Smits, Caspar — portrait of a boy (possibly John Arundell 3rd Baron Arundell of Trerice) — circa 1680s

Ludowyk, or Caspar Smits, or Smith or Gaspar Smitz (1635 in

Zwartewaal Zwartewaal is a village in the Dutch province of South Holland, The Netherlands. It is a part of the municipality of Voorne aan Zee and lies about 5 km south of Maassluis. History The village was first mentioned in the middle of the 13t ...

– 1707 in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

), was a

Dutch Golden Age The Dutch Golden Age ( nl, Gouden Eeuw ) was a period in the history of the Netherlands, roughly spanning the era from 1588 (the birth of the Dutch Republic) to 1672 (the Rampjaar, "Disaster Year"), in which Dutch trade, science, and Dutch art, ...

painter.

Biography

According to Houbraken he was called Ludowyk Smits, nicknamed Hartkamp, and was the teacher of the painters Simon Germyn and Garret Morphy. Smits came to live in Dordrecht for a few years with the organist Joan Kools, whose wife traded in paintings, when he was 40 in 1675.Ludowyk Smits Biography
in ''De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen'' (1718) by

Arnold Houbraken Arnold Houbraken (28 March 1660 – 14 October 1719) was a Dutch painter and writer from Dordrecht, now remembered mainly as a biographer of Dutch Golden Age painters. Life Houbraken was sent first to learn ''threadtwisting'' (Twyndraat) fr ...

, courtesy of the

Digital library for Dutch literature The Digital Library for Dutch Literature (Dutch: Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren or DBNL) is a website (showing the abbreviation as dbnl) about Dutch language and Dutch literature. It contains thousands of literary texts, second ...

He started by making "penitent Maria Magdalenes", but made his living primarily by painting fruit and flower still lifes in the manner of

Jan Davidsz de Heem Jan Davidsz. de Heem or in-full ''Jan Davidszoon de Heem'', also called ''Johannes de Heem'' or ''Johannes van Antwerpen'' or ''Jan Davidsz de Hem'' (c. 17 April 1606 in Utrecht – before 26 April 1684 in Antwerp), was a still life painter ...

and

Willem van Aelst Willem van Aelst (16 May 1627 – buried 22 May 1683)Aelst, Willem van

. He used cheap paint that faded quickly, and when his customers complained he said that the paint lasted longer than the money that was paid for them. According to the RKD he was known under the names Lodewyk, Gaspar, and Magdalen Smits, as well as the alias Theodorus Hartkamp.Caspar Smits
in the

RKD 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 ...

Abraham Bredius Dr. Abraham Bredius (18 April 1855 in Amsterdam – 13 March 1946 in Monaco) was a Dutch art collector, art historian, and museum curator. Life Bredius travelled widely, visiting various art collections in his youth, and worked at the Dutch Mus ...

found Dordrechtse documents in the archives there to prove that Houbraken's Ludowyk Smits and

Horace Walpole Horatio Walpole (), 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whigs (British political party), Whig politician. He had Strawb ...

's Gaspar Smits were the same person Oud Holland 1915, p. 118 He was a member of the

Guild of St. Luke The Guild of Saint Luke was the most common name for a city guild for painters and other artists in early modern Europe, especially in the Low Countries. They were named in honor of the Four Evangelists, Evangelist Saint Luke, Luke, the patron sa ...

in Dublin from 1681 to 1688, and according to Walpole he was active in Ireland until his death in 1707.

References

*
A Dictionary of painters, sculptors, architects, and engravers
page 328 (lists Magdalen Smith and Ludowick Smith side by side), by John Gould, Horace Walpole, and

George Vertue George Vertue (1684 – 24 July 1756) was an English engraver and antiquary, whose notebooks on British art of the first half of the 18th century are a valuable source for the period. Life Vertue was born in 1684 in St Martin-in-the-Fields, ...

, London, 1810, on

Google books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...

Theodorus Smits
in the RKD (listed with alias Casparus Smits and states he was a member of the Antwerp guild as a follower of Jan Davidsz. de Heem)
Gaspar Smits/Smith/Smitz
an
Theodorus (Dirk) Smits
on

Artnet Artnet.com is an art market website. It is operated by Artnet Worldwide Corporation, which has headquarters in New York City, in the United States, and is owned by Artnet AG, a German publicly traded company based in Berlin that is listed on t ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smits, Ludowyk 1635 births 1707 deaths Dutch Golden Age painters Dutch male painters People from Brielle Painters from Antwerp Painters from Dublin (city)