. “K’ speel voor Sot, om ’t genot van dees Pot.” F. W. H. Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings,Engravings and Woodcuts, ca. 1450–1700 (Roosendaal, 1989), 6:6, no. 2; Pieter Biesboer and James A.
Welu, eds., Judith Leyster: A Dutch Master and Her World (Exh. cat. Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum;Worcester, Worcester Art Museum) (New Haven, 1993), 358, 360, fig. 40d.
8. Susanne Henriette Karau, “Leben und Werk des Leidener Malers Jacob Toorenvliet (1640–1719)” (PhDdiss., Universität Berlin, 2002), nos. A70–72, B116–120.
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ProvenancePossibly collection of Mrs Stanley, Tavistock.
(Sale, Bonhams, London, 20 April 2005, no. 1; [Johnny van Haeften, Ltd., London, 2005]).
From whom acquired by the present owner.

Technical Summary
The support, a rectangular sheet of copper with minor undulations, has substantial weight and does not flex
when handled.[1] All four sides of the support bow outward toward the midpoints, and the corner angles aregreater than 90 degrees. There are two layers of oxidation products, a continuous brown layer and mottled
black spots. A rectangular patch of adhesive residue suggests the location of a previous label, and a numericalinscription is visible under infrared, but there are no wax collection seals, stencils or maker’s marks.
A light gray ground has been thinly and evenly applied predominantly with long vertical strokes. The painthas been extremely smoothly applied with delicate modeling and small flecks of white highlights along thefigure’s proper right cuff and sleeve.
The painting is signed and dated in light paint along the upper right corner.
No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers. A few
compositional changes visible in the images and as pentimenti include a modification to the figure’s gaze. In
the images, the figure’s proper right pupil and iris appear rounder and more similar to those of his left eyeand his gaze appears more symmetrical. The figure’s proper left ear was added during the paint stage and thetop of his hat has been widened along the left to create a more square, flat top.
The painting was cleaned and restored in 2005 and remains in a good state of preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. According to Isabel Horovitz, Copper as Canvas (Exh. cat. Phoenix Art Museum) (Phoenix, 1999),
67–68, “a highly worked sheet of copper will be less flexible than one that is not highly worked, and thisis why quite thin (0.5 mm) sheets of copper can provide such excellent rigid supports for paint films.”© 2024 The Leiden Collection