Portrait of Ernst Casimir I (1573-1632), Count of Nassau-Dietz

c. 1630 - c. 1635

Object data

oil on canvas

support: height 200 cm × width 130 cm
outer size: depth 9 cm (support incl. frame)

Technical notes

The support is a lined plain-weave canvas. On the left, about 6 cm from the edge, nail-holes and frayed canvas edges are impressed in a vertical direction on the picture surface, and suggest a later addition of canvas by the artist or during an early restoration. Another addition on the right is suggested by a vertical continuous crack from top to bottom, approximately 7 cm from the right edge. Imprints of the original stretcher are vaguely visible at top left and right, and at bottom right, and seem to extend to the left edge. The ground layer is light in colour. The painting is smoothly executed, with broad, visible brushmarks, particularly in the clothing and the tablecloth. A pentimento is present below the sitter’s feet, and shows that the boots were originally several centimetres below where they are in the final version.

Scientific examination and reports

technical report: M. van de Laar, RMA, 26 August 2004

Condition

Fair. The paint surface is somewhat abraded. There are some areas of retouching and the varnish is irregular.

Conservation

W.A. Hopman, 1879: canvas lined
conservator unknown, 1903: treatment unknown
C. Luk, 1985: complete restoration

Provenance

...; first recorded in the museum in 1808;¹ on loan to the Stedelijk Museum Het Prinsenhof, Delft, 1949-65

Object number: SK-A-570

The artist

Wybrand de Geest (Leeuwarden c. 1592 - Leeuwarden 1661/65)

Wybrand de Geest was probably born in Leeuwarden on 16 August 1592, going by the inscription on the back of his self-portrait (SK-A-1780) in the Rijksmuseum. It is likely that he received his initial training from his father, Simon Juckes de Geest, a glasspainter. It emerges from the contributions to his album amicorum that he trained with Abraham Bloemaert in Utrecht in 1613-14, and the same source shows that he travelled for seven years after completing his apprenticeship, and visited Paris and Aix-en-Provence. He spent most of his time in Rome, however, where he stayed from 1616. In the Schildersbent (Band of Painters) there he was given the nickname ‘The Frisian Eagle’, according to Houbraken because of his ‘high flight in art’. He was still in Rome in 1620, but was back in Leeuwarden in 1621, for in that year he painted the group portrait of the local Verspeeck family.² He was to spend the rest of his life in Leeuwarden. A Catholic, he married before the magistrate on 19 October 1622, his bride being Hendrickje Uylenburgh. One of Hendrickje’s cousins was the father of Saskia, Rembrandt’s wife. De Geest moved in lofty circles, was himself not without means, served as a regent of a charitable institution in 1639, and bore a coat of arms. His children and grandchildren even felt that they belonged to the Frisian aristocracy. His praises were sung by the poet Joost van den Vondel while he was still alive, and several eulogies were written about portraits of his. It is not known when he died, but it was between 1661 and 1665. His last works date from 1660, and there is also a letter he wrote in 1661. In 1665 his wife was recorded as being a widow.

Although Houbraken called him a ‘fine history and portrait painter’, almost all his surviving works are portraits. After his return from Rome he became the favourite portrait painter of Ernst Casimir of Nassau-Dietz (later Stadholder of Friesland) and his wife Sophia Hedwig of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, of their son Hendrik Casimir, and of the landed aristocracy of Friesland. Fragments from the diaries of Hendrik’s brother, Willem Frederik, record that he visited De Geest on more than one occasion ‘to have myself painted’. De Geest must have had a studio with assistants, given the many commissions he received, of which copies were often made. His pupils included Jacob Potma (c. 1610-80) and his son Julius Franciscus de Geest (?-1699). In the course of 40 years his portraiture evolved from the solemn, formal manner of Van Mierevelt and Van Ravesteyn to a more modern, fashionable style.

Yvette Bruijnen, 2007

References
Houbraken I, 1718, pp. 147-48; Campo Weyerman I, 1729, pp. 377-78; Descamps I, 1753, pp. 402-03; Hofstede de Groot 1889a; Hofstede de Groot in Thieme/Becker XIII, 1920, pp. 331-33; Wassenbergh 1967, pp. 37-40; De Vries 1982, pp. 9-11; Visser/Van der Plaat 1995, pp. 375, 479; De Vries in Turner 1996, XII, p. 233

Entry

Ernst Casimir was born on 22 December 1573 as the son of Jan the Elder of Nassau and Elisabeth van Leuchtenberg. His illustrious military career in the States army began in 1595 under Prince Maurits. In 1606 he was appointed lieutenant-general of the troops of Heinrich Julius, Duke of Braunschweig, and the following year he married the duke’s daughter, Sophia Hedwig of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel. Of their nine children, only Hendrik Casimir and Willem Frederik reached maturity. On the death of his brother Willem Lodewijk in 1620 he was appointed Stadholder of Friesland. When Maurits died in 1625 he became Stadholder of Groningen and Drenthe as well. In this period he lived chiefly in Leeuwarden. While inspecting the trenches during the Siege of Roermond in 1632 he died from a shot to the head.³

This monumental state portrait of Ernst Casimir shows him as a high-ranking commander in armour.⁴ There are several versions of this portrait, most of them paired with a portrait of his wife Sophia Hedwig. The House of Orange-Nassau Historic Collections Trust, responsible for the Dutch royal collection, has one of a similar size to this one, complete with its companion piece, which is listed in the inventory taken of the Stadholder’s Court in Leeuwarden in 1633.⁵ It is possible that those pendants served as the prototypes. There are also smaller versions, one being in the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden.⁶

The portrait in the Rijksmuseum lacks the virtuosity of the bust-length of Ernst Casimir signed by De Geest (SK-A-571), but the stylistic differences from the works known to have been painted by De Geest are not such as to cast doubt on the autograph nature of this one.⁷ It differs from the versions mentioned above in having the table with the plumed helmet on the left instead of the right. It can be taken that, like the other versions, it once formed a pair with the portrait of Sophia Hedwig.

The hairstyle, the cut of the knee-breeches, and the type of boots can be dated to around 1630,⁸ which ties in with the obviously more mature age of the sitter. The inventory of the Stadholder’s Court shows that the versions in the royal collection were in any event made before 1633, so it would only be logical to date the Rijksmuseum portrait c. 1630-32. However, since the 1633 bust-length of Ernst Casimir (SK-A-571) shows that De Geest also made posthumous portraits of the stadholder, it cannot be ruled out that this is another of them, so to err on the side of caution it is here dated c. 1630-35.

Yvette Bruijnen, 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. 84.

Literature

De Vries 1982, p. 76

Collection catalogues

1809, p. 94, no. 447 (as Anonymous); 1843, p. 77, no. 402 (as Anonymous; ‘badly lined’); 1853, p. 36, no. 388 (as Anonymous; fl. 500); 1858, p. 184, no. 407 (as Anonymous); 1880, pp. 101-02, no. 92; 1887, p. 48, no. 383; 1903, p. 103, no. 954; 1934, pp. 104-05, no. 954; 1976, p. 238, no. A 570; 2007, no. 84

Citation

Y. Bruijnen, 2007, 'Wybrand de (I) Geest, Portrait of Ernst Casimir I (1573-1632), Count of Nassau-Dietz, c. 1630 - c. 1635', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6936

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