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Portrait of Andreas van der Kruyssen (c. 1600-1663)
Cornelis Visscher (II), c. 1654 - c. 1658
- Artwork typedrawing, design
- Object numberRP-T-1889-A-1940
- Dimensionsheight 314 mm x width 223 mm
- Physical characteristicsblack chalk, on vellum; traces of framing line in brown and black ink
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Identification
Title(s)
Portrait of Andreas van der Kruyssen (c. 1600-1663)
Object type
Object number
RP-T-1889-A-1940
Part of catalogue
Creation
Creation
draftsman (artist): Cornelis Visscher (II), Amsterdam
Dating
c. 1654 - c. 1658
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Material and technique
Physical description
black chalk, on vellum; traces of framing line in brown and black ink
Dimensions
height 314 mm x width 223 mm
This work is about
Person
Subject
Acquisition and rights
Acquisition
purchase 1889
Copyright
Provenance
…; ? anonymous sale, Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 6 December 1797, no. 283 (‘Het pourtrait van pater A. van der Kruysen door C. de Visscher.’), fl. 2:50:-, to Cornelis Buys (1746-1826), Amsterdam;{Hofstede de Groot notes, RKD.} …; sale, Diederik III, Baron van Leyden (1744-1810, Leiden and Amsterdam), Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 13 May 1811 sqq., Album L, no. 22 (‘Het Afbeeldsel van een Roomsch Priester in zijn Studeervertrek. Meesterlijk met zwart krijt op perkament, door C. de Visscher’), or no. 23 (‘Een dito, anders van Ordonantie. Met dito, door denzelven’);{According to an inscription on the drawing.} …; sale, Constant Cornelis Huysmans (1810-86, Breda and The Hague) and Anthonie Jacobus van Wijngaerdt (1808-87, Gouda and Haarlem), Amsterdam (F. Muller), 21 June 1887, no. 238, fl. 50, to the dealer J.H. Valk, Amsterdam;{Copy RMA.} …; from the dealer F. Muller, Amsterdam, fl. 65, to the museum (L. 2228), 1889
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Cornelis Visscher (II)
Portrait of Andreas van der Kruyssen (c. 1600-1663)
Amsterdam, c. 1654 - c. 1658
Inscriptions
signed and inscribed by the artist, in black chalk: centre left (next to the head of Van der Kruyssen), C. Visscher / fecit; lower left (on a piece of paper), VIRTUS / A / CRUCE
inscribed on verso, in pencil: lower centre, F; lower right, Coll van Leyden, / 13 Mei 1911 nr. / cf (9 is crossed out and replaced by an 8); below this, 188C (?)
stamped on verso: lower right, with the mark of the museum (L. 2228)
Condition
Brown stains along the left and right edges
Provenance
…; ? anonymous sale, Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 6 December 1797, no. 283 (‘Het pourtrait van pater A. van der Kruysen door C. de Visscher.’), fl. 2:50:-, to Cornelis Buys (1746-1826), Amsterdam;1Hofstede de Groot notes, RKD. …; sale, Diederik III, Baron van Leyden (1744-1810, Leiden and Amsterdam), Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 13 May 1811 sqq., Album L, no. 22 (‘Het Afbeeldsel van een Roomsch Priester in zijn Studeervertrek. Meesterlijk met zwart krijt op perkament, door C. de Visscher’), or no. 23 (‘Een dito, anders van Ordonantie. Met dito, door denzelven’);2According to an inscription on the drawing. …; sale, Constant Cornelis Huysmans (1810-86, Breda and The Hague) and Anthonie Jacobus van Wijngaerdt (1808-87, Gouda and Haarlem), Amsterdam (F. Muller), 21 June 1887, no. 238, fl. 50, to the dealer J.H. Valk, Amsterdam;3Copy RMA. …; from the dealer F. Muller, Amsterdam, fl. 65, to the museum (L. 2228), 1889
Object number: RP-T-1889-A-1940
The artist
Biography
Cornelis Visscher (Haarlem 1628/29 - 1658 Amsterdam)
Little is known about his early life. Information regarding his birth is based on two surviving self-portraits, one from 1649 in the British Museum, London (inv. no. 1895,0915.1343), and the other, dated 10 April 1653, in the Rijksmuseum (inv. no. RP-T-1902-A-4624). He was presumably born in Haarlem, where he became a member of the Guild of St Luke in 1653. His father – who cannot be identified – must have been an artist as well, because in the admission book of the guild Visscher is described as ‘plaetsnijder en Meester outste zoon’ (‘engraver and the master’s oldest son’). Two younger brothers, Jan Visscher (1633/34-1712) and Lambert Visscher (1630/32-after 1690), also pursued artistic careers. The relationship between Cornelis and the relatively unknown painter Cornelis de Visscher (c. 1530-c. 1586) of Gouda is unclear. According to Van Mander, the latter was a skilled portraitist, but had some mental issues and died in a shipwreck on the North Sea.4K. van Mander, Het schilder-boeck waer in voor eerst de leerlustighe iueght den grondt der edel vry schilderconst in verscheyden deelen wort voorghedraghen, Haarlem 1604, p. 228. Perhaps the same person can be identified with Cornelis de Visscher, whose money was managed (presumably on behalf of his under-age children) by the orphans’ board of Gouda because he was considered mentally ill; in 1622, the widow of Cornelis’ brother, the painter Gerrit Gerritsz. de Visscher II (c. 1559-before 1622), collected the money from the orphans’ board on behalf of Cornelis’ two nephews, her sons Gerrit de Visscher III (?-?), a goldsmith living in Gouda, and Barent de Visscher (?-?).5Gouda, Streekarchief Midden-Holland, inv. no. OA196.
Cornelis Visscher probably received his first artistic training from his father. Later he must have been apprenticed to the Haarlem painter, engraver and draughtsman Pieter Soutman (1593/1601-1657), with whom he collaborated on several print series in 1649/50. Shortly after his admission in the Guild of St Luke in Haarlem, he moved to Amsterdam. In the 1650s, he received numerous commissions for portrait drawings and engravings of Haarlem and Amsterdam scholars, clergymen and writers, including Joost van den Vondel (1587-1679) (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-H-P-41). One of his last commissions was an engraved portrait of Constantijn Huygens I (1596-1687) after a lost drawing by the sitter’s son Christiaan Huygens (1629-95), which was included as the frontispiece to Huygens’ poem book Koren-bloemen (1658) (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-OB-27.428). It was finished in the last months of 1657, when the artist was presumably suffering from ‘de steen’ (kidney stones). Visscher died the following year and was buried on 16 January in the Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam. Despite his short life – he was only twenty-eight years old when he died – Visscher left an extensive oeuvre, consisting of more than 100 drawings and some 185 prints.
Marleen Ram, 2019
References
R. van Eijnden and A. van der Willigen, Geschiedenis der vaderlandsche schilderkunst, 4 vols., Haarlem 1816-40, I (1816), pp. 71-77, IV (1840), pp. 96-97; P. Schatborn, Dutch Figure Drawings from the Seventeenth Century, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet)/Washington (DC) (National Gallery of Art) 1981-82, pp. 100-01; R.E.O. Ekkart, ‘Visscher, Cornelis (de)’, in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, XXXII, pp. 622-23; J. Hawley, ‘An Introduction to the Life and Drawings of Jan de Vissccher’, Master Drawings 52 (2014), no. 1, pp. 59-94; J. Hawley, ‘Cornelis Visscher and Constantijn Huygens’s Koren-bloemen’, Print Quarterly 32 (2015), no. 1, pp. 51-53
Entry
The Amsterdam priest and theologian Andreas van der Kruyssen (c. 1600-1663) is seated in an armchair. He is wearing a clerical robe with a flat white collar and a skull-cap; in his right hand, he is holding a quill pen, and in his left hand a piece of embroidered fabric, possibly a maniple (part of the priest’s vestments). On the corner of the table next to him stands a crucifix, a common attribute in Dutch seventeenth-century portraits of clergymen. The motto ‘Virtus a Cruce’ on a piece of paper sticking out from under its base probably refers to Van der Kruyssen’s name (the Dutch word ‘kruis’ means cross). In the print by Theodor Matham (c. 1605/06-1676) after the present drawing (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-1884-A-7659),6Hollstein, XI (1954), no. 102. the engraver improved the rather awkwardly drawn left hand of Van der Kruyssen. He also adjusted the wooden lion on the chair so that it is facing forwards.
Cornelis Visscher was one of the most prominent portrait engravers of the Dutch clergy, especially Catholic priests. Due to the more tolerant attitudes towards Catholics established by the Peace of Münster in 1648, commissions for painted, engraved and drawn portraits of priests increased in the second half of the seventeenth century.7P. Dirkse, Begijnen, pastoors en predikanten. Religie en kunst in de Gouden Eeuw, Leiden 2001, p. 167. In 1649/50, Visscher – a Catholic himself – collaborated with his presumed teacher Pieter Soutman (1593/1601-1657) on a prestigious printed series of local saints.8Hollstein, XL (1992), nos. 17-36; K. Barrett, Pieter Soutman: Life and Oeuvres, Amsterdam 2012 (Oculi: Studies in the Arts of the Low Countries, vol. 12), pp. 123-25. Through this project, the reputation of the young artist must have grown among the upper class of the secular clergy in the province of Noord-Holland.9P. Dirkse, Begijnen, pastoors en predikanten. Religie en kunst in de Gouden Eeuw, Leiden 2001, p. 170. From 1650 onwards, he received multiple commissions for engraved and drawn portraits. These works, which are almost exclusively made after Visscher’s own invention, follow a rather predictable scheme. The sitter is shown half-length, either standing or sitting, next to a column, and below a hanging curtain. This type of composition is also found in the work of Soutman, who was, in his turn, much influenced by Pieter Paul Rubens (1577-1640).
The present drawing can be compared to the drawn portrait of the Amsterdam priest Nicholaüs de Jonghe (1625/26-1667) of 1654 in the Teylers Museum, Haarlem (inv. no. P+ 053).10M.C. Plomp, The Dutch Drawings in the Teyler Museum, II: Artists Born between 1575 and 1630, coll. cat. Haarlem 1997, no. 506; P. Dirkse, Begijnen, pastoors en predikanten. Religie en kunst in de Gouden Eeuw, Leiden 2001, p. 187 (fig. 135). De Jonghe is wearing a similar type of robe with frogging flanked by tassels along the front. Moreover, the curtain with the hanging cord, which encloses the Haarlem composition on the left, also features in the Rijksmuseum’s drawing. While decorating his portraits, Visscher seemed to have occasionally relied on the same studio props. The chair with a wooden lion on the ear, for example, also recurs in the portrait engraving of the Amsterdam schoolmaster and calligrapher Lieven Willemsz. van Coppenol (1598-1667) (e.g. inv. no. RP-P-OB-27.418).11Hollstein, XI (1954), no. 143.
Bonny van Sighem, 2000/Marleen Ram, 2019
Literature
Getekende Nederlandsche portretten, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet) 1905, no. 57; M.C. Plomp, The Dutch Drawings in the Teyler Museum, II: Artists Born between 1575 and 1630, coll. cat. Haarlem 1997, p. 428, under no. 506
Citation
B. van Sighem, 2000/M. Ram, 2019, 'Cornelis (II) Visscher, Portrait of Andreas van der Kruyssen (c. 1600-1663), Amsterdam, c. 1654 - c. 1658', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200145492
(accessed 3 February 2026 04:32:21).Footnotes
- 1Hofstede de Groot notes, RKD.
- 2According to an inscription on the drawing.
- 3Copy RMA.
- 4K. van Mander, Het schilder-boeck waer in voor eerst de leerlustighe iueght den grondt der edel vry schilderconst in verscheyden deelen wort voorghedraghen, Haarlem 1604, p. 228.
- 5Gouda, Streekarchief Midden-Holland, inv. no. OA196.
- 6Hollstein, XI (1954), no. 102.
- 7P. Dirkse, Begijnen, pastoors en predikanten. Religie en kunst in de Gouden Eeuw, Leiden 2001, p. 167.
- 8Hollstein, XL (1992), nos. 17-36; K. Barrett, Pieter Soutman: Life and Oeuvres, Amsterdam 2012 (Oculi: Studies in the Arts of the Low Countries, vol. 12), pp. 123-25.
- 9P. Dirkse, Begijnen, pastoors en predikanten. Religie en kunst in de Gouden Eeuw, Leiden 2001, p. 170.
- 10M.C. Plomp, The Dutch Drawings in the Teyler Museum, II: Artists Born between 1575 and 1630, coll. cat. Haarlem 1997, no. 506; P. Dirkse, Begijnen, pastoors en predikanten. Religie en kunst in de Gouden Eeuw, Leiden 2001, p. 187 (fig. 135).
- 11Hollstein, XI (1954), no. 143.