Karel Dujardin
Dutch, 1626 - 1678
Painter, watercolourist, engraver, draughtsman. Religious subjects, allegorical subjects, portraits, genre scenes, animals, landscapes.
Karel Dujardin is known for a number of engravings dated 1648 and 1652. However, biographers are unable to agree on either the place or date of his birth. Ploos van Amstel says that Dujardin was born in Haarlem in 1625, and Descamps gives the date as 1640. Although most authors give Amsterdam as his birthplace in either 1634 or 1635, still others give his year of birth as 1622. According to Houbraken, Dujardin was a pupil of Nicolaes Berchem or Paulus Potter. He was also trained by van Laar and Le Bamboche in Italy. He is believed to have joined the Schildersbent, the Netherlandish artists society founded in Rome in 1623, which gave him the nickname Bokkbaart due to his goatee beard. The Italians appreciated and valued Dujardin's pictures and were willing to pay high prices for his works. Despite his success in Italy, Dujardin returned to Holland around 1655. It is said that in order to pay a large sum owed to his hostess during his trip to Lyons, he discharged the debt by marrying his creditor. In 1656 in The Hague, where he lived until after 1657, he was invited to become commissioner of the Guild of St Luke, and became one of the founder-members of the Pictura confraternity of artists. A portrait of Karel Du Jardin, painted by himself and dated 1657, shows that he must have been older than 25 at the time. He returned to Amsterdam in 1659.
In his native country, as in Italy, his pictures were much sought-after and he was unable to meet the large number of commissions that flooded in. He was also very popular in England. He painted family scenes, landscapes in which the soft sunlight of Italy was reflected, as well as religious subjects, scenes of rural life and animals. He was also noted for his portraits. He had a number of pupils: Willems Schellincks, Jan Lingelbach, Wilhelm Romeyn, Martinus Laeckerman, and Jacob van der Does. Jean le Ducq imitated several of his works.
One witness claims that on 16 May 1672, Dujardin admitted to being 50 years old and missing the regions of southern Europe and Italy. Thus, when his friend Jan Reinst left for Livorno, Dujardin, who had accompanied Reinst as far as the port of Texel, was unable to resist. He got on the ship with his friend and returned to Rome, where he resumed his former life and re-established old contacts. He no longer wished to return to his native country and he died in Venice on 20 November 1678. Many of his pictures are in the Louvre, as well as other museums and private collections.
"DUJARDIN, Karel or Carel." In Benezit Dictionary of Artists. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/benezit/B00055199 (accessed May 8, 2012).
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