Object data
oil on panel
support: height 30.8 cm × width 23.8 cm
outer size: depth 6 cm (support incl. frame)
Anthonie Palamedesz (copy after)
Portrait of a Man, probably a Clergyman
1650
Inscriptions
- signature and date, upper right: Aº 1650 / A Palamedes pinxit
- inscription, upper right: ÆT: 66
Technical notes
The support is a single vertically grained oak plank, which has been cradled. The ground layer is ochre in colour. The paint layers were applied thinly, with the exception of the light areas in the background. Brushstrokes are visible in the background.
Scientific examination and reports
- technical report: I. Verslype, RMA, 25 July 2003
Condition
Fair. The sliding members of the cradle are blocked. The area around the inscription and the signature has been retouched. Minor losses appear throughout, and there are some discoloured retouchings in the cloak, the sitter’s face and around his cap. The varnish was applied unevenly and has discoloured.
Provenance
...; collection Dr Max Wassermann;1 his sale, Paris (Palais Galliéra), 26 November 1967, no. 27, fr. 5,000, to the museum; on loan to the Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, since 1978
Object number: SK-A-4138
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Anthonie Palamedesz (Delft 1601 - Amsterdam 1673)
Anthonie Palamedesz was born in Delft in 1601 as a son of a gem-cutter. His teacher is unknown, but it has been suggested that he studied with Michiel van Mierevelt. In 1621, Palamedesz entered the Guild of St Luke, of which he was warden in 1635 and several times between 1653 and 1673. He was probably in Amsterdam around 1626, as he copied one or more of the sitters from a civic guard piece by Claes Pietersz Lastman (d. 1625) in that year.2 In 1630, he married Anna Joosten van Hoorendijk in Delft. In 1658, seven years after the death of his first wife, he married Aagje Woedewart. Palamedesz died in 1673 during a visit to Amsterdam. Among his pupils were his brother, the battle painter Palamedes Palamedesz I (1607-38), his son Palamedes Palamedesz (1633-1705) and Ludolf de Jongh (1616-79).
The bulk of Palamedesz’s oeuvre consists of genre scenes and portraits. There are few works that carry a date prior to 1632, but his earliest genre scenes, elegant companies in the open air in a style derived from Esaias van de Velde, can be dated to the mid-1620s. From the early 1630s onwards he painted numerous so-called merry companies in the manner of Dirck Hals and Pieter Codde. A document from 1636 reveals that he painted figures in a picture by Johannes van Vught, and it appears that he also did the same for Dirck van Delen, Bartholomeus van Bassen, and possibly for Anthonie de Lorme as well. Palamedesz’s military guardrooms were produced in the late 1640s and the 1650s. He continued painting genre scenes until the end of his life, but the majority of his dated works from 1650 onwards are portraits.
Gerdien Wuestman, 2007
References
Van Bleyswijck 1667, II, pp. 847-48; Houbraken I, 1718, p. 304, II, 1719, p. 33; Havard II, 1880, pp. 1-70; Bredius 1890, pp. 308-13; Haverkorn van Rijsewijk 1891a, p. 46; Sutton in Turner 1996, pp. 831-32; Rüger in New York-London 2001, pp. 318-20
Entry
Palamedesz became one of Delft’s leading portraitists after the death of Michiel van Mierevelt in 1641.3 The majority of his dated portraits are from the period between 1645 and 1665. The present one is related in style to the work of Palamedesz’s presumed teacher Van Mierevelt. When this painting was acquired for the Rijksmuseum’s Department of Dutch History in 1967, the sitter was identified as the Leiden theologian Jacobus Trigland (1583-1654). The age corresponds with Trigland’s, and there is a slight resemblance to his features as shown in other portraits of the theologian.4 However, the identification was rejected by Pieter van Thiel after comparison with an engraved portrait by Willem Jacobsz Delff of Trigland at the age of 53, which shows that the theologian was already bald in 1636.5 The sitter was probably a clergyman from Delft.
Ekkart has suggested that he may be the pastor Dionysius Spranckhuijsen, who was born in 1585 and lived in Delft from 1625 onwards, whose features are known from a print of 1641 by Crispijn van den Queborn.6 Spranckhuijsen’s death in 1650 might explain why so many versions of his portrait were produced in that year. Although Ekkart’s identification is an appealing one, the resemblance between the sitter in the present portrait and Spranckhuijsen as he appears at the age of 56 in Van den Queborn’s print is not that close, especially as regards the hair. Moreover, the Delft preacher was a year younger than the man in the portrait. The identification of the sitter as Spranckhuijsen must, therefore, remain hypothetical.
There are several versions of this portrait, most of them signed at centre right, instead of at upper right as in the present painting. The most sophisticated one was auctioned in Amsterdam in 1960.7 The age of the sitter inscribed on that painting of 1650 is 64, that is two years younger than in other versions, but the last digits of the date appear to have been overpainted, which suggests that the first version dates from 1648. Several variants are in Aachen and in private collections.8. In a version that is signed and dated at upper right, as in the Rijksmuseum painting, the composition has been reduced.9 A difference between the present painting and other versions is the occurrence of three buttons on the sleeve at lower right.
The awkward execution of the sitter’s face, with his relatively large eyes and strangely attached earlobe, makes an attribution to Palamedesz or his workshop doubtful. The Rijksmuseum version should therefore probably be considered a copy.
Gerdien Wuestman, 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. 231.
Literature
coll. cat. Utrecht 2002, pp. 243-44 (as Palamedesz, Portrait of Jacobus Trigland)
Collection catalogues
1976, p. 434, no. A 4138 (as Palamedesz, Portrait of Jacobus Trigland); 1992, p. 72, no. A 4138 (as Palamedesz); 2007, no. 231
Citation
G. Wuestman, 2007, 'copy after Anthonie Palamedesz., Portrait of a Man, probably a Clergyman, 1650', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.4923
(accessed 10 November 2024 16:14:11).