Hoogstraten on painters and money

Honthorst, the successful court painter in The Hague, had, while he still flourished as an artist, a lively brush; but, whether it was to please the girls, or because money lulled him to sleep, he fell into a stiff smoothness: about which Linschoten, who was used to attacking his work lustily, taunted him, saying that Honthorst could no longer do a worthwhile stroke. “All the same,” replied the latter, “I do better strokes than you every day of the week, and I’ll show you one you can’t repeat.” So saying, he pulled a handful of ducats from his purse, shoved them on the table, and stroked them towards him, by which he meant to show that with his painting, however it might look, he knew how to earn money, whereas Linschoten, with his broad brush, was still a poor man.

One of my favorite quotes from Samuel van Hoogstraten’s 1678 Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst, translation by Paul Taylor in Dutch Flower Painting 1600-1720 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995)