Object data
oil on canvas
support: height 128.7 cm × width 102.2 cm
outer size: depth 8 cm (support incl. frame)
Govert Flinck
Portrait of Gerard Pietersz Hulft (1621-1656)
1654
Inscriptions
- signature and date, bottom centre, on the ledge: G. flinck f. / 1654
- inscription, lower centre, on the piece of paper: Nil adeo fuit unquam tam dispar sibi (Nothing has ever been more unlike itself)
Technical notes
Support The coarse, plain-weave canvas has been wax-resin lined. All tacking edges have been removed. Cusping at intervals of approx. 18 cm is visible at the top and bottom and on the left.
Preparatory layers The single, thick, earth-coloured, brownish ground extends up to the current edges of the support. It contains white and large black pigment particles.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the current edges of the support. The initial lay-in, executed in white, black and earth colours, was left exposed in a few places, such as the loosely sketched putti and the shadows cast by the astrolabe on the compass. In other areas it is visible through the paint layer, for example in the white paper at the bottom centre where a dark triangle can be seen, or in the flesh colours of the face under which rhythmic hatched strokes in brown or black are evident. The blue of the sky was applied over a light paint, while the orange overlies a dark one. The paint layers of the background show through beneath the thin edges of the black cloak. Underneath the metal gorget, white strokes of the undermodelling are visible as a result of abrasion. The thick, opaque paint of the face was carefully blended. Most transitions were perfectly closed or made to overlap, obscuring any reserves which may have been left for the main compositional elements. Numerous position shifts can be made out with the naked eye in the ring of still-life objects.
Gwen Tauber, 2023
Scientific examination and reports
- infrared photography: G. Tauber, RMA, 5 December 2008
- paint samples: G. Tauber, RMA, nos. SK-A-3103/1-2, 5 December 2008
- technical report: G. Tauber, RMA, 5 December 2008
Condition
Fair. The paint is locally abraded, most noticeably in the lighter areas at the bottom. The paint layer has been flattened by lining.
Conservation
- conservator unknown, 1918: varnish mechanically removed and revarnished
- conservator unknown, 1931: cleaned
Provenance
Commissioned by the sitter; by descent to Jonkvrouw Sara Johanna Maria Hulft (1861-1930), Baroness Taets van Amerongen, Utrecht; by whom lent to the museum, 1887-1930; by whom bequeathed to the museum, 1930
Object number: SK-A-3103
Credit line: Jonkvrouw S.J.M. Hulft - Baroness Taets van Amerongen Bequest
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Govert Flinck (Cleves 1615 - Amsterdam 1660)
The exact date of Govert Flinck’s birth, 25 January 1615, is known from a medal issued at the time of his death. He was born into a Mennonite family of some standing in the German town of Cleves, where his father may have been a cloth merchant. According to Houbraken, the young Flinck had a fervent desire to become an artist, which his parents did their utmost to suppress until the Dutch painter and fellow Mennonite Lambert Jacobsz, who was on a preaching tour in Cleves, persuaded them to allow their son to study with him in Leeuwarden. Another of his pupils and Flinck’s ‘companion in art’ (‘gezelschap in de Konst’) was Jacob Backer, who was about seven years his senior.1 Having advanced far enough to stand on their own feet, the two young artists went to Amsterdam. Although Houbraken’s text has been interpreted as meaning that they made the move at the same time, Backer is first documented there in 1633, while the earliest record of Flinck living in Amsterdam is from 1637. On 13 March of that year, he bought some prints at an auction and his address was given as the home of the art dealer Hendrick Uylenburgh. Von Sandrart informs us that after a period of study with Rembrandt, which according to Houbraken lasted only a year, Flinck ‘spent many long years with the famous art dealer Uylenburgh, with whom he left many exquisite, beautiful portraits from his own hand’.2 This chronology implies that he had already trained with Rembrandt, or was training with him, when he painted his earliest signed and dated works in 1636.3 Vestiges of Jacobsz’s style are apparent in these pictures, making Houbraken’s assertion that Flinck fully mastered Rembrandt’s manner in the year he was taught by him appear somewhat exaggerated.
Flinck’s most accomplished Rembrandtesque paintings date from the late 1630s and early 1640s. In addition to the portraits mentioned by Von Sandrart, he executed histories and landscapes while he worked for Uylenburgh. His documented clientele consisted to a large degree of fellow Mennonites, including his cousins Ameldonck and Dirck Jacobsz Leeuw. It is not known when Flinck stopped running Uylenburgh’s studio and set up shop on his own. In 1644, he purchased two houses on Lauriersgracht (nos. 76 and 78) for 10,000 guilders, installing his studio and gallery on the top floors. In the meantime, he had already received the first of three commissions for group portraits from the Amsterdam civic guard, the Portrait of the Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen of 1642;4 the other two are dated 1645 and 1648.5 In the latter year he was awarded his first order from an aristocrat, an allegory for the Elector of Brandenburg, Friedrich Wilhelm von Hohenzollern.6
In June 1645 Flinck married Ingeltje Thoveling, the daughter of a vice-admiral and director of the Rotterdam branch of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). Although she was a Remonstrant, it was only after her death in early 1651 that Flinck had himself baptized in her faith. He remarried in 1656, his second wife being Sophia van der Houve of Gouda. Houbraken points out that Flinck had many influential friends, including Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen, governor of Cleves, the burgomasters Cornelis and Andries de Graeff, and the art lovers Pieter and Jan Six and Joannes Wtenbogaert.
A fully-fledged Flemish Baroque style, inspired initially by Amsterdam artists who had adopted it, first appears in Flinck’s work in 1645.7 It is also apparent in the many important commissions Flinck received in the 1650s, which included portraits of the Elector of Brandenburg8 and of Johan Maurits,9 as well as the Allegory in Memory of Frederik Hendrik.10 It may have been the trip that the artist made to Antwerp, reported by both Baldinucci and Houbraken, that encouraged him to continue down this path.
In 1656 Flinck completed the enormous Marcus Curtius Dentatus Refusing the Gifts of the Samnites for the newly built Town Hall in Amsterdam, followed in 1658 by Solomon’s Prayer for Wisdom.11 In late 1659 he was asked to paint twelve monumental canvases for the Great Gallery of the Town Hall, but Flinck died on 2 February the following year before completing any of them.
A witness stated that a number of assistants and apprentices were working in Flinck’s studio in 1649, which was probably the case in other years as well. Nevertheless, the names of only four, rather obscure pupils are known with certainty: the Düsseldorf painter Johannes Spilberg (1619-1690), who spent a few years with him in the 1640s, Johannes Buns (dates unknown), Bartholomeus Hoppfer (1628-1699) and Steven Sleger (dates unknown).
Jonathan Bikker, 2023
References
J. von Sandrart, Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675: Leben der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister, ed. A.R. Peltzer, Munich 1925 (ed. princ. Nuremberg 1675), p. 194; A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, II, Amsterdam 1719, pp. 18-27; F. Baldinucci, Notizie de’ professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua secolo V. dal 1610. al 1670., Florence 1728, p. 484; H. Havard, L’art et les artistes hollandais, II, Paris 1880, pp. 71-174, 191-202; D.C. Meijer Jr, ‘De Amsterdamsche schutters-stukken in en buiten het nieuwe Rijksmuseum’, Oud Holland 7 (1889), pp. 45-60, esp. pp. 45, 46; A. Bredius, Künstler-Inventare, I, The Hague 1915, p. 128; Hofstede de Groot in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XII, Leipzig 1916, pp. 97-100; A. Bredius, Künstler-Inventare, IV, The Hague 1917, pp. 1254-55; J.W. von Moltke, Govaert Flinck, 1615-1660, Amsterdam 1965, pp. 9-12; S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, ‘Doopsgezinden en schilderkunst in de 17e eeuw: Leerlingen, opdrachtgevers en verzamelaars van Rembrandt’, Doopsgezinde Bijdragen 6 (1980), pp. 105-23, esp. pp. 109-10; S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, ‘Het “schilderhuis” van Govert Flinck en de kunsthandel van Uylenburgh aan de Lauriergracht te Amsterdam’, Jaarboek Amstelodamum 74 (1982), pp. 70-90; W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, II, New York 1984, pp. 998-99; W. Liedtke, ‘Rembrandt and the Rembrandt Style in the Seventeenth Century’, in W. Liedtke et al., Rembrandt/not Rembrandt in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Aspects of Connoisseurship, exh. cat. New York 1995-96, II, pp. 3-39, esp. pp. 16-20; Von Moltke in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, XI, New York 1996, pp. 168-70; P. Jeroense, ‘Govaert Flinck (1615-1660): Eine Künstlerbiographie’, Niederdeutsche Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte 36 (1997), pp. 73-112; Beaujean in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, XLI, Munich/Leipzig 2004, pp. 240-43; W. Liedtke, ‘Rembrandt’s “Workshop” Revisited’, Oud Holland 117 (2004), pp. 48-73, esp. pp. 52, 68, 70, note 34; J. van der Veen, ‘Het kunstbedrijf van Hendrick Uylenburgh in Amsterdam: Productie en handel tussen 1625 en 1655’, in F. Lammertse and J. van der Veen, Uylenburgh en Zoon: Kunst en commercie van Rembrandt tot De Lairesse, 1625-1675, exh. cat. London (Dulwich Picture Gallery)/Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 2006, pp. 117-205, esp. pp. 160-69; R. Lambour, ‘Het doopsgezind milieu van Michiel van Musscher (1645-1705) en van andere schilders in zeventiende-eeuws Amsterdam: Een revisie en ontdekking’, Oud Holland 125 (2012), pp. 193-214, esp. pp. 197-98; T. van der Molen, ‘Das Leben von Govert Flinck/The Life of Govert Flinck’, in E.-J. Goosens et al., Govert Flinck – Reflecting History, exh. cat. Cleves (Museum Kurhaus Kleve) 2015-16, pp. 10-21; E.J. Sluijter, Rembrandt’s Rivals: History Painting in Amsterdam 1630-1650, Amsterdam/Philadelphia 2015, pp. 97-110
Entry
Portrayed at bust-length, in an oval frame surrounded by still-life elements within a rectangular painting, the sitter, Gerard Pietersz Hulft, was a member of a prominent Amsterdam family. After studying law at Leiden University he served as Amsterdam city secretary from 1645 until 1653. Hulft was also a businessman who operated on an international scale. When a merchant fleet in which he had invested was captured by the English in September 1652, Hulft became directly involved in the First Anglo-Dutch War (1652-54) by hiring and outfitting a crew of 24 and putting them and himself under the command of Admiral Witte Cornelisz de Witt. A year later, Hulft resigned his post as city secretary and entered into the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). One of his reasons for doing so concerned his refusal on ethical grounds to honour a request by some of the burgomasters to rewrite a resolution he had drawn up for the city council. The powerful Amsterdam chamber of the VOC included among its directors Hulft’s older brother Joan and the burgomasters Joan Huydecoper van Maarseveen and Cornelis de Graeff van Zuid-Polsbroek, both supporters of Gerard Hulft. Together they insured that he was sent to Batavia (Jakarta) in order to fulfil one of the most important government functions in Asia. He was given two sealed letters of commission, one of which would have made him the successor of the incumbent governor-general, Carel Reyniersz, in the eventuality that he had not already been succeeded by Joan Maetsuycker. Hulft, however, arrived in Batavia to find the latter already occupying the highest position and was forced to open the other letter, which gave him the runner-up prize, that of director-general. According to a later, not altogether unbiased account, Maetsuycker was suspicious of the young outsider and engineered his demise. Hulft was tricked into volunteering for a dangerous mission to Ceylon (Sri Lanka), where he led the VOC troops in battle with the Portuguese. The injuries he sustained during the siege of the capital Colombo on 12 November 1655 eventually resulted in his death on 10 April 1656.12
A poem of 1655 by Joost van den Vondel, a friend of both Hulft and Flinck, tells us that the portrait was executed ‘when he [Hulft] was on the point of departing for the East Indies’.13 The metal gorget worn by the sitter refers to the military aspect of Hulft’s new post, and the water behind him probably to the long sea journey ahead. The frame of the oval portrait is crowned by two angels holding an anchor and, above them, a dove with an olive branch in its beak, signifying peace. The elaborate still life surrounding the likeness reveals various aspects of Hulft’s career, the dual nature of which is alluded to by the piece of paper on the ledge at the bottom. It conveys Hulft’s transformation from a man of learning with a sedentary occupation into a man of action by means of the drawing of a caterpillar on a leaf and a butterfly, and the Latin caption ‘Nil adeo fuit unquam tam dispar sibi’ (Nothing has ever been more unlike itself).14
The books on the shelf at top left allude in general to Hulft’s scholarly activities, and, perhaps, to some specific aspects of his personal philosophy. One of the volumes that can be identified is Hugo Grotius’s De jure belli ac pacis, which was published in 1625 and contained a theory of a just war. His arguments, which included self-defence and reparation of injury, may well have informed Hulft’s decisions to go to battle against the English during the First Anglo-Dutch War and to undertake his mission in Batavia. The book next to Grotius’s bears the name Paruta, the author probably being the sixteenth-century Venetian historian and statesman Paolo Paruta. One of his writings, indeed his most well-known, Della perfezione della vita politica, deals with what appears to have been the key issue in Hulft’s life: the choice between the vita contemplativa and the vita activa. Paruta, like Hulft, came out in favour of the latter, especially because of its benefits for the welfare of the republic in which he lived. Another of the tomes is inscribed ‘BEZÆ TEST’, and is probably the Latin translation of the New Testament by the sixteenth-century theologian and reformer Theodorus Beza.15
Beneath the volumes on the left are a number of documents, one of which bears the words ‘Secrete Resolutie 27 Janu 1654’, and is probably one of the letters of commission given to Hulft by the VOC. Another is titled ‘Tractaten met Engelant’, referring to the Peace of Westminster signed on 15 April 1654 that brought the First Anglo-Dutch War to an end. The objects at top right of the portrait include writing paraphernalia, account books (one of which is clearly marked ‘Factuer / boeck’), and a number of letters of a mercantile nature written in Italian, French and German that were sent from Venice, La Rochelle, Danzig and London. While the objects in the upper half of the painting refer to Hulft’s activities as scholar, merchant and city secretary – his vita contemplativa – the items in the lower part are related to his stint as a naval commander and his appointment in the East Indies – his vita activa. They include a globe, charts, fortification drawings and a number of navigation instruments, among them compasses, a telescope, a Jacob’s staff and an astrolabe.16 Finally, there are two objects on the left that allude to his destination in the Far East, the bamboo cane and the short Japanese sword (wakazashi). While Flinck, who according to Houbraken was ‘unlearned’,17 was unlikely to have devised the portrait’s iconography himself, the notion that Vondel was responsible for it, as some scholars have claimed, cannot be substantiated.18
Hulft’s portrait is executed in the smoothly modelled, to use Houbraken’s word, ‘clear’ style that Flinck first adopted in the mid-1640s,19 in such works as the 1645 Portrait of a Man in Bonn,20 and the 1646 likenesses of a man and a woman, possibly Jan van Hellemont and Margaretha van Raephorst, in Raleigh.21 As in those portraits as well, the sky in Hulft’s is a fiery red, evoking a sunrise. The illusionistic composition of the present painting, which consists of a picture within a picture, is unique in Flinck’s oeuvre, and possibly in Dutch portraiture as a whole before 1654. On the other hand, Dutch printmakers often employed the device of surrounding an oval likeness with still-life elements alluding to the sitter’s biography, and it was probably from this sister art that Flinck borrowed the idea for his canvas. The present picture, but then only the oval portrait, was itself later engraved by Abraham Blooteling, around 1672.22 Twenty-one years after the director-general’s death, Michiel van Musscher used Flinck’s effigy of Hulft to execute a portrait of the fallen hero for his family.23
Jonathan Bikker, 2023
See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements
Literature
J.F.L. de Balbian Verster, ‘Gerard Hulft 1621-1656’, Jaarboek Amstelodamum 29 (1932), pp. 130-58, esp. p. 134; J.W. von Moltke, Govaert Flinck, 1615-1660, Amsterdam 1965, pp. 35-36, 108, no. 207; W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, II, New York 1984, pp. 1004, 1039, no. 707, with earlier literature; G. Schwartz, The Dutch World of Painting, exh. cat. Vancouver (Art Gallery) 1986, p. 36, no. 14; Stevens in K. Zandvliet (ed.), The Dutch Encounter with Asia 1600-1950, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2002-03, pp. 160-62, no. 76; R. Priem, Dutch Masters from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, exh. cat. Melbourne (National Gallery of Victoria) 2005, p. 198; Van der Molen in I. Ember (ed.), Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age, exh. cat. Budapest (Museum of Fine Arts) 2014-15, p. 170, no. 14; E.-J. Goosens et al., Govert Flinck – Reflecting History, exh. cat. Cleves (Museum Kurhaus Kleve) 2015-16, p. 137, no. 20; R.E.O. Ekkart, ‘Govert Flinck and Ferdinand Bol: The Portraits’, in N. Middelkoop (ed.), Ferdinand Bol and Govert Flinck: Rembrandt’s Master Pupils, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis; Amsterdam Museum) 2017-18, pp. 142-63, esp. p. 152
Collection catalogues
1903, p. 100, no. 930; 1934, p. 101, no. 930; 1960, p. 103, no. 930; 1976, p. 228, no. A 3103
Citation
Jonathan Bikker, 2023, 'Govert Flinck, Portrait of Gerard Pietersz Hulft (1621-1656), 1654', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8425
(accessed 20 September 2024 00:45:19).