All works in Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum

Govert Flinck

Portrait of the Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen

1642

Portrait of the Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen

Object data

oil on canvas

support: height 203.7 cm × width 275.4 cm
outer size: depth 10.5 cm (support incl. frame)

Inscriptions

signature and date, lower left: G.flinck fec: 1642

Technical notes

Support The plain-weave canvas has been lined. All tacking edges have been preserved, though partially trimmed at the top and on the left and right. Cusping is visible on all sides. At the bottom a narrow strip of the picture plane is folded over the current stretcher, slightly reducing the original height of the composition.
Preparatory layers The triple ground extends over the tacking edges. The first layer is a homogeneous orange. The coarse, light grey second ground consists of large black pigment particles and white, yellow and earth pigments. The somewhat finer third layer is a slightly darker medium grey and contains a lesser amount of yellow pigment particles.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends over the tacking edges. A loose, thin initial lay-in was made in predominantly brown and black, as well as in warm earths and cool greys. It was left uncovered in the architectural elements in the background, the chairs, the table legs and the underside of the table carpet in the lower foreground. The painting was built up from the back to the front with reserves for the compositional elements. Infrared photography revealed a few changes, for example to the contours of the legs of the left chair. In stark contrast to the tight detail with which the drinking horn was depicted, the hand holding it displays much of the dark ground and first lay-in in its shadows. In fact, dark shades can be found beneath almost all the flesh tones, which were further built up with white and pinks. Minor changes to the composition include slight shifts of several hands and of the collar of Dr Albert Coenraetsz Burgh, the sitter on the far right.
Gwen Tauber, 2023

Scientific examination and reports

infrared photography: G. Tauber, RMA, 7 January 2009
paint samples: G. Tauber, RMA, nos. SK-C-370/1-2, 7 January 2009
technical report: G. Tauber, RMA, 7 January 2009
paint samples: I. Verslype, RMA, nos. SK-C-370/3-4, 28 March 2022
X-radiography: J. van der Brugge-Mulder, RMA, 30 March 2022

Condition

Fair. The canvas was once rolled up or folded. It was flattened and partly burned during (heavy) lining. Traction cracks are evident in the background just behind the head of the figure seated closest to the picture plane. The deep red lake of the curtain at top right has turned purple.

Conservation

P.N. Bakker, 1924: varnish improved
W.F.C. Greebe, 1924: varnish improved
H.H. Mertens, 1952: canvas lined; cleaned
A.M. Roorda Boersma-Pappenheim, 1997: complete restoration

Provenance

Commissioned by or for the sitters for the Great Hall of the Kloveniersdoelen, Amsterdam; first recorded in the Kloveniersdoelen, 1653 (‘Voor de Schoorsteen, op de Grootte Sael, de 4 overluijden. Burgerm Albertus Conradi, Pieter Reael ontfanger van Gemene Middelen v Hollt, Jan Claessen Vlooswijck, en Jacob Willkes. geschildert bij Govert Flinck.’);¹ transferred to the Town Hall on Dam Square, Amsterdam, between 1762 and 1808;² transferred to the house of Cornelis Sebille Roos (Trippenhuis), 29 Kloveniersburgwal, Amsterdam, 1808;³ transferred to the Prinsenhof, 195-99 Oudezijds Voorburgwal, Amsterdam, 1808;⁴ on loan from the City of Amsterdam to the museum since 1885

Object number: SK-C-370

Credit line: On loan from the City of Amsterdam

The artist

Govert Flinck (Cleves 1615 - Amsterdam 1660)

The exact date of Govert Flinck’s birth, 25 January 1615, is known from a medal issued at the time of his death. He was born into a Mennonite family of some standing in the German town of Cleves, where his father may have been a cloth merchant. According to Houbraken, the young Flinck had a fervent desire to become an artist, which his parents did their utmost to suppress until the Dutch painter and fellow Mennonite Lambert Jacobsz, who was on a preaching tour in Cleves, persuaded them to allow their son to study with him in Leeuwarden. Another of his pupils and Flinck’s ‘companion in art’ (‘gezelschap in de Konst’) was Jacob Backer, who was about seven years his senior.⁵ Having advanced far enough to stand on their own feet, the two young artists went to Amsterdam. Although Houbraken’s text has been interpreted as meaning that they made the move at the same time, Backer is first documented there in 1633, while the earliest record of Flinck living in Amsterdam is from 1637. On 13 March of that year, he bought some prints at an auction and his address was given as the home of the art dealer Hendrick Uylenburgh. Von Sandrart informs us that after a period of study with Rembrandt, which according to Houbraken lasted only a year, Flinck ‘spent many long years with the famous art dealer Uylenburgh, with whom he left many exquisite, beautiful portraits from his own hand’.⁶ This chronology implies that he had already trained with Rembrandt, or was training with him, when he painted his earliest signed and dated works in 1636.⁷ Vestiges of Jacobsz’s style are apparent in these pictures, making Houbraken’s assertion that Flinck fully mastered Rembrandt’s manner in the year he was taught by him appear somewhat exaggerated.

Flinck’s most accomplished Rembrandtesque paintings date from the late 1630s and early 1640s. In addition to the portraits mentioned by Von Sandrart, he executed histories and landscapes while he worked for Uylenburgh. His documented clientele consisted to a large degree of fellow Mennonites, including his cousins Ameldonck and Dirck Jacobsz Leeuw. It is not known when Flinck stopped running Uylenburgh’s studio and set up shop on his own. In 1644, he purchased two houses on Lauriersgracht (nos. 76 and 78) for 10,000 guilders, installing his studio and gallery on the top floors. In the meantime, he had already received the first of three commissions for group portraits from the Amsterdam civic guard, the Portrait of the Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen of 1642;⁸ the other two are dated 1645 and 1648.⁹ In the latter year he was awarded his first order from an aristocrat, an allegory for the Elector of Brandenburg, Friedrich Wilhelm von Hohenzollern.¹⁰

In June 1645 Flinck married Ingeltje Thoveling, the daughter of a vice-admiral and director of the Rotterdam branch of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). Although she was a Remonstrant, it was only after her death in early 1651 that Flinck had himself baptized in her faith. He remarried in 1656, his second wife being Sophia van der Houve of Gouda. Houbraken points out that Flinck had many influential friends, including Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen, governor of Cleves, the burgomasters Cornelis and Andries de Graeff, and the art lovers Pieter and Jan Six and Joannes Wtenbogaert.

A fully-fledged Flemish Baroque style, inspired initially by Amsterdam artists who had adopted it, first appears in Flinck’s work in 1645.¹¹ It is also apparent in the many important commissions Flinck received in the 1650s, which included portraits of the Elector of Brandenburg¹² and of Johan Maurits,¹³ as well as the Allegory in Memory of Frederik Hendrik.¹⁴ It may have been the trip that the artist made to Antwerp, reported by both Baldinucci and Houbraken, that encouraged him to continue down this path.

In 1656 Flinck completed the enormous Marcus Curtius Dentatus Refusing the Gifts of the Samnites for the newly built Town Hall in Amsterdam, followed in 1658 by Solomon’s Prayer for Wisdom.¹⁵ In late 1659 he was asked to paint twelve monumental canvases for the Great Gallery of the Town Hall, but Flinck died on 2 February the following year before completing any of them.

A witness stated that a number of assistants and apprentices were working in Flinck’s studio in 1649, which was probably the case in other years as well. Nevertheless, the names of only four, rather obscure pupils are known with certainty: the Düsseldorf painter Johannes Spilberg (1619-1690), who spent a few years with him in the 1640s, Johannes Buns (dates unknown), Bartholomeus Hoppfer (1628-1699) and Steven Sleger (dates unknown).

Jonathan Bikker, 2023

References
J. von Sandrart, Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675: Leben der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister, ed. A.R. Peltzer, Munich 1925 (ed. princ. Nuremberg 1675), p. 194; A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, II, Amsterdam 1719, pp. 18-27; F. Baldinucci, Notizie de’ professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua secolo V. dal 1610. al 1670., Florence 1728, p. 484; H. Havard, L’art et les artistes hollandais, II, Paris 1880, pp. 71-174, 191-202; D.C. Meijer Jr, ‘De Amsterdamsche schutters-stukken in en buiten het nieuwe Rijksmuseum’, Oud Holland 7 (1889), pp. 45-60, esp. pp. 45, 46; A. Bredius, Künstler-Inventare, I, The Hague 1915, p. 128; Hofstede de Groot in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XII, Leipzig 1916, pp. 97-100; A. Bredius, Künstler-Inventare, IV, The Hague 1917, pp. 1254-55; J.W. von Moltke, Govaert Flinck, 1615-1660, Amsterdam 1965, pp. 9-12; S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, ‘Doopsgezinden en schilderkunst in de 17e eeuw: Leerlingen, opdrachtgevers en verzamelaars van Rembrandt’, Doopsgezinde Bijdragen 6 (1980), pp. 105-23, esp. pp. 109-10; S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, ‘Het “schilderhuis” van Govert Flinck en de kunsthandel van Uylenburgh aan de Lauriergracht te Amsterdam’, Jaarboek Amstelodamum 74 (1982), pp. 70-90; W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, II, New York 1984, pp. 998-99; W. Liedtke, ‘Rembrandt and the Rembrandt Style in the Seventeenth Century’, in W. Liedtke et al., Rembrandt/not Rembrandt in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Aspects of Connoisseurship, exh. cat. New York 1995-96, II, pp. 3-39, esp. pp. 16-20; Von Moltke in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, XI, New York 1996, pp. 168-70; P. Jeroense, ‘Govaert Flinck (1615-1660): Eine Künstlerbiographie’, Niederdeutsche Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte 36 (1997), pp. 73-112; Beaujean in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, XLI, Munich/Leipzig 2004, pp. 240-43; W. Liedtke, ‘Rembrandt’s “Workshop” Revisited’, Oud Holland 117 (2004), pp. 48-73, esp. pp. 52, 68, 70, note 34; J. van der Veen, ‘Het kunstbedrijf van Hendrick Uylenburgh in Amsterdam: Productie en handel tussen 1625 en 1655’, in F. Lammertse and J. van der Veen, Uylenburgh en Zoon: Kunst en commercie van Rembrandt tot De Lairesse, 1625-1675, exh. cat. London (Dulwich Picture Gallery)/Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 2006, pp. 117-205, esp. pp. 160-69; R. Lambour, ‘Het doopsgezind milieu van Michiel van Musscher (1645-1705) en van andere schilders in zeventiende-eeuws Amsterdam: Een revisie en ontdekking’, Oud Holland 125 (2012), pp. 193-214, esp. pp. 197-98; T. van der Molen, ‘Das Leben von Govert Flinck/The Life of Govert Flinck’, in E.-J. Goosens et al., Govert Flinck – Reflecting History, exh. cat. Cleves (Museum Kurhaus Kleve) 2015-16, pp. 10-21; E.J. Sluijter, Rembrandt’s Rivals: History Painting in Amsterdam 1630-1650, Amsterdam/Philadelphia 2015, pp. 97-110

Entry

Dated 1642, Govert Flinck’s Portrait of the Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen was made for the Great Hall of the Kloveniersdoelen, the headquarters of the arquebusiers’ civic guard, in the same year as Jacob Backer, Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy and Rembrandt finished their civic guard portraits for the room.¹⁶ From Gerard Schaep’s 1653 list of the paintings in Amsterdam’s three civic guard buildings it is known that the latter works hung on the long wall opposite the windows, while Flinck’s portrait of the governors was given pride of place above the fireplace on the short wall facing the entrance (fig. a). Because Joachim von Sandrart only mentions the present picture hanging in the Kloveniersdoelen in his 1675 Teutsche Academie, it has been claimed that Flinck was the first to complete his commission and that Von Sandrart left Amsterdam before the civic guard pieces by Backer, Pickenoy and Rembrandt were installed.¹⁷ This claim, however, is based on the mistaken notion that Von Sandrart is last documented in the city in April 1642.¹⁸ While it is true that he received a number of commissions from German patrons in the years 1642-44, those paintings were executed in Amsterdam. Payment for the allegorical series of the Twelve months and Day and Night, produced in 1642 and 1643 for the Elector of Bavaria, Maximilian I, in Munich, for example, was made to ‘Herrn Joachimo Sandrart, mallers aus Ambsterdam wegen hierhero verschickter mallerij St(ück)’.¹⁹ These 14 pictures, moreover, were engraved by five different Dutch printmakers before being dispatched, and Joost van den Vondel wrote poems on each of them. Likewise, payment for his monumental altarpiece, St Sebastian Tended by St Irene, produced for the Church of St Ignatius in Landshut, Bavaria, was made to Von Sandrart in Amsterdam in January 1645.²⁰ In 1644, his father-in-law died, leaving him a homestead in Stockau, near Ingolstadt, and it was only the following year that the German artist went to live there.²¹ A closer examination of the Teutsche Academie reveals that he did indeed know Backer’s picture in the Great Hall. Backer only painted two civic guard pieces during his career, both of them for the Kloveniersdoelen, and although Von Sandrart does not mention their location, his statement that Backer ‘made a vast number of portraits in Amsterdam, as well as several excellent large works with fully armed civic guard companies marching out’,²² leaves little doubt that he had seen both paintings. Pickenoy’s picture is obviously not mentioned in the Teutsche Academie because Von Sandrart failed to mention him altogether. The omission of The Night Watch is not unusual when one considers the fact that there is no reference to any individual paintings by Rembrandt. While it cannot be maintained that Flinck completed his portrait of the governors before Backer, Pickenoy and Rembrandt finished their works, it is known that Pickenoy’s deadline was 28 July 1642.²³ Perhaps this was also the due date for Flinck’s portrait.

The governors are seated at a cloth-covered table, a compositional formula that had become standard for regent portraits since Cornelis van der Voort introduced it in 1617 or 1618.²⁴ Flinck, however, has depicted his sitters at full-length, undoubtedly because Backer’s, Pickenoy’s and Rembrandt’s civic guardsmen are also shown at full-length.²⁵ An example that Flinck could have followed in this respect is Thomas de Keyser’s 1638 Portrait of Amsterdam’s Burgomasters Receiving the News of Maria de’ Medici’s Arrival,²⁶ which served as a model for an engraving by Jonas Suyderhoef.²⁷ As discussed below, one of Flinck’s sitters also appears in De Keyser’s picture. It was also this painting, or more likely Suyderhoef’s print, that may have supplied Flinck with the idea to position one of the governors in front of the table. There was also an example of this arrangement already present in the Kloveniersdoelen in the form of Pickenoy’s 1639 Officers and Other Civic Guardsmen of District XX in Amsterdam, under the Command of Captain Dirck Tholingh and Lieutenant Pieter Adriaensz Raep, which hung in the entrance passage leading to the Great Hall.²⁸ A further detail in the tradition of the regent portrait is that the present painting includes a servant whose lower status is made apparent by the fact that he is the only figure who is standing and not wearing a hat. The servant in this case is Jacob Pietersz Nachtglas (1577-1654), landlord of the Kloveniersdoelen from 1637 until his death.²⁹ He carries the arquebusiers’ drinking horn, which dates from 1547, to the table.³⁰ The decisions made during their meeting were probably ceremonially ratified by each governor imbibing from the wine-filled horn.³¹ Hanging on the wall on the right of the painting is another symbol of the Kloveniersdoelen, the golden claw that had already been its emblem for centuries.³² Unlike the drinking horn, the claw, surrounded as it is by a gold auricular frame, has a contemporary look. Also unlike the horn, this depiction of the emblem has not survived; perhaps it never existed and was a product of Flinck’s imagination.

While the relatively rough and patchy execution of the brightly illuminated faces does not betray Rembrandt’s influence on Flinck, the arrangement of light and shadow, although lacking drama, does. The light falls from top left, which is consistent with the portrait’s placement in the Great Hall. The open-handed, ‘speaking’ gesture of two of the governors was perhaps inspired by Pickenoy’s above-mentioned civic guard piece of 1639. Flinck used this interaction to create a sense of unity among the sitters. Another means by which he achieved this, perhaps also drawing on Pickenoy’s example, was to show each governor with one hand on or near the table. That Flinck had come up with this strategy early on is apparent from a preparatory drawing, now in Bremen (fig. b). The purpose of the sheet was perhaps to give the governors an idea of what the painting would look like; the figures are only schematically drawn, lack facial hair, and all wear flat collars. The biggest difference, however, is in the servant, who appears to be a youth and carries books and a quill instead of the drinking horn. One wonders whether Flinck himself was responsible for this change, or whether it was suggested to him by his patrons.

Appointed for life, the four governors were responsible for the running of the Kloveniersdoelen and shared in the profits made by the building’s exploitation. On the death of one of them, the others would put forward three candidates, from whom the burgomasters would make a final choice. The nominees were required to be captains or former captains of a civic guard district. According to Hans Bontemantel, a contemporary of Flinck’s, the lucrative function often went to presiding or former burgomasters.³³ The governor on the far right of the present painting, Dr Albert Coenraetsz Burgh (1593-1647),³⁴ had served as burgomaster in 1638, the year in which the French queen mother, Maria de’ Medici, visited Amsterdam.³⁵ On this occasion, he and the other three were portrayed by Thomas de Keyser receiving the news of her arrival in the city.³⁶ A member of the city council since 1618, Burgh served another term as burgomaster in 1643.³⁷ From 1620 Burgh was a captain in the civic guard, in which capacity he was depicted in a portrait of the guardsmen of district VIII in 1625 by Werner van den Valckert.³⁸ He held numerous official posts, both on a municipal as well as national level, throughout his career, including that of director of the Dutch West India Company (WIC). Among the diplomatic missions he undertook was a 1631-32 trip to Moscow, the intention of which was to persuade Tsar Michael I to grant the Dutch Republic a monopoly on the distribution of Russian grain. It was during another journey there in 1647 that Burgh died at Nizhny Novgorod. He served as a governor of the Voetboogdoelen (the headquarters of the crossbowmen’s civic guard) from 1622 until 1628, at which time he became a governor of the Kloveniersdoelen. The three others depicted by Flinck were all appointed in 1636, making Burgh, although significantly younger than the rest, the longest presiding governor.

Sitting in front of the table and looking out at the hall is Jan Claesz van Vlooswijck (1571-1652), a grain and cattle merchant and one of the wealthiest men in Amsterdam.³⁹ Appointed a lieutenant in district IV in 1620, the fervent Remonstrant Van Vlooswijck was dismissed from this post on 30 June that year for making disparaging remarks and contradicting burgomaster Reijnier Pauw, leader of the city council’s Counter-Remonstrant faction.⁴⁰ By 1627 it had been replaced by a Remonstrant majority and Van Vlooswijck ’s name was cleared and he was promoted captain of district IV. A few of its civic guardsmen were, however, Counter-Remonstrants, and a crisis ensued when, on 28 October 1628, they presented a petition to the burgomasters protesting the appointment of Van Vlooswijck. Rather than effecting the latter’s removal, however, the guardsmen’s revolt led to their own dismissal. Van Vlooswijck was a member of the city council from 1632 until his death in 1652. He is the only person to be portrayed twice in the Great Hall; as captain of district IV in Amsterdam he appears in Pickenoy’s 1642 painting.⁴¹

Across the table from Van Vlooswijck sits the merchant and shipowner Pieter Jansz Reael (1569-1643).⁴² In 1621 he more or less inherited the lucrative post of receiver-general for the Amsterdam region from his father, Jan Pietersz Reael (1543-1621). Unlike the latter, who had served as burgomaster in 1604 and 1612, the highest position Pieter Reael attained in the city council was that of alderman (1609-11). By 1620, he was lieutenant of district XIX and was appointed captain of district II in 1621. In that capacity, which passed to Frans Banninck Cocq, probably in early 1639, he took part in the ceremonial reception of Maria de’ Medici in 1638.⁴³ In 1643, Flinck painted an individual, possibly posthumous portrait of Reael based on his likeness in the present picture.⁴⁴

The final governor, on the far left, was herring merchant Jacob Willekens (1564-1649).⁴⁵ The eldest of the four, he had also had the most adventuresome career. Willekens served as vice-admiral of a fleet sailing to the East Indies in 1599 and, at age 50, went to sea again as admiral in the employ of the WIC. His greatest feat was the capture of the Brazilian capital San Salvador de Bahia. Willekens’s service on the city council only began in 1639, when he was appointed a councillor. From 1616, or possibly earlier, until 1625 he was captain of district VI in Amsterdam.

Von Sandrart implies in his Teutsche Academie that Flinck was still working for the dealer Hendrick Uylenburgh when he executed the present picture,⁴⁶ and some scholars have argued that Uylenburgh secured the important order.⁴⁷ Indeed, it is remarkable that Flinck, who had never previously painted a group portrait nor was awarded any other public commission would be chosen for this prestigious task. However, it was perhaps Flinck’s own contacts that landed him the job. According to Houbraken, it was the artist’s habit after church on Sundays to visit some of the most important private collections in Amsterdam. Among them was that owned by Joannes Wtenbogaert (1608-1680),⁴⁸ who was portrayed by Rembrandt in a 1639 etching known as The Goldweigher,⁴⁹ and Flinck may have made his acquaintance by way of his teacher. Joannes Wtenbogaert was related to two of the governors who sat for Flinck. His ties to his uncle Pieter Reael must have been particularly strong, as the latter passed on to him the post of receiver-general for the Amsterdam region in 1638. Reael’s sister Maria (1580-1617) was the first wife of Joannes Wtenbogaert’s father Augustijn (1577-1655). By way of his second marriage to Geertruid Geldsack (1578-1634) Augustijn Wtenbogaert became a brother-in-law of burgomaster Geurt Dircksz van Beuningen, whose son Dirck Geurtsz wed a sister of governor Albert Coenraetsz Burgh.⁵⁰ In 1631 Augustijn Wtenbogaert shared a house on Kloveniersburgwal (no. 27) with Dirck Geurtsz van Beuningen, a few doors down from Burgh (no. 23).⁵¹ It seems likely, then, that Flinck may have owed the commission for this career-making portrait to his contacts with Joannes Wtenbogaert.

Jonathan Bikker, 2023

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

J. von Sandrart, Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675: Leben der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister, ed. A.R. Peltzer, Munich 1925 (ed. princ. Nuremberg 1675), p. 194; D.C. Meijer Jr, ‘De Amsterdamsche schutters-stukken in en buiten het nieuwe Rijksmuseum’, Oud Holland 7 (1889), pp. 45-60, esp. pp. 45, 46; J.W. von Moltke, Govaert Flinck, 1615-1660, Amsterdam 1965, pp. 24-25, 166, no. 475; E. Haverkamp-Begemann, Rembrandt: The Nightwatch, Princeton 1982, pp. 46, 57; W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, II, New York 1984, pp. 998, 1004-05, 1040, no. 714, with earlier literature; N. Middelkoop, The Golden Age of Dutch Art: Seventeenth Century Paintings from the Rijksmuseum and Australian Collections, exh. cat. Perth (Art Gallery of Western Australia)/Adelaide (Art Gallery of South Australia)/Brisbane (Queensland Art Gallery) 1997-98, pp. 83-85, no. 29; N. Middelkoop, ‘Hollandse meesters voor Australië: Onderzoek naar zeven schilderijen voor de tentoonstelling The Golden Age of Dutch Art’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 47 (1999), pp. 175-97, esp. pp. 182-84; H. Colenbrander, ‘De decoratie van de Grote Zaal van de Kloveniersdoelen: Een vooropgezet plan?’, Jaarboek Amstelodamum 105 (2013), pp. 218-37, esp. pp. 223, 227; N. Middelkoop, ‘“Met schuttersschilderijen behangen”: De Amsterdamse schuttersstukken in de drie doelens’, Jaarboek Amstelodamum 105 (2013), pp. 12-107, esp. p. 73; N. Middelkoop, ‘Flinck and Bol: The Group Portraits’, in N. Middelkoop (ed.), Ferdinand Bol and Govert Flinck: Rembrandt’s Master Pupils, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis; Amsterdam Museum) 2017-18, pp. 165-77, esp. pp. 165-67

Collection catalogues

1887, p. 46, no. 365; 1903, p. 99, no. 923; 1934, p. 100, no. 923; 1960, p. 101, no. 923; 1976, p. 227, no. C 370

Citation

Jonathan Bikker, 2023, 'Govert Flinck, Portrait of the Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen, 1642', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.10744

(accessed 14 April 2025 15:21:49).

Figures

fig. a Reconstruction of the Great Hall of the Kloveniersdoelen with the seven works made for it. From left to right: on the short wall the civic guard painting by Joachim von Sandrart (1640), above the fireplace the portrait discussed here (1642) and next to it Flinck’s civic guard piece (1645); on the long wall Rembrandt’s *Night Watch* (1642) and the civic guard pieces by Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy (1642) and Jacob Backer (1642); and above the entrance the one by Bartholomeus van der Helst (1643). Image: Ineke de Graaff

fig. b Govert Flinck, *Study for ‘Portrait of the Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen’*, c. 1642. Red and black chalk, 210 x 278 mm. Bremen, Kunsthalle Bremen. Photo: Kunsthalle Bremen – Die Kulturgutscanner – ARTOTHEK

Footnotes

¹ G. Schaep, ‘De schilderijen in de drie doelens te Amsterdam 1653’, transcr. in P. Scheltema, Aemstel’s oudheid of gedenkwaardigheden van Amsterdam, VII, Amsterdam 1885, pp. 121-41, esp. p. 135, no. 1.
² J. Wagenaar, Amsterdam in zyne opkomst, aanwas, geschiedenissen, voorregten, koophandel, gebouwen, kerkenstaat, schoolen, schutterye, gilden en regeeringe, II, Amsterdam 1762, p. 75, records the painting as the only one remaining in the Great Hall of the Kloveniersdoelen. In 1808, it was transferred from the Town Hall to the house of Cornelis Sebille Roos; see H. Brugmans, Van Raadhuis tot Paleis: Documenten betreffende den overgang van het Amsterdamsche Stadhuis tot Koninklijk Paleis, Amsterdam 1913, p. 60.
³ See H. Brugmans, Van Raadhuis tot Paleis: Documenten betreffende den overgang van het Amsterdamsche Stadhuis tot Koninklijk Paleis, Amsterdam 1913, p. 60.
⁴ See H. Brugmans, Van Raadhuis tot Paleis: Documenten betreffende den overgang van het Amsterdamsche Stadhuis tot Koninklijk Paleis, Amsterdam 1913, p. 60, note 7.
⁵ A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, II, Amsterdam 1719, p. 20.
⁶ J. von Sandrart, Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675: Leben der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister, ed. A.R. Peltzer, Munich 1925 (ed. princ. Nuremberg 1675), p. 194: ‘hielte sich lange Jahre auf bey dem berühmten Kunsthändler Ulenburg, dem er viel ausbündige herrliche Contrafäte von eigner Hand hinterlassen’.
⁷ Shepherdess, Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum (SK-A-3451, fig. a; Bust of a Young Soldier with a Feathered Cap, Lausanne, private collection, and Portrait of Dirck Jacobsz Leeuw, Amsterdam, Verenigde Doopsgezinde Gemeente; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, II, New York 1984, p. 1090, no. 658, p. 1117, no. 685.
⁸ SK-C-370.
⁹ See respectively SK-C-371 and Officers and Other Civic Guardsmen of District I in Amsterdam, under the Command of Captain Joan Huydecoper and Lieutenant Frans van Waveren, Amsterdam Museum; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, II, New York 1984, p. 1149, no. 717.
¹⁰ Potsdam, Neues Palais; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, II, New York 1984, p. 1063, no. 631.
¹¹ For example SK-C-371 and Portrait of a Man, LVR-LandesMuseum Bonn; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, II, New York 1984, p. 1132, no. 700.
¹² 1652, Berlin, Schloss Charlottenburg; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, II, New York 1984, p. 1137, no. 705.
¹³ This painting, which is no longer known, was engraved by Cornelis van Dalen; illustrated in F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts ca. 1450-1700, V, Amsterdam 1951, p. 117, no. 137.
¹⁴ SK-A-869.
¹⁵ In situ (Royal Palace, Amsterdam); illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, II, New York 1984, p. 1070, no. 638, p. 1072, no. 640.
¹⁶ SK-C-1174, SK-C-1177 and SK-C-5 respectively.
¹⁷ S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, ‘The Night Watch and the Entry of Marie de’ Medici: A New Interpretation of the Original Place and Significance of the Painting’, The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 57 (2009), pp. 4-41, esp. p. 21.
¹⁸ S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, ‘The Night Watch and the Entry of Marie de’ Medici: A New Interpretation of the Original Place and Significance of the Painting’, The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 57 (2009), pp. 4-41, esp. pp. 24-25.
¹⁹ This document is transcribed in C. Klemm, Joachim von Sandrart: Kunstwerke und Lebenslauf, Berlin 1986, p. 99.
²⁰ ‘Umb St. Sebastian Altar nach Ambsterdamb: 300 fl. Wechselgelt dahin: 14 fl. 39 kr. Fuhrlohn deswegen: 2 fl. 30 kr.’ This document is transcribed in C. Klemm, Joachim von Sandrart: Kunstwerke und Lebenslauf, Berlin 1986, p. 132.
²¹ See C. Klemm, Joachim von Sandrart: Kunstwerke und Lebenslauf, Berlin 1986, p. 339.
²² J. von Sandrart, Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675: Leben der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister, ed. A.R. Peltzer, Munich 1925 (ed. princ. Nuremberg 1675), p. 178 (emphasis added): ‘machte in Amsterdam eine grosse Mänge Contrafäte auch etliche grosse Stuck ganzer in Gewehr aufziehender Compagnien Burger sehr vernünftig’.
²³ For the document in which this deadline is mentioned, see A. Bredius, ‘Een acte over het schuttersstuk van 1642 door Nicolaes Elias’, Oud Holland 13 (1895), pp. 180-81; J. Six, ‘Een teekening van Bartholomeus van der Helst’, Oud Holland 27 (1909), pp. 142-48, esp. p. 147; Ruurs in A. Blankert and R. Ruurs, Amsterdams Historisch Museum: Schilderijen daterend van voor 1800, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1975/79, pp. 108-10.
²⁴ See B. Haak, Regenten en regentessen, overlieden en chirurgijns: Amsterdamse groepsportretten van 1600 tot 1835, Amsterdam 1972, pp. 15-19.
²⁵ Jacob Backer was the first to use full-length figures in a regent portrait in his Portrait of the Female Governors of the Civic Orphanage from 1633 or 1634, now in the Amsterdam Museum; illustrated in N. Middelkoop, G. Reichwein and J. van Gent, De oude meesters van de stad Amsterdam: Schilderijen tot 1800, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum) 2008, p. 95. J. von Sandrart, Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675: Leben der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister, ed. A.R. Peltzer, Munich 1925 (ed. princ. Nuremberg 1675), p. 194, mistakenly reports that Flinck’s sitters are shown half-length.
²⁶ Amsterdam Museum; illustrated in N. Middelkoop (ed.), Kopstukken: Amsterdammers geportretteerd 1600-1800, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum) 2002-03, p. 159.
²⁷ Illustrated in F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts ca. 1450-1700, XXVIII, Amsterdam 1984, p. 208, no. 14.
²⁸ For the location of Pickenoy’s 1639 civic guard piece, see G. Schaep, ‘De schilderijen in de drie doelens te Amsterdam 1653’, transcr. in P. Scheltema, Aemstel’s oudheid of gedenkwaardigheden van Amsterdam, VII, Amsterdam 1885, pp. 121-41, esp. p. 136, no. 9. The suggestion made by Middelkoop that Flinck was following the example set by Frans Hals’s Portrait of the Regents of the Grote or St Elisabeth Hospital in Haarlem of around 1641 (Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum) does not take into account these more readily accessible models; see N. Middelkoop, ‘Hollandse meesters voor Australië: Onderzoek naar zeven schilderijen voor de tentoonstelling The Golden Age of Dutch Art’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 47 (1999), pp. 175-97, esp. p. 184, and N. Middelkoop, ‘Flinck and Bol: The Group Portraits’, in N. Middelkoop (ed.), Ferdinand Bol and Govert Flinck: Rembrandt’s Master Pupils, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis; Amsterdam Museum) 2017-18, pp. 165-77, esp. p. 166. Hals’s painting is illustrated in S. Slive et al., Frans Hals, exh. cat. Washington (National Gallery of Art)/London (Royal Academy of Arts)/Haarlem (Frans Halsmuseum) 1989-90, pp. 286-87. As Slive pointed out in ibid., pp. 284, 288, Hals was probably also inspired by De Keyser’s composition.
²⁹ S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, ‘De familie van Pieter Cornelisz Hooft’, Jaarboek van het Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie 35 (1981), pp. 68-108, esp. p. 76.
³⁰ The drinking horn is preserved in the Rijksmuseum (BK-AM-12).
³¹ For the ceremonial usages of the drinking horn, see L.E. van den Bergh-Hoogterp, ‘Der schutters schat: Het zilverbezit van de schutterijen in de Noordelijke Nederlanden’, in M. Carasso-Kok and J. Levy-van Halm (eds.), Schutters in Holland: Kracht en zenuwen van de stad, exh. cat. Haarlem (Frans Halsmuseum) 1988, pp. 140-63, esp. pp. 145-46.
³² See E. Haverkamp-Begemann, Rembrandt: The Nightwatch, Princeton 1982, pp. 45-46.
³³ On the selection of the governors, see G.W. Kernkamp (ed.), De regeeringe van Amsterdam soo in ’t civiel als crimineel en militaire (1653-1672) ontworpen door Hans Bontemantel, I, The Hague 1897, pp. 170-76.
³⁴ The first to specify who is who in the painting was N. Middelkoop, The Golden Age of Dutch Art: Seventeenth Century Paintings from the Rijksmuseum and Australian Collections, exh. cat. Perth (Art Gallery of Western Australia)/Adelaide (Art Gallery of South Australia)/Brisbane (Queensland Art Gallery) 1997-98, pp. 83-85.
³⁵ The names of the governors are listed by G. Schaep, ‘De schilderijen in de drie doelens te Amsterdam 1653’, transcr. in P. Scheltema, Aemstel’s oudheid of gedenkwaardigheden van Amsterdam, VII, Amsterdam 1885, pp. 121-41, esp. p. 135, no. 1.
³⁶ Amsterdam Museum; illustrated in N. Middelkoop (ed.), Kopstukken: Amsterdammers geportretteerd 1600-1800, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum) 2002-03, p. 159.
³⁷ For his biography, see J.E. Elias, De vroedschap van Amsterdam 1578-1795, I, Haarlem 1903, pp. 327-28.
³⁸ Amsterdam Museum; illustrated in N. Middelkoop (ed.), Kopstukken: Amsterdammers geportretteerd 1600-1800, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum) 2002-03, p. 199.
³⁹ For Van Vlooswijck’s biography, see J.E. Elias, De vroedschap van Amsterdam 1578-1795, I, Haarlem 1903, p. 402.
⁴⁰ J. Wagenaar, Amsterdam in zyne opkomst, aanwas, geschiedenissen, voorregten, koophandel, gebouwen, kerkenstaat, schoolen, schutterye, gilden en regeeringe, I, Amsterdam 1760, p. 502; P. Knevel, ‘Onrust onder schutters: De politieke invloed van de Hollandse schutterijen in de eerste helft van de zeventiende eeuw’, Holland Historisch Tijdschrift 20 (1988), pp. 158-74, esp. pp. 170-72; P. Knevel, Burgers in het geweer: De schutterijen in Holland, 1550-1700, Hilversum 1994, pp. 148-49, 153, 343.
⁴¹ Officers and Other Civic Guardsmen of District IV in Amsterdam, under the Command of Captain Jan Claesz van Vlooswijck and Lieutenant Gerrit Hudde (SK-C-1177). Van Vlooswijck was also portrayed by Cornelis van der Voort around 1612 as a member of the civic guard of district IV, at which time he was a sergeant; see Ruurs in A. Blankert and R. Ruurs, Amsterdams Historisch Museum: Schilderijen daterend van voor 1800, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1975/79, pp. 348-50; F. Diercks, ‘De schutters van Cornelis van der Voort en de identiteit van vier aalmoezeniersregenten’, Maandblad Amstelodamum 95 (2008), pp. 9-30, esp. pp. 12, 13, 17.
⁴² For Reael’s biography, see J.E. Elias, De vroedschap van Amsterdam 1578-1795, I, Haarlem 1903, pp. 260-61; S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, Van Amsterdamse burgers tot Europese aristocraten: Hun geschiedenis en hun portretten: De Heijnen-maagschap 1400-1800, II, The Hague 2008, p. 753.
⁴³ O. Dapper, Historische beschryving der stadt Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1663, p. 238.
⁴⁴ See N. Middelkoop, The Golden Age of Dutch Art: Seventeenth Century Paintings from the Rijksmuseum and Australian Collections, exh. cat. Perth (Art Gallery of Western Australia)/Adelaide (Art Gallery of South Australia)/Brisbane (Queensland Art Gallery) 1997-98, p. 83, note 6. Amsterdam Museum, on loan from the RCE; illustrated in N. Middelkoop, G. Reichwein and J. van Gent, De oude meesters van de stad Amsterdam: Schilderijen tot 1800, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum) 2008, p. 212, inv. no. SB 6325.
⁴⁵ For his biography, see J.E. Elias, De vroedschap van Amsterdam 1578-1795, I, Haarlem 1903, p. 420.
⁴⁶ J. von Sandrart, Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675: Leben der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister, ed. A.R. Peltzer, Munich 1925 (ed. princ. Nuremberg 1675), p. 194.
⁴⁷ See, for example, G. Schwartz, Rembrandt: His Life, his Paintings, London 1985, p. 213, who ties all of the painters involved in the decorations to Uylenburgh; P. Jeroense, ‘Govaert Flinck (1615-1660): Eine Künstlerbiographie’, Niederdeutsche Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte 36 (1997), pp. 73-112, esp. p. 80.
⁴⁸ A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, II, Amsterdam 1719, p. 23.
⁴⁹ Illustrated in E. Hinterding and J. Rutgers, The New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450-1700: Rembrandt, II, ed. G. Luijten, Ouderkerk aan den IJssel 2013, p. 36, no. 172.
⁵⁰ Dirck Geurtsz van Beuningen was also in business with Pieter Reael’s brother Reynier; see J.E. Elias, De vroedschap van Amsterdam 1578-1795, I, Haarlem 1903, p. 262.
⁵¹ S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, ‘Mr Joannes Wtenbogaert (1608-1680): Een man uit Remonstrants milieu en Rembrandt van Rijn’, Jaarboek Amstelodamum 70 (1978), pp. 146-69, esp. p. 169, note 1.

Portrait of the Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen