Interior with an Elegant Lady Receiving a Suitor

1695 · Private collection

genre

Many of Naiveu's later works depict the performing of plays or as here, a scene from a play. The dramas depicted in Naiveu's theatrical pictures are seldom identifiable. In this picture the man entering to the right carries over his arm the costume of a Harlequin, or the Commedia dell'Arte figure of Arlecchino.

Interior with an Elegant Lady Receiving a Suitor

About the Artist

Matthijs Naiveu

1647 – 1726

Dutch painter (also spelt Neveu). He was the son of a wine merchant from Rotterdam and began his training with Abraham Toorenvliet (c. 1620-92), a glass painter and drawing master in Leiden. From 1667 to 1669 Naiveu was apprenticed to the Leiden 'Fine' painter Gerrit Dou, who received 100 guilders a year (an exceptionally high sum) for instructing Naiveu. In 1671 Naiveu entered the Leiden Guild of St Luke, of which he became the head in 1677 and again in 1678, the year in which he moved to Amsterdam, where he was later appointed hop inspector. This work did not prevent him producing a considerable number of paintings; the earliest known work by Naiveu is dated 1668, the latest 1721. There are dated paintings for almost every year in between; his most productive periods were 1675-79 and 1705-12.

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