Object data
oil on panel
support: height 30.3 cm × width 24.7 cm × thickness 1 cm
outer size: depth 0.5 cm (support incl. frame)
Jan Antonisz van Ravesteyn (workshop of)
Portrait of Jan the Elder (1535-1606), Count of Nassau
c. 1610 - c. 1620
Inscriptions
- inscription, on the reverse: JOHAN GRAF ZU NASSAU CATZENELB.
Technical notes
The support is a single vertically grained oak panel bevelled on all sides. The ground layer is white. There is little visible brushmarking, and impasto was used only for the highlights.
Scientific examination and reports
- technical report: W. de Ridder, RMA, 1 September 2004
Condition
Fair. The paint layers of the collar and under the figure’s chin are abraded. There is a pinpoint loss on the figure’s right cheek. The varnish is moderately discoloured and streaky.
Conservation
- J.A. Hesterman & Zn, 1908: restored
Provenance
...; first recorded in the museum in 1809;1 on loan to the Oranje-Nassau Museum, The Hague, 1926-32
Object number: SK-A-538
Copyright: Public domain
Context
The Katzenelnbogen Series
These eight small bust-length portraits show Jan the Elder, Count of Nassau (shown here), two of his sons and five of his grandsons. Until now they have been incorrectly grouped together with the so-called Honselaarsdijk Series, called the Leeuwarden Series in the present catalogue. Whereas the portraits that make up the Leeuwarden Series were already listed in Cornelis Sebille Roos’s 1801 manuscript catalogue of the paintings in the Nationale Konst-Gallery in Huis ten Bosch, the eight paintings in the present series were only recorded for the first time in the 1809 catalogue of the museum in its new home in Amsterdam.2 In the 1809 catalogue, moreover, they appear together after the works in the Leeuwarden Series. These portraits also differ in a number of ways from those in that series, with which there is some overlap. They are slightly larger, and instead of having inscriptions on the front they are inscribed on the reverse, all in similar block letters and in German. As the name Katzenelnbogen is used in these inscriptions, it has been decided here to call these eight paintings ‘The Katzenelnbogen Series’.
Unfortunately, it has not been possible to discover any information about the provenance of the series. Nor does the name Katzenelnbogen provide a clue to the provenance, as this name could be used by all members of the houses of Orange and Nassau. In an accord that was reached in Frankfurt on 30 June 1557, the small seigniory of Katzenelnbogen, which lies east of the Rhine river between Cologne and Mainz, was given to the House of Hesse, while the name and coat of arms were made the property of William the Silent and Jan the Elder’s father, Willem the Rich and his descendants.3 The original owner of the series was presumably a descendant of Jan the Elder, possibly one of those portrayed. Three portraits in Paleis Soestdijk since 1950 probably belong to the same series. They are of Jan the Elder’s sons Willem Lodewijk (1560-1620) and Ernst Casimir (1573-1632), and his grandson Albert (1596-1626).4 The sitters have been given the same very ruddy complexions as Jan the Elder, Jan the Middle, Philips and Jan the Younger in the Rijksmuseum portraits. The panels, moreover, are similar in size, and also bear inscriptions in black paint on the reverse, including the name Katzenelnbogen, with the exception of the Portrait of Ernst Casimir.
In the 1976 Rijksmuseum catalogue, the portraits of Jan the Middle (SK-A-540), Jan the Younger (SK-A-539), Adolf5 and Willem (SK-A-543) are attributed to Van Ravesteyn himself. The quality, however, is not high enough to warrant such an attribution. Rather, they and those of Jan the Elder and Philips (SK-A-542) were probably executed by Van Ravesteyn’s studio. The portraits of Jan the Elder (SK-A-538), Jan the Middle, Philips, Jan the Younger and Adolf seem to be the work of one assistant. Going by the ruffs and collars in these portraits, most of the prototypes were probably executed between 1605 and 1615; a date of about 1610 to 1620 has therefore been given to these works. The prototype for the Portrait of Willem was probably executed between 1620 and 1630. The remaining two in the series are mediocre works to which it has not been possible to attach a name or a studio (SK-A-541 and SK-A-537). The Portrait of George Frederik is dated 1636.
Jonathan Bikker, 2007
The Katzenelnbogen Series, missing work
Portrait of Adolf (1586-1608), Count of Nassau-Siegen, c. 1610-20 (SK-A-562)
Workshop of Jan Anthonisz van Ravesteyn
Oil on panel, 30 x 25 cm
INSCRIPTIONS
Inscribed, on the reverse: ADOLF GR.ZW.NASSAU KAZENELE
PROVENANCE
...; first recorded in the museum in 18096
ENTRY
This portrait is missing, but is known from black-and-white photographs. For the sitter’s biography see the entry on the Portrait of Adolf, Count of Nassau-Siegen (SK-A-535) in the Leeuwarden Series. Both portraits probably follow the same lost prototype, which can be dated to around 1606-08.
COLLECTION CATALOGUES
1809, p. 93, no. 440 (without attribution); 1853, p. 36, no. 402 (as Anonymous; collective number for the Leeuwarden and Katzenelnbogen series; fl. 2,000); 1880, p. 370, no. 431y (as Anonymous); 1887, p. 140, no. 1182 (as Van Ravesteyn); 1903, p. 221, no. 1993 (as Van Ravesteyn); 1934, p. 237, no. 1993 (as Van Ravesteyn); 1976, p. 701, no. A 562 (as attributed to Van Ravesteyn)
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. 400, with information on its inscription, literature, collection catalogues and provenance.
The artist
Jan Anthonisz van Ravesteyn (? Culemborg c. 1572 - The Hague 1657)
Although there are no archival records to support such a supposition, it is believed that Jan Anthonisz van Ravesteyn was the son of a glass-painter, Anthonis van Ravesteyn, who is documented in Culemborg in 1593 and in The Hague in 1602. Van Ravesteyn’s date of birth is also uncertain, but it was probably around 1572. His name appears in two notarized documents from October 1597 in Delft, which has led to the belief that he was apprenticed to Van Mierevelt. However, Van Ravesteyn’s earliest known work, Portrait of Hugo de Groot at the Age of 16 of 1599,7 differs from Van Mierevelt’s early oeuvre, which, it has to be admitted does not include paintings from before 1600. In 1598 Van Ravesteyn joined the painters’ guild in The Hague, where he remained the rest of his life, marrying Anna Arentsdr van Barendrecht from Dordrecht in 1604. The wedding took place at the town hall, not in the Reformed Church, and from other, later documents it is known that the artist was a Catholic. A Van Ravesteyn was dean of the painters’ guild in The Hague in 1617, but whether this was Jan van Ravesteyn or his brother Anthonie, who was also a painter, is not known. In 1631, 1634 and 1637 he was nominated as warden of the guild, but not elected. He may perhaps have served in some capacity before 1631, but as the records of the guild’s administrators are spotty before that year, this cannot be ascertained.
Van Ravesteyn was the foremost portraitist in The Hague in the first half of the 17th century. His clientele consisted primarily of highly placed government officials and the patrician circles of The Hague and Dordrecht, the latter probably because of his wife’s ties to that town. In addition to portraits of individual burghers, Van Ravesteyn painted five civic guard pieces, some of which were quite innovative. Although there are hundreds of extant portraits by Van Ravesteyn and his workshop dating to after 1611, the number before that date is extremely small, in spite of the fact that his work was already being praised by Van Mander in 1604. His breakthrough – at least as far as commissions are concerned – seems to have come with the ambitious series of officers’ portraits begun probably for Prince Maurits in 1611.8 As his last signed and dated works are from 1641, Van Ravesteyn seems to have laid down his paintbrushes in that year. He was, however, one of the first artists invited to join the newly established Confrerie Pictura in 1656. The guild books list the names of his numerous pupils, the only outstanding one being Adriaen Hanneman (c. 1604-71), who would later become his son-in-law.
Jonathan Bikker, 2007
References
Van Mander 1604, fol. 300r; Van Gool I, 1750, pp. 15-22; Terwesten 1770, p. 9; Obreen III, 1880-81, pp. 261, 283, 285, IV, 1881-82, pp. I, 4-7, 10, 30, 59, V, 1882-83, pp. 68, 70, 72; Bredius/Moes 1892; Ekkart in The Hague 1998, pp. 230-37
Entry
The Katzenelnbogen Series
For Jan the Elder’s biography see the entry on De Geest’s Group Portrait of the Four Brothers of Willem I, Prince of Orange (SK-A-566). The ruff worn by Jan the Elder here is different from the one he has in De Geest’s portrait. The present work was probably copied after another, lost portrait of this Nassau count.
Jonathan Bikker, 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. 396.
Collection catalogues
1809, p. 93, ? no. 439 (without attribution); 1853, p. 36, no. 402 (as Anonymous; collective number for the Leeuwarden and Katzenelnbogen Series; fl. 2,000); 1858, p. 182, ? no. 402w (as 17th-century Dutch School); 1880, p. 366, no. 431c (as Anonymous); 1887, p. 72, no. 576 (as 17th Dutch School); 1903, p. 220, no. 1980 (as Van Ravesteyn); 1934, p. 236, no. 1980 (as Van Ravesteyn); 1960, p. 253, no. 1980 (as Van Ravesteyn); 1976, p. 699, no. A 538; 2007, no. 396
Citation
J. Bikker, 2007, 'workshop of Jan Antonisz. van Ravesteyn, Portrait of Jan the Elder (1535-1606), Count of Nassau, c. 1610 - c. 1620', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8749
(accessed 27 November 2024 00:33:32).