Pieter Codde
Encyclopedia
Dutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
painter of genre works, guardroom scenes and portrait
Portrait
thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...
s.
Life
Codde was a technically skilled painter. He is said to have studied with Frans HalsFrans Hals
Frans Hals was a Dutch Golden Age painter. He is notable for his loose painterly brushwork, and helped introduce this lively style of painting into Dutch art. Hals was also instrumental in the evolution of 17th century group portraiture.-Biography:Hals was born in 1580 or 1581, in Antwerp...
, but it is more likely that his training was with a portrait painter, inn-keeper, actor and art-dealer Barent van Someren (1572–1632) or possibly with Cornelis van der Voort
Cornelis van der Voort
Cornelis van der Voort or van der Voorde was a Dutch Golden Age portrait painter from the early 17th century.-Life:...
(1576–1624). In 1623 he married the 18-year-old Marritje Arents. In the summer of 1625, on a party, organized by Van Someren on his estate, Codde got into a fight with his friend, the artist Cornelis Duyster. It ended with bloodshed as the two hit each other in the face with jars. Already in 1631 Codde lived the Sint Antoniesbreestraat
Sint Antoniesbreestraat
The Sint Antoniesbreestraat is a street in the centre of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The street runs south from Nieuwmarkt square to the Sint Antoniesluis sluice gates....
, then a fashionable street with many painters. In 1636 the couple divorced after he was accused of raping the maid; because nothing could be proved he was only locked up for one night. His wife went living with Pieter Potter, their neighbor and the father of the painter Paulus Potter
Paulus Potter
Paulus Potter was a Dutch painter, specialized in animals in landscapes, usually with a low point of view. Before Potter died of tuberculosis, 28-years old, he succeeded in producing about a hundred paintings, working continuously.-Life:Few details are known of Potter's life...
. When Pieter Codde died his maid, Barendje Willems, inherited most of his property.
Works
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
and are small-scale paintings. They are distinctive in their silvery-gray tonalities, and many are musically themed, such as his first known genre work, Dancing Lesson (Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
) from 1627, Musical Company of 1639, The Lute Player (Philadelphia Museum of Art
Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is among the largest art museums in the United States. It is located at the west end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. The Museum was established in 1876 in conjunction with the Centennial Exposition of the same year...
) and, Concert, a piece now in the Uffizi Gallery. The other piece by Codde in the Uffizi is a genre work, Conversation. Codde also painted historical religious works, such as his Adoration of the Shepherds, from 1645, in the Rijksmuseum
Rijksmuseum
The Rijksmuseum Amsterdam or simply Rijksmuseum is a Dutch national museum in Amsterdam, located on the Museumplein. The museum is dedicated to arts, crafts, and history. It has a large collection of paintings from the Dutch Golden Age and a substantial collection of Asian art...
of Amsterdam.
Though it is unknown whether he studied with Hals, his style is undoubtedly similar in some respects. He was commissioned in 1637 to complete an unfinished work of Hals, Officers of the Company of the Amsterdam Crossbow Civic Guard Under Captain Reynier Reael and Lieutenant Cornelis Michielsz. Blaeuw. While the choice of Codde to complete this work by Hals was not an obvious selection at the time, Codde’s work in the portrait matched the original so well that it is uncertain who painted what, although the Rijksmuseum, which now houses the work, states that Codde’s style is recognizably smoother. It is thought that Hals completed only the outline of the composition, with some faces and hands, and one figure on the far left; the rest was executed entirely by Codde. The piece has become known as, The Meagre Company, from a comment by the critic, Jan van Dijk
Jan van Dijk
Jan A.G.M. van Dijk is a professor of sociology and communication science at the University of Twente, The Netherlands. He teaches and investigates the sociology of the information society and the social aspects of the new media...
, who said all the guards were so slim, so it “might rightfully be called the meagre company.”
It is said that one of Codde’s pupils was Willem Duyster, who was about the same age. As Duyster was a better painter, this is very unlikely. Simon Kick
Simon Kick
-Biography:According to the RKD he was the son of the Delft varnish worker Willem Kick. He married Christina Duyster, who he got engaged to on the same day that her brother, the painter Willem Duyster got engaged to Simon's sister Margrieta. Simon and Stijntje became the parents of the painter...
was their brother-in-law. Adriaen Brouwer
Adriaen Brouwer
Adriaen Brouwer was a Flemish genre painter active in Flanders and the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century.-Biography:...
, Gerard Terborch Pieter Quast
Pieter Quast
Pieter Jansz. Quast was a Dutch painter and engraver.Quast was born and died in Amsterdam. From 1634 to 1641 he lived at The Hague. His pictures usually resemble those of Brouwer and A. van Ostade, and represent beggars and assemblies of boors merry-making, treated with a great deal of humour and...
and Jacob Duck
Jacob Duck
Jacob Duck was a Dutch painter and etcher.Duck is thought to have been born in Utrecht. From 1611, he was trained in Utrecht to become a goldsmith, in which craft he became a master in 1619. From 1621 he took drawing lessons from Joost Cornelisz Droochsloot...
also belonged to this group of painters that developed the style of genre scene. Codde may have been related to a poet with almost the same name, Pieter Adriaensz. Codde.
Source
- C. Bigler Playter (1972) Willem Duyster and Pieter Codde: The 'Duystere Wereldt' of Dutch Genre Painting, c. 1625-1635.