Portrait of a Girl, known as ‘The Little Princess’

Paulus Moreelse (Utrecht c. 1571 - Utrecht 1638)

De Bie was the first author to give Moreelse’s year of birth; the artist’s baptismal record has not come down to us. His father, Jan Jansz Moreelse, was a cooper from Louvain. According to his 17th- and 18th-century biographers, Moreelse studied for two years with Michiel van Mierevelt, probably in Delft, and then spent a long period in Italy, where he received numerous portrait commissions in Rome. None of the paintings executed by Moreelse in Italy are known today. He returned to Utrecht by 1596, when he reportedly joined the saddlers’ guild, to which painters also belonged. In 1602 Moreelse married Antonia van Wintershoven. Because the ceremony took place in the town hall of Utrecht, Moreelse would not have been a member of the Reformed Church at this point. Later, however, he did join that congregation. His first dated painting, a Portrait of a Man is also from 1602.³ In the spring of 1611, Moreelse was elected dean of the saddlers’ guild and in September of the same year he became the first dean of the newly founded Guild of St Luke. He held this post again in 1612, 1615 and 1619. Twenty-eight pupils are recorded as having trained with Moreelse from 1611 on, more than with any other guild member. Together with Abraham Bloemaert, Moreelse was also one of the principal teachers at the drawing academy set up in Utrecht some time after the painters’ guild gained independence. Among Moreelse’s pupils were Dirck van Baburen (1594/95-1624), Pieter Portengen (c. 1612-43) and Jan ter Borch (?-1676). Two of his sons, Johan (after 1602-34) and Benjamin (before 1629-51), also became painters, and one of his daughters is reported to have assisted Moreelse with the execution of a portrait.

Moreelse was chiefly active as a portrait painter. In addition to his many portraits of Utrecht’s leading citizens, he received commissions from court circles, such as the 1621 Portrait of Sophia Hedwig, Countess of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, as Caritas, with her Children.⁴ Moreelse’s 1616 Officers and Other Civic Guardsmen of the IIIrd District of Amsterdam, under the Command of Captain Jacob Gerritsz Hoyngh and Lieutenant Nanningh Florisz Cloeck (SK-C-623) is the only civic guard piece by a Utrecht painter to have survived. Moreelse also painted histories and genre pieces, and is credited with introducing the single-figure shepherdess into Dutch painting. His activities as an architect include a plan for enlarging Utrecht (executed posthumously in 1663) and the design of the Catherijnepoort (1621-25; destroyed), one of the town gates. After having supported Prince Maurits’s dismissal of Utrecht’s town council in 1618, Moreelse was given a seat on the new town council, which he occupied until his death. He also served as churchwarden of the Buurkerk, headman of the civic guard, an alderman, and chief treasurer of Utrecht. Paulus Moreelse died on 6 March 1638 and was buried in the Buurkerk.

Jonathan Bikker, 2007

References
Van Mander 1604, fol. 280v; De Bie 1661, p. 131; Von Sandrart 1675 (1925), pp. 171, 178; Houbraken I, 1718, p. 49; Hoevenaar 1778, p. 9; Swillens 1926; De Jonge 1938, pp. 1-7, 139-53 (documents); Bok in Utrecht-Braunschweig 1986, pp. 322-25; Bok in Amsterdam 1993, pp. 311-12; Bok in San Francisco etc. 1997, p. 386; Domela Nieuwenhuis 2000; Domela Nieuwenhuis 2001, I, pp. 13-60, 203-50 (documents)