Portrait of Jacob Gerritsz van der Mij (1559/60-1635?)

1630

Object data

oil on panel

support: height 60.7 cm × width 48.4 cm
depth 5.5 cm

Inscriptions

signature, date and inscription, upper left (with ligated monogram): Aº 1630. Ætat.71 JVS
coat of arms, top left corner: three black pallets on a silver field

Technical notes

The support, which consists of three vertically grained oak planks, has been thinned down and cradled. The large white granules of pigment making up the ground are visible where the painting is abraded. Brushmarking in the ground and paint layers is visible in the figure’s face. There is also noticeable brushmarking in the figure’s hair and beard.

Scientific examination and reports

technical report: G. Tauber, RMA, 9 June 2003

Condition

Fair. The painting is lightly abraded throughout and has been retouched throughout, especially in the hair and beard. The varnish is very discoloured.

Provenance

...; from the dealer, Gaston von Mallman, Berlin, fl. 1,500, to the museum, with support from the Vereniging Rembrandt, February 1909

Object number: SK-A-2374

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

The artist

Joris Fransz van Schooten (Leiden 1587 - Leiden 1652)

The Leiden town chronicler Jan Jansz Orlers informs us, and a later document confirms this, that Joris van Schooten was born in Leiden in 1587. His father, a Flemish immigrant, was a baker, and his older brother, Frans van Schooten, was professor of mathematics and engineering at the university, as well as an amateur printmaker. Also according to Orlers, Joris van Schooten studied with the portraitist Evert Crijnsz van der Maes in The Hague for a period of three years beginning in 1604. In 1610, Van Schooten was one of a group of artists who drafted a request to establish a Guild of St Luke in Leiden. It was only in 1648 that this guild was established, and Van Schooten was one of its first members. In 1617, he married Marijtgen Bouwensdr van Leeuwen in the Reformed Church in Leiden and settled in nearby Oegstgeest, where he would live until his death in 1652. It is known that he was financially well-off from loans that he made to the Lutheran church in Leiden in the 1640s, among other sources.

Van Schooten was active as a portraitist and history painter. His earliest extant painting is a 1622 Portrait of a Woman.¹ In 1626, he received the prestigious commission to execute a series of six group portraits of the officers of Leiden’s various civic guard companies. Two years later, he painted the civic guard group of a newly appointed captain, and, in 1650, he once again received a commission to portray six captains of the town guard.² While Van Schooten’s portraits show the influence of Jan Anthonisz van Ravesteyn, who on occasion also portrayed Leiden citizens, he largely followed Pieter Lastman’s example in his history paintings. A number of these were also painted on commission, the earliest being his 1624 Tabula Cebetis, executed for the Leiden Latin School.³ In 1639-40, he painted four of the nine paintings for the west gallery of the Lutheran church in Leiden, and, in 1643, a Siege of Leiden for the town hall.⁴ According to Orlers, Jan Lievens (1607-74) came to study with Van Schooten at the age of eight and learned the basic principles of painting from him over a two-year period. Van Schooten probably also trained his son Arent (?-1662), who followed in his father’s footsteps, and to whom he bequeathed the contents of his studio in his will of 1651.

Jonathan Bikker, 2007

References
Orlers 1641, p. 372; Houbraken I, 1718, pp. 130-31; Gerson in Thieme/Becker XXX, 1936, p. 258; Ekkart in Leiden 1976, pp. 36-39; Byvanck-Quarles van Ufford/Happee 1980, pp. 51-53

Entry

The sitter in this large bust-length portrait was identified as Jacob Gerritsz van der Mij when the museum purchased it from a Berlin art dealer in 1909, and has always been catalogued as such. While there is no literature on the painting giving arguments for the identification, it is most likely correct. The coat of arms in the upper left corner is that of the Van der Mij family of Leiden.⁵ Although the 16th-century baptismal records for Leiden no longer exist, Jacob Gerritsz’s year of birth can be deduced from a notarized document of 1588, in which he stated that he was 28 years old.⁶ He was born, therefore, in either 1559 or 1560, which corresponds with the age (71) and date (1630) recorded on the portrait. Jacob Gerritsz was the only son of Gerrit Roelofsz van der Mij (1521-?) and his wife Agatha Jacobsdr van Reigersbergen.⁷ Gerrit Roelofsz was for many years a member of the Leiden town council (1549-72), serving, among other things, as alderman, burgomaster, director of the Civic Orphanage and overseer of the Observant Franciscans.⁸ He was one of 16 councillors and magistrates who were forced to leave Leiden temporarily in 1572 after having encouraged reconciliation with the Spanish.⁹

Jacob Gerritsz van der Mij graduated from Leiden University on 16 March 1577.¹⁰ In 1594, he married Marytgen van Heusen and in 1602, after the death of his first wife, he married Beatrix Gillisdr van Heusen.¹¹ Both weddings took place not in the church, but in the town hall, indicating that he, or at least his wives, were not of the Reformed faith. If he had not already done so earlier, Jacob Gerritsz would probably have converted by 1604, in which year he was appointed to one of the four positions as director of the Civic Orphanage.¹² The orphanage directors were charged with the task of protecting and administering the estate and property of children without one or both parents, the mentally infirm and other citizens who needed help managing their affairs.¹³ Van der Mij held this position until 1631. In 1578, 1595 and 1599 he is also recorded as a civic guardsman.¹⁴ Jacob Gerritsz van der Mij can, perhaps, be identified with the ‘Jacob de Mey’ who was buried in the Pieterskerk in Leiden on 29 August 1635.¹⁵

Van Schooten’s portrait of the 71-year-old Van der Mij is one of his most vivacious single-figure compositions. The sitter’s spectacular ruff with its many folds contributes to this effect, but it is Van der Mij’s engaging look that lends the portrait an almost palpable quality. Van Ravesteyn’s influence is especially discernible in the soft modelling and ruddy colouring of Van der Mij’s face.

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. 271.

Collection catalogues

1910, p. 455, no. 2167a; 1934, p. 260, no. 2167a; 1976, p. 507, no. A 2374; 2007, no. 271

Citation

J. Bikker, 2007, 'Joris van Schooten, Portrait of Jacob Gerritsz van der Mij (1559/60-1635?), 1630', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5423

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