35. Jan Goeree

Drawing was an essential component in the education of young seventeenth-century artists. From early on they learned to make copies of prints by old masters, such as Albrecht Dürer (1474-1527), Raphael (1583-1424) and Lucas van Leyden (1494-1533). Drawing after three-dimensional models came next. Consequently, they were encouraged to draw their own likeness in the mirror and practise facial expressions. After their training, artists – some more than others – continued to draw in addition to painting, as is illustrated by the many drawings and preliminary studies for paintings that survive today. In fact, drawing on a daily basis was considered a necessity. “Nulla dies sine linea” (No day without a line), derived from Pliny’s life of the classical painter Apelles, was often used as a motto in the seventeenth century.¹

The present drawing is a free interpretation of this same message. It depicts a young painter at an easel. In his right hand he has a piece of chalk, a medium that was frequently used by seventeenth-century artists to make an underdrawing on canvas or panel in preparation for the painting. A rather fierce-looking man with a beard (Apelles?) is holding his left hand, presumably guiding the unexperienced artist on his path to becoming a master himself. In the foreground a putto is grinding pigments with a muller on a stone slab, while an open door in the background provides a view of a crowded street. On a banner the motto “Geen dag sonder trek” (No day without a line) can be read.

As suggested by Robert-Jan te Rijdt, the drawing is by the hand of the Dutch draughtsman, engraver, book illustrator and poet Jan Goeree.² It is a previously unrecognised illustration made for the now dismembered “stamboek” or album amicorum of Joanna Blok, née Koerten (1650-1715), a famous cutting artist from Amsterdam. Numerous artists, writers and well-to-do visitors who came to see her collection contributed to this book, including the poultry painter Melchior de Hondecoeter (1636-1695), the poet David van Hoogstraten (1658-1724) and Goeree’s master: Gerard de Lairesse (1641-1711).³ Goeree designed the title page and provided at least ten other illustrations, including a double-sided drawing that recently appeared on the art market and was also acquired by the Fondation Custiodia.⁴ This sheet bears the signature of Thomas Howard, 7^th Baron of Effingham (1682-1775) and the date “March 29^th 1701”. Apparently, the young baron, who inherited his late father’s title in 1696,⁵ visited Amsterdam and Joanna’s collection in the early spring of 1701. Goeree, who was not over-awed by the visitor’s status, decorated the same sheet with a still appropriate illustration of the motto “D’Eenigste adeldom is deugt” (The only nobility is virtue) a few years later, in 1705.

Geen dag sonder trek was probably executed around the same time. Particularly characteristic in these drawings is the circular border, decorated with flexible twigs or palm leaves tied together at the bottom with a ribbon.⁶ Presumably, it accompanied a now lost contribution by a visitor, probably an artist. However, the motto also refers to Joanna herself. According to the German scholar and bibliophile Zacharius Conrad von Uffenbach (1683-1743), who visited her collection in 1711, every silhouette art work she made was “very artistically and wonderfully drawn at first”.⁷ MR