Portrait of an Unknown Count or Officer, possibly Jan the Elder (1535-1606), Count of Nassau

The Leeuwarden Series

In its present state the Leeuwarden Series consists of 41 small, bust-length portraits, predominantly of members of the Nassau family, and Dutch and foreign military leaders who participated in the Eighty Years’ War. Three other paintings that belonged to the series are now missing (Portrait of Willem I, Prince of Orange (SK-A-516), Portrait of a Man (SK-A-563) and Portrait of a Man (SK-A-565), see entries below), while another eight that have always been included in the series in past Rijksmuseum collection catalogues and the literature on the series clearly form a separate group and have been renamed the Katzenelnbogen Series in this catalogue.⁵ The majority of the portraits were executed by Van Ravesteyn’s studio. The next largest group comprises works produced by Van Mierevelt’s workshop. Wybrand de Geest, himself, is responsible for two of the paintings, the portraits of Hendrik Casimir I (SK-A-533) and Willem Frederik (SK-A-530), while two others in the series were probably executed by his studio (Portrait of Adolf, Count of Nassau (SK-A-522); Portrait of Hendrik, Count of Nassau (SK-A-524)). The series also includes three copies after portraits by Gerard van Honthorst (Portrait of Frederik Hendrik (SK-A-519); Portrait of Willem II (SK-A-520); Portrait of Willem III (SK-A-521)) and three works that clearly form a group but whose author will have to remain anonymous for the time being (Portrait of an Unknown Count or Officer (SK-A-528); Portrait of Lodewijk, Count of Nassau (SK-A-523); Portrait of François de la Noue (SK-A-551)). Finally, there is one portrait executed by Moreelse’s studio (Portrait of Anthonis van Utenhove (SK-A-566)).

All of the portraits are inscribed in gold-coloured lettering recording the sitters’ names and, for some of the Nassau family members, the date and place of their death and their age when they died. Uniquely, the Portrait of Willem III (SK-A-521) is inscribed with the date and place of his birth. An explanation for the fact that four different types of lettering were used in these inscriptions has not been found, but it is possible to date the inscriptions to before 1671. In that year Johannes Tideman copied some of the portraits in the present series for a series of Nassau portraits for the Statenzaal of the Provinciehuis in Groningen. Not only did Tideman faithfully replicate the portraits, he also copied the inscriptions. The original inscriptions, therefore, must have been painted before 1671. In addition to the gold-coloured inscriptions, eight of the portraits bear inscriptions in black paint, and one of them in red paint. Three of these inscriptions record the name ‘M. Ravestein’ and three others the name ‘M. Mirevelt’. While they have been taken for signatures in the past, this is certainly not the case, as the artists’ names are misspelled, and one of the portraits, of Jan the Younger (SK-A-534), carries Van Mierevelt’s name, but is more likely the product of Van Ravesteyn’s studio. The red inscription on the Portrait of Anthonis van Utenhove (SK-A-556) reads ‘PM’, the monogram of Paulus Moreelse, and is dated 1619. De Geest’s 1632 portraits of Hendrik Casimir I (SK-A-533) and Willem Frederik (SK-A-530) are the only ones in the series that can be truly said to be signed. Dates are inscribed on two other portraits in the series; that of Albert, Count of Nassau-Dillenburg (SK-A-532) bears the date 1622, and that of Willem Lodewijk, 1609 (SK-A-525). The latter is therefore the earliest dated work in the series, and 1609 could very well be the year the series was begun. The year 1609 has been used as a terminus post quem for the portraits that do not bear dates and could not be dated by other means, such as dendrochronology or the date of a prototype.

The series has traditionally been called ‘The Honselaarsdijk Series’ in reference to the supposed provenance of the portraits from Frederik Hendrik’s country house south-west of The Hague, which the stadholder had rebuilt beginning in 1621. Nothing is known about how the portraits came into the museum’s collection, but they are apparently already included on the ground-plan of the Nationale Konst-Gallery drawn up by Jan Gerard Waldorp in the winter of 1800/01 as three groups of ‘14 portraits of illustrious persons’ (‘14 Pourtretten van illustre Perzoonen’).⁶ In the 1801 manuscript catalogue composed by Cornelis Sebille Roos, the portraits are recorded individually according to their gold-lettered inscriptions.⁷ Their supposed provenance from the Honselaarsdijk estate is first recorded in the collection catalogue of 1858.⁸ A gallery of famous men – and a few women – which included 88 small bust-length portraits of Dutch and foreign princes, kings, artists, scholars and military officers, did exist at Honselaarsdijk, but only in a very few cases do the names correspond with the sitters in the present series.⁹ On the other hand, as Drossaers and Lunsingh Scheurleer were able to demonstrate in 1974, many of the portraits correspond to those listed under the heading ‘kleine borststukken’ (small bust-length pieces) in a 16 August 1633 inventory of the possessions of the Frisian Stadholder’s Court in Leeuwarden.¹⁰

Putting the eight paintings belonging to the Katzenelnbogen Series aside, as has been done here for the first time, makes the correspondence between the present series and the portraits listed in the 1633 inventory even more apparent than in the Drossaers and Lunsingh Scheurleer reconstruction. Of the 42 portraits listed in the 1633 inventory, only five cannot be accounted for among the existing paintings in the series. Assuming that Drossaers and Lunsingh Scheurleer are correct in identifying one of these portraits, that of Asinge Entens, as the now lost Portrait of a Man, c. 1609-33 (SK-A-563), only four of the paintings in the inventory do not correspond to the series that has come down to us. Among the copies made by Tideman is a Portrait of William the Rich (1487-1559),¹¹ the father of, among others, William the Silent (the now lost SK-A-516), Jan the Elder,¹² Lodewijk (SK-A-523), Adolf (SK-A-522) and Hendrik (SK-A-524), all of whom are represented in the Leeuwarden Series. The Portrait of Willem the Rich that Tideman copied is no longer traceable, but must have been part of the series and can be identified with the portrait recorded in the 1633 inventory as ‘Graeff Willem van Nassau’.¹³ So only three of the portraits listed in the 1633 inventory cannot be accounted for. These portraits showed John Ogle (1569-1640),¹⁴ Jacob van Wassenaar (1574-1623), Lord of Obdam,¹⁵ and Hendrich, Prince of Bohemia.¹⁶ Not only is the correspondence between the present series and that listed in the 1633 inventory striking, but because of Groningen’s proximity to Leeuwarden, the copies made by Tideman for the former town provides further evidence for this provenance.

A number of the portraits in the present series, such as the three painted in Gerard van Honthorst’s style showing Frederik Hendrik (SK-A-519), Willem II (SK-A-520), and Willem III (SK-A-521), were obviously added to the series after the 1633 inventory; Willem III was born 17 years after the inventory was drawn up, and the prototypes for the portraits of Frederik Hendrik and Willem II are from 1647. A portrait showing Frederik Hendrik, listed as ‘Henrick, prins van Orangien’ in the inventory, was already part of the series in 1633. The patron who commissioned the portraits of Willem II and Willem III perhaps decided to add a more up-to-date portrait of Frederik Hendrik as well. Whether this was the case or not, the Portrait of Willem III, which for reasons given in the entry on that painting can be dated to around 1653, was the last one added to the series. The fact that Wybrand de Geest’s portraits of Hendrik Casimir I (SK-A-533) and Willem Frederik (SK-A-530) are not listed in the inventory is puzzling, as the latter painting is dated 1632. Were these portraits, perhaps, only delivered after the inventory of the series had been completed? The portraits of Adolf (1540-68), Count of Nassau (SK-A-522) and Hendrik (1550-74), Count of Nassau (SK-A-524) also pose a problem with regard to the inventory. As both likenesses were copied from a portrait showing the four brothers of William the Silent by De Geest, one assumes they were executed at the same time. Portraits of Hendrik, Count of Nassau (‘Henrick graeff van Nassau’),¹⁷ and Adolf, Count of Nassau (‘Graeff Adolff van Nassau’),¹⁸ are listed in the inventory, the problem being that there are two Adolfs in the series as we now know it. The other Adolf in the series is Adolf (1586-1608), Count of Nassau-Siegen (SK-A-535). Although it cannot be determined from the sequence of the portraits in the inventory which Adolf was in the series by 1633, it seems likely that it was the younger of the two. The prototype for the portrait of the younger Adolf can be dated to between about 1606 and 1608, the year of his death, and the rest of the generation of Nassaus to which he belonged were already present in the series in 1633. On the other hand, De Geest’s Group Portrait of the Four Brothers of William I, the prototype for the portraits of the older Adolf and for that of Hendrik is from around 1630.¹⁹ The portraits of Adolf and Hendrik by De Geest’s studio were, perhaps, executed after 1633, and, as seems to be the case with the Portrait of Frederik Hendrik, the Portrait of Hendrik, Count of Nassau perhaps came to replace an existing portrait of that sitter.

Unfortunately, there is no mention of the series in later inventories of the Frisian Stadholder’s Court that specifically records the names of the sitters. The series does not appear at all in the 1681 inventory, nor in those of 1688 and 1694, but the one drawn up in 1731 mentions ‘Forty small portraits from a mantelpiece’ (‘Veertig kleine portraitjes gekomen uit een schoorsteen’) in the furniture attic.²⁰ The 1764 inventory repeats this information almost verbatim, except that the number of portraits given there is forty-two, and eight others are mentioned as being elsewhere in the building.²¹ In order to account for the supposed provenance of the series from the Honselaarsdijk estate, which, as mentioned above, was claimed for the first time in the 1858 collection catalogue, it has been suggested that the portraits were moved from Leeuwarden at some point to fill out a portrait series there.²² However, given the fact that the Honselaarsdijk provenance was recorded more than half a century after the paintings entered the museum, such a hypothesis has little basis. It was, perhaps, simply the knowledge that a portrait gallery existed at Honselaarsdijk that led to the invention of this provenance in the 1858 collection catalogue.

Given its likely Leeuwarden provenance and the fact that the earliest dated portrait is from 1609, the present series was probably initiated by Willem Lodewijk, Stadholder of Friesland, between 1584 and his death in 1620. Significantly, his portrait is one of the few dated works, and that date is the earliest in the series. Some of the portraits would have been added to the series during the stadholdership of Willem Lodewijk’s brother Ernst Casimir (1620-32) and those of Ernst Casimir’s sons Hendrik Casimir (1632-40) and Willem Frederik (1640-64). The latter must have been responsible for expanding the series to include the new portrait of Frederik Hendrik (SK-A-519), and those of Willem II (SK-A-520) and Willem III (SK-A-521). The inclusion of the portrait of Willem II, and especially of Willem III as a child, was not wholly in keeping with the overriding nature of the series, which had been to show portraits of members of the Nassau family and other military figures who participated in the Eighty Years’ War. The question arises whether the series had not already undergone athematic change prior to this. Originally the series may have only included portraits of military officers from the Nassau family, the decision to include portraits of other officers coming later. What may have prompted this thematic change was the example of the series of portraits of military officers, none of whom are Nassaus, begun by Van Ravesteyn in 1611 very probably for Prince Maurits, and now in the collection of the Mauritshuis.²³ The prototypes for a number of the officer portraits in the Leeuwarden Series are from after 1611, and the prototype that most likely served the painter of Daniel de Hertaing’s portrait (SK-A-564) is one of the paintings in the 1611 Mauritshuis series. The Leeuwarden Series may have begun life in 1609 with a few portraits of members of the Nassau family who fought in the Eighty Years’ War, but was expanded some time after 1611 to include other military officers in the service of the States army.

Jonathan Bikker, 2007


The Leeuwarden Series, missing works

Portrait of Willem I (1533-84), Prince of Orange, c. 1609-33 (SK-A-516)
Workshop of Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt
Oil on panel, 30 x 25 cm

INSCRIPTIONS
Inscribed, top: Prins Wilhelm van Orangien, de Oude, Ætatis 52 tot Delft vermoort 1584 (Prince William of Orange, the Elder, murdered in Delft in 1584 aged 52)

PROVENANCE
? Commissioned by or for Willem Lodewijk (1560-1620), Stadholder of Friesland; inventory, Frisian Stadholder’s Court, Leeuwarden, 16 August 1633, furniture room (‘Willem prins van Orangien’);²⁴ ? inventory, Frisian Stadholder’s Court, Leeuwarden, 12-14 and 27 September 1731, furniture attic (‘Veertig kleine portraitjes gekomen uit een schoorsteen.’);²⁵ ? inventory, Frisian Stadholder’s Court, Leeuwarden, 1764, furniture attic, (‘Tweeënveertig kleine portraitjes, gekomen uit een schoorsteen.’);²⁶ ...; first recorded in the museum in 1800/01²⁷

ENTRY
For his biography see the entry on the Portrait of Willem I by Van Mierevelt’s workshop.²⁸ The painting is missing, and is now only known from an old reproduction. The painting by Van Mierevelt that served as the prototype, is also lost.²⁹ The countless studio replicas after it, however, confirm that it was indeed the prototype for the bust-length portrait in the Leeuwarden Series. A copy of the present portrait was executed by Johannes Tideman for the Statenzaal of the Provinciehuis in Groningen in 1671.³⁰

LITERATURE
Van Beresteyn 1933, p. 10, no. 11 (as copy by Van Ravesteyn after Van Mierevelt)

COLLECTION CATALOGUES
1801, p. 48, no. 35/1 (‘Prins Willem I’; without attribution); 1809, p. 92, no. 420 (without attribution); 1853, p. 36, no. 402 (as Anonymous; collective number for the Leeuwarden and Katzenelnbogen series; fl. 2,000); 1858, p. 181, no. 402a (as 17th-century Dutch School); 1880, p. 365, no. 431a (as Anonymous); 1887, p. 112, no. 941 (as copy by Van Ravesteyn after Van Mierevelt); 1903, p. 220, no. 1979 (as copy by Van Ravesteyn after Van Mierevelt); 1934, p. 236, no. 1979 (as copy by Van Ravesteyn after Van Mierevelt); 1976, p. 699, no. A 516; 2007, no. 352


Portrait of a Man, c. 1609-33 (SK-A-563)
Anonymous
Oil on panel, 30 x 25 cm

PROVENANCE
? Commissioned by or for Willem Lodewijk (1560-1620), Stadholder of Friesland; ? inventory Frisian Stadholder’s Court, Leeuwarden, 16 August 1633, furniture room (‘Den oversten Aessinga’);³¹ ? inventory, Frisian Stadholder’s Court, Leeuwarden, 12-14 and 27 September 1731, furniture attic (‘Veertig kleine portraitjes gekomen uit een schoorsteen.’);³² ? inventory, Frisian Stadholder’s Court, Leeuwarden, 1764, furniture attic (‘Tweeënveertig kleine portraitjes, gekomen uit een schoorsteen.’); ³³ ...; first recorded in the museum in 1800/01³⁴

ENTRY
This portrait is missing, and is not known from photographs. Drossaers and Lunsingh Scheurleer identified it as the Portrait of Asinge Entens listed in the 1633 Leeuwarden inventory.³⁵ The Frisian nobleman Entens first fought on the side of the Spanish against the Dutch rebels. After his company was defeated in 1568 by his brother Bartold, fighting on the side of the rebels, he was taken prisoner. He then changed sides and fought under Lodewijk (1538-74), Count of Nassau. The dates of his birth and death are not known, but it seems likely that he was killed in 1570 during an unsuccessful attack on the Abbey of Warffum.³⁶

COLLECTION CATALOGUES
1853, p. 36, no. 402 (collective number for the Leeuwarden and Katzenelnbogen series; fl. 2,000); 1903, ? p. 18, no. 185; 1934, ? p. 16, no. 185; 1976, p. 706, no. A 563; 2007, no. 394


Portrait of a Man, c. 1633-49 (SK-A-565)
Anonymous
Oil on panel, 30 x 25 cm

PROVENANCE
...; ? inventory, Frisian Stadholder’s Court, Leeuwarden, 12-14 and 27 September 1731, furniture attic (‘Veertig kleine portraitjes gekomen uit een schoorsteen.’);³⁷...; ? inventory, Frisian Stadholder’s Court, Leeuwarden, 1764, furniture attic (‘Tweeënveertig kleine portraitjes, gekomen uit een schoorsteen.’);³⁸...; first recorded in the museum in 1800/01³⁹

This portrait is missing and is not known from photographs. According to Drossaers and Lunsingh Scheurleer, who did not identify the sitter, it was a later addition to the Leeuwarden Series.⁴⁰

COLLECTION CATALOGUES
1903, p. 22, no. 249; 1976, p. 706, no. A 565; 2007, no. 395

These entries were 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, nos. 352, 394 and 395.