RKD STUDIES

When Charles II (1630-1685) ascended the throne in Britain in 1660, ‘several of Holland’s foremost poets’, including Van Hoogstraten, wrote an ode to the new king.¹ It was a good time to try one’s luck in Britain, as the new court could be expected to award commissions to artists. Van Hoogstraten left for Britain in May 1662 and the event was commemorated by the poet Heyman Dullaert (1636-1684), who wished him ‘royal favour’.² Van Hoogstraten did not become a court painter, as he had been in Vienna, but he did have great success with the British nobility.³

Van Hoogstraten’s book Den eerlyken jongeling, of de edele kunst, van zich by groote en kleyne te doen eeren en beminnen (Of the Honest Youth; or the Noble Art of Making Oneself Honoured and Esteemed by One and All, 1657) may be regarded as a handbook for elevating oneself. Chapter twelve is entitled ‘How One Can Make Friends’.⁴ In it, Van Hoogstraten describes how, through one friend, you can obtain ‘the favour of many others’, thus expanding the number of friendships ‘to an infinite number’. In this way, one could not only win prestige oneself, but gain it through others as well. Van Hoogstraten wrote from experience. He had painted the perspectival vista View in a corridor of a private house for the politician, collector and distinguished member of the Royal Society Thomas Povey (1613-1705) [10]. Through him, Van Hoogstraten came into contact with other members of the Royal Society, the newly founded academy of sciences.⁵

In Britain, Van Hoogstraten painted several large perspective works with illusionistic views and won a number of important portrait commissions [11]. Whereas the portraits he painted in Dordrecht, such as those of Jacob Ouzeel and Maaiken Stoop look rather stiff, those influenced by the English portrait style, including the one of Sir Norton Knatchbull, are much more convincing [12][13].

10
Samuel van Hoogstraten
View in a corridor of a private house, dated 1662
Dyrham, Dyrham Park, inv./cat.nr. NT 453733

11
Samuel van Hoogstraten
Perspective portrait of a young man reading in the courtyard of an imaginary building, 1662-1667
Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum, inv./cat.nr. DM/023/1525