Simon Luttichuys

Essay:

Simon Luttichuys was born in London to Dutch parents in 1610 and is recorded in documents there with the Anglicised surname ‘Littlehouse’ until 1639. He was the brother of the portrait painter Isaack Luttichuys. Both artists signed with their (similar-looking) initials, which has since led to misattributions among their respective oeuvres.

Luttichuys began his career in London specialising in still lifes and portraits. He also spent a couple of years in Cambridge painting portraits and a series of works on the life of Christ for Peterhouse College, which have been lost. He then emigrated to Holland to establish himself in Amsterdam where he is first documented in 1646. We know through other such documents that he was married to an English woman by the name of Joanna Payne, who died in 1649. Luttichuys may have returned to London at some point as in 1662 the poet Jan Vos wrote that he had painted King Charles II and his two brothers.

As a painter of still lifes Lutichuys often depicted a wineglass with a partly peeled lemon and a silver plate with a bread roll lying on it. He also painted effective vanitas pieces with soap-bubbles or globes of glass. Many of his vanitas still lifes from the mid-1640s recall works by Jan Lievens, with whom Luttichuys may have become acquainted when both painters were resident in London in the first half of the 1630s. In a different style more reminiscent of Jan Davidsz. de Heem, Luttichuys painted still lifes in a curtained room with a view into the distance: richly laden tables with large vessels, fruit and musical instruments. By the end of the decade, the artist had begun to increasingly specialise in sumptuous banquet pieces that were to have a strong influence on the works of Willem Kalf.

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It has been speculated that this picture is the work by Luttichuys described as 'Een citroen met een Roomer' in the 1673 inventory of the notable Dutch physician, scientist, and art collector Franciscus de le Boë Sylvius in his Leiden house. Sylvius likely acquired the picture, as well as its companion piece (a roemer with an orange) in Amsterdam earlier in his career. Appropriately the inventory lists the pair as hanging in Sylvius's dining room.

In Sylvius's inventory there are six works by Luttichuys (all presumed to be by Simon rather than his brother Issack) including two further still lifes, a tronie, and a portrait of Sylvius (see B. Ebert, op. cit., p. 142 and p. 420, Sim. B 6). At least one Luttichuys still life was inherited by Sylvius's nephew Jean Rouyer which was valued in his collection at 8 guilders.

Dr. Fred Meijer has confirmed the attribution of this painting to Simon Luttichuys based on a photograph.

Provenance:

(Possibly) mentioned in the inventory of the estate of Franciscus de le Boë Sylvius (1614 - 1672), Leiden, 6 April 1673 as 'Een citroen met een Roomer';
(Possibly) By descent to his nephew Jean Rouyer.
Private collection, Belgium.

Literature:

(Possibly) B. Ebert, 'Simon and Isaack Luttichuys: Monographie mit kritischem Werkverzeichnis', Berlin, Munich, 2009, p. 427, Sim. C 20.