Gerard van Kuijl
Gorinchem 1604 – 1673 Gorinchem
A MUSICAL PARTY
Oil on unlined canvas - 155,7 x 200 cm.
Signed and dated 16[..]
Provenance: From an important collection of an old Rhenish noble family
The Artist
Van Kuijl was born in 1604 in Gorinchem as a member of an old patrician family who had always had members in the city council. However, because the family remained Catholic after the revolt against Spain in the middle of the 16th century, their role in the local government became much less important. Gerard van Kuijl is mentioned for the first time in August 1625 in Utrecht. There together with Alexander van Wevelinchoven (1606-1629), also from Gorinchem, he acted as witness to the last will of Sophia Coopmans, the wife of Gerrit van Honthorst. We may assume therefore that both men were getting their artistic training in Honthorst’s studio. Once their education was finished, both young artists went to Italy, where they are documented in 1629 as living on the Via Margutta in the house of Jean Ducamps, better known as Giovanni del Campo, the Nestor of the Netherlandish artistic community in Rome. After the death of Van Wevelinchoven in October 1629, Van Kuijl remained in Rome for another two years. He became a member of the so-called Bentveughels (“Birds of a Feather’), where he got the nickname Stijgbeugel (“Stirrup”). In 1631 he lived in a house with Pieter van Laer, nicknamed Bamboccio. In 1632, Van Kuijl was back in Gorinchem, where he was inaugurated as a member of the Broederschap der Romeinen binnen Gorinchem (Confraternity of the Romans in Gorinchem) with a festive meal. Most likely, also in 1632, he married Margaretha Dierhout, the granddaughter of a Gorinchem burgomaster. From this marriage came six children, one of whom became a priest. Between 1638 and 1642, the artist and his family lived in Utrecht, but afterwards he is always documented in the town of his birth, where he died in 1673.
Lit. Marten Jan Bok, in: Holländische Malerei in neuem Licht. Hendrick ter Brugghen und seine Zeitgenossen, exhibition catalogue Utrecht (Centraal Museum) – Braunschweig (Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum) 1986-1987, pp. 303-304 (also edition in Dutch).
The Painting
The discovery of this Musical Party with eight figures is the most important addition to the oeuvre of Gerard van Kuijl since his work was recognized and described by Professor Eric Jan Sluijter in 1977.(1) The strong palette, which thanks to a recent cleaning can once more be enjoyed in full, is dominated by an orange red carpet of Persian origin draped over the table in the middle of the composition, around which the large company is gathered.(2) From left to right, we see a seated young man playing a viola-da-gamba, behind him a standing young man with a violin, a seated lady in a yellow dress with a songbook in her left hand and leading the musical tempo with her right, an elderly man with a pince-nez, a boy and a seated female lute player, who turns the page of her musical booklet which lies in front of her on the table. She wears a white satin dress. Over her arm and chair is draped a blue mantle with yellow trim. Behind this most important figure in the composition are painted a young woman and a man with a moustache and a colourful striped sash tied around his head and matching band around his neck who plays the harp.
The recent restoration not only brought out the bright colours, but also the signature and the remains of an unfortunately illegible date, 16(..). Also some pentimenti were found, among others near the hand of the harpist and in the contour of the right side of the viola-da-gamba. The painting was lined at some point in the past, but this old lining was removed. The original canvas is now attached to a special stretcher. As on all four sides the so-called cusping is visible, it is clear that the painting has retained more or less its original dimensions.
The theme of musical companies is one of the favorite subjects in the circle of artists to which Gerard van Kuijl belonged, the Utrecht Caravaggisti. He had received his training with one of the most important members of this group, Gerrit van Honthorst. From Honthorst, but also from other Utrecht artists like Hendrick ter Brugghen, Jan van Bijlert and Jan Gerritsz van Bronchorst, we know several representations of this subject.(3) In the oeuvre of Gerard van Kuijl, as well more musical parties are known. The earliest one is dated 1651 and shows a Musical Party with five figures (Rijksmuseum Amsterdam).(4) It is striking that many elements which can be seen on our painting are also represented here: the man playing the viola-da-gamba in a corner of the composition, the table with songbooks on it and a boy behind, the berets on the heads of the men – either decorated with feathers or without – and the plumes in the hair of the most important protagonist, the female lutist. Even the types of figures are closely related. All this however is no reason to suggest a dating for our painting around 1651. Van Kuijl painted another Musical Party, with three figures behind a balustrade which is dated 1662.(5) Here we also can see the closely related male and female figures, so that it is impossible to say whether our painting ought to be dated in the 1650’s or in the 1660’s. Also an undated Concert with five figures is very close in style.(6) Next to the standing violinist in the same attitude as on our painting, the table similarly covered with a Persian carpet and music books, as well as the boy behind it, we notice the same strong colouring: the orange red of the carpet and the colourful yellow and blue dress of the female lutist.
In any case, it is evident that with his concerts Gerard van Kuijl used the idiom and style of the Utrecht Caravaggisti well into the 1660’s. Because Van Kuijl kept working in the manner in which he was trained around 1625, with these paintings he can be called the last representative of this group of artists. It is true however that Van Kuijl’s musical parties have more distinguished protagonists than the more rough and frivolous types which can be seen in the companies of Honthorst. But Van Kuijl's figures also have feathers and plumes as decoration on their heads and they wear a curious mixture of modern and fantasy costume. A striking feature on our painting is the elderly man with his nippers. This man is closely related to similar old men on paintings by Honthorst and Van Bijlert which date from 1618-1630.(7) Ultimately, of course, this motif of the old man and his pince-nez goes back to Caravaggio himself, who introduced this figure on his famous Calling of Saint Matthew in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome.
Already in the biography of Gerard van Kuijl is mentioned that together with Alexander van Wevelinchoven, he was a pupil of Gerrit van Honthorst and that they both afterwards travelled to Rome, where Van Wevelinchoven died in October 1629 and was buried in the Santa Maria del Anima. This however was not the only tie between Van Kuijl and this old patrician family of Gorinchem, Van Wevelinchoven, who had also remained Catholic. A younger brother of Alexander was Tielman van Wevelinchoven (1609-1647), who married in 1632, Maria Dierhout, a sister of the wife of Gerard van Kuijl.(8) Relations between the artist and the Van Wevelinchoven family were apparently excellent, thanks to this and other family ties, as several sons of an older brother of Alexander and Tielman, Jan van Wevelinchoven (1592-1656) had themselves portrayed by Van Kuijl. The Portrait of Mr. Cornelis van Wevelinchoven (1633-1679/83), with long dark hair, a thin moustache and a turbanlike cloth wrapped around his head is known from an old photograph, while the portraits of his brothers
Antony (1619-1670) and Jan (1623-1705) are documented in the inventory of the deceased Maria Anna van Wevelinchoven in 1738.(9)
Van Kuijl painted another group portrait of the Van Wevelinchoven family on a large canvas which, before the Second World War, was hanging in Schloss Wohfskuhlen on the other side of the border in Westfalen (Germany).(10) This rittergut was bought at the end of the 18th century by members of the by then ennobled Freiherrn Von Wevelinchoven. Although the current location of this work is unknown, we know a description of this castle from the end of the 19th century with its history and owners, but unfortunately nothing is mentioned of the contents of the schloss, which is situated on the left bank of the river Rhine in the old county of Moers south of the city of Rheinberg.(11) In 1945 the house got damaged, loosing an important part of the family archive and library. Today Schloss Wolfskuhlen is a ruin.(12) It seems likely that the Musical Party passed down by inheritance for more then 350 years within the family Van Wevelinchoven, later Freiherrn von Wevelinchoven, as there is no trace of the painting’s history. All attempts to prove this provenance however have failed. Therefore an interesting way for further research into the provenance of this important painting would be to see if the “old Rhenish noble family” as the former owner of this work could be linked to the Van Wevelinchoven family and their castle Wolfskuhlen.
Guido M.C. Jansen
Former Curator of Dutch 17th Century Paintings,
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
Notes:
1. E.J. Sluijter, “Niet Gysbert van der Kuyl uit Gouda, maar Gerard van Kuijl uit Gorinchem (1604-1673)’, Oud Holland 91 (1977), pp. 166-194.
2. For eastern carpets on Dutch paintings, see: O. Ydema, Carpets and their datings in Netherlandisch paintings 1540-1700, Zutphen 1991; for Persian carpets, see especially pp. 59-76 and 154-172.
3. For musical companies by Honthorst, see for example: J.R. Judson, R.E.O. Ekkart, Gerrit van Honthorst 1592-1656, Soest 1999, cat.nos. 273, 274, 281, 282, 285 and 286. For a concert by Ter Brugghen: exhibition catalogue Holländische Malerei in neuem Licht. Hendrick ter Brugghen und seine Zeitgenossen, Utrecht (Centraal Museum) – Braunschweig (Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum) 1986-1987, cat.no. 23. For musical companies by Van Bijlert, see: P. Huys Janssen, Jan van Bijlert 1597/98-1671. Catalogue Raisonné, Amsterdam 1998, cat.nos. 139, 142 and 145. For a concert by Jan van Bronchorst, see: exhibition catalogue Holländische Malerei in neuem Licht. Hendrick ter Brugghen und seine Zeitgenossen, Utrecht (Centraal Museum) – Braunschweig (Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum) 1986-1987, cat.no. 50.
4. Sluijter 1977, p. 181, cat.no. A 8 with ill.
5. Sluijter 1977, p. 183, cat.no. A 10 with ill.
6. Sluijter 1977, p. 179, cat.no. A 7 with ill.; this undated canvas was last seen at a Christies sale in London, April 23, 1993, lot 16 (with ill. in colour).
7. For an example by Van Honthorst, see: Judson and Ekkart 1999, pp. 75-76, cat.no. 54 The Denial of St. Peter, datable to ca. 1618-1620. For an example by Van Bijlert, see: Huys Janssen 1998, pp. 101-102, cat.no. 20 The Calling of Saint Matthew, dated to 1625-1630.
8. For a genealogy of the Van Wevelinchoven family, who were incorporated into the Dutch nobility in 1822, see: O. Schutte, ‘Van Wevelinchoven en De Liefde’, De Nederlandsche Leeuw 99 (1982), col. 112-147.
9. For an illustration of this portrait see: Schutte 1982, col. 126 (canvas, 70 x 60 cm). A photograph is at the RKD, The Hague. It was Marten Jan Bok who first identified Gerard van Kuijl as the artist. Cornelis van Wevelinchoven had visited Rome (and Jerusalem) and was also a member of the ‘Confraternity of the Romans in Gorinchem’, like Van Kuijl. The 1738 inventory was found under the papers of Notary Mekeren in Gorinchem by Abraham Bredius, see his largely unpublished notes kept at the RKD in The Hague.
10. The photograph of this family portrait is at the RKD, The Hague. The Van Wevelinchoven coat of arms was first identified by Willem van de Watering in 1975 and he also attributed the painting to Gerard van Kuijl. This work, together with another portrait of an unidentified member of the Van Wevelinchoven family from Schloss Wolfskuhlen, then owned by the Freiherrn von Büllingen, was lent in June 1935 to an exhibition, Gemälde alter und neuer Meister, at Galerie Stern in Düsseldorf (cat. no. 71).
11. Paul Clemen, Die Kunstdenkmäler des Kreises Moers, Düsseldorf 1892, p. 62 (Series: Die Kunstdenkmäler der Rheinprovinz, Vol. I:3).
12. Richard Verhuven, ‘Das Rittergut Wolfskuhlen und sein Besitzer’, original published in Heimatkalender Kreis Moers 1954, but now also on the internet: www.schlosswolfskuhlen.de. After a fire in 1993 only the outer walls are still standing, see: www.burgeninventar.de.