Object data
oil on panel
support: height 114.3 cm × width 82.9 cm
outer size: depth 7.5 cm (support incl. frame)
Cornelis van der Voort
Portrait of Brechtje Overrijn van Schoterbosch (1592-1618)
1614
Inscriptions
- inscription and date, upper left: Ætatis Suae.22. / Anno 1614.
- label, on the reverse: Dirk Hasselaar: Major van de Militie / Vader van / Aagje Hasselaar: vrouwe van / Henrich Hooft: Vader en Moeder van / Bregje Hooft: vrouwe van Harman van de Poll. (Dirk Hasselaar: Major in the Militia, Father of Aagje Hasselaar: wife of Henrich Hooft: Father and Mother of Bregje Hooft: wife of Harman van de Poll.)
Technical notes
The support is an oak panel consisting of three vertically grained planks and is bevelled at the top and bottom. The white ground layer is smooth. The greyish green background was painted first, followed by the face and costume. Some of the contours, especially in the sitter’s clothes, were painted on top of the background. The sitter’s face was painted very smoothly and softly, wet in wet. The transitions between the shaded parts and the flesh tones in the sitter’s hands are much more defined than in the pendant. The sitter’s dress and the pleats in her skirt were painted more freely, with a great deal of impasto. A red glaze was applied on top of the yellow details in the sitter’s costume.
Scientific examination and reports
- technical report: I. Verslype, RMA, 20 April 2005
Condition
Fair. The purple skirt has discoloured to brown, and the reddish pink details have become yellow. Paint has flaked off in the reddish aubergine parts in the skirt, the stomacher and the sleeves. The uneven varnish layer has yellowed.
Provenance
? Commissioned by or for Dirck Hasselaer (1581-1645) and Brechtje van Schoterbosch (1592-1618), Amsterdam; ? their daughter Aegje Hasselaer (1617-64), Amsterdam; her husband Henrick Hooft (1617-78), Amsterdam; ? his daughter Brechje Hooft (1640-1721), Amsterdam; ? her son Jan van de Poll (1668-1745), Amsterdam; ? his son Harmen Hendrik van de Poll (1697-1772), Amsterdam; ? his wife Margaretha Trip (1699-1778); her son Jan van de Poll (1721-1801), The Hague;1 his grandson Jan van de Poll (1777-1858), Amsterdam, 1802 (stored with other family portraits in his aunt’s house, Herengracht 479 in Amsterdam); his son Jan Stanislaus Robert van de Poll (1805-88), Arnhem (stored with 25 other family portraits in his sister-in-law’s house, Herengracht 450 in Amsterdam); by whom donated to the museum together with 34 other family portraits, as attributed to Cornelis van der Voort, November 18852
Object number: SK-A-1243
Credit line: Gift of Jonkheer J.S.R. van de Poll, Arnhem
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Cornelis van der Voort (? Antwerp c. 1576 - Amsterdam 1624)
Cornelis van der Voort, who was probably born in Antwerp around 1576, came to Amsterdam with his parents as a child. His father, a cloth weaver by trade, received his citizenship in 1592. It is not known who taught the young Van der Voort to paint, but it has been suggested that it was either Aert Pietersz or Cornelis Ketel. On 24 October 1598 Van der Voort became betrothed to Truytgen Willemsdr. After his first wife’s death he became betrothed to Cornelia Brouwer of Dordrecht in 1613. In addition to being an artist, Van der Voort was an art collector or dealer, or both. In 1607 he bought paintings from the estate of Gillis van Coninxloo, and after an earlier sale in 1610 a large number of works he owned were auctioned on 7 April 1614. Van der Voort is documented as appraising paintings in 1612, 1620 and 1624. In 1615 and 1619 he was warden of the Guild of St Luke. He was buried in Amsterdam’s Zuiderkerk on 2 November 1624, and on 13 May 1625 paintings in his estate were sold at auction.
Van der Voort was one of Amsterdam’s leading portrait painters in the first quarter of the 17th century. Several of his group portraits are known. It is believed that he trained Thomas de Keyser (1596/97-1667) and Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy (1588-1650/56). His documented pupils were David Bailly (c. 1584/86-1657), Louis du Pré (dates unknown), Pieter Luycx (dates unknown), Dirk Harmensz (dates unknown) and his own son Pieter (dates unknown).
Gerdien Wuestman, 2007
References
Van Mander 1604, fol. 300r; Orlers 1641, p. 371; De Roever 1885, pp. 187-207 (documents); De Roever 1887; Thieme/Becker XXXIV, 1940, p. 544; Briels 1997, p. 402
Entry
These two portraits of 1614 entered the museum as part of the important Van de Poll Bequest. Labels on the backs of the panels identify the sitters as Dirck Hasselaer (SK-A-1242) and and his wife Brechtje van Schoterbosch (shown here).3 Hasselaer was an Amsterdam merchant and a director of the Dutch East India Company from 1617 to 1641. He married Brechtje van Schoterbosch on 27 May 1612.4 These portraits were painted two years later.
The couple are shown standing three-quarter length against a bare wall. Hasselaer is holding a hat and gloves, while his wife holds the end of the gold chain around her waist in her right hand.5 The artist took great care over her decorated red stomacher and purple skirt with its touches of pinkish red. The skirt has unfortunately become discoloured, but something of the original bright colour is still preserved under the frame.
The paintings were attributed to Cornelis van der Voort during their descent through the family. He was very famous for his portraits in his day, and these two fit within his known oeuvre as regards style, composition and the sitters’ poses. One notable feature, though, is that Hasselaer’s portrait was painted far more briskly than that of his wife. There is no such stylistic difference in the very closely related pendants of Dirck Corver (SK-A-4764) and Maria van Schoterbosch (SK-A-4765) of 1622. This issue might be resolved by further research on Van der Voort’s early work.6
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. 320.
Literature
Six 1887, pp. 9-10, 22
Collection catalogues
1887, p. 185, nos. 1590, 1591 (with erroneous inscriptions and measurements); 1897, pp. 182-83, nos. 1590, 1591; 1903, p. 290, nos. 2589, 2590; 1934, p. 308, nos. 2589, 2590; 1960, p. 332, nos. 2589, 2590; 1976, p. 587, nos. A 1242, A 1243; 2007, no. 320
Citation
G. Wuestman, 2007, 'Cornelis van der Voort, Portrait of Brechtje Overrijn van Schoterbosch (1592-1618), 1614', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6480
(accessed 10 November 2024 20:34:16).