Fisherman and His Wife in an Interior

1657

Quiringh van Brekelenkam(Zwammerdam [?] after 1622 – ca. 1669Leiden)

oil on panel
47 x 60.3 cm
signed and dated in brown paint along loweredge, right of center: “Q. Brekelenkam__ .1657”
QB-100How To Cite
Henel, Jennifer E. "Fisherman and His Wife in an Interior." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited byArthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017.
https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/.
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© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Fisherman and His Wife in an Interior
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Illuminated by light streaming from an open window into a simple room

Comparative Figureswith an earthenware floor, a fisherman descales a pail full of herring under
the watchful eyes of his wife who stands, hands on hips, before thecouple’s box bed. To their right sits a simple meal of bread, cheese, and abeverage in an earthenware pitcher. A cooking pot hangs in the hearth at
the far right of this cozy interior. When Quiringh van Brekelenkam painted
this work in 1657, he was already an established artist, having joined theGuild of Saint Luke in 1648.[1] Although he frequently depicted artisanssuch as tailors and spinners in their workshops, in this instance herepresented a domestic scene of a fisherman cleaning his catch while hiswife waits patiently for him to finish his task.
Van Brekelenkam’s paintings are stylistically less refined than those of histeacher Gerrit Dou (1613–75), which is more appropriate considering theFig 1. Quiringh van Brekelenkam,The Fishwife, 1666 (?), oil onpanel, 50 x 39.7 cm, Museum derBildenden Künste, Leipzig, inv.
992

social status of his subjects. As an anonymous eighteenth-century author
noted, “his brushwork and treatment were loose and fluent, true to life, andof a benign nature, being a disciple of Dou, whom he followed in a vagueway.”[2] Van Brekelenkam painted for a less affluent art market than hismaster, with the hope that his domestic subject matter would appeal to theburgeoning middle class in Leiden. Unfortunately, it seems that hispaintings did not command very high prices, which may have been one
cause for his persistent financial problems.
In this scene, Van Brekelenkam features the fisherman’s wife as theFig 2. Gabriel Metsu, The
Vegetable Market in Amsterdam(detail), ca. 1661–62, oil oncanvas, Musée du Louvre, Paris,inv. 1460, photo: Franx Raux, ©
RMN-Grand Palais / ArtResource, NY

primary caretaker and probably the dominant personality of the home.[3]Her character reflects a well-known passage from the book of Proverbs:“the wife of noble character . . . selects wool and flax and works with eager
hand. She is like the merchant ships, bringing her food from afar. She gets
up while it is still dark; she provides food for her family and portions for her
servant girls” (Prov. 31:13–15). As she waits for her husband to prepare
the fish, it is evident that she has prepared the simple meal of bread andcheese and that her house is in clean condition and good order. It isunclear whether all the fish is meant for their own consumption. The wife
may also have a role in selling the fish at market. Van Brekelenkam
suggests this role through her assertive stance as she gazes at her
husband with hands on her hips. Ten years later, Van Brekelenkam
depicted a fishmonger at market in a similar fashion (fig 1). Gabriel Metsu(1629–67) also used this body language in the confrontational exchange
between two female merchants in his painting The Vegetable Market inFig 3. Quiringh van Brekelenkam,Sentimental Conversation, early1660s, oil on panel, The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NewYork, The Friedsam Collection,
Bequest of Michael Friedsam,
1931,32.100.19, www.metmuseum.org© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Fisherman and His Wife in an Interior
Page 3 of 5Amsterdam, which he executed in the early 1660s (fig 2).
Although Van Brekelenkam painted for a largely middle-class market in the1650s, he sought to expand his clientele in the 1660s by painting upperclass scenes in a more refined style, similar to those being painted by Dou,Metsu, and Frans van Mieris (1635–81). For example, Sentimental
Conversation of the early 1660s (fig 3) displays Van Brekelenkam’s ability
to depict fine fabrics in both the gentleman’s jerkin and the fur-trimmed
jacket of his elegant companion. Despite their thematic and stylistic
differences, Sentimental Conversation and Fisherman and His Wife in anInterior exhibit the same sensitivity to rendering the dynamic relationships
between figures and to capturing light effects in interior settings.
-Jennifer E. Henel© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Fisherman and His Wife in an Interior
Page 4 of 5Endnotes
1. See Van Brekelenkam’s biography in this catalogue; and Elizabeth Alice Honig,“Brekelenkam, Quiringh van,” Grove Art Online: Oxford Art Online, accessed 5 April 2014.
2. As translated by Angelika Lassius, Quiringh van Brekelenkam (Doornspijk, 1992), 10–11,
and cited in footnote 13, Adversaria Liedsche Schilders (18th-century notes, anonymousauthor), Gemeentearchief, Leiden.
3. He depicted the wife of a fisherman in much the same pose in another painting dated tenyears later. See Quiringh van Brekelenkam, Kitchen Interior with Two Figures , 1667, oil on
panel, Musée J.-P. Pescatore, Luxembourg, inv. 52.

Provenance
Willem Smits et al. (sale, The Hague, 18 May 1785, lot 79 [J. D. Nijman]).
Frederik Willem Greebe (sale, Amsterdam, 8 December 1788, no. 23).
Gerrit Muller (sale, Amsterdam, 2 April 1827, no. 11).
Private collection, Philadelphia, until 1930, [W. E. Duits Ltd., London, 1930].
Private collection, Belgium, 1930–95 [Johnny van Haeften, London (sale, Maastrict, 1995)].
Private collection, Boston [Salomon Lilian, Amsterdam, by 2005].
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2005.

Exhibition HistoryIthaca, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, “An Eye For Detail: Dutch
Painting From The Leiden Collection,” September 2014–May 2015 [lent by the presentowner].

References
Havard, Henry. “Quiringh Brekelenkam.” In L’Art et Les Artistes Hollandais . 4 vols. Paris,
1881, 4:118, as ‘Le Vieux Cuisinier’.
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Fisherman and His Wife in an Interior
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Lasius, Angelika. Quiringh van Brekelenkam. Doornspijk, 1992, 102–3, no. 79.

Technical Summary
The support is a rectangular-shaped composite panel comprised of two horizontally grained oakplanks.[1] The horizontal panel joint, about 5 cm above the lower edge, passes through the toe ofthe male figure’s shoe. The panel has no bevels and has been thinned and cradled. A previously
repaired horizontal split, along the upper third of the composition, runs through the female
figure’s shoulders. A small triangular wood insert has been applied to the lower left corner and asmall notch has been cut in the lower right corner.[2] A numerical chalk inscription appears on thereverse, but there are no wax seals, stencils, import stamps, labels or panel maker’s marks.
A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied, followed by paint applied in broad,
fluid brushstrokes with slightly blurred faces and strongly modeled folds in the clothing.
No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers. The
images and X-radiograph reveal a few minor compositional changes. From left to right: ahorizontally oriented rectangular form originally depicted in the lower left corner is now obscuredby the broom bristles; the leaded window appears to have originally been shaped like aparallelogram, with parallel vertical sides (rather than the trapezoid seen now); the round plate on
the floor with the fish in the foreground was originally oval shaped; and the woman’s proper left
arm from shoulder to wrist was shifted to the left during the paint stage.
The painting is signed and dated in brown paint along lower edge, right of center: “Q.
Brekelenkam__ .1657.”
The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition, although a repaired
horizontal split and the small triangular wood insert along the lower left edge indicate previous
panelwork. The panel remains in a good state of preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The characterization of the wood is based on visual examination only.
2. The wood insert is ca. 0.6 cm H x 3.2 cm W.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection