Ludolf de Jongh
(1616-1679)

Ludolf de Jongh was a 17th century Dutch painter who studied with Delft portraitist Cornelis Saftleven. His earliest known paintings were created in Rotterdam and were portraits and genre pices.

De Jongh traveled to France in 1635, where he studied and painted for seven years. Following his return to Holland, de Jongh became the most popular and successful Dutch painter of the 1650s. He was highly innovative and responded to the changing tastes in Dutch art during the time and was not married to one particular style or subject.

Hunters Resting in a Wooded Landscape

Despite his popularity, de Jongh all but gave up painting in the 1660s to become involved in law enforcement in Rotterdam. However, before he made his exit as an artist, de Jongh created some of the most expressive Dutch portraits of his time and greatly influenced future Dutch master Pieter de Hooch.

De Jongh was unique among his fellow Dutch painters of the time because he painted a wide variety of subjects from landscapes and portraits to genre pieces and historical paintings. This wide variety of styles has led art experts and authenticators to wrongly attribute his pieces to others in the past. As a result, a great number of pieces by this Dutch master may still be somewhere unknown or wrongly identified.

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