Object data
oil on panel
support: diameter 21.8 cm (round)
frame: height 40.4 cm × width 40.4 cm
sight size: height 20 cm × width 20 cm
Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt (workshop of)
Portrait of Lubbert Gerritsz (1535-1612)
after c. 1607
Technical notes
The round support is a vertically grained oak panel with a bevelled edge. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1590. The panel could have been ready for use by 1601, but a date in or after 1607 is more likely. The very thinly applied, ochre-coloured ground layer is visible at the reserves and allows the grain of the panel to show through. The figure was reserved, and the face thickly painted with much impasto. The paint layers in the rest of the painting were thinly applied.
Scientific examination and reports
- technical report: I. Verslype, RMA, 10 December 2004
- dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 27 September 2005
Condition
Fair. The painting is moderately abraded and there are discoloured retouchings around the figure’s head. The wide craquelure pattern on the doublet indicates that this area was overpainted. The varnish is very discoloured.
Original framing
An ebony octagonal scotia frame, c. 1650
Provenance
? Estate inventory, Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt, Delft, 30 August 1641 (‘Conterfeijtsels raeckende de winckel van den Overledene [...] alle wesende copie behalve daer anders bijstaet [...] Een rondeken van deselffde [Lubbert Gerritsz], 5-0-0.’);1...; sale, P.A. Borger (Arnhem) et al., Amsterdam (F. Muller), 13 November 1882, no. 13, as Jacob Delff, fl. 207, to the museum;2 on loan to the Amsterdams Historisch Museum since 1972
Object number: SK-A-762
Copyright: Public domain
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.3 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
Lubbert Gerritsz, a linen weaver by profession, joined the Mennonite community in his native Amersfoort in 1556. Three years later, he fled to Hoorn, where he became an elder in the hardline ‘Flemish’ Mennonite community. Later he became the teacher of the moderate Mennonite faction, the ‘Young Frisians’, first in Hoorn and after 1589 in Amsterdam, where he succeeded in bringing about peace between his community and the so-called ‘High Germans’. In 1593, the ‘Waterlanders’ of Amsterdam joined this group of united Mennonite communities.4
This is a studio replica of a bust-length portrait of Lubbert Gerritsz dated 1607 and inscribed: ‘Ætatis 73’.5 The attribution of the original to Van Mierevelt is confirmed by the inscription on Willem Jacobsz Delff’s 1612 engraving after it.6 The circular replica shows less of Lubbert Gerritsz’s body than the rectangular original, and there is less space above the sitter’s head. The rather rough handling of the replica differs greatly from Van Mierevelt’s precise, finely executed original.
Two portraits of Lubbert Gerritsz, both described as ‘copies’, are listed in the inventory of Van Mierevelt’s shop drawn up after the painter’s death in 1641.7 Significantly, one of those so-called copies was circular (‘een rondeken’) and might, therefore, have been the Rijksmuseum painting.
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. 191.
Literature
Van Regteren Altena/Van Thiel 1964, p. 162
Collection catalogues
1887, p. 111, no. 929 (as Van Mierevelt); 1903, p. 177, no. 1606; 1934, p. 189, no. 1606; 1976, p. 385, no. A 762; 2007, no. 191
Citation
J. Bikker, 2007, 'workshop of Michiel Jansz. van Mierevelt, Portrait of Lubbert Gerritsz (1535-1612), after c. 1607', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.7012
(accessed 15 November 2024 06:32:54).