Object data
oil on canvas
support: height 82 cm × width 67 cm
outer size: depth 8.5 cm (support incl. frame)
Anthonie Palamedesz
Portrait of a Man, probably Pieter Anthonisz van Bronckhorst (1588-1661)
1652
Inscriptions
- signature and date, centre right: A.º 1652 / A. Palamedes pinxit.
- inscription, centre right: ÆT: 64
Technical notes
The support is a plain-weave canvas that has been lined. Cusping is visible along the top edge. The ground layer appears to be greyish or ochre in colour. There is a pentimento in the outline of the mantle on the right. The paint was applied smoothly with visible brushstrokes.
Scientific examination and reports
- technical report: W. de Ridder, RMA, 20 February 2003
Condition
Fair. The paint layer is abraded and there are several discoloured retouchings, especially in the sitter’s right hand. The varnish is considerably crazed at lower left and has become discoloured, with the exception of the face, which appears to have been cleaned. The surface is dirty.
Conservation
- W.A. Hopman, 1895: canvas lined
Original framing
Scotia frames of conifer with brown ebony veneer painted black at a later date1
Provenance
? Commissioned by or for Pieter Anthonisz van Bronckhorst (1588-1661) and Jacobmina de Grebber (?-1666), Delft; ? their son, Anthonij van Bronckhorst (1615-70), Delft; ? his widow, Helena Stavenisse (1636-90), Delft and Utrecht; ? their daughter, Jacoba van Bronckhorst (1670-1700), Utrecht; ? her daughter, Sabina Jacoba Mogge (1700-68), Utrecht; ? her son, Dr Bonifacius Mogge Pous (1731-1802), Zierikzee; ? his son, Marinus Mogge Pous (1771-1814), Zierikzee; ? his widow, Johanna Mogge Pous, née Van der Wolff (1776-1862), who bought ’t Huys Moermont, Renesse, 1827; ? their daughter, Anna Hoyer; ? her son, Willem Hoyer; by whom sold with ’t Huys Moermont, Renesse, to Cornelis van der Lek de Clercq (1811-86), 1871; his son, Johan François van der Lek de Clercq (1854-1934), Rotterdam; from whom, fl. 700, as Portrait of a Man and Portrait of a Woman, to the museum, 18942
Object number: SK-A-1615
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Anthonie Palamedesz (Delft 1601 - Amsterdam 1673)
Anthonie Palamedesz was born in Delft in 1601 as a son of a gem-cutter. His teacher is unknown, but it has been suggested that he studied with Michiel van Mierevelt. In 1621, Palamedesz entered the Guild of St Luke, of which he was warden in 1635 and several times between 1653 and 1673. He was probably in Amsterdam around 1626, as he copied one or more of the sitters from a civic guard piece by Claes Pietersz Lastman (d. 1625) in that year.3 In 1630, he married Anna Joosten van Hoorendijk in Delft. In 1658, seven years after the death of his first wife, he married Aagje Woedewart. Palamedesz died in 1673 during a visit to Amsterdam. Among his pupils were his brother, the battle painter Palamedes Palamedesz I (1607-38), his son Palamedes Palamedesz (1633-1705) and Ludolf de Jongh (1616-79).
The bulk of Palamedesz’s oeuvre consists of genre scenes and portraits. There are few works that carry a date prior to 1632, but his earliest genre scenes, elegant companies in the open air in a style derived from Esaias van de Velde, can be dated to the mid-1620s. From the early 1630s onwards he painted numerous so-called merry companies in the manner of Dirck Hals and Pieter Codde. A document from 1636 reveals that he painted figures in a picture by Johannes van Vught, and it appears that he also did the same for Dirck van Delen, Bartholomeus van Bassen, and possibly for Anthonie de Lorme as well. Palamedesz’s military guardrooms were produced in the late 1640s and the 1650s. He continued painting genre scenes until the end of his life, but the majority of his dated works from 1650 onwards are portraits.
Gerdien Wuestman, 2007
References
Van Bleyswijck 1667, II, pp. 847-48; Houbraken I, 1718, p. 304, II, 1719, p. 33; Havard II, 1880, pp. 1-70; Bredius 1890, pp. 308-13; Haverkorn van Rijsewijk 1891a, p. 46; Sutton in Turner 1996, pp. 831-32; Rüger in New York-London 2001, pp. 318-20
Entry
In contrast to his innovative group portraits, in which families are depicted in a genre-like setting, Palamedesz’s individual portraits of the 1640s and 50s are mostly traditional and standardized.4 That is also the case with these companion pieces from 1652, in which the sitters are shown half-length in conventional poses against an undefined grey background.
The 64-year-old couple was identified in 1903 by the Zeeland archivist P.D. de Vos as the Zierikzee burgomaster Pieter de Witte and (shown here) his wife Caecilia van Beresteyn (see SK-A-1616).5 De Vos’s identification was generally accepted,6 and in the 20th century the paintings were copied by Willem Karel van Rees (1880-1962), who added the De Witte and Van Beresteyn coats of arms in the corners at the top.7 However, recent research has shown this identification to be untenable. Caecilia van Beresteyn was born on 8 February 1589, so she was not yet 64 in 1652, and her features as depicted in two earlier portraits by Michiel van Mierevelt do not resemble those of the woman in this painting.8
Ekkart discovered that the portraits discussed here belonged to a group of at least eight painted by Palamedesz that were hanging in Moermont Castle, Renesse, in Zeeland in the 19th century. He also made a plausible case for them being of members of the families of the Delft merchant Anthonij van Bronckhorst and his wife Helena Stavenisse, who came from Zierikzee. The genealogical trees of both families enabled Ekkart to identify the 64-year-old couple in the Rijksmuseum paintings as very probably being the parents of Anthonij van Bronckhorst: Pieter Anthonisz van Bronckhorst and his wife Jacobmina de Grebber.9
Pieter Anthonisz van Bronckhorst was a Delft painter of history and architecture pieces. He married Jacobmina de Grebber, the daughter of the well-known silversmith Nicolaes de Grebber, in 1614. The couple had been married 38 years when Palamedesz executed these portraits in 1652. It is likely that other members of the family also sat to the artist on that occasion. Ekkart has suggested that a third portrait of 1652 with the same provenance may be that of their daughter Anna van Bronckhorst, who was born in 1628.10 The portraits probably arrived at Moermont Castle in or after 1827, when it was bought by the widow of one of Pieter Anthonisz’s descendants.11
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. 228.
Literature
Van Beresteyn/Del Campo Hartman II, 1941, pp. 50-51, no. 99 (as Portrait of Pieter de Witte), p. 53, no. 104 (as Portrait of Caecilia van Beresteyn); Ekkart/Wuestman 2006
Collection catalogues
1903, p. 204, nos. 1835 (as Portrait of a Man), 1836 (as Portrait of a Woman); 1904, p. 241, nos. 1835 (as Portrait of Pieter de Witte), 1836 (as Portrait of Caecilia van Beresteyn); 1934, p. 218, nos. 1835 (as Portrait of Pieter de Witte), 1836 (as Portrait of Caecilia van Beresteyn); 1960, p. 237, nos. 1835 (as Portrait of Pieter de Witte), 1836 (as Portrait of Caecilia van Beresteyn); 1976, pp. 434-35, nos. A 1615, A 1616 (as Portrait of Pieter de Witte and Portrait of Caecilia van Beresteyn); 2007, no. 228
Citation
G. Wuestman, 2007, 'Anthonie Palamedesz., Portrait of a Man, probably Pieter Anthonisz van Bronckhorst (1588-1661), 1652', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.4926
(accessed 15 November 2024 05:48:50).