Jacob van Staverden - Orpheus playing the lyre

Jacob van StaverdenName variations: Jacomo van Staverden, Jacob van Staveren, nickname: IJver (

Amersfoort Amersfoort () is a city and municipality in the province of Utrecht, Netherlands, about 20 km from the city of Utrecht and 40 km south east of Amsterdam. As of 1 December 2021, the municipality had a population of 158,531, making it the second- ...

, 1656 –

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, (after) 1716) was a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

who emigrated to Rome where he formed part of the group of

genre painters Genre art is the pictorial representation in any of various media of scenes or events from everyday life, such as markets, domestic settings, interiors, parties, inn scenes, work, and street scenes. Such representations (also called genre works, ...

known as the

Bamboccianti The ''Bamboccianti'' were genre painters active in Rome from about 1625 until the end of the seventeenth century. Most were Dutch and Flemish artists who brought existing traditions of depicting peasant subjects from sixteenth-century Netherland ...

.Biographical details
at the

Netherlands Institute for Art History The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: RKD-Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center i ...

Life

Details about his life are scarce. He trained probably until 1672 in Amersfoort under the

still life A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, m ...

and

cityscape In the visual arts, a cityscape (urban landscape) is an artistic representation, such as a painting, drawing, print or photograph, of the physical aspects of a city or urban area. It is the urban equivalent of a landscape. ''Townscape'' is ...

painter

Matthias Withoos Matthias Withoos (1627–1703), also known as Calzetta Bianca and Calzetti, was a Dutch painter of still lifes and city scenes, best known for the details of insects, reptiles and undergrowth in the foreground of his pictures.Seymour Slive, ...

, who had previously lived and worked in

. He was active in Amersfoort until 1674, the year in which he left for Italy together with

Caspar van Wittel Caspar van Wittel or Gaspar van Wittel (born Jasper Adriaensz van Wittel; 1652 or 1653 – September 13, 1736), known in Italian as Gaspar Vanvitelli () or (), was a Dutch painter and draughtsman who had a long career in Rome. He played a p ...

, another pupil of Withoos. He is documented in Rome on 3 January 1675. Here he became a member of the

Bentvueghels The Bentvueghels (Dutch for "Birds of a Feather") were a society of mostly Dutch and Flemish artists active in Rome from about 1620 to 1720. They are also known as the Schildersbent ("painters' clique"). Activities The members, which included ...

, an association of mainly Dutch and

Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...

artists working in Rome. It was customary for the Bentvueghels to adopt an appealing nickname, the so-called 'bent name'. Jacob van Staverden was given the bent name ''Ijver'' (diligence). He also became close to the ‘

’, a loose group of principally Dutch and Flemish genre painters residing in Rome who took the

everyday life Everyday life, daily life or routine life comprises the ways in which people typically act, think, and feel on a daily basis. Everyday life may be described as mundane, routine, natural, habitual, or normal. Human diurnality means most peop ...

of the lower classes in Rome and its countryside as the preferred subject of their paintings. Jacob van Staverden (Attr

In March 1686 and January 1687 he is documented back in Amersfoort. He left again for Rome where he resided from 1689 until his death. In Rome he is recorded as living with

Caspar Van Wittel Caspar van Wittel or Gaspar van Wittel (born Jasper Adriaensz van Wittel; 1652 or 1653 – September 13, 1736), known in Italian as Gaspar Vanvitelli () or (), was a Dutch painter and draughtsman who had a long career in Rome. He played a p ...

in 1689 and in 1693-94. He entered the service of the Papal Guard in Rome in 1694. According to the early Dutch biographer

Jan van Gool Johan, or Jan van Gool (1685–1763), was a Dutch painter and writer from The Hague, now remembered mainly as a biographer of artists from the Dutch Golden Age. Life Jan van Gool was a pupil of Simon van der Does and Mattheus Terwesten.

the reason for this was that he was not very successful as an artist in Rome. Van Gool also maliciously states that van Staverden was passing himself off as a nobleman in Rome while in fact his father was 'only a common craftsman'.Jacomo Staveren
in: Jan van Gool, ''De nieuwe Schouburg der Nederlantsche Kunstschilders en Schilderessen'', 1750–1751, p.466 Jacob van Staverden’s name appears in various documents dated 1706, 1710 and 1712 and 1716 relating to the sale of assets to raise money. His profession is not mentioned in these records. The last record on the artist is dated 1716. It is not known when or where the artist died, although it is assumed he died in Rome.

Work

Only a small number of paintings of van Staverden are known and then only on the basis of attributions. They are mainly genre paintings in the style of the Bamboccianti.Biographical details
on Hadrian Van Gool mentions that van Staverden painted flower and fruit still lifes, but no known examples by his hand in this genre are known today.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Staverden, Jacob van 1656 births 1710s deaths Dutch genre painters Dutch Golden Age painters Dutch male painters Members of the Bentvueghels People from Amersfoort