SECTION XX
PIETER VAN SLINGELAND PIETER CORNELISZ, VAN SLINGELAND according to a statement by Houbraken, which seems trustworthy was born in the Oude Vest street at Ley den, October 20, 1640, and was the son of Cornelis Pietersz van Slingeland and Trijntje van Polanen. 1 But if he painted the portraits of Jan Hubrechtand Anna Ghijs, which are signed in full and dated 1653, his birth-year must be put back to an earlier date, for these portraits could not possibly have been the work of a boy of twelve or thirteen. Slingeland died on November 7, 1691, in his native town, which he seems to have never left. He was a pupil of Gerard Dou, whom he strove to imitate in every respect, and whom he often surpassed in his smooth and careful brushwork. He was respected by his fellow-painters. He was a member of their guild from 1 66 1 and was their dean in 1691. Slingeland painted portraits, genre- pieces, a few pictures of saints, mythological subjects, and still-life. His genre-pieces illustrate either the comfortable and placid existence of the well-to-do classes or life in the kitchen. These kitchen-scenes show in composition and treatment the influence of the Rotterdam painters of the Sorgh group, from whose works they are often not easily distinguished. Yet on the whole Slingeland was the imitator of his master in his choice of subjects and in the details of external arrangement such as the shape rounded at top to an oval, the view of a subject through recesses or window- openings, and the introduction of a draped curtain as well as in his care- ful execution. Houbraken declares indeed that in this last respect he excelled his master, at the cost of sacrificing natural truth. The remark is absolutely just. Slingeland's pictures are more stiffly composed, harder in drawing, and more garish in colour than those of Dou. The most pleasing are the simple scenes with children, such as those at the Uffizi (123) and at Dulwich (124). 1 A Pieter, son of a Cornelis Pietersz, was baptized in the Hooglandsche Kerk at Leyden r November 4, 1640. Possibly this was the same child. 4 20
