Portrait Medallion of a Young Man

Entry

These two ivory medallions (for the other portrait, see BK-1958-2-A), each bearing the portrait of a young man and unquestionably conceived as a pair (although the ivories have not always remained together),¹ were made around 1660 in the Northern Netherlands. The high quality of the carving and the unusual, highly evolved spatial depth – with the elbows of both men projecting dramatically outward – betray the work a sculptor possessing remarkable skill. Rombout Verhulst (1624-1698) has been proposed as the possible artist. While originating from the Southern Netherlandish city of Mechelen, Verhulst was active in the Dutch Republic. His standing as the leading sculptor in the Northern Netherlands after 1650 is aptly illustrated by his inclusion in Jan Vos’s Zeege der schilderkunst from 1654.² By this time, Verhulst had been in the Northern Netherlands since 1646, four years prior to his joining the team charged with the sculptural decoration on the new Amsterdam town hall, a massive enterprise overseen by his fellow countryman Artus Quellinus I (1609-1668). Verhulst is known to have made a number of key contributions as well, with a number of the marble reliefs adorning the palace arcades even bearing his signature. Not only does this suggest he enjoyed a status working as an independent artist within Quellinus's team, but it also reflects the high level of esteem he must have already acquired in the Dutch Republic by this time.

Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century sources mention cabinet sculptures by Verhulst no more than incidentally. Prior to the Rijksmuseum’s acquisition of an ivory Virgin and Child signed RVHulst (BK-2002-28), however, only one other documented example of cabinet sculpture attributable to his name was still known to exist: the carved wooden mantelpiece frieze in the Oranjezaal at Huis Ten Bosch Palace – since 1805 incorporated above a doorway – depicting a triumphal procession of putti.³ Rembrandt’s insolvent estate inventory of 1656 includes a rather enigmatic entry listing a small gilded bedstead by Verhulst,⁴ with a small number of carved picture frames cited elsewhere.⁵ The sculptor’s name also appears in connection with ivory- and wood-carved statuettes mentioned in Northern Netherlandish collections and sales of the eighteenth century.⁶ The ivory Virgin and Child therefore serves as an important core work, pivotal in gauging the few known cabinet sculptures attributed to the sculptor.⁷ Two reliefs – Joseph and the Wife of Potiphar and Isaac Who is About to Bless Jacob – in the former Reiner Winkler collection and now in the Liebieghaus in Frankfurt have also been attributed to Verhulst on convincing stylistic grounds.⁸

The two medallion portraits discussed here are admittedly fairly dissimilar to the Madonna statuette, a work in many ways as yet conveying the classical spirit of the Amsterdam city hall. When turning to Verhulst’s life-size portraits in marble and terracotta, however, some commonalities can be discerned, specifically in terms of the ‘warm’, fleshy treatment of the skin. What the double portraits share with the ivory Madonna is the expressive interplay of small folds and large planes in the treatment of the clothing. The stylized treatment of the hairlocks, on the other hand, is completely different from the characteristic ‘impressionistic’ way in which Verhulst depicts hair, both in ivory and other media. The calligraphically carved wavy locks of the two portrayed are rather reminiscent of the work of South-German ivory carvers, for example from Augsburg or from the Kern family.⁹ Obviously, that stylistic similarity is insufficient to justify an attribution to an ivory carver from that region, but such a South-German influence in the Republic cannot entirely be excluded. For example, Leonhard Kern is known to have stayed in Cleves in 1648 and probably in the neighbouring Netherlands as well, while he maintained contacts with collectors and a merchant in Amsterdam. According to the generally well-informed Joachim von Sandrart, Leonhard’s son Hans Jakob Kern – of whom no certain works are known – would have worked on Amsterdam’s new town hall in the early 1660s, in the immediate ambiente of Artus Quellinus I.¹⁰

When comparing the two young men portrayed on these ivory medallions to each other, one is struck by the undeniable similarity of the facial features, as if depicting the one and the same man in two different phases of his life. Perhaps the two are brothers. The clothing and rapier of the hatless figure (shown here) alludes to a (quasi-) military function, possibly conveying membership in a militia. The projecting elbow is also a detail commonly encountered on depictions of men of military rank.

The ivory with the hatless man may have been part of the collection of Pieter Locquet which was sold at auction in 1783.¹¹ His sales catalogue lists two ivory portrait medallions by Rombout Verhulst, one of which supposedly represented the Dutch Rear-Admiral David Vlugh (1611-1673) and had about the same dimensions as BK-1958-2-B.¹² As the features of the portrayed man bear some resemblance to Vlugh’s portrait print by Hendrik Bary (RP-P-1884-A-7722), the ivory might be one and the same as the Locquet medallion. However, the resemblance with Vlugh’s portrait print is too superficial for a firm identification of the ivory portrait with this naval hero.¹³

The meaning of the finger gesture made with the right hand by the same man proves enigmatic. The pendant figure (BK-1958-2-A) in fact makes the same gesture, albeit in a somewhat diluted form. By no means does it belong to the standard repertoire of seventeen-century ‘manual’ rhetoric.¹⁴ A somewhat similar positioning of the figures, however, can be seen on an early-seventeenth-century painted portrait from Hoorn, in which case, according to Ripa’s Iconologia, the gesture conveys steadfastness.¹⁵ Another possibility is that the man is using his fingers to indicate a certain length – spanning the thumb and index finger – perhaps admonishing the beholder to moderation.

Noteworthy is the appearance of the same hand gesture in a painted portrait of the German sculptor Georg Pfründt (1603-1663) by Nicolaes de Helt Stockade (1614-1669).¹⁶ The portrait is certain to have been made shortly before 1640 in Paris, where both artists then worked and resided. From 1652 on, however, De Helt Stockade was in Amsterdam, where he was involved in the decoration of the new town hall. He was also related to the painter Jan Asselijn by marriage and a friend of Artus Quellinus.¹⁷ In a poem by Jan Vos from 1654, dedicated to the Amsterdam painters’ guild,¹⁸ De Helt Stockade is named in the same breath with Quellinus, Verhulst and other artists. It is therefore conceivable that through the work of De Helt Stockade the unknown maker of the two ivories came across this rare and elusive gesture of the hand.

Frits Scholten, 2024