Johan van Sijpesteijn

Johan van Sijpesteijn was born in Utrecht. He became the Steward of St. Elisabeth Orphanage (St. Elisabethweeshuis) in Utrecht, founded in 1491 by Evert Zoudenbalch (1455-1530) and located at Oudegracht no. 245.

Van Sijpesteijn married Petronella van Middelkoop (also spelled Midelcoop). They had several children. He collected Dutch and Flemish seventeenth century paintings. He displayed larger works, and his finest pictures, in the groote Salet, a (formal) living room. Among them were two so-called kitchen pieces (or kitchen still lifes) by Joachim Beuckelaer, and genre pieces of peasants, landscapes as well as religious pieces. In a smaller room at the front of the house, the voorkamer, he hung genre paintings and another kitchen piece by (or in the style of) Gerard Terborch. Van Sijpesteijn owned a genre piece of a boy lighting a pipe from a candle by Hendrick Ter Brugghen – most likely in the collection of the Dobó István Vármúzeum in Hungary. Gerard Terborch’s Intérieur de cabaret, was acquired 200 years later by Adolphe Schloss (labelled as “Schloss no. 213” following the seizure of the Adolphe Schloss Collection by the Germans in April 1943).   Literature: Kwak, Z. sz. M. “’Proeft de kost en kauwtse met uw oogen’. Beeldtraditie, betekenis en functie van het Noord-Nederlandse keukentafereel (ca. 1590-1650).” PhD Thesis, University of Amsterdam. 2014, p. 379.