Object data
oil on panel
support: height 71.2 cm × width 54.7 cm
Wybrand de Geest
Self-Portrait
1629
Inscriptions
- date, top left, in pale green: C I C [in reverse] I C [in reverse] C XXIX
- inscription, on the reverse, in white paint: WIBRANT DE GEEST / GEBOREN INT’ IAER 1592 / DEN 16 VAN OOST-MAENT (Wibrant de Geest, born in the year 1592, the 16th of the harvest month [August])
Technical notes
The oak support consists of three planks with a vertical grain and is bevelled on all sides. The support is painted from edge to edge. Paint samples show that the very thin ground layer has a whitish colour, while there is second whitish ground layer. The face of the sitter is painted directly on the second ground layer, after which the clothing was done. Infrared reflectography reveals no underdrawing. The sitter’s hair was reddish, since that is the colour of the remaining original paint. The greenish background is executed in a transparent way. The impasto highlights, for example in the decorations of the collar, have mostly disappeared.
Scientific examination and reports
- X-radiography: SKRA, no. 1785, 1999
- infrared reflectography: SKRA, no. 1785, 1999
- paint samples: SKRA, nos. 1785 D1-D3, 11 October 1999
- technical report: Y. Bruijnen / K. Kisch, RMA, 12 August 2003
Literature scientific examination and reports
Van den Berg 2001, no. 3
Condition
Poor. Across the entire surface there are innumerable small rectangular losses down to the wood, in the direction of the wood grain, which have been heavily retouched and overpainted. The painting is also severely abraded and overcleaned, while the black paint of the clothes is crazed.
Conservation
- conservator unknown, 1898: restored
- N. van Bohemen, 1959 - 1960: retouched and revarnished
Original framing
Oak truncated box frames1
Provenance
...; from Dr R. Hoornsma Cannegieter, Donkerbroek, fl. 120, to the museum, 1898; on loan to the Museum Het Rembrandthuis, Amsterdam, 1946-48; on loan to the Fries Museum, Leeuwarden, since 1948
Object number: SK-A-1780
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Wybrand de Geest (Leeuwarden c. 1592 - Leeuwarden 1661/65)
Wybrand de Geest was probably born in Leeuwarden on 16 August 1592, going by the inscription on the back of his self-portrait (shown here) in the Rijksmuseum. It is likely that he received his initial training from his father, Simon Juckes de Geest, a glasspainter. It emerges from the contributions to his album amicorum that he trained with Abraham Bloemaert in Utrecht in 1613-14, and the same source shows that he travelled for seven years after completing his apprenticeship, and visited Paris and Aix-en-Provence. He spent most of his time in Rome, however, where he stayed from 1616. In the Schildersbent (Band of Painters) there he was given the nickname ‘The Frisian Eagle’, according to Houbraken because of his ‘high flight in art’. He was still in Rome in 1620, but was back in Leeuwarden in 1621, for in that year he painted the group portrait of the local Verspeeck family.2 He was to spend the rest of his life in Leeuwarden. A Catholic, he married before the magistrate on 19 October 1622, his bride being Hendrickje Uylenburgh. One of Hendrickje’s cousins was the father of Saskia, Rembrandt’s wife. De Geest moved in lofty circles, was himself not without means, served as a regent of a charitable institution in 1639, and bore a coat of arms. His children and grandchildren even felt that they belonged to the Frisian aristocracy. His praises were sung by the poet Joost van den Vondel while he was still alive, and several eulogies were written about portraits of his. It is not known when he died, but it was between 1661 and 1665. His last works date from 1660, and there is also a letter he wrote in 1661. In 1665 his wife was recorded as being a widow.
Although Houbraken called him a ‘fine history and portrait painter’, almost all his surviving works are portraits. After his return from Rome he became the favourite portrait painter of Ernst Casimir of Nassau-Dietz (later Stadholder of Friesland) and his wife Sophia Hedwig of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, of their son Hendrik Casimir, and of the landed aristocracy of Friesland. Fragments from the diaries of Hendrik’s brother, Willem Frederik, record that he visited De Geest on more than one occasion ‘to have myself painted’. De Geest must have had a studio with assistants, given the many commissions he received, of which copies were often made. His pupils included Jacob Potma (c. 1610-80) and his son Julius Franciscus de Geest (?-1699). In the course of 40 years his portraiture evolved from the solemn, formal manner of Van Mierevelt and Van Ravesteyn to a more modern, fashionable style
Yvette Bruijnen, 2007
References
Houbraken I, 1718, pp. 147-48; Campo Weyerman I, 1729, pp. 377-78; Descamps I, 1753, pp. 402-03; Hofstede de Groot 1889a; Hofstede de Groot in Thieme/Becker XIII, 1920, pp. 331-33; Wassenbergh 1967, pp. 37-40; De Vries 1982, pp. 9-11; Visser/Van der Plaat 1995, pp. 375, 479; De Vries in Turner 1996, XII, p. 233
Entry
The identification of this pendant pair showing the artist himself (shown here) and his wife, Hendrickje Uylenburgh (see SK-A-1781), is based on the inscriptions on the back of both works (figs. a-b), which may date from the 17th century but are probably not in De Geest’s own hand, as De Vries had suggested.3 It is more likely that a later owner recorded the sitter’s identities for posterity. That the inscriptions are reliable is suggested by the statements of the precise dates of birth, coupled with the fact that De Geest’s date of birth fits within the chronological order of Houbraken’s biographies in the Groote Schouburgh.4 Moreover, the physical resemblance to the (posthumously published) portrait of De Geest in the Groote Schouburgh does nothing to detract from the identification.
The companion portraits have traditionally been attributed to De Geest. Although there is no reason to doubt this, their lamentable condition makes it difficult to assess the style. That being said, the type of portrait fits well within De Geest’s oeuvre. Both works are related to the portraits of Jacob de Witt and Anna van de Corput of 1630,5 while the self-portrait is very comparable to the portraits of Johannes van den Sande and Theodorus Saeckma of 1638.6 The provenance from a Frisian collection also reinforces the attribution to De Geest. There is a striking similarity to the Self-Portrait of Daniel Mijtens, datable around 1630, but there are no indications that the two artists were in touch.7
The rather flat, plain oak frames, the broad bottoms of which have a gently curving ogee shape, are probably original. Paint traces in the grain of the wood show that they were originally lacquered black.8
Yvette Bruijnen, 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. 78.
Literature
Van Riemsdijk 1899; Wassenbergh 1967, pp. 33, 34, nos. 15, 16; De Vries 1982, pp. 65-67, nos. 19, 20
Collection catalogues
1903, pp. 102-03, nos. 952, 953; 1976, p. 237, nos. A 1780, A 1781; 2007, no. 78
Citation
Y. Bruijnen, 2007, 'Wybrand de (I) Geest, Self-Portrait, 1629', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.7496
(accessed 23 September 2024 11:24:56).