The career of Simon van der Does seems quite complicate. His father Jacob van der Does (1623-1673) died when Simon was at the age of twenty, thus deprived of the opportunity to further educate Simon and his older brother Jacob van der Does Jr. (1654-1699). When Simon enrolled to Pictura in 1683, Pieter Weyerman (1677-1747) described him as a shy and timid character, who had great difficulties with socializing due to his bashful nature and little self-confidence, thus missing out on a certain continuacy of commissions, especially for portraits.[1]
The alderman Jacob de Graeff, active as Simon's patron, withdrew due to Simon's marriage with Clara Bellechière, who had a most wasteful nature. This marriage may have been enforced by Clara as she filed a lawsuit before the Supreme Military Court against Simon in 1688, four years prior to their marriage in 1692. The couple had two kids in 1692 and 1695, but the family was burdened with constant financial woes. The financial malaise was strikingly expressed by van Gool who wrote on van der Does "maakte zelden iets of 't was voor gegeten brood" (van der Does seldomly painted without the need to pay his debts). After Clara's dead in 1700, Simon hit rock bottom and lived in the Sint-Nicolaas hospice, a shelter for the impecunious. Few years later he moved to Antwerp to work for local Art dealers. In the early 18th century, inspired by Gerard de Lairesse (1641-1711), Classicist themes of pastoral scenes with classical garden sculptures were in high demand, which is also the subject for the present sheet. Our drawing therefore may be regarded as a sheet from Simon's Antwerp period, dated between 1700-1718.[2]
This hitherto unrecorded drawing, which depicts an Italianate landscape with two goats in front of statues of a River God and Sphinx, bears an old inscription on the verso in black chalk which reads Verdoes, the shorthand nickname for Simon's father Jacob van der Does (1623-1673). Though when comparing the divergent technique and complex interaction of the handling between brown and grey ink in this drawing, the authorship of this drawings belongs to Jacob's son, Simon. Where Jacob always drew in one colour scheme, Simon used different tones and techniques, thus creating a more lively and spontaneous three dimensional composition.[3]
The goat which appears on the right of the two trees in the center closely resembles the goat on the right in Landscape with a woman wearing an antique robe, adorning the sculpture of a Satyr with garlands in the collections of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels.[4] Especially the vegetation shows great similarity with the drawing by Simon van der Does in the collections in the Pushkin Museum, Moscow.[5]
A big and warm thanks to Dr. Annemarie Stefes for her help cataloguing the drawing.
[1] Arnold Houbraken, De groote Schouburgh der Nederlantsche Kunstschilders en schilderessen... (1721). Gedrukt door den auteur te Amsterdam, 1718-1721. Vol. III, p. 326-328.
[2] Kabinet der Heerlijkste Tekenwerken: Achttiende-eeuwse nederlandse tekeningen uit de verzameling van de Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België. Snoeck, 2019. p.34-37
[3] Correspondence with Dr. Annemarie Stefes.
Correspondence by e-mail based on digital high resolution images, 28 February 2025.
[4] Simon van der Does, Antique landscape with a woman in antique robe, decorating a Satyr statue with garlands. Pen in brown and grey, brush in brown and grey, traces of black chalk, brown and grey wash, 344 x 258 mm. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels. inv./cat.nr. 4060/1052
[5] Simon van der Does, Landscape with shepherd and cattle.
Pen and grey ink, brush and black and grey ink, grey wash, 175 x 273 mm.
Pushkin Museum, Moscow, inv./cat.nr. 4660
