The Directors of the Serge Cloth Industry, Amsterdam

1643

Object data

oil on canvas

support: height 207.5 cm × width 299 cm
outer size: depth 12 cm (support incl. SK-L-5942)

Inscriptions

signature and date, top right: D.D. Santvoort fec. 1643
inscription, centre right, at the bottom of the book’s left page: Anno 1643 dese gedaen naer Sr. Jacques de Win, Pieter Noordijck, Gerrit Kuycken, Gerbrant Anslo (Anno 1643, this done after Mr Jacques de Win, Pieter Noortdijck, Gerrit Kuycken, Gerbrant Anslo)

Technical notes

Support The plain-weave canvas has been wax-resin lined. All tacking edges have been removed. No cusping is present.
Preparatory layers The single, beige-greyish ground extends up to the current edges of the canvas. It consists of white and ochre-coloured pigment particles varying in size, and smaller orange and black pigment particles. The ground seems identical to that found on Van Santvoort’s Portrait of Martinus Alewijn (SK-A-1310).
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the current edges of the canvas. A first lay-in was done in a translucent brown paint. The composition was built up from the back to the front and from light to dark, using reserves for the figures but not for the hands. Infrared photography revealed dark halos (unidentified) around the heads of the two men on the left, as well as small adjustments to all collars except for that of the director sitting on the far right. A delicate, evenly spaced, black pattern was applied on top of the dark grey clothing of the seated man on the left which does not follow the movement of the folds. The surface of the paint layer is fairly smooth, with impasto used for highlights and light coloured areas.
Anna Krekeler, 2024

Scientific examination and reports

infrared photography: A. Krekeler, RMA, 26 November 2008
paint samples: A. Krekeler, RMA, nos. SK-C-394/1-2, 3 December 2008
technical report: A. Krekeler, RMA, 3 December 2008

Condition

Fair. There is a repaired tear (with discoloured retouching) in the upper right corner. The paint layer has a distinct crack pattern and is abraded. The varnish is very thick, has severely yellowed and saturates poorly.

Provenance

Commissioned by the sitters, for the Saaihal;¹ first recorded in the Saaihal, Amsterdam, 1765 (‘Op de kamer der Hoofdluiden, hangt een groot stuk, waar in vier der eerste Hoofdluiden, Jacques de Win, Pieter Noortdyk, Gerrit Kuycken en Gerbrant Anslo, die, in ’t jaar 1643, dienden, benevens den knegt der Saai-Halle, Jan Stockmans, geschilderd zyn:…’);² transferred to the hall in front of the regents’ chamber in the Leper House, Mr. Visserplein, Amsterdam, before 1860;³ transferred to the room of the Royal Commissioner, Amsterdam Town Hall, 1879;⁴ on loan from the City of Amsterdam to the museum since 1885

Object number: SK-C-394

Credit line: On loan from the City of Amsterdam

The artist

Dirck van Santvoort (Amsterdam 1609 - Amsterdam 1680)

Dirck van Santvoort was baptized in Amsterdam’s Nieuwe Kerk on 6 December 1609. His immediate family included several painters, for he was the son of the Amsterdam landscapist Pieter Dircksz Bontepaert (van Santvoort) and Truytgen Pieters, the grandson of Pieter Pietersz on his mother’s side, and thus the great-grandson of Pieter Aertsen. It is not known who his teacher was, but it is only logical to assume that it was his father. Van Santvoort may have been active in Rembrandt’s studio in the first half of the 1630s, when the master was collaborating closely with the art dealer Hendrick Uylenburgh. It is also possible that he worked not for Rembrandt but for Uylenburgh. This may explain why he did not join the Amsterdam Guild of St Luke until 1636. In 1641 he married Baertgen Pont, and after her death Trijntje Rieuwertsdr in 1657. Various documents relating to financial transactions and property investments show that Van Santvoort had no money worries. He is regularly recorded as an appraiser of paintings, sometimes together with Uylenburgh’s eldest son Gerrit, who lived near him in Breestraat. Van Santvoort was buried in the Nieuwe Kerk on 9 March 1680.

His earliest dated picture, A Boy Dressed as a Shepherd of 1632, which is the companion piece to A Girl Dressed as a Shepherdess,⁵ features a pastoral figure in the manner of Jacob Gerritsz Cuyp. A Christ at Emmaus dated 1633 shows that in his rare histories Van Santvoort took his lead from Rembrandt,⁶ some of whose works he copied. However, from the early 1630s on he mainly made his name with likenesses of burghers, which owe much to the art of Cornelis van der Voort and Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy. These paintings are adequately executed in a polished yet sometimes slightly naive style without much in the way of embellishment. They are largely distinguished by his rendering of lace. In addition to major commissions for group portraits, such as The Regentesses and Housemistresses of the Spinning House of 1638⁷ and The Directors of the Serge Cloth Industry of 1643,⁸ it is Van Santvoort’s likenesses of children that display his gifts to best effect. His last dated works, which include the Portrait of Otto van Vollenhoven with his Wife Appolonia Bogaert and their Daughter Maria,⁹ are from 1645, so he was active as a painter for only about a decade. He is recorded as a warden of the Amsterdam Guild of St Luke in 1658 and again in 1672, but that could have been due to his occupation as an art dealer.

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2024

References
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. 312; ibid., 4 (1886), pp. 71-80, 135-44, 215-24, 295-304, esp. p. 73; N. de Roever, ‘Pieter Aertsz: gezegd Lange Pier, vermaard schilder’, Oud Holland 7 (1889), pp. 1-38, esp. pp. 35-38; A. Bredius, Künstler-Inventare, I, The Hague 1915, p. 217; ibid., III, 1917, pp. 768-70; ibid., VI, 1919, p. 1884; Stechow in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XXIX, Leipzig 1935, pp. 453-54; S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, ‘Enkele adressen van zestiende eeuwse kunstschilders’, Maandblad Amstelodamum 74 (1987), pp. 1-7, esp. p. 5; J. van der Veen, ‘Het kunstbedrijf van Hendrick Uylenburgh in Amsterdam: Productie en handel tussen 1625 en 1655’, in F. Lammertse and J. van der Veen, Uylenburgh en Zoon: Kunst en commercie van Rembrandt tot De Lairesse, 1625-1675, exh. cat. London (Dulwich Picture Gallery)/Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis) 2006, pp. 117-205, esp. p. 137; E.J. Sluijter, Rembrandt’s Rivals: History Painting in Amsterdam 1630-1650, Amsterdam/Philadelphia 2015, pp. 293-96; Van der Molen in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, CI, Munich/Leipzig 2018, pp. 157-58

Entry

This 1643 group portrait of the directors of the serge cloth industry was painted by Dirck van Santvoort for their meeting room in Amsterdam’s Saaihal (Serge Hall), which was opened in 1641, and is thus a declaration of pride in their new premises. The hall was part of a complex of buildings including the Staalhof (Sample Court, dating from 1626), the Tarhof (Tare Court) and the Zijdehal (Silk Hall, 1650) that was erected between modern Staalstraat and Groenburgwal after the establishment of the serge, cloth and silk industries in the city.¹⁰ Together they formed the centre of the Amsterdam cloth industry. The wool sample being presented by the servant on the left is a reference to the trade in serge for which the directors are responsible.

Wagenaar was the first to describe the painting. ‘Hanging in the directors’ chamber is a large piece depicting four of the first directors, Jacques de Win, Pieter Noortdijck, Gerrit Kuycken and Gerbrant Anslo, who served in the year 1643, as well as the servant of the Serge Hall, Jan Stockmans.’¹¹ The names written at the bottom of the left page of the book on the table very probably identify the seated men from left to right.¹² Wagenaar also refers to a document of 29 January 1644 in which it was stated that the money required for the work was provided by the directors themselves and that they intended the painting to hang in the meeting room in the Saaihal.¹³ It was the custom for the sitters to pay for regents’ group portraits.¹⁴

The Mennonite Gerbrant (or Gerrit) Anslo (1612-1643), who is identified by the inscription in the book and his age as the man on the far right, was the eldest son of the Mennonite minister Cornelis Claesz Anslo, whose likeness was etched and painted by Rembrandt in 1640 and 1641.¹⁵ In the first half of the 1630s Van Santvoort may have worked with the artist,¹⁶ through whom he could have got to know Anslo. The latter became a cloth merchant like his father, and it was in that capacity that he would have been appointed a director of the serge industry.¹⁷ His death in April 1643 might indicate that the group portrait was finished in the winter of 1642-43 and thus that the commission was awarded in 1642. Jacques de Win (1589-1662), who was born and bred in Antwerp, was also a merchant and lived on Amsterdam’s Singel.¹⁸ He is probably the man in front of the table on the left, indicating that he held a senior position on the board. The only person standing is the servant, Jan Stockmans, beside him, who is depicted in the traditional way with his hat in his hand. Pieter Noortdijck and Gerrit Kuycken would be the men seated in the middle.

This was Van Santvoort’s second regents’ portrait, after his Regentesses and Housemistresses of the Spinning House of 1638.¹⁹ The composition with two figures behind the table and two at the ends had already been used by Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy, among others, in his Four Governors and a House Father of the Spinhuis Prison of 1628,²⁰ and by Claes Moeyaert in 1640 in his Governors and Governesses of the Old Men’s and Women’s Almshouse.²¹ Van Santvoort opted for full-length figures in both his group portraits. The directors’ very foreshortened legs could indicate that he anticipated the work being placed high up on a wall, although it must be said that anatomical fidelity was not his strongest suit. The painting is marked by a sobriety in dress, execution and secondary details and stands out for the highly individualized features.

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2024

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

A. del Court van Krimpen, La famille Del Court van Krimpen, réfugiés de Verviers: Leur rôle dans l’industrie drapière en Hollande au 17e et 18e siècle et leur place dans la magistrature: Avec une étude sur le tableau de Rembrandt dit ‘De Staalmeesters’, Arnhem 1916, p. 100, note 3; Middelkoop in N. Middelkoop (ed.), Kopstukken: Amsterdammers geportretteerd 1600-1800, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum) 2002-03, p. 169, note 19

Collection catalogues

1887, p. 152, no. 1282; 1903, p. 239, no. 2128; 1976, p. 498, no. C 394

Citation

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2024, 'Dirck van Santvoort, The Directors of the Serge Cloth Industry, Amsterdam, 1643', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.10759

(accessed 25 November 2024 19:45:23).