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Arnold Houbraken
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Arnold Houbraken was a Dutch
Dutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...

 painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 and writer from Dordrecht
Dordrecht
Dordrecht , colloquially Dordt, historically in English named Dort, is a city and municipality in the western Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland. It is the fourth largest city of the province, having a population of 118,601 in 2009...

, now remembered mainly as a biographer of artists from the Dutch Golden Age
Dutch Golden Age
The Golden Age was a period in Dutch history, roughly spanning the 17th century, in which Dutch trade, science, military and art were among the most acclaimed in the world. The first half is characterised by the Eighty Years' War till 1648...

. He had ten children. His son Jacobus Houbraken
Jacobus Houbraken
Jacobus Houbraken was a Dutch engraver, who was born in Dordrecht.-Biography:Jacobus learned the art of engraving from his father, Arnold Houbraken...

 (1698–1780) was an engraver of portraits and book illustrations, including books by his father. His daughter Antonina Houbraken
Antonina Houbraken
Antonina Houbraken , was an 18th century artist from the Northern Netherlands.-Biography:She was the daughter of Arnold Houbraken, who assisted him and her brother Jacob with his prints for his Schouburg...

 also became an engraver for an Amsterdam publisher, and is known today for her embellishment of cityscapes and buildings with animals and people.

Life

Houbraken was sent first to learn threadtwisting (Twyndraat) from Johannes de Haan, who introduced him to engraving. After two years he then studied art with Willem van Drielenburch, who he was with during the rampjaar
Rampjaar
The rampjaar was the year 1672 in Dutch history. In that year,the Republic of the Seven United Provinces was after the outbreak of the Franco-Dutch War and the Third Anglo-Dutch War attacked by England, France, and the prince-electors Bernhard von Galen, bishop of Münster and Maximilian Henry of...

, the year 1672. He then studied 9 months with Jacobus Leveck and finally, four years with Samuel van Hoogstraten. In 1685 he married Sara Sasbout, and around 1709 he moved from Dordrecht to Amsterdam. Arnold Houbraken painted mythological and religious paintings, portraits and landscapes. His first attempt at an instructive manual for artists was his Emblem book
Emblem book
Emblem books are a category of mainly didactic illustrated book printed in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries, typically containing a number of emblematic images with explanatory text....

, Inhoud van 't Sieraad der Afbeelding, which was meant as a guide of possible painting themes. His registered pupils were Matthijs Balen
Matthijs Balen
Matthijs Balen , was an 18th century painter from the Northern Netherlands.-Biography:According to the RKD he was a registered pupil of Arnold Houbraken, and like him, became a printmaker as well as a painter...

, Johan Graham, and his son Jacob.

Books

  • ‘Inhoud van 't Sieraad der Afbeelding’ In: Des menschen begin, midden en einde (1712)
  • ‘Aen den heere Jakob Zeeus, den Wolf in 't schaepsvel ter drukpersse bestellende’ In: De wolf in 't schaepsvel (1711)
  • De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (The Great Theatre of Dutch Painters) (1718)

Schouburgh

His Schouburgh is a compilation of 500 biographies of seventeenth-century painters. The three-volumes follow the tradition of Het Schilderboeck by Carel van Mander
Carel van Mander
Karel van Mander was a Flemish-born Dutch painter and poet, who is mainly remembered as a biographer of Netherlandish artists in his Schilder-boeck. As an artist he played an important role in Northern Mannerism in the Netherlands....

 (1604) and the books Zichtbare wereld, and Inleyding tot de Hooge Schoole der Schilderkonst, both by his teacher Samuel van Hoogstraten
Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten
Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten was a Dutch painter of the Golden Age.-Biography:Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten was born and died in Dordrecht. He was...

. Other books that he quotes in this book are the similar biographies of painters written by Joachim von Sandrart
Joachim von Sandrart
Joachim von Sandrart was a German Baroque art-historian and painter, active in Amsterdam during the Dutch Golden Age.-Biography:Sandrart was born in Frankfurt, but the family originated from Mons...

 (1678), Cornelis de Bie
Cornelis de Bie
Cornelis de Bie was a Brabant rederijker, poet, jurist and minor politician from Lier.He is the author of about 64 works, mostly comedies...

 (Het Gulden Cabinet
Het Gulden Cabinet
The Golden Cabinet of the Noble Free Art of Painting, or Het Gulden Cabinet vande Edel Vry Schilder-Const, as it was originally known in Dutch, is a series of artist biographies and panegyrics with engraved portraits written by the 17th century notary and rederijker Cornelis de Bie...

, 1662), André Félibien
André Félibien
André Félibien , sieur des Avaux et de Javercy, was a French chronicler of the arts and official court historian to Louis XIV of France.-Biography:...

 (1706), Florent le Compte (1708) and Roger de Piles
Roger de Piles
Roger de Piles was a French painter, engraver, art critic and diplomat.-Life:Born in Clamecy, Roger de Piles started his career in art as a pupil of Claude François....

 (1708).

Other, unpublished sources for his material came from various contacts via his professional network, mostly members of St. Luke Guilds in Holland. He listed many men who became members of the Bentvueghels
Bentvueghels
The Bentvueghels were a society of mostly Dutch and Flemish artists active in Rome from about 1620 to 1720. They are also known as the Schildersbent .-Activities:...

 group in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 while on their Grand Tour
Grand Tour
The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...

, but he also listed most of the men in a competency list drawn up by Vincent van der Vinne
Vincent van der Vinne
Vincent Laurensz van der Vinne was a Dutch Mennonite painter, linen-weaver, and writer.- Biography :He lived and worked in Haarlem and was a student of Frans Hals for nine months in 1647. In 1649 he became a member of the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke. In 1652 he left on a Grand Tour through Germany,...

 before he died in 1702. Houbraken himself died in 1719, and his wife finished and published his book after his death. Thirty years after Houbraken's death it was published for a second time, in expanded form. This book, important for art historians, was republished in a facsimile
Facsimile
A facsimile is a copy or reproduction of an old book, manuscript, map, art print, or other item of historical value that is as true to the original source as possible. It differs from other forms of reproduction by attempting to replicate the source as accurately as possible in terms of scale,...

 of the second edition in Amsterdam in 1976.

Houbraken kept to a system of importance where capitals meant very important, and lower case were honorable mentions. This book is now available on line in the Digital library for Dutch literature
Digital library for Dutch literature
The Digital Library for Dutch Literature is a website about Dutch language and Dutch literature. The website contains thousands of literary texts, secondary literature and additional information, like biographies, portrayals etcetera, and hyperlinks...

. Here is a list of approximately 500 painters that are listed in capital letters. The index of his book lists an additional 150 painters, while the number of people mentioned altogether in his book approaches 1000, including publishers.

Volume I











Volume II










Volume III





Notable omissions

The absence from Houbraken's work of several painters who are now much more highly regarded than very many painters he considered noteworthy, is an interesting feature of the work, and reveals changes in taste since his time; the most notorious omission is Jan Vermeer, who is mentioned once in passing. One must not forget however, that Houbraken himself died before publishing the final work, and he mentions again and again the impossibility of a complete list. In his first volume he includes painters that he complained were oversights by Karel van Mander, who he regarded as his greatest example. He highly respected all artist biographers who came before him, such as Sandrart, de Bie, and de Lairesse. In fact, Houbraken was quite keen to include painters that he thought were overlooked before him, and was quite thorough in his endeavors. Therefore, his omissions are equally the omissions of previous biographers, though it is Houbraken who receives all the blame. Unfortunately we don't know the exact state of his book at the time of his death, but his son Jacob, his daughter Antonina, and his wife all helped to patch things up for publication, and it is quite possible that their own opinions slipped in to the finished work. In general, Houbraken tends to follow the contemporary prejudices of the hierarchy of genres
Hierarchy of genres
A hierarchy of genres is any formalization which ranks different genres in an art form in terms of their prestige and cultural value....

 and undervalue landscapists, marine artists and painters of still life
Still life
A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made...

. One can also speak of certain prejudices of the Houbraken family. These were in order:
  • Family dynasties: All painters who made up a family dynasty received extra space in the book. More space was given to the founder of the dynasty than to any other member (note that Houbraken considered himself the founder of his own family dynasty). An example is that though Rachel Ruysch
    Rachel Ruysch
    Rachel Ruysch was a Dutch artist who specialized in still-life paintings of flowers, one of only three significant women artists in Dutch Golden Age painting, of whom Maria van Oosterwijk was also a flower painter, and Judith Leyster mainly not .She was born in The...

     was the most famous painter of her family, Houbraken devotes more space to her grandfather Pieter Post and his brother Frans. Similarly, though Wouter Crabeth II
    Wouter Crabeth II
    -Biography:Wouter Crabeth was born in Gouda in 1594, the son of the writer and politician Pieter Woutersz. Crabeth. He was named after his grandfather Wouter Crabeth I, who was a celebrated master glassmaker. Crabeth took an apprenticeship under Cornelis Ketel, uncle of Cornelis Ketel le Jeune, who...

     was the most famous painter of the family, Houbraken devotes more space to his illustrious heritage in Gouda, the glass painters Dirk and Wouter.
  • Engravers: Houbraken had a business of his own in biographical engravings, and his large family probably all helped in the business, with his son and daughter helping with the oval portraits. Houbraken was quick to realize the importance of reprints, and used them whenever possible for art provenance. He highly respected good engravings. Therefore he was heavily prejudiced towards artists who were also good draftsmen and engravers, such as Rembrandt and the Visschers. He includes also notes about various publishers and engravers, who did not paint at all.
  • Rome: Houbraken had great respect for all artists who took the trouble and overcame many hardships to travel to Rome. He went to great pains to add entries for the entire list of painters mentioned in a poem about the Bentvueghels
    Bentvueghels
    The Bentvueghels were a society of mostly Dutch and Flemish artists active in Rome from about 1620 to 1720. They are also known as the Schildersbent .-Activities:...

    .
  • Flattery: As a Mennonite, Houbraken would have been against flattery; however, he writes again and again of the importance of flattering one's patrons in his books, and a recurring theme is when an artist fell onto bad times because he failed to flatter his patron. This type of artist is admired by Houbraken as a sort of "martyr to the artist's cause". Examples of flatterers that Houbraken deprecates are Anthony van Dyck and Sir Peter Lely followers, and his omissions speak for themselves if we note famous portrait painters of his day such as Adriaen Hanneman
    Adriaen Hanneman
    Adriaen Hanneman was a Dutch Golden Age painter best-known today for his portraits of the exiled British royal court. His style was strongly influenced by his contemporary, Anthony Van Dyck.-Biography:...

    , Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck
    Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck
    Johannes Cornelisz. Verspronck was a gifted Dutch Golden Age portraitist.-Biography:...

     and Thomas de Keyser
    Thomas de Keyser
    Thomas de Keyser was a Dutch painter and architect.De Keyser was born and died in Amsterdam. He excelled as a portrait painter, and was the most in-demand portrait painter in the Netherlands until the 1630s, when Rembrandt eclipsed him in popularity...

    . Similarly, though architecture was considered one of the highest genre's, the popular "family portrait with a view of the house or garden" was omitted as a genre entirely from Houbraken's praise, since this just showed off the wealth of the sitters. Thus landscape-portraitists were often omitted or deprecated, such as Hendrik van Steenwijk II
    Hendrik van Steenwijk II
    Hendrik van Steenwijck II was a Baroque painter mostly of architectural interiors, but also of biblical scenes and still lifes....

     and his wife.
  • Religion: Certainly Houbraken included artists of all religions in his book, but we can say that Mennonites are over-represented (see his story on the Mennonite martyr Jan Woutersz van Cuyck
    Jan Woutersz van Cuyck
    Jan Woutersz van Cuyck was a Dutch Renaissance painter from Dordrecht. He became famous as a Mennonite martyr of the Protestant Reformation who was hanged in 1572. His heart-wrenching letters from prison were published in the Martyrs Mirror.-Biography:According to Houbraken he was imprisoned for...

    ), while Catholics are under-represented. These were the De Grebbers, the De Brays, the Ruisdael family, Jan Vermeer, Adriaen Coorte
    Adriaen Coorte
    Adriaen Coorte was a Dutch Golden Age painter of still lifes, who signed works between 1683 and 1707. He painted small and unpretentious still lifes in a style more typical of the first half of the century, and was "one of the last practitioners of this intimate category".-Biography:Very little is...

    , Adriaen Hanneman, Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck, Hendrick Dubbels, Pieter Anthonisz. van Groenewegen
    Pieter Anthonisz. van Groenewegen
    Pieter Anthonisz. van Groenewegen was a Dutch Golden Age landscape painter.Groenewegen, who was born in Delft, primarily painted landscapes. He traveled to Italy and between ca. 1615-1623 he lived on Via Bocca de Leone in Rome, where he became a member of the Bentvueghels with the nickname "Leeuw"...

    , Meindert Hobbema
    Meindert Hobbema
    Meindert Hobbema , was a landscape painter of the Dutch school.-Life:The facts of his life are somewhat obscure. His chronology and signed pictures substantially contradict each other...

    , and others.


Other notorious omissions are Jan van de Cappelle
Jan van de Cappelle
Jan van de Cappelle was a Dutch Golden Age painter of seascapes and winter landscapes, also notable as an industrialist and art collector. He is "now considered the outstanding marine painter of 17th century Holland"...

, Judith Leyster
Judith Leyster
Judith Jans Leyster was a Dutch Golden Age painter. She was one of three significant women artists in Dutch Golden Age painting; the other two, Rachel Ruysch and Maria van Oosterwijk, were specialized painters of flower still-lifes, while Leyster painted genre works, a few portraits, and a...

, Jan Wynants, Jacobus Mancadan
Jacobus Mancadan
Jacobus Sibrandi Mancadan was a Dutch Golden Age painter mostly known for his pastoral landscapes.-Biography:He is considered one of the most important Frisian landscape painters of the Dutch Golden Age...

, Hendrick Avercamp
Hendrick Avercamp
Hendrick Avercamp was a Dutch painter.Avercamp was born in Amsterdam, where he studied with the Danish-born portrait painter Pieter Isaacks , and perhaps also with David Vinckboons. In 1608 he moved from Amsterdam to Kampen in the province of Overijssel...

, and others.

Schilderessen

Translated, the title of the book is Theatre of Painters and Paintresses, indicating that Houbraken wrote about women painters, or schilderessen. However, the list of women he included in the book is really quite short. Though he included short biographies of very many painters who were closely related to women painters, the only paintresses he included were: Artemisia Gentileschi
Artemisia Gentileschi
Artemisia Gentileschi was an Italian Early Baroque painter, today considered one of the most accomplished painters in the generation influenced by Caravaggio...

, Maria de Grebber
Maria de Grebber
Maria de Grebber , was a Dutch Golden Age painter.-Biography:According to Houbraken she was the daughter of the painter Frans Pietersz de Grebber and the sister of Pieter de Grebber, whose father taught them both to paint...

 (sister of Pieter de Grebber
Pieter de Grebber
Pieter Fransz de Grebber was a Dutch Golden Age painter.-Life:De Grebber was the oldest son of Frans Pietersz de Grebber , a painter and embroiderer in Haarlem, and the brother of the painters Maria and Albert. He learned to paint from his father and from Hendrick Goltzius...

), Alida Withoos
Alida Withoos
Alida Withoos was a Dutch botanical artist and painter. She was the daughter of the painter Matthias Withoos.-Life:...

, Catharina Oostfries
Catharina Oostfries
Catharina Oostfries , was a Dutch Golden Age glass painter.-Biography:According to Houbraken she kept up her drawing and glass painting into her seventies....

 (from a glaspainting family, married glasspainter Claes van der Meulen), Maria van Oosterwijk
Maria van Oosterwijk
Maria van Oosterwijk, also spelled Oosterwijck or Oosterwyck , was a Dutch Baroque painter, specializing in richly detailed still lifes.-Biography:...

, Geertgen Wyntges
Geertgen Wyntges
Geertgen Wyntges , was a Dutch Golden Age flower painter who assisted the painter Maria van Oosterwijck.-Biography:According to Houbraken she was the servant of Maria Oosterwyk in Amsterdam who helped her mix her paints...

 (who he mentions as being the servant of Maria van Oosterwijk), Anna Katrina, Catharina Rozee (1632–82), Adriana Spilberg
Adriana Spilberg
Adriana Spilberg , was a Dutch Golden Age painter.-Biography:According to Houbraken her father Johannes Spilberg taught her to paint in oils, crayon and pastels and she became quite famous in Amsterdam. Spilberg kept her in Amsterdam while he was working for Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine...

 (daughter of Johannes Spilberg
Johannes Spilberg
Johannes Spilberg was a German Baroque painter, active in Amsterdam during the period known as the Dutch Golden Age.-Life:...

), Rachel Ruysch
Rachel Ruysch
Rachel Ruysch was a Dutch artist who specialized in still-life paintings of flowers, one of only three significant women artists in Dutch Golden Age painting, of whom Maria van Oosterwijk was also a flower painter, and Judith Leyster mainly not .She was born in The...

, the three sisters Anna Maria van Thielen, Francoise Katharina van Thielen, and Maria Theresa van Thielen
Maria Theresa van Thielen
Maria Theresia van Thielen was a Flemish Baroque painter.-Biography:Maria van Thielen was born into an artistic patrician family. According to Houbraken, she competed with her sisters Anna Maria and Francoise Katharina and was very successful. The sister Anna may well have been her aunt Anna,...

, Diana Glauber
Diana Glauber
Diana Glauber , was a Dutch Golden Age painter.-Biography:According to Houbraken she was the daughter of the Amsterdam chemist Johann Rudolph Glauber, and the sister of the painters Jan Gotlief and Johannes Glauber. She was good with portraits and historical allegories, but lost her sight and...

, Maria Sybilla Merian, and Johanna Koerten Blok.

Legacy

Arnold Houbraken's books sold quite well during the entire 18th century. Jacob Campo Weyerman
Jacob Campo Weyerman
Jacob Campo Weyerman was an eccentric painter and writer during the period known as the Dutch Enlightenment. His work encompassed flower and fruit still life paintings, satirical magazines, plays, and biographies of painters...

 published his updated version (1729–47) in serial form that was published as a complete set in 1769. Houbraken's engravings of the artists are in some cases the only surviving portraits of these people.

The first to make a published sequel to Houbraken's work was Johan van Gool in 1750-51. Though these books published well, with changing fashions, during the course of the 19th century Houbraken fell out of favor with art historians, especially when his sketches were found wanting, incorrect, or even slanderous. Houbraken was very careful to check and double check his sources, and today many of his personal judgements still stand up to our modern scrutiny. Attacks of his judgement due to the spelling of artist's names or accusations that he was nationalistic and deemed all of these artists as "Netherlandish" must be dismissed on the grounds that the various borders between the Netherlands, Germany, and Flanders were far from decided in the period during which he was writing, and spelling conventions in the Netherlands regarding names were only introduced by Napoleonic decree in the 1790s. Excepting those cases where the artist died quite young, or whose oeuvre was lost during various wars, very few artists were included in the Schouburg who do not hang in international museums today.

The first modern art historian to publish an update of his work was Adriaan van der Willigen
Adriaan van der Willigen
Adriaan van der Willigen , was a Dutch writer of plays and traveloques who is mostly remembered today for his comprehensive list of painter biographies.-Biography:...

, in 1866. Since then he has remained a valuable resource for art historians.

The Schouburgh is part of the Basic Library of the dbnl (Database of Dutch Literature) which contains the 1000 most important works in Dutch literature from the Middle Ages to today.

External links

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