Johannes Voorhout
1647–1717 · Dutch Republic · Dutch Golden Age, Baroque
The story
In 1674 a Dutch painter living in Hamburg painted a room full of music. At the harpsichord sits Johann Adam Reincken, organist of the city's St Catherine's Church, and a canon written out on a sheet in the picture is dedicated to Buxtehude and Reincken. The man with the viola da gamba is usually taken to be Dieterich Buxtehude, the organist of Lübeck whose playing the young Bach later walked some 400 kilometres to hear. If that is right, it is the only known portrait of Buxtehude. The painting is in the Museum of Hamburg History.
The painter was Johannes Voorhout, born in 1647 in Uithoorn, south of Amsterdam. He trained for six years in Gouda with Constantijn Verhout and then for five in Amsterdam with the history and portrait painter Jan van Noordt. In 1672, the year France invaded the Dutch Republic, he took his family to Friedrichstadt, a town in Schleswig with many Dutch settlers, and from there moved on to Hamburg, where he did well.
He came back to Amsterdam in 1677 and set up his own workshop, painting biblical and mythological scenes, portraits and genre pieces. He became a citizen of the city in 1707 and died there in 1717. His son Johannes, born in Hamburg, trained with him as a painter and was also a musician.
