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

1633

Object data

oil on panel

support: height 66.8 cm × width 58 cm
sight size: height 66.2 cm × width 57.2 cm
frame: height 89.1 cm × width 80.5 cm

Inscriptions

signature and date, upper left: Ao. 1633. / VDG. ƒ.
coat of arms, on the reverse: wax seal containing, among other devices, a four-legged animal

Technical notes

The oak support consists of three planks with a vertical grain and is bevelled on all sides. The ground layer, visible along the edges, is whitish and thin. The paint was applied in a lively manner, with visible brushstrokes in the face and hair. There is low impasto for highlights, and scratching in the detail of the lace in the collar. The right-hand side of the grey background has a lighter appearance due to the application of a translucent glaze.

Scientific examination and reports

technical report: L. Sozzani, RMA, 24 August 2004

Condition

Good. There is minor abrasion and spotting in the right background, the latter probably due to a chemical reaction in the paint.

Conservation

L. Kuiper, 1971: slightly retouched and the reverse waxed
W. Hesterman, 1990: complete restoration

Provenance

...; first recorded in the museum in 1808;¹ on loan to the Oranje-Nassau Museum, The Hague, 1926-32; on loan to the Rijksmuseum Muiderslot, Muiden, since 1971

Object number: SK-A-571

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

The date of 1633 shows that this is a posthumous portrait of Ernst Casimir, who died in battle in 1632. It is a type descended directly from that of the stadholder at the age of 54 by Michiel van Mierevelt, a print of which was made in 1628 by Willem Jacobsz Delff (RP-P-1898-A-20682, see fig. a). Only the lace in the collar and the sash are slightly different. De Geest’s portrait, however, is anything but an uninspired copy, for it is meticulous and virtuoso in execution. The modelling of the face is unerringly defined with visible brushstrokes, and the costly material of the sash is built up with transparent layers of paint. De Geest accentuated the lace in the collar by scratching in the wet white paint with the handle of his brush.

Until now this portrait has wrongly been regarded as the pendant of SK-A-572, identified in the present catalogue as a Portrait of Amalia van Solms after a Van Mierevelt prototype.³

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. 82.

Literature

Wassenbergh 1967, p. 35, no. 41; coll. cat. Muiden 1989, no. 18

Collection catalogues

1809, p. 94, no. 449, (as Anonymous); 1843, p. 77, no. 401 (as Anonymous; ‘in good condition’); 1853, p. 36, no. 387 (as Anonymous; fl. 100); 1858, p. 184, no. 408 (as Anonymous, 16th/17th century); 1880, pp. 102-03, no. 94; 1887, p. 49, no. 385; 1903, p. 103, no. 959 (as pendant of SK-A-572/no. 205); 1934, p. 105, no. 959 (as pendant of SK-A-572/no. 205); 1960, p. 109, no. 959 (as pendant of SK-A-572/no. 205); 1976, p. 237, no. A 571 (as pendant of SK-A-572/ no. 205); 2007, no. 82

Citation

Y. Bruijnen, 2007, 'Wybrand de (I) Geest, Portrait of Ernst Casimir I (1573-1632), Count of Nassau-Dietz, 1633', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6937

(accessed 23 November 2024 04:51:36).

Figures

fig. a Willem Jacobsz Delff after Michiel van Mierevelt, *Portrait of Ernst Casimir I (1573-1632)*. Engraving, 420 x 295 mm. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. no. RP-P-1898-A-20682.