Romeyn de Hooghe (Amsterdam 1645 - 1708 Haarlem)

He was the third child of the button maker Romeyn de Hooghe, sr (1620-1664) and Susanne Gerarts (1619-1673)¹¹A. Bredius, ‘Uit de “Minute octrooien der Staten van Holland van West-Friesland” and “Losse aanteekeningen omtrent Hollandsche plaatsnijders”’, in F.D.O. Obreen, Archief voor Nederlandsche kunstgeschiedenis, 7 vols., Rotterdam 1877-90, VII (1890), p. 249. and was baptized on 10 September 1645 in the Zuiderkerk in Amsterdam.²²A. de Haas, ‘Commissaris van zijne majesteit en mikpunkt in faamrovende paskwillen. Een biografische schets’, in H. van Nierop (ed.), Romeyn de Hooghe. De verbeelding van de late Gouden Eeuw, Zwolle 2008, p. 24, n. 4. His family, from his father’s side, had immigrated to Amsterdam from Ghent in the late sixteenth century. He attended the Latin School and was probably trained as a printmaker. His earliest etchings are copies after Nicolaes Berchem (1621/22-1683), one dated 1662 (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-OB-55.011), the same year that he enrolled in the Guild of St Luke in The Hague.³³Ibid., p. 12. From 1663 to 1668 he was back in Amsterdam, and in 1667 he received his first commission as a book illustrator.⁴⁴The title print of the poem De Zee-straet by Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687); cf. A. de Haas, ‘Commissaris van zijne majesteit en mikpunkt in faamrovende paskwillen. Een biografische schets’, in H. van Nierop (ed.), Romeyn de Hooghe. De verbeelding van de late Gouden Eeuw, Zwolle 2008, pp. 12-27, fig. 2, after a drawn design by Jan de Bisschop (1628-1671). The same year, his first newsprints were published, illustrating the raid by the Dutch navy under Admiral Michiel de Ruyter (1607-1676) near Rochester and Chatham (e.g. inv. nos. RP-P-OB-79.256 and RP-P-OB-79.257), the latter after one of several paintings of the subject by Willem Schellinks (1623-1678). Romeyn de Hooghe continued to make newsprints until the end of his life, increasingly after his own designs, such as Peace Treaty at Breda between England and the Dutch Republic of 1667 (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-OB-67.707), of which his design is preserved in the Albertina, Vienna (inv. no. 10163).⁵⁵H. Leeflang, ‘Waarheid, vlugheid en inventie. Ontwerp en uitvoering van de etsen’, in H. van Nierop (ed.), Romeyn de Hooghe. De verbeelding van de late Gouden Eeuw, Zwolle 2008, pp. 126-45, fig. 8.

In the summer of 1668, De Hooghe went to Paris. There, he produced a print of the baptism ceremony of the French Dauphin.⁶⁶H. van Nierop, Life of Romeyn de Hooghe (1645-1708): Prints, Pamphlets and Politics in the Dutch Golden Age, Amsterdam 2018, fig. 2.3. By 1669, he was again back in Amsterdam, living on the Reguliersgracht in the south-eastern part of the city. On 1 May 1673, he posted marriage banns with Maria Lansman (1649-1718) from Edam, the 23-year old daughter of Anna Mits (1628-1679) and the late Andreas Lansman (1625-1666), a minister of the Reformed Church in Amsterdam.⁷⁷A.D. de Vries, ‘Biografische aanteekeningen betreffende voornamelijk Amsterdamsche schilders, plaatsnijders, enz. en hunne verwanten’ (II), Oud-Holland 3 (1885), p. 153. In 1674, the couple moved to the Jonge Roelofssteeg and in 1677 to the Binnenkant Canal (presently Binnenkant 27). Their only daughter, Maria Romana, was baptized on 14 March 1674 in the Nieuwezijdskapel in Amsterdam. She died in December 1694, age twenty.

As a printmaker, with his shop located at the Kalverstraat from 1674 and from 1676 at Dam Square, Romeyn de Hooghe became the leading chronicler of his generation, addressing a wide audience with his newsprints and broadsides. From 1670, he contributed the yearly frontispiece for the Hollandsche Mercurius in Haarlem, a cooperation that was to last until 1690.

In the mid-1670s, De Hooghe was also active as an art dealer and agent, apparently profiting from his good contacts to the Sephardic Jewish community. One of its members, Franciscus Mollo (1648/49-1721), became his major partner in business. Mollo had established contact with the Polish king Jan III Sobieski (1629-1696), for whom De Hooghe bought paintings at auctions, for instance, at the sale of Joannes de Renialme Jansz (1641-1687) on 7 May 1687. Between 1673 and 1685, De Hooghe etched several portraits of Jan Sobieski, who raised him to the rank of ‘servitor’ in 1675, granting him freedom of taxes from the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth.

In 1682, the De Hooghe and his family moved to Haarlem, where they lived in a house on the Geldelozepad. In 1683, Romeyn enlisted as a member of the city’s artist society, Confrerie Pictura, probably to attend the newly founded Drawing Academy.

After settling in Haarlem, Romeyn’s rise in social status, already evident from his acquisition in 1675 of a feudal tenure at Borrendam, near Schouwen in the province of Zeeland, resulted in several communal functions. In 1686, he was one of the three regents of the Pietershuis, a private foundation supporting poor orphans. In 1687 and 1688, he served as magistrate (‘commissaris’) of the Minor Bench of Justice (‘Kleine Bank van Justitie’) and on 3 June 1689, he received a doctorate in law at the University of Harderwijk. By 1690, he had become a regent of the Armekinderhuis, the municipal orphanage of Haarlem. In 1695, he bought a fief in Heemstede in Kennermerland. In 1706, he was appointed custodian of the Hortus Medicus in Haarlem, which had been laid out to his design in 1696. In 1688, Romeyn planned to establish a drawing school in Haarlem. Probably running from 1692, the drawing school was situated in the Ridderstraat, at the back of the garden of his newly-built house at the Nieuwe Gracht 13, where the De Hooghe family had moved in July 1689.

In 1688/89, Romeyn was involved in the so-called ‘pamphlete quarrel’ (‘pamflettenstrijd’), his antagonist being the Amsterdam advocate Nicolaas Muys van Holy (c. 1653/54-1717), leader of the Anti-Orange party.⁸⁸C. van de Haar, ‘Romeyn de Hooghe en de pamflettenstrijd van de jaaren 1689 en 1690’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 69 (1956), pp. 155-69. In the same period, he produced the ‘Harlequin Prints’, satirical broadsides aimed against the politics of King Louis XIV of France (1638-1715) and taking the side of the Stadholder-King Willem III (1650-1702). After 1689, Romeyn also acted as a political agent on behalf of the Stadholder. Supporting Willem III had its rewards. In 1689, Romeyn was appointed commissary and supervisor of the mining district of Lingen, an office from which he profited in many ways. He was allowed to move his drawing school to a bulwark facing the river Spaarne that was given to him for storing the Lingen bluestone, and he became supplier of bluestone for the Palace Het Loo. De Hooghe was also involved in designing the gardens of that newly-built palace.

Romeyn de Hooghe was an extremely productive and versatile artist. In the course of almost forty-five years, he made over 4300 prints. As a book illustrator, he worked for 170 different publishers and contributed to at least 465 book titles, including reprints. Thematically, the subjects ranged from the Bible to a wrestling manual and scientific works, such as the Aeloude en hedendaegsche scheeps-bouw (1671) of Nicolaes Witsen (1641-1717). Besides prints of portraits, battles, historic events, stately homes and princely gardens, maps, festivities and erotic subjects, he also designed commemorative coins, garden sculpture and stained-glass windows. Although not trained as a painter, he occasionally produced wall and ceiling paintings, for instance in the archer’s hall (‘doelen’) of the militia of St George in Rotterdam (1699-1700). His magnum opus in this respect were the murals in the mayor’s chamber (‘burgemeesterskamer’) in the Town Hall of Enkhuizen, 1707.⁹⁹M. van Eikema Hommes and P. Bakker, ‘Hoogachtbaarheid en ontzaglijke grootheid. De burgemeesterskamer van het stadhuis van Enkhuizen’, in H. van Nierop (ed.), Romeyn de Hooghe. De verbeelding van de Gouden Eeuw, Zwolle 2008, pp. 222-43, figs. 1-6.

Of his many pupils, only a few are known, such as Filibertus Bouttats (1635-1707), Adriaen Schoonebeeck (c. 1657/58-1705), Aernout Naghtegael (1658-1737), Jacobus Harrewijn (1660-1727), Frans Decker (1684-1751), François Harrewijn (1700-1764) and Laurens Scherm (active 1689-1701). A truly universal artist, Romeyn de Hooghe died on 10 June and was buried on 15 June 1708 in St Bavo, Haarlem.

Annemarie Stefes, 2019

References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, III (1721), pp. 257-65; J.C. Weyerman, De levens-beschryvingen der Nederlandsche konst-schilders en konst-schilderessen, 4 vols., The Hague/Dordrecht 1729-69, I (1729), p. 93; III (1729), p. 114; F.D.O. Obreen, Archief voor Nederlandsche kunstgeschiedenis, 7 vols., Rotterdam 1877-90, I (1877-78), pp. 124, 151; II (1879-80), pp. 2-4, 7; III (1880), pp. 200, 206; IV (1881-82), pp. 107-08, 155; V (1882-83), p. 318; VII (1888-90), pp. 31, 33, 38, 41, 53, 156, 249; F. Muller, De Nederlandsche geschiedenis in platen. Beredeneerde beschrijving van Nederlandsche historieplaten, zinneprenten en historische kaarten, 4 vols., Amsterdam 1863-82, I (1863-70), pp. 331-34, 336, 338, 347-48, 350-51, 357, 359-60, 362, 364-65, 367-68, 370, 374, 376-84, 387-94, 396-402, 405, 407, 411-18, 426-28, 430, 433-34, 436-37, 443-45, 447, 450, 454, 458-60; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, 3 vols., Vienna/Leipzig 1906-11, I (1906), pp. 718-19; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XVII (1924), pp. 458-61 (text by M.D. Henkel); F.G. Waller, Biographisch woordenboek van Noord Nederlandsche graveurs, The Hague 1938, p. 149; J. Landwehr, Romeyn de Hooghe the Etcher: Contemporary Portrayal of Europe, 1662-1707, Leiden 1973, pp. 15-16; W.H. Wilson, The Art of Romeyn de Hooghe: An Atlas of European Late Baroque Culture, 3 vols., Cambridge (MA) 1974 (PhD diss. Harvard University), I, pp. 21-69; F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700, 72 vols., Amsterdam and elsewhere 1947-2010, IX (1953), pp. 118-32; M.J.C. Otten, ‘Biografie van Romeyn de Hooghe’, De Boekenwereld 5 (1988-89), pp. 20-33; E. Buijsen (ed.), Haagse schilders in de Gouden Eeuw. Het Hoogsteder Lexicon van alle schilders werkzaam in Den Haag, 1600-1700, Zwolle 1998, p. 316; P. Groenendijk, Beknopt biografisch lexicon van Zuid- en Noord-Nederlandse schilders, graveurs, glasschilders, tapijtwevers et cetera van ca. 1350 tot ca. 1720, Utrecht 2008, pp. 418-19; H. van Nierop (ed.), Romeyn de Hooghe. De verbeelding van de late Gouden Eeuw, Zwolle 2008; A. Ott, ‘Romeyn de Hooghe as a Designer of Prints for the Publisher Jacob van Meurs’, Delineavit et Sculpsit 34 (2010), pp. 20-27; H. van Nierop, Life of Romeyn de Hooghe (1645-1708): Prints, Pamphlets and Politics in the Dutch Golden Age, Amsterdam 2018; RKD artists https://rkd.nl/artists/39559