Karel Dujardin - part 3

c1827-28 Portrait of Karel Dujardin
Carel Christiaan Antony Last, after Karel du Jardin
print 25 x 20.5 cm
Rijksmuesum, Amsterdam

Best known as a painter, draughtsman and etcher of Italianate landscapes during Holland’s Golden Age, Karel Dujardin was a versatile artist whose subject matter included portraits, history scenes, genre scenes, Dutch landscapes and pastoral scenes featuring cattle and other livestock. Baptized in 1626 in Amsterdam, his father was a tradesman. Little is known about his artistic training; his Italianate works have led some writers to speculate that Dujardin travelled to Italy in the 1640s, but no documentation of such a trip has been found. 

He probably travelled to Paris in 1650, and apparently met his wife, of Flemish descent, in Lyon. By 1652 he and his wife were living in Amsterdam. Some of his pastoral scenes from the 1650s are set in the Dutch countryside, showing the influence of Paulus Potter (1625-1654). Other works from this period are set in Italianate landscapes, often with peasant genre scenes in the foreground, a motif popularised by Pieter van Laer (1599-ca.1642, known as Il Bamboccio while in Rome), who had returned to Haarlem from Rome by 1638. Dujardin began etching in the 1650s, primarily landscapes and animals; about fifty etchings have been attributed to him. By 1656 he had moved to The Hague, where he was a member of a group of artists known as De Pictura, 

By 1659 Dujardin was living in Amsterdam, where he stayed for the next fifteen years. During this time he executed portraits, religions scenes, allegories and large history paintings in addition to Italianate landscapes. In 1672 he authenticated paintings in a legal proceeding for the father of his friend Joan Reynst, and in 1675 traveled south as far as Tangiers. Dujardin continued to Rome; one of his signed and dated paintings recites it was made in Rome in 1675. He painted in Rome for the three years; his last dated painting is from 1678. He may have been a member of Schildersbent (“band of painters,” also known as the “Bentvueghels” or “birds of a flock”), a society of Dutch and Flemish painters in Rome active from around 1620 until 1720. He was in Venice when he died in 1678. He had achieved prosperity during his life, living in a house on the upscale Herengracht in Amsterdam; the inventory of his goods after his death attested to his affluence.

This is part 3 of a 5-part series on the works of Karel Dujardin:

1658 Two men in the water by a ruined bridge
etching on paper 12.2 x 15.4 cm (sheet)

1658 View of Hillside with Ruins
etching on paper 12.1 x 15.5 cm (plate)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1658 View of Ruins
etching on paper 12.2 x 16.1 cm (sheet)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

c1658 Four Goats
etching on laid paper 12.4 x 15.6 cm (plate)
Detroit Institute of Arts, MI

1659 Landscape with a Castle on a Mountain in the Distance
etching on paper 14 x 17.8 cm (plate)
Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA

1659 Landscape with a Man and a Dog
etching on paper 14.3 x 17.8 cm (sheet)
Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA

1659 Landscape with Trees with Roots laid Bare
etching on paper 14.3 x 17.9 cm (plate)
Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA

1659 Man with a Dog
etching on ivory wove paper 4 x 17.5 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1659 The Four Mountains
etching on paper 14.2 x 17.7 cm (plate)

1659 Tree with roots laid bare alongside a stream
etching on paper 14.7 x 18.5 cm (sheet)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1659 Two Boys Standing with Backs Turned
oil paint counterproof or monotype with grey wash on laid paper 13.3 x 20.2 cm (sheet)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

1660 Landscape with Herdsman and Three Oxen
 etching on paper 14 x 17.7 cm

1660 The Packer with Two Donkeys
etching on cream laid paper 4 x 17.5 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

c1660-62 Italian Landscape with a Young Shepherd playing with his Dog
oil on wood panel 31.2 x 37.6 cm
Mauritshuis Royal Picture Gallery, The Hague

c1660-70 Italianate Landscape with Cattle and a horse
oil on wood panel 37 x 41
Mauritshuis Royal Picture Gallery, The Hague

c1660 The Ford, Italy
oil on wood panel 23 x 40.5 cm
Louvre, Paris
© Louvre Museum, dist. RMN-Grand Palais

c1660 Tobias and the Angel
oil on canvas 85 x 64.7 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

1661 The Calvary
oil on wood panel 97 x 84 cm
Louvre, Paris
© Louvre Museum, dist. RMN-Grand Palais

c1661-62 Portrait of Jan Vos, Dutch Poet
etching on paper 16.7 x 13 cm (plate)
Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA

1662 Return of the Holy Family from Egypt
oil on canvas 62,6 x 51.1 cm
Detroit Institute of Arts, MI

1662 The Conversion of Saint Paul
oil on canvas 186.7 x 134.6 cm
The National Gallery, London

c1662 Hagar and Ishmael in the Wilderness
oil on canvas 187 x 143 cm
John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida

1663 Boy blowing Soap Bubbles. Allegory on the Transitoriness and the Brevity of Life
 oil on canvas 116 x 96.5 cm
National Gallery of Denmark

1663 St Paul Healing the Cripple at Lystra
oil on canvas 179 x 139 cm
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

1664 Portrait of an Old Woman
oil on canvas 94.2 x 76.5 cm

1667 The Battle of Centaurs and Lapiths at Hippodamia's Wedding
oil on canvas 177 x 139 cm
Schloss Sanssouci, Potsdam

1670-80 White horse in a landscape of Italy
oil on canvas 35.5 x 44.3 cm
Louvre, Paris
© Louvre Museum, dist. RMN-Grand Palais

1673 Sheep and Goats
oil on copper 18 x 20.9 cm
The National Gallery, London

1673 The Waterfall at Tivoli
oil on canvas 69.5 x 64.2 cm
Mauritshuis Royal Picture Gallery, The Hague

c1674 Shepherds and piebald horse in a landscape of Italy
oil on wood panel 32.8 x 27 cm
Louvre, Paris
© Louvre Museum, dist. RMN-Grand Palais

1675-78 Figures and Horses by an Inn
oil on canvas 64.1 x 83.2 cm

c1675 Italianate landscape with Travellers on Horseback
oil on canvas 65 x 81 cm

1678 Italianate landscape with a woman, two children, a bull, sheep and a dog
oil on canvas 60.3 x 75.6 cm

n.d Two Mules
red chalk on cream antique laid paper 15.4 x 21/3 cm
Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College