Matthijs Naiveu (Leiden 1647 – 1726 Amsterdam)

Portrait of a Gentleman

Portrait of a Lady

Both oil on copper, oval, 12.8 x 10.4 cm (5 x 4.1 inch)

Provenance
~ Collection Mr W.J.C. Bijvoet, Nijmegen, 1956
~ Private collection, The Netherlands

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Matthijs Naiveu was born in Leiden in April 1647 as the son of Mattheus Willems Naiveu, a wine merchant and inn-keeper from Rotterdam, and Jannetgien Melcke from Leiden.¹ Naiveu was first trained in the art of painting by the glass painter and drawing master Abraham Toorenvliet (c.1620–1692), and finished his studies with the celebrated painter Gerrit Dou (1613–1675), the founder of the Leiden school of fine painters, to which Naiveu also belongs. Naiveu stayed with Dou for three years, and paid his master a very sizeable sum of a hundred guilders per year for this tutelage, for which receipts are preserved in the Leiden municipal archives.²

About a year after leaving Dou’s studio, Naiveu was accepted as a member of the Leiden guild of St Luke. He paid his contribution to the confraternity every year until 1677, when he became one of the heads of the guild. In 1678 or 1679 he moved to Amsterdam, where he set up his studio on the Prinsengracht, near the Spiegelgracht. In Amsterdam he continued painting, but from 1696 he was also active as hop inspector for the local brewers. Among his pupils was Focke Stapert, who entered Naiveu’s studio in 1699.

Naiveu is best known for his genre pieces, and was among the earliest painters to depict theatrical performances. A small number of portraits by him is known, including a portrait of a lady holding a dog in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (fig.).³ A portrait by Naiveu of Hendrick Staets of 1683 is furthermore preserved in the Amsterdam Museum, Amsterdam.⁴ Of all presently known portraits by Naiveu, the present pair of charming portraits on copper are the smallest and show Naiveu’s capabilities as a ‘fine painter’. The lady wears a tall head piece called a ‘fontange’, which was popular from around 1685, and the present pair of portraits can possibly be dated circa 1690.

1. For Naiveu, see Adele-Marie Dzidzaria, Entertaining genre of Matthijs Naiveu – depicting festivities and performances at the dawn of the ‘Theatre Age’, master thesis, Utrecht University, Utrecht, 2007, passim and Eric Jan Sluijter a.o., Leidse fijnschilders: van Gerrit Dou tot Frans van Mieris de Jonge 1630-1760, exh. cat. Leiden (Lakenhal) 1988, p. 186.
2. Dzidzaria, op. cit., pp. 5-6.
3. Oil on panel, 20.4 x 17.8 cm, dated 1678. inv. no. RF 1990 28, É. Foucart-Walter and J. Foucart, Catalogue des peintures flamandes et hollandaises du musée du Louvre, Paris 2009, p. 189, repr. 
4. Oil on canvas, 39.4 x 32.4 cm, inv. no. SA 41038.