Rijksmuseum

Object data

oil on panel

support: height 51.2 cm × width 46.3 cm
sight size: height 50.4 cm × width 45.5 cm
frame: height 67.5 cm × width 63 cm (support incl. frame)

Inscriptions

monogram, bottom left, falsely signed: TDK

Technical notes

The support consists of two horizontally grained planks and has original bevels at the top and on the left. The bevels at the bottom and on the right were made later, indicating that the painting has been cut down. The ground layer has a beige colour. Underdrawing is visible, among other places, in the castle, the face of the girl on the right and the woman’s left hand. The paint layers were applied smoothly with some brushmarking in the faces. Glazes were used for the reds of the figures’ dresses. The male figure was added later, as he is painted over the background. Minor pentimenti indicate that the second girl from the left was originally smaller. The arm of the child holding its mother’s hand was originally placed higher, and blue pigment at its right shoulder is possibly from a ribbon.

Scientific examination and reports

technical report: L. Sozzani, RMA, 23 August 2004

Condition

Fair. There is a crack on the left below the centre and another at centre right. The painting is moderately abraded throughout, but especially at the male figure. The foliage of the tree appears through his face. The numerous retouchings and the varnish are severely discoloured.

Provenance

...; purchased by the museum from the dealer P.C. Huybrechts, as Thomas de Keyser, Portrait of Rombout Hogerbeets and his Family, 30 June 1803¹

Object number: SK-A-201

Entry

This is one of the earliest Dutch paintings to show a family out of doors.² Hofstede de Groot was the first to doubt the Thomas de Keyser monogram.³ Based on the clothing worn by the sitters, it was painted around 1620-25. According to an old label on the reverse, the painting shows Rombout Hogerbeets and his family. Hogerbeets (1561-1625) was Pensionary of Leiden between 1590 and 1596 and again in 1617-18. In 1596, he became a member of the High Court of Holland and Zeeland. Hogerbeets sided with Johan van Oldenbarnevelt in his conflict with Prince Maurits over church-state relations and the issue of local militias, which led to his arrest in August 1618. In May 1619, he and Hugo de Groot were sentenced to lifelong imprisonment and incarcerated in Slot Loevestein. He was released by Frederik Hendrik shortly before his death in September 1625.⁴

The identification recorded on the label, however, is surely incorrect. Portraits of Hogerbeets by Van Ravesteyn and Van Mierevelt, engraved by Willem Jacobsz Delff,⁵ among others, do not resemble the man in the present painting. Moreover, Hogerbeets and his wife Hillegond Wensen, who died in 1620, had six children rather than the four shown in this portrait.⁶

Jonathan Bikker, 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. 421.

Literature

Oldenbourg 1911, p. 36; Laarmann 2002, p. 71

Collection catalogues

1809, p. 40, no. 165 (as Hendrik de Keizer, Portrait of Rombout Hogerbeets and his Family); 1843, p. 35, no. 165 (as Hendrik de Keizer, Portrait of Rombout Hogerbeets and his Family; ‘suffered somewhat in the face’); 1853, p. 16, no. 153 (as Hendrik de Keizer, Portrait of Rombout Hogerbeets and his Family; fl. 300); 1880, pp. 174-75, no. 183 (as Thomas de Keyser, Portrait of Rombout Hogerbeets and his Family); 1887, p. 91, no. 762 (as Thomas de Keyser, Portrait of Rombout Hogerbeets and his Family); 1903, p. 148, no. 1348 (as Thomas de Keyser); 1934, p. 154, no. 1348 (as Thomas de Keyser or David Vinckboons); 1976, p. 650, no. A 201; 2007, no. 421

Citation

J. Bikker, 2007, 'anonymous, Portrait of a Couple and Four Children, c. 1620 - c. 1625', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.4692

(accessed 21 September 2024 16:35:10).