Portrait of Machtelt Bas (?-1681)

c. 1651

Object data

oil on canvas

support: height 126 cm × width 98 cm
outersize: depth 8.5 cm (support incl. SK-L-6245)

Inscriptions

coat of arms, top left: divided vertically. 1: a silver eagle with an olive branch in its beak on a blue field. 2, divided horizontally: A, a silver stork on a blue field; B, four red bars alternating with three blue bars strewn with eleven miniature silver escutcheons
label, on the reverse: Deze magteld B[as] / is afgeschilderdt naa / zij haar man / Abraham de Visscher / snagts dood naast / haar zijde vondt. (The painting of this Machtelt Bas was finished after she discovered her husband Abraham de Visscher dead beside her at night.)

Technical notes

Support The plain-weave canvas has been wax-resin lined. All tacking edges have been preserved, though the one on the left has been trimmed and cut even with the back edge of the current stretcher. Those at the top and bottom and on the right have retained the original scallops. An imprint of an earlier strainer is visible in the crack pattern parallel to the outer edges at approx. 6 cm from the top, approx. 7 cm from the bottom, approx. 5 cm from the left and approx. 6 cm from the right. With the restretching of the canvas on the current stretcher, the bottom tacking edge was let out to the front by approx. 1 cm. On the left the picture plane was folded over the stretcher by approx. 1 cm.
Preparatory layers The single, yellowish-brown ground extends over the tacking edges, leaving a small strip of canvas uncovered at the top and bottom and on the right. It consists of charcoal black, white pigment, large and fine bright yellow pigment particles and some fine orange and brown pigment particles.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared reflectography.
Paint layers The paint extends over the tacking edges. The sky, trees, landscape and curtain were added after the initial lay-in of the figure and have a more finished look, except for the sketchily executed flowers. Areas of grey paint were applied over the skirt and background as underpaint for the arms, collar, cuffs and fan, and remained largely exposed. Black fluid lines on top delineate the forms in the face, hands and collar. The light areas of the arms and fingers were roughly blocked in on top of the underpaint with a yellowish pink, and the collar and cuffs with different greys and whites. The rings and bracelets were indicated with just a few brushstrokes. Though the face was worked up more extensively with wet-in-wet applications of the flesh-colours, it lacks final details in highlighting and shading. Infrared reflectography and X-radiography revealed that the woman’s right arm was initially positioned further away from the body, and that her hair was considerably fuller, especially to the right of the face. The earlier version is also visible to the naked eye, showing through several areas in the background as a yellowish hue. The coat of arms is a later addition.
Laurent Sozzani, Ige Verslype, 2023

Scientific examination and reports

technical report: L. Sozzani, RMA, 15 September 2008
X-radiography: G. Tauber, RMA, nos. 1846A-E, October 2008
infrared reflectography: A. Wallert / L. Sozzani, RMA, November 2008
paint samples: L. Sozzani, RMA, nos. SK-A-397/01-08, November 2008
technical report: I. Verslype, RMA, 24 July 2018
X-radiography: I. Steeman, RMA, nos. SK-A-397/A1-3, B1-3, C1-3, D1-3 (digital), 31 January 2019

Condition

Good.

Provenance

For both the present painting (SK-A-397) and its pendant (SK-A-589)
? Commissioned by or for the sitters; ? their daughter, Theodora de Visscher (1641-1722), Amsterdam; ? her son, Jan (Jean) Rijswijck (1678-1756), Amsterdam; ? his daughter, Johanna Rijswijck (1723-?), Amsterdam; her daughter, Johanna Balguerie, née Van Rijswijk (1750-1823), Amsterdam; by whom bequeathed to the museum, with 21 other portraits, 1823¹
Or:
? Commissioned by or for the sitters; ? their daughter, Theodora de Visscher (1641-1722), Amsterdam; ? her son, Theodore (Dirck) Rijswijck (1668-1729), Amsterdam; ? his daughter, Theodora Rijswijck (1695-1752), Amsterdam; ? her husband, Pierre Balguerie (1679-1759), Amsterdam; ? his son, Daniel Balguerie (1732-1788), Amsterdam; his wife, Johanna Balguerie, née Van Rijswijk (1750-1823), Amsterdam; by whom bequeathed to the museum, with 21 other portraits, 1823²

Object number: SK-A-397

Credit line: J. Balguerie-van Rijswijk Bequest, Amsterdam

The artist

Jacob Backer (Harlingen c. 1608/09 - Amsterdam 1651)

It is thanks to the funeral medal with his age and date of death that we know that it was probably in the second half of 1608 or possibly early 1609 that Jacob Backer was born in Harlingen. He was the son of the baker Adriaen Tjercksz and Hilcke Volckertsdr, and grew up in Amsterdam. His father was a member of the Waterland congregation, a liberal branch of the Mennonites. Backer’s first teacher is not documented, but various facts have led to the suggestion that between roughly 1620 and 1626 he was apprenticed to the history painter Jan Pynas (1581-1631), who lived in the same street. It is known that the two families were acquainted from the fact that Backer’s father was owed money by Pynas’s father and also owned a first-rate Baptism of the Eunuch by the artist. Jacob Backer was also a good friend of Steven de Goor (1608-c. 1660), a pupil of Pynas in the first half of the 1620s, at the time when Backer might also have been taught by him. Houbraken says that Backer trained in Leeuwarden in the studio of the Mennonite painter Lambert Jacobsz. That was probably after his father’s death, from around 1626 to 1632, when Govert Flinck was also studying with Jacobsz.

A remark of Houbraken’s gave rise to the long-held belief that Backer was apprenticed to Rembrandt after he was back in Amsterdam in the early 1630s. However, apart from an artistic influence there is not the slightest documentary evidence for this, and it is more likely that Backer set up as an independent master immediately on his return to the city, where he was to live until his death. An inscription on a drawn self-portrait places him in Vlissingen in 1638.

Backer was a painter of portraits, anonymous heads and histories from the very outset. His earliest dated work is from 1633, John the Baptist Accusing Herod and Herodias.³ Soon afterwards he was given the important commission for the Portrait of the Female Governors of the Civic Orphanage of 1633 or 1634.⁴ This was the beginning of a steady stream of portrait orders, including two monumental civic guard pieces of 1638 and 1642.⁵ Most of his clients came from the wealthy Amsterdam middle class, including the De Graeff, Hasselaer, Bas, Hooft, Velters and De Vroede families. He was held in such high regard that he was also mentioned by various authors, among them Philips Angel, who referred to him as ‘the much-admired Backer’ in 1642. He received a very prestigious request just before his death when he and Jacob van Loo were the only two Amsterdam painters to be invited to contribute to the decorative programme for the Oranjezaal (Orange Hall) in Amalia van Solm’s newly built residence in The Hague, Huis ten Bosch. Neither of them actually took part in the project. Backer became a member of the Remonstrant church in 1651, and on 27 August of that year he died unmarried in Amsterdam and was buried in one of the family graves in the Noorderkerk.

In addition to Rembrandt’s influence, Backer’s oeuvre betrays just as much affinity with the pictures of his teacher Lambert Jacobsz, who in his turn may have introduced him to the works of the Utrecht Caravaggisti. However, it was above all Flemish painting that left its mark on Backer from the 1640s on. His pupils included his son Adriaen Backer (1635/36-1684), Jan de Baen (1633-1702), Jan van Neck (1634/35-1714), David van Stapelen (c. 1626-?), David Eversdyck (c. 1626-?), Johannes Lyster (dates unknown), Wiggert Domans (dates unknown) and Michael Neidlinger (1624-1700). Among those who also have trained with him are Adam Camerarius (dates unknown), Louis Vallée (active 1649-52), Abraham van den Tempel (1622/23-1672), Jan van Noordt (1623/24-1676/86) and Bernard Vaillant (1632-1698).

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2023

References
P. Angel, Lof der Schilderkonst, Leiden 1642 – trans. M. Hoyle and annot. H. Miedema, ‘Philips Angel, Praise of Painting’, Simiolus 24 (1996), pp. 227-58, esp. p. 246; J. Meyssens, Image de divers hommes d’esprit sublime qui par leur art et science debvrovent vivre eternellement et des quels la lovange et renommée faict estonner le monde, Antwerp 1649 (unpag.); C. de Bie, Het gulden cabinet van de edel vrij schilder const, inhoudende den lof vande vermarste schilders, architecte, beldthowers ende plaetsnijders van deze eeuw, Antwerp 1662, p. 130; 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. 178; S. van Hoogstraten, Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst: Anders de zichtbaere werelt: Verdeelt in negen leerwinkels, Rotterdam 1678, pp. 227, 257; A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, I, Amsterdam 1718, pp. 336-38; Moes in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, II, Amsterdam 1908, pp. 323-24; A. Bredius, ‘Leerlingen van Jacob Backer’, Oud Holland 40 (1922), pp. 186-87; J.D. Wagner, ‘Nieuwe gegevens omtrent Jacob Backer, Oud Holland 40 (1922), pp. 32-36; K. Bauch, Jacob Adriaensz Backer, ein Rembrandtschüler aus Friesland, Berlin 1926, pp. 1-4; H.F. Wijnman, ‘De afkomst van Jacob en Adriaan Backer’, Oud Holland 43 (1926), pp. 289-92; H.F. Wijnman, ‘De schilder Jacob Backer te Amsterdam’, Oud Holland 51 (1934), pp. 135-36; H.F. Wijnman, Uit de kring van Rembrandt en Vondel: Verzamelde studies over hun leven en omgeving, Amsterdam 1959, pp. 43-44, 67-70; Horst in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, VI, Munich/Leipzig 1992, pp. 169-70; P. van den Brink, ‘David geeft Uria de brief voor Joab: Niet Govert Flinck, maar Jacob Backer’, Oud Holland 111 (1997), pp. 177-86, esp. pp. 178-79; P. Bakker, Gezicht op Leeuwarden: Schilders in Friesland en de markt voor schilderijen in de Gouden Eeuw, diss., University of Amsterdam 2008, p. 180; J. van der Veen, ‘Jacob Backer, een schets van zijn leven’, in P. van den Brink and J. van der Veen, Jacob Backer (1608/9-1651), exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis)/Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 2008-09, pp. 10-25

Entry

Machtelt Bas was a daughter of the city’s influential regent Dirck Jacobsz Bas.⁶ On 13 July 1632 she married Abraham de Visscher, a merchant dealing mainly in cloth from Cambrai, and one of the directors of the Dutch West India Company (WIC). Both spouses are included in Dirck van Santvoort’s likeness of Dirck Jacobsz Bas and his second family of around 1635,⁷ which confirms the identity of the woman in this canvas and the man’s in another one in the Rijksmuseum (SK-A-589; also fig. a). In addition, an old label on the back of the latter work states the marital status of the couple.⁸ The two paintings belong to a collection of 23 family portraits bequeathed to the museum in 1823 by Johanna Balguerie-van Rijswijk.⁹ As happened with other pictures in the group, the sitters’ coats of arms were added in the eighteenth century.¹⁰

Both portraits have been assigned to Abraham van den Tempel in the museum’s catalogues since 1880,¹¹ but were in the recent past transferred to Jacob Backer on convincing stylistic grounds by Van den Brink.¹² The lighting, the background with the red curtain and the virtuoso imitation of textures in De Visscher’s likeness have distinct parallels in Backer’s monogrammed Portrait of a Man in Kassel.¹³ They are among the artist’s very last output. The clothing points to a date around 1650,¹⁴ and the unfinished state of Bas’s picture, in particular, could be due to Backer’s sudden death in 1651.

An old label on the present portrait states that it was completed after Machtelt Bas discovered her husband dead beside her in bed.¹⁵ The meaning of that annotation is ambiguous, though, because it is patently obvious that it is a painting in process. The suggestion was raised that only Bas’s face was accomplished in 1667, possibly by Van den Tempel,¹⁶ but leaving aside the initial stages of the hands and dress, her physiognomy, too, is not finalized yet, as can be seen from the minimal modelling and the absence of a standard detail like a catchlight in the right eye.¹⁷ De Visscher’s portrait, on the other hand, is in a far more advanced state. Van den Brink suggested that a vista of a landscape still had to be added to the background to match the one in Bas’s likeness, which he regarded as completed.¹⁸ However, the artist took great care over the subtle lighting around the man’s contours which, like Backer’s aforementioned picture in Kassel, is remarkable in its contribution to the spatial effect, which does indicate that the work is finished. Furthermore, Backer is known to have given pendant pairs different backgrounds.¹⁹

The descriptions of both portraits in the museum’s collection catalogues suggest that there was a considerable change in their sizes between 1887 and 1897, and that the painting of Machtelt Bas was even given a different support.²⁰ Since the two works display not a trace of such drastic alterations, the data must have been wrong from the outset. It is also remarkable that they were listed as pendants only in 1880, having been catalogued separately before then. This may have been due to the striking difference in the state of finish and in the size of the sitters, for De Visscher takes up more of the picture space than Bas does.

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2023

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

For both the present painting (SK-A-397) and its pendant (SK-A-589)
H.F. Wijnman, Uit de kring van Rembrandt en Vondel: Verzamelde studies over hun leven en omgeving, Amsterdam 1959, pp. 83-84; D. de Witt, ‘Abraham van den Tempel (1622/3-1672) as a Draughtsman’, Oud Holland 119 (2006), pp. 164-96, esp. p. 172; Van den Brink in P. van den Brink and J. van der Veen, Jacob Backer (1608/9-1651), exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis)/Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 2008-09, pp. 170-73, no. 38

Collection catalogues

For both the present painting (SK-A-397) and its pendant (SK-A-589)
1858, p. 190, nos. 425, 426 (as Anonymous); 1880, p. 300, nos. 350, 351 (as Abraham van den Tempel); 1887, p. 165, nos. 1401, 1402 (as Abraham van den Tempel); 1903, p. 257, nos. 2287, 2288; 1934, p. 275, nos. 2287, 2288 (as Abraham van den Tempel); 1976, p. 535, nos. A 589, A 397 (as attributed to Abraham van den Tempel)

Citation

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2023, 'attributed to Jacob Adriaensz. Backer, Portrait of Machtelt Bas (?-1681), c. 1651', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5557

(accessed 10 November 2024 16:54:56).

Figures

fig. a Attributed to Jacob Backer, *Portrait of Abraham de Visscher* (SK-A-589) and *Portrait of Machtelt Bas* (SK-A-397)