Portrait of Ambrogio Spinola (1569-1630)

1609

Object data

oil on canvas

support: height 119 cm × width 87.5 cm

Inscriptions

signature, date and inscription, centre left: Effigie MARCH AMBR. / SPINOLÆ, Ætatis.39 / Pitore Michiel Mierevelde 1609

Technical notes

The plain-weave canvas support has been lined. Cusping is only present on the left side. The ground layer is red. The paint layers were applied smoothly, with sparing use of impasto and visible brushmarking.

Scientific examination and reports

condition report: M. van de Laar, RMA, 8 September 2004

Condition

Fair. There are three repaired right-angle tears. The hands and face are moderately abraded, and the many retouchings here were poorly executed.

Provenance

...; sale, The Earl of Ancaster et al. [section W.D. Clark], London (Sotheby’s), 26 November 1958, no. 30, to the dealer D.A. Hoogendijk, Amsterdam; from whom, fl. 6,500, to the museum, 1959

Object number: SK-A-3953

The artist

Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt (Delft 1567 - Delft 1641)

According to Van Mander, Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt or Miereveld (he used both forms) was born in Delft on 1 May 1567. He was the son of the successful goldsmith Jan Michielsz van Mierevelt, and received his early training in Delft from two otherwise unknown artists, Willem Willemsz and a pupil of Antonie Blocklandt whom Van Mander simply calls Augustijn. Van Mierevelt became a pupil of Blocklandt’s in Utrecht, presumably in 1581 at the age of 14, for a period of two years and three months. From Blocklandt he learned to handle paint and became accomplished in the art of history painting. After his master’s death, Van Mierevelt returned to his native town, where he joined the painters’ guild in 1587 and served as warden in 1589-90 and 1611-12. He married twice, in 1589 and 1633.

Much to the regret of his father, Van Mierevelt abandoned history painting in favour of the more lucrative genre of portraiture, first adhering to the style of his fellow townsman Jacob Willemsz Delff. However, few of his early portraits have survived, even fewer of his history paintings, and none at all of the kitchen pieces reported by Van Mander. In general, Van Mierevelt’s portraits show great attention to detail and little compositional adventure. His later paintings, however, are more animated, loosely painted productions.

Van Mierevelt’s enormous output (Houbraken says 5,000 portraits, Von Sandrart 10,000) began in earnest with the 1607 commission from the Delft authorities to portray the stadholder, Prince Maurits.¹ In the same year, he became the official painter to the Stadholder’s Court in The Hague, a position he enjoyed for about a quarter of a century until Honthorst usurped it. In addition to his base clientele in The Hague and Delft, his workshop was regularly frequented by aristocrats and patricians from other Dutch and foreign cities. The large demand was met in part by Van Mierevelt’s assistants, who included his sons Pieter (1596-1623) and Jan (1604-33). The inventory of his shop reveals that he kept a supply of replicas of his most famous sitters on hand. His inventions were also disseminated through the reproductive engravings made by his son-in-law, Willem Jacobsz Delff (1580-1638). Van Mierevelt’s most important pupils were Paulus Moreelse (c. 1571-1638), Willem van der Vliet (c. 1584-1642), Daniel Mijtens (c. 1590-1647) and Anthonie Palamedesz (1601-73). Van Mierevelt died a wealthy man in 1641. His lucrative workshop was taken over by his grandson, Jacob Willemsz Delff (1619-61).

Jonathan Bikker, 2007

References
Van Mander 1604, fols. 281-82; Von Sandrart 1675 (1925), pp. 124, 171-72; Houbraken I, 1718, pp. 46-49; Obreen I, 1877-78, p. 4; Havard I, 1879, pp. 11-82; Obreen III, 1880-81, p. 263; Havard 1894; Bredius 1908 (documents); Gerson in Thieme/Becker XXIV, 1930, p. 539; Montias 1982, pp. 38, 370; Ekkart in Amsterdam 1993, pp. 310-11; Ekkart in Turner 1996, pp. 485-86

Entry

Ambrogio Spinola was a scion of a noble family of bankers in Genoa. In 1602, he placed himself and his army of 6,000 men at the disposal of the Spanish in their fight against the Dutch rebels. In 1606, Spinola became commander-in-chief of all the Spanish forces in the southern Netherlands and thereby Prince Maurits’s greatest military opponent.

Spinola must have sat for Van Mierevelt in February 1608, during his visit to The Hague for the peace negotiations that led to the Twelve Years’ Truce.² The composition, showing Spinola diagonally in the picture space with his plumed helmet on a table beside him, was first employed by Van Mierevelt for his 1607 Portrait of Maurits,³ and was the Delft artist’s standard composition for military figures. Spinola wears the badge of the Order of the Golden Fleece he had been awarded in 1605 by Philip III of Spain for his capture of Ostend. Heinen has suggested that the armour worn by Spinola was probably the product of Van Mierevelt’s imagination; the short skirt of lames is Italian while the breastplate is of the flat, northern Netherlandish kind.⁴ The decoration of the breastplate, on the other hand, is Italianate (rather than Italian) in character. The presence of a copy of Van Mierevelt’s portrait in the Leeuwarden Series (SK-A-554), has led Heinen to conclude that the present picture was probably commissioned by Prince Maurits for a gallery of officers’ portraits.⁵ Heinen, moreover, suggests that by showing Spinola wearing decorative armour and a large ruff, Van Mierevelt set out to paint the Spanish forces in a negative light by contrasting them with the more soberly clad officers who fought for the United Provinces.⁶ Although portraits of Spinola are listed in the 1632 inventory of the Stadholders’ Quarter in the Binnenhof,⁷ and Maurits might, therefore, have owned a version or versions of Van Mierevelt’s portrait of the Genovese officer, there is no evidence to support Heinen’s conclusion that the present picture was painted for a gallery of officers’ portraits. Indeed, Van Mierevelt’s Italianate (again, rather than Italian) signature on the painting, suggests that it was commissioned by and for Spinola himself. The fact that Johan Ernst I, Count of Nassau-Siegen wears a suit of armour very similar to Spinola’s in the Leeuwarden Series (SK-A-531) belies Heinen’s hypothesis that Van Mierevelt’s rendering of Spinola’s costume in the present painting had a political motivation. Spinola, moreover, wears the same large ruff in a print showing the participants of the 1608 conference.

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. 183.

Literature

Heinen in Braunschweig 2000, pp. 119-21, no. 34; Zandvliet in Amsterdam 2000a, p. 339, no. 176

Collection catalogues

1976, p. 383, no. A 3953; 2007, no. 183

Citation

J. Bikker, 2007, 'Michiel Jansz. van Mierevelt, Portrait of Ambrogio Spinola (1569-1630), 1609', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.10060

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