Object data
oil on panel
support: height 71.6 cm × width 60.2 cm
outer size: depth 4.8 cm (support incl. SK-L-4329)
Dirck van Santvoort
Portrait of Frederik Dircksz Alewijn (1603-1665)
1640
Inscriptions
- signature and date, top right: D.D. Santvoort fe. 1640
Technical notes
Support The support consists of three vertically grained oak planks (approx. 17.6, 26.9 and 15.7 cm), approx. 1 cm thick. The reverse is bevelled on all sides and has regular spaced saw marks. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1598. The panel could have been ready for use by 1612, but a date in or after 1615 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The single, off-white ground extends up to the edges of the support. It consists of fine white pigment particles.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the edges of the support. First a translucent brown undermodelling was applied for the figure. The painting was built up from the back to the front and from dark to light, with a reserve for the figure. The hair around the sitter’s right temple and ear was partly left in reserve in the hat. The lace of the collar was executed on top of the clothing, most of the pattern details being subsequently scratched into the wet, white paint. Greyish scumbles were applied in the background to suggest depth. Small, distinct, white highlights were added to the eyes. The paint includes large pigment particles, with some white particles visible even to the naked eye. While the background and clothing have slight impasto, the paint layers of the face are fairly smooth. The undermodelling for the sitter has remained locally visible around the contours. His right upper arm and both sides of the collar were initially slightly broader, while his left cheek was somewhat slimmer.
Anna Krekeler, 2024
Scientific examination and reports
- X-radiography: RMA, no. De Wild 124, March 1930
- dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 10 June 2008
- infrared photography: A. Krekeler, RMA, 26 November 2008
- paint samples: A. Krekeler, RMA, nos. SK-A-1317/1-2, 26 November 2008
- technical report: A. Krekeler, RMA, 26 November 2008
Condition
Fair. The left join shows clearly in the picture plane. Some small paint losses are visible along the edges. Some old retouchings are heavily discoloured, especially in the left side of the hat. There is an elongated dent to the right of the hat, at the level of its crown. The varnish has slightly yellowed and there are yellow-brownish residues of an older varnish in the deeper parts of the lace.
Conservation
- conservator unknown, 1913: varnish mechanically removed (‘powdered’); revarnished
- W. Hesterman, 1979: complete restoration
Original framing
A rectangular ebony reverse ogee frame1
Provenance
? Commissioned by or for the sitter; ? his probate inventory, 18 December 1665, in the upper front room of the house at 182 Herengracht, no. 67a, with no. 67b (SK-A-1318), as Anonymous (‘kontrefeijtsels sijnde van Frederik Alewijn ende Juffr. Geelwinck’);2 ? his son, Dirck Alewijn (1644-1687), Amsterdam, with the house at 182 Herengracht; ? his son, Dirck Alewijn (1682-1742), Amsterdam and Beemster; ? his son, Frederik Alewijn (1737-1804), Amsterdam and Beemster; ? his son, Frederik Alewijn (1775-1817), Hoorn and Beemster; his son, Dirk Margarethus Alewijn (1816-1885), Hoorn and Medemblik;3 his sale, Amsterdam (C.F. Roos), 16 December 1885, no. 73, with no. 74 (SK-A-1318), fl. 750, to the museum
Object number: SK-A-1317
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Dirck van Santvoort (Amsterdam 1609 - Amsterdam 1680)
Dirck van Santvoort was baptized in Amsterdam’s Nieuwe Kerk on 6 December 1609. His immediate family included several painters, for he was the son of the Amsterdam landscapist Pieter Dircksz Bontepaert (van Santvoort) and Truytgen Pieters, the grandson of Pieter Pietersz on his mother’s side, and thus the great-grandson of Pieter Aertsen. It is not known who his teacher was, but it is only logical to assume that it was his father. Van Santvoort may have been active in Rembrandt’s studio in the first half of the 1630s, when the master was collaborating closely with the art dealer Hendrick Uylenburgh. It is also possible that he worked not for Rembrandt but for Uylenburgh. This may explain why he did not join the Amsterdam Guild of St Luke until 1636. In 1641 he married Baertgen Pont, and after her death Trijntje Rieuwertsdr in 1657. Various documents relating to financial transactions and property investments show that Van Santvoort had no money worries. He is regularly recorded as an appraiser of paintings, sometimes together with Uylenburgh’s eldest son Gerrit, who lived near him in Breestraat. Van Santvoort was buried in the Nieuwe Kerk on 9 March 1680.
His earliest dated picture, A Boy Dressed as a Shepherd of 1632, which is the companion piece to A Girl Dressed as a Shepherdess,4 features a pastoral figure in the manner of Jacob Gerritsz Cuyp. A Christ at Emmaus dated 1633 shows that in his rare histories Van Santvoort took his lead from Rembrandt,5 some of whose works he copied. However, from the early 1630s on he mainly made his name with likenesses of burghers, which owe much to the art of Cornelis van der Voort and Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy. These paintings are adequately executed in a polished yet sometimes slightly naive style without much in the way of embellishment. They are largely distinguished by his rendering of lace. In addition to major commissions for group portraits, such as The Regentesses and Housemistresses of the Spinning House of 16386 and The Directors of the Serge Cloth Industry of 1643,7 it is Van Santvoort’s likenesses of children that display his gifts to best effect. His last dated works, which include the Portrait of Otto van Vollenhoven with his Wife Appolonia Bogaert and their Daughter Maria,8 are from 1645, so he was active as a painter for only about a decade. He is recorded as a warden of the Amsterdam Guild of St Luke in 1658 and again in 1672, but that could have been due to his occupation as an art dealer.
Gerbrand Korevaar, 2024
References
A.D. de Vries, ‘Biografische aanteekeningen betreffende voornamelijk Amsterdamsche schilders, plaatsnijders, enz. en hunne verwanten’, Oud Holland 3 (1885), pp. 55-80, 135-60, 223-40, 303-12, esp. p. 312; ibid., 4 (1886), pp. 71-80, 135-44, 215-24, 295-304, esp. p. 73; N. de Roever, ‘Pieter Aertsz: gezegd Lange Pier, vermaard schilder’, Oud Holland 7 (1889), pp. 1-38, esp. pp. 35-38; A. Bredius, Künstler-Inventare, I, The Hague 1915, p. 217; ibid., III, 1917, pp. 768-70; ibid., VI, 1919, p. 1884; Stechow in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XXIX, Leipzig 1935, pp. 453-54; S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, ‘Enkele adressen van zestiende eeuwse kunstschilders’, Maandblad Amstelodamum 74 (1987), pp. 1-7, esp. p. 5; J. van der Veen, ‘Het kunstbedrijf van Hendrick Uylenburgh in Amsterdam: Productie en handel tussen 1625 en 1655’, in F. Lammertse and J. van der Veen, Uylenburgh en Zoon: Kunst en commercie van Rembrandt tot De Lairesse, 1625-1675, exh. cat. London (Dulwich Picture Gallery)/Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 2006, pp. 117-205, esp. p. 137; E.J. Sluijter, Rembrandt’s Rivals: History Painting in Amsterdam 1630-1650, Amsterdam/Philadelphia 2015, pp. 293-96; Van der Molen in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, CI, Munich/Leipzig 2018, pp. 157-58
Entry
This portrait of Frederik Alewijn was bought together with that of Agatha Geelvinck (SK-A-1318)) at the 1885 sale of the family collection of the former’s descendant Dirk Margarethus Alewijn.9 The sitter was the eldest son of the wealthy cloth merchant Dirck Alewijn and Maria Schuurman.10 It was due to Frederik’s marriages that the Alewijns gained a place in Amsterdam’s regent class.11 His wedding to Agatha Geelvinck took place on 15 September 1637, but she died on 15 February the following year. On 28 August 1640, Frederik married Eva Bicker, the widow of Dirck de Graeff and the sister-in-law of burgomaster Cornelis de Graeff.12 Frederik died on 8 June 1665, followed by his wife on 13 November of the same year. He left the house at 182 Herengracht, which he had inherited from his father, to his son Dirck. The two paintings by Dirck van Santvoort, who can safely be described as the family portraitist on the basis of the number he made for the Alewijns and their relatives, then passed by descent.13
The portraits of Frederik and Agatha are mentioned together in the sitter’s probate inventory of 1665,14 but were probably not conceived as companion pieces. Although there are similarities in the technique, differences in composition and lighting (see fig. a), as well as the fact that Agatha had died two years before the present work was ready, rightly suggest that both were created at different times.15 Moreover, dendrochronology has shown that the wood of the two panels was derived from different trees.16 The one of Agatha’s painting points to an execution in or after 1639, but given her death in 1638 it was very probably made a little earlier.17 Frederik’s picture is dated 1640 and is thus from a couple of years later. The type of male portrait with the hat on the head, which became fashionable after 1640, is not uncommon in Van Santvoort’s oeuvre.18 It was around then that the two panels were given similar black ebony reverse ogee frames, which were popular among Amsterdam burghers.19
The 1885 auction catalogue of Dirk Margarethus Alewijn’s paintings also mentions a portrait of Frederik Alewijn’s second wife, Eva Bicker, which was also made by Van Santvoort and can be dated around 1640 (fig. b).20 That picture is mentioned separately in her husband’s 1665 probate inventory,21 and although it is a few centimetres smaller it makes a better match with Frederik’s portrait than that of Agatha, and may therefore be the true pendant.22
Gerbrand Korevaar, 2024
See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements
Literature
J.H. Scholte, ‘Dertig jaar Zesen-onderzoek in Nederland’, Jaarboek Amstelodamum 41 (1947), pp. 67-109, esp. pp. 83, 102-06
Collection catalogues
1887, p. 152, no. 1285; 1934, p. 257, no. 2130; 1960, p. 277, no. 2130; 1976, p. 498, no. A 1317
Citation
Gerbrand Korevaar, 2024, 'Dirck van Santvoort, Portrait of Frederik Dircksz Alewijn (1603-1665), 1640', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5375
(accessed 21 September 2024 15:45:56).Figures
fig. a Dirck van Santvoort’s portraits of Frederik Dircksz Alewijn (SK-A-1317) and his wife Agatha Geelvinck (SK-A-1318) shown as if they were pendants
fig. b Dirck van Santvoort, Portrait of Eva Bicker, c. 1640. Oil on panel, 68.6 x 59.7 cm. Rochester, Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, Bertha Buswell Bequest