Ludolf De Jongh
Overschie 1616 – Hillegersberg 1679

Hunters at Rest with a Horse and Dogs by a Stream

oil on panel

17 ¾ × 21 7/8 inches (45.2 × 55.6 cm.)

PROVENANCE:
Meyer van Embden, Amsterdam until 1970, and thus by descent in the family until the present time

Ludolf de Jongh was one of the most versatile and talented painters of the Dutch Republic's Golden Age. The Rotterdam area of his day and in which he primarily worked, was a lesser artistic center in comparison to those of Amsterdam, Delft, Haarlem, and Utrecht, in which great numbers of talented painters felt the need to specialize in order to compete.  De Jongh, on the other hand, was free to roam the field of painting, producing portraits, genre subjects, and landscapes.  It was, however, his skill in portraiture that brought him his greatest financial rewards in the area of painting, while his ventures into genre and landscape seem to reflect his interest in exploring the wider realms of his art.  He even turned to Classical, Biblical, and literary themes occasionally.  It seems that only still life subjects failed to awaken his interest.  The richer rewards of portraiture, however, are reflected in the fact that he customarily signed and dated those works, while his signatures appear with much less frequency on his genre and landscape paintings.

De Jongh was born in Overschie, a small community near Rotterdam, in 1616. Houbraken tells us he was apprenticed first to Cornelis Saftleven in Rotterdam, then to Anthonie Palamedesz. in Delft, and finally to Jan van Bylert in Utrecht. ¹   We are further told that De Jongh spent seven years in France, starting in 1635, after which he returned to Rotterdam and became, in the years that followed, that city's leading painter and a highly respected citizen. His prominence in Rotterdam led him in 1652 to be named major in the civic guard.  And in 1665 he was appointed to the position of schout, the principal administrative officer, of nearby Hillegersberg. Further activities included a business venture and membership on the governing board of a home for the aged.   His involvement in activities outside the field of art apparently demanded so much of his time that, except for portraiture, his production slowed after about 1660, especially in the field of landscape painting, although his output of genre subjects also decreased.

His painting of Hunters at Rest with a Horse and Dogs by a Stream provides us with his typical treatment of landscape and with his interest in the theme of the hunt. Characteristic of his landscapes are the rolling hills so uncharacteristic of the Netherlands and the warm glow of light streaming across the panel from a source low on the horizon, qualities popularized by the Dutch Italianate landscape painters following their return from a sojourn in Italy.  Into this rather idyllic setting De Jongh has introduced the theme of the hunt, a subject for painters that increased in popularity toward mid-century.  The hunt itself was generally not a major pastime in seventeenth century Holland in spite of its frequent appearance in paintings, for it was essentially limited to the nobility and governmental officials, and even the types and quantity of game and the number and types of dogs used were strictly controlled. ²  Thus the subject of the hunt, as well as the setting in which it appears, are basically fanciful.  And the major patronage for such paintings came from a middle class that was rarely in a position to experience either.

Although a few of the earlier landscapes by De Jongh display the violence of the hunt, after about mid-century he preferred to depict the hunters and their animals at rest. Also typical of De Jongh’s hunt scenes is his careful placement of smaller figures at key positions in the distance, enhancing the sense of depth. Characteristic also is his tactile rendering of forms closest to the picture plane, seen here not only in the dead tree at the left side but even in the light and dark modeling of the upright reed-like forms beneath it that lead our eye to the horseman in the center.

In this painting, as well as in the majority of his landscape paintings, there is a balance between the figures - humans, horses, and dogs - and the landscape itself.  The figures and the landscape are mutually complementary; the figures are not lost in an overwhelming landscape nor is the landscape a mere setting for the figures.  Neither dominates the other. This balance of interest between figures and landscape is traceable to Pieter van Laer of Haarlem, but it came more directly to De Jongh through Dirck Stoop of Utrecht, to whose work this painting bears a close kinship. ³ The strong influence of Stoop and the rather free handling of pigment in some areas of this panel suggest a date of about 1650-52.

Roland E. Fleischer

¹Arnold Houbraken, De Groote Schouburgh der Nederlandsche Konstschilders en Schilderessen, Amsterdam, 1718-21, vol.2, p. 26.

² For a discussion of the hunt themes see Scott A. Sullivan, "Rembrandt's Self-Portrait with a Dead Bittern," The Art Bulletin, vol. 62 (1980), pp. 236-243; and Scott A. Sullivan, The Dutch Game Piece, Montclair, N. J. and Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1984.

³For Van Laer's contributions and his relationship to Stoop see Albert Blankert, "Over Pieter van Laer als dier-en landschapschilder," Oud Holland, vol. 83 (1968), pp. 117-34.

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