Pieter van Laer

(Haarlem 1599 – 1642 Italy?)

How To CiteBakker, Piet. "Pieter van Laer." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. NewYork, 2017.
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Pieter van Laer—or Pieter Boddingh, as he was originally called[1]—was baptized in Haarlem on 15
December 1599. His parents were the schoolmaster Jacob Boddingh of Haarlem and Magdalena Heyns,
whose father was a respected literary scholar and a schoolmaster in Antwerp, Pieter Heyns (1537–98).[2]Van Laer’s older brother Roeland (1598–ca. 1635) also became a painter and later accompanied Pieter toItaly where, according to Schrevelius, he suffered a tragic fall with his mule from a bridge in Genoa. Pieter’s
younger brother Nicolaes followed in his father’s footsteps and became a schoolmaster and later a minister.
He also enjoyed a modicum of fame as a writing master, in which capacity he published two books.
According to the Italian biographer Passeri (1610–79), Van Laer learned to paint in Holland.[3] His teacher
was not recorded, but judging from a drawing signed “P. Boddink inventor” from before 1625, the mostplausible candidate is Esaias van de Velde (1587–1630), who was active in Haarlem between 1611 and1618.[4] No paintings from Van Laer’s first Haarlem period have been identified; however, in addition to thedrawing just mentioned, there are another dozen sheets in a songbook, the provenance of which is notknown.[5]Van Laer’s stay in Haarlem was brief. Following a trip through France, in 1625 he settled in Rome, on theVia Margutta, the very heart of the Roman painters’ community, which was close to the Piazza del Popolo.[6]Van Laer joined the Schildersbent, the famous artists’ fraternity in Rome whose members called
themselves the Bentvueghels (“birds of a feather”), and was nicknamed “de Snuffelaar,” or the sniffer,
doubtless on account of his oversize nose.[7]Disproportion characterized Van Laer’s entire body. According to Houbraken, who relied on Sandrart’s
Teutsche Academie, Van Laer’s “lower body was three times larger than his torso, [and he] had a shortchest, with a head that sunk into his shoulders and no neck.”[8] This odd physique led the Italians to dub him“il Bamboccio,” a name, according to Houbraken, “they use to call such people, which in the manner of
Italian jest means a strange way of bending or twisting of the body, and striking amusing poses.”[9] Thissobriquet would come to stand for an entirely new type of painting “patented” by Van Laer, which earned
him great fame both in Rome and in the Netherlands. These bambocciante—Roman street scenes withgenre figures such as beggars, peddlers, vendors, and artisans—are generally painted in dark tones and© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Pieter van Laer
Page 2 of 7with a Caravaggesque chiaroscuro. Van Laer attracted many followers in Italy, known as the Bamboccianti.
The association of his nickname with this genre is not without irony. In the 1960s a serious attempt wasmade to chart his oeuvre, from which it emerged that this definition applies only to a small part of it. Thesubjects are mostly taken from life in the Campagna: Italian landscapes populated with men on horseback,farmers, and herdsmen. Thus Albert Blankert’s observation that, in addition to being a genre painter, Van
Laer was an important landscape painter is entirely apt.[10]Van Laer met with great success in Rome; buyers were eager to purchase his work, which allowed him tocharge substantial prices.[11] He also shipped part of what he produced to the Netherlands, where it fetchedeven higher prices.[12] Van Laer regularly kept company with fellow countrymen, including Herman vanSwanevelt, Leonard Bramer, and Andries Both, and also had contact with the French painters Claude
Lorrain (1604/05–82) and Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), with whom he ventured into the countrysidearound Rome to paint or draw landscapes from life.[13] Another good friend was Joachim von Sandrart(1606–88), who lived in Rome between 1630 and 1635. Sandrart drew a portrait of Van Laer in hisworkshop, which he later included in his Teutsche Academie.
Finally submitting to Sandrart’s repeated insistence that he return to his fatherland because there he “couldlive more comfortably than in Italy,” Van Laer left Rome in 1639. After a brief stop in Amsterdam, where he“was well received and duly shown all honor, affection and good wishes,” he arrived in Haarlem and moved
in with his brother Nicolaes.[14] He met Sandrart again, with whom, according to Houbraken, he “oncevisited Gerrit Dou [in Leiden], who received them and showed them some of his works which he had partly
or entirely finished, and which they praised.”[15]Little else is known about Van Laer’s second sojourn in Haarlem. What is certain is that he did not staythere long. According to Schrevelius, he left the city again shortly after he had arrived “and where he went
and where in the world he may be, following the example of Empedocles, is not known to this day.”[16] Thisis confirmed by Van Laer’s sister who, in her will of 1654, noted that he had already been abroad for twelve
years and that she had not heard from him in all that time.[17] Van Laer must have left in or shortly after
1641, for a drawing by him from that year occurs in the same songbook to which he contributed before his
first departure from Haarlem.[18]Van Laer’s work exerted a powerful influence on other Haarlem landscape painters, such as the celebrated
Philips Wouwerman (1619–68). The latter responded to Van Laer’s bambocciatas, or depictions ofambushes and scenes of travelers at rest, to such an extent that one wonders if Houbraken’s comment thatWouwerman had appropriated Van Laer’s drawings contains a kernel of truth.[19] The veracity of
Houbraken’s information is doubtful, however. At the time of his death in 1667, the Haarlem painterFrederick Vroom (ca. 1600–67), whose father was the famous marine painter Hendrick Vroom (ca.
1563–1640), possessed two little books with sketches, twenty-one loose sheets with primarily studies ofanimals, and a few paintings including a tronie by Van Laer and “een groor paert” (a large horse) by hisbrother Roeland.[20] Before leaving Haarlem, Van Laer evidently either sold or gave the contents of hisworkshop to Vroom.
-Piet Bakker© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Pieter van Laer
Page 3 of 7Endnotes
1. Albertus Welcker, “P. Boddink alias Pieter van Laer, Orlando Bodding alias Roeland ofOrlando van Laer, Nicolaes Bodding alias N. Boddingh van Laer of Ds. Nicolaes Boddingius,”
Oud-Holland 59 (1942): 80–89.
2. Heyns opened a school in Antwerp in 1555 and was also dean of the education guild,lieutenant in the civic guard, a district supervisor, and a member of the Berchem chamber ofrhetoric De bloeyende Wyngaert. He fled his native city in 1585 and subsequently, certainly as of1594, was working in Haarlem, once again as a schoolmaster. Heyns provided French andDutch translations of geographical works, and also wrote books for educational purposes.
3. On Giovanni Battista Passeri as a biographer, see E. W. Moes, “Een te weinig opgemerktebron voor het leven van Pieter van Laer,” Oud-Holland 12 (1894): 95–106.
4. A. Welcker, “P. Boddink alias Pieter van Laer, Orlando Bodding alias Roeland of Orlando vanLaer, Nicolaes Bodding alias N. Boddingh van Laer of Ds. Nicolaes Boddingius,” Oud-Holland
59 (1942): 89; Albertus Welcker, “P. Boddink alias Pieter van Laer,” Oud-Holland 62 (1947):
207. That the drawing was made before 1625 can be inferred from the copy that his brotherRoeland made dating from that year.
5. D. P. Snoep, “Een 17de eeuws Liedboek met tekeningen van Gerard ter Borch de Oude enPieter van Laer,” Simiolus 3 (1968–69): 77–134. See the biography of Gerard ter Borch in thiscatalogue.
6. G. J. Hoogewerff, “Pieter van Laer en zijn vrienden [Part 1],” Oud-Holland 49 (1932): 3–4.
7. For example, see his Self-Portrait in Galleria Pallavicini, Rome, illustrated in Ludovica
Trezzani, “Pieter Boddingh van Laer,” in Giuliano Briganti, The Bamboccianti: The Painters ofEveryday Life in Seventeenth-Century Rome (Rome, 1983), 77.
8. “[Was] zyn onderlyf driemaal grooter dan zyn bovenlyf, [en] had [hy] een gans korte borst
daar’t hooft tusschen de schouders inzonk, en over zulks geen hals.” Arnold Houbraken,Degroote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen , 3 vols. (Amsterdam,1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague, 1753; reprint, Amsterdam, 1980), 1:360, Also see Arthur R.
Peltzer, Joachim von Sandrarts Academie der Bau-, Bild-, und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675
(Munich, 1925), 184.

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9. “Daar [mee] zy zulke luiden [benoemen], die zig op ’t maken der Italiaansche grappen,vremden aart van buigingen of vervringingen der lichamen, en geestige figuurmakeryen
verstaan.” Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders enschilderessen, 3 vols. (Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague, 1753; reprint, Amsterdam,1980), 1:360.
10. Albert Blankert, “Over Pieter van Laer als dier- en landschapschilder,” Oud-Holland 83(1968): 117–34. Compare Ludovico Trezzani, “Pieter Boddingh van Laer,” in Giuliano Briganti,
The Bamboccianti: The Painters of Everyday Life in Seventeenth-Century Rome (Rome, 1983),
41–42.
11. G. J. Hoogewerff, “Pieter van Laer en zijn vrienden [Part 1],” Oud-Holland 49 (1932): 219;
“Pieter van Laer en zijn vrienden [Part 2],” Oud-Holland 50 (1933): 250.
12. G. J. Hoogewerff, “Pieter van Laer en zijn vrienden [Part 1],” Oud-Holland 49 (1932): 17.
13. Arthur R. Peltzer, Joachim von Sandrarts Academie der Bau-, Bild-, und Mahlerey-Künste
von 1675 (Munich, 1925), 184.
14. “Mehr vergnügt leben könte als in Italien”; “wol empfangen und ihm alle Ehr, Liebs und Guts
[wurde] erwisen.” Arthur R. Peltzer, Joachim von Sandrarts Academie der Bau-, Bild-, undMahlerey-Künste von 1675 (Munich, 1925), 184. Compare Albertus Welcker, “P. Boddink alias
Pieter van Laer, Orlando Bodding alias Roeland of Orlando van Laer, Nicolaes Bodding alias N.
Boddingh van Laer of Ds. Nicolaes Boddingius,” Oud-Holland 59 (1942): 80.
15. “Gerard Dou eens ging bezoeken [in Leiden], die hen wel ontfing, en vertoonde, ’t gene hy
van zyne konstwerken zoo ten halven als ten vollen voltooit had, ’t welk zy presen.” Arnold
Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen , 3 vols.
(Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague, 1753; reprint, Amsterdam, 1980), 2:3.

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16. “En waarheen hij gegaen is en waar ter wereld hij vertoeft, weet men, naar het voorbeeld vanEmpedocles op de huidige dag nog niet.” This is taken from Welcker’s Dutch translation of
Schrevelius’s text about Pieter van Laer in his 1647 city chronicle of Haarlem, which he wrote inLatin. See Albertus Welcker, “P. Boddink alias Pieter van Laer, Orlando Bodding alias Roelandof Orlando van Laer, Nicolaes Bodding alias N. Boddingh van Laer of Ds. Nicolaes Boddingius,”
Oud-Holland 59 (1942): 84. According to Passeri, without mention of a year, Van Laer died ofsyphilis in Haarlem. See E. W. Moes, “Een te weinig opgemerkte bron voor het leven van Pieter
van Laer,” Oud-Holland 12 (1894): 96; compare G. J. Hoogewerff, “Pieter van Laer en zijn
vrienden [Part 1],” Oud-Holland 49 (1932): 8. Sandrart reported that Van Laer died a naturaldeath, but had been diminished by melancholy. See A. R. Peltzer, Joachim von Sandrarts
Academie der Bau-, Bild-, und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675 (Munich, 1925), 184. Houbraken
believed that the artist had returned to Italy, where suffering from melancholy, he took his own life
between 1670 and 1675. See Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche
konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols. (Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague, 1753;
reprint, Amsterdam, 1980), 1:363. In his biography of Philips Wouwerman, Houbraken mentions
Van Laer’s death again, this time placing his suicide in Haarlem. The melancholy underlying thisact was thought to have been reinforced in his second Haarlem period by the following
conditions: “1. Dat hy niet spaarzaam was wanneer hy geld had, 2. Dat hy syn geld niet tot lager
prys geven wilde, dan hy gewoon was te Rome daar voor t’ontfangen, 3. Dat hy weinig
voorkruyers had, 4. Dat hy voor keelbeulen (konsthandelaren wilde ik zeggen) niet wilde
schilderen of hun eenig voordeel geven, die hem dan ook gevolgelyk lieten driven” (1. That hewas not thrifty when he had money, 2. That he did not want to lower his price below what he had
been accustomed to receiving in Rome, 3. That he had very few people to promote his interests,
4. That he did not want to paint for cutthroats [I meant to say art dealers] or give them any special
treatment, and who as a consequence turned their backs on him). For instance, Van Laerrefused the art dealer Jan de Wet’s offer of 200 guilders for one of his paintings. See Houbraken,
2:74–75. Van Hoogstraten, to whom Houbraken refers, also suggests that Van Laer took his own
life out of “mistroosticheyt” (dejection). See Samuel van Hoogstraten, Inleyding tot de Hooge
Schoole der Schilderkonst. Anders de Zichtbaere Werelt (Rotterdam, 1678), 311; compare
Hoogerwerff, “Pieter van Laer en zijn vrienden [Part 1],” 9.
17. G. H. Kurtz, “Archiefsprokkeling. Nog eens: Bodding (van Laer),” Oud-Holland 73 (1958):
232.
18. He may have spent some time in Utrecht in 1640. There, on 18 August of that year, a deed
was drawn up by notary Hendrick Ruysch concerning a debt that a certain Steven Huyberts ofCulemborg owed Van Laer. He stated that he was “woonachtich tot Haerlem” (living in Haarlem)
at the time. Paul Huys Janssen, “Pieter van Laer, Benjamin Cuyp, Gerard Douffet, and Karel
Dujardin in Utrecht,” The Hoogsteder Mercury 11 (1990): 53.
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Pieter van LaerPage 6 of 719. Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en
schilderessen, 3 vols. (Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague, 1753; reprint, Amsterdam,1980), 2:75. Houbraken suggests in this passage that Wouwerman had unjustly appropriatedthese drawings after Van Laer’s “schandige dood” (scandalous death), which, following thereasoning of the text, must have taken place after 1640. This date differs greatly from that in Van
Laer’s biography (see note 16 above) and also contradicts the testimony of Van Laer’s sister(see note 17 above). For Van Laer’s influence on Wouwerman, see F. J. Duparc, “Leven en werk
van Philips Wouwerman (1619–1668),” in Q. Buvelot, ed., Philips Wouwerman 1619–1668 (Exh.
cat. Kassel, Gemäldegalerie; The Hague, Mauritshuis 2009–10), 23.
20. G. J. Hoogewerff, “Pieter van Laer en zijn vrienden [Part 1],” Oud-Holland 49 (1932): 17. On
Van Laer’s paintings and drawings, and other studio equipment, in Vroom’s estate, see P.
Biesboer, Collections of Paintings in Haarlem 1572–1745 (Los Angeles, 2001), 196–204.

Literature
Houbraken, Arnold. De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en
schilderessen. 3 vols. Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague, 1753; reprint,Amsterdam, 1980, 1;359–64.
Peltzer, A. R. Joachim von Sandrarts Academie der Bau-, Bild-, und Mahlerey-Künste von1675. Munich, 1925, 183–84.
Hoogewerff, G. J. “Pieter van Laer en zijn vrienden [Part 1].” Oud-Holland 49 (1932): 1–17,205–20. “Pieter van Laer en zijn vrienden [Part 2].” Oud-Holland 50 (1933): 103–17,250–62.
Welcker, Albertus. “P. Boddink alias Pieter van Laer, Orlando Bodding alias Roeland ofOrlando van Laer, Nicolaes Bodding alias N. Boddingh van Laer of Ds. NicolaesBoddingius.” Oud-Holland 59 (1942): 80–89.
Welcker, Albertus. “P. Boddink alias Pieter van Laer.” Oud-Holland 62 (1947): 206–8.
Kurtz, G. H. “Archiefsprokkeling. Nog eens: Bodding (van Laer).” Oud-Holland 73 (1958):
231–32.
Janeck, Axel Herbert. Untersuchung über den holländischen Maler Pieter van Laer,genannt Bamboccio. Würzburg, 1968.
Michalkowa, Janina. “Quelques remarques sur Pieter van Laer.” Oud-Holland 86 (1971):
188–95.
Trezzani, Ludovica. “Pieter Boddingh van Laer.” In Giuliano Briganti, The Bamboccianti:
The Painters of Everyday Life in Seventeenth-Century Rome. Rome, 1983, 39–86.
Levine, David A. et al. I Bamboccianti, Niederländische Malerrebellen im Rom desBarock. Milan, 1991, 188.
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Briels,J.

Vlaamseschilders

endedageraadvanHollands

GoudenEeuw

1585–1630. Antwerp, 1997, 349.

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