Portrait of a Man, Probably Joachim Wtewael (1566-1638)

Entry

This terracotta bust, dated 1606, and the marble portrait of the Amsterdam wine gauger Vincent (‘Cente’) Coster from two years later (BK-NM-11452) are among the very earliest sculpted burgher portraits made in the Dutch Republic. Both were made by Amsterdam’s first ‘master sculptor and stonemason [architect]’ (mr. Beeltsnijder ende Steenhouwer over deser Stede wercken), Hendrick de Keyser (1565-1621). The commissioning of a bust by a burgher was as yet a highly irregular and progressive initiative at this time, in essence equivalent to a breach of decorum. Traditionally reserved for members of the noble and princely classes, the sculpted portrait remained a virtually non-existent genre in the Republic up until the mid-seventeenth century, with Artus Quellinus’s portrait bust series of the burgomasters of Amsterdam signalling a shift. Besides the two above-cited works, De Keyser and his workshop also produced several busts in terracotta – including portraits of William of Orange, King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and the sea admiral Piet Heyn – and a lost portrait of the legendary Leiden burgomaster Adriaen van der Werff known only from a drawing by Jan de Bisschop (RP-T-2015-29).

The present bust of a man with his head turned to the left, balanced atop a grotesque mascaron, can in all probability be identified as a portrait of the affluent Utrecht painter Joachim Wtewael (1566-1638). First proposed in 1993 by Anne Lowenthal, this identification is supported by a comparison between the bust and Wtewael’s painted self-portrait from 1601 in Utrecht (fig. a).¹ Both faces display a striking and convincing similarity in the physiognomy and treatment of the hair. The portrait bust’s identification as the famed painter is conclusive, excepting the presence of one slight aberration: the Wtewael family coat of arms in the painted self-portrait shows but one crenelated beam, while the carved escutcheon on the – likely original – pedestal of the terracotta bust contains instead two crenelated beams.²

Wtewael’s decision to commission De Keyser is less surprising than one might first suppose. Both artists were natives of Utrecht and virtually the same age. They also knew each other: in 1613 and 1614, a cousin and namesake of the sculptor served as an apprentice to the painter.³ In addition, Wtewael was a successful and self-asserted burgher who had made his fortune as a merchant in flax. He also harboured political ambitions. In 1610, he participated in a coup against the Utrecht city government, thereafter taking a seat on the new council for a period of three months. In 1618, he successfully intervened in the city’s politics by turning to the Stadholder-Prince Maurits of Orange for support: the stadholder named Wtewael’s brother, Johan, a notary, as a city council member for life. Upon his brother’s death, Joachim assumed the same position in 1632.⁴ Wtewael’s successes in both the artistic and social sphere perhaps created the conditions for his decision to have the leading sculptor of the Dutch Republic render his image in the form of a portrait bust then solely reserved for the elite.

The chance discovery of a fragment of a terracotta bust – also likely that of Vincent Coster (BK-1986-39) – bearing Hendrick de Keyser’s monogram affirmed that the sculptor executed his busts in two parts: the head and torso were modelled and fired separately. In doing so, the sculptor avoided having to work with a heavy and unwieldy terracotta object that was prone to collapse and breakage during the drying and firing processes. After firing, the sculptor conjoined the two pieces – head and chest – using cow bones for dowels and plaster as filling. The sharp, flat termination of the neck ¬– still visible on the bust fragment – was therefore made intentionally for this purpose, with the raised collar serving to conceal the join at the neck.⁵ The same practice was reaffirmed during the 1995 restoration of De Keyser’s bust portrait of William of Orange (BK-NM-5757).

The oak pedestal on which the bust rests is probably original, and also likely the work of De Keyser. It comprises an oval escutcheon in the centre, set in a cartouche-like field edged with ornamental scrollwork – a common element in De Keyser’s oeuvre – and flanked by two compressed volutes. This latter motif is similarly encountered in De Keyser’s architectural designs, including the facade of the Bartolotti house on Herengracht in Amsterdam.

Frits Scholten, 2024