Portrait of a boy, ca.1660, possibly John Arundell, 2nd Baron Arundell of Trerice.

Ludowyk, or Caspar Smits, or Smith or Gaspar Smitz (1635 in Zwartewaal – 1707 in Dublin), was a Dutch Golden Age painter.

Biography

According to Houbraken he was called Ludowyk Smits, nicknamed Hartkamp, and was the teacher of the painters Simon Germyn and Garret Morphy.[1] Smits came to live in Dordrecht for a few years with the organist Joan Kools, whose wife traded in paintings, when he was 40 in 1675.[2] He started by making "penitent Maria Magdalenes", but made his living primarily by painting fruit and flower still lifes in the manner of Jan Davidsz de Heem and Willem van Aelst.[2] He used cheap paint that faded quickly, and when his customers complained he said that the paint lasted longer than the money that was paid for them.[2]

According to the RKD he was known under the names Lodewyk, Gaspar, and Magdalen Smits, as well as the alias Theodorus Hartkamp.[3] Abraham Bredius found Dordrechtse documents in the archives there to prove that Houbraken's Ludowyk Smits and Horace Walpole's Gaspar Smits were the same person [4] He was a member of the Guild of St. Luke in Dublin from 1681 to 1688, and according to Walpole he was active in Ireland until his death in 1707.[3]

References

  1. ↑ (in Dutch) Ludowyk Smits, in Simon Germyn Biography in De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (1718) by Arnold Houbraken, courtesy of the Digital library for Dutch literature
  2. 1 2 3 (in Dutch) Ludowyk Smits Biography in De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (1718) by Arnold Houbraken, courtesy of the Digital library for Dutch literature
  3. 1 2 Caspar Smits in the RKD
  4. ↑ Oud Holland 1915, p. 118
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