Portrait of a Nobleman, possibly Adriaan van der Borcht

…; ? collection Edouard Peeters (1612-78), Antwerp;¹¹The museum portrait is not referred to in the inventory of his house De Sickel; F. Donnet, ‘Un vol de tableaux de Rubens en l’an II de la République: Les collections artistiques de la famille Peeters’, Annales de L’Académie royale d’Archéologie de Belgique 71 (1923), pp. 29-144, pp. 59-69. his eldest son, chevalier Michiel Peeters (1651-1729), (no. 40 of his estate inventory: ‘portret d’heer van der borght van dijck fl. 800’) and by division to Maria Theresia Barones van Nevelstein, née Peeters, 17 August 1729;²²The inventory by J.P. van Bredael and J. van Halle has not been traced, but the record of the division of the collection supervised by the notary Pieter Jansz Ocker is preserved in Antwerp, the FelixArchief, no. 2755, fol. 266, kindly communicated by Bert Schepers, January 2019. The collection was divided by lot by his widow, daughter and daughter-in-law, 17 August 1729; the account in F. Donnet, ‘Un vol de tableaux de Rubens en l’an II de la République: Les collections artistiques de la famille Peeters’, Annales de L’Académie royale d’Archéologie de Belgique 71 (1923), pp. 29-144, pp. 82ff is inaccurate. Some information concerning the division was given in an affidavit of 22 October 1825 by Charles-Jean Stier (1770-1840) about Van Dyck’s portraits of Philippe Le Roy and his wife (Wallace Collection; J. Ingamells, The Wallace Collection Catalogue of Pictures, IV, Dutch and Flemish, coll. cat. London 1992, nos. P. 79 and P. 94); it stated that they came from ‘la collection de feu mon père, gendre de feu M. Peeters d’Aertselaer quite tenoit ces tableaux se son grandpère le chevalier Michel Peeters par acte de partage devant le notaire P. Oekers à Anvers en dat du 17 aout 1729', see also E. Hinterding and F. Horsch, ‘‘A Small but Choice Collection’: The Art Gallery of King William II of the Netherlands (1792-1849)’, Simiolus 19 (1989), pp. 5-122, esp. p. 78, under nos. 71 and 72. That the museum portrait was in Antwerp in 1703 is suggested by Cornelis Vermeulen’s engraving of it of that date, see below. It is possible that the picture was not inherited by Peeters from his father, but came to him though his wife Marie Josephe van Eelen (?-1700), as she was from Dunkirk. Henri-Joseph Stier wrote in a letter of 25 September 1817 that the collection had belonged to the Peeters family since 1680; M.L. Callcott (ed.), The Mistress of Riversdale: The Plantation Letters of Rosalie Stier Calvert 1795-1821, Baltimore 1991, pp. 324-25, note 2. Letzter records that the collection was begun by Edouard Peeters (1612-1678), see J. Letzter, ‘The Political Exile of the Stiers: A Belgian Family Weighs the cost of American Democracy 1795-1844’, Atlantic Studies 5 (2008), pp. 51-73, esp. p. 66, note 2. collection Baron d’Everstijn, Antwerp, 1763;³³G.P. Mensaert, Le Peintre Amateur et Curieux, ou Description Général des Tableaux des plus habiles Maîtres, qui font l’ornement des Églises, Couvents, Abbayes, Prieurés & Cabinets particuliers dans l’étendre des Pays-Bas Austrichiens, 2 vols., Brussels 1763, I, pp. 263-64; this information may have been out of date, as in 1758 the douairière of Baron de Nevelstein married Frans Philibert Baron van Spangen; J.B. Descamps, Voyages pittoresque de la Flandre et du Brabant, avec des reflexions relativement aux arts & quelques gravures, Rouen 1769, p. 215, listed Baron van Spanne, place de Meir, Antwerp, as an owner of paintings by Rubens. collection Jean-Egide [Emmanuel] Peeters (1725-86), Lord of Cleydael and Aertselaer, the son of Michiel Peeters’s second son, Michiel (1651-1729), who acquired the title Lord of Cleydael and Aertselaer from his father-in-law in 1747, by 1771;⁴⁴J.F.M. Michel, Histoire de la vie de PP Rubens, Brussels 1771, p. 360. in whose collection seen by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1781 (‘Three whole-lengths by Vandyck […] 2 men one of them with the [?] stairs and shipping’);⁵⁵Sir Joshua Reynolds, A Journey to Flanders and Holland, 1797, ed. H. Mount, Cambridge 1996, p. 79, note i, p. 164, notes 330, 325. The meaning of his question mark above the horizontal line in parentheses is not clear; but it could indicate Reynolds’s questioning of the alignment of the top step and banister. his widow Mathilde van den Cruyce Peeters, Antwerp (1727-96);⁶⁶M.L. Callcott (ed.), The Mistress of Riversdale: The Plantation Letters of Rosalie Stier Calvert 1795-1821, Baltimore 1991, pp. 324-25, note 2. her son-in-law Henri Joseph Stier, Baron d’Aertselaer (1743-1821), husband of her daughter, Marie Louise Peeters (1748-1804); shipped with his collection to the United States, 1794, where exhibited at Bladensbury, Maryland, in April 1816 before being returned to Antwerp in June 1816;⁷⁷The painting was shipped with the rest of the collection, to avoid confiscation, to Philadelphia via Amsterdam, June 1794; in store in Philadelphia, in and near Annapolis; Riversdale, Bladensburg, Maryland, from 1800-16 (on public view there for a week, April 1816); despatched with the rest of the collection to Antwerp. M.L. Callcott (ed.), The Mistress of Riversdale: The Plantation Letters of Rosalie Stier Calvert 1795-1821, Baltimore 1991, p. 1, pp. 296-98, note 2; J. Letzter, ‘The Political Exile of the Stiers: A Belgian Family Weighs the cost of American Democracy 1795-1844’, Atlantic Studies 5 (2008), pp. 51-73, esp. pp. 52-54. sale, Jean-Egide Peeters d’Aertselaer de Cleydael (1725-86, Antwerp), sold on the premises of the deceased’s son in law, Henri-Jospeh Stier, Antwerp (P. van Regenmortel and Sneyers), 27 August 1817, no. 4 (‘Ant. Vandyck Haut 6[7?], 1, large 4, 10 [174.7 [203.4?] x 140.7 cm] T. Portrait de François Vander Borght, aussi en pied et debout. Il est vêtu de noir avec un manteau espagnol. L’auteur l’a placé dans un riche vestibule donnant sur un port de mer rempli de navires, qu’on voit à gauche, et sur lequel, en l’indiquant, il semble appeller l’attention du spectateur. […] Gravé par Vermeulen.’), bought in at fl. 2,020, [in fact bought by H.-J. Stier];⁸⁸Copy RKD. M.L. Callcott (ed.), The Mistress of Riversdale: The Plantation Letters of Rosalie Stier Calvert 1795-1821, Baltimore 1991, p. 333, note 4. his [Stier] sale, sold on the deceased’s premises, Antwerp (C.J. Bincken), 29 July 1822, no. 5 (‘Ant.van Dyck h. 73 p. 4 l. L. 50 p. [pouces et lignes de France, 198 x 135 cm] T. Portrait en pied de François van der Borcht. Il est représenté dans une attitude noble et imposante, vêtu en noir avec un manteau espagnole. Le Peintre l’a placé dans un riche vestibule d’où l’on découvre un port de mer, sur lequel il semble appeller l’attention du spectateur’), fl. 1,000, to Jeronimo de Vries⁹⁹Copy RKD1. for Willem I, King of the Netherlands;¹⁰¹⁰Copy RKD2. Mauritshuis, The Hague, 1822; transferred to the museum, with SK-A-345 and SK-A-316, in an exchange valued at fl. 1,000, 1825¹¹¹¹NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 12, no. 96 (20 January 1825); NHA, ARS, Kop, inv. 36, pp. 164-66 (8 February 1825); NHA, ARS, Kop, inv. 36, pp. 171-72 (27 April 1825); NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 12, no. 113 (8 June 1825); NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 12, no. 114 (10 June 1825).

ObjectNumber: SK-A-101

The coat of arms in the present portrait was first transcribed in the 1872 museum catalogue, and identified as that of Nicolaes van der Borcht in the catalogue of 1893. As was recognized in the 1904 catalogue, the same coat of arms appears in another portrait (SK-A-725) which has also long been attributed to Anthony van Dyck. Although the sitter is identified in Cornelis Vermeulen’s (c. 1654-1708/1709) engraving (in reverse, of 1703) as Dominus Nicolaas vander Borcht,¹⁵¹⁵S. Turner and C. Depauw, The New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, 1450-1700: Anthony van Dyck, 8 vols., Rotterdam 2002, V, no. 378. he was named as François in the museum catalogue of 1827 and then as Jacob, before Nicolaes was adopted.

Stols¹⁶¹⁶E. Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders of de handelsbetrekkingen der Zuiderlijke Nederlanden met de Iberische wereld 1598-1648, 2 vols., Brussels 1971, II, p. 10 under no. 67. and Baetens¹⁷¹⁷R. Baetens, De nazomer van Antwerpens welvaart. De diaspora en het handelshuis de Groote tijdens de eerste helft der 17de eeuw, 2 vols., Brussels 1976, I, p. 122, II, p. 265. record a Nicolaes van der Borcht, the son of Hendrik, whom Stols listed as a shipper and forwarding agent in Dunkirk circa 1607. According to Stols, the son’s similar business activity was based first in Calais and then circa 1626 in Lisbon, where he was declared bankrupt in 1631. Baetens states that by the 1640s he was (once again) a rich merchant trading in silk and broking insurance. In 1656 he was recorded as seventy years old.

However, Nicolaes is unlikely to be the sitter in this portrait, for the arms are those granted to his brother Adriaan in a letter patent of 2 March 1633 from Philip IV of Spain (1605-1665), in which Adriaan is described as Lord of Elverdinghe, Waesten and Spière and as resident in Cassel,¹⁸¹⁸J.S.F.J. Léon de Herckenrode (ed.), Nobilaire des Pays-bas et du comté de Bourgogne par M. de Vegiano, 2 vols., Ghent 1862-65, I, 1862, p. 254; J.-B. Rietstap, Armorial Générale, 2 vols., Gouda 1884-87, I, 1884, p. 250 and V. Rolland (ed.), Armoiries des familles contenues dans l’Armorial général de J.-B. Rieststap (sic), 6 vols., Paris, I, 1903, pl. LXX. all properties in West Flanders, Spière being less than twenty kilometres south of Dunkirk. Stols records that Adriaan had been a shipper and forwarding agent first in Malaga in 1615, then at Seville circa 1616-19, and in 1627 at Calais. Adriaan, who was born in Antwerp, was still alive in 1650 when he was created a knight. It remains a matter of conjecture as to why with the (incorrect) evidence of Vermeulen’s engraving, in the next recorded identification of the sitter – the 1817 sale catalogue – the sitter’s name was given as François. There are intermittent records of a François van der Borcht, and indeed a François van der Borcht married a niece of the second Michiel Peeters, through whose family the portrait descended (see Provenance). It was perhaps information provided from this source that led to the mistaken identification in the 1817 sale catalogue.

Vey’s scepticism notwithstanding, Glück’s identification of the town in the background as Dunkirk seems likely to be correct.¹⁹¹⁹G. Glück, Van Dyck: Des Meisters Gemälde, Klassiker der Kunst, 2nd revised ed., Stuttgart/New York/London 1931, p. 323, and p. 554, note to p. 323 The silhouetted profile agrees, though not exactly, with the view in Sanderus’s Flandria Illustrata of 1644.²⁰²⁰A. Sanderus, Flandria Illustra; Flandria subalterna: sive descriptio comitatus istius…, 2 vols., Cologne (Amsterdam) 1641-44, II, 1644, between pp. 632-33. The tallest tower would be that of the Sint-Eloikerk; the Stadhuys tower is to the left, though improbably and inaccurately tall and thin; further to the left is the Jesuit Church and then the castle. The shore is correctly shown as made up of dunes and the channel, the harbour can be made out to the left. Until 11 October 1646, when it was captured by the French, Dunkirk was the home port of the naval army of Flanders (Armada de Flandes) in the war against the United Provinces, and also of many privateers similarly engaged against Dutch shipping.²¹²¹P. Villiers, Les Corsaires de Littoral: Dunkerque, Calais, Boulogne, de Philippe II à Louis XIV (1568-1713), Villeneuve d’Ascq 2000, pp. 45-138.

The 1960 museum catalogue first recognized that the view of Dunkirk was by a different hand from that of the portrait, perhaps that of Andries van Ertvelt (1590-1652). Such outside collaboration would have been unusual but not unique in Van Dyck’s practice (see SK-A-725). But as Van Ertvelt’s extant oeuvre is not extensive and his manner is not well defined, it seems best, granted the no more than workmanlike level of the handling, to describe the view as by an anonymous painter.

As far as the rest of the painting is concerned, Van Dyck’s authorship was doubted in the Rijksmuseum’s 1885 catalogue.²²²²Martin (G. Martin, Review of ‘Van Dyck. The Complete Paintings, by Susan J. Barnes, Nora de Poorter, Oliver Millar and Horst Vey’, The Burlington Magazine 147 (2005), pp. 118-20, esp. p. 119) doubted the attribution and proposed an attribution to Jan Boeckhorst; this is now withdrawn. It had previously been doubted by the anonymous owner of one of the copies of the 1822 sale catalogue in the RKD, who noted ‘peut etre (sic) Douteux’; he also recognized that the seascape was by another hand. But apart from criticizing the balustrade, Vey accepted the painting. However, judgement of the handling is not made easy by the discoloured varnish. The brushwork is best discernible in the face, and that indeed seems worthy of the artist. For the rest, the formulaic treatment of the hand,²³²³To be compared with the right hand in the male portrait (G. Glück, Van Dyck: Des Meisters Gemälde, Klassiker der Kunst, 2nd revised ed., Stuttgart/New York/London 1931, p. 350), whose continued espousal as autograph by Larsen (E. Larsen, The Paintings of Anthony van Dyck, 2 vols., Freren 1988, II, no. 530) may not likely to be generally accepted. the only partially rendered collar, the feebly executed black costume (where legible), the dull folds of the drapery and the poorly executed coat of arms lack the vigour to be expected of a great artist or perhaps even of his studio working under his direct supervision.

A possible explanation for the differences in handling could be that Van Dyck had painted the head but left the rest unfinished when he departed for England in 1632 or in 1635 – and rather the latter year, if the date of the sitter’s patent of nobility is taken as a terminus post quem. An anonymous artist, cognizant of Van Dyck’s style, perhaps a former member of his Flemish studio, would then have completed the work, leaving the background to a specialist view painter. The balustrade would then have been introduced later by an incompetent artist with little understanding of perspective.

Glück²⁴²⁴G. Glück, Van Dyck: Des Meisters Gemälde, Klassiker der Kunst, 2nd revised ed., Stuttgart/New York/London 1931, p. 323, and p. 554, note to p. 323. recognized that the merchantman at anchor in the roads is flying a flag bearing the same coat of arms at her stern as is inscribed on the hanging above the sitter; the heraldic colours are correctly rendered. The ship flies a pennant from the spar of the main mast; at the fore, she flies the Dutch flag. The poop of the flute, also anchored (her sails are furled), firing a salute is decorated with a painted bas-relief (?) of a heron; at her stern she flies a blue and white striped flag edged with red.

The flags worn by the anchored merchantman require explanation; that at the stern is a house flag indicating that the ship was part of the Van der Borcht concern, and that at the fore – the Dutch flag – is a courtesy ensign showing the country to which she was bound.²⁵²⁵T. Wilson, Flags at Sea: A Guide to the Flags Flown at Sea by British and Some Foreign Ships, from the 16th Century to the Present Day, Illustrated from the Collection of the National Maritime Museum, London 1986, pp. 109. Up till 1635 if not later, Brussels operated a system by which Dutch merchants could trade in and out of Dunkirk on payment of a licence.²⁶²⁶R.A. Stradling, The Armada of Flanders: Spanish Maritime Policy and European War, 1568-1668, Cambridge 1992, p. 95 and note 63, pp. 95-96. Presumably it was the same as that which was applied at Antwerp, in which case there was likely to have been reciprocal arrangements for Dunkirk merchants trading with the northern Netherlands.

Gregory Martin, 2022

Vey in S.J. Barnes, N. de Poorter, O. Millar and H. Vey, Anthony van Dyck: A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, New Haven (Conn.)/London 2004, no. III.72

1827, p. 22, no. 81 (as of François van der Borcht); 1843, p. 18, no. 79 (as Burgomaster van der Borcht with a view of Antwerp); 1853, p. 10, no. 75 (as of Jacob van der Borcht, fl. 100,000); 1858, p. 35, no. 77; 1872, pp. 41-2, no. 85 (as of Jacob van der Borcht); 1880, p. 397, no. 464; 1885, p. 69, no. 309 (as after Van Dyck and of Nicolas van der Borcht); 1893, p. 91, no. 856 (as of Nicolaes van der Borcht); 1934, p. 91, no. 856 (with Dunkirk in the background); 1960, p. 91, no. 856 (as the view of Dunkirk perhaps by Andries van Ertveld); 1976, p. 208, no. A 101 (as Nicolaes van der Borcht, Merchant of Antwerp)

G. Martin, 2022, 'Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of a Nobleman, possibly Adriaan van der Borcht, 1634 - c. 1635', in Flemish Paintings in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6670