Pipe-smoking Man

The twins David and Pieter Oyens, born in 1842 as sons of an Amsterdam banker, were both artists. They studied at the art academy in Brussels and stayed in the Belgian capital for the rest of their lives. The brothers were inseparable and usually exhibited together. Their work is often difficult to distinguish because it is often signed with only the surname. This picture, also signed with the initial, was included as 'The Smoker' in the sales exhibition Artworks by living masters in October 1888 at Arti et Amicitiae in Amsterdam. Fred Hendriks recently argued in De verbeelder verbeeld[t] (2017) that many of David's paintings that long passed for anonymous male portraits are actually self-portraits or portraits of his brother. Although identical twins, there was a specific facial feature that distinguished them from one another: their noses were different. This is of little use to us in this drawing, for the face is largely hidden in the dark shadows under the hat, even the moustache is invisible, only the chin and the tip of the nose catch a glimpse of light. The drawing fits in nicely with his two painted and drawn - undisguised - portraits of Pieter from 1879 and 1885 in the museum collection. [text: Albert Elen]