Bust of Gerard Schaep van Cortenhoeff (1598-1666), Burgomaster of Amsterdam

Entry

This marble portrait bust forms part of an imposing series of Amsterdam regental portraits made by Bartholomeus Eggers (1637-1692) and his teacher, Artus Quellinus I (1609-1668). Eggers was among the talented young sculptors Quellinus recruited to assist him with the sculptural decoration of the Amsterdam former town hall (the present-day Royal Palace at Dam Square) then under construction. The sitter, Gerard Schaep van Cortenhoeff, was appointed to the function of burgomaster of Amsterdam eleven times between 1637 and 1665. In the years 1644-45 he would also serve as ‘ambassador extraordinaris’ to the courts of King Christian IV of Denmark and Queen Christina of Sweden. Together with his brother-in-law, Willem Backer, Schaep was at the core of the Calvinist faction that ceaselessly endeavoured to frustrate the Libertines – the Bickers and the brothers Cornelis and Andries de Graeff – in their plans to build a new town hall. As orthodox Protestants, Schaep and his cohorts instead preferred that a tower be added to the Nieuwe Kerk, which stood adjacent. Schaep’s bust demonstrates that the commissioning of a sculpted portrait was by no means necessarily obstructed by his faith. Yet it also demonstrates the great importance placed on the possession of a marble portrait, transcending values held otherwise dear: in the words of the Amsterdam chronicler Hans Bontemantel, Schaep was regarded as ‘very frugal and avaricious, both in city and [his] own affairs’.²

While unsigned, Schaep’s bust can be securely attributed to Eggers on stylistic grounds, for instance when compared to the bust of the Amsterdam burgomaster Johannes Munter (BK-KOG-1457) which does bears his signature and is dated 1673. Eggers devised both portraits in austere fashion, void of baroque flair and pathos. Even so, he failed to match the refinement and spontaneity of Quellinus’s portraits (cf. BK-18305). He portrayed his sitters frontally, in a static pose. Typical aspects of Eggers’s style, seen in both portraits, are the undercutting of the eyelids, employed to create a small shadow falling over the eyeballs, and the way in which the hands were carved, the flat handling of the folds and the rather unsuccessful ratio of the head to the trunk. The latter could be due to the fact that Schaep’s head was carved from a separate piece of marble and then mounted on the trunk. Eggers conceived the portrait in large, rather imaginative planes. One original touch is his solution for Schaep’s right hand, which is resting on the barely visible left hand. This creates an asymmetrical contour that does give the bust some live liness. Schaep’s lips are only slightly parted and the head is turned a little to the right. The portrait must have been made in the last few years of the burgomaster’s life, given the aged face. It was probably executed between 1663, when Eggers left Quellinus’s studio, and 1666, the year of the sitter’s death. Schaep’s probate inventory of that year lists his marble portrait as well as versions in plaster and terracotta.³

Frits Scholten, 2025