Object data
oil on panel
support: height 106 cm × width 75.5 cm × thickness 1.4 cm (incl. backboard)
outer size: depth 10 cm (support incl. frame)
anonymous
Portrait of Adam van Westerwolt (1580-1639)
1636
Inscriptions
- inscription, upper right: Adam van Westerwoldt, Raad van Nederlandsch Indien Anº 1638 admiraal van Holland en Zeeland. (Adam van Westerwold, Councillor of the Dutch Indies, Anº 1638 Admiral of Holland and Zeeland)
- inscription and date, left: Ætatis 56/Ano 1636
Technical notes
The support consists of three vertically grained oak planks and is bevelled on all sides. The ground layer is light in colour and transparent. The paint layers were smoothly applied, with some brushmarking visible in the face and impasto highlights.
Scientific examination and reports
- technical report: M. van de Laar, RMA, 9 August 2004
Condition
Fair. The joins are visible. There are some discoloured retouchings in the background and along the joins. The varnish is very discoloured and streaky.
Original framing
A stripped oak box frame, now partially gilded
Provenance
? Commissioned by or for the sitter; ? his daughter, Agatha van Westerwolt (1634-1722), Woudrichem; ? her granddaughter, Anna Maria Emilia van Schagen (1694-1790), ’s-Hertogenbosch; her estate inventory, 4 October 1790, ’s-Hertogenbosch (‘den zeeofficier Winteroy’);1 her son, Antoni Martini (1728-1800); by descent to Paulus Hubert Andries Martini Buys (1835-1915), Loenersloot; from whom, fl. 800, to the museum, May 1913
Object number: SK-A-2665
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
The inscription at upper right identifying the sitter was probably added sometime after 1790, as the estate inventory of Anna Maria Emilia van Schagen from that year incorrectly records the portrait as showing ‘the naval officer Winteroy’.2 However, that the sitter is indeed Admiral Adam van Westerwolt is supported by the painting’s likely provenance as well as the recorded age of 56 in 1636. Van Westerwolt was born in Leiden on 10 March 1580.3 His career with the Dutch East India Company (VOC) began in 1615, when he became director of trade in the Moluccas. Throughout his career he was active in the East Indies, commanding numerous squadrons. In 1636, he was made councillor extraordinary of the VOC, which appointment may have prompted the commission for the present portrait. In the same year Van Westerwolt returned to the East Indies aboard the Nieuw-Amsterdam as the commander of a new squadron. In the following years he blockaded Goa and defeated the Portuguese, captured Batticaloa and concluded a treaty with the King of Sri Lanka, Rajasingha II. In 1638, Van Westerwolt became director of trade in Persia, where he died in Isfahan the following year.
Acquired by the museum as an anonymous work, Van Westerwolt’s three-quarter length portrait was first attributed to Van Mierevelt in the supplement to the museum’s 1914 collection catalogue.4 In the 1976 Rijksmuseum collection catalogue the painting was demoted to ‘Studio of or copy after Michiel Jansz van Miereveld’.5 The painting should, however, be totally disassociated with Van Mierevelt and his workshop. Not only does it lack Van Mierevelt’s sophisticated handling, the skewed perspective of the table, astrolabe and book seem to rule out the possibility that a Van Mierevelt prototype has been followed here.
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. 442.
Collection catalogues
1914, p. 521, no. 1595a (as Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt); 1934, p. 188, no. 1585a (as attributed to Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt); 1976, p. 385, no. A 2665 (as studio of or copy after Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt); 2007, no. 442
Citation
J. Bikker, 2007, 'anonymous, Portrait of Adam van Westerwolt (1580-1639), 1636', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.7914
(accessed 3 January 2025 22:25:25).