The Seduction

This exquisitely detailed interior scene by Caspar Netscher can be accurately dated to 1664, thanks to the survival of an unusually informative ricordo drawing, preserved today in the Graphischen Sammlung der Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart (fig. 1). The practice of documenting painted compositions after the fact was common in seventeenth-century Europe, but not so in the Netherlands where Netscher seems to have been alone in utilizing the method (Wieseman, 2004, loc. cit., pp. 252-253). At times, Netscher’s drawings were annotated, either by the artist himself or, later in his career, by an assistant. These working notes documented compositional decisions and color choices and also noted prices and dates of execution. The ricordi provide not only valuable information regarding Netscher’s studio practices, but also concrete evidence of the prices paid for his work during the artist’s lifetime.

The Stuttgart drawing is inscribed on the reverse, ‘geschideldert Anno 1664 voor 66 guldens’ (‘painted Anno 1664 for 66 guilders’) and again on the front, ‘geschideldert Anno 1664 / 66’, providing an accurate date and contemporary price for the present painting. According to other annotated drawings, prices for Netscher’s paintings ranged from 50 guilders paid for the Woman with a letter and a medallion of 1667 (now Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Kassel, inv. no. GK 291), to 140 guilders paid for the Self Portrait with wife and children of 1664 (Museo degli Uffizi, Florence, inv. no. 1272; ibid.). As Marjorie E. Wieseman asserts, these were respectable prices for an artist at the start of his career (ibid.)

The subject of this painting, known today as The Seduction, granted the artist an opportunity to depict an array of luxurious items, from the spotless white silk gown and sumptuous piled velvet to the opulent draped carpet. The scene is that of a brothel with the woman standing at left acts as procuress. Dressed in a luxurious velvet jacket with pristine white fur trim, she tilts her head in the direction of the gentleman, her eyes narrowed, pointing a determined finger into her palm, demanding payment. The young seated woman intently awaits her cue, poised for the signal to be given, with a full wineglass and pitcher at the ready. The smiling gentleman, already glassy eyed from drinking, proffers a coin to begin the festivities. Multiple signals as to the amorous nature of the scene pepper the composition, the most conspicuous being the flowing alcohol and prominently placed bed. The table is draped with a richly woven carpet, on top of which sit further signs of merriment: an open songbook, its pages creased from use, and a lute sitting face down to better display its voluptuous and suggestive curve.

Despite these evident erotic hints, the meaning of the painting was lost on eighteenth-century audiences. In December 1754, the painting was documented in the storeroom of the ‘gentleman dealer’, Willem Lormier (loc. cit.). In Lormier’s inventory, the composition was detailed in literal terms:

‘Een sittende Juffe met een witte Satyne Rok, en een Stande, met een rood flueele bond gevoert Jakje, en een man staande, die een stuk goud laat sien, br. i v. en een half d., h. i v 2 en een half d. P.’

(‘A sitting Woman with a white Satin Skirt, and one Standing, with a lined red velvet Jacket, and a man standing, showing a piece of gold, br[eadth]. 1 v[oet] and a half d[uim], h[eight]. 1 v[oet] 2 and a half d[uits]. P[anel].’; loc. cit.).

Publishing the painting just a few years later, in 1760, Jean Baptiste Descamps described the painting again in vague terms, as a gentleman showing a gold medallion to two ladies (loc. cit.). In 1883, however, the intention of the subject was misread entirely by John Smith, who naively – or perhaps prudishly – mistook the role of the procuress for that of a fortune teller (loc. cit., pp. 158-159). He assumed the seated young woman intently awaited to learn her destiny, while the young man offered the coin as a bribe, hoping to sway the prediction for his companion. Smith also published Descamps’ description of the work, ‘A Gentleman showing a gold medal to two Ladies’ but assumed it to be a separate picture (ibid., p. 164). Curiously, despite transcribing Descamps’ detailed account of the women’s clothing, Smith failed to connect the two as being one and the same painting. The misreading of the subject was perpetuated further by Cornelis Hofstede de Groot in 1913, who repeated Smith’s description of a fortune teller and young man attempting to bribe her (loc. cit., p. 176). Hofstede de Groot similarly published Deschamps’ description as a separate painting, neglecting to connect the painting in Lormier’s storeroom catalogue with the present panel. He did, however, correctly interpret the intention of the subject described in the Lormier catalogue, identifying it as The Seduction (ibid., p. 184). It was eventually Wieseman in 2002 who correctly identified the two paintings as being one and the same, and recognized the Stuttgart drawing as being a ricordo after the finished composition (loc. cit.). Despite this, though perhaps due to its summarily sketched nature, the drawing remains catalogued in the museum’s collection under the title, Three women in conversation in a living room.

This painting’s distinguished provenance extends back to the collection of the seventeenth-century Flemish painter and dealer, Jacques de Roore (1686-1747). By 1752 the panel had been acquired from de Roore by Willem Lormier for 308 guilders, as mentioned in the 1754 storeroom inventory. The painting was offered in Lormier’s deceased sale of 1763 (loc. cit.) and in the intervening nine years had significantly increased in value. It was bought for 1,600 guilders by one Mr. Voet on behalf of Augustus III (1696-1763), Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, and later formed part of the collection of the 3rd Baron Rothschild (loc. cit.).