Object data
oil on canvas
support: height 66.5 cm × width 61 cm
outer size: depth 7.5 cm (support incl. frame)
Paulus Hennekyn
Portrait of a Man, possibly Jan de Hooghe (1608-1682)
1658
Inscriptions
- signature and date, top right (P and H ligated): PHennekyn . f 1658
- label, on the reverse: Jan de Hooghe / Geboore 26 Juny 1608 / Geboore / Jan de Hooghe / Geboore 26 Juny 1608 / Obiit 5 april 1682. / Vader en Moeder van Anna de Hooghe (Jan de Hooghe, born 26 June 1608, born, Jan de Hooghe, born 26 June 1608, died 5 April 1682. Father and mother of Anna de Hooghe)
- label, on the reverse: No 3 / Jan de Hooghe / geb: 26 Juni 1608 / Amsterdams Koopman (No. 3, Jan de Hooghe, born 26 June 1608, Amsterdam merchant)
Technical notes
Support The plain-weave canvas has been wax-resin lined. All tacking edges have been preserved, though trimmed. Cusping is visible on all sides.
Preparatory layers The double ground extends over the tacking edges. The first, red layer consists of mostly fine and some coarser red pigment particles, a few coarse white and some black pigment particles. The second, beige-grey ground contains mostly white pigment (including some coarse particles) and some fine brown, ochre-coloured and black pigment particles. The ground seems identical to the one found on the possible pendant (SK-A-2185).
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared reflectography.
Paint layers The paint layer extends up to the tacking edges. The background was indicated in a translucent dark greyish-brown paint, becoming thinner from top left to bottom right, and leaving the figure, including the hair and hat, in reserve. The face has a translucent brown undermodelling, which has remained visible in the shaded area of the moustache, beneath the chin and on the forehead. The face was further built up wet in wet and from dark to light, with the stubble of the beard and the highlights in the eyes added last. The clothes consist of a dark grey base, over which white and dark paints were modelled, wet in wet, for folds and buttons. Collar and tassels were reserved. The collar was built up wet in wet on top of a light grey base, with dark paint for the shades and white for the lit areas; the left point was initially smaller, as can be made out with the naked eye. Overall the paint surface is smooth, except for the sharp, pointy highlights in the tassels and eyes.
Anna Krekeler, 2022
Scientific examination and reports
- technical report: W. de Ridder, RMA, 7 June 1998
- paint samples: A. Krekeler, RMA, nos. SK-A-2184/1-2, 16 June 2009
- technical report: A. Krekeler, RMA, 16 June 2009
- infrared reflectography: A. Krekeler, RMA, 18 June 2009
Condition
Fair. Lining increased the visibility of the canvas weave. The varnish is extremely thick and has drips and an uneven gloss. It saturates moderately, but has yellowed severely. Some wax is present on the surface.
Conservation
- H. Heijdenrijk, 1905: canvas lined
Provenance
? Commissioned by or for the sitter;1 ? his daughter, Anna de Hooghe (?-1717), Amsterdam; ? her son, Johannes Bakhuizen (1683-1731), Amsterdam; ? his son, Ludolf Bakhuizen (1717-1782), Amsterdam/Rotterdam; ? his daughter, Christina Sebilla Charlotte Bakhuizen (1750-1810), Amsterdam; ? her son, Hendrik Arend van den Brink (1783-1852), Amsterdam; his daughter, Maria Elisabeth van den Brink (1824-1905), Velp; by whom bequeathed to the museum, with 295 other objects, including 29 paintings, mostly family portraits, 1905;2 on loan to Prof. Jan Nicolaas Bakhuizen van den Brink (1896-1987), 40 Rapenburg, Leiden, with SK-A-2185, 1950-87.3
Object number: SK-A-2184
Credit line: M.E. van den Brink Bequest, Velp
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Paulus Hennekyn (Amsterdam c. 1614 - Amsterdam 1672)
Paulus Hennekyn was born in Amsterdam around 1614 to the silversmith François Hennekin and his wife Anne Begin. His parents had left Antwerp for Amsterdam for religious reasons, arriving there on 21 November 1612, according to notes made by his father. In 1636 Paulus married Cornelia Swart in Amsterdam. They had five children, but only David survived into adulthood. He very probably was active as a painter too, but not a single work of his has survived. It is known that Paulus Hennekyn served in the Amsterdam civic guard from his inclusion in a group portrait that Bartholomeus van der Helst made of the signing of the Peace of Münster in 1648.4 That was not the only connection between them, for in 1652 he was a witness when Van der Helst gave his wife a power of attorney, and in 1653 both were among the artists who made a deposition for Hendrick Uylenburgh about the authenticity of a work by Paul Bril. In 1658 Van der Helst made a sworn statement that he, Hennekyn and someone called Molenaar painted two garden decorations in return for the hospitality of the owner of the Huis te Manpad estate near Heemstede.
Various notarized documents show that Hennekyn was regularly in debt. In addition, in 1645 the father of a maidservant of his accused him of paying her unwanted attention. These events would have had something to with the fact that around 1649 he spent some time in Alkmaar, where he is known to have joined the Guild of St Luke. Hennekyn was a widower by 12 November 1668, when he married Anna van Neck. On 15 April 1672 he was buried in the Leidse Kerkhof in Amsterdam.
Hennekyn’s modest oeuvre comprises portraits, most of them busts, and still lifes. His likenesses, which are of variable quality, show that he was a follower of Bartholomeus van der Helst. There are reports of works from 1640, but there are no extant photographs of them.5 The 1642 picture of Anna van der Does in the Rijksmuseum is his earliest securely dated painting.6 His last one is the portrait of an unknown man with a stubbly beard of 1667.7
Richard Harmanni, 2022
References
C. Kramm, De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, beeldhouwers, graveurs en bouwmeesters: Van den vroegsten tot op onzen tijd, IV, Amsterdam 1864, p. 76; 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.], II, Rotterdam 1879-80, p. 34; 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. 149; 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.], VII, Rotterdam 1888-90, p. 302; A. Bredius, ‘Kunstkritiek der XVIIe eeuw’, Oud Holland 7 (1889), pp. 41-44, esp. p. 43; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstler-Lexikon, I, Leipzig/Vienna 1906, p. 678; A. Bredius, Künstler-Inventare, II, The Hague 1916, p. 401; ibid., IV, 1917, pp. 1105-11; U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XVI, Leipzig 1923, pp. 395-96; A.I. Menalda-van der Hoeven, ‘Johan Hennequin (1616-1670) en zijn bloedverwanten’, De Nederlandsche Leeuw 91 (1974), cols. 365-404, esp. cols. 378, 381-83; J.G.C.A. Briels, Vlaamse schilders en de dageraad van Hollands Gouden Eeuw 1585-1630, Antwerp 1997, p. 336; Ekkart in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, LXXI, Munich/Leipzig 2011, p. 515
Entry
According to an eighteenth or nineteenth-century label on the back of this painting, the sitter is Jan de Hooghe, who was born in 1608 and died in 1682. It is known that he was married to Anna van der Does, whose likeness is in the Rijksmuseum as well (SK-A-2185; also fig. a). Since the present portrait is also signed by Paulus Hennekyn and has almost the same dimensions as hers it has always been assumed that they are companion pieces. However, the one of Jan de Hooghe is dated 1658, 16 years later than Anna’s, which would be highly unusual for pendants. On top of that, she had already been dead for eight years by then.
If this is indeed Anna’s husband, he would have been roughly 50 years old when Hennekyn immortalized him. He was then active as a merchant in Amsterdam; in 1680, when the couple's youngest daughter Anna married the marine artist Ludolf Bakhuizen, he went to live with her in Haarlem. The portrayed man may look a bit young for someone of his age, but Hennekyn could have painted his likeness in 1658 after an original that was made far earlier. That may explain its rather flat manner and lack of detail. Hennekyn came under the influence of Bartholomeus van der Helst in the 1650s, but there is not the slightest trace of that in this picture. One argument that does support the sitter’s identification is that Jan de Hooghe and Paulus Hennekyn were in touch at around the time of this portrait, for when the artist was badly in arrears with his rent in 1659 it was De Hooghe who stood surety for him.8
Through inheritance the painting came into the possession of the Van den Brink branch. Its last member, the unmarried Maria Elisabeth, made a bequest to the Rijksmuseum on her death in 1905, which in addition to family portraits contained prints, drawings, miniatures, miscellaneous objects and a number of letters.9
Richard Harmanni, 2022
See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements
Collection catalogues
1905, p. 453, no. 1166a; 1976, p. 272, no. A 2184
Citation
Richard Harmanni, 2022, 'Paulus Hennekyn, Portrait of a Man, possibly Jan de Hooghe (1608-1682), 1658', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8675
(accessed 23 November 2024 17:32:48).