Dirk Huydonck (1601-?)

PORTRAIT OF ANNETJE OOSTENMEER

Dirk Huydonck was born in Edam to one of the town’s famous cheese makers. Not satisfied with the repetitious and confining life of a cheese worker, Dirk ran off at age 17 to Amsterdam where, after trying this and that manner of making a living in the big city, he found employment with a paint shop that supplied many of the materials then in demand by artists. He found his association with artists particularly congenial and soon began spending time lurking in the studios of artist to the detriment of his duty tending the shop of his master.

Invited to try his hand at painting with oils on canvas, Dirk surprised his artist friends with his almost instant competence in achieving likenesses. Encouraged to practice the art of portraiture by these early successes, Dirk returned to Edam prepared to make a living where he knew there would be no competition in the practice of this art.

Dirk’s success was immediate and quickly put an end to remonstrations by members of his family that he was wasting time and talent that could more profitably be spent curing and waxing the famous red rounds of Edam’s cheese.

One of his commissions was to paint the face (and only the face) of Annetje, the young daughter of Adriann Oostenmeer, a dairyman who supplied the cheesemakers of Edam with milk. Oostenmeer need not have exacted that condition, inasmuch as Dirk was untrained, unschooled in anatomy, and therefore never at ease in doing a full, standing figure.

Annetje was delighted with the prospect of spending afternoons in the studio of this young, handsome and, apparently,wealthy artist, and was pleased when the sittings dragged out over a period six months. The artist was happy to have the ear of this pretty lass, who gave all her attention day after day to his colorful and sometimes racy stories about "bohemian", artistic life in Amsterdam.

Adriann Oostenmeer later admitted that he had been foolish to leave his daughter without a chaperone during these portrait sittings. When it became apparent that Annetje’s gown no longer fitted her swelling form, he attempted to arrange a betrothal between his daughter and the portraitist. Applying to the studio with daughter in hand, he found "no one at home"; that is, the studio was deserted except for one easel and Annetje’s tiny but finished portrait.

Neither Annetje nor the town of Edam heard from the artist again. Amsterdam was searched by her family to no avail. There is a possibility that the artist changed his name or even emigrated for awhile to the colony of New Amsterdam. Perhaps his later work may one day be detected, reflecting a greater experience and bearing a different signature, thus providing closure to the story of this talented but irresponsible young man.

A child was born to Annetje, a son, Ton, who eventually made a name for himself as a cheesemaker in the town of Gouda. There he formed and sealed his cheeses with yellow wax, a color note that would thereafter declare to the world the Gouda origin of his much prized, golden rounds.

Adriann Oostenmeer eventually found a husband for Annetje who gratefully and thereupon provided her father with a baker’s dozen of assorted fat and happy grandchildren.

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