Ludolf de Jongh* (1616-1679)

'The Reprimand': The Interior of a Guardroom with Peasants smoking and drinking and a Woman scolding a Child

Details

Ludolf de Jongh* (1616-1679)
'The Reprimand': The Interior of a Guardroom with Peasants smoking and drinking and a Woman scolding a Child
signed 'LD yong'
oil on panel
19¾ x 17¼in. (50.2 x 43.8cm.)

Provenance

Anon. Sale, Charpentier, Paris, March 24, 1952, lot 50 (320,000 francs).

Literature

P. Schatborn, Figuurstudies van Ludolf de Jongh, Oud Holland, 89, 1975, no. 2, p. 83, illustrated p. 82.
R.E. Fleischer, Ludolf de Jongh and the early works of Pieter de Hooch, Oud Holland, 92, 1978, p. 60, no. 1, illustrated p. 64, fig. 19.
R.E. Fleischer, Ludolf de Jongh, 1989, pp. 65-6, fig. 74.
R.E. Fleischer and S. Reiss, Attributions to Ludolf de Jongh: some old, some new*, The Burlington Magazine, CXXXV, no. 1087, Oct. 1993, illustrated p. 669 as whereabouts unknown.

Exhibited

Deventer, Stadhuis, 1948, no. 23.

Lot Essay

Few of de Jongh's paintings are dated making it difficult to construct a strict chronology of his work. However, the subject matter and the overall dark brown palette of the present painting, punctuated with bright color, is characteristic of his early works from the 1640s to the mid-1650s. These paintings, which tended to comprise fewer and larger figures, were painted under the prevailing influence of Pieter de Hooch. The confusion between the two artists in old catalogues and articles has led to the misattribution of some of de Jongh's works dating from this period. For instance, a preparatory black chalk drawing for the seated drinker in the present work, formerly given to Pieter de Hooch, is in the Print Cabinet, Copenhagen, Inv. no. Tu 82 b 20 (327 x 180mm.). Schatborn notes that this figure may in turn have been inspired by the seated drinker in An Inn Parlour by Michael Sweerts in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Inv. no. 854 (see Schatborn, op. cit., p. 81, fig. 5).

In suggesting a date of circa 1650 for the present work, Fleischer (op. cit., 1989, p. 68) notes that the taste for paintings depicting off-duty soldiers, and genre scenes with lower middle class people in barns or inns, waned after the 1648 signing of the Treaty of Munster which ended the Thirty Years War. Further, in comparing the present painting with The Message, a signed and dated work of 1657 in the Mittelrheinisches Landesmuseum, Mainz, he concludes that The Reprimand is of an earlier date but notes the same interest in characterization and emphasis of three-dimentional form.

The reverse of the panel is incised with an unknown panel maker's mark.