Salmacis and Hermaphroditus

ca. 1671–76

Samuel van Hoogstraten(Dordrecht 1627 – 1678 Dordrecht)

oil on canvas
95.7 x 75.5 cm
signed in dark paint, lower right corner: “S.v.H.”
SH-101© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Salmacis and Hermaphroditus
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How To Cite
Van Tuinen, Ilona. "Salmacis and Hermaphroditus." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur
K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017.
https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/.
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Salmacis and Hermaphroditus
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In this seemingly idyllic scene, Samuel van Hoogstraten renders a moment
leadingup

tooneofthemostsurprisingstoriesinComparative Figures

Ovid’sMetamorphoses (4.308–88), in which a young man is sexually assaulted
by a female nymph.[1] Salmacis, one of Diana’s vain water nymphs, fell inlove 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 dumbfoundedby the nymph’s unabashed flirtation, took off his clothes and bathed in astream. Unable to control her lust at seeing Hermaphroditus’s perfect,
naked body, Salmacis jumped into the water and forced herself onto thestruggling youth. Before Hermaphroditus could break free, Salmacis asked

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

the gods to unite them forever. Her plea was heard, and the two bodies
were molded into a single androgynous being.
The story of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus was a less common subject
than were other stories from Metamorphoses, such as Apollo and Daphne
or Perseus and Andromeda. Nevertheless, Van Hoogstraten wasundoubtedly 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 figuresof Salmacis and Hermaphroditus are equally visible and often entwined,
Van

Hoogstraten’sdepiction

focusesinsteadon

theFig 2. Samuel van Hoogstraten,
Triumph of Truth and Justice,1670, oil on canvas, 209 x 204
cm, Finspong Castle, Sweden

young

Hermaphroditus during his last moments as a separate being, blissfullyunaware 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 leans on the ground, while his right hand holds up his white
undergarment, revealing his smooth, beautifully formed limbs. His
downcast eyes and slight smile emphasize his youthful vulnerability.
Suspended from the tree branch above 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 agarland of flowers, she peers over the branch, with eyes fixated on theFig 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

youth.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Salmacis and Hermaphroditus
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Van Hoogstraten used several means to focus the viewer’s attention onHermaphroditus. In addition to depicting him in a conspicuous white
garment, Van Hoogstraten framed his head with the leaves of the bushbehind him and placed the red hat directly above him. Lastly, he painted apale yellow area to the left of Hermaphroditus’s robe to set him apart fromthe 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 isevident by the yellow 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 andbiblical scenes, archival sources reveal that Van Hoogstraten, who had anFig 4. Samuel van Hoogstraten,
The Annunciation of the Death ofthe Virgin, ca. 1670, oil oncanvas, 66 x 52.7 cm, The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NewYork, Purchase, Rogers Fund andJoseph Pulitzer Bequest,
1992.133, www.metmuseum.org

excellent command of Latin and often alluded to antiquity in his writings,
didexecute

otherclassicalscenes

aswell.[4]Salmacis

andHermaphroditus was deemed lost until it emerged from obscurity in
2003.[5] It is most likely the “Salmasis en Hermaphroditus door
[Hoogstraten]” painting listed in a 1721 archival document as having
belonged to the prominent Dordrecht physician Johan de Jongh, who diedin 1676.[6] De Jongh lived on the Marktveld, very close to theSteegoversloot where Van Hoogstraten had purchased a house in 1671
after his return from The Hague.[7] De Jongh owned four other works byVan 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 Justicein Sweden (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 toca. 1670 (fig 4).[9] More specifically, the foliage and the facial features ofJustice in the painting in Sweden are similar to the foliage and features ofSalmacis. Furthermore, the execution of the angel’s yellow robe in theChicago Resurrection, with the distinct light-yellow highlights on the edgesof the folds, corresponds closely to Hermaphroditus’s yellow garment.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Salmacis and Hermaphroditus
Page 5 of 9Around 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
and former student Arnold Houbraken observed that in his late history
paintings Van Hoogstraten would sometimes paint in ways he himself
condemned in 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 foregroundvegetation and to execute background elements with much looser
brushwork. He also recommended that painters include a winding roadreceding into the background and adorn clear pools of water with rocks.[12]Adherence to these three instructions can be observed in Salmacis andHermaphroditus.
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,
have an idealized character appropriate for the mythological story being
depicted. This restrained, arcadian setting accords well with the demeanorof the two protagonists, as Hermaphroditus tests the still waters with hisbare foot, unaware that Salmacis hides behind a tree, entranced by hisbeautiful body.
-Ilona van Tuinen© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Salmacis and Hermaphroditus
Page 6 of 9Endnotes
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’sMetamorphoses in the seventeenth century, Hermaphroditus and Salmacis are depictedembracing in a stream, with a deer in the background. See the facsimile edition with apreface by Stephen Orgel (New York and London, 1976), pl. 36. In Jan Gossaert’sSalmacis
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’sSalmacis 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 inthe 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’ssojourns in Vienna, see the artist’s biography in this catalogue. For Goltzius’s engraving, inwhich the nude Hermaphroditus has just noticed the nude Salmacis behind him, see hisSalmacis and Hermaphroditus, 1617, 17.9 x 25.4 cm. The relatively uncommon occurrenceof this scene in the visual arts is also emphasized by its absence from the Christianizedversion of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the so-called Ovide Moralisé. For the 1484 Burgesedition, 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 in vier Bänden, 6 vols. (Landau, 1983), 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
inventory of Elisabeth Pauli, widow of Alexander de Hoogh, 9 October, 1705, and p. 90, no.
8, “In the beste camer, een van Perseus gedaen door Hoochstraten,” taken from theinventory of Maria van Neurenberch, wife of merchant Dirck de Sondt, 11 July 1663. Bothdocuments are kept at the Dordrecht City Archives.
5. See the Provenance section; the painting was auctioned at Sotheby’s, London on 10 July
© 2017 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 theOld 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 hisdaughter 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 sijntoebehooren, 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 theFlight 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 der Rembrandt-Schüler in vier Bänden , 6 vols. (Landau, 1983), 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 of Arts, 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 Haven and London, 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,© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Salmacis and Hermaphroditus
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somtyds dingen in zyn stukken gebragt heeft, die hy in zyn Boek van de gronden derSchilderkonst wraakt.” Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche
konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols. (Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague, 1753;
reprint, 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 mostlandscape painters do not share this ideal: “Duizent ongemeense aerdicheden zien wydagelijks in dit aengename deel der Natuer, maer men behoorde altijts na ‘t schoonste uit tezien, en, indien ‘t aen my lach, ik zouw veel Landschapschilders van haere al te gemeene enslechte 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.
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Salmacis and Hermaphroditus
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Brusati, Celeste. Artifice and Illusion: The Art and Writing of Samuel van Hoogstraten .
Chicago and London, 1995, 376, no. D-34.

Technical Summary
The support, a single piece of medium-weight, plain-weave fabric with an arched upper edge,
has been 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 sideof 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.

Technical Summary Endnotes© 2017 The Leiden Collection