An interior with three men smoking and playing backgammon, a woman descending a staircase beyond

The details of Ludolf de Jongh’s early life and training were recorded by the renowned biographer of Dutch painters, Arnold Houbraken (1660-1719). De Jongh began his artistic training in Rotterdam under Cornelis Saftleven, later continuing in Delft with Anthonie Palamedesz. and in Utrecht with the Caravaggesque painter Jan van Bijlert. He then spent several years traveling in France, although no paintings from this period are known, before settling in Rotterdam, where he became one of the city’s most successful painters.

Once thought to be by Pieter de Hooch, this unpublished painting bears a signature that was manipulated to read his name; closer inspection, however, reveals changes to the letters ‘n’ and ‘h’, indicating that De Jongh’s signature had been altered. Paintings by De Jongh have frequently been targets of such subterfuge, in part due to the artist’s own chameleon-like ability to work across a wide range of styles and subjects. Another interior scene, depicting a group of soldiers in a barn, bore a similarly falsified signature bearing De Hooch's name, until cleaning revealed De Jongh’s autograph (see Christie’s, New York, 30 January 2013, lot 5).

We are grateful to Fred G. Meijer for proposing the attribution and identifying the alterations to the signature (private communication, March 2026).