The Netherlands, private collection

This rare modello of heads and busts of children offers a fascinating peek into the studio practice of Simon van der Does, a painter of pastoral scenes set in Italianate landscapes. Models such as the present constituted precious studio assets and artists used them in preparation of finished works for the market or for particular clients. Although evidence suggests they were valued from early on for their intrinsic artistic merits as well, few have survived. Similar attractive oil studies of isolated, worked-out motifs are known by Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, Jacob Jordaens, Jan Brueghel the Elder and Peter Boel and by artists working in the Northern Netherlands, notably Nicolaes Berchem. The Amsterdam Rijksmuseum’s recent acquisition of an oil study with chickens by Melchior de Hondecoeter shows a renewed interest and appreciation for this type of art.[1] Several children’s heads on our canvas appear in several independent paintings by Simon van der Does (figs. 1-4). Van der Does’ oil study stands out for its crisp handling and captivating charm.

Simon van der Does was a son of the artist Jacob van der Does the Elder (1623-1673) and the brother of Jacob van der Does the Younger (1654-1699), also an artist. Simon no doubt trained with his father and like him specialized in Italianate landscapes enlivened with figures but he also painted portraits. He spent some time in Friesland and tried his luck in London before returning to his native The Hague. Here, in 1683, he became a member of the painters’ confraternity Pictura and in 1689 married Clara Bellechière who, according to his biographer Arnold Houbraken, was ‘extremely wasteful’. As a result Simon’s financial situation deteriorated and he ended up living in the infirmary. After several years he left for Antwerp where he died sometime after 1718.

[1] Inv. SK-A-5023. On this acquisition see: L. Wepler in ‘Acquisitions’, The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 63 (2015), pp. 96-97.