Object data
oil on panel
support: height 94.7 cm × width 69.1 cm
outer size: depth 7 cm (support incl. frame)
Salomon Mesdach (attributed to)
Portrait of Jacob Pergens (?-1681)
1619
Inscriptions
- date, upper left: ANº 1619
- inscription, on the reverse: Jacob Pergens van Keulen. / Trouwt 15 Julij 1619 / Anna Boudaen Courten. / Geb: / Overl: (Jacob Pergens van Keulen. Marries 15 July 1619 Anna Boudaen Courten. Born Died.)
- coat of arms, on the reverse: a red fleur-de-lis on a silver field
- inscription, on the reverse: 41
Technical notes
The support is an oak, vertically grained panel, consisting of three planks, and is bevelled on all sides. The off-white ground was applied thinly. The sitter’s face, collar and hands were prepared in a light grey dead colour. The paint was applied smoothly and opaquely, with brushstrokes visible in the tablecloth and the sitter’s hair.
Scientific examination and reports
- technical report: G. Tauber, RMA, 16 August 2004
Condition
Fair. There are discoloured retouchings along the panel joins and in the background, and pinpoint losses throughout. The varnish has yellowed.
Conservation
- J.A. Hesterman, 1906: repaired
Original framing
Oak box frames, painted black with gilt sight edges and transitional sections1
Provenance
...; documented at Kasteel Popkensburg in an 18th-century manuscript;2 ? by descent through the families Boudaen Courten, Van Citters, Verheije van Citters, De Witte van Citters, to Jonkheer Jacob de Witte van Citters (1817-76), The Hague; by whom bequeathed to the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague (inv. nos. 3247, 3248), 1876; transferred to the museum, as by an anonymous artist, 1885
Object number: SK-A-918
Credit line: Jonkheer J. de Witte van Citters Bequest, The Hague
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Salomon Mesdach (active in Middelburg 1612-34)
Little is known of Mesdach’s life, but his family was probably from Middelburg. Salomon Mesdach is documented there in 1617, 1619, 1622 and 1628. In 1617, he is recorded as a painter and citizen of the town. Two years later, he became the owner of half of a house called ‘den Hasard’ on the citadel in Middelburg. He was dean of the painters’ guild in 1628. Since a sum of money that he had lent to a baker in 1622 was paid back to his son-in-law Abraham Fortuyn in August 1644, he may have died in or before that year.
Very few of his works are known. Documents in which he is mentioned as a ‘conterfeijter’ indicate that he painted portraits. His only signed painting is a group portrait of Balthasar van Vlierden and his family dated 1612.3 Another work by him is a copy after a portrait of the Schaep family.4 In addition, there are two prints by Daniel van Bremden after portraits by Mesdach from 1625 and 1634.
Gerdien Wuestman, 2007
References
Obreen VI, 1884-87, p. 262; Hofstede de Groot 1915a, p. 281; Thieme/Becker XXIV, 1930, p. 428; Wuestman 2005, pp. 43-44, 48, note 8
Entry
These portraits of Jacob Pergens (shown here) and his first wife, Anna Boudaen Courten (SK-A-919), are companion pieces.5 Jacob Pergens, whose date of birth is unknown, was a businessman from Cologne. In London, on 15 July 1619, he married Anna, the daughter of Matthias Boudaen and Margarita Courten (SK-A-2073). Her brother Pieter noted down in the family chronicle that the only child of his sister’s marriage, a little girl called Margarita, died young.6 Anna Boudaen Courten died in 1622 at the age of 23.7 Pergens remarried twice, first to Maria de Wale Rogiers in 1633, and after her death to Leonora Bartolotti in 1640. He himself died in Amsterdam in 1681.8
Pergens and his wife are shown three-quarter length standing beside a table. The portraits, which are dated 1619, are still in their original frames,9 and were probably painted to mark their marriage that same year. Both Pergens and his wife are wearing costly lace ruffs and cuffs, and clothes made from very expensive materials. Anna’s lace with floral motifs is English,10 as is her dress with its V-neck and her type of hat. She has a wedding ring on her right index finger. Bianca du Mortier believes that the brooch in Anna’s hair, a heart pierced by arrows, was a wedding present.11
In style and composition these pendants are closely related to the portraits of Pieter Boudaen Courten (SK-A-2068) and his wife Catharina Fourmenois (SK-A-2069) of the same year, and can likewise be attributed to Salomon Mesdach of Middelburg. They may have been made during a stay in the town, where Anna Boudaen Courten’s brother and uncle lived.
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. 176.
Literature
Wuestman 2005, p. 43
Collection catalogues
1887, p. 74, nos. 606, 607 (Dutch school); 1903, p. 171, nos. 1540, 1541 (as Mesdach); 1934, p. 183, nos. 1540, 1541 (as Mesdach); 1960, p. 201, nos. 1540, 1541 (as Mesdach); 1976, p. 376, nos. A 918, A 919 (as Mesdach); 2007, no. 176
Citation
G. Wuestman, 2007, 'attributed to Salomon Mesdach, Portrait of Jacob Pergens (?-1681), 1619', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.9076
(accessed 23 November 2024 06:04:30).