Portrait of Vincent Coster (1553-1608/10)

Entry

This sensitive marble portrait bust depicts the wine-gauger Vincent Coster (1553-1608/10), a wealthy and socially esteemed burgher of Amsterdam. Bestowed the nickname ‘Cente Peijlder’ ([Vin]cent the Gauger), Coster was also a successful businessman and the owner of a popular Amsterdam public house called Het Oude Doolhof (the old maze), complete with a pleasure garden and fountains. Two fountains can be seen in Cornelis Florissen van Berckenrode’s engraving of the tavern’s outdoor delights from 1622, which also bears an inscription (in Dutch and French) citing Coster as the (former) owner.¹ Besides owning an impressive art collection, Coster maintained regular contact with local Amsterdam artists, among them the painter Cornelis Ketel.² He also had ties with the city sculptor Hendrick I de Keyser (1565-1621), as affirmed by the presence of his Violin-Playing Orpheus on one of the fountains in Het Oude Doolhof.³

In 1986, a beheaded fragment of a terracotta bust bearing Hendrick de Keyser’s monogram was discovered at the tavern’s former location, near the corner of Looiersgracht and the bridge over Prinsengracht. This sculpture – undoubtedly once a portrait of Coster and today preserved in the Rijksmuseum (BK-1986-39) – can be seen as a commission that preceded this marble bust from 1608.⁴ Coster’s initiative to have himself eternalized by De Keyser was highly exceptional. An art form reserved almost exclusively for the princely class, sculpted portraits were still exceedingly rare in the Netherlands at this time, most certainly when it came to members of the bourgeoisie. In this respect, the Amsterdam bust can be seen as an early example of the Dutch burghers’ budding self-awareness.

Also new to the Netherlands was a work of sculpture executed in Italian marble, at the onset of the seventeenth century a material scarcely used by Dutch sculptors. Up to this point, sculptors had worked primarily in sandstone, alabaster and terracotta. De Keyser even claimed he was the first to introduce the use of white marble in the Netherlands, as documented in a petition in the year 1612, stating in no uncertain terms: ‘[...] considering that no one here in this country has worked in marble stone up to now with any merit, [other] than he, the suppliant [= De Keyser], alone’.⁵ alleen; E.F. Kossmann, ‘Hendrick de Keyser als uitvinder’, Oud Holland 46 (1929), pp. 284-88, esp. p. 287.] Coster’s bust is indeed the earliest known marble portrait bust made in the Dutch Republic. The white marble lends the portrait a classical character, additionally reinforced by the rendering of the figure’s clothing: the elegantly wrapped toga recalls Roman male portraits. In short, the present bust reflects both De Keyser’s classical leanings and Coster’s own personal ambition to equate himself with the elite of his day.

Frits Scholten, 2024