Object data
oil on canvas
support: height 126.4 cm × width 93.2 cm
frame: height 148 cm × width 115 cm × thickness 7.5 cm
Frans Hals
Portrait of Maritge Claesdr Vooght (1577-1644)
1639
Inscriptions
- inscription and date, upper left: ÆTAT: SVA. 62 / ANº 1639
- coat of arms, upper left (covered with reversible paint): quartered, 1 and 4, three silver ducks with red beaks and feet on a black field; 2 and 3, three black herons with red beaks and feet on a red field
Technical notes
The support is a plain-weave canvas with an average of 16 horizontal threads by 19 vertical threads per centimetre, and it has two lining canvases. The tacking edges have been cut off. Deep cusping is present at the bottom, but virtually none on the sides and at the top. The top, however, has a band some 5 cm wide showing priming and the first thin layer of the background but not the second layer, indicating that the composition ends where this strip begins. Only the sides of the canvas may have been trimmed slightly. The ground consists of a single, warm, beige-coloured layer, and is just barely visible between some compositional elements, for example between the right of the sitter’s cap and the background.
The composition was blocked in with a thin underlayer; a dilute, unmodulated transparent oil wash with pure and separate pigments ranging from black (under the black dress) to earth colours such as an orangey iron-oxide (under the wooden chair) and to a deep red lake used for features in the face (nose and lips) and hands (contour). The background and chair were also underpainted with a thin wash, then the costume, leaving reserves for the hands, and finally the face with its grey and ochre contours. Thin shadows in the face and hands were modelled in an umber colour, left visible in the final composition. Deep red lakes used to indicate the nostrils and lips also remain partly visible. The collar and cap area are underpainted in a light grey.
After the initial lay-in of the composition in wash was dry, the paint was built up in thin layers of oil paint without much impasto, beginning with the background, another layer of loose, open brushwork, then the opaque paint of the chair, and the black costume. The white collar was painted over the dry costume. The lighter colours of the cap, collar, cuffs and skin were modelled in strokes of opaque body paint. The flesh tones of both face and hands were worked-up with pinks and ochres wet in wet next to the dried undermodeling of thin, umber shadows. The flesh of the face was worked wet in wet with the hair. The painting was primarily worked up from background to foreground and from dark to light. Alterations to the composition were made at the intermediate stage, adjusting, for example, the black contours of the dress wet in wet with the flesh tones of the left hand, so that the order of painting of hand and costume becomes indistinguishable. The third and final addition of a more opaque background colour redefined contours of the costume (both around the black dress and above the white cap), altering the position of the arm and the bobbles of the shoulder caps. Though the cuffs were added after the flesh of the hands had dried, dabs of overlying flesh colour provided subtle, final corrections to the left cuff.
Final, rich, black glazes deepened the contours and design of the dress pattern, while an admixture of white yielded a range of grey satiny highlights. A now faded red glaze adjusted the tone of the cloth of the chair.1
Scientific examination and reports
- infrared reflectography: G. Tauber, RMA, February 2006
- X-radiography: RMA, nos. 1779 (1-15), 9 February 2006
- technical report: G. Tauber, RMA, 25 November 2006
Condition
Good.
Conservation
- conservator unknown, 1948: cleaned
- G. Tauber, 2006 - 2007: complete restoration
Provenance
? Commissioned by or for Maritge Claesdr Vooght and her husband Pieter Jacobsz Olycan with pendant, Portrait of Pieter Jacobsz Olycan (fig. 110a); ? probate inventory, their daughter, Geertruijd Olycan (1603-66), Haarlem, 11 November 1666 (‘2 conterfeytsels van de Heer Burg. Olijcan en sijn huijs vrouwe van Frans Hals’);2...; sale, Jean Bernard (1765-1833), Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 24 November 1834, no. 46 (‘Eene zittende oude Vrouw in deftige oud Nederlandsche kleding, houdende een kerkboek in de hand, [...]. Hoog 1 el 2 p. 5 d., breed 9 p. 2 d. [125 x 92 cm] Doek’), fl. 160, to the dealer Jeronimo de Vries; from whom, fl. 180, to Adriaan van der Hoop (1778-1854), Amsterdam, 1834;3 by whom bequeathed to the City of Amsterdam with the rest of his collection, 1854;4 on loan to the museum from the City of Amsterdam since 30 June 18855
Object number: SK-C-139
Credit line: On loan from the City of Amsterdam (A. van der Hoop Bequest)
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Frans Hals (Antwerp c. 1582/83 - Haarlem 1666)
Frans Hals was born in Antwerp, probably in 1582 or 1583, as the eldest son of Franchois Fransz Hals, a cloth dresser from Mechelen, and his second wife, Adriana van Geertenryck. He emigrated with his family to Haarlem sometime between the end of 1585 and July 1586. The earliest documentation of the family’s presence in Haarlem is the 19 March 1591 baptism of Frans’s younger brother Dirck into the Reformed Church there. Hals joined the Guild of St Luke in 1610, when he was about 28 years old. In 1644, he was appointed warden of the guild for one year. Nothing is known about his career before 1610, except that he might have been apprenticed to Karel van Mander. This information is supplied by the older artist’s anonymous biographer in the introduction to the second edition of the Schilder-boeck. Van Mander himself says nothing to this effect in the first edition, however. The hypothetical apprenticeship would have taken place before 1603, when Van Mander left Haarlem. Hals served as a musketeer in the St George Civic Guard from 1612 to 1624, and in 1616 he was listed as a friend (‘beminnaer’) of the Haarlem chamber of rhetoric, De Wijngaardranken.
Hals’s first marriage to Anneke Harmensdr was shortlived. They married around 1610 and Anneke died in 1615. In 1617, Hals posted the banns for his second marriage, to Lysbeth Reyniersdr (1593-1675). In the meantime, he had visited Antwerp for several months in 1616. His son Harmen (1611-69) from his first marriage and four of his seven sons from his second marriage, Frans the Younger (1618-69), Reynier (1627-72), Claes (1628-86) and Jan (c. 1620-54), also became painters. Hals was probably responsible for their training. According to Houbraken, he was also the teacher of Adriaen Brouwer (c. 1605/06-38) and Adriaen van Ostade (1610-85), and De Bie mentions Philips Wouwerman (1619-68) as a pupil. In 1635, Judith Leyster (1609-60), who had most likely been a pupil of Hals herself, accused him of luring away her pupil Willem Woutersen (dates unknown). None of Hals’s pupils were recorded as such by the guild.
Hals’s earliest dated painting, the Portrait of Jacobus Hendricksz Zaffius, is known from a copy dated 1611 and an engraving by Jan van de Velde II, dated 1630.6 His last dated works are from 1650, although he was certainly active after that year. The majority of his paintings are portraits of individuals, couples shown in pendants, and groups, both families and municipal bodies. Hals received several commissions for official group portraits, most notably for five militia pieces for the headquarters of the Haarlem St George civic guard and the arquebusiers’ civic guard executed between 1616 and 1639. In 1633, he was commissioned by the officers and guardsmen of the XIth District in Amsterdam to paint their portrait (SK-C-374). Hals, however, never completed the commission. In 1641, he portrayed the regents of the St Elisabeth’s Hospital as a pendant to Johannes Verspronck’s portrait of the regentesses.7 At the end of his career, Hals painted the regents and regentesses of the Haarlem Old Men’s Home.8 In addition to portraits, Hals painted several genre scenes, the subjects of which can sometimes be related to the chamber of rhetoric. The influence of the Utrecht Caravaggisti is apparent in the style and often the choice of subject matter of his genre scenes. Apart from supposed scenes of the Prodigal Son, Hals’s only known biblical paintings are a series of the four evangelists from around 1625.9 In addition to selling his own works, Hals occasionally sold those of other artists, cleaned and restored paintings, and made valuations.
Hals was in debt during most of his career, and in the last few years of his life could no longer make ends meet. In 1661, he was exempted from paying his annual guild dues on account of his age. In 1662, he received a subsidy from the town, and two years later was awarded a life pension of 200 guilders annually, three cartloads of peat and his rent was paid for him. Hals died in 1666 and was buried in the choir of St Bavokerk. In his own lifetime, he was eulogized by Samuel Ampzing and Theodorus Schrevelius, both of whom Hals immortalized in paint.10
Jonathan Bikker, 2007
References
Van Mander 1618, fol. Siiir; Ampzing 1621, unpag.; Ampzing 1628, p. 371; Schrevelius 1648, p. 289; Houbraken I, 1718, pp. 90-95; Van der Willigen 1866, pp. 116-23; Bredius 1913b; Bredius 1914; Bredius 1917; Bredius VI, 1919, p. 2216; Bredius 1921; Bredius VII, 1921, p. 281; Hofstede de Groot in Thieme/Becker XV, 1922, pp. 531-34; Bredius 1923a; Van Roey 1957; Van Hees 1959; Van Roey 1972, pp. 148-51; Van Thiel-Stroman 1989 (documents); Van Thiel-Stroman in Haarlem-Worcester 1993, pp. 234-35; Worm in Turner 1996, XIV, pp. 91-96; Van Thiel-Stroman 2006, pp. 178-84
Entry
The sitter in this three-quarter length portrait of a seated elderly woman was first identified as Maritge Claesdr Vooght at the beginning of the 20th century.11 Although the presence of Prussian blue in the coat of arms means that it must have been added to the painting after about 1720, together with the authentic inscription, which records that the sitter was 62 years old in 1639, there can be no doubt that she is indeed Maritge Claesdr Vooght. A daughter of Claes Albertsz Vooght, owner of the Haarlem Int Hoeffijser brewery, and Volckje Willemsdr Lakeman, she married Pieter Jacobsz Olycan (1572-in or after 1661) in Haarlem in 1595.12 He was the scion of a successful Amsterdam merchant family. Before establishing himself in Haarlem as a brewer, the occupation of his wife’s family, he had studied commerce in Rome and taken part in four trade missions to Spain and the Baltic. In 1618, Prince Maurits appointed him to the city council, and he was elected alderman. Later he would be the city’s delegate to the States-General on six occasions and serve five terms as burgomaster. By the time of his death Olycan had amassed a significant fortune, including 47 properties in Haarlem.
The pendant to Maritge Claesdr Vooght’s portrait showing Pieter Jacobsz Olycan is now in the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida (fig. a). The pendant pair had been separated in the 19th century. Olycan’s portrait is not inscribed, but was undoubtedly also executed in 1639, one of the years in which he was burgomaster. Recent analysis of both canvases revealed that they have the same weave density and were, therefore, probably cut from the same bolt.13 Olycan’s magisterial likeness is also known to us from a group portrait of the St Hadrian civic guard from around 1630, attributed to Hendrick Pot, in which he appears as the company’s colonel.14
Maritge Claesdr Vooght and Pieter Jacobsz Olycan had 15 children, most of whom, if they survived childhood, married into other wealthy brewing families with political power within the city government. Beginning with the 1625 wedding pendants of the couple’s eldest son Jacob Pietersz Olycan and his wife Aletta Hanemans,15 Hals painted many of Maritge Claesdr Vooght and Pieter Jacobsz Olycan’s children and their spouses over the span of his career.16 Hals also portrayed Maritge Claesdr Vooght’s siblings. Her brother Willem Claesz Vooght features as a colonel in Hals’s group portrait of the arquebusiers’ civic guard of 1627,17 and her sister Cornelia was portrayed by Hals with her husband Nicolaes Woutersz van der Meer in a pendant pair in 1631.18 Maritge is shown in the present portrait in the same seated pose Hals had used for her sister’s portrait.19 The 1631 Portrait of Cornelia Claesdr Vooght was the first time that Hals had used this composition, which was ultimately derived from Titian and Antonio Moro.20 The corner setting of the wall behind both sisters is also the same, although the shadow cast on the wall behind Maritge gives the effect of greater spatial clarity. The rather oldfashioned, but expensive clothing worn by both sisters is also similar, and was entirely appropriate for women of their age and station. The clothing is composed of double cambric caps, large millstone ruffs, stomachers boned at the bottom to make them protrude, and fur-lined vliegers (a long, sleeveless garment worn open).21 Unlike her sister, Maritge holds a prayerbook in her right hand, upside down for her viewers to see, which is probably a reference to her piety.
The combination of the standing three-quarter length pose for Pieter Jacobsz Olycan and the seated threequarter length one for Maritge Claesdr Vooght had also been used for the pendant pair of Cornelia and her husband. This combination of seated and standing compositions give the male sitters an imposing presence. Olycan’s portrait has been cut down, mostly on the right side and at the bottom, and the sitter has thereby lost some of his impressive stature. Typical for many of Hals’s pendant pairs, the technique in Olycan’s portrait is looser than in the portrait showing his wife.
There are half-length copies of Pieter Jacobsz Olycan and Maritge Claesdr Vooght’s portraits.22 These portraits were probably the ones recorded in the 1850 catalogue of C.G. van Valkenburg’s sale.23 The portraits may have entered the Van Valkenburg collection by way of Agatha van Loo (1649-1728), who married Mattheus van Valkenburg (1641-94) in 1674. Agatha van Loo’s mother was Dorothea Olycan (1613-62), a daughter of Pieter Jacobsz Olycan and Maritge Claesdr Vooght.
The provenances of the present portrait and its pendant now in Sarasota are much more difficult to reconstruct. They may be the ones listed in the 1666 inventory of one of the couple’s other daughters, Geertruijd Olycan, who died childless.24 But what happened to them after 1666 remains vague. Like a number of other portraits of Olycan family members, such as those of Jacob Pietersz Olycan and Aletta Hanemans, they may have entered the Sypesteyn family collection.25 In an undated 18th-century family tree reconstructed by Cornelius Ascanius van Sypesteyn IV (1694-1744) the names of family members of whom he owned portraits are underlined.26 Among the underlined names are those of Pieter Jacobsz Olycan and Maritge Claesdr Vooght.
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. 110.
Literature
Davies 1902, pp. 110-15; Moes II, 1905, p. 550, no. 8653-1; Hofstede de Groot 1910, p. 64, no. 212; Valentiner 1921, p. 170; Erasmus 1939, pp. 236-37; Trivas 1941, p. 49, no. 73; Slive in Haarlem 1962, pp. 60-61, no. 45; Slive I, 1970, pp. 115, 123, III, 1974, pp. 69-70, no. 129, with earlier literature; Grimm 1972, p. 100, no. 101; Grimm 1989, p. 279, no. 102
Collection catalogues
1887, p. 56, no. 447 (as Portrait of a Woman); 1903, p. 116, no. 1088; 1934, p. 118, no. 1088; 1960, p. 121, no. 1088; 1976, p. 257, no. C 139; 2007, no. 110
Citation
J. Bikker, 2007, 'Frans Hals, Portrait of Maritge Claesdr Vooght (1577-1644), 1639', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8688
(accessed 9 November 2024 02:24:53).