Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy (attributed to)

Portrait of Margriet Benningh (1565-1641)

c. 1629 - c. 1640

Technical notes

The panel consists of three vertically grained oak panels. It is only bevelled at the top and must originally have been larger. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1603. The panel could have been ready for use by 1614, but a date in or after 1620 is more likely. The ground is white. The paint layers are thin. Undermodelling in transparent brown, green and pink was used intentionally for contours and soft shadows. Individual brushstrokes just visible in the mid-tones were used to soften the contrast between shadows and highlights yet the contrasts remain somewhat schematic and harsh.

Scientific examination and reports

  • technical report: G. Tauber, RMA, 11 mei 2005
  • dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 10 juni 2005

Condition

Fair. A knot in the panel has become slightly visible in the sitter’s ruff. The retouching of the join on the right has discoloured badly, as has the varnish, creating a splotchy, yellowed appearance.

Provenance

? Commissioned by or for the sitter; ? her stepson, Dirck Hasselaer (1581-1645), Amsterdam; ? his daughter, Aegje Hasselaer (1617-64), Amsterdam; ? her daughter, Brechje Hooft (1640-1721), Amsterdam; ? her son, Jan van de Poll (1668-1745), Amsterdam; ? his son, Harmen Hendrik van de Poll (1697-1772), Amsterdam; ? his wife, Margaretha Trip (1699-1778); her son, Jan van de Poll (1721-1801), The Hague;1RANH, ARS, IS, inv. no. 168, no. 302 (14 April 1884). his grandson, Jan van de Poll (1777-1858), Amsterdam, 1802 (stored with other family portraits in his aunt’s house, Herengracht 479 in Amsterdam); his son, Jan Stanislaus Robert van de Poll (1805-88), Arnhem (stored with 25 other family portraits in his sister-in-law’s house, Herengracht 450 in Amsterdam); by whom donated to the museum together with 34 other family portraits, as anonymous, November 18852RANH, ARS, IS, inv. 164, no. 299 (30 December 1884); RANH, ARS, Kop, inv. 289, pp. 62-68, no. 154 (19 November 1885). Provenance reconstructed in Van Dam van Isselt 1919, p. 182.

ObjectNumber: SK-A-1245

Credit line: Gift of Jonkheer J.S.R. van de Poll, Arnhem

The artist

Biography

Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy (Amsterdam 1588 - Amsterdam 1650/56)

Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy was born in Amsterdam in 1588 as the eldest son of the armorial stonemason Elias Claesz Pickenoy and his wife Heijltje Laurens s’Jonge, both of whom were born in Antwerp. In 1621 the painter married Levina Bouwens. In 1629 and 1634 Pickenoy was warden of the Guild of St Luke. He died between May 1650 and October 1656. Pickenoy was a successful artist, with an oeuvre numbering dozens of individual portraits, as well as groups of regents and civic guardsmen. A very different part of his output consists of several paintings of mythological and religious subjects, including a Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery.3Utrecht, Museum Catharijneconvent; illustrated in coll. cat. Utrecht 2003, p. 171.

Stylistic evidence suggests that he was trained by Cornelis van der Voort, the most influential portrait painter in Amsterdam in the 1610s and 20s. Pickenoy’s earliest known work is The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Sebastiaen Egbertsz de Vrij of 1619.4Amsterdams Historisch Museum; illustrated in Amsterdam 1993, p. 595. Despite competition from artists like Rembrandt and Thomas de Keyser, Pickenoy was the leading portraitist in Amsterdam in the 1630s – a position he lost in the 1640s to Bartholomeus van der Helst, who may have been his pupil. In that period, though, he did make a few very large civic guard pieces, among them Officers and Other Civic Guardsmen of the IVth District of Amsterdam, under the Command of Captain Jan Claesz van Vlooswijck and Lieutenant Gerrit Hudde of 1642 (SK-C-1177).

Everhard Korthals Altes, 2007

References
Six 1886, pp. 81-108; Lelienfeld in Thieme/Becker X, 1914, p. 458; Dudok van Heel 1985, pp. 152-60; Ekkart in Amsterdam 1993, p. 313; Briels 1997, p. 368

Entry

This portrait of Margriet Benningh (1565-1641), the second wife of Pieter Dircksz Hasselaer (1554-1616), was originally larger. It must have been the same size as its companion piece, the Portrait of Pieter Dircksz Hasselaer (see SK-A-1249).567.7 x 51.6 cm. It was wrongly thought that the present painting was the pendant of SK-A-1244, A Portrait of a Man, which is a copy after Aert Pietersz. See coll. cat. 1976, pp. 219, 445. Hasselaer was an Amsterdam councillor and civic magistrate, and was one of the founders of the Compagnie van Verre (Company of Distant Lands) in 1594.6Elias I, 1903, p. 205.

Van Dam van Isselt knew of three versions of the pendants.7Van Dam van Isselt 1919, pp. 179-84. The pair now in Muiderslot (Muiden) seem to have been the original versions.8Illustrated in Van Dam van Isselt 1919, p. 181; coll. cat. Muiden 1989, no. 17. The main argument behind this assumption is the fact that, unlike the Rijksmuseum version, the portrait of Margriet Benningh in Muiderslot is dated 1629 and gives the sitter’s age as 64. It also probably has its original dimensions of 69.5 x 54 cm. The Rijksmuseum’s Portrait of Pieter Dircksz Hasselaer may be a copy after a work that is attributed to Cornelis van der Voort in Muiderslot.9Cf. Van Thiel 1983d, p. 190; coll. cat. Muiden 1989, no. 46.

The attribution of the two Rijksmuseum portraits is extremely difficult. They appear to have been painted by different artists. It is likely that Pickenoy made the female portrait, since there is a certain similarity to other likenesses by him, such as that of Maria Joachimsdr Swartenhont of 1627 (SK-A-699). The modelling, however, is a little harsher. It may be an autograph repetition.

It is remarkable, though, that Margriet’s husband had been dead for over 13 years in 1629, which means that Hasselaer’s portrait must have been made earlier than his wife’s. What is equally interesting is that the provenance of the two portraits in the Rijksmuseum and of those in Muiderslot can be traced back without a break to the 17th-century patrons.10See Provenance; Van Dam van Isselt 1919, pp. 182-83.

Everhard Korthals Altes, 2007

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

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. 239.

Literature

Van Dam van Isselt 1919, pp. 179-84

Collection catalogues

1887, p. 43, no. 340 (as Portrait of a Woman); 1976, p. 219, no. A 1245; 2007, no. 239

Citation

E. Korthals Altes, 2007, 'attributed to Nicolaes Eliasz. Pickenoy, Portrait of Margriet Benningh (1565-1641), c. 1629 - c. 1640', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8378

(accessed 27 June 2025 10:57:54).

Footnotes

  • 1RANH, ARS, IS, inv. no. 168, no. 302 (14 April 1884).
  • 2RANH, ARS, IS, inv. 164, no. 299 (30 December 1884); RANH, ARS, Kop, inv. 289, pp. 62-68, no. 154 (19 November 1885). Provenance reconstructed in Van Dam van Isselt 1919, p. 182.
  • 3Utrecht, Museum Catharijneconvent; illustrated in coll. cat. Utrecht 2003, p. 171.
  • 4Amsterdams Historisch Museum; illustrated in Amsterdam 1993, p. 595.
  • 567.7 x 51.6 cm. It was wrongly thought that the present painting was the pendant of SK-A-1244, A Portrait of a Man, which is a copy after Aert Pietersz. See coll. cat. 1976, pp. 219, 445.
  • 6Elias I, 1903, p. 205.
  • 7Van Dam van Isselt 1919, pp. 179-84.
  • 8Illustrated in Van Dam van Isselt 1919, p. 181; coll. cat. Muiden 1989, no. 17.
  • 9Cf. Van Thiel 1983d, p. 190; coll. cat. Muiden 1989, no. 46.
  • 10See Provenance; Van Dam van Isselt 1919, pp. 182-83.