Portrait of a Man, probably Christoffel van Gangelt (?-1688/91)

c. 1660 - c. 1661

Object data

oil on canvas

support: height 127.3 cm × width 95 cm
outer size: depth 8.5 cm (support incl. SK-L-4504)

Technical notes

Support The plain-weave canvas has been wax-resin lined. All tacking edges have been trimmed slightly. Cusping is present on all sides. The paint surface extends approx. 1 cm over the current top tacking edge and approx. 0.5 cm over the one at the bottom, suggesting that the canvas was transferred onto a slightly smaller stretcher.
Preparatory layers The double ground extends over the original tacking edges. The first, red layer consists of black and a few small white pigment particles in a red matrix. The second, grey layer is composed of carbon black and coarse white pigment particles in a beige matrix.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared reflectography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the original tacking edges, leaving a strip of ground uncovered on all sides. The sitter was left in reserve in the background. The flesh colours were applied with thick, opaque paint, with smooth transitions from dark to light, blending brown and greys for the shaded areas into the light pink flesh colours. Some shadows were accentuated with reddish-brown lines, for instance in the eyelids and to separate the individual fingers of the hands. The clothing was constructed with a rather opaque wet-in-wet modelling indicating light and dark areas. More shadows and light parts were applied on top of this in several layers, in what often appear to be long, single brushstrokes, following the forms of the folds. The decoration of the clothing was subsequently added in black, grey, cream and white, using both thin, rather dry paints and pastose swirls. The shiny silk texture of the tablecloth was suggested by applying thick, slightly zigzagged, bright red brushstrokes on top of the first modelling of deep brown-red for the shadows and a lighter red for the illuminated areas. A change is apparent in the sitter’s right sleeve which initially stopped short of the tablecloth, but was then made longer, extending over it.
Ige Verslype, 2024

Scientific examination and reports

infrared reflectography: I. Verslype, RMA, 7 January 2010
paint samples: I. Verslype / T. Žakula / E. Smeenk-Metz, RMA, nos. SK-A-3749/1-3, 7 January 2010
technical report: I. Verslype, RMA, 7 January 2010

Condition

Fair. Several old, repaired tears are visible in the background, above the head and to the left and right of the shoulders. There are small, discoloured retouchings throughout the tablecloth and the curtain, as well as over the repaired tears. The thick varnish saturates poorly and remnants of highly oxidized varnish are visible in the interstices of the paint layer, which are particularly disturbing in the lighter areas.

Provenance

For both the present painting (SK-A-3749) and its pendant (SK-A-3750)
? Commissioned by the sitters; ? their son and stepson, Abraham Ortt (1650-1691), Amsterdam; ? his son, Johan Ortt (1685-1740), Nijenrode Castle, near Breukelen; his son, Johan Ortt (1721-1783), Nijenrode Castle; ? his daughter, Constantia Jacoba Ortt (1750-1803), Amsterdam; ? her stepdaughter, Jacoba Susanna Warin (1784-1838), Amsterdam and ’s-Graveland: ? her son, Everard Willem van Weede (1820-1897), The Hague; ? his daughter, Constantia Maria van Weede (1861-1932), Utrecht; her son, Godert Jacob Karel, Baron van Lynden, Heer van Horstwaerde en Riethoeven (1886-1958), Doorwerth; by whom donated to the museum, with SK-A-3747, SK-A-3748, SK-A-3751 and SK-A-3752,¹ 1950

Object number: SK-A-3749

Credit line: Gift of G.J.K., Baron van Lynden van Horstwaerde, Doorwerth

The artist

Jacob van Loo (Sluis 1614 - Paris 1670)

A baptismal record for Jacob van Loo has not survived, but his age and place of birth are consistently stated in a number of documents, including his wedding banns, according to which he was born in the small town of Sluis in the province of Zeeland in 1614. His father was a notary and both of his parents were active as real estate brokers. In addition to Sluis, Van Loo spent his childhood in Vlissingen and Middelburg. Nothing is known about his training but, because his earliest works are portraits, he may have received instruction from a portraitist in Middelburg, such as Salomon Mesdach (active 1617-32), or perhaps one in nearby Antwerp, such as Cornelis Willemsz Eversdijck (1583-1649).

The first mention of Van Loo is a contract that the Amsterdam merchant and art lover Marten Kretzer drew up in 1635 for two tulip bulbs and 180 guilders in exchange for ten pictures by or obtained from one Jacob van Loo. It is not certain whether this was the artist from Sluis. By 1642, however, he had definitely moved to Amsterdam, for a document of that year records his encounter with a 15-year-old prostitute, who falsely claimed that she acted as his model. In 1643 Van Loo married Anna Lengele from The Hague, herself a painter and sister of the portraitist Marten Lengele.

Van Loo’s earliest signed and dated painting is a 1644 portrait of a family, traditionally identified as that of Rutger van Weert and his wife Maria Beels.² A depiction of Christ’s Apostles sleeping in the Garden of Gethsemane from the first half of the 1630s, which recalls the styles of Lambert Jacobsz and Jacob Pynas, has been attributed to Van Loo,³ and there are a number of genre scenes in the manner of Anthonie Palamedesz and Pieter Codde that must also be from before 1644. Around 1650, Van Loo, together with Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, introduced a new, very elegant form of the conversation piece, often with sensual and erotic overtones. He also transformed his portrait style from one reflecting the manner of Thomas de Keyser to the graceful Van Dyckian mode that was also practised by his wife’s cousin Jan Mijtens in The Hague. Van Loo’s earliest signed and dated history is Diana with her Nymphs of 1648,⁴ but he probably tried his hand at mythological subjects well before then, for in 1647 or 1648 Constantijn Huygens placed him on a list of artists worthy of decorating the Oranjezaal (Orange Hall) in Huis ten Bosch in The Hague. Van Loo and Jacob Backer were the only two Amsterdam painters considered by Huygens, but ultimately neither participated in the project. In the first half of the 1650s Van Loo concentrated on mythological scenes featuring nude figures in a style indebted to that of Jacob van Campen and Jacob Backer. The latter’s work also informed his tronies in this period. In 1652 Van Loo acquired Amsterdam citizenship in the hope of receiving a commission for the new Town Hall that was being built at the time. It was not forthcoming, however. Jan Vos included him among the 15 most important artists in Amsterdam in his 1654 poem Zeege der Schilderkunst (Triumph of Painting). In 1658 and 1659 Van Loo executed group portraits of the regents and regentesses of the Alms, Poor and Work House in Haarlem.⁵

In the autumn of 1660 Van Loo was involved in a fight with a belligerent wine merchant named Hendrik Breda, whom he fatally stabbed in the stomach. The artist was twice summoned to appear before the Amsterdam city sheriff, but failed to show up. On 7 July 1661 he was sentenced in absentia to exile for life from the provinces of Holland and West Friesland and his belongings there were confiscated. His sizeable possessions in Zeeland, which he had inherited from his parents, were spared, however. Van Loo fled to Paris, where he was admitted to the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1663, and concentrated on portraiture, now influenced by the work of Philippe de Champaigne and Claude Lefèbvre. Despite his banishment, he received numerous portrait commissions from compatriots connected to the embassy of the Dutch Republic in Paris. His clientele also included members of Parisian high society and the French court. A portrait of Louis XIV and his family is now known only from a copy.⁶ Another group portrait, of Paris city councillors, was probably destroyed during the Revolution. Van Loo never took French citizenship. He died in Paris on 26 November 1670 and was buried in the Protestant cemetery of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

Van Loo’s eclectic oeuvre consists of around 150 works. According to Houbraken, Eglon van der Neer (1635/36-1703) was apprenticed to him in Amsterdam. Van Loo also undoubtedly taught his sons Abraham (Louis) Vanloo (1652-1712) and Johannes (Jean) Vanloo (1654-?), both of whom established themselves as painters in France. Abraham’s sons and grandsons were among the leading eighteenth-century French artists.

Jonathan Bikker, 2024

References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, III, Amsterdam 1721, p. 172; P. Scheltema, Rembrand: Redevoering over het leven en de verdiensten van Rembrand van Rijn, met eene menigte geschiedkundige bijlagen meerendeels uit echter bronnen geput, Amsterdam 1853, p. 69; A. Bredius, ‘Waarom Jacob van Loo in 1660 Amsterdam verliet’, Oud-Holland 34 (1916), pp. 47-52; U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XXIII, Leipzig 1929, pp. 363-64; J.G.C.A. Briels, Vlaamse schilders en de dageraad van Hollands Gouden Eeuw 1585-1630, Antwerp 1997, p. 354; D. Mandrella, Jacob van Loo 1614-1670, Paris 2011, pp. 21-42, 237-46 (documents); J. Noorman, ‘A Fugitive’s Success Story: Jacob van Loo in Paris (1661-1670)’, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 63 (2013), pp. 302-23; Römer in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, LXXXV, Munich/Leipzig 2015, p. 254; E.J. Sluijter, Rembrandt’s Rivals: History Painting in Amsterdam 1630-1650, Amsterdam/Philadelphia 2015, pp. 374-79

Entry

This three-quarter-length portrait of a man and its pendant of a woman (SK-A-3750; also fig. a) were donated to the Rijksmuseum in 1950 by Baron Godert Jacob Karel van Lynden, together with the painted coats of arms of Joan van Reijgersbergh (1630-1683) and Sara van Os (1632-1704), and two pastel drawings of their granddaughter, Sara Hinloopen (1689-1775), and her husband, Arent van der Waeyen (1685-1767).⁷ Because the present work and its companion piece were part of this group, the sitters were tentatively identified as Joan van Reijgersbergh and Sara van Os.⁸ Later it was discovered that the painting of the woman is an exact replica of one of Lucretia Boudaen (1617-1663) at Nijenrode Castle near Breukelen.⁹ The pendant to that picture is a likeness of Johan Ortt, Lucretia’s first husband.¹⁰ A different man, however, is shown here. In all likelihood he is Christoffel van Gangelt, whom Lucretia married in 1660.¹¹ The Nijenrode Castle pair were convincingly attributed to Jacob van Loo by Moes in 1905,¹² and that artist’s detailed manner is also discernible in the present portrait.

This painting was most likely executed sometime between 31 August 1660, the date of Christoffel van Gangelt and Lucretia Boudaen´s wedding, and 7 July 1661, when Van Loo was banished for life from the provinces of Holland and West Friesland for murder.¹³ The large, white collar and short, silver-coloured jerkin, or ‘innocent’, with split sleeves revealing the voluminous shirt, is in keeping with this dating. A close parallel can be found in Jürgen Ovens’s Portrait of Johan Bernard Schaep, which can be placed in the late 1650s or early 1660s.¹⁴ It is perhaps significant that the way in which both male sitters are shown, with the right arm akimbo and the left held relaxed at the side, is identical, as is the red drapery behind them. Although this elegant pose, which was ultimately derived from Anthony van Dyck, occurs frequently in Dutch portraiture, the other similarities lead one to believe that Ovens’s picture may have served as Van Loo’s immediate model, or the other way around.

The fact that the ground layers differ from those of the present painting,¹⁵ indicates that the companion piece of the woman may have been made earlier, perhaps at the same time as the version at Nijenrode Castle. There is reason to believe that the Nijenrode pendants were executed after Johan Ortt’s death in 1654. In another set of portraits of the couple, also attributable to Van Loo, Lucretia Boudaen is definitely younger than in the Nijenrode Castle and Rijksmuseum works.¹⁶ Based on the sitters’ attire, that pair would have been made not too long before Ortt died. Although his pose has been altered, Ortt’s face in the Nijenrode Castle picture appears to have been copied from the earlier likeness of him. His clothing, however, has not been updated, while that worn by Lucretia Boudaen fits well with the fashions of the late 1650s.¹⁷

Like Lucretia Boudaen, Johan Ortt (1595-1654), whom she married in 1638, was a child of Antwerp emigrants. He was active as a grain and cloth merchant.¹⁸ Lucretia’s second husband, Christoffel van Gangelt, was born in Aachen at an unknown date. He is recorded in Angoulême in the southwest of France in 1635, working as an agent for the Amsterdam paper merchant Pieter Haeck.¹⁹ Not long afterwards he became proprietor of his own paper mill there. He wed Anna Manees in Angoulême in 1644, but in 1649 he was already living temporarily in Amsterdam and moved there permanently in 1653. Following his marriage to Lucretia Boudaen in 1660, Van Gangelt went into business with Joseph Deutz, the husband of Lucretia Boudaen and Johan Ortt’s daughter. Van Gangelt and Deutz dealt in paper, books and tar, and carried on in business together long after Lucretia’s death in 1663. When and where Van Gangelt died is not known; it must have been between 5 January 1688, when he is last recorded among the living, and 3 August 1691, when he is mentioned in a document as being deceased.

Christoffel van Gangelt and Lucretia Boudaen had no offspring, and it is not known what became of Van Gangelt’s only child from his first marriage, Elias. These pendants were perhaps inherited by Lucretia Boudaen and Johan Ortt’s youngest son Abraham (1650-1691).²⁰ The latter’s great-granddaughter, Constantia Jacoba Ortt (1750-1803), was the wife of Nicolaes Warin (1744-1815). He was the grandson of the aforementioned Sara Hinloopen and Arent van der Waeyen whose portraits were among the paintings donated to the Rijksmuseum in 1950 by Baron Godert Jacob Karel van Lynden. The group appears to have descended to a great-grandmother of his, Jacoba Susanna Warin (1784-1838), Nicolaes Warin’s daughter.

The Van Gangelt-Boudaen commission may well have helped further Van Loo’s career after his move to France in 1661. In a 1666 letter written from Paris, Christiaan Huygens recounts a visit to the studio where the artist was working on a depiction of the discovery of Achilles among the daughters of Lycomedes.²¹ It was a portrait historié with the eldest daughter of Constantia Boudaen and François Caron, and the daughters of the banker Caspar van Gangelt in the title roles. Constantia was a cousin of Lucretia Boudaen, and Caspar was a brother of Christoffel van Gangelt, and his witness when he married Lucretia in 1660.

Jonathan Bikker, 2024²²

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

For both the present painting (SK-A-3749) and its pendant (SK-A-3750)
Verslagen omtrent ’s Rijks verzamelingen van geschiedenis en kunst 1950 (annual report of the Rijksmuseum), p. 7 (as manner of Jürgen Ovens, Portrait of a Man, possibly Jan van Reygersbergh and Portrait of a Woman, possibly Sara van Os); D. Mandrella, Jacob van Loo 1614-1670, Paris 2011, p. 149, nos. P. 49, P. 50

Collection catalogues

For both the present painting (SK-A-3749) and its pendant (SK-A-3750)
1976, p. 433, nos. A 3749, 3750 (as manner of Jürgen Ovens, Portrait of a Man, possibly Jan van Reygersbergh and Portrait of a Woman, possibly Sara van Os); 1992, p. 64, nos. A 3749, A 3750

Citation

Jonathan Bikker, 2024, 'attributed to Jacob van Loo, Portrait of a Man, probably Christoffel van Gangelt (?-1688/91), c. 1660 - c. 1661', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.4917

(accessed 13 November 2024 03:04:36).

Figures

fig. a Jacob van Loo, *Portrait of a Man, probably Christoffel van Gangelt* (SK-A-3749) and *Portrait of a Woman, probably Lucretia Boudaen* (SK-A-3750)