''The Art Gallery of Jan Gildemeester Jansz'' is a painting created by the Dutch painter

Adriaan de Lelie Adriaan de Lelie (19 May 1755 – 30 November 1820)Lelie, Adriaan de
in the

in 1794-95. It is part of the collection of the

Rijksmuseum Amsterdam The Rijksmuseum () is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history and is located in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough of Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the Ste ...

, executed in oil paint on panel. It depicts the art collector Jan Gildemeester Jansz (or Jan Jansz. Gildemeester) in the midst of his large

collection Collection or Collections may refer to: * Cash collection, the function of an accounts receivable department * Collection (church), money donated by the congregation during a church service * Collection agency, agency to collect cash * Collectio ...

of paintings, showing them to friends. The painting was acquired by the Rijksmuseum in 1964 after being part of a French private collection.

Art historical context and inspiration

David Teniers the Younger - Archduke Leopold William in his Gallery at Brussels - Google Art Project

Konstkamers

According to the art historian C.J. De Bruyn Knops, the subject of the work - an

art collector A private collection is a privately owned collection of works (usually artworks) or valuable items. In a museum or art gallery context, the term signifies that a certain work is not owned by that institution, but is on loan from an individual ...

at home, showing his art collection to his friends - is unique in Northern-Netherlandish painting before 1800. In Flemish ( Southern-Netherlandish) painting, this genre was common in the 17th Century; it was executed by masters like

Willem van Haecht Willem van Haecht (1593 – 12 July 1637) was a Flemish painter best known for his pictures of art galleries and collections. Life Willem van Haecht was born in Antwerp as the son of the landscape painter Tobias Verhaecht. Tobias Verhaecht wa ...

, David Teniers, Gillis van Tilborgh and Gonzales Cocques, but in the Northern Netherlands the subject didn't become popular. Probably Adriaan de Lelie had seen such works while studying in

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

. However, the Flemish 'konstkamers' ('art rooms') looked very different: they used to depict imaginary architecture, and probably not reality as seen by the painter. The Art Gallery of Jan Gildemeester Jansz, on the contrary, is a very accurate depiction of a real space. Zoffany Royal Collection

Household scenes

Adriaan de Lelie follows the tradition of intimate

household A household consists of two or more persons who live in the same dwelling. It may be of a single family or another type of person group. The household is the basic unit of analysis in many social, microeconomic and government models, and is im ...

scenes that were painted very commonly in the Northern Netherlands since the 17th Century. Usually, the people in such genre works are clearly striking a pose, while the visitors in The Art Gallery of Jan Gildemeester Jansz look very natural, as if they are unaware of the presence of the painter. Probably, De Lelie was inspired by English contemporaries here: Jan Jansz. Gildemeester possessed a 1773 engraving of a spontaneous group painting by

Johan Zoffany Johan Joseph Zoffany (born Johannes Josephus Zaufallij; 13 March 1733 – 11 November 1810) was a German neoclassical painter who was active mainly in England, Italy and India. His works appear in many prominent British collections, includin ...

, which must have been familiar to De Lelie.

Depicted space, people and artworks

Overzicht zandstenen voorgevel gezien vanaf overzijde - Amsterdam - 20408958 - RCE

The two rooms depicted in this painting still exist: the large room in front and the smaller one with windows in the back are part of the house that was owned by Jan Jansz. Gildemeester since 1792, currently a

Rijksmonument A rijksmonument (, ) is a national heritage site of the Netherlands, listed by the agency Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (RCE) acting for the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. At the end of February 2015, the Netherlands ...

located on Herengracht 475 in Amsterdam. The ceiling painting in the first room (by

Jacob de Wit Jacob de Wit (19 December 1695 – 12 November 1754) was a Dutch artist and interior decorator who painted many religious scenes. Biography Jacob de Wit was born in Amsterdam, and became famous for his door and ceiling paintings. He lived on ...

, 1731) the relief above the door and other decorations have been restored during a 20th-Century renovation. Jan Jansz. Gildemeester stands in the middle of the work. Adriaan de Lelie has probably portrayed himself kneeling on the right. Other people depicted in the work are possibly the Amsterdam-based art trader Pierre Fouquet Jr., Dutch physicist baron Cornelius Rudolphus Theodorus Krayenhoff (wearing a

tricorne The tricorne or tricorn is a style of hat that was popular during the 18th century, falling out of style by 1800, though actually not called a "tricorne" until the mid-19th century. During the 18th century, hats of this general style were refer ...

hat), painter Jurriaan Andriessen, tradesman Anthony Dull and his wife Marianne Dull-Dohrmann (sitting behind the easel on the left), and art collector and writer Bernardus de Bosch Jeronimosz. - according to C.J. De Bruyn Knops, the RKD and the Rijksmuseum's website, but this opinion is questioned by others. As usual in that era, the paintings are arranged in rows, close to each other on the walls. It is highly likely that the visible artworks were chosen by the collector and painter together, specifically for this painting, and that they were considered the highlights from Gildemeesters collection. Many works in the first room can be identified with certainty. The art collection of Jan Jansz. Gildemeester was

auction An auction is usually a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from the lowest bidder. Some exceptions to this definition ex ...

ed after his death in 1800, and the auction catalogue documents the works in quite a bit of detail. Gildemeester's taste as an art collector corresponds with that of his contemporaries: he mainly owned genre pieces, marine paintings,

landscapes A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the p ...

animal Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the Kingdom (biology), biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals Heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, are Motilit ...

and

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

paintings. His earliest purchases probably were

drawing Drawing is a form of visual art in which an artist uses instruments to mark paper or other two-dimensional surface. Drawing instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayons, ...

s and

prints In molecular biology, the PRINTS database is a collection of so-called "fingerprints": it provides both a detailed annotation resource for protein families, and a diagnostic tool for newly determined sequences. A fingerprint is a group of conserve ...

, of which he also built a considerable collection. De_kunstgalerij_van_Jan_Gildemeester_Jansz_Rijksmuseum_SK-A-4100_artworks-numbered

References

External links