Decorative Frame with Four Portrait Medallions, Representing Johan van Oldenbarnevelt (1547-1619), Joost van den Vondel (1587-1679), Michiel Adriaensz de Ruyter (1607-1676) and Johan de Witt (1625-1672)

Entry

The present frame features four heroes of the Dutch States Party: the Grand Pensionary Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, the poet Joost van den Vondel, the sea admiral Michiel Adriaensz de Ruyter and the statesman Johan de Witt. Adorning the pendant frame (BK-KOG-2451-B) are four of their political adversaries: the Orange stadholders William I, Maurice, Frederick Henry and William III. Inscribed in black ink on the reverse of each medallion is a known text or saying associated with the individual portrayed (see ‘Inscriptions’ above and figs. a and b).

The portraits are based on (engravings after) well-known paintings by artists including Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt (1567-1641). Contrary to what was previously assumed,¹ however, they are not products of the seventeenth century. The ivories and accompanying walnut frames, adorned with relief-carved foliate work, can be dated to the nineteenth century on stylistic grounds. A later dating is additionally confirmed by the presence of quotes by Willem Bilderdijk (1756-1831) on the reverse of the portraits of Vondel and William III.²

The frames almost certainly once belonged to the collection of Everhardus Johannes Potgieter (1808-1875), historian and cofounder of the literary magazine De Gids. In 1898, they were bequeathed to the Koninklijk Oudheidkundig Genootschap by Potgieter’s sole inheritor and sister, Sophie Potgieter. Brother and sister both remained unmarried and lived together.

Potgieter may possibly have commissioned the portraits on these frames himself, as he is known to have done in the past, specifically with reliefs bearing depictions of important historical figures, both in gold and in ivory.³ Potgieter idolized the history of the Netherlands, also pleading with his contemporaries to follow the example of their renowned forefathers from the Golden Age. He expressed this philosophy in an essay published in De Gids in 1844, relying on the Rijksmuseum’s collection of historical portraits, then as yet housed in the Trippenhuis on Amsterdam’s Kloveniersburgwal canal. It likely comes as no surprise that each and every ivory portrait, even if somewhat vaguely, can also be linked to paintings then on display in the museum.⁴ Potgieter may have commissioned these ivories simultaneously with the set of matching jewellery bearing images of famous Dutch women (BK-KOG-2654), which he had made for his aunt, Wilhelmina Geertruida van Ulsen (d. 1863). The present medallions would then perhaps have been ordered for himself, as a kind of male ‘pendant’.⁵

Bieke van der Mark, 2025