RKD STUDIES

Van Hoogstraten moved to Amsterdam in 1642 or 1643 and worked with Rembrandt for about four years.¹ His career as a printmaker differed in substantial ways from that of his second teacher. Rembrandt approached printmaking with fearless intensity, producing hundreds of copperplates over a forty-year career. His prints circulated internationally to great acclaim, and he cultivated a market for idiosyncratic impressions among devoted collectors. Van Hoogstraten's graphic output is modest by comparison, but, as Peter van der Coelen has noted, Rembrandt was more the exception than the rule: only a few artists were able to sustain such a successful dual career.² Most of these (Martin Schongauer (1430-1491), Lucas van Leyden (1494-1533), Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528)) had been active in an earlier era, when printmaking was just becoming a trade in itself. As we shall see, Van Hoogstraten was conscious of how much this situation had changed by the time he took up the needle and the brush.

Rembrandt trained dozens of younger artists to be painters, but it seems he was less enthusiastic about teaching them the art of etching. Arnold Houbraken (1660-1719) (who studied with Van Hoogstraten and thus had vicarious access to Rembrandt's workshop practice) claimed that Rembrandt was secretive about his printmaking methods and kept them to himself. At the same time, Rembrandt's idiosyncratic methods were not conducive to systematic instruction.³ Among the few pupils who did try their hand at etching, Van Hoogstraten and Ferdinand Bol (1616-1680) were the most prolific, but their trajectories were quite different. Bol, who studied with Rembrandt in the late 1630s, must have learned printmaking from Rembrandt himself. His technique and subject matter consistently emulate his teacher.⁴ In contrast, as we have seen, Samuel had already learned to etch by the time he arrived in Amsterdam. Only a few of his independent prints show direct emulation of Rembrandt.⁵ Also different is his focus on book illustration, an endeavor that occupied Rembrandt (and Bol) only sporadically. Yet, it is likely that Van Hoogstraten observed his teacher at work, and that he was able to study prints by other artists kept in Rembrandt's copious collection.

A few of Van Hoogstraten's etched figure studies adopt subject types and techniques that situate them in Rembrandt's orbit. Several of Hollstein's attributions in this vein are not consistent with Van Hoogstraten's graphic technique as reflected in signed works. These include a copy after one of Rembrandt's etchings depicting the elderly woman sometimes thought to be Rembrandt's mother and a small sketch of a younger woman's head.⁶ Two head studies added by Blanc present a different style altogether, depicting a more classicizing male figure with strong light effects and dramatic poses. The cataloguers of the Rijksprentenkabinet concur with Hollstein's attribution of these prints to the Augsburg printmaker Johann Heinrich Schönfeld (1609-1684).⁷ A crudely articulated Bust of a young man with a feathered beret was attributed to Rembrandt before Hollstein assigned it to Van Hoogstraten, but Ludwig Münz, followed by Christopher White and Karel Boon, convincingly gave it to the Haarlem painter and printmaker Pieter Cornelisz Verbeeck (1610-1652).⁸

Two studies of elderly men listed by Hollstein fit more convincingly into Van Hoogstraten's oeuvre, following from the small tronies discussed above. The first depicts a bearded man in a feathered turban. Monogrammed in reverse, it is known in a single state, printed with plate tone, a somewhat experimental technique also used by Rembrandt [10]. This character type was common in history paintings and tronies by Rembrandt, although by no means exclusive to him. The second tronie is more competent in draftsmanship and convincing in form; it may be considered Van Hoogstraten's most effective emulation of Rembrandt in both content and technique. This small etching depicts an elderly, bearded man wearing historicized costume, another figure type familiar in numerous paintings and prints by Rembrandt, Jan Lievens, and others in their orbit. The loose, varied linework shows awareness of similar small head studies etched by Rembrandt and Lievens in the 1630s [11].⁹ An impression of the first state in the Rijksmuseum takes up another of Rembrandt's preparatory techniques: touching up a proof impression with ink and wash [12]. The spidery inscription 'R.v.R.' at lower right signals a direct source in Rembrandt's oeuvre, perhaps a drawing, yet to be identified. In the second and third states, the costume is revised, turning a heavy woolen garment into rich brocade; the initials 'SvH' are added, along with an inscription to be discussed below [13]. Both of these study heads are extremely rare and were probably never intended for sale. In each, a lively turn of the head imparts vivacity despite the tiny scale.

Two larger figure studies are inscribed 'SvH' in their final states, but pose problems of attribution and content. Only one of these two prints was listed by Hollstein (and only in its final state), but they are clearly related in form and style; the other was listed by Blanc [15][16][19]. Both of these prints have now been identified in three states; the first and last are illustrated here [15][16][18]][19].¹⁰ The development of the plates shows a careful build-up of hatching and cross-hatching with touches of drypoint, in a manner consistent with reproductive prints that aim to capture the tonal qualities of painting. Indeed, both prints are based on painted tronies, known in several variants, that were produced as training exercises and marketable products in Rembrandt's workshop either during Van Hoogstraten's apprenticeship or soon thereafter. [14, 17].¹¹ The initials 'SvH' are inscribed differently on the two plates, but both inscriptions are inconsistent with the more delicate monogram typical of Van Hoogstraten. Furthermore, the proof states bear a different monogram, inscribed at left center (reversed) in one case and upper right in the other [15][18]. These marks have not yet been identified but they are clearly not the monogram of Samuel van Hoogstraten.

Lastly, although these two prints differ in scale and format from the etching of an elderly man in a brocaded robe, the three are linked in their final states by inscriptions identifying each figure as a radical religious leader: Berhard Knipperdolling (d. 1536) for the smaller print, Jan Rothé and Jan van Leyden (1509-1536) for the larger two [13][16][19]. The identifications as Knipperdolling and Van Leyden are clearly fictitious. Not only are the figures based on Rembrandtesque models, they do not conform with a well-established canon of portraits of these notorious anabaptist leaders circulated in engravings by Albrecht Altdorfer (1480-1538), Christoffel van Sichem (I) (1546-1624), and others.¹² Given his background and connections in the Mennonite faith, Van Hoogstraten should have been well-aware of this pictorial tradition. Jan Blanc identified the other inscription with a medieval mystic named Johannes Rothe (c. 1360-1434) [16]. In 1866, Johan Philip van der Kellen had pointed to a figure closer to Van Hoogstraten's milieu: Johannes Rothé (1628-1702), a prophetic preacher who came from an Amsterdam patrician family. For him there is no established visual type, but his youthful age in the 1640s seems incongruous with this world-weary figure.¹³

In summary, it appears that the so-called 'Knipperdolling' follows logically from Van Hoogstraten's earlier head studies and should be ascribed to him, although the inscription in the final state remains curious. The two larger plates, while related to Rembrandt's milieu, are in need of further research.

10
Samuel van Hoogstraten
Bust of a bearded man in a turban with feather, facing right, c. 1648
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv./cat.nr. RP-P-OB-12.790

11
Rembrandt
Old man with a flowing beard, dated 1631
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv./cat.nr. RP-P-1961-1180

12
Samuel van Hoogstraten after Rembrandt
Bust of an old man facing right (Knipperdolling)
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv./cat.nr. RP-P-OB-12.788

13
Samuel van Hoogstraten after Rembrandt
Bust of an old man looking to the right (Knipperdolling
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv./cat.nr. RP-P-OB-12.789

14
follower of Rembrandt
Bust of an old man, c. 1645
Kassel, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister (Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel), inv./cat.nr. GK 247

15
attributed to Samuel van Hoogstraten or Anonymous Northern Netherlands (hist. region) c. 1640-1649 after Rembrandt
Bust of an old man with beard facing right, c. 1640-1649
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv./cat.nr. RP-P-OB-12.811

16
attributed to Samuel van Hoogstraten or Anonymous Northern Netherlands (hist. region) c. 1645 after Rembrandt
Bust of an old man with beard, c. 1645
Baltimore (Maryland), Baltimore Museum of Art, inv./cat.nr. 1946.112.5198

17
school of Rembrandt
Bearded man in a fur hat, ca. 1656
New York City, The Leiden Collection, inv./cat.nr. RR-118

18 attributed to Samuel van Hoogstraten or Anonymous Northern Netherlands (hist. region) after Rembrandt, Head of a man with a fur cap, Vienna, Graphische Sammlung Albertina, inv./cat.nr. HB69.4