Object data
oil on panel
support: height 121.5 cm × width 89 cm
outer size: depth 5.5 cm (support incl. frame)
Huygh Pietersz Voskuyl
Portrait of Philips Denijs (1604-66)
1640
Inscriptions
- signature, date and inscription, upper right (H and P ligated): ÆTATIS SVÆ38 / Anno 1640. / HP Voskuijl fecit
Technical notes
The support consists of three vertically grained oak planks and is bevelled on all sides. Visible at the reserve for the collar, the ground layer is beige in colour. The figure was reserved, but not the tablecloth. The contours of the figure, his moustache and the pattern of his doublet were executed with thick, dry, linear brushstrokes. The thick and vigorous brushmarking is particularly apparent in the figure’s face and hands. Details, such as the highlights in the eyes, were created with a dry brush, and thin parallel brushstrokes were used for the shadows.
Scientific examination and reports
- technical report: W. de Ridder, RMA, 18 May 2005
Condition
Fair. The panel joins have separated slightly. There are pinpoint losses throughout, especially in the background and costume. The dark areas are worn. The varnish is moderately discoloured and uneven.
Conservation
- J.A. Hesterman, 1908: loose panel joins glued
Provenance
...; collection Arnold Abraham Hondius van Herwerden (1833-1907), Amsterdam;1 sale, Evert Moll Sr (Rijswijk) et al. [probably section ‘une ancienne famille patricienne, Amsterdam’, which can be identified as Hondius van Herwerden’s family], Amsterdam (F. Muller), 15 December 1908 sqq., fl. 660, to the museum2
Object number: SK-A-2368
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Huygh Pietersz Voskuyl (Amsterdam 1591 - Amsterdam 1665)
Huygh Pietersz Voskuyl was baptized in Amsterdam on 15 May 1591. His father, Pieter Pietersz, had various professions: furrier, sailor and messenger. In 1612, Voskuyl was, together with Hendrick Avercamp, a pupil of Pieter Isaacsz in Amsterdam. It was only in 1640, at the age of 48, that he married. His wife, Grietie Frans, came from Gorinchem. Voskuyl was buried in the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam on 13 October 1665. Other than the pendant portraits in the Rijksmuseum, only two signed paintings are known by him, a 1638 Self-Portrait in the Mauritshuis,3 and a 1658 depiction of Tobias and the Fish.4 Purchases made at auctions in 1636 and 1637 suggest that he may have been primarily active as an art dealer.
Jonathan Bikker, 2007
References
De Roever 1885, pp. 207-08; De Vries 1886, p. 298; Von Wurzbach II, 1910, p. 823; Bredius III, 1917, p. 962; Bredius VII, 1921, pp. 8, 11, 12; Thieme/Becker XXXIV, 1940, p. 560; Van Eeghen 1963
Entry
The couple Philips Denijs (shown here) and Geertruyd Reael (see SK-A-2369) shown in these pendant portraits had been married 15 years when Voskuyl immortalized them. Philips Denijs was the second son of Pieter Denijs, an enterprising businessman from London, and Elisabeth Noblet, who hailed from Antwerp.5 Pieter Denijs began his career as a maker of ivory combs, and later imported civet cats for the yellowish musky-odoured substance found in the pouch near their sexual organs that was used in the manufacture of perfumes and medicine. In 1620, he purchased the brewery ‘Het Rode Hert’, which he gave to his son Philips at the time of his wedding on 30 November 1625. In addition to operating this brewery, Philips Denijs was a member of the dike board of Watergraafsmeer. Geertruyd Reael was four years older than her husband.6 Her father, Jacob Laurensz Reael, was a merchant on the Damrak in the ‘Gouden Reael’, and, from 1606, secretary of the Admiralty of Amsterdam. Philips Denijs and Geertruyd Reael had at least eight children, three of whom died in infancy. In the evening of 21 September 1652, the couple had their will drawn up as Geertruyd lay sick in bed. She died not long afterwards and was buried in the Westerkerk on 2 October 1652.7 Philips Denijs lived more than a decade longer and was buried on 16 April 1666.
Voskuyl has portrayed the couple standing and at three-quarter length against neutral backgrounds. The table shown in both portraits serves as a unifying motif. If Voskuyl intended the diagonal shadow extending from the centre left in Geertruyd Reael’s portrait to be a continuation of the shadow in the upper right corner of her husband’s portrait, the pendants were meant to be hung some distance from each other.
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. 328.
Collection catalogues
1909, pp. 407-08, nos. 2595a, 2595b; 1976, p. 590, nos. A 2368, A 2369; 2007, no. 328
Citation
J. Bikker, 2007, 'Huijgh Pietersz. Voskuyl, Portrait of Philips Denijs (1604-66), 1640', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6487
(accessed 21 September 2024 02:27:01).