Dirck van Santvoort

Portrait of Agatha Geelvinck (1617-1638)

c. 1637 - c. 1638

Technical notes

Support The panel consists of three vertically grained oak planks (approx. 17.3, 26. 5 and 16.1 cm), approx. 1 cm thick. The reverse is bevelled on all sides and has regularly spaced saw marks. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1622. The panel could have been ready for use by 1633, but a date in or after 1639 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The single, off-white ground extends up to the edges of the support. It consists of fine white pigment particles and a minute amount of tiny orange and black pigment particles.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the edges of the support. The figure was first indicated in a translucent brown. The painting was built up from the back to the front and from dark to light, leaving the figure in reserve with the exception of the hair. The lace was partly executed on top of the dress, with some details of the pattern scratched into the wet, white paint. Finally, the blue ribbons were added. The eyes contain small, distinct, white highlights. The paint includes relatively large pigment particles, with some white particles visible even to the naked eye. While there is impasto in the dress and lace, the face and background are smooth.
Anna Krekeler, 2024

Scientific examination and reports

  • dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 10 juni 2008
  • infrared photography: A. Krekeler, RMA, 26 november 2008
  • paint samples: A. Krekeler, RMA, 26 november 2008
  • technical report: A. Krekeler, RMA, 26 november 2008
  • paint samples: P. d’Imporzano, VU Medical Centre, no. SK-A-1318/2 (MC-ICPMS, micro sampling), 25 januari 2019

Literature scientific examination and reports

P. d’Imporzano, Implications of Lead Isotope Variation in Lead White from 17th Century Dutch Paintings, diss., Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam 2021, p. 106; P. d’Imporzano et al., ‘Time-Dependent Variation of Lead Isotopes of Lead White in 17th Century Dutch Paintings’, Science Advances 7 (2021), pp. 1-14, esp. pp. 5-7 (see doi 10.1126/sciadv.abi5905)

Condition

Fair. There are a few small paint losses throughout and extensive, discoloured retouching in the dress. A scratch in the varnish and paint layers is visible to the left of the figure. The varnish is thick and uneven, and has severely yellowed. Yellow-brownish residues of an older varnish are present in the deeper parts of the lace.

Conservation

  • conservator unknown, 1902: repaired
  • conservator unknown, 1913: varnish mechanically removed (‘powdered’); revarnished
  • conservator unknown, 1965: paint layer consolidated; complete restoration

Original framing

A rectangular ebony reverse ogee frame1P.J.J. van Thiel and C.J. de Bruyn Kops, Prijst de lijst: De Hollandse schilderijlijst in de zeventiende eeuw, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1984, p. 126; C.J. de Bruyn Kops, ‘Praktische en technische aspecten van onderzoek naar de ontwikkeling en toepassing van de Nederlandse schilderijlijst in de zeventiende eeuw’, in ibid., pp. 37-66, esp. p. 60; P.J.J. van Thiel and C.J. de Bruyn Kops, Framing in the Golden Age: Picture and Frame in 17th-Century Holland, Zwolle 1995, p. 172; C.J. de Bruyn Kops, ‘Researching the Use and Development of the Dutch Picture Frame: Some Practical and Technical Aspects’, in ibid., pp. 55-93, esp. p. 82.

Provenance

? Commissioned by or for the sitter; ? probate inventory, Frederik Dircksz Alewijn (1603-1665), Amsterdam, 18 December 1665, in the upper front room of the house at 182 Herengracht, no. 67b, with no. 67a (SK-A-1317), as Anonymous (‘kontrefeijtsels sijnde van Frederik Alewijn ende Juffr. Geelwinck’);2GPI, N-2349, nos. 67a, 67b. ? his son, Dirck Alewijn (1644-1687), Amsterdam, with the house at 182 Herengracht; ? his son, Dirck Alewijn (1682-1742), Amsterdam and Beemster; ? his son, Frederik Alewijn (1737-1804), Amsterdam and Beemster; ? his son, Frederik Alewijn (1775-1817), Hoorn and Beemster; his son, Dirk Margarethus Alewijn (1816-1885), Hoorn and Medemblik;3NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 165, nos. 491 (15 December 1885), 493 (15 December 1885), 497 (17 December 1885), 498 (18 December 1885). his sale, Amsterdam (C.F. Roos), 16 December 1885, no. 74, with no. 73 (SK-A-1317), fl. 750, to the museum

ObjectNumber: SK-A-1318

The artist

Biography

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,4Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen; illustrated in J.C. Ebbinge Wubben (foreword), Old Paintings 1400-1900 at the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam: Illustrations, coll. cat. Rotterdam (Museum Boymans-van Beuningen) 1972, p. 83, nos. 1772, 1773. 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,5Paris, Musée du Louvre; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, I, Landau/Pfalz 1983, p. 110. 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 16386Amsterdam Museum; illustrated in N. Middelkoop (ed.), Kopstukken: Amsterdammers geportretteerd 1600-1800, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum) 2002-03, p. 185. and The Directors of the Serge Cloth Industry of 1643,7SK-C-394. 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,8Amsterdam, The National Maritime Museum; illustrated in the catalogue for the sale, Amsterdam (Christie’s), 8 May 2012, no. 42. 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 portrait of Agatha Geelvinck was bought in 1885 together with that of Frederik Alewijn (SK-A-1317) at the auction of the family collection of the latter’s descendant Dirk Margarethus Alewijn.9See Provenance. For the auction see D.C. Meijer Jr, ‘De familieportretten der Alewijns’, De Gids 50 (1886), pp. 326-39. Labels on the backs of both paintings date from 1845 and give the names and biographical details of the sitters. Agatha, the daughter of the powerful regent Jan Cornelisz Geelvinck, married Frederik on 15 September 1637, but died on 15 February the following year. Up to now the two paintings have been treated as pendants in the Rijksmuseum’s catalogues, but that is probably not how they were conceived. In the first place, the compositions are incompatible (see fig. a). Dendrochronology has shown that the wood of the panels was not derived from the same tree and that they were ready for use in different years. The one for Agatha’s portrait points to a date in or after 1639, but given her death in 1638 it was very probably made a little earlier.10A date of 1637-38 is also arrived at by De Bruyn Kops in P.J.J. van Thiel and C.J. de Bruyn Kops, Framing in the Golden Age: Picture and Frame in 17th-Century Holland, Zwolle 1995, p. 172. Frederik’s is dated 1640 and was thus executed a couple of years later. Agatha’s likeness is closely related to the one that Dirck van Santvoort painted of her sister Eva,11Formerly Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig, destroyed in the Second World War; illustrated in C. Klugmann, ‘Kriegsverlust der Gemälde- und Plastiksammlung des Museums der bildenden Künste’, Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig: Jahresheft 1 (1994), pp. 7-40, esp. p. 29. and is of a type of female portrait that he repeatedly turned to in this period. All these pictures are on panel and have the same dimensions.12See, for example, S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, Van Amsterdamse burgers tot Europese aristocraten: Hun geschiedenis en hun portretten: De Heijnen-maagschap 1400-1800, II, The Hague 2008, p. 978, figs. 1062, 1063.

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2024

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

J.H. Scholte, ‘Dertig jaar Zesen-onderzoek in Nederland’, Jaarboek Amstelodamum 41 (1947), pp. 67-109, esp. pp. 83, 102-06

Collection catalogues

1887, p. 152, no. 1286; 1934, p. 257, no. 2131; 1960, p. 277, no. 2131; 1976, p. 498, no. A 1318

Citation

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2024, 'Dirck van Santvoort, Portrait of Agatha Geelvinck (1617-1638), c. 1637 - c. 1638', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5377

(accessed 16 May 2025 14:45:12).

Figures

  • fig. a Dirck van Santvoort’s portraits of Frederik Dircksz Alewijn (SK-A-1317) and his wife Agatha Geelvinck (SK-A-1318) shown as if they were pendants

Footnotes

  • 1P.J.J. van Thiel and C.J. de Bruyn Kops, Prijst de lijst: De Hollandse schilderijlijst in de zeventiende eeuw, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1984, p. 126; C.J. de Bruyn Kops, ‘Praktische en technische aspecten van onderzoek naar de ontwikkeling en toepassing van de Nederlandse schilderijlijst in de zeventiende eeuw’, in ibid., pp. 37-66, esp. p. 60; P.J.J. van Thiel and C.J. de Bruyn Kops, Framing in the Golden Age: Picture and Frame in 17th-Century Holland, Zwolle 1995, p. 172; C.J. de Bruyn Kops, ‘Researching the Use and Development of the Dutch Picture Frame: Some Practical and Technical Aspects’, in ibid., pp. 55-93, esp. p. 82.
  • 2GPI, N-2349, nos. 67a, 67b.
  • 3NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 165, nos. 491 (15 December 1885), 493 (15 December 1885), 497 (17 December 1885), 498 (18 December 1885).
  • 4Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen; illustrated in J.C. Ebbinge Wubben (foreword), Old Paintings 1400-1900 at the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam: Illustrations, coll. cat. Rotterdam (Museum Boymans-van Beuningen) 1972, p. 83, nos. 1772, 1773.
  • 5Paris, Musée du Louvre; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, I, Landau/Pfalz 1983, p. 110.
  • 6Amsterdam Museum; illustrated in N. Middelkoop (ed.), Kopstukken: Amsterdammers geportretteerd 1600-1800, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum) 2002-03, p. 185.
  • 7SK-C-394.
  • 8Amsterdam, The National Maritime Museum; illustrated in the catalogue for the sale, Amsterdam (Christie’s), 8 May 2012, no. 42.
  • 9See Provenance. For the auction see D.C. Meijer Jr, ‘De familieportretten der Alewijns’, De Gids 50 (1886), pp. 326-39. Labels on the backs of both paintings date from 1845 and give the names and biographical details of the sitters.
  • 10A date of 1637-38 is also arrived at by De Bruyn Kops in P.J.J. van Thiel and C.J. de Bruyn Kops, Framing in the Golden Age: Picture and Frame in 17th-Century Holland, Zwolle 1995, p. 172.
  • 11Formerly Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig, destroyed in the Second World War; illustrated in C. Klugmann, ‘Kriegsverlust der Gemälde- und Plastiksammlung des Museums der bildenden Künste’, Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig: Jahresheft 1 (1994), pp. 7-40, esp. p. 29.
  • 12See, for example, S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, Van Amsterdamse burgers tot Europese aristocraten: Hun geschiedenis en hun portretten: De Heijnen-maagschap 1400-1800, II, The Hague 2008, p. 978, figs. 1062, 1063.