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

Jan Mijtens

Portrait of Margaretha van Raephorst (1625-1690)

1668

Object data

oil on canvas

support: height 134.5 cm × width 102.5 cm

Inscriptions

signature and date, upper right (j, A, N and M ligated): Aº: 1668. / jANMijtens F:

Technical notes

Support The support consists of a coarse, plain-weave central canvas and three original, added strips of canvas at the top and bottom and on the right (approx. 96.5 x 6.5, 96.5 x 3.5 and 134.5 x 6 cm), and has been wax-resin lined. All tacking edges have been preserved. Cusping is visible on all sides, as well as around the perimeter of the central canvas (where there are deep cusps), indicating that the latter had been grounded and stretched before the strips were attached. Linear crack patterns parallel to the left and right edges of the support may correspond to the bars of the original strainer.
Preparatory layers The single, light, warm grey ground extends up to the bottom tacking edge and partially over the ones at the top and on the left and right. It consists of coarse white pigment particles with an addition of earth pigments and fine and medium black pigment particles, and appears identical on all pieces of canvas. The ground is almost identical to the one found on the pendant (SK-A-284), though slightly lighter.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the tacking edges. The first lay-in, made up of brilliant red and pink to red, brown and grey earth colours, is visible in thin areas of the composition. The painting was built up from the back to the front and from dark to light, leaving the sky and figures in reserve, which is most evident with infrared photography. Under the flesh tones, a glowing pale salmon colour is visible at the transitions, in addition to a medium red for the corners of the eyes and lids, and a dark red for the nostrils and lips. The skin and facial features were blended wet in wet with soft transitions. The dress was constructed from a mid-tone red with bright red highlights and then glazed with a deep red and adjusted with black contours. A curl on the sitter’s forehead was painted out and the fingers of her left hand were first placed slightly lower. Dark grey and red strokes are evident under the right sleeve of the boy, possibly indicating that his costume was altered. The contour of his head was modified as can be seen in the dark halo around his hair.
Gwen Tauber, 2023

Scientific examination and reports

technical report: M. van de Laar / W. de Ridder, RMA, 26 October 1998
infrared photography: G. Tauber, RMA, 13 February 2009
paint samples: G. Tauber, RMA, nos. SK-A-285/1-2, 13 February 2009
technical report: G. Tauber, RMA, 13 February 2009

Condition

Good. The varnish has yellowed significantly. The woman’s ochre-coloured shawl has become quite transparent.

Conservation

W.A. Hopman, 1874: application of copaiba balsam; varnish regenerated
W.A. Hopman, 1875: varnish regenerated

Provenance

For both the present painting (SK-A-285) and its pendant (SK-A-284)
? Probate inventory, Cornelis Tromp, Amsterdam, 14 April 1692, Huis Trompenburgh, ’s-Graveland, near Hilversum (‘Verdere grote portretten. Een van sijn Excellency graeff Tromp en een van desselfs gemalin samen 300.-’);¹ ? his niece, Sara Tromp (1655-1711), Delft;² ? her son, Gaspar van Kinschot (1676-1759), Delft; ? probate inventory, his widow, Catharina Cornelia van Kinschot (1675-1762), Delft, 1 April 1763 (‘Twee groote Pourtraiten sijnde den Admirael Cornelis Tromp en sijn vrouw Margaretha van Raaphorst met vergulde gesnede lijsten’);³ ? collection of her son, Johan Anthony van Kinschot (1708-1766), Delft and Heemstede, c. 1766 (‘Den heer admiral Corn. Tromp met zijne huisvrouwe door Meytens 1668 f80,-’);⁴ ? will of his sister, Cornelia van Kinschot (1717-1788), Amsterdam (‘Cornelis Tromp en zijn huijsvrouw in ’t kleijn door Meijtens 1668 zeer fraaij. (De Roo)’ or ‘Den Admiraal Cornelis Tromp en zijn huijsvrouw Margaretha van Raephorst in groote anticque vergulde lijsten. (De Roo)’);⁵ ? her nephew, Gaspar de Roo (1731-1788), Delft;…; from the dealer P.C. Huybrechts, The Hague, with two other paintings, fl. 2,400, to the museum, 11 May 1803⁶

Object number: SK-A-285

The artist

Jan Mijtens (The Hague c. 1613/14 - The Hague 1670)

Jan Mijtens was born in The Hague at the end of 1613 or in January 1614 as the son of David Mijtens and Judith Hennicx. His father was a saddler and a member of the prosperous middle class. The extended family came from Flanders originally and produced numerous painters who remained active in various European countries until the eighteenth century. Jan Mijtens very probably started his apprenticeship with his uncle Isaac Mijtens and trained in all likelihood briefly with the latter’s elder brother, Daniel Mijtens, who returned to The Hague in 1635 after many years in England.

In 1639 Mijtens registered as a master painter with the Guild of St Luke in The Hague. His earliest dated pictures, two group portraits, are from 1638.⁷ In 1642 he married his cousin Anna, the London-born daughter of his uncle Daniel. One of the couple’s children, named Daniel as well, followed in his father’s footsteps. Other pupils of Mijtens were Julius de Geest (1638/39-1699), son of the Frisian portraitist Wybrand de Geest, Nicolaes Lissant (1639/40-after 1696), Gerard de Nijst (dates unknown), Adriaen Stalpert van der Wiele (dates unknown), Pouwels van de Velde (dates unknown), Andries Thijsz de Wit (dates unknown) and Urbanus Talibert van Yperen (c. 1630-in or after 1682). Only the first two left works that have survived.

Mijtens became one of the first members of the newly founded Confrerie Pictura artists’ society in 1656, and he was then immediately elected warden, a post which he held again in 1658-59, and another three times in 1665-69. Although repeatedly nominated as dean he only occupied that position in 1669-70. The Pictura archives also state that he was a captain in the civic guard. Mijtens had certainly been an active member of the White Banner company of the St Sebastian civic guard since 1644. He was then the ensign, and was probably made its commander in 1660. In addition to these functions, he was a church councillor from 1646 to 1654 and a deacon of the Reformed Church.

Mijtens was primarily a portraitist, but he also made some history paintings in the form of biblical scenes and pastorals, and a few genre pieces. He received commissions from the Hague elite and members of the stadholder’s court, as well as from the daughters of Stadholder Frederik Hendrik living in Leeuwarden and Germany. Mijtens’s last dated pictures are the pendants of 1668 of Cornelis Tromp and his wife Margaretha van Raephorst.⁸ It is known from the sources that even in 1670, the year he died, he was working on portraits for Henriette Catharina, the princess consort of Anhalt-Dessau. After Mijtens’s death on 19 December and burial in the family grave in The Hague’s Grote Kerk on the 24th, one of these likenesses was completed by his son Daniel, who had moved back from Italy shortly before.⁹ Mijtens was reasonably well-off. In 1669 his wealth was assessed at 20,000 guilders for tax purposes. It had not all been earned from painting; some of it came from various legacies.

Richard Harmanni, 2023

References
J. van der Does, ’s-Graven-Hage, met de voornaemste plaetsen en vermaecklijckheden, The Hague 1668, pp. 91-92; 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. 350; F.D.O. Obreen, Archief voor Nederlandsche kunstgeschiedenis: Verzameling van meerendeels onuitgegeven berichten en mededeelingen betreffende Nederlandsche schilders, plaatsnijders, beeldhouwers, bouwmeesters, juweliers, goud- en zilverdrijvers [enz.], IV, Rotterdam 1881-82, passim; ibid., V, 1882-83, pp. 82, 84, 145-48, 153; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstler-Lexikon, II, Leipzig/Vienna 1910, pp. 211-12; Lundberg in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XXV, Leipzig 1931, p. 317; Ekkart in E. Buijsen et al., Haagse schilders in de Gouden Eeuw: Het Hoogsteder Lexicon van alle schilders werkzaam in Den Haag 1600-1700, exh. cat. The Hague (Haags Historisch Museum) 1998-99, pp. 206-10; A.N. Bauer, Jan Mijtens (1613/14-1670): Leben und Werk, Petersberg 2006, pp. 20-28, 129-50 (documents); Bauer in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, LXXXIX, Munich/Leipzig 2016, p. 424

Entry

Margaretha van Raephorst’s wedding to Cornelis Tromp in 1667 was undoubtedly the reason for commissioning this portrait and its pendant (SK-A-284; also fig. a) of a year later. Margaretha was the daughter of Matthijs Willemsz van Raephorst, a member of the Amsterdam city council between 1628 and 1638, and Aefge Witsen. Her first marriage to Jean van Hellemont strengthened the ties between the patrician families even further; her mother-in-law was the sister of the Amsterdam burgomaster Andries Bicker. Margaretha’s distinguished connections combined with her vast wealth made her an attractive catch for Tromp after her husband’s death.¹⁰

Cornelis Tromp was the son of Maerten Harpertsz Tromp. He was destined to follow in the heroic footsteps of his father, but although his deeds in naval battles were certainly valiant he was also stubborn, arrogant and often out for his own honour and gain, which led him to be removed from his command in 1666. The tide turned in 1672 and he eventually became lieutenant-admiral-general, but never fought in that capacity.¹¹

Tromp had his likeness painted very many times by the finest portraitists, among them Jacob Willemsz Delff II, Caspar Netscher, Nicolaes Maes and Peter Lely. Jan Mijtens not only immortalized him in the present 1668 canvas, but had done so earlier, in 1661.¹² The artist’s ‘courtly style’ inspired by the work of Anthony van Dyck was very popular in Hague circles around the Orange-Nassau family, to which Tromp and his wife also belonged. Their pendants are from Mijtens’s final, very productive period. Two-thirds of his oeuvre dates from the last ten years of his life, and perhaps because of that huge output he made extensive use of standard compositions and poses.¹³ That is very evident in the portrait of Margaretha. Tromp’s is more in line with the conventional programme for fleet commanders and generals.¹⁴ Mijtens employed the same design as in the aforementioned 1661 likeness of him.

Like her husband Margaretha van Raephorst is elegantly dressed and in a stately pose. One striking element in her painting is the Black boy fastening her bracelet. Similar figures occur more often in Mijtens’s oeuvre,¹⁵ as well as in that of other Hague artists.¹⁶ There was a tradition of including Black servants in international courtly portraiture.¹⁷ The boy beside Margaretha was very probably included primarily to add contrast to the scene. In a poem in his 1678 treatise on painting Samuel van Hoogstraten supplies examples of how to make pictures more attractive through ‘variety’: ‘the eye sometimes enjoys adding a Moor to a maiden’,¹⁸ which is undoubtedly an allusion to the contrast between a coloured and a white skin. That distinction is found mainly in the play of hands around Margaretha’s right arm. The palest complexion possible was a mark of beauty for seventeenth-century women.

From an iconographic point of view Black servants would have been intended basically as exotic status symbols. Although De Lairesse stated that it was fitting to depict them with admirals or naval commanders, it cannot be assumed that the same was true for their wives.¹⁹ The one here admittedly does have individualized features, but he is still shown in a traditional way. The pearl earring, for example, is a stock adornment of Black servants in portraits, and once again there is that contrast in colour. In 1680 the Tromps had their likenesses painted by David van der Plas, and there too Margaretha has a Black boy by her side.²⁰

Tom van der Molen, 2023

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

For both the present painting (SK-A-285) and its pendant (SK-A-284)
O. ter Kuile, Adriaen Hanneman (1604-1671): Een Haags portretschilder, diss., Utrecht University 1976, pp. 23, 113-14; M. Otte, ‘“Somtijts een Moor”: De neger als bijfiguur op de Nederlandse portretten in de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw’, Kunstlicht 8 (1987), no. 3, pp. 6-10, esp. p. 9; A.N. Bauer, Jan Mijtens (1613/14-1670): Leben und Werk, Petersberg 2006, pp. 38, 70, 227-30, 400, nos. A 105, A 106, with earlier literature; Van der Molen in E. Schreuder and E. Kolfin (eds.), Black is Beautiful: Rubens to Dumas, exh. cat. Amsterdam (De Nieuwe Kerk) 2008, p. 263

Collection catalogues

For both the present painting (SK-A-285) and its pendant (SK-A-284)
1809, p. 50, no. 216; 1843, p. 43, no. 221 (‘in good condition’); 1853, p. 20, nos. 193 (fl. 800), 194 (fl. 800); 1858, p. 97, nos. 216, 217; 1880, pp. 225-27, nos. 249, 250; 1887, p. 119, nos. 1001, 1002; 1903, p. 189, nos. 1699, 1700; 1934, p. 203, no. 1699; 1976, p. 407, nos. A 284, A 285

Citation

Tom van der Meer, 2023, 'Jan Mijtens, Portrait of Margaretha van Raephorst (1625-1690), 1668', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.4552

(accessed 22 November 2024 14:03:31).

Figures

fig. a Jan Mijtens, *Portrait of Cornelis Tromp* (SK-A-284) and *Portrait of Margaretha van Raephorst* (SK-A-285)