Jan Miense Molenaer
Born Haarlem, c. 1610; died Haarlem, bur 19 Sept 1668.
Dutch painter and draughtsman. The surprisingly large oeuvre of this remarkably versatile genre painter displays an inventive symbolism, wit and humour, which identify him as the true forerunner of Jan Steen.
1. Life.
He was the son of Jan Mienssen Molenaer and Grietgen Adriaens. The year of his birth is suggested by a notarized document of 21 November 1637 giving his age as about 27. His brother Bartholomeus Molenaer (d 1650) also painted, specializing in rustic peasant interiors in the manner of Adriaen van Ostade. Later in his career Jan Miense Molenaer occasionally collaborated with his nephew Klaes Molenaer (1630–76), a landscape painter and the son of another brother, Claes Jansz. Molenaer. On 1 June 1636 Molenaer married the genre painter judith Leyster in Heemstede, near Haarlem; only two of their five children, Helena and Constantijn, survived childhood. Also in 1636, following the court’s confiscation of his property to pay debts, Molenaer and Leyster moved to Amsterdam, and a year later he was commissioned to paint an elaborate wedding portrait for the van Loon family, the Wedding of Willem van Loon and Anna Ruychaver (1637; Amsterdam, Mus. van Loon). His financial situation appears to have improved during his Amsterdam years, thanks in part to an inheritance received by Leyster in 1639. It was during this period that the painter Jan Lievens briefly lived with Molenaer (1644). After 12 years in Amsterdam, Molenaer purchased a house in Heemstede and moved there in October 1648. He acquired two more houses in 1655, one on the Voetboogstraat in Amsterdam (occupied for only six months), the other in Haarlem on the Lombardsteech; his remaining years were spent in the Haarlem/Heemstede area. Despite his house speculation, the painter regularly appeared in court for non-payment of debts; settlement often involved either full or partial payment in paintings. Molenaer was also arraigned on charges of fighting and using abusive language. A posthumous inventory of his possessions conducted on 10 October 1668 lists a large collection of 16th- and 17th-century paintings.
2. Works.
Colourful genre paintings, genre-like group portraits and history paintings characterize the first half of Molenaer’s career. The earliest works (c. 1628–30) reveal a strong affinity to paintings by Frans Hals from the 1620s. Examples such as Children Playing with a Cat (Dunkirk, Mus. B.-A.) and the Breakfast Scene (1629; Worms, Ksthaus Heylshof) suggest that Hals was Molenaer’s teacher. As did Hals, he often depicted exuberant children and merrymakers in large half-length format. Paintings from this period have often been misattributed to Hals and Leyster, although Molenaer’s brushwork tends to be more descriptive and his figures more substantial. An impulse to compress interior space often accompanies awkward neck and shoulder areas of his figures.
During the 1630s and into the 1640s Molenaer painted an enormous range of subjects, in which the boundaries between genre, portraiture and history are often unclear; examples include Pastoral Scene (1632; Paris, Louvre), the Denial of St Peter (1636; Budapest, Mus. F.A.), Scene from Bredero’s ‘Lucelle’ (1639; Amsterdam, Ned. Theat. Inst.) and The Duet (c. 1630; Seattle, WA, A. Mus.). His imagery also reveals a unique combination of symbolism and allegory, description and humour, as in the Artist in his Studio (1631; Berlin, Bodemus.), the Woman of the World (1633; Toledo, OH, Mus. A.), Boys with Dwarfs (1646; Eindhoven, Stedel. van Abbemus.) and The Dentist (Brunswick, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Mus.). Molenaer’s creative use of traditional themes, particularly the Virtues and Vices, has attracted the attention of iconographers and cultural historians. The riotous, often violent, actions of peasants often signal a warning to the upper classes found within the same compositions, as in the Allegory of Marital Fidelity (1633; Richmond, VA, Mus. F.A.). Molenaer’s pictorial treatment varied greatly, depending on the subject represented: a coarse, painterly application and tonalist palette is usually reserved for peasant imagery (e.g. the Five Senses, 1637; The Hague, Mauritshuis); by contrast, representations of the upper classes involve a more controlled and polished treatment, with the use of brilliant local colours (e.g. Family Making Music, 1635–6; The Hague, Rijksdienst Beeld. Kst, on dep. Haarlem, Frans Halsmus.).
As Molenaer’s debt to Frans Hals lessened, other stylistic influences ranging from Dirck Hals and Thomas de Keyser to the little-known Haarlem painter Isack Elyas ( fl 1626) can be isolated. From the 1640s Molenaer specialized exclusively in low-life genre, his repeated variations of merry companies, peasant weddings, games and village scenes revealing the influence of Adriaen van Ostade. The compositions are crowded, the scale smaller and the colours muted; a script signature replaces the block lettering seen in earlier signatures and monograms; and the paintings are rarely dated. This dramatic change in Molenaer’s art prompted many early commentators to conclude that his oeuvre was the work of two painters. The masterpiece of the second half of his career, the signed and dated Peasants Carousing (1662; Boston, MA, Mus. F.A.), displays the lively humour, vivid description and ambitious composition that place it on a level with the best of his earlier works. Although Molenaer painted a number of exceptional works during the 1650s and 1660s, the overall quality of his paintings is poor. Scores of mediocre works have been misattributed to him, many of these by Jan Jansz. Molenaer (d 1685), whose figures are easily recognized by their heavy white highlights and pinched features.
Molenaer’s graphic oeuvre consists of a handful of drawings of village scenes executed in the 1650s (e.g. Peasants on their Way to a Fair; Haarlem, Teylers Mus.). A few prints have also been attributed to him.
Dennis P. Weller. "Molenaer, Jan Miense." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T058899 (accessed May 8, 2012).
