Portrait of Dirck Hendrick Meulenaer (1620-in or after 1649 ?)

c. 1645

Object data

oil on canvas

support: height 88.2 cm × width 69 cm
outer size: depth 8 cm (support incl. frame)

Inscriptions

signature and date, lower left: Paulus Hennekyn / fe 16[.]5
inscription, on the reverse: Dirck Hendrik Meulenaer / zoon van Hendrik Meulenaer / en / Anneg Harms. (Dirck Hendrik Meulenaer, son of Hendrik Meulenaer and Anneg Harms.)

Technical notes

Support The plain-weave canvas has been wax-resin lined. All tacking edges, including the original nail holes, have been preserved. Judging by the crack pattern the bars of the original strainer were approx. 4 cm wide.
Preparatory layers The double ground extends over the tacking edges. The first layer is a reddish orange consisting of mostly orange, some dark red and a few bright red pigment particles. The second, yellowish-white ground is thinner and contains white and some bright yellow pigment particles and a few charcoal black particles.
Underdrawing Infrared photography revealed an underdrawing in a dry medium, consisting of lines indicating the chin, fingers and shadow of the hat on the face.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the tacking edges. The green background was executed first, leaving a neat reserve for the figure, still visible around the hair and the black lace on the shoulders. In several areas the sitter’s contours were adjusted with the background colour, and those of the hands and fingers with the black of the coat. The paint surface is smooth, with the exception of the thickly impasted whites. A red lake was used to indicate the deepest shadows in the mouth and nose.
Michel van de Laar, 2022

Scientific examination and reports

infrared photography: M. van de Laar, RMA, 10 November 2010
paint samples: M. van de Laar, RMA, nos. SK-A-693/1-2, 10 November 2010
technical report: M. van de Laar, RMA, 10 November 2010
infrared photography: M. van de Laar, RMA, 10 November 2010
paint samples: M. van de Laar, RMA, nos. SK-A-693/1-2, 10 November 2010
technical report: M. van de Laar, RMA, 10 November 2010

Condition

Good. The impasted white paint shows some moating due to the lining. A few retouchings are visible along the edges and in the sitter’s right hand. Some wax is present on the surface.

Conservation

H.H. Mertens, 1960: lined and transferred onto new stretcher
H. Plagge, 1961: treated
H.H. Mertens, 1960: lined and transferred onto new stretcher
H. Plagge, 1961: treated

Provenance

...; collection Jonkheer Jacobus Salomon Hendrik van de Poll (1837-1880), Amsterdam; by whom bequeathed to the museum, as J. van Hemert, with 51 other paintings, 13 April 1880¹

Object number: SK-A-693

Credit line: Jonkheer J.S.H. van de Poll Bequest, Amsterdam

The artist

Paulus Hennekyn (Amsterdam c. 1614 - Amsterdam 1672)

Paulus Hennekyn was born in Amsterdam around 1614 to the silversmith François Hennekin and his wife Anne Begin. His parents had left Antwerp for Amsterdam for religious reasons, arriving there on 21 November 1612, according to notes made by his father. In 1636 Paulus married Cornelia Swart in Amsterdam. They had five children, but only David survived into adulthood. He very probably was active as a painter too, but not a single work of his has survived. It is known that Paulus Hennekyn served in the Amsterdam civic guard from his inclusion in a group portrait that Bartholomeus van der Helst made of the signing of the Peace of Münster in 1648.² That was not the only connection between them, for in 1652 he was a witness when Van der Helst gave his wife a power of attorney, and in 1653 both were among the artists who made a deposition for Hendrick Uylenburgh about the authenticity of a work by Paul Bril. In 1658 Van der Helst made a sworn statement that he, Hennekyn and someone called Molenaar painted two garden decorations in return for the hospitality of the owner of the Huis te Manpad estate near Heemstede.

Various notarized documents show that Hennekyn was regularly in debt. In addition, in 1645 the father of a maidservant of his accused him of paying her unwanted attention. These events would have had something to with the fact that around 1649 he spent some time in Alkmaar, where he is known to have joined the Guild of St Luke. Hennekyn was a widower by 12 November 1668, when he married Anna van Neck. On 15 April 1672 he was buried in the Leidse Kerkhof in Amsterdam.

Hennekyn’s modest oeuvre comprises portraits, most of them busts, and still lifes. His likenesses, which are of variable quality, show that he was a follower of Bartholomeus van der Helst. There are reports of works from 1640, but there are no extant photographs of them.³ The 1642 picture of Anna van der Does in the Rijksmuseum is his earliest securely dated painting.⁴ His last one is the portrait of an unknown man with a stubbly beard of 1667.⁵

Richard Harmanni, 2022

References
C. Kramm, De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, beeldhouwers, graveurs en bouwmeesters: Van den vroegsten tot op onzen tijd, IV, Amsterdam 1864, p. 76; F.D.O. Obreen, Archief voor Nederlandsche kunstgeschiedenis: Verzameling van meerendeels onuitgegeven berichten en mededeelingen betreffende Nederlandsche schilders, plaatsnijders, beeldhouwers, bouwmeesters, juweliers, goud- en zilverdrijvers [enz.], II, Rotterdam 1879-80, p. 34; A.D. de Vries, ‘Biografische aanteekeningen betreffende voornamelijk Amsterdamsche schilders, plaatsnijders, enz. en hunne verwanten’, Oud Holland 3 (1885), pp. 55-80, 135-60, 223-40, 303-12, esp. p. 149; F.D.O. Obreen, Archief voor Nederlandsche kunstgeschiedenis: Verzameling van meerendeels onuitgegeven berichten en mededeelingen betreffende Nederlandsche schilders, plaatsnijders, beeldhouwers, bouwmeesters, juweliers, goud- en zilverdrijvers [enz.], VII, Rotterdam 1888-90, p. 302; A. Bredius, ‘Kunstkritiek der XVIIe eeuw’, Oud Holland 7 (1889), pp. 41-44, esp. p. 43; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstler-Lexikon, I, Leipzig/Vienna 1906, p. 678; A. Bredius, Künstler-Inventare, II, The Hague 1916, p. 401; ibid., IV, 1917, pp. 1105-11; U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XVI, Leipzig 1923, pp. 395-96; A.I. Menalda-van der Hoeven, ‘Johan Hennequin (1616-1670) en zijn bloedverwanten’, De Nederlandsche Leeuw 91 (1974), cols. 365-404, esp. cols. 378, 381-83; J.G.C.A. Briels, Vlaamse schilders en de dageraad van Hollands Gouden Eeuw 1585-1630, Antwerp 1997, p. 336; Ekkart in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, LXXI, Munich/Leipzig 2011, p. 515

Entry

Since its first mention in the literature in 1880 the signature on this portrait of a man standing at half length was read as ‘Jan v. Hemert’, a totally fictitious artist, until conservator Michel van de Laar deciphered it as ‘Paulus Hennekyn’ in 2010. The date is hard to read, and the third numeral is now completely illegible, but as the sitter’s costume is in the fashion of the mid-1640s the painting was most probably executed by 1645.⁶

The identification of the sitter as Dirck Hendrick Meulenaer was probably derived from the inscription on the back of the canvas. The painting presumably acquired its present lining, which looks modern, after its arrival in the museum in 1880, and it stands to reason that the text on the reverse was then copied from the original support, which seems to be confirmed by the – slightly different – transcription in the 1880 collection catalogue.⁷ The figure’s identity could certainly be correct, since the Van de Poll Bequest, of which the picture was part, contained more likenesses of members of the Meulenaer family.⁸ It is no longer possible to reconstruct the route by which the portraits passed by descent to Van de Poll.

Dirck Hendrick Meulenaer was baptized in the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam on 11 June 1620.⁹ The related certificate lists Hendrick Dircksz Meulenaer and Annetje Harmensdr as his parents, which is in full compliance with the inscription on the reverse and the mention in the 1880 collection catalogue. The couple became betrothed on 9 November 1601 in Amsterdam, where Hendrick worked as a shoemaker.¹⁰ He was buried in the Oude Kerk on 18 September 1638, and Annetje followed on 4 October 1645. Roelof Meulenaer, whose portrait by Ferdinand Bol is also in the Rijksmuseum,¹¹ was an elder brother of the here depicted Dirck. The biographical information about the latter is sparse. He is probably the Dirck Meulenaer who is documented as a junior merchant in Nagasaki from November 1646 to November 1649.¹² If so, this painting was made just before he left for Asia, and the journey could have been the reason for commissioning it. Meulenaer may have died in Japan at an early age, for there are no later references to him in either the Dutch East India Company (VOC) archives or those in Amsterdam.

Meulenaer is snappily dressed with a hatband of gold thread over a black silk ribbon. He is wearing a black doublet, trimmed with bobbin lace from Genoa,¹³ of which a slit in the sleeve reveals its green silk lining and his shirt of spotless white linen. He has slung his cloak around his body. The hand gesture could indicate that he is speaking.¹⁴ A slightly earlier example is found in Thomas de Keyser’s 1632 Portrait of a Man,¹⁵ and Hennekyn could also have borrowed it from likenesses by Bartholomeus van der Helst, with whom he is known to have been in touch.¹⁶ The lively composition, with the body slightly off balance, was quite new at the time and remained an exception in Hennekyn’s oeuvre. He and his clients preferred a restrained style, with a faithful resemblance being the prime requirement, together with care being lavished on a convincing rendering of the textures of the clothing. This portrait is a good illustration of that.

Eddy Schavemaker, Jonathan Bikker, 2022

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

V. de Stuers, ‘Het Kabinet van Jhr. J.S.H. Van de Poll’, Nederlandsche Kunstbode, 2 (1880), pp. 243-46, esp. p. 244 (as Jan van Hemert); U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XVI, Leipzig 1923, p. 364 (as Jan van Hemert); G. Kolleman, ‘Roelof Meulenaer: Postmeester tot Antwerpen’, Ons Amsterdam 23 (1971), pp. 114-21, esp. p. 118 (as Jan van Hemert)

Collection catalogues

1880, p. 481, no. 129a (as Jan van Hemert); 1887, p. 61, no. 487 (as Jan van Hemert); 1903, p. 124, no. 1155 (as Jan van Hemert); 1934, p. 127, no. 115 (as Jan van Hemert); 1960, p. 131, no. 1155 (as Jan van Hemert); 1976, p. 270, no. A 693 (as Jan van Hemert)

Citation

Eddy Schavemaker, 2022, 'Paulus Hennekyn, Portrait of Dirck Hendrick Meulenaer (1620-in or after 1649 ?), c. 1645', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8668

(accessed 14 November 2024 17:08:24).