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Lot Essay
Details about the life of Johannes Vermeulen remain obscure. His master’s name is unknown, although he appears in Haarlem documents from 1638 onwards. In 1651 a ‘Johannes van der Meulen’ is first recorded as a member of the city’s Guild of Saint Luke. He features again in the guild’s archives in 1655, when he was fined for failure to pay his membership dues (see A. van der Willigen and F.G. Meijer, A Dictionary of Dutch and Flemish Still-Life Painters Working in Oils: 1525-1725, Leiden, 2003, p. 206). Paintings by Vermeulen, who specialized in vanitas still lifes, are first recorded in Haarlem inventories in the early years of the 1650s, including one drawn up in 1653 for the wealthy textile merchant Dirck Smuijser and his socially connected wife, Catharina Warmont (see P. Biesboer, Collections of Paintings in Haarlem, 1572-1745, Los Angeles, 2001, p. 137, no. 71).
Owing in part to the rarity of Vermeulen’s paintings, his works were often misattributed to other artists. The present painting was no exception: prior to its sale in 1928, the distinguished German art historian Wilhelm von Bode attributed to Pieter Potter, father of the famed animal painter Paulus Potter. A subsequent cleaning revealed Vermeulen’s initials and the painting’s true authorship.
Precariously positioned atop a table draped in a rich blue damask tablecloth, this haphazard arrangement of books, ledges and musical scores sporadically pierced by wind and string instruments with a globe in the background is an exceptional example of Vermeulen’s work. The artist’s characteristic use of thick, unmodulated strokes of paint applied wet-in-wet lends weight and solidity to the depicted objects, each bearing its own symbolic association. The recorders, trumpet and violin all allude to the fleeting, temporal nature of music – and, by extension, life itself – while the dog-eared texts and papers imply the limitations of earthly knowledge, a point that is made explicit by the inclusion of the terrestrial globe.
The knowledgeable contemporary viewer would no doubt have taken specific note of one further detail: the drawing of a young woman in a wide-brimmed hat unfurling into his or her space. A network of fine hatching and stumping in red chalk models the woman’s supple features, while summary marks in black chalk delineate her hair and clothing. In Holland, such a technique of drawing in coloured chalks came to be associated with Hendrick Goltzius, who was inspired by the contemporary works of Italian artists like Federico Zuccaro while visiting Italy in 1590-91, and Haarlem artists in his circle. Through his inclusion of this drawing by Haarlem’s greatest artist, Vermeulen connected his own production to the city’s vaunted artistic heritage.
Such compositions must have been particularly popular with Haarlem collectors in the years immediately after the middle of the seventeenth century, for they likewise became the stock-in-trade of painters like Vincent Laurensz. van der Vinne and, a decade or so later, Edwaert Collier. For example, van der Vinne’s Vanitas still life with a portrait of Leendert van der Cooghen, now in the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem (fig. 1), combines a number of familiar elements, including a black chalk self-portrait by the Haarlem draftsman Leendert van der Cooghen (Kupferstichkabinett der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, inv. no. 4378). On account of its similarities with these works and a stylistically and thematically comparable work by Vermeulen in the Mauritshuis, The Hague (fig. 2), the present painting probably dates to the years immediately before 1660.
Owing in part to the rarity of Vermeulen’s paintings, his works were often misattributed to other artists. The present painting was no exception: prior to its sale in 1928, the distinguished German art historian Wilhelm von Bode attributed to Pieter Potter, father of the famed animal painter Paulus Potter. A subsequent cleaning revealed Vermeulen’s initials and the painting’s true authorship.
Precariously positioned atop a table draped in a rich blue damask tablecloth, this haphazard arrangement of books, ledges and musical scores sporadically pierced by wind and string instruments with a globe in the background is an exceptional example of Vermeulen’s work. The artist’s characteristic use of thick, unmodulated strokes of paint applied wet-in-wet lends weight and solidity to the depicted objects, each bearing its own symbolic association. The recorders, trumpet and violin all allude to the fleeting, temporal nature of music – and, by extension, life itself – while the dog-eared texts and papers imply the limitations of earthly knowledge, a point that is made explicit by the inclusion of the terrestrial globe.
The knowledgeable contemporary viewer would no doubt have taken specific note of one further detail: the drawing of a young woman in a wide-brimmed hat unfurling into his or her space. A network of fine hatching and stumping in red chalk models the woman’s supple features, while summary marks in black chalk delineate her hair and clothing. In Holland, such a technique of drawing in coloured chalks came to be associated with Hendrick Goltzius, who was inspired by the contemporary works of Italian artists like Federico Zuccaro while visiting Italy in 1590-91, and Haarlem artists in his circle. Through his inclusion of this drawing by Haarlem’s greatest artist, Vermeulen connected his own production to the city’s vaunted artistic heritage.
Such compositions must have been particularly popular with Haarlem collectors in the years immediately after the middle of the seventeenth century, for they likewise became the stock-in-trade of painters like Vincent Laurensz. van der Vinne and, a decade or so later, Edwaert Collier. For example, van der Vinne’s Vanitas still life with a portrait of Leendert van der Cooghen, now in the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem (fig. 1), combines a number of familiar elements, including a black chalk self-portrait by the Haarlem draftsman Leendert van der Cooghen (Kupferstichkabinett der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, inv. no. 4378). On account of its similarities with these works and a stylistically and thematically comparable work by Vermeulen in the Mauritshuis, The Hague (fig. 2), the present painting probably dates to the years immediately before 1660.