Rijksmuseum

Object data

oil on panel

support: height 32.5 cm × width 28 cm
outer size: depth 3.5 cm (support incl. frame)

Technical notes

The single-membered panel has a vertical grain and is bevelled on all sides. The thinly applied ochre ground shows through the transparently painted collar and, to a lesser extent, face. The paint layers were also applied thinly and smoothly, with only minimal brushmarking visible in the beard and forehead. Much impasto was used in the collar, the edges of which were incised with the butt end of a brush.

Scientific examination and reports

technical report: I. Verslype, RMA, 27 October 2004

Condition

Fair. The paint layers are very abraded so that the grain of the panel is very apparent, especially in the face. The clothing (apart from the collar), the face and background have been extensively retouched. The varnish is moderately discoloured and there is a residue of old varnish on the collar.

Provenance

...; from the Remonstrant congregation, The Hague, fl. 275, as Portrait of Bernardus Prevostius, with a copy after Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem’s Portrait of Dirck Volkertsz Coornhert (SK-A-127) and Johannes Wtenbogaert’s chair, to the museum, 13 April 1804;¹ on loan to the Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, since 1977

Object number: SK-A-580

Entry

This portrait was purchased in 1804 from the Remonstrant congregation in The Hague as a portrait of Bernardus Prevostius. Presumably the person in question was Bartholomeus Praevostius (1587-1669), Remonstrant minister in Amsterdam from 1632 onwards.² The man in the present portrait, however, does not resemble Praevostius, whose likeness is preserved in an engraving by Hendrick Bary after Adriaen Backer.³ Praevostius, moreover, was younger than the man in the Rijksmuseum’s portrait which, based on the sitter’s clothing, was probably executed in the first half of the 17th century.

In the 1880 catalogue of the Rijksmuseum’s permanent collection, the sitter was identified as the Remonstrant minister Johannes Wtenbogaert (1557-1644) and the painting was attributed to Van Mierevelt for the first time.⁴ The portrait has also been considered a copy after Van Mierevelt’s 1631 portrait of Wtenbogaert.⁵ While the sitter does resemble Wtenbogaert as we know him from the several portraits executed by various artists, especially that by Jacob Backer from 1638 (SK-C-1474), the painting is definitely not a replica of Van Mierevelt’s 1631 portrait, nor should it be related to Van Mierevelt in any way. The relationship of the sitter to the surrounding space and the painting’s execution, especially the incised edges of the lace collar, are foreign to Van Mierevelt’s style. Given the likelihood that this portrait shows Wtenbogaert in old age, a dating to the last years of his life would be appropriate.

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. 444.

Literature

Kloek 1992, pp. 349-50 (as Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt); coll. cat. Utrecht 2002, pp. 225-26 (as copy after Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt)

Collection catalogues

1809, ? p. 89, no. 380 (as Portrait of Bernardus Prevostius); 1843, p. 75, no. 385 (as Portrait of Bernardus Prevostius; ‘the oak showing through’); 1853, ? p. 35, no. 372 (as Portrait of Bernardus Prevostius; fl. 50); 1858, ? p. 187, no. 418 (as Portrait of Bernardus Prevostius); 1880, pp. 209-10, no. 225 (as Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt); 1976, p. 384, no. A 580 (as Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt); 1992, pp. 67-68, no. A 580 (as Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt); 2007, no. 444

Citation

J. Bikker, 2007, 'anonymous, Portrait of Johannes Wtenbogaert (1557-1644), c. 1640 - c. 1644', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6941

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