Portrait of the Actor Willem Bartholsz Ruyter

Entry

It is not often that the Rijksmuseum is sent a photocopy of a drawing that might be an unknown work by Rembrandt, as happened in 1995. The original had naturally to be examined first hand, since the photocopy could have been made from a reproduction. In the case of the portrait of Willem Bartholsz Ruyter, however, the drawing – which was given to the former owner as thanks for helping the previous owner from Frankfurt-am-Main to flee from the Nazis – proved to slot neatly into Rembrandt’s oeuvre in every respect.³

To start with, the technique is the same as that in a group of autograph drawings by Rembrandt done in the late 1630s – pen and iron-gall ink on paper toned light brown. The iron-gall ink has bled significantly so the lines are wider than they were originally and surrounded by lighter brown haloes. Shadow was created under the arms by smudging the ink with a finger, a trick typical of Rembrandt. As usual in portraits and heads, the face was drawn more precisely with finer lines, less ink and less pressure than the rest of the figure. For instance, a tiny area of the paper was carefully left blank between the lips. Rembrandt evidently used too much ink, so he covered some areas of the nose, cheek and eyes with opaque white (which has slightly oxidized). White was also used to make the neck lighter than was originally the case. The turbaned figure at the upper right of the Studies of a Woman Reading, Seen from behind, and an Oriental, a drawing in a private collection in New York,⁴ also drawn with iron-gall ink, was treated in a very similar way. Rembrandt made that drawing in preparation for the etching of 1638, Joseph Telling his Dreams (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-OB-76).⁵ In this drawing, too, the face was more carefully executed than the figure, while it is striking in both drawings that not much distinction was made between the light and shaded sides of the figure, characteristic of Rembrandt. In both drawings, the body is rendered in a more cursory manner than the face, with many lines suggesting the forms effectively without indicating them precisely. The faces are built up in the same way, with short, fine lines added as shadows to the features. Also similar in technique and handling is Rembrandt’s copy, in the Albertina in Vienna (inv. no. 8859),⁶ after Raphael’s Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, in the Louvre in Paris (inv. no. 611).

It was only in 1979 that the sitter – as known in other drawings (not yet this one) – was identified as a well-known figure, the popular actor Willem Bartholsz Ruyter (1587-1639).⁷ Rembrandt may not only have portrayed him, among other roles, as Ahasuerus on his Throne, in a drawing in our collection (inv. no. RP-T-1930-38), and as a bishop, in a sheet in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth (inv. no. 1018),⁸ and with three other actors, in a drawing in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rouen (inv. no. AG 1868.9.77).⁹ He may also have drawn him from memory on a sheet of figure sketches in the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin (inv. no. KdZ 3773),¹⁰ with preparatory studies for the grisaille St John the Baptist Preaching, in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin (inv. no. 828 K).¹¹ The actor was also represented as a bishop in drawings by Rembrandt’s pupils Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, in a sheet in the Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum in Braunschweig (inv. no. Z 552),¹² and Govert Flinck, in a sheet in the Kupferstich-Kabinett in Dresden (inv. no. C 1388).¹³

Ruyter was best known for his peasant roles, and in this drawing he wears a sixteenth-century costume most appropriate for the part. In a drawing in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London (inv. no. Dyce.435),¹⁴ he is shown full length, in a similar peasant costume. This may have been the costume of a country yokel who was the lead character in popular farces called boertigheden, a great favourite in theatres in Amsterdam and other towns – one of which was specially dedicated to Willem Ruyter by Jan Soet (1608-74). After being part of a touring troupe of actors, Willem Ruyter worked from the late 1630s in Amsterdam, where he had his own inn. Theatre accounts reveal that on 16 March 1639 he was paid for the last time for thirteen unspecified performances. He was buried in the Nieuwe Kerk on 22 April of that year.

That Rembrandt had a special interest in actors is also clear from another example in the collection, Seated Actor in the Role of Capitano (see also inv. no. RP-T-1961-76(R)).

Peter Schatborn, 2017