Object data
oil on canvas
support: height 98.2 cm × width 77.8 cm
outer size: depth 8 cm (support incl. frame)
Cornelis Janssens van Ceulen I
Portrait of Joan Pietersz Reael (1625-59)
1648
Inscriptions
- signature and date, lower right: Cor / Jonson. Londini. fecit / 1648
- inscription, on the reverse: Johan Reaal. ged. N. Kerk te Amsterdam 11 Febr 1625 / begr. Oude Kerk Amsterdam 2 Oct 1659 / zoon van Pieter Reaal / en Weyntge Franszn Oetgens (Johan Reaal. baptised Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam, 11 Feb. 1625, buried Oude Kerk, Amsterdam, 2 Oct. 1659, son of Pieter Reaal and Weyntge Franszn Oetgens)
Technical notes
The support is a fine-weave canvas that has been lined, and has its original tacking edges. It was enlarged by approx. 0.9-1 cm on the left, right and top, and reduced by approx. 1.3 cm at the bottom. The canvas was primed with an ochre-coloured ground layer. The paint was applied very smoothly, with impasted highlights. Broad brushstrokes were used for the blue background.
Scientific examination and reports
- technical report: I. Verslype, RMA, 5 June 2003
Condition
Fair. The paint layers were flattened during the lining process. There are small paint losses throughout. Discoloured retouchings and overpainting are present, particularly along the edges. The condition of the background is severely obscured by the thick, discoloured varnish layer.
Provenance
? Commissioned by Joan Pietersz Reael (1625-59);...; ? his nephew Pieter Reael (1650-1701), Huys te Nigtevegt or De Nessenrak, De Nes, also known as Reaelen-eiland (Island of the Reael family), near Vreeland, Utrecht; ? his daughter Sara Reael (168?-1758) with Huys te Nigtevegt, Reaelen-eiland;1 ? her sister Wendela E. Reael (1688-1768) with Huys te Nigtevegt, Reaeleneiland;2 ? her son-in-law David ten Hove (1724-87) with Huys te Nigtevegt, Reaelen-eiland;3 ? his daughter Wendela E. ten Hove (1750-1814) with Huys te Nigtevegt, Reaelen-eiland;4 ? her daughter Cornelia A. Munter, Countess of Bosé, Dessau; ? sold with Huys te Nigtevegt, Reaelen-eiland, to Abraham Dubois, 1821;5 ? sold with Huys te Nigtevegt, Reaelen-eiland, to Dirk Hoogbruijn, ’s-Graveland, 1829;6 ? sold with Reaelen-eiland to Jan van Andel, Burgomaster of Vreeland, 1830;7...; sold with Realen-eiland to his son Gerrit Gijsbertus van den Andel, 1857;8 found by C.G. ’t Hooft on De Nes on 15 July 1900;9 from C.G. ’t Hooft, fl. 1,500, to the museum, November 1900
Object number: SK-A-1928
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Cornelis Janssens van Ceulen I (London 1593 - Utrecht 1661)
Cornelis Janssens van Ceulen, who signed his works as Jonson van Ceulen, was born into an Antwerp family that originally came from Cologne. He was baptized in London on 14 October 1593. It has been suggested that he was trained in the Netherlands. Janssens van Ceulen married Elisabeth Beck or Beke from Colchester on 16 July 1622, with whom he lived in Blackfriars. On 5 December 1632, he was appointed ‘his Majesty’s servant in the quality of picture maker to his Majesty’, King Charles I. In 1643, he and his family fled the Civil War and settled in Middelburg, where he entered the Guild of St Luke. In 1646 he is documented as living in Amsterdam. Six years later he was in Utrecht, where he and his wife made their will on 7 November 1652. He died in Utrecht in early August 1661.
Cornelis Janssens van Ceulen was a portrait painter. At the beginning of his career, much of his output consisted of bust-length portraits. In the Netherlands, he painted elegant half or three-quarter length figures that reveal the influence of Anthony van Dyck. There are also some group portraits, such as the Middelburg archers’ guild.10 Cornelis Janssens van Ceulen II (1635-1715) was his pupil and a close follower.
Gerdien Wuestman, 2007
References
De Bie 1661, pp. 298-99; Von Sandrart 1675 (1925), p. 194; Houbraken II, 1719, pp. 224-25; Walpole 1862, I, pp. 211-15; Schneider in Thieme/Becker XIX, 1926, pp. 143-44; Edmond 1978, pp. 84-89; Ekkart in Turner 1996, XVII, pp. 644-46; Kollmann 2000, pp. 219-20; Hearn 2003
Entry
According to the old inscription on the back of the strainer, this is a portrait of Joan Pietersz Reael. He was a son of Weyntge Oetgens (1583-1664) and Pieter Reael (1569-1643), a cousin of the famous jurist and diplomat Laurens Reael. He lived in Amsterdam, where he held various official positions. In 1655, for instance, he was captain and regent of the St Joris almshouse, of which he became commandant in 1658.11 He died unmarried. Joan Pietersz Reael is shown standing, three-quarter length. His left hand rests on a pillar, and he holds a pair of gloves in his right hand. This is a typical work from Janssens van Ceulen’s Dutch period. The most striking feature is the blue background executed with coarse brushstrokes, but the very smooth touch elsewhere in the painting, the sitter’s elegant pose and the low vantage point are also characteristic of the artist.12 The painting is very reminiscent of the work of Anthony van Dyck, whose influence is apparent right up to the end of Janssens van Ceulen’s career.
The portrait of Joan Pietersz Reael was acquired from C.G. ’t Hooft in November 1900. According to Jonkheer J.H. Backer (1881-1924), the son of the Burgomaster of Vreeland, ’t Hooft had found the canvas on 15 July that year on De Nes Island near Vreeland (province of Utrecht).13 The island had been bought in 1633 by Henricus Reael (1621-56), the brother of Joan Pietersz, and was also known as Realen Island. Henricus’s son Pieter (1650-1701) built Huys te Nigtevegt there in 1687.14 The house was torn down in 1830, with only a few outbuildings being left standing, and this canvas may have hung in one of them until its discovery in 1900.
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. 155.
Collection catalogues
1903, p. 142, no. 1296; 1934, p. 147, no. 1296; 1976, p. 308, no. A 1928; 2007, no. 155
Citation
G. Wuestman, 2007, 'Cornelis (I) Jonson van Ceulen, Portrait of Joan Pietersz Reael (1625-59), 1648', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8851
(accessed 15 November 2024 14:30:51).