2009.207: Study of a Seated Woman

Gerrit Berckheyde specialized in painted city views and landscapes of Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands after studying at the knee of his brother, the architectural painter Job Berckheyde. Before entering Haarlem’s Guild of Saint Luke in 1660, Gerrit traveled with Job along the Rhine in Germany, at which time both gained employment and esteem from Charles Louis, Elector Palatine. After his return to Haarlem, Gerrit participated in an artists’ collegia, an informal group who drew from live models. The circle included his closest stylistic compatriot, Cornelis Bega (25.1998.93), and likely Leendert van der Cooghen (1951.3), as well as Dirck Helmbreeker and others.¹

Peter Schatborn initially attributed five drawings to Berckheyde, based on either their relationships to his paintings or early inscriptions bearing his name. Using stylistic comparisons with the drawings on Schatborn’s list, Mary Ann Scott then tentatively expanded the tally to thirty-three drawings as by Berckheyde or his circle. The group consists of figure studies, mostly of women, in black or red chalk. According to Schatborn, Berckheyde’s figure studies may be differentiated from those of Bega (under whose name they have often traveled) by their looser, sketchier style, their even tonality, and their tidily drawn, sausagelike hands. Scott further notes Berckheyde’s interest in comfortable postures; his scrupulous depiction of faces and hands and gentle handling of chalk; and the frequent presence of a prop, such as a seat or the footwarmer shown here, to balance the composition.²

Bega and Berckheyde are known to have shared models. In this sheet, the “Amsterdam model” makes an appearance, recognizable by her full, youthful face and so called by Scott because of her first appearance in a tavern scene by Bega of circa 1660 (now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). Bega depicted her again twice in 1662, further refining the date for our sheet.³ The Harvard drawing also includes a popular costume featuring a turbaned headdress and horizontally banded bodice, shown here on the model, who is seated facing right. The same model, standing, wears this costume again in a drawing in Amsterdam (Fig. 1).⁴ In both cases, Berckheyde drew her from the same viewpoint, slightly below and to the right. As William W. Robinson and Pieter Roelofs have noted, this dress appears in other figure studies by a variety of similar hands.⁵ Closest to our sheet is one by an anonymous artist, portraying the figure in almost the same seated pose as our drawing, but from a vantage point slightly farther right (Fig. 2), implying that Berckheyde and others executed these sheets while seated next to one another during the same session.⁶

Notes

¹ For Berckheyde’s biography and a discussion of his paintings, see Cynthia M. Lawrence, Gerrit Adriaensz. Berckheyde (1638–1698): Haarlem Cityscape Painter (Doornspijk, 1991). Mary Ann Scott attempted a preliminary catalogue of Berckheyde’s drawings as a subset of her dissertation on Cornelis Bega; see Scott, Cornelis Bega as Painter and Draughtsman. Ph.D. thesis (University of Maryland, College Park, MD 1984), pp. 131–38 and 430–38. For the coterie of draftsmen active in Haarlem around mid-century, see Baukje Coenen in Cornelis Bega: Eleganz und raue Sitten, eds. Peter van den Brink, Bernd Wolfgang Lindemann, et al., (Aachen, Germany: Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum; Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, 2012), p. 51; Scott, pp. 88, 93–96, and 138–44; and Peter Schatborn in Dutch Figure Drawings from the Seventeenth Century. (Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, Rijksprentenkabinet; Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1981), pp. 99–109.

² Schatborn, pp. 108–9, and Scott, pp. 131–38 and 430–38.

³ Bega, Peasants Making Music and Dancing, oil on canvas, 47 × 40.5 cm, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, SK‑A‑24 (see Scott, cat. 133, p. 328 and Van den Brink et al., cat. 41, pp. 178–80, repr.); Bega, Tavern Scene, oil on canvas, 38.4 × 33.6 cm, York Art Gallery, Lycett Green Collection, 782 (see Scott, cat. 85, p. 307, and Van den Brink et al., under cat. 37, p. 171, repr. fig. cat. 37a); Bega, Two Figures and a Mother with a Spirits Bottle, oil on canvas, 44.5 × 40 cm, Duke of Sutherland, Mertoun House, St. Boswells, Scottish Borders, Scotland (see Scott, cat. 62, p. 297, repr. fig. 286, and Van den Brink et al., under cat. 37, p. 171). For the “Amsterdam model,” see Baukje Coenen in Van den Brink et al., p. 51 and cat. 37, pp. 169–71, and Scott, pp. 88–89.

⁴ Berckheyde, Standing Woman (Fig. 1), black chalk, 296 × 154 mm, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, RP-T-1883-A-265 Scott, cat. GB1). Schatborn noted the similarity between these two drawings, which William Robinson and Pieter Roelofs confirmed. See Schatborn, p. 130; William Robinson in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Drawings: A Selection from the Maida and George Abrams Collection (Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, Rijksprentenkabinet; Vienna: Albertina; New York: Pierpont Morgan Library; Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museums, 1991), p. 206; and Pieter Roelofs in Bernard Aikema, Pieter van der Coelen, and Pieter Roelofs, Meesters op papier: Nederlandse tekeningen uit een particuliere collectie (17de–19de eeuw) (Nijmegen, Netherlands: Museum Het Valkhof, 2002), p. 86. Although variations on the Amsterdam standing figure appear in several of Berckheyde’s paintings dating from 1661 or later, our Seated Woman has no clear painted counterparts.

⁵ See Robinson, p. 206 (n. 6), and Roelofs in Aikema, Van der Coelen, and Roelofs, pp. 86–89, who both note Circle of Bega, Standing Woman Holding a Basket, sold at K. E. Henrici, 21–23 June 1917, lot 8 (as Bega); and Circle of Bega, Standing Woman with a Bundle under Her Arm, private collection, Paris, in 1973 (photo at the Netherlands Institute of Art History [RKD]). Roelofs adds Circle of Bega, Seated Woman, black chalk, 280 × 200 mm, Heino, Kasteel ’t Nijenhuis, Stichting Hannema–De Stuers Fundatie (Scott, cat. D111, as questionably Bega; also noted by Schatborn as with Boerner in 1937; Schatborn, p. 130); William Robinson also suggests Seated Woman, Roger and Naomi Gordon, Boston (Franklin Robinson, Old Master Drawings from the Gordon Collection: A loan exhibition at the Danforth Museum, Framingham, Massachusetts, October 15 through December 15, 1977 (Framingham, MA: Danforth Museum, 1977), cat. 11, repr., as Cornelis Bega, and Scott, cat. GB14 as “probably G. Berckheyde”), although the model does not wear the banded bodice. The present author adds Berckheyde, Woman with Spirits Bottle, red chalk, 261 × 153 mm, Paris, Musée du Louvre, 22432 (as Bega) (Scott, cat. GB31); Attributed to Bega, Seated Woman Leaning on Her Arm, red and white chalk, 292 × 213 mm, sold at Christie’s, London, 9 July 2002, lot 26 (not in Scott); and Berckheyde, Seated Young Woman, red chalk, 210 × 171 mm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1998.150 (not in Scott). The banded bodice also appears in one of Bega’s rare oil sketches, Seated Woman with a Footwarmer, oil on paper adhered to panel, 244 × 170 mm, Maida and George Abrams Collection, Boston (Van den Brink et al., cat. 36 and Scott, cat. D16).

⁶ Circle of Bega, Seated Woman (Fig. 2), black chalk, 248 × 160 mm, private collection (Aikema, Van der Coelen, and Roelofs, cat. 23). Schatborn initially recognized the same anonymous hand in a small group of drawings, which Roelofs has acknowledged but to which he could not comfortably connect this sheet on the basis of photographs. The present author finds the photographic evidence sufficiently convincing. The group includes a drawing attributed to Gerrit Berckheyde, A Standing Woman, red chalk, 251 × 122 mm, sold at Sotheby’s, London, 3 July 2013, lot 126; Seated Woman with Footwarmer, Turned Slightly to the Left, Eyes Closed, red chalk, 245 × 165 mm, Kupferstichkabinett Berlin, KdZ 5912 (Scott, cat. D142); Seated Woman with Footwarmer, Turned to Right, red chalk, 216 × 155 mm, Kasteel ’t Nijenhuis, Heino, Stichting Hannema–De Stuers Fundatie (Scott, cat. D172, style of Bega); and Seated Woman with Footwarmer, Right Hand Supporting Her Head, Kasteel ’t Nijenhuis, Heino, Stichting Hannema–De Stuers Fundatie (Scott, cat. D173, style of Bega). See Schatborn, cat. 16, pp. 130–31; Roelofs in Aikema, Van der Coelen, and Roelofs, pp. 86–89.