2.1 Introduction
Many years ago I became interested in the Grand Tour of France and Italy that Pieter Cornelisz. Hooft (1581–1647) had made when he was 18–19 years old from 1598 to 1601.1 I have researched his entourage of merchants, musicians and artists in Venice since I have lived there. The painter Dirck de Vries (c. 1554-1612) was one of the people with whom Hooft may have come into contact, through his host Francesco Vrients (c. 1550–1604). Hooft was the guest of this wealthy merchant from Maastricht twice, altogether for almost eight months. Vrients was a friend of Hans von Aachen (1552–1615) and had been his patron in Venice. According to the inventory drawn up after Vrients’ death in 1604, he owned a self-portrait and a ‘Christo col martirio della Colonna’ (a ‘Scourging of Christ’). Vrients’ collection also included two paintings depicting a kitchen, one of De Vries’s favorite subjects, but no artist’s name is mentioned.2
Until now relatively little has been known about Dirck de Vries. Karel van Mander mentions 'Dierick de Vries' with Lodewijk Toeput (c. 1550–1604/5) in his chapter on Hans Rottenhammer (1564?–1625), and writes that he had seen various kitchen and fruit market scenes painted in a Venetian manner, nicely coloured and well executed, graceful and glowing, so that he could not pass over his name in silence. He doesn't know the artist's age, and calls him a Frisian.3 Van Mander had probably seen a kitchen scene, a landscape or a market piece by Dirck de Vries in the collection of the Amsterdam merchant Jan Nicquet I (1539–1608).4
Jean-Baptiste du Val, member of the French Embassy in Venice from 1607 to 1610, wrote in his diary that he had made the acquaintance of Seigneur Theodoro Frisius, a painter much renowned in Venice, not only for his skill at painting naturalistic portraits and especially those of famous men of the past and present, but also for another manner of painting that he had. In a very naive way he depicted public spaces squares and markets of Venice with such a curiosity that in a butcher's shop you would see all kinds of meat in detail and the dead or flayed animals in various poses. In St Mark's Square [he showed] the Saturday market with all kinds of clothing displayed, and the quacks busy selling their teriaca [a Venetian miraculous medicine]. In other paintings he showed game and venison, in another fish, and in another vegetables, fruits, flowers and similar things, with such skill that you couldn't ask for anything that he hadn't observed [1-2].5
1
Dirck de Vries
Vegetable market in Venice, c. 1600
Sint-Petersburg, Hermitage
2
Dirck de Vries
Fish vendor in Venice, c. 1600
Private collection
Notes
1 Van Vloten 1855–1857, supplement 'Reis-Heuchenis'; De Lange 1991.
2 Brulez 1965, vol. 1, p. 633.
3 Van Mander 1604, fol. 296r: ‘eenen Dierick de Vries uyt Vrieslandt’.
4 Bredius 1915-1921, vol. 2 (1916), p. 395.
5 Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, MS fr. 13977, Les Remarques triennales de Jean-Baptiste Du Val, 1607–10. ‘Je pry cognoissance avec le Seigneur Theodoro Frisius peintre fort renommé dans Venise, non seulement pour bienfaire au naturel un portrait et particulièrement ceux des hommes illustres anciens et modernes, mais encore pour une autre façon de peinture qu'il avait. C'estoit que fort naifvement il représentait les places publiques et marchez de Venise avec tant de curiosité que dans une boucherie l'on voyait toute sorte de chair en détail et les animaux tuez ou écorchéz en divers postures. Sur la place Saint Marc, le Marché du samedy avec toute sorte de vestements estandus et les charlatans en action à vendre leur theriaque. Aux autres, il faisoit voir le gibier et venaison, en un autre la poissonnerie et un autre les herbages, fruicts, fleurs et semblables choses, avec une si exacte diligence qu'il ne s'y pouvoit rien requirérir qu'il n'eust observé’.