Back in Dordrecht
We do not know exactly when Van Hoogstraten left Amsterdam and resettled in Dordrecht, but it may have been as early as late 1646 or early 1647. In January 1647, he wrote an elegy to mark the death of Johan van Beverwijck (1594-1647).1 The following year, he wrote a poem to commemorate the miraculous healing of the physician Bernardus Pandelaert (d. 1653), who is also regarded as belonging to the Dordrecht school of poetry.2 Van Hoogstraten founded his own school of painting in Dordrecht.3 He called his younger brother Jan (1629-1654) ‘one of my pupils’.4 Other pupils of his probably included Jacobus Leveck (1634-1675), Nicolaes Maes (1634-1693) and Abraham van Dijck (1635-1680).5 Later, these pupils followed in Van Hoogstraten’s footsteps and continued their education with Rembrandt. A self-portrait by Van Hoogstraten drawn in 1649 hints at his social ambitions, for he portrays himself not as a painter, but as a distinguished man wearing a hat [5]. According to Carel van Nispen, who provided the portrait with a poem in Latin, ‘the great Samuel’ came into consideration for painting the Prince of Orange. Another tried and tested means of elevating oneself was to make a good match in marriage. According to family lore, Van Hoogstraten dated a ‘certain beauty from respected family’.6 It is fitting, therefore, that he began to use a family coat-of-arms at this time. For this he adopted the coat of arms of a sixteenth century ancestor from Antwerp.7
By his own account, Van Hoogstraten painted during the day. He did so in Rembrandt’s style at the time, as demonstrated in his Adoration of the shepherds from 1647 [6]. In the evening, he read and wrote. His Schoone Roseliin (Beautiful Roseliin, 1650) is sometimes regarded as the first Dutch-language novel.8 It contains an ode by Dordrecht jurist Roeland de Carpentier (1620-1670), who called Van Hoogstraten ‘the ingenious and poetic painter’. It may have been De Carpentier who inspired Van Hoogstraten to travel abroad. In 1644, the jurist visited Rome and, in 1648, he wrote that the city was visited by painters for inspiration.9 In May 1651, another Dordrecht poet wrote a poem on Van Hoogstraten’s departure for Italy entitled ‘To the highly learned poet and painter Samuel van Hoogstraten. On the occasion of his departure for Italy’.10
5
Samuel van Hoogstraten
Self-portrait, in or before1648
Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München, inv./cat.nr. 1910:6
6
Samuel van Hoogstraten
The adoration of the shepherds, dated 1647
Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum, inv./cat.nr. DM/980/567
Notes
1 J. van Beverwijck, Schat der ongesontheyt ofte geneeskonste van de sieckten. Het tweede deel, Dordrecht 1650. The twenty-line poem complements Van Hoogstraten’s own bibliography in Roscam Abbing 1993.
2 Roscam Abbing 1993, p. 36. This work was also printed by Jacob Braat in Dordrecht.
3 Maciesza/Runia 2025, pp. 130-131.
4 Van Hoogstraten/Brusati 2021 , p. 73 (Van Hoogstraten 1678, p. 17).
5 Roscam Abbing 1993, pp. 40-41; for Abraham van Dijck, see De Witt 2020, p. 11
6 R. Rutten, M. Roscam Abbing, ‘De biograaf gebiografeerd. De vele levens van David van Hoogstraten (1658-1724)’, Voortgang, jaarboek voor de neerlandistiek 23 (2005), p. 163
7 M. Roscam Abbing, ‘Het familiewapen van de schilder en schrijver Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627-1678)’, in: De Nederlandsche Leeuw 141 (2024), pp. 99-107.
8 S. van Hoogstraten, Schoone Roseliin of, de getrouwe liefde van Panthus, Dordrecht 1650. Weststeijn 2013, chapter 8.
9 R. de Carpentier, Verhaelboecken van den Cardinael Bentivoglio, Rotterdam 1648, [in translation] ‘appropriation: Dutch enthusiasts, particularly of the art of painting, usually travel to Italy and other distant regions in order to look for material there with which to enrich their works.’
10 C. van Overstege, Poëzy, wereldlyke en geestlyke, Dordrecht 1661, pp. 82 and 131 and 135 and 70, respectively.