Object data
oil on canvas
support: height 81 cm × width 64 cm
outer size: depth 6.5 cm (support incl. frame)
Adriaen Hanneman
Self-Portrait
1656
Inscriptions
- signature, date and inscription, lower right, on the chair: AN°: 1656. / Quaeris qui[s] [vu]ltus ductique sit oris imago / aere quis hanc talem duxerit inven[ie]s Adr. Hanneman (If you ask whose face and features these are, seek him who painted the image this way and you will discover it)
- inscription, underneath (the rest illegible): Effigies […]
Technical notes
Support The plain-weave canvas has been wax-resin lined. All tacking edges have been preserved. Cusping is clearly visible on all sides. Judging by the fine, local crack pattern around the perimeter of the canvas the bars of the original strainer were approx. 4 cm wide.
Preparatory layers The single, warm white ground extends up to the tacking edges at the top and bottom, and over the left and right edges. It consists of white pigment particles with an addition of black, earth and bright orange pigment particles.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could not be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the tacking edges. A fluid, translucent, deep dark brown paint was used for the first lay-in, which was left visible in the dark shadows of the face, hand and hair. This undermodelling probably also includes some areas of white paint as can be very vaguely seen to the left of the dark curl on the forehead. The composition was built up from dark to light and from transparent to opaque. Infrared photography showed clearly that reserves were left for the face, hair, sleeve and hand, while the background and then the clothing received their initial layers. The white highlights of the sleeve and the collar were added in the last stage.
Gwen Tauber, 2022
Scientific examination and reports
- infrared photography: G. Tauber, RMA, 5 March 2008
- paint samples: G. Tauber, RMA, nos. SK-A-1622/1-2, 5 March 2008
- technical report: G. Tauber, RMA, 5 March 2008
Condition
Fair. The canvas has three old tears. The composition was shifted approx. 0.2 cm to the left when it was attached to the current stretcher. Some abrasion is visible in the thin brown undermodelling where it was left exposed. The varnish is significantly discoloured.
Conservation
- conservator unknown, 1895: canvas lined
Provenance
…; ? sale, John Willett Willett (1745-1815), London (P. Coxe), 31 May 1813 sqq., no. 51 (‘His own Portrait […] equal to Vandyke’), £22.11, to Philip Hill;…; ? sale, George Watson Taylor, Esq. (1771-1841, London), London (Christie’s), 13 (14) June 1823 sqq., no. 41 (‘Portrait of Himself […] scarcely inferior to V. Dyck.’), £73.10, to Molteno;…; collection Sir Hugh Hume-Campbell (1812-1894), 7th Baronet, London, 1857;1 his sale, London (Christie’s), 16 June 1894, no. 21, £267.15, to the dealer P. & D. Colnaghi, London,2 or to Andrew McKay;3 from the dealer P. & D. Colnaghi, £300 (fl. 3,627), to the museum, with the support of the Rembrandt Association, July 18944
Object number: SK-A-1622
Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Adriaen Hanneman (The Hague c. 1603/04 - The Hague 1671)
The age of 43 inscribed on Adriaen Hanneman’s self-portrait of 1647 means that his year of birth must have been 1603 or 1604. He was born into a family of Catholics. His father Jan held various official posts in the service of the county of Holland. In 1619 Adriaen enrolled in his hometown The Hague as a pupil of Anthony van Ravesteyn, a younger brother of the far better-known artist Jan van Ravesteyn. His earliest dated painting, which is in the style of his teacher’s circle, shows that he had finished his apprenticeship by 1625. The following year he left for London, where Daniel Mijtens, also from The Hague, was a leading portraitist. It is thought that Hanneman became his assistant, which is made all the more likely by the fact that there is not a single signed work from his English period until around 1632. After that Hanneman may have been active in the studio of Anthony van Dyck, who settled in London in the spring of 1632, for the Flemish master was of great inspiration to him. In 1630 he married Elizabeth Wilson, who probably died a few years later.
Hanneman was back in The Hague around 1638, and shortly afterwards his wedding to Maria van Ravesteyn, a daughter of Jan van Ravesteyn, took place. It seems that he was doing well financially, for in 1641 he bought a house in Nobelstraat, a very respectable address. However, he did not start receiving really important commissions until exiles from England began arriving in The Hague to escape the Civil War and the unrest that followed the beheading of King Charles I in 1649. One of his clients was the future Charles II. Van Dyck’s influence on his painting made Hanneman an important Dutch representative of the international style that was highly popular in The Hague and elsewhere. He trained at least ten pupils. Given his reputation, he was the obvious person to become the first dean of the artists’ society Confrerie Pictura founded in 1656. As he had formerly done in the Guild of St Luke, he served several terms as its warden (1661-64 and 1667-69) and dean (1656-59 and 1664-66).
Hanneman’s output began to fall off after 1660, due to the return home of his English patrons after the Restoration, and the death of Mary Stuart, the dowager of Prince Willem II of Orange who had ordered many works from him, in that year. The artist was also experiencing competition from rising stars like Jan de Baen and Caspar Netscher. In 1669 he married for the third time, his new wife being Alida Besemer, but she died soon afterwards.
In addition to portraits, which make up the bulk of his oeuvre, Hanneman painted history pieces, although few have survived. In the Old Town Hall in The Hague there is an overmantel dated 1644 of an Allegory of Justice which was enlarged by Jacob de Wit during renovation in 1736.5 The Allegory of Peace in the assembly room of the States of Holland, now the residence of the First Chamber of the Dutch parliament, is from 20 years later.6 However, it is known from details of auctions and archival sources that Hanneman produced more works of this kind. His last picture bearing the year of execution is a 1669 likeness of himself. He died in July 1671 and was buried on 11 July in the Kloosterkerk in The Hague.
Richard Harmanni, 2022
References
C. de Bie, Het gulden cabinet van de edel vrij schilder const, inhoudende den lof vande vermarste schilders, architecte, beldthowers ende plaetsnijders van deze eeuw, Antwerp 1662, p. 412; J. van Gool, De nieuwe Schouburg der Nederlantsche kunstschilders en schilderessen: Waer in de levens- en kunstbedryven er tans levende en reets overleedene schilders, die van Houbraken, noch eenig ander schryver, zyn aengeteekend, verhaelt worden, I, The Hague 1750, pp. 24-28; P. Terwesten, Register off Aanteekeninge zo van de Deekens, Hoofdluijden en Secretarissen der Kunst-Confrerie Kamer van Pictura […], The Hague 1776 (unpub. manuscript in The Hague City Archives; copy in RKD), p. 6; F.D.O. Obreen, Archief voor Nederlandsche kunstgeschiedenis: Verzameling van meerendeels onuitgegeven berichten en mededeelingen betreffende Nederlandsche schilders, plaatsnijders, beeldhouwers, bouwmeesters, juweliers, goud- en zilverdrijvers [enz.], III, Rotterdam 1880-81, pp. 258, 277; ibid., IV, 1881-82, passim; ibid., V, 1882-83, passim; A. Bredius and E.W. Moes, ‘Adriaen Hanneman’, Oud Holland 14 (1896), pp. 203-18; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstler-Lexikon, II, Leipzig/Vienna 1910, pp. 646-47; Schneider in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XV, Leipzig 1922, p. 592; M. Toynbee, ‘Adriaen Hanneman and the English Court in Exile’, The Burlington Magazine 92 (1950), pp. 73-80; M. Toynbee, ‘Adriaen Hanneman and the English Court in Exile: A Further Note’, The Burlington Magazine 100 (1958), pp. 248-50; O. ter Kuile, Adriaen Hanneman (1604-1671): Een Haags portretschilder, diss. Utrecht University 1976, pp. 9-12, 27; Ekkart in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, XIV, New York 1996, pp. 139-40; Ekkart in E. Buijsen et al., Haagse schilders in de Gouden Eeuw: Het Hoogsteder Lexicon van alle schilders werkzaam in Den Haag 1600-1700, exh. cat. The Hague (Haags Historisch Museum) 1998-99, pp. 155-59; E. Löffler, ‘Illustrated Index on Painters Active in The Hague between 1600-1700’, in ibid., pp. 281-362, esp. p. 312; Ekkart in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, LXIX, Munich/Leipzig 2010, p. 129
Entry
This virtuoso 1656 self-portrait dates from the year when Adriaen Hanneman was elected dean of Confrerie Pictura in The Hague, of which he was one of the founder members. The pose facing left with the artist turning to look out at the viewer over his shoulder originated in Italy in the early sixteenth century but did not really catch on until the first three decades of the following one.7 Anthony van Dyck, in particular, helped popularize it.8 It was above all the composition of an engraving by Lucas Vorsterman based on one of Van Dyck’s grisaille self-portraits that was widely distributed (fig. a).9 Hanneman’s model was probably one of those prints or the grisaille itself. The left hand holding the cloak in the Van Dyck appears to be moving, giving the picture a sense of dynamism. Hanneman modified that by having it holding the finial on the back of the chair, which caused his scene to be more static.10
There are two other versions of Hanneman’s self-portrait. A painting in Poznan is probably a slightly weaker autograph repetition,11 whereas the second one, auctioned in London in 1966, can be regarded as a copy from his studio.12 The artist depicted himself as early as 1647, where he is shown in a more traditional pose.13 His likeness from 1669 is also Hanneman’s last dated work.14 There he is seated in a similar way as in the Rijksmuseum canvas, but turned to the right rather than the left.
Yet another self-portrait by Hanneman is known from eighteenth-century auction records. Measuring 46.3 x 36 cm, it is considerably smaller than the others. From the description in the catalogue for a 1783 sale held in Amsterdam it seems that it was a replica or a copy after the Rijksmuseum picture.15 The latter belonged to the collection of Sir Hugh Hume-Campbell in London, which was sold after his death in 1894.16 Self-portraits by Hanneman put up for auction in London in 1813 and 1823 were said to have been in the style of Van Dyck.17 Since no dimensions were given, it is impossible to say for certain whether any of them were the painting that is now in the Rijksmuseum.
Richard Harmanni, 2022
See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements
Literature
O. ter Kuile, Adriaen Hanneman (1604-1671): Een Haags portretschilder, diss. Utrecht University 1976, pp. 89-90, no. 39a, with earlier literature; H.-J. Raupp, Untersuchungen zu Künstlerbildnis und Künstlerdarstellung in den Niederlanden im 17. Jahrhundert, diss. University of Heidelberg 1984, p. 216; Ekkart in E. Buijsen et al., Haagse schilders in de Gouden Eeuw: Het Hoogsteder Lexicon van alle schilders werkzaam in Den Haag 1600-1700, exh. cat. The Hague (Haags Historisch Museum) 1998-99, pp. 158, 160
Collection catalogues
1897, p. 94 (not numbered); 1903, p. 117, no. 1103; 1934, p. 119, no. 1103; 1976, p. 259, no. A 1622
Citation
Richard Harmanni, 2022, 'Adriaen Hanneman, Self-Portrait, 1656', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8617
(accessed 8 October 2024 01:35:42).