Bust of a Man with a Gorget, possibly a Self-Portrait

c. 1655 - c. 1665

Object data

oil on panel

support: height 63 cm × width 51.2 cm
outer size: depth 4.5 cm (support incl. SK-L-6132)

Technical notes

Support The oval panel consists of three vertically grained oak planks (approx. 13.8, 25.8 and 11.6 cm), approx. 0.5, 1 and 0.5 cm thick. The reverse is bevelled at the top and has regularly spaced saw marks on the left and right planks, as well as plane marks and marks left by the splitting of the wood on the middle one. There are traces of scratched circles and points of a compass on the back which must have been used to construct the panel’s oval shape. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1627. The panel could have been ready for use by 1638, but a date in or after 1644 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The double ground extends up to the edges of the support. The first, chalk-glue layer is followed by a thin ground layer, or imprimatura, consisting of lead white in oil.
Underdrawing Infrared reflectography revealed some sketchy lines in what appears to be a dry medium. They indicate the facial features and were followed in the painting phase.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the edges of the support. A translucent brown, first lay-in of the composition shows through in the eye sockets and in the shaded areas of the face. While the latter sections were executed thinly, the illuminated parts of the face were painted more opaquely with some visible brushwork. The deep shadows in the nostrils and to the right of the nose were accentuated with a slightly translucent black. The infrared reflectogram shows that the cravat was initially more open at the upper side. The light brown leather strap at the neck was applied over the white cloth. The green background was executed rather smoothly with an opaque paint on top of which a brown layer, containing earth pigments and a red lake, was added locally (to the right of the face). Impasto is visible in the studs of the gorget and in the highlights.
Ige Verslype, 2024

Scientific examination and reports

paint samples: A. Wallert, RMA, nos. 94/1-10, 9 July 2001
paint samples: A. Wallert, RMA, nos. 94/1-2 (SEM-EDX), 9 July 2001
dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 25 February 2002
infrared reflectography: I. Verslype, RMA, 7 January 2010
technical report: I. Verslype / T. Žakula, RMA, 7 January 2010

Literature scientific examination and reports

M. van de Laar and A. Wallert, ‘Un autoportrait présumé de Jacob Van Loo au Rijksmuseum d’Amsterdam’, in C. Rolland (ed.), Autour des Van Loo: Peinture, commerce des tissus et espionnage en Europe (1250-1830), Rouen 2012, pp. 261-74

Condition

Fair. The paint layer is abraded, especially in the thinly applied light brown areas. Alligator cracks are visible in the brown of the background to the right of the head.

Conservation

M. van de Laar, 2001: complete restoration

Provenance

? By descent from the artist to his great-grandson, Louis-Michel van Loo (1707-1771); his probate inventory, Paris, 22 April 1771, with pendant (‘Deux Bustes en ovales peints par Jacques Vanloo representant L’un son portrait en Armenien et l’Autre son frere prisés Deux Cent Livres cy’);¹ his sale, Paris (F. Basan), 14 December 1772, no. 53, with pendant (‘Hauteur 22 pouces, sur 18 de large [59.5 x 48.7 cm], Deux bustes de forme ovale: l’un représente le portrait de l’Auteur, bisayeul de Louis-Michel Vanloo; il s’est peint vêtu en Arménien, soulevant de la main-gauche son vêtement, & la tête couverte d’un bonnet fourré; l’autre est le portrait de son père, peint dans le stile de Rembrandt’), fr. 50, to his brother, Charles Amédée Philippe Vanloo (1719-1795), Paris;² ? his daughter, Marie Victoire van Loo (1749-?), and her husband, Marc Antoine Combemale, Paris; ? their son, Charles Amédée Philippe François Combemale (1783-?), Paris; ? his daughter, Caroline Félicité Combemale, and her husband, Viscomte de Lamare, Paris; their daughter, Gabrielle de Lamare, and her husband, Henri Félix-Faure (1846-1922), Grenoble; purchased from his heirs by the museum, 1999

Object number: SK-A-4950

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.³ 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,⁴ 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 1648,⁵ 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.⁶

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.⁷ 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 oval, bust-length portrait of a man wearing a gorget and cravat was described in the 1771 inventory of Jacob van Loo’s great-grandson Louis-Michel van Loo as a likeness of the artist’s brother and in his posthumous 1772 sale catalogue as depicting the artist’s father.⁸ At the time it was accompanied by a pendant described as a self-portrait of Jacob van Loo wearing Armenian costume and a fur bonnet. Thumbnail sketches of the two works were made by the indefatigable draughtsman Gabriel de Saint-Aubin in his copy of the sale catalogue, now preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris.⁹ While the so-called self-portrait in Armenian attire was sold at auction by a great-granddaughter of Louis-Michel van Loo in 1920, and has since disappeared from sight, the present painting remained with the family until 1999, when it was acquired by the Rijksmuseum as a self-portrait.¹⁰

The picture is neither signed nor dated, but its provenance and stylistic qualities leave little doubt that the attribution to Van Loo is warranted. Painted in the broad, fluid manner he had adopted from Jacob Backer in the 1650s, the style compares best with the artist’s signed Portrait of a Man from 1660 and his Portrait of Lodewijk Huygens, the execution of which is documented to 1663.¹¹ Because of the gorget worn by the figure, the work falls into the category of the soldier tronie developed by Rembrandt and Jan Lievens in the late 1620s. Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait with Gorget from around 1629, or a copy after it, may well have been Van Loo’s direct model.¹² The almost monochromatic palette, the sharp contrasts of light and dark on the face, and the pose with the body turned to the left and the head seen from the front, as well as the long, dishevelled hair are the salient features of both paintings.

It is this likely prototype and the figure’s direct gaze that suggest it could be a self-portrait by Van Loo.¹³ Unfortunately, however, there are no documented likenesses of the artist with which it can be compared. Judging from the title Oulmont gave the picture when it was published for the first time in 1912, the identification of the man as Van Loo’s father, made in 1772, long held sway in the family.¹⁴ If Jacques van Loo were the sitter, the painting would be posthumous, since he died in 1632. A third possibility, pointed out by Mandrella, who doubts that the work is a self-portrait, is that the model was neither Jacob van Loo nor his father.¹⁵

Jonathan Bikker, 2024¹⁶

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

C. Oulmont, ‘Amédée Vanloo, peintre du roi de Prusse’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, N.S. 3 (1912), pp. 139-50, 223-34, esp. pp. 233-34 (as Portrait of Jacob van Loo’s Father, Louis); D. Mandrella, Jacob van Loo 1614-1670, Paris 2011, pp. 83, 190, no. P. 123 (as Portrait of a Man, presumed to be Jacob van Loo’s Father, Jacques); M. van de Laar and A. Wallert, ‘Un autoportrait présumé de Jacob Van Loo au Rijksmuseum d’Amsterdam’, in C. Rolland (ed.), Autour des Van Loo: Peinture, commerce des tissus et espionnage en Europe (1250-1830), Rouen 2012, pp. 261-74

Citation

Jonathan Bikker, 2024, 'Jacob van Loo, Bust of a Man with a Gorget, possibly a Self-Portrait, c. 1655 - c. 1665', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.359108

(accessed 22 November 2024 22:46:10).