RKD STUDIES

The signed drawings from this early period, from 1646 to 1653, form a cohesive group that provides valuable insight into the artist’s formative development as a draughtsman. They take us from his period of instruction under Rembrandt, to just after his travel through Austria and Italy, by which time he had achieved a fully independent approach. The remaining signed drawings by Van Hoogstraten are scattered through his later oeuvre, and only one of them is a narrative biblical composition, showing the bold manner of around 1660. As these drawings are all signed in the same manner, with the exception of the last, we must remain open to the possibility that they were selected later from the artist’s drawings for a portfolio or album, for presentation to connoisseurs, or perhaps for sale, individually or as a group. It is significant that several of these drawings formed a group in the collection of Valerius Röver II ( 1686-1739) in Amsterdam in the first half of the eighteenth century. He may well have added the numbers that now appear on them, which add credence to the idea that they were appreciated as works of art, distinctly from unfinished sketches.¹

Sketches for Drawings: Closer to Rembrandt
There are a large number of sheets that relate directly to the core group because they were made as preparatory sketches for them. For instance, there is a sheet now in Berlin which fully lays out the basic arrangement of the figures and the poses of the two main figures in the Balaam of 1646, even showing Balak’s distinctive flat hat. This connection is crucial for our understanding of Van Hoogstraten’s wider graphic repertoire, in particular the way he made quick sketches, which looks quite different from his finished drawings. Most striking are the elastic, ovalene loops and quick curving lines in the background forms. The heavy, thick contour lines in the foreground figures are reassuringly familiar, however, erasing any lingering doubt about Van Hoogstraten’s authorship. But it appears that he cultivated a more strongly Rembrandtesque manner for making loose or rough sketches, and this is likely because he had learned to make such sketches, and practice them, in Rembrandt’s workshop.

Another instance of a drawing made in preparation for a finished drawing is the rudimentary sheet in Frankfurt identified by Sumowski as a quick and rough compositional sketch for Van Hoogstraten’s finished sheet of The Mourning of Abel in Konstanz [46]. Its cursory nature is underscored by its placing on a larger sheet with other studies, separated by a quickly penned framing line. Familiar are the loopy swirls indicating trees in the background, and the heavy contours, strengthened for emphasis, and at the same time to articulate spatial relationships, which was for Van Hoogstraten a critical priority. The blocky forms of figures again reveal the artist’s penchant for geometric abstraction of forms. Subsequently Van Hoogstraten made two figure studies for Adam, now on separate sheets, one in the pose seen in the sketch, and another in the pose seen in the final drawing. And in addition, the emotional expression on Adam’s face is studied separately next to the discarded pose.

46
attributed to Samuel van Hoogstraten
Adam and Eve lament Abel's death (Genesis 4), c. 1646
Frankfurt am Main, Graphische Sammlung im Städelschen Kunstinstitut, inv./cat.nr. 7184

Independent Compositional Sketches
The interrelationships within such a group mutually strengthen the case for Van Hoogstraten’s authorship. Such evidence again comes into play in the attribution of two other very sketchy drawings. One of them, in Berlin, studies the composition for the unusual theme of Lot Welcoming the Angels [47]. Sumowski made the comparison to the sketch for the Abel scene in Konstanz, however the very loose lines do not immediately bring the artist to mind. The careful drawing of a young woman on the verso however does point directly to his drawing style, and even more significantly, to Van Hoogstraten’s painting of a Young woman at an open half-door in Chicago, of 1645: a connection not observed by Sumowski, but supporting his dating to the mid-1640s. Although previously thought to represent the Liberation of St. Peter, on account of the night setting with torchlight, the recto relates directly to another drawing, last in a sale in Amsterdam in 1985, where Lot clearly welcomes the two angels named in the biblical account [48]. Even more sketchy, and showing more elongated proportions than typical, the attribution to him is bolstered by the striking sketch on the recto, of some kind of non-ecclesiastical religious gathering of men and women, also quick and loose, but with the thick and angular contours seen in other drawings from his hand.

47
attributed to Samuel van Hoogstraten
Peter freed from prison by an angel (Acts 12), c. 1645
Berlin (city, Germany), Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, inv./cat.nr. 13725

48
attributed to Samuel van Hoogstraten
Lot welcomes the angels (Genesis 19:1-3), c. 1645
Whereabouts unknown

Intense Study of a Single Theme, Multiple Sketches
In Van Hoogstraten’s drawn oeuvre, there are several instances of extended campaigns of study and development of a given composition. We have already referred to the finished and signed drawing he made in conjunction with his 1647 painting of the Adoration of the shepherds. Its evolution started with a quick and spare sketch of the main group of figures around the infant Jesus, closely based on Rembrandt’s painting of the theme, now in Munich, where Mary likewise sits to the right and reaches toward the cradle to reveal her child to the kneeling shepherds to the left [49][50]. An in-between phase is represented in a loose drawing that is worked out further, and places Mary to the left and the shepherds to the right, with Joseph standing to the left and leaning over a half-door opened into the space, surveying the scene [51]. He worked out this conception further in an elaborate drawing in the Metropolitan Museum, with the same orientation of the figures, and Joseph now leaning over a railing [52]. It shows the Van Hoogstraten making corrections, and his typical heavy, solid contours, waylaying the former attribution to Nicolaes Maes (1634-1693). Strikingly, Jesus appears as a standing toddler here, held up by his mother. Remarkably, many elements of this phase are echoed in another finished painting in London, formerly given to Rembrandt, but where numerous traits suggest the involvement of the young Carel Fabritius (1622-1654), or his brother Barent Fabritius (1624-1673): it remains a puzzle as to which direction the influence went, but it must have taken place in Rembrandt’s pupils’ atelier [53]. Only in the final finished and signed drawing, in Hamburg, does Van Hoogstraten develop the motif of Mary lifting up the cloth over the cradle to reveal her son, as also seen in the final painting, where he also returns to the placement of Mary to the right and the shepherds to the left. Curiously, he departs from tradition by including adoring shepherdesses among the shepherds.

This cluster of drawings reveals a process of working steadily toward a finished product of drawing or painting, but also testifies to great caution, perhaps even hesitation in taking the final leap. This applies even more to another group of drawings of a biblical theme, of Christ blessing the children. Sumowski gathered together no less than five sheets by Van Hoogstraten that show him developing the theme, this time with no work by Rembrandt to guide him initially, but instead recasting elements from works such as The Hundred Guilder Print.² This represented a step towards independence after leaving the studio, likely a bit later in 1640s. Even so, it is an indication of his caution that he did not, as far as we know, proceed with a painting. Strikingly, this step was taken by someone else: his pupil Nicolaes Maes. His very large canvas in the National Gallery reflects the large figure style and grazing light effects Maes studied from the emerging late style of Rembrandt, and was almost certainly painted around 1653, after leaving his studio and returning to Dordrecht. Maes evidently had access to the drawings that Van Hoogstraten left behind in the Dordrecht studio, when he departed on his trip to Italy, Germany and Austria.³ He paid direct homage to Van Hoogstraten as the progenitor of his composition, by including a portrait of him among the spectators, even while the manner adopts the monumental forms and raking light of the late Rembrandt, who is possibly also represented in one of the other bystanders, sporting a bulbous nose, to the right of the raised child.

49
attributed to Samuel van Hoogstraten
Adoration of the shepherds (Luke 2:16), c. 1646
Whereabouts unknown

50
Rembrandt
The adoration of the shepherds, dated 1646
Munich, Alte Pinakothek, inv./cat.nr. 393

51
attributed to Samuel van Hoogstraten
The adoration of the shepherds (Luke 2:16), c. 1648
Private collection

52
attributed to Samuel van Hoogstraten
Adoration of the shepherds (Luke 2:16), c. 1646
New York City, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv./cat.nr. 41.21.2