Jacob Toorenvliet

Jacob Toorenvliet

Jacob Toorenvliet: Drinking Farmer and Maid

Jacob Toorenvliet , occasionally Jacob Torenvliet , Jacob Toornvliet , or Jacob van Toorenvliet (* 1640 in Leiden ; † January 3, 1719 in Oegstgeest ) was a Dutch painter and etcher .

life and work

Jacob Toorenvliet was baptized on July 1, 1640 in the Hooglandse Kerk in Leiden. His father and teacher was Abraham Toorenvliet I, a respected glass painter and drawing teacher in Leiden. Presumably he only took on the first part of the training and then sent Jacob to his brother-in-law Gerard Dou as an apprentice. Jacob Toorenvliet's first drawn self-portrait dates from 1655 when he was 15 years old.

Toorenvliet's training ended around 1659; his first painting also dates from the same year. From 1663 he was probably on a journey, which may have taken him via Flanders to Vienna and, for the first time, to Rome, because in 1669 he painted a portrait of Karel Quina, a traveler to the Orient in Rome at the time. After a short stay in the Netherlands, he left for Rome again in 1670 with Nikolaes Roosendael.

Toorenvliet stayed in Venice between 1670 and 1673, where he probably married his first wife. A drawing from this period has been preserved that is labeled "J Torenvliet Venetie f.". Toorenvliet probably moved with his wife and child to Vienna in 1673/74, where he stayed until mid-1679 and mainly painted depictions of half-length figures on small copper panels as well as allegories and histories. His depictions of Jews from this creative phase are remarkable and unique.

After the death of their two sons (1678 and 1679) and the outbreak of the plague, Toorenvliet initially returned to Leiden for a short time in mid-1679, where he met his second wife, Susanna Verhulst, with whom he moved to Amsterdam in the spring of 1680. His children Lidia (1680) and Abraham (1682) were born there. Toorenvliet had accepted Jacobus van der Sluys as a pupil in Leiden, who followed him to Amsterdam in order to be able to continue his education there. Jacob Toorenvliet later also taught his son Abraham painting.

In 1686 Toorenvliet came back to Leiden and signed up for the Sint-Lucas guild there, where he then regularly held the position of captain and dean. In addition, he founded a Tekenacademie (drawing academy) in Leiden around 1694 together with Willem van Mieris and Carel de Moor . However, he gave up his office as one of the directors before 1704. In 1712 his membership in the Sint-Lucas guild ended. In 1717 his name is found again in the files of the Leiden University, where he is entered as an informator pendingi. Jacob Toorenvliet died in 1719 at the age of 79 and was buried in Oegstgeest, a village on the outskirts of Leiden.

Uroscopy scene

Jacob Toorenvliet's painting style has its origins in Leiden genre painting . Although Toorenvliet's paintings contain elements of fine painting, they cannot be described as works by a fine painter. Toorenvliet takes on influences of various kinds in his works, but merges them with his own forms of expression. As a result, these paintings are always recognizable as Jacob Toorenvliet's creations. However, the many copies and imitations of his work led to a distortion of the quality of his oeuvre and thus to an unjustified devaluation of this painter.

According to current research, the painter Christoph Toorenvliet is not (!) The son of Jacob van Toorenvliet.

literature

• Hermann Arthur Lier:  Toorenvliet, Jakob . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 38, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1894, p. 443.
• Susanne H. Karau: Life and work of the painter Jacob Toorenvliet from Leiden (1640–1719) . Dissertation, FU Berlin 2002
• Susanne H. Karau: Brotherly ties. Jacob Toorenvliet paints the family portrait of his brother Dirck . In: Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch . Volume 67, 2006, pp. 279-285

Web links

Commons : Jacob Toorenvliet  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Jacob Toorenvliet in the catalog of the German National Library