Portrait Medallion of Cornelis de Graeff (1599-1664)

Entry

The wealth and power of Amsterdam and of the States faction in the Dutch Republic both before and at the time of Johan de Witt’s leadership as grand pensionary cleared the way for the classicist display of civic pride on an opulent level. Starting in the early 1650s, the construction and decoration of the former Amsterdam town hall (the present-day Royal Palace at Dam Square) in an austere classicist style formed the grandiose manifestation of regental power in the city. SPQR had become SPQA. The republican-orientated, anti-Orange city government enjoyed comparing Amsterdam to antique Rome. They saw themselves as new ‘consuls’ from the days of the Roman republic and as such implicitly as opponents of tyranny. An associated expression of republican (and anti-stadholder) sympathies were the sculpted portraits these men commissioned of themselves from Artus Quellinus I (1609-1668), the sculptor charged with the sculptural decoration of the new town hall. That many of these city officials had also adopted a semi-noble lifestyle, had acquired low-noble titles and sometimes even established actual family ties with members of the true nobility is certain to have contributed to this predilection for the lofty medium of portrait sculpture.

In his speech held at the inauguration of the new town hall, the poet Geeraardt Brandt referred to the burgomasters of Amsterdam as if they were Roman consuls, the inheritors of Brutus, Cato and Cicero who were poised to instate their new capitol building. The person and writings of the latter figure, and particularly his De re publica (54-51 BC), formed an important source of inspiration in this enterprise.³ Cicero propagated the republican state form and repeatedly emphasized the great importance of the individual virtus for the success of the state and its citizens’ willingness to self-sacrifice – especially that of the consul – on behalf of the public cause. Together with a number of other preeminent Roman consuls, this made him an ideal role model for the Amsterdam regents. As a representative of the novus homo – someone not having come from the ever-desirable background of the nobility – Cicero was even more evident as he had still managed to make it into the top echelon of the Roman government. The same was also true of the Amsterdam burgomasters, whose origin lay in the merchant class.

At least thirteen sculpted portraits of burgomasters and their associates survive from this period (1650-1675).⁴ Other works, including two portrait busts of the Bicker brothers, are known only from written sources such as poems by Vondel and Jan Vos. The most important motive for commissioning a bust stemmed from one’s identity as a burgomaster of Amsterdam in and of itself. Not one of the burgomaster busts, as far as can be ascertained, was commissioned within the sitter’s first year in office. Hence, they were not works commissioned simply in recognition of having taken office. Similarly, principles of a political-religious nature had little bearing on the decision to have a sculpted portrait made. While most of the individuals portrayed belonged to the libertine faction within the Amsterdam regent class, Calvinist-leaning burgomasters such as Gerard Schaep van Cortenhoeff (BK-C-2012-1) and Nicolaes Tulp (Collection Six, Amsterdam) are also known to have commissioned portraits of themselves from Quellinus or one of his immediate assistants. Common to all of the known surviving busts is the overtly classicist character, conveyed on various levels: the choice of the bust as a classical visual form, the material marble as the classical sculptor’s medium par excellence, the classical toga, the termination of the bust, the hollowing out of the reverse and the Latin inscription. These all’antica traits fall seamlessly in line with the classicist idiom the Amsterdam burgomasters had chosen to adopt, intended to convey power and status and inspired by the notion of auctoritas of ancient Rome.

In the 1650s and the early 1660s, the most important burgomaster of Amsterdam was Cornelis de Graeff (1599-1664), Lord of Polsbroek, who was chosen to hold this function a total of nine times in the years 1643, 1648, 1651, 1652, 1655, 1658, 1659, 1661, 1662. The exceptional level of esteem and power he garnered was largely derived from his role as the auctor intellectualis of a new town hall but also the major driving force in this colossal project’s realization. Cornelis de Graeff distinguished himself from the majority of the city’s merchant-class regents through his superior erudition and mastery of various languages. He and his brother Andries (BK-18305) were not only passionate proponents of the States cause, in a political sense they were the direct heirs, namesakes and cousins of Cornelis and Andries Bicker, who had both been deposed in 1650 on the orders of Stadholder William II. Cornelis de Graeff was the presiding burgomaster during the installation of the new town hall on 29 July 1655, a moment that is certain to have given him great gratification. It was largely the result of his involvement that the power and status of the Amsterdam burgomasters had never before been so clearly manifested on such a grand scale. On a personal level, this honour was undoubtedly much to his liking, as from 1655 on, he actively pursued the further promotion of the De Graeff-Bicker dynasty, to this end relying upon his purported descent from the legendary medieval burgomaster of the city, Andries Boelen (1455-1519). In this endeavour, Vondel acted as his spokesman.⁵

All the more remarkable that precisely this burgomaster, known to have possessed such a dynastic awareness, had Quellinus portray him in such a relatively modest way. In or shortly before 1660, De Graeff commissioned the present marble portrait medallion of himself along with a pendant medallion of his wife, Catharina Hooft (BK-KOG-1458-B). The chosen visual form, though perhaps explicitly classical, like the Latin inscription accompanying De Graeff as CONSUL AMSTELDAMIS, nevertheless conveys a degree of modesty, certainly in the context of the busts made to portray his predecessors holding the function of burgomaster of Amsterdam.⁶ Derived from Virgil’s Aeneid (VI: 834), the motto chosen by Vondel to accompany his poem celebrating De Graeff’s portrait also points to an admonishment of hubris: Parcere subjectis, & debellare superbos (To spare the conquered, and subdue the proud). The poem itself, written in 1660, praises De Graeff’s quality as a statesman in the old Roman tradition. Jan Vos, in his own verse dedicated to the relief portrait, lauds the burgomaster’s acumen.⁷ A more trivial explanation for this austere display, however, may perhaps be an attempt to conceal a deformity on Cornelis de Graeff’s face arising from an accident in the past, which might have been more readily masked in a profile portrait versus a portrait bust.

In 1670, Cornelis’s son Pieter de Graeff had plaster copies made of Quellinus’s two marble portrait medallions depicting his parents. He initially commissioned Master Anthony oft Aepmaker; following the death of this otherwise unknown bronze founder, however, he turned to Bartholomeus Eggers.⁸ As noted in Catharina Hooft’s estate inventory, drawn up between 24 December 1691 and 18 August 1692, these plaster versions of the medallions were displayed hanging in the front room of Pieter’s parental home at 216 Herengracht in Amsterdam.⁹ The possessions listed at the time of Catharina’s death convey a strong dynastic and political awareness combined with familial pride. This clearly ties in closely with Cornelis de Graeff’s standing as burgomaster and his personal interest in his distinguished ancestry.¹⁰ The estate inventory also states that Quellinus’s marble medallions – erroneously described as ‘alabaster’ – were displayed hanging op de zaal (in the salon), encased in gilded frames: ‘Two alabaster bas-reliefs being the images of Lord burgomaster Cornelis de Graaff and his H. wife with gilded frames 25 [guilders]’.¹¹ In this prestigious and formal space, the portrait medallions played a central role as ‘burgomasters’ memorabilia’ in the glorification of the De Graeff dynasty and the special relationship that family members held with the town hall and civic government. Found in this same room were the silver trowel with which the first stone-laying of the new town hall and an accompanying golden medal.¹² Displayed elsewhere in the house were painted portraits of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt and Johan de Witt, hung as a pair; near them were portraits of Jacob and Andries de Graeff, and Twee printebortjes van Barnevelt en de Wit (Two engravings of Barnevelt and de Wit) as an unveiled demonstration of political conviction.

Frits Scholten, 2024