Bookkeeper at His DeskJan Lievens(Leiden 1607 – 1674 Amsterdam)ca. 1627
oil on panel
89.7 x 72.7 cm
signed in dark paint, lower left corner: “L”
JL-101© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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How to cite
Surh, Dominique. “Bookkeeper at His Desk” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd ed. Edited byArthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/a-bookkeeper-at-his-desk/(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 narrativeoccurs.

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Seated at his desk amidst a stack of books and notarized documents, an old

Comparative Figures

man focuses on a page propped up by a book as intense light falling from theupper left casts a dramatic play of light and shadow over the scene. Light
provides the expressive means by which Jan Lievens has created a series ofpowerful opposites, for example the brightness of the white pages of thebook in the background versus the darkness of foreground stack of books, or
the radiant lemon-yellow of the sunlit portion of the man’s cloak as opposedto the deep grays of its shaded right shoulder and arm. Such chiaroscuro
effects also play out on the man’s face, where pinkish folds around theman’s left eye and cheek give way to deep shadows on its opposite side.
Light also accentuates the wrinkles in his forehead and picks out the long
strands of hair in his beard and mustache.
One could imagine that Constantijn Huygens had a painting such as this inmind when, after visiting the artist’s studio in or around 1628, he praised JanFig 1. Jan Lievens, The PenCutter, ca. 1627, oil on canvas,
127 x 107.5 cm, Wallraf-RichartzMuseum & Fondation Corboud, on
permanent loan from Sal.
Oppenheim Collection, Inv.nr.
WRM Dep. 943

Lievens for his audacious themes and forms and for his extraordinary ability
to depict the human face.[1] Indeed, the present work typifies Lievens’s boldhandling of paint while exemplifying his ability to capture the physical andemotional states of his subjects. The sitter’s remarkable physiognomy isachieved through a wide variety of brushstrokes that define his network of
wrinkles and sagging folds and frame his face with a soft mane of tousledhair. The old man’s downcast eyes are bloodshot and betray a lapsing
focus, implying that he has spent many hours doing mental work. A sense ofelapsed time is further suggested by the position of the old man’s black cap,
which is tipped to the back of his head as though a stretch and a sigh haveFig 2. Rembrandt van Rijn, TheGoldweigher, 1627, oil on panel,
31.9 x 42.5 cm, Staatliche Museen
zu Berlin, Gem?ldegalerie, inv. no,828D, © Jörg P. Anders

just transpired, signaling the end of a full day’s work.
Huygens also remarked that the artist’s brimming self-assurance led him towork in a scale larger than life. Indeed, the present work relates to a numberof other half-length single figures executed in the artist’s ambitious scale.
Many of these portray elder wise men in the guise of apostles or evangelists
surrounded by tattered manuscripts and books, and show them reading,contemplating, or in the act of writing.[2] The type of books and documents on
the desk and leaning against the wall, which show numbers and cancelednotations, suggests that the man in this painting is a bookkeeper or anaccountant. The prominent book in the foreground containing the merchant’s
mark “LI” with the numeral 4, identifies the book as a ledger.[3]This painting relates thematically and compositionally to Lievens’s The PenCutter, now on loan at the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum from the Sal.

Fig 3. Jan Lievens, A Bearded Old
Man with a Book, ca. 1626–27,
chalk drawing, 166 x 134 mm,
Hessisches Landesmuseum,Darmstadt, inv. no. AE 672© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Bookkeeper at His Desk
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Oppenheim Collection (fig 1). This work similarly features a single figure
seated at a desk surrounded by books and documents, but shows the man in
the act of sharpening a quill, with an hourglass and moneybags on his desk.
This painting has generally been dated to ca. 1627 on the basis of its closethematic connection to Rembrandt van Rijn’s The Goldweigher, dated 1627
(fig 2).[4] It seems probable that Bookkeeper at His Desk was painted at
approximately the same time, ca. 1627.[5]Lievens employed an expressive technique of incising into the wet paint withthe back of the brush to emphasize the wiry texture of the old man’s hair. By
using highlights and lowlights that create a contrasting network of hair,
Lievens evoked a sense of depth and movement. This technique, which
Rembrandt and Lievens both used in the mid- to late 1620s and which

Fig 4. X-radiograph of Bookkeeper
at His Desk (JL-101), upside down(with suppressed cradle visibility)

perhaps derived from their early efforts in etching, is indicative of their close
collaboration and the shared continuum of their ideas. Lievens’s treatment of
the sitter’s beard in the present work is also consistent with his work in
etching and chalk, as in his red chalk drawing in Darmstadt, A Bearded Old
Man with a Book (fig 3). The similarity of the sitter’s position with regard to
the picture plane, emphasizing the oblique angle of the man’s head and thediagonal lines in the composition, suggests the sketch may have served as
an early study for the figure in this painting.
X-radiographs reveal an earlier composition beneath this image. Oriented
upside down, it depicts a three-quarter-length portrait of a man in a hat with alace ruff (fig 4). Dendrochronological data indicates the earliest use of thepanel from 1603 onward, leaving a period of around two decades during
which the portrait could be dated.[6] The style of this underlying portrait isunlike anything Lievens is known to have painted in his early years and musthave been painted by another hand. Lievens is known to have acquired
inexpensive panels during his Leiden years, and this previously used panel
may have been one of those.[7]- Domique Surh, 2017

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Bookkeeper at His Desk
Page 5 of 9Endnotes

1. For a recent translation of Huygens’s account, see Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., ed., Jan Lievens:
A Dutch Master Rediscovered (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art;
Milwaukee, Milwaukee Art Museum; Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis) (New Haven,2008), 286–87.
2. See, for example, St. Paul, St. Peter, and The Four Evangelists from ca. 1624–47, illustratedin Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., ed., Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered (Exh. cat.
Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art; Milwaukee, Milwaukee Art Museum; Amsterdam,Museum Het Rembrandthuis) (New Haven, 2008), nos. 4, 5, 8–10.
3. Basil Yamey, “Account Book Covers in Some Vanitas Still-Life Paintings,” Journal of theWarburg and Courtauld Institutes 47 (1984): 229–31; also in Art and Accounting (New Havenand London, 1989), 108–9. One of the more common marks in the Low Countries
incorporated the numeral 4 with the merchant’s initials. Although speculative, the merchant’s
mark may have referenced the accounting ledger of Lievens’s father, who earned hislivelihood as a cloth merchant and embroiderer.
4. The interpretation of The Goldweigher has ranged from the portrayal of Avarice to theillustration of a biblical parable; see Bob van den Boogart, “An Old Usurer Examining aCoin,” in The Mystery of the Young Rembrandt, ed. Bernhard Schnackenburg and and Ernst
van de Wetering (Exh. cat. Kassel, Museum Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, Gemäldegalerie Alte
Meister; Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis) (Wolfratshausen, 2001), 210–13, no. 29.
5. Not surprisingly, Bookkeeper at His Desk was once thought to be by Rembrandt. It was first
attributed to Lievens by Hans Schneider, Jan Lievens, sein Leben und seine Werke(Haarlem, 1932; repr. with a supplement by Rudolf E. O Ekkart, Amsterdam, 1973), 110, 325,
no. 74. Nevertheless, the painting continued to be attributed to Rembrandt throughout thetwentieth century, until a distinctive Lievens monogram “L” at the lower left was uncovered
when the painting was restored in Paris in 2003 by Pierre Bucat.
6. Bookkeeper at His Desk consists of three oak boards, the youngest heartwood of which wasformed in 1592. With the requisite years of seasoning, Peter Klein calculates the earliest
possible painting date as 1603, with a more likely plausibility from 1609 onward.
7. E. Melanie Gifford, “Lievens’ Technique: ‘Wonders in Smeared Paint, Varnishes, andOils,’” in Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered, ed. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. (Exh. cat.
Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art; Milwaukee, Milwaukee Art Museum; Amsterdam,Museum Het Rembrandthuis) (New Haven, 2008), 42–43.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Bookkeeper at His DeskPage 6 of 9Provenance
Basil Beridge, Algarkirk Hall, Lincolnshire (his sale, London, 8 April 1911, no. 23 [£514 toPartridge, Lewis, & Simmons, London], as by Rembrandt).
[Charles Sedelmeyer, Paris, by 1921, as by Rembrandt].
Duc de G. (his sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 22 May 1925, no. 11 [80,000 francs toPinchon], as by Rembrandt).
Armand Esders (his sale, Hotel Drouot, Paris, 28 May 1941, no. 16, as by Rembrandt [A. deRouvre, Paris, 1947]).
Private collection, France [Salomon Lilian, B. V., Amsterdam, 2005].
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2006.

Exhibition History
Kyoto, Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, “Communication: Visualizing the Human Connectionin the Age of Vermeer,” 25 June–16 October 2011; Miyagi, Miyagi Museum of Art, 27October–12 December 2011; Tokyo, Bunkamura Museum of Art, 23 December 2011–14
March 2012, no. 23 [lent by the present owner].
Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, on loan with the permanent collection, April
2012–July 2014 [lent by the present owner].
Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from TheLeiden Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [lent by the present owner].
Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden
Age: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection,” 23 September 2017–25 February 2018 [lentby the present owner].
Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection,” 28 March 2018–22 July 2018 [lent by the presentowner].
St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:
Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection,” 5 September 2018–13 January 2019 [lent by thepresent owner].
Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age.
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre,” 14 February–18 May
2019 [lent by the present owner].

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References
Valentiner, Wilhelm R. Rembrandt: Wiedergefundene Gemälde (1910–1920) in 120
Abbildungen. Stuttgart and Berlin, 1921, 26, no. 109 (as attributed to Rembrandt van Rijn).
Bredius, Abraham. “Wiedergefundene ‘Rembrandts.’” Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst 56, no. 32(1921): 151, no. 109 (as most likely by Jan Lievens).
Van Dyke, John C. Rembrandt and His School: A Critical Study of the Master and His Pupils
with a New Assignment of Their Pictures. New York, 1923, 123–24, no. 26.100.
Schneider, Hans. Jan Lievens: Sein Leben und seine Werke. Haarlem, 1932, 110, no. 74.
Reprinted with supplement by Rudolf Otto Ekkart, Amsterdam, 1973, 325, no. 74.
Von Schneider, Arthur. Caravaggio und die Niederländer. Marburg and Lahn, 1933, 73.
Bauch, Kurt. Die Kunst des jungen Rembrandt. Heidelberg, 1933, 220.
Bauch, Kurt. “Rembrandt und Lievens.” Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch 11 (1939): 258–59.
Bauch, Kurt. Der frühe Rembrandt und sein Zeit: Studien zur geschichtlichen Bedeutungseines Frühstils. Berlin, 1960, 265–66 n. 184.
Bauch, Kurt. “Zum Werk des Jan Lievens (II).” Pantheon 25 (1967): 262.
Sumowski, Werner. Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler. 6 vols. Landau and Pfalz, 1983–94,
3:1794, 1874, under no. 1235.
Surh, Dominique. “A Philosopher.” In Salomon Lilian: Old Masters 2005. Sales cat.
Amsterdam, Salomon Lilian B.V. Amsterdam, 2005, 28–31, no. 8.
Surh, Dominique. “A Bookkeeper at His Desk.” In Communication: Visualizing the Human
Connection in the Age of Vermeer. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., 128–29, no. 23. Exh.
cat. Kyoto, Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art; Miyagi, Miyagi Museum of Art; Tokyo, Bunkamura
Museum of Art. Tokyo, 2011.
Schnackenburg, Bernhard. Jan Lievens: Friend and Rival of the Young Rembrandt.
Petersberg, 2016, 295, no. 111.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara “Bookkeeper at His Desk.” In Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces
from The Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 36; 173, no. 8. Translated by LiYing. Exh. cat. Beijing, National Museum of China. Beijing, 2017.
Long Museum, West Bund. Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age:
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund.
Shanghai, 2017, 56–57.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Bookkeeper at His Desk.” In The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:
Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 108–9; 236, no. 21.
Translated by Daria Babich and Daria Kuzina. Exh. cat. Moscow, The Pushkin State Museumof Fine Arts; St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Moscow, 2018.
Ducos, Blaise, and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, eds. Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Bookkeeper at His DeskPage 8 of 9Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Exh. cat. AbuDhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019, 70–1, no. 12. [Exhibition catalogue also published inFrench and Arabic.]
Sevcik, Anja K., ed. Inside Rembrandt 1606-1669. Exh. cat. Cologne, Wallraf-RichartzMuseum & Fondation Corboud. Petersberg, 2019, 147–48, fig. 39.2.

Technical Summary
The support is a rectangular composite panel composed of three vertically grained Baltic oakplanks: a wide central plank flanked by two narrower planks. Planks 2 and 3 are from the sametree, and the earliest creation date of the painting is 1603.[1] There are no bevels, and the panel
has been cradled. There is one paper label and two white chalk inscriptions but no wax seals,
import stamps, stencils or panel maker’s marks.
The X-radiograph reveals an earlier three-quarter-length portrait of a male wearing a white ruff
oriented upside down below the present composition.[2] In raking light, the figure-eight-shaped
curves of the underlying ruff are visible in the book in the foreground of the present composition,and the slightly raised thumb and curved fingers of the figure’s proper right hand can be seen to
the right of the visible man’s head.
A warm, light-colored ground is thinly and evenly applied. A dark underlayer shows through theupper two-thirds of the composition, and a light tan underlayer shows through the lower third ofthe composition. The underlayers presumably relate to the earlier portrait located below thepresent composition. The paint has been applied with visible brushwork and texture through thefigure’s forehead, beard, and yellow cloak, and thinly with loose transparent brushwork along theupper right corner. Portions of the figure’s beard hairs have been inscribed in wet paint with theback of a brush.
No underdrawing is evident with infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers. The images
suggest the man’s proper left shoulder and sleeve may have been shifted to the left during thepaint stage.
The painting is signed with a single letter in dark paint along the lower left corner.
The painting was cleaned and restored in Paris in 2003, at which time the monogram wasdiscovered.[3] It has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition in 2006 andremains in a good state of preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The characterization of the wood is based on Peter Klein’s 2008 dendrochronology report.
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2. According to email correspondence with Dominique Surh, Leiden Collection curator, “Theman in the ruff is unlike any portrait type Lievens had/or was doing at the time, suggestingthat the panel was previously used by an artist other than Lievens himself.”
3. According to Dominique Surh, Leiden Collection curator.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection