Officers and Other Civic Guardsmen of the IIIrd District of Amsterdam, under the Command of Captain Allaert Cloeck and Lieutenant Lucas Jacobsz Rotgans

Entry

The earliest of two civic guard pieces executed by Thomas de Keyser, and his largest portrait commission, this painting shows 16 men from District III serving under Captain Allaert Cloeck and Lieutenant Lucas Jacobsz Rotgans. It is one of the few civic guard portraits for which preparatory drawings exist, and those two drawings are the only extant ones by De Keyser (figs. a-b). One of them bears the date 27 November 1630. De Keyser probably received the commission some time earlier that year. Two events that transpired in 1630, the appointment of Allaert Cloeck as captain in District III, and the company’s transfer from the Voetboogdoelen to the Kloveniersdoelen, may have led to the commissioning of the portrait.³

The names of the sitters are listed on two trompe l’oeil pieces of paper in the lower left corner of the painting. The functions of the men within the company are not specified beside the names, but it is known from other sources who the captain, lieutenant and ensign were. Captain Allaert Cloeck stands in the centre of the composition, holding a glove and commander’s baton in his left hand. Behind him is the ensign, who was Allaert Cloeck’s younger brother, Nicolaas.⁴ They were the sons of the pro-Remonstrant Nanningh Florisz Cloeck, who had served as the lieutenant in District III until he was forced to resign in 1620 for criticizing the Counter-Remonstrant burgomaster, Reijnier Pauw.⁵ That the Remonstrant Allaert Cloeck was appointed captain in 1630 is a reflection of the new political situation in Amsterdam, in which Pauw’s Counter-Remonstrant faction was replaced in the 1620s by a Remonstrant majority. The other lieutenant to be dismissed with Nanning Florisz Cloeck in 1620, Jan Claesz van Vlooswijck, also profited from this political reversal. He was appointed captain of District IV in 1627. Van Vlooswijck’s appointment resulted in a crisis, as a few of the Counter-Remonstrant guardsmen under his command considered him an enemy of their religion.⁶ The appointment of Allaert Cloeck did not result in a similar crisis.

In addition to Allaert and Nicolaas Cloeck, De Keyser’s civic guard piece includes four men who were Remonstrants by 1630, and two more who would join the Church in 1631 and 1648.⁷ Not all of the men were Remonstrants, however. One, in fact, had been a beneficiary of Pauw’s Counter-Remonstrant faction and another was related to one of its members. Standing to the right of Allaert and Nicolaas Cloeck, holding a partisan, is the company’s lieutenant, Lucas Jacobsz Rotgans. The Counter-Remonstrant Rotgans was the very man who had replaced the Cloeck brothers’ father as lieutenant in 1620. One of the burgomasters who had supported Nanningh Florisz Cloeck’s dismissal in 1620 was Jacob Gerritsz Hoyngh, who, until a few years earlier, had been captain of District III. Hoyngh’s son, Thomas, is one of the other guardsmen in the present painting. Lucas Jacobsz Rotgans, Thomas Jacobsz Hoyngh and the other Counter-Remonstrant guardsmen among the sitters had to and did accept the political realities of the time. Obviously, they were willing to serve under a Remonstrant captain and to pay to have themselves included in a group portrait of the company. Also indicative of what appears to have been Rotgans’s relaxed attitude towards religion and politics – whether imposed upon him or not – is the fact that in the 1640s he made cattle purchases with Jan Claesz van Vlooswijck.⁸

In addition to dealing in cattle, Rotgans had a soap business located in Op ’t Water, the present-day Damrak (no. 30), and in 1630 he was appointed Commissioner of Maritime Affairs. Rotgans later became captain of District III.⁹ The Cloeck brothers were also soap manufacturers by profession, having taken over their father’s business, also situated in Damrak (no. 44). Allaert Cloeck had studied at Leiden University and was elected to the city council in 1631. He held a number of civic functions, including Commissioner of Matrimonial Affairs and magistrate. In the year De Keyser finished the portrait, he was captain of a contingent sent to fight the Spanish at Nijmegen. In 1638, he was one of four captains to welcome Maria de’ Medici into Amsterdam and in 1639 he became a governor of the Voetboogdoelen. Allaert’s brother, Nicolaas Cloeck, first served as ensign in 1625 under Captain Jacob Jacobsz Hinlopen in District III.¹⁰ In the same year, and also under Hinlopen’s captaincy, he served as ensign for a contingent of Amsterdam guardsmen sent to Zaltbommel to fight the Spanish.¹¹ Another of the men in De Keyser’s portrait, Jan Roeloffs Vogelesangh, was also part of this force, as was possibly Hendrick Colijn.¹²

The fourth and fifth names listed on the painting are those of Jan Roeloffs Vogelesangh and Gerrit Pietersz Schagen. Because they are listed after the names of the captain, lieutenant and ensign these men may have been the company’s two sergeants.¹³ Jan Roeloffs Vogelesangh was 28 years old in 1630 and Gerrit Pietersz Schagen 43. The sergeants can be identified in the painting by the halberds they hold. If indeed they are the sergeants, based on their ages, Vogelesangh would be the second figure from the right in the top row and Schagen the third figure from the left in the bottom row.¹⁴ Vogelesangh kept a list of paintings he owned, in which he included his portrait in De Keyser’s guard piece. Vogelesangh valued it at 61 guilders, which may have been the price he paid.¹⁵ It is known that the sitters in Frans Hals’s Meager Company (SK-C-374) paid 60 guilders each for their portraits just a few years later. Van Eeghen, who published the list of paintings, assumed that Vogelesangh would have been one of the large figures on the elevated platform with the Cloeck brothers and Lieutenant Rotgans.¹⁶ Although not stated, Van Eeghen probably based her assumption on the high valuation of the portrait in Vogelesangh’s list of paintings. The smaller figures in the back rows would likely have paid less. The issue will probably never be resolved with certainty, but the age discrepancy of 15 years between Vogelesangh and Schagen seems more apparent in the figures of the two sergeants than in the larger, unidentified men in the foreground.

Apart from the captain, lieutenant and ensign, the only other portrait that can be identified with certainty is that of Dirck Pietersz Pers in the upper left corner.¹⁷ Around the same time as he was portrayed by De Keyser, Pers sat with his wife for Dirck van Santvoort.¹⁸ Theodor Matham made an engraving, probably after Van Santvoort’s painting, that carries an inscription identifying the sitter.¹⁹ Pers’s publishing house in Damrak (first at no. 36 and later at no. 41) was one of the largest in Amsterdam. He published the first emblem books in the northern Netherlands, as well as the first works by Vondel. Pers was also an occasional poet and translator. Among his translations was the first Dutch edition of Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia, which he published in 1644. Among the men portrayed in De Keyser’s painting are two other publishers, Michiel Colijn and Hans Walschaert, both of whom also had establishments in Damrak.

De Keyser may have known these men from the Guild of St Luke, to which not only artists but also publishers and booksellers belonged. Dirck Pietersz Pers, in fact, was guild official in 1631, and De Keyser witnessed a document before him on 31 May of that year.²⁰ Another point of contact between De Keyser and some of the guardsmen would have been the Remonstrant persuasion.²¹ As mentioned above, six of the men belonged to the movement by the time the present portrait was commissioned. De Keyser, himself, became one of the first members when the church was granted legal status in 1631. Perhaps also of consequence for the choice of artist for the commission was that Thomas de Keyser’s brother Pieter, as city mason, was probably overseeing the addition being made to the Kloveniersdoelen at the time.²²

The two preliminary drawings that have been preserved show dynamic compositions unparalleled in civic guard portraiture before this time. Indeed, as is often pointed out in the literature, they anticipate Rembrandt’s innovations in The Night Watch. In the painting itself, as in the two drawings, the central figures stand on a platform or are ascending the steps leading up to it. However, instead of the animated groups of guardsmen on either side of the central group in the drawings, the men in the background of the painting are shown standing rigidly, pressed together in two rows. The composition of the painting is significantly less wide than that in the drawings; had De Keyser followed the 1:2 height/width ratio of the drawings, the painting would have been approximately 90 centimetres wider than it actually is.²³ We know from Gerard Schaep’s description of the paintings in the Kloveniersdoelen that the painting hung in 1653 in the vestibule above the staircase leading to the large hall.²⁴ In the period during which De Keyser worked on the painting, this part of the headquarters was apparently under construction.²⁵ The differences between the painting and the drawings regarding the poses of the men and the width of the composition were possibly the result of changes that were made to the design of the vestibule. Another plausible explanation is that a decision was made to place not one, but two civic guard portraits above the staircase in the vestibule.²⁶

These possible explanations better account for the compositional changes than Adams’s hypothesis that a more conservative composition was requested by the guardsmen because ‘Remonstrant schutters especially must have wished to reassure their fellow citizens of their determination not to disrupt urban life’.²⁷ Adams suggests that had De Keyser retained the active poses of the preparatory drawings in the finished painting, the Counter-Remonstrant citizens of Amsterdam would have regarded the Remonstrant guardsmen as ‘menacing’. However, as shown above, not all of the guardsmen depicted in the portrait were Remonstrants, and it is difficult to imagine, for example, that Lieutenant Lucas Jacobsz Rotgans or Thomas Jacobsz Hoyngh would have taken part in any kind of Remonstrant propaganda. The Remonstrants, moreover, firmly held power in Amsterdam at this time, and did not need to pander to potential Counter-Remonstrant fears. In addition, as Van Thiel has pointed out, the notion of a ‘non-threatening and non-military’ civic guard (to use Adams’s words) does not work very well.²⁸

Jonathan Bikker, 2007

THE SITTERS, THEIR RANKS, RELIGIOUS AFFILIATIONS, OCCUPATIONS AND ADDRESSES²⁹

Allaert Cloeck (1588-1645)
Captain. Remonstrant. Merchant and soap manufacturer. Damrak (no. 44).³⁰

Lucas Jacobsz Rotgans (1587-1646)
Lieutenant. Reformed. Merchant and soap manufacturer. Damrak (no. 30).³¹

Nicolaas Cloeck (1591-1647)
Ensign. Remonstrant. Merchant and soap manufacturer. Damrak (no. 44).³²

Jan Roeloffs Vogelesangh (1602-59)
Seargeant? Reformed. Merchant. Singel (no. 194 or 114).³³

Gerrit Pietersz Schagen (1586/87-1661)
Seargeant? Reformed. Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal.

Michiel Colijn (1584-1637)
Remonstrant. Printer, publisher and book dealer. Damrak (no. 40).³⁴

Hans Walschaert (1588-1636)
Reformed. Publisher. Damrak.³⁵

Jan Kuysten (’s-Hertogenbosch c. 1572-?)
Reformed. Korsjespoortsteeg.

Adolf Forckenbeeck (c. 1600-89)
Remonstrant. Cloth merchant. Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal.³⁶

Aris Hendrick Hallewat (1568/69-1656)
Remonstrant. Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal.

Hendrick Colijn (1593-1651)
Remonstrant. Confectioner. Nieuwezijds Achterburgwal (Spuistraat). Brother of Michiel Colijn.

Hademan van Laer (Deventer c. 1584-?)
Not Reformed. Dyer. Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal.

Dirck Pietersz Pers (Emden 1581-1659)
Remonstrant. Publisher, bookseller, translator and poet. Damrak (nos. 36 and 41).

Frederik Schuylenborch (1599-?)
Damrak.

Thomas Jacobsz Hoyngh (1594-1632)
Reformed. Nieuwendijk (no. 158).

Julius van den Bergen
This guardsman has not been identified.

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. 161.

See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements