Object data
oil on panel
support: height 92.9 cm × width 73 cm (oval)
outersize: depth 10 cm (support incl. SK-L-4889)
Jacob Adriaensz Backer
Portrait of Sara de Bie (c. 1594-1666)
c. 1646
Inscriptions
- signature, with ligated monogram, centre left: JAB.
Technical notes
Support The oval panel consists of three vertically grained oak planks. The top edge has been slightly trimmed. The panel was thinned to approx. 0.8 cm and cradled. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1628. The panel could have been ready for use by 1639, but a date in or after 1645 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The single, smooth, off-white ground extends partially over the edges of the support, especially at bottom left.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the edges of the support. The figure was reserved, leaving the ground exposed locally along the contours (although less so than in the pendant, SK-A-3516). The paints were applied mainly wet in wet, with some blending, in a straightforward manner. Short stiff brushes provide texture and modelling, mostly in the opaque white paints and flesh tones. The dark colours are smooth and transparent, allowing the ground to show through. A few details were added in the last stage and some adjustments were made to the contours of her left hand, which partly extends over the background.
Willem de Ridder, 2023
Scientific examination and reports
- infrared photography: W. de Ridder, RMA (no image available), 2008
- paint samples: W. de Ridder, RMA, nos. SK-A-3517/1-2, 10 March 2008
- technical report: W. de Ridder, RMA, 10 March 2008
- dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 10 June 2008
- paint samples: A. Wallert, RMA, nos. 209/1-5, 10 March 2011
Condition
Fair. The paint is locally raised and fragile. There are discoloured retouchings throughout. The varnish has yellowed, turned dull and saturates poorly.
Conservation
- conservator unknown, 1971: loose paint consolidated
Provenance
For both the present painting (SK-A-3517) and its pendant (SK-A-3516)
? Commissioned by or for the sitters; ? probate inventory, their son, Joannes Lutma (1624-1689), Amsterdam, 30 November 1689, in the vestibule (‘twee conterfyetsels van des overledens vader en moeder’);1…; ? collection Abraham Calraet, Dordrecht, 1729;2 or, probate inventory, Elisabeth Franken, widow of Mattheus van den Brouck(e), Dordrecht, 3 November 1729 (‘2 ovale pourtretten van Bakker’);3…; sale, Pieter de la Court van der Voort (1722-1775, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (P. Slagregen and P. Yver), 26 August 1772, no. 173 (‘Twee stuks, verbeeldende de vermaarde Zilverdryver, van Vianen, en deszelfs Huisvrouw, in Ovaalen, op Paneel geschilderd, door A.B. ieder is hoog 36, breed 29 duim [92.5 x 74.5 cm].’), fl. 34,4 to the dealer Jan Yver, for Johan van der Marck Aegidiusz (c. 1694-1770), Leiden;5 his sale, Amsterdam (H. de Winter and J. Yver), 25 August 1773, nos. 470, 471, as Adriaen Backer (‘Vianen (A. van) Konstig Zilver Dryver. 470 Dezen kunstenaar is verbeeld met een Hamer in zyn linkerhand, en by zich een zilver gedreeven Schaal, in ovaal formaat, door Adriaan Bakker. […] op Paneel, ovaal format, h. 35½ b 28 duim [91.2 x 72 cm]. 471 De huisvrouw van den voorgenoemden. […] een wedergade van het voorgaande)’, fl. 30, to J. Yver;6…; collection Stanisław II August Poniatowski (1732-1798), King of Poland, Royal Castle, Warsaw, 1795, as Flemish School (‘Portrait oval a mi corps d’un orfevre vetu de noir, tenant un marteau dans la main gauche 37 x 27 [91.8 x 67 cm], 60 [ducats]’ and ‘Portrait d’une vielle femme à mis corps vetu de noir un mouchoir blanc sur la gorge et les mains croisées sur la poitrine’, 37 x 27 [91.8 x 67 cm], 50 [ducats]’);7 his son, Prince Joseph Poniatowski (1763-1813), Warsaw;8 transferred from the Royal Castle, Warsaw, to the Court Library, Vienna, 6 April 1810;9 from Prince Joseph Poniatowski, 86 ducats, to Count Józef Maksymilian Ossoliński (1748-1829), Vienna, 18 June 1810;10…; collection Count André Mniszech (1823-1905), Paris, 1895;11…; sale, August de Ridder (1837-1911, Villa Schönberg, Kronberg im Taunus), Paris (Galerie Georges Petit), 2 June 1924, no. 1, fr. 82,000, no. 2, fr. 35,000;12…; collection Antonius Wilhelmus Mari Mensing (1866-1936), Amsterdam;13 from whom on loan to the museum, April 1925-April 1929 (inv. nos. SK-C-1159, SK-C-1160); ? from whom to a private collection, USA;14…; collection Hans Ludwig Larsen (1892-1937, Wassenaar), 1936;15 his sale, New York (Parke-Bennet Galleries), 6 November 1947, no. 34, $2,500, no. 35, $1,000, to the museum
Object number: SK-A-3517
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Jacob Backer (Harlingen c. 1608/09 - Amsterdam 1651)
It is thanks to the funeral medal with his age and date of death that we know that it was probably in the second half of 1608 or possibly early 1609 that Jacob Backer was born in Harlingen. He was the son of the baker Adriaen Tjercksz and Hilcke Volckertsdr, and grew up in Amsterdam. His father was a member of the Waterland congregation, a liberal branch of the Mennonites. Backer’s first teacher is not documented, but various facts have led to the suggestion that between roughly 1620 and 1626 he was apprenticed to the history painter Jan Pynas (1581-1631), who lived in the same street. It is known that the two families were acquainted from the fact that Backer’s father was owed money by Pynas’s father and also owned a first-rate Baptism of the Eunuch by the artist. Jacob Backer was also a good friend of Steven de Goor (1608-c. 1660), a pupil of Pynas in the first half of the 1620s, at the time when Backer might also have been taught by him. Houbraken says that Backer trained in Leeuwarden in the studio of the Mennonite painter Lambert Jacobsz. That was probably after his father’s death, from around 1626 to 1632, when Govert Flinck was also studying with Jacobsz.
A remark of Houbraken’s gave rise to the long-held belief that Backer was apprenticed to Rembrandt after he was back in Amsterdam in the early 1630s. However, apart from an artistic influence there is not the slightest documentary evidence for this, and it is more likely that Backer set up as an independent master immediately on his return to the city, where he was to live until his death. An inscription on a drawn self-portrait places him in Vlissingen in 1638.
Backer was a painter of portraits, anonymous heads and histories from the very outset. His earliest dated work is from 1633, John the Baptist Accusing Herod and Herodias.16 Soon afterwards he was given the important commission for the Portrait of the Female Governors of the Civic Orphanage of 1633 or 1634.17 This was the beginning of a steady stream of portrait orders, including two monumental civic guard pieces of 1638 and 1642.18 Most of his clients came from the wealthy Amsterdam middle class, including the De Graeff, Hasselaer, Bas, Hooft, Velters and De Vroede families. He was held in such high regard that he was also mentioned by various authors, among them Philips Angel, who referred to him as ‘the much-admired Backer’ in 1642. He received a very prestigious request just before his death when he and Jacob van Loo were the only two Amsterdam painters to be invited to contribute to the decorative programme for the Oranjezaal (Orange Hall) in Amalia van Solm’s newly built residence in The Hague, Huis ten Bosch. Neither of them actually took part in the project. Backer became a member of the Remonstrant church in 1651, and on 27 August of that year he died unmarried in Amsterdam and was buried in one of the family graves in the Noorderkerk.
In addition to Rembrandt’s influence, Backer’s oeuvre betrays just as much affinity with the pictures of his teacher Lambert Jacobsz, who in his turn may have introduced him to the works of the Utrecht Caravaggisti. However, it was above all Flemish painting that left its mark on Backer from the 1640s on. His pupils included his son Adriaen Backer (1635/36-1684), Jan de Baen (1633-1702), Jan van Neck (1634/35-1714), David van Stapelen (c. 1626-?), David Eversdyck (c. 1626-?), Johannes Lyster (dates unknown), Wiggert Domans (dates unknown) and Michael Neidlinger (1624-1700). Among those who also have trained with him are Adam Camerarius (dates unknown), Louis Vallée (active 1649-52), Abraham van den Tempel (1622/23-1672), Jan van Noordt (1623/24-1676/86) and Bernard Vaillant (1632-1698).
Gerbrand Korevaar, 2023
References
P. Angel, Lof der Schilderkonst, Leiden 1642 – trans. M. Hoyle and annot. H. Miedema, ‘Philips Angel, Praise of Painting’, Simiolus 24 (1996), pp. 227-58, esp. p. 246; J. Meyssens, Image de divers hommes d’esprit sublime qui par leur art et science debvrovent vivre eternellement et des quels la lovange et renommée faict estonner le monde, Antwerp 1649 (unpag.); C. de Bie, Het gulden cabinet van de edel vrij schilder const, inhoudende den lof vande vermarste schilders, architecte, beldthowers ende plaetsnijders van deze eeuw, Antwerp 1662, p. 130; 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. 178; S. van Hoogstraten, Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst: Anders de zichtbaere werelt: Verdeelt in negen leerwinkels, Rotterdam 1678, pp. 227, 257; A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, I, Amsterdam 1718, pp. 336-38; Moes in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, II, Amsterdam 1908, pp. 323-24; A. Bredius, ‘Leerlingen van Jacob Backer’, Oud Holland 40 (1922), pp. 186-87; J.D. Wagner, ‘Nieuwe gegevens omtrent Jacob Backer, Oud Holland 40 (1922), pp. 32-36; K. Bauch, Jacob Adriaensz Backer, ein Rembrandtschüler aus Friesland, Berlin 1926, pp. 1-4; H.F. Wijnman, ‘De afkomst van Jacob en Adriaan Backer’, Oud Holland 43 (1926), pp. 289-92; H.F. Wijnman, ‘De schilder Jacob Backer te Amsterdam’, Oud Holland 51 (1934), pp. 135-36; H.F. Wijnman, Uit de kring van Rembrandt en Vondel: Verzamelde studies over hun leven en omgeving, Amsterdam 1959, pp. 43-44, 67-70; Horst in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, VI, Munich/Leipzig 1992, pp. 169-70; P. van den Brink, ‘David geeft Uria de brief voor Joab: Niet Govert Flinck, maar Jacob Backer’, Oud Holland 111 (1997), pp. 177-86, esp. pp. 178-79; P. Bakker, Gezicht op Leeuwarden: Schilders in Friesland en de markt voor schilderijen in de Gouden Eeuw, diss., University of Amsterdam 2008, p. 180; J. van der Veen, ‘Jacob Backer, een schets van zijn leven’, in P. van den Brink and J. van der Veen, Jacob Backer (1608/9-1651), exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis)/Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 2008-09, pp. 10-25
Entry
For a long time it was thought that this portrait was of Mayken Roelants (c. 1593-1634),19 the first wife of the leading Amsterdam silversmith Johannes Lutma. He has been identified as the sitter in the pendant (SK-A-3516; also fig. a) on the evidence of the attributes and the resemblance to a print of 1656 by Rembrandt.20 However, as the two pictures were made around 1646, so after Mayken Roelants’s death, this must be the only painted likeness of Lutma’s second spouse, Sara de Bie (c. 1594-1666). She was a daughter of the goldsmith Alexander de Bie, who like Lutma lived with his family in Nes, a village by the Amstel river slightly south of Amsterdam. The couple got married in the spring of 1638.21
The oval shape of both works is original, as can be seen from the cartouches, which extend right up to the edges of the panels, and from the ground, which can be seen at various points along the sides. It was a format that was briefly popular in Amsterdam in the first half of the 1630s, with Rembrandt, for instance.22 Jacob Backer used it in that period for his Portrait of a Boy in Grey,23 but most of the likenesses he produced are rectangular, which suggests that it was Lutma who wanted this specific design. The auricular ornaments, with the organic, undulating shapes on the cartouches, were characteristic of the latter’s oeuvre.
There are a few striking differences between the two portraits of the couple. Lutma’s panel is composed of six vertical planks extending at right angles from a horizontal one, while De Bie’s consists of five vertical planks.24 His picture is freely executed, and although Backer used reserves for the various passages (with the exception of the hammer) he did not make any effort to fill in their edges carefully, with the result that the ground layer can be seen along the contours in several places. Backer’s distinctive loose touch and the direct and uncomplicated manner of painting can also be seen in De Bie’s likeness, but Backer took far more trouble there to have the passages join up. The monogram here is also larger than on the companion piece. De Bie’s portrait looks considerably stiffer as a result of this more controlled execution and the fact that she sits up straight, whereas Lutma is leaning forward slightly. Her picture was prepared with a detailed drawing in black and white chalk on blue paper.25 Backer followed the sheet faithfully, but corrected the proportional differences and added the ring on De Bie’s right forefinger.
The paintings are dated around 1640 in the literature.26 The saltcellar on the right in Lutma’s portrait establishes a terminus post quem,27 for it is similar in style to a series of at least four of such objects that Lutma made in 1639 and 1643.28 The dendrochronology, though, shows that the panel of Lutma’s picture was probably only available in or after 1643 and De Bie’s at the earliest in 1645, so it is more likely that both date from around 1646, the year in which Lutma first held an office in the guild.29 It is known that an occasion of that kind could be the reason for commissioning a portrait, since Werner van der Valckert made one of the Leiden goldsmith Bartholomeus Jansz van Assendelft in 1617 when he first filled an official function in the guild of gold and silversmiths.30
Gerbrand Korevaar, 2023
See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements
Literature
For both the present painting (SK-A-3517) and its pendant (SK-A-3516)
C. Hofstede de Groot, ‘Johannes Lutma van Groningen’, Groningsche volksalmanak 59 (1895), pp. 100-09, esp. pp. 101, 108-09 (as portraits of Jan Lutma and Mayken Roelants or Sara de Bie); K. Bauch, Jacob Adriaensz Backer, ein Rembrandtschüler aus Friesland, Berlin 1926, pp. 40-41, 90, nos. 151, 156 (as portraits of Jan Lutma and Mayken Roelants); J.W. Frederiks, De meesters der plaquette-penningen, The Hague 1943, pp. 23, 27; A.-M. von Graevenitz, Das niederländische Ohrmuschel-Ornament: Phänomen und Entwicklung dargestellt an den Werken und Entwürfen der Goldschmiedefamilien van Vianen und Lutma, diss., Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich 1973, p. 203; W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, I, Landau/Pfalz 1983, p. 202, no. 67; Korevaar in P. van den Brink and J. van der Veen, Jacob Backer (1608/9-1651), exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis)/Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 2008-09, pp. 148-51, no. 28
Collection catalogues
1960, p. 26, no. 398 A3; 1976, p. 93, no. A 3517
Citation
Gerbrand Korevaar, 2023, 'Jacob Adriaensz. Backer, Portrait of Sara de Bie (c. 1594-1666), c. 1646', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5864
(accessed 23 September 2024 19:27:37).