Object data
oil on copper
support: height 16.9 cm × width 11.5 cm
outer size: depth 2.5 cm (support incl. frame)
Nicolaes van Borculo
Portrait of Henricus van Zijl (1545-1627)
1627
Inscriptions
- inscription and date, bottom centre: OCTO ANNIS DECIES CO[M]PLETIS ATQ. DVOBVS / HENRICI ZYLY TALIS IMAGO FVIT / ANNO. 1627.
Technical notes
The support is a thin copper plate with a mark (P) on the back. There are horizontal scratches in the plate to improve the adhesion of the ground. The ground layer is smooth and white, and the brushwork in the paint layers is delicate.
Scientific examination and reports
- technical report: I. Verslype, RMA, 9 February 2005
Condition
Fair. There are small areas of paint loss here and there. The varnish is discoloured.
Provenance
...; sale, J. Bohn, widow of F. Huurkamp van der Vinne, Haarlem, 2 October 1829, no. 6;1...; sale, Adriaan van der Willigen (1766-1841, Haarlem) and Adriaan van der Willigen Pz (1810-76, Haarlem and Rhedersteeg), Haarlem (A.G. de Visser), 20 April 1874 sqq., no. 21, fl. 55, to the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague (inv. no. 90); transferred to the museum, 1885
Object number: SK-A-4251
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Nicolaes van Borculo (Utrecht c. 1575 - Utrecht 1634)
Nicolaes van Borculo came from a well-known Utrecht family of publishers and makers of woodcuts that owned the printing works In ’t Vliegend Hert (At the Flying Stag) close to the cathedral. He was probably born some time in the 1570s. Van Borculo was in Rome between 1605 and 1608, as is known from documents dealing mainly with his involvement in fights between artists. It is not clear precisely when he returned to the Netherlands, but in 1616 he enrolled as a member of the Guild of St Luke in Utrecht. It was there that he married Anna van Rosweyde, the widow of Aert Cornelisz van Steenwijck. Van Borculo died on 23 May 1634 and was buried in the Buurkerk. His only known work is the small portrait of the Utrecht councillor Henricus van Zijl in the Rijksmuseum. The name J. Burkeloo is mentioned several times in 18th-century sale catalogues in connection with Italian landscapes or views of the Rhine. It is not clear whether these were works by another member of the family.
Everhard Korthals Altes, 2007
References
Moes in Thieme/Becker IV, 1910, p. 343; Swillens 1934, pp. 95-102; Grabach in Saur XII, 1996, p. 679
Entry
Henricus (Henrick) van Zijl (1545-1627) is shown in the last year of his life, at the age of 82. He came from Amersfoort, and from 1592 until his death he was councillor to the Court of Utrecht. Abraham van Bemmel mentions him in his Beschryving van de Stad Amersfoort.2 The name of the artist who painted this portrait is revealed in a print by Crispijn de Passe the Younger (1594-1670).3 In 1630 this print engraver and publisher, who was working in Utrecht at the time, engraved a portrait of Van Zijl. The inscription states that De Passe had modelled his print on a painting by Nicolaes van Borculo: ‘Henricus a Zyl Curie Ultraiet Consiliar vives huic effigiei subsequens carmen subscripsit. Octo annis decies completis atque duobus Henrici Zyly talis imago fuit. Obit 1627. Pxit NBorculo Sculpsit Chrisp: Passe Junior 1630’.
De Passe had to work from Van Borculo’s painting of 1627 because Van Zijl was already dead in 1630. There are a few minor differences between the painting and the print. The balustrade with the inscription in the painting was omitted, and the inscription itself differs.
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. 27.
Literature
Swillens 1934, pp. 95-102; Veldman 2001, pp. 304, 432
Collection catalogues
1976, p. 133, no. A 4251; 2007, no. 27
Citation
E. Korthals Altes, 2007, 'Nicolaes van Borculo, Portrait of Henricus van Zijl (1545-1627), 1627', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20026701
(accessed 25 December 2025 01:52:54).