Portrait of Gerrit Ottsz Hinlopen (1603/04-1646)

Entry

These portraits of Reijnier Ottsz Hinlopen (see SK-A-1319), Trijntje Tijsdr van Nooij (see SK-A-1313) and Gerrit Ottsz Hinlopen (shown here) were auctioned together in 1885 as works by Lambert Jacobsz Tempel. Six rightly pointed out that there was not a single known work by this artist, so the attribution can be dismissed.³ Six attributed the three portraits to Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy, but without giving his reasons for doing so, and that has rarely been disputed since.⁴ However, Van Thiel and De Bruyn Kops noted that the three portraits were more probably the work of an artist from Hoorn, the sitters’ home town.⁵ The paintings do indeed differ from the secure works by Pickenoy, and lack his subtle modelling of faces and hands and refined handling of light, so that attribution cannot be sustained.⁶ One possible candidate is the Hoorn painter Jan van Teylingen, whose known works include a signed portrait of 1638.⁷ Although that portrait type is close to the ones in the Rijksmuseum, the style is much smoother, which makes the attribution implausible.⁸ Nor, on stylistic grounds, can the portraits be ascribed to Jacques Waben, another Hoorn artist of the period. For the time being, then, the painter must remain anonymous.

The identities of the three sitters is based on the inscriptions with their names on the backs of the panels. It was assumed at the 1885 auction that Gerrit Hinlopen was married to Trijntje van Nooij, and that his portrait was the companion piece to hers. This was adhered to until Van Kretschmar discovered from archival research that Trijntje was married to Reijnier, not Gerrit.⁹

The published biographical information on the sitters is contradictory,¹⁰ but the following correct information can now be given on the basis of archival research carried out by John Brozius.¹¹ Reijnier married Trijntje on 19 November 1628, and their first child, Tijs, was born in 1630.¹² In other words, their portraits were painted two or three years after their marriage. The chamois gloves decorated with stylized flowers and pomegranates that she is holding may be her wedding gloves, which are a common attribute in portraits of married couples.¹³ Reijnier and Trijntje had a total of seven children, and Trijntje probably died giving birth to her youngest son, who was baptized on 7 August 1646, with Trijntje being buried on 14 August.¹⁴ Reijnier was buried on 22 February 1653.¹⁵ His brother, Gerrit Hinlopen, married Fopje Jans in 1625.¹⁶ Fopje died in February 1645, and Gerrit was buried on 4 May 1646. They were probably childless.

These data correspond to the identifications of the sitters on the backs of the panels. The portraits of Reijnier and Trijntje can therefore be regarded as pendants, which is confirmed by their identical, late 17th-century frames.¹⁷ Gerrit’s is in a different, 19th-century frame.¹⁸ It may have been the companion piece to the portrait of his wife, Fopje Jans, which is either lost or survives in an unknown collection. The three portraits appear to have been the result of a single commission, and were undoubtedly painted by the same artist. Since Gerrit and Fopje predeceased Reijnier and had no children, the latter must have inherited Gerrit’s portrait.

Yvette Bruijnen, 2007

See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements

This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 433.