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1 The Uylenburgh period
In his first years in Amsterdam in the early 1630s, Rembrandt worked closely with Hendrick Uylenburgh. Uylenburgh, with his extensive network of contacts, must have had quite an impact on Rembrandt. His influence is clear both in Rembrandt’s professional life as well as his personal life. In a subsequent episode of this podcast, I will look at Rembrandt’s personal life and his marriage to Uylenburgh’s cousin Saskia.
During the Uylenburgh period (from around 1631 to 1635), Rembrandt’s artistic production was prolific. The numbers differ, but he must have painted at least 50 portraits, averaging one a month. He was also able to develop his skill further as a more all-round master. With three pupils a year on average, he also improved his teaching skills (his first pupil was most probably Jacob Backer). He would also have learned more about the different religious beliefs prevalent in Amsterdam in those days. Uylenburgh was a member of the ‘Waterlandse Gemeente der Doopsgezinden’, where his three children were baptized in adulthood. This was a more moderate group of Mennonites, originating from Noord-Holland above the IJ, with a church in Amsterdam. Rembrandt’s clients represented all religious affiliations and included Remonstrants, orthodox Calvinists and Catholics.
Throughout this period, Rembrandt was also introduced to a large circle of potential clients (patrons) with substantial purchasing power. He experienced his first notable artistic breakthrough in 1632 with his painting ‘The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp’. Two years later, in 1634, he was commissioned to paint the wealthy high society couple Marten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit.
In this episode of the podcast RembrandtsMoney, I talk about these paintings: ‘The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp’ and the two life-size portraits of Marten and Oopjen. These works represent two specific phenomena in 17th century Amsterdam. Dr Tulp’s painting is an example of the urban organization of trade, industry and services, i.e. the guild system. Marten and Oopjen symbolize the specific clientele for artists in Amsterdam, belonging to the upper echelons of society. Not the clergy or the nobility, but the wealthy merchants.
2 Guilds
A guild is a type of professional association. They were created for all sorts of trades including brewers, carpenters, shoemakers and bakers. In Amsterdam, so-called guild pieces (‘gildestukken’) were produced for more than ten such professions. Not everyone could become a member of a guild, sometimes a ‘master’s test’ had to be passed. The guilds represented the interests of their members and protected them. They often had the exclusive right to practise their particular trade and guaranteed the quality of work made by a guild member with a quality mark. This sometimes even led to the creation of a monopoly in the trade. Guilds sometimes also provided mutual aid to their members, enforced production standards, or restricted access to the local market. Moreover, guilds could acquire a certain political influence through collective action.
Most guilds of merchants, craftsmen or other tradesmen wanted to be depicted – vanity of vanities – together. This often occurred on the occasion of a new guild board or to mark a certain celebration. Before 1700, the names of those depicted were rarely known. However, efforts have been made subsequently to establish identities and the extensive 2019 PhD study by Norbert Middelkoop contains a wealth of data on this point.
A group portrait conferred status on its subjects. It sometimes also expressed solidarity or a collective sense of responsibility, often inspired by faith. The latter is the case with so-called regent pieces (‘regentenstukken’) – paintings of the regents (directors) of healthcare and disciplinary institutions in Amsterdam.
The rates charged for such corporation pieces are rarely known. For one of the first Amsterdam regent pieces, in 1617, Cornelis van der Voort received 50 guilders from each of the regents and the framer received three guilders for each person depicted.
3 The commission
As I pointed out before, the move from Leiden to Amsterdam was probably not a difficult step for Rembrandt to take. In Amsterdam, his work was far more appreciated than in Leiden. Living and working in Amsterdam’s art district, Rembrandt found himself in the immediate vicinity of potential clients. The social-cultural climate there was also very welcoming. In January 1632, the Remonstrant hierarchy in Amsterdam was restored in the city’s elections. Pettegree and der Weduwen (2019), 253ff, submit: ‘The patronage of Rembrandt, a newly arrived outsider who was not even a member of the local guild, was another useful symbol of this new era of intellectual independence; and Rembrandt, for suitable fees, was all too happy to identify himself with this new wave.’
As a young man in Leiden, Rembrandt must have been familiar with what an anatomy lesson is. For this I will take you to the Academy Building of my former university in Leiden. In 1590, behind this building, a botanical garden, the Hortus Botanicus, was established by the renowned Clusius. It quickly gained international fame. To get to the other side of the canal, you have to cross the nonnenbrug (nun’s bridge). This bridge connects the Nonnensteeg and the Kloksteeg at the Academy Building, crossing the Rapenburg. In 1594, an anatomical theatre was founded on the other side of the Academy Building. Note that in Amsterdam, a permanent anatomical theatre was only opened some hundred years later, in 1691. It’s no exaggeration to say that the Leiden ‘theatrum anatomicum’ could be described as a major 17th century tourist attraction. It has been depicted in several prints and drawings, described in books and celebrated in many travelogues (see Huisman (2008), 10). So perhaps when Rembrandt painted ‘The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp’ in 1632, he had the anatomical theatre in Leiden in mind.
‘The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp’ was Rembrandt’s first group portrait. It is signed and dated ‘Rembrandt ft. 1632’. The painting has been part of the collection of the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague since 1828. In addition, Rembrandt made three other institutional group portraits: The Night Watch (‘Nachtwacht’), The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Deijman, and the Syndics of the Drapers Guild (‘Staalmeesters’).
The date of signature on the Anatomy Lesson deserves further attention. Art historians generally give 15 July 1606 as Rembrandt’s date of birth. However, in literature it has also been suggested that Rembrandt’s date of birth could be 15 July 1605 (see Blom (2019), 61ff.), whilst even 15 July 1607 has been mentioned as a serious possibility (see Binstock (2006), 2677ff.; Schaeps and Van Duijn (2019), Bonafouw (2019), 72) and recently apparently also Giltaij (Giltaij (2023), p. 11). One of the arguments is that ‘The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp’ is dated January 1632, and Rembrandt specifies his age and date ‘AET 24. Anno 1631’. AET means Aetatis suae (at the age of). In my book, I leave his date of birth at 15 July 1606.
4 Who is Dr Tulp
The central figure in the portrait is Dr Tulp (a tulp is a tulip). He is placed on one side of the portrait, opposite the other surgeons who are concentrating on his explanation of the dissection.
Dr Nicolaes Tulp (1593–1674) was born on the Nieuwendijk in Amsterdam as Claes Pietersz. When he was around 18 years old, in 1611, he left for Leiden to study medicine. In 1614, he returned as a graduate, a medical doctor (graduating as ‘Nicolaus Petreius’ with a dissertation on ‘De cholera humidia’). He established himself as a medical practitioner in Amsterdam and in 1617 he married Eva Egbertsdr. van der Voech.
Around 1616, Tulp commissioned the construction of a building in Amsterdam which is now Keizersgracht 210. He would hold several important positions, becoming an alderman (‘schepen’) before he was 30 years of age, in 1622. In that year, he chose the tulip as the emblem for his aldermanship and it was also the motif he used on the sign at his house (temporarily removed during the Tulip Mania of 1634–1637). It had the text ‘Wandelt met God’ (Walk with God). Around the same time, he started calling himself Nicolaes Tulp. The tulip was a symbol for erudition; a doctor was expected to be aware of the latest advancements in the world of medicine.
In his mid-thirties, in 1628, he was appointed ‘praelector anatomiae’ (public anatomist) of the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons. Later, he would also become the mayor of Amsterdam four times, including during the glorious years 1654 and 1656 when the new city hall in Amsterdam was completed. Dr Tulp continued to live on the Keizersgracht until his death in 1674.
He took the name Tulp seriously, playing a significant role in the pharmaceutical world. At the time when Rembrandt painted him –the plague broke out in Amsterdam in 1635 – there was little unity in the preparation of medicines. Nicolaes Tulp, together with other doctors and pharmacists, took the initiative to put an end to the confusion about the composition and prescription of medicines. They compiled a ‘Pharmacopoea Amstelredamis’. The 1636 Amsterdam Pharmacopoea (in Dutch) – unlike the original Latin edition – not only lists ingredients, but also provides instructions to prepare the medicines. The numbers for quantities, as the publisher notes in the foreword, are spelled out to avoid any (potentially fatal) problems arising from typesetting errors. It provides lists of ingredients for nearly 200 medicines and was compiled by Tulp by order of the city of Amsterdam, to serve as an official legal standard for the correct preparation of numerous medicines. Several cities in the southern Low Countries and Germany, and even London, had already produced pharmacopoeias before any Dutch city. Tulp based his work on the pharmacopoeias published in Augsburg, Cologne and London. Much later, this first Amsterdam pharmacopoeia would gain national influence in national prescription books used by physicians with descriptions of herbs and substances and composition (Vree (2020), 10 ff.)
5 An anatomy lesson
As a theme for painting, an anatomy lesson was a fairly new genre in art. The founder of anatomy (on the human body) was the Flemish Andreas Vesalius. In his atlas, published in 1543, he depicted himself while demonstrating the bending muscles of an arm. In Rembrandt’s portrait, Tulp follows the path of modern science and therefore the painting can be seen as Dr Tulp metaphorically standing on the shoulders of Vesalius. Tulp is the ‘Vesalius of Amsterdam’, Büttner (2014), 57, notes.
For the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons, however, it was not the first time that a group portrait had been made. The guild dates back to 1552 and had already commissioned several anatomy pieces. The oldest group portrait dates back to 1603. The group was painted by Rembrandt in 1632 to mark the fact that their eligibility period had just begun. The oldest serving surgeon was only elected for the first time in 1630 (Middelkoop part I 2019, p. 351).
An anatomy piece has a central motif – an anatomical lesson – and a protagonist, the prae-lector or reader. The members of the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons, of which Tulp was an official City Anatomist, were authorized to conduct an anatomy on the bodies of criminals. The corpse in 1632 was that of criminal Aris Kindt (aka Adriaan Adriaanszoon) who had been convicted for armed robbery (stealing a cloak) and sentenced to death by hanging. He was 28 years old. That’s quite something: a death penalty for stealing a coat without sleeves!
Of the seven surgeons immortalized by Rembrandt in 1632, five appear in the tax archives of 1631 (‘kohier’). Their estimated assets are between 2,000 and 6,000 guilders. Dr Tulp is entered in the tax books with an estimated fortune of 40,000 guilders. Please note that in addition to surgeons, barbers also belonged to the same guild. The person ‘Frans Barbier’, taxed for 1,000 guilders, is actually Frans Jacobsz van Loenen (ca. 1592, Loenen – 1662, Amsterdam). He is the man whose face is depicted highest in the painting, who is looking at the viewer and thus involving them in the medical analysis. Fascinating, don’t you think, that one of them is a hairdresser!
The average wealth of the surgeons indicates that they belonged to Amsterdam’s reasonably prosperous middle class. Whatever the case may be, they are no match for the immense financial capacity of the merchant elite.
6 Anatomy lessons as a tourist attraction!
In the 17th century, anatomy lessons were a social event, taking place in what were actual theatres. Students and the general public could attend after paying an entrance fee. Between 1619 and 1639, the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons used the Weigh(ing) House (‘De Waag’ or ‘St Anthonius Poorthuis’) for these dissections. This was a small anatomy theatre, also used as a guild room, with furniture, art and medical instruments.
Such anatomy lectures, including dissections, were usually carried out in winter when temperatures dropped. There was, of course, no electricity in those days to refrigerate corpses. In the absence of cold temperatures, a body would otherwise start to smell. Sometimes this experimentation and dissection and the accompanying talks would go on for several days.
In the painting, Rembrandt seems to have encountered the group of men at a certain moment. However, the painting is a careful composition that was well thought out in advance. The attention of the viewer is focused on the activity of Dr Tulp, who is explaining how the muscles of the arm work (bending and stretching). For this, the arm of the corpse has been opened. Medical specialists around the world, from their specific perspective, have criticized the anatomical representation and have discovered anatomical discrepancies.
It has also been pointed out that the performance depicted is not in line with reality. For example, (i) the painting does not depict an actual dissection taking place; (ii) it does not seem to be taking place in an anatomy theatre; (iii) there is an unrealistic absence of dissecting instruments; (iv) we don’t see any blood; and (v) the absence of assisting medical staff is noticeable, e.g. the preparator who would prepare the body for the lesson. Finally, something odd has happened to the body depicted. There are no signs of a previous criminal punishment. Aris Kindt’s right hand had been cut off, but it has been ‘paintshopped’ into the painting. There are also no traces of his hanging which had taken place the previous day. All in all, it is beautiful but quite sterile. Unlike Benjamin Moser (2023, p. 19), ‘the stench of decay’ does not sting in my nose.
Today, in 2024, it’s almost 400 years later. The subject of the anatomy lesson is no longer a genre in today’s artwork. In fact, the subject ‘anatomy’ is undergoing changes in medical science. Nowadays, dissection as such is subject to the advancements in technology which is visible in the basic training of surgeons. But that’s another story.
7 The Amsterdam ‘new rich’
One particular artistic innovation in those days was to paint a person in full length. This type of composition was still rare in civic portraits at the time, but it will come to full glory in the two famous portraits of Marten Soolmans (1613–1641) and Oopjen Coppit (1611–1689). This couple were portrayed in full length by Rembrandt in 1634, one year after their spectacular marriage – the union between a rich daughter from a traditional and established Amsterdam family of regents and the son of a Flemish migrant, i.e. a war refugee! So here, you could say that Rembrandt is actually a contemporary paparazzi photographer!
[Marten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit, 1634; Collection Rijksmuseum Amsterdam / Collection Museé du Louvre, Parijs]
In 2016, both portraits were acquired through a joint purchase of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Republic of France and the Rijksmuseum/Musée du Louvre collections. The two life-size portraits were purchased from the De Rothschild family. They will be exhibited alternately in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Louvre in Paris.
In the Golden Age, Marten and Oopjen clearly represented a new wealthy generation (‘new rich’) who had inherited their fortune instead of earning it themselves. It was only in 1956 that the names Marten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit were connected to the portrait pair. Until then, they had been known as Maarten Daey and Machteld van Doorn. Rembrandt probably received 1,000 guilders for both paintings. It is remarkable that Rembrandt only signed the portrait of Marten, and not that of Oopjen. The authenticity of the latter, however, has never been doubted.
8 Marten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit; who are they?
Marten Soolmans (1613–1641) was the son of Jan Soolmans. Like many Flemish families, they had fled from Antwerp to Amsterdam before the Siege. The Siege of Antwerp during the Eighty Years’ War lasted fourteen months in 1584/1585, ending with the Fall of Antwerp, including the city’s Golden Age. Soolmans Senior was a sugar merchant, starting with the import of sugar (and pepper), later establishing a sugar refinery at the Nieuwezijds Achterburgwal in Amsterdam. The family lived on the chic Keizersgracht. Father Jan was quite a rough character and was called to appear before the church council more than 80 times for fighting, swearing and domestic violence.
Oopjen Coppit (1611–1674) was a descendant of an old and wealthy Amsterdam regent family. The family (especially Oopjen’s grandfather) had made their fortune trading in grain and gunpowder. Oopjen was an example of the beauty ideal of the 17th century: white skin, fluffy hair, and a high forehead. On the occasion of her wedding she received 35,000 guilders as a dowry. Marten contributed 12,000 guilders. This is nearly three times the amount Rembrandt would pay five years later for his very large house and studio and which was already considered a very large sum!
9 Notice of marriage and marriage
On 9 June 1633, Marten and Oopjen gave notice of their intended marriage (‘ondertrouw’) in Leiden. Marten was a ‘jongman’ (young man) from Amsterdam who at the time was living on the Rapenburg in Leiden. Oopjen was a ‘jongedochter’ (young daughter) from Amsterdam where she lived with her parents. They were 20 and 22 years old respectively at the time. Marten dropped out of his Leiden law studies. They married on 28 June 1633 in Amsterdam.
The book with the 1633 announcement of the intended marriage of Marten and Oopjen © Heritage Leiden and Surroundings.
Marten and Oopjen had three children: Hendrick (1634), Jan (1636) and Cornelia (1637). After the wedding, Marten moved in with Oopjen and her family and Oopjen was soon pregnant with their first child. Sadly, little Hendrick died before he was one year old and his sister Cornelia also died. In the 17th century, there was much child and infant mortality. Around half of all children born wouldn’t reach the age of 18.. Parents knew there was a real chance that a child would be dead and buried before it was one year old.
10 The couple’s will
In February 2023, Heritage Leiden and Surroundings (a regional centre for Leiden and the surrounding area providing information from archives, and on monuments, archaeology and building history) discovered the will of Marten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit in a Leiden notarial archive. The will is dated 24 April 1634 and it was signed in Leiden by notary Foyt Gijsbertsz. Van Sijp. This is the same year that Rembrandt painted the couple’s portraits and the year their first child was born.
The deed stipulates, among other things, that if one of them were to die while there were no children, the surviving spouse would inherit the estate. If there were children, the surviving spouse had to provide ‘spijs, dranck, cleden ende reeden’ (food, drink, clothing and education). The will further states that if the children were minors when one of the parents died, the surviving parent would become guardian. Marten and Oopjen signed, as well as several witnesses.
The signatures of Marten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit under the will © Heritage Leiden and Surroundings.
The will states that Marten and Oopjen were living at that time in Leiden on the Rapenburg near the Nonnenbrug (‘Op Rapenburch bij the nonnenbrugge’). The Nonnenbrug is now the permanent stone bridge that connects the Nonnensteeg and the Kloksteeg at the Academy Building, crossing the Rapenburg. They didn’t move to Amsterdam until later. Their first child, Hendrick, was born there on 25 August 1634.
Will of Marten and Oopjen © Heritage Leiden and Surroundings
11 Commission for Rembrandt
Rembrandt painted them in 1634. The paintings are pendant portraits (counterparts or companion pieces) and are unique in terms of style. These are Rembrandt’s only portraits in which the subjects are depicted life-size, standing and full-length (‘ten voeten uit’).
The reason for choosing the portrait painter Rembrandt is not known. It is possible that Rembrandt and Marten, who studied law in Leiden from 1628 to 1631, knew each other. During these years Rembrandt still lived and worked in Leiden. The Weddestraat, where Rembrandt stayed, and the Nonnenbrug are within walking distance, less than 1 kilometre from each other. Marten and Oopjen most likely lived on the corner that is now Kloksteeg 2A (now a café called Barrera).
However, it may also be possible that father Soolmans knew Hendrick Uylenburgh. The Soolmans family lived in Amsterdam on the Nieuwe Hoogstraat, not far from the Breestraat where Rembrandt was then staying with the famous art dealer Hendrick van Uylenburgh.
12 Marten en Oopjen post 1634
The marriage did not last long as eight years later, Marten died aged only 28 years in 1641. He would only have seen his son Jan (1636) growing up for just a few years.
Oopjen, as the surviving parent, would have provided the children with food, drink, clothing and education. About five years after the death of Marten, Oopjen married Captain Marten Pietersz. Daij (or Daeij). He was active in Dutch Brazil until 1641 and lived in Maartensdijk. In 1650, he was involved in the defence of Amsterdam. Oopjen did administrative work for her husband, who was in charge of a regiment of ‘waardgelders’ in Naarden. These ‘waargelders’ or mercenaries were soldiers of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. Their son Hendrick was baptized in 1651. Oopjen died in Alkmaar at the age of 78, in 1689, fifty years older than her first husband Marten.
13 Rembrandt, Nicolaes Tulp, Marten Soolmans, Oopjen Coppit
In 1632, Rembrandt had his great artistic breakthrough with ‘The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp’. Another artistic innovation took place in 1634 with his full-length painting of two persons. The paintings portray the organization of the economy in those days (guilds) and representatives of Amsterdam’s wealthy high society.
Looking at the persons depicted, we have learned that Dr Tulp made quite an impact – both on Amsterdam’s local government and developments in pharmaceutical treatments. In the 1630s, Marten and Oopjen were profiting from the wealth created by past generations of their families.
Marten’s clothing is particularly eye-catching – a suit of shiny black silk and ostentatious silver embellishments, with rosettes on his fancy shoes. He is a follower of the latest fashion trends, with decoration that must have been quite an obstacle when walking! But this is a personal, sad story too: two children who died very young and also the unfortunate Marten who passed away, not yet 30 years old. And what about Oopjen, whose life would continue for decades with her second husband. Is there another Heritage Centre that can perhaps reveal more about her from the archives?
To me, it’s fascinating that there’s an imaginary link between the two artistic works, via the nuns’ bridge in Leiden. And you’re the only one who knows that now!
References
References cited available through Sources in www.rembrandtsmoney.com.
Jeroen Giltaij, De vrouwen van Rembrandt. Saskia, Geertje, Hendrickje, Zwolle: WBOOKS, 2023.
Mirjam Janssen, Hoe ging de Republiek om met migranten?, Historisch Nieuwsblad, November 2018.
Benjamin Moser, De wereld op zijn kop. Ontmoetingen met de Hollandse meesters, Amsterdam/Antwerpen: Uitgeverij de Arbeiderspers, 2023.