RKD STUDIES

66 MUSEUM OF AMSTERDAM.

... rests on his hip.¹ On the other side of the table, a second regent holds his right hand on a register and extends his left hand to a servant who comes to bring a paper.² In this corner of the table sits a third regent, turned halfway to the right; he is the best in the painting.³ The fourth sits as his counterpart across the table, with his left arm resting on the back of his armchair,⁴ talking to the fifth regent, who is standing and leaning against the back of a red velvet armchair.⁵ All five are dressed in black, with white collars and large black hats. The background, light gray, simulates fluted columns and groups of women in bas-relief.⁶ On the right, in the semi-darkness of an open doorway, a maid, hands folded around her waist, turns her head to a young man talking to her. Everything beautifully drawn, the hands, the heads, the folds of the costumes. It is impeccable, but very dull. The correct coldness of the performance is reminiscent of Philippe de Champaigne. You must also, despite yourself, think of painted wallpaper.

On the left wall is the signature: Anno: 1669. – KAREL: DU: IARDIN: fec.

This painting is a great surprise for artists! The best connoisseur and admirers of Karel's pastoral works might guess the maker a thousand times in vain.

All these Dutch small masters, so adept at familiar and simple scenes on panels of one or two square feet, lost their way when they wanted to make machines of a certain size that ...

67 KAREL DU JARDIN.

... is disproportionate to their talent. We shall see with almost all of them that for a time they lost themselves in ambitious and impotent attempts: Paul Potter, Berchem, Wouwerman, Metsu, and so on. And then they are empty, faint, ordinary and false. All their qualities of light and color, delicacy and expression, have left them. Only Rembrandt's pupils have been equally successful in works large and small: Van den Eeckhout, Nicolaas Maas, etc.

In the same room, and to the right of the Syndics, is another work in the same style, and probably from the same period, between his two stays in Italy: the "Portrait of Mr. Reynst" [94], who was one of Karel's friends and patrons.⁷ A life-size figure, knee-length, on a canvas 4 feet high and 3 feet 4 inches wide.⁸ Reynst is bareheaded and has a blond wig that falls over his shoulders.⁹ He is dressed in purplish gray, an earthy chocolate shade. His right wrist rests on his hip, and we look up against the palm; this inverted hand is very cleverly painted. Landscape and sky in the background. Two greyhounds accompany the figure. Signed, no date (1).

There is no shortage of admirers for this pewter portrait: it would make noise if you knocked on it, as it is hollow.

The Amsterdam museum also has a small ...

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(1) This painting was bought for 1,000 guilders (new cat).

68 MUSEUM OF AMSTERDAM.

... self-portrait of Karel du Jardin, on wood, only 9 inches high and 6 and a half inches wide [95].¹⁰ Bust, seen almost full in the face, long flat black hair falling into his neck, thin mustache, the rest of the beard shaved. Large, bulging, expressionless eyes; strong, stupid mouth. No forehead, no brain: flat head. The skin is earthy and the color of papier-mâché. The whole costume is grayish, with a large plain collar and puff sleeves. The right hand, pretentiously spread across the chest, drapes the cloak.

This small painting, so sad in its physiognomy and color, is very well drawn, very correct, very well worked, and Smith describes it as "admirable."¹¹ It is from the collection of Mr. Muller in Amsterdam, where it was purchased in 1827 for 1,600 guilders. According to Smith, it is dated 1662 (1), one year after the Italian Calvary in the Louvre (no. 242) [96].¹²

We do not know exactly when Karel was born; biographies and catalogs indulge in the most varied and arbitrary fantasies. The Dutch catalogs go from 1635 to 1650! The Paris catalog, which lists a painting dated "1646," nevertheless assumes that Karel was born about 1635!¹³

The date 1662 on this Amsterdam portrait, where-...

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(1) The new cat. gives no year, and I have not seen it on the painting either.¹⁴

69 KAREL DU JARDIN.

...on Karel du Jardin appears to be between thirty-five and forty years old would prove that he was born between 1620 and 1625.¹⁵ By 1662, Karel had long lived in Rome and may have returned to his native land. We can see that he no longer wears the goatee that had earned him the nickname Bokbaard among the Bentveughels in Italy.¹⁶ He is a very steadfast gentleman, very stiff, very serious and he poses like a master; of a very different breed from all those brave Dutch artists, so simple and so natural, like Adriaan van Ostade and Adriaan van de Velde; so fine and so distinguished, like Terburg and Metsu; a little unkempt sometimes, like Jan Steen. So Master Karel, too Italianized, could no longer adapt in Holland and soon returned, with Reynst whose portrait he had painted, to Italy where he died.

The portrait (no. 250) in the Louvre could also represent Karel [97].¹⁷ We even think we recognize his portrait again in a figure in the Italian Charlatans (no. 243) [98], in "the figure wrapped in a cloak."¹⁸ These two paintings in the Louvre are dated 1657, five years before the Amsterdam portrait. Karel would thus have been about thirty years old. We can check whether the supposed portraits correspond to this age, and possibly compare them with the Amsterdam portrait, which is generally considered authentic. Smith, however, has some reservations; but he became confused by these two portraits, which he may not have seen.¹⁹

70 MUSEUM OF AMSTERDAM.

We find the common Du Jardin in three small paintings that unfortunately are not of high quality:²⁰ a "landscape," a sort of Dutch farmhouse, with two donkeys, pigs, a goat and her kids; dated 1655, the period of Karel's stay in Amsterdam [99];²¹ – The Italian Inn, on the side of a road; a woman appears at the window; the innkeeper, with a dish in his hand, is walking toward two mule drivers, leading a gray horse, a mule, a donkey, laden with luggage; the painting is signed K. DV. GARDIN (sic). ft.; no doubt a false signature; it could also be that the painting is apocryphal [100];²² – a Horseman in front of an Inn; an excellent little painting this time, and worthy of Karel's well-deserved reputation in this kind of subject matter [101].²³ The rider, in a blue cloak, on a gray horse, drinks from a glass offered to him by the innkeeper standing by the door; his dog lies behind the horse, for which a boy is preparing rations in a trough. On canvas. 1 foot 5 inches high, 1 foot 4 inches wide (1).

PAUL POTTER.²⁴ – Alas! Paul Potter, like Du Jardin, is also in the Amsterdam museum represented by a gigantic canvas: The Bear Hunt (no. 220), a terrible pancake of 11 square feet (2) [102].²⁵

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(1) These three paintings are from the Van Heteren cabinet, of which about 130 paintings were purchased from Mr. Gevers, heir to the family, for the Amsterdam museum.²⁶
(2) "...., A Bear Hunt which I find hideous and harsh, ...