Object data
oil on canvas
support: height 85.7 cm × width 66 cm
outer size: depth 7.5 cm (support incl. SK-L-3386)
Johannes Verspronck
Portrait of a Man
1646
Inscriptions
- signature and date, bottom right (‘ver’ ligated): J verSpronck·an° 1646.
Technical notes
Support The plain-weave canvas has been wax-resin lined. All tacking edges have been removed. Cusping is present on all sides.
Preparatory layers The double ground extends up to the current edges of the canvas. The first, beige layer consists of coarse white pigment particles with an addition of black, transparent and earth pigment particles. The second, whitish-pink layer contains fine and coarse white pigment particles and a few red, blue, black and fine earth pigment particles.
Underdrawing Infrared reflectography and infrared photography revealed sketchy lines of underdrawing in a dry medium, also partly visible to the naked eye, describing the hat, hair, facial features and collar. The infrared images also show an underdrawing in a dry medium for another, probably earlier portrait to the right of the man’s head, consisting of the cap, face and collar of a woman looking to the left.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the current edges of the canvas. The background was applied in two layers. The sitter was left in reserve in the initial, light greyish-brown layer. The face was first indicated with translucent browns and worked up from dark to light, leaving the undermodelling partially exposed in the transition between the face and hair on the left and in the shaded area on the right side of the face. Finally, the highlights on the forehead, nose and in and around the eyes were added. The clothes were applied wet in wet in shades of black and grey. The collar was left in reserve in the clothes and underpainted with a light grey base on top of which the lace border was worked up. Its lightest part was rendered with thin, white brushstrokes, while in the lit area on the left the pattern of the lace was suggested with mere dark grey dabs, indicating the openings in the fabric. The lace pattern in the shaded area on the right is composed of a dark grey layer into which loose, curly lines were incised exposing the light greyish brown of the background. Both hands were left in reserve in the clothes. The second layer of the background, consisting of a thin, translucent dark brown glaze, was applied to create depth. The glove in the sitter’s left hand was added on top. The paint layer is smooth, except for the highlights.
Anna Krekeler, 2024
Scientific examination and reports
- infrared photography: A. Krekeler, RMA, 18 July 2008
- paint samples: A. Krekeler, RMA, nos. SK-A-3352/1-2, 18 July 2008
- infrared reflectography: A. Krekeler, RMA, 30 June 2009
- technical report: E. Smeenk-Metz / Z. Benders / A. Krekeler, RMA, 30 June 2009
- X-radiography: A. Wallert, RMA, nos. 1966 A1-4/B1-4, 10 November 2011
Literature scientific examination and reports
A. Krekeler et al., ‘Consistent Choices: A Technical Study of Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck’s Portraits in the Rijksmuseum’, The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 62 (2014), pp. 2-23
Condition
Fair. The canvas has a small indentation above the hat. The canvas weave has become visible in the paint layer as a result of lining. The paint is abraded mainly along the left edge, where there is also discoloured retouching, and in the collar and around the signature at bottom right. The varnish is extremely thick and has yellowed.
Provenance
…; collection Dominicus Antonius Josephus Kessler (1855-1939) and Mrs A.C.M.H. Kessler-Hülsmann (1868-1947), Kapelle op den Bosch, near Mechelen, by 1929;1 donated by Mrs A.C.M.H. Kessler-Hülsmann to the museum, with 83 other objects, 1940; on loan to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1981-85
Object number: SK-A-3352
Credit line: Gift of Mr and Mrs Kessler-Hülsmann, Kapelle op den Bosch
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Johannes Verspronck (Haarlem 1600/03 - Haarlem 1662)
Johannes Verspronck, who is sometimes wrongly called Gerard Sprong in older sources on the basis of passages in Schrevelius and Houbraken, was born on an unknown date. Early authors favoured 1597 or 1606-09, but it has since been established that the place and year of his birth must have been Haarlem between 1600 and 1603. He came from a fairly prosperous family who probably subscribed to the Catholic faith. His most likely teacher was his father, Cornelis Engelsz of Gouda, a painter of portraits and kitchen still lifes. It is also assumed on stylistic grounds that the young Verspronck was apprenticed to Frans Hals. He registered with the Haarlem Guild of St Luke in 1632, as did his younger brother Jochem, none of whose works has survived. Verspronck never held guild office, although he was once, in 1644, a candidate for the post of warden. He never married, and continued living in his parents’ house with an unwed sister and brother. The three of them later bought a neighbouring property. It is clear from the fact that he loaned several sums of money to family members that he was not poor. He was buried in Haarlem’s Grote Kerk on 30 June 1662.
Verspronck was one of the leading portraitists of seventeenth-century Haarlem. His known oeuvre consists of more than 100 paintings, all but one or two in that genre. They include two group portraits: The Regentesses of the Grote or St Elizabeth Hospital in Haarlem of 1641 and The Regentesses of the Holy Spirit Almshouse in Haarlem of 1642.2 Houbraken’s statement that Verspronck also produced civic guard pieces is probably due to confusion with the father’s work. His earliest dated pictures are from 1634 and the last one, a likeness of the parish priest Augustinus Alstenius Bloemert, from 1658.3
Gerdien Wuestman, 2024
References
T. Schrevelius, Harlemias, Haarlem 1648, p. 382; A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, II, Amsterdam 1719, p. 123; A. van der Willigen, Geschiedkundige aanteekeningen over Haarlemsche schilders en andere beoefenaren van de beeldende kunsten, voorafgegaan door eene korte geschiedenis van het schilders- of St. Lucas Gild aldaar, Haarlem 1866, p. 224; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstler-Lexikon, II, Leipzig/Vienna 1910, p. 783; Lilienfeld in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XXXIV, Leipzig 1940, p. 302; R.E.O. Ekkart, Johannes Cornelisz. Verspronck: Leven en werken van een Haarlems portretschilder uit de 17de eeuw, Haarlem 1979, pp. 13-20; H. Miedema, De archiefbescheiden van het St. Lucasgilde te Haarlem, 1497-1798, II, Alphen aan den Rijn 1980, pp. 421, 1034, 1036, 1041; I. van Thiel-Stroman, ‘Biographies 15th-17th Century’, in P. Biesboer et al., Painting in Haarlem 1500-1850: The Collection of the Frans Hals Museum, coll. cat. Haarlem 2006, pp. 99-363, esp. pp. 323-24; R.E.O. Ekkart, ‘Portretten door Johannes Verspronck in meervoud’, De Nederlandsche Leeuw 125 (2008), cols. 153-55; R.E.O. Ekkart, Johannes Verspronck and the Girl in Blue, Amsterdam 2009, pp. 9-11
Entry
Verspronck’s models of the 1630s and ’40s are usually shown standing,4 and in 1643-46 most of the men wear hats.5 The one here is no exception, and his right hand rests on his left hand, which is partially covered by his cape. His gloves, one of which he has put on, have long cuffs. Verspronck positioned the sitter off-centre, as he so often did, and showed him against a background of brownish tints. It is very possible that this portrait once had a companion piece, but no suitable candidate has yet been found.6
The young, fashionably dressed man is nameless, and that problem remains unresolved because it is not known where the painting was before 1929, and there are no internal clues such as inscriptions or a coat of arms. Technical examination revealed that Verspronck used a piece of canvas that he had initially reserved for another portrait, for inspection in the infrared brought out the underdrawing for a face of a woman to the right of the sitter’s head (fig. a).7
Gerdien Wuestman, 2024
See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements
Literature
R.E.O. Ekkart, Johannes Cornelisz. Verspronck: Leven en werken van een Haarlems portretschilder uit de 17de eeuw, Haarlem 1979, pp. 48, 104, no. 65; R.E.O. Ekkart, Johannes Verspronck and the Girl in Blue, Amsterdam 2009, p. 32
Collection catalogues
1960, p. 327, no. 2536 A2; 1976, p. 575, no. A 3352
Citation
Gerdien Wuestman, 2024, 'Johannes Verspronck, Portrait of a Man, 1646', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6434
(accessed 19 September 2024 01:50:16).