Object data
oil on panel
support: height 49.9 cm × width 33 cm
sight size: height 48.6 cm × width 32.3 cm
frame: height 64.3 cm × width 47.7 cm × depth 5.5 cm
anonymous
Portrait of Pieter Claesz Boelens (1582-1627)
in or after 1627
Inscriptions
- inscription, bottom centre: Pieter Boelisse, soon van Claes Boeliss. Ætatis 45. 1627. (Pieter Boelisse, son of Claes Boeliss. Aged 45. 1627)
Technical notes
The panel is a single, vertically grained oak plank bevelled on all sides. It is possible that the panel was sawn down a little, leading to the loss of bits of paint on the front. The ground is whitish. The paint is thick and opaque. A striking feature is the accents applied at a late stage, many of which have beaded up on the underlying layer. There are small pentimenti in the cheek.
Scientific examination and reports
- technical report: W. de Ridder, RMA, 24 July 2005
Condition
Good. The grain of the wood is clearly visible through the paint.
Provenance
...; gift of H.J. Heshuysen to the Rijksarchief, Haarlem;1 transferred to the museum, 1934;2 on loan to the Westfries Museum, Hoorn, since 1959
Object number: SK-A-3217
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
Pieter Boelens (1582-1627) was the son of Claes Allertsz Boelens (1550-1615).3 It is not known who painted this portrait. It is probably a copy after a prototype that is now lost that was executed in 1627, according to the inscription on the present painting, that is to say the year of Pieter Boelens’s death. The execution is rather rudimentary. Strikingly, at a late stage in the painting process the artist applied rather coarse accents in the underlying layer. The falling ruff has little volume and was quite harshly executed. The copyist responsible for this portrait probably also executed the one of Claes Allertsz Boelens (SK-A-3216). The prototype may have been the Portrait of Pieter Boelens, that was destroyed by fire while in the collection of W. del Court van Krimpen in Haarlem.4
Everhard Korthals Altes, 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. 427.
Collection catalogues
1976, p. 659; no. A 3217; 2007, no. 427
Citation
E. Korthals Altes, 2007, 'anonymous, Portrait of Pieter Claesz Boelens (1582-1627), in or after 1627', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.9596
(accessed 20 September 2024 00:56:10).