Gerard van Honthorst

Portrait of an Officer

1644

Inscriptions

  • signature and date, bottom left (G and H ligated):GHonthorst 1644
  • inscription, on the reverse:12

Technical notes

The support consists of three vertically grained oak planks and is bevelled on all sides. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1620. The panel could have been ready for use by 1631, but a date in or after 1637 is more likely. The ground is not visible. The paint was applied smoothly, with the use of impasto for the highlights and the lace collar.

Scientific examination and reports

  • technical report: W. de Ridder, RMA, 22 augustus 1997
  • dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 18 oktober 2005

Condition

Fair. The varnish has discoloured and there are some small paint losses.

Original framing

An ebony flat frame1De Bruyn Kops 1984, p. 55, fig. D 6; De Bruyn Kops in Amsterdam 1984b, p. 107, note 7; De Bruyn Kops 1995, p. 75, fig. D 6; De Bruyn Kops in Van Thiel/De Bruyn Kops 1995, p. 153, note 7.

Provenance

...; acquired by the museum, possibly with SK-A-573 and SK-A-574, before 9 February 18012See the entry on SK-A-574

ObjectNumber: SK-A-176

The artist

Biography

Gerard van Honthorst (Utrecht 1592 - Utrecht 1656)

Gerard van Honthorst was born in Utrecht on 4 November 1592 into a family of artists. His father, Herman Gerritsz van Honthorst, was a decorative painter and probably his first teacher. According to Von Sandrart and Houbraken, Honthorst trained with Abraham Bloemaert. When exactly he went to Italy is not known; a drawn copy after Caravaggio’s Martyrdom of St Peter in the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo is dated 1616,3Oslo, National Gallery, Printroom; illustrated in Judson/Ekkart 1999, pl. 395. indicating that he was in Rome by that year. His first documented painting, The Beheading of St John the Baptist, was executed for the Church of Santa Maria della Scala in 1617-18.4Illustrated in Judson/Ekkart 1999, pl. 16. Such Caravaggesque night scenes, which often include artificial sources of illumination, garnered Honthorst the nickname ‘Gherardo delle Notti’ in Italy. Among his Roman patrons were the Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani, in whose house Honthorst lived, and Cardinal Scipione Borghese.

A few months after his return to Utrecht in 1620, Honthorst married Sophia Coopmans. He joined the Guild of St Luke there and set up his own workshop. Von Sandrart, one of his apprentices in the 1620s, informs us that Honthorst had as many as 25 pupils at a time, from each of whom he received the sizable tuition fee of 100 guilders a year. With the exception of 1627, Honthorst served as dean of the guild between 1625 and 1630. It was also in the mid-1620s that he received his first commission from the court of Frederik Hendrik in The Hague.5Amalia van Solms and her Sister Louise Christina of Solms-Braunfels as Diana and a Hunting Nymph, present whereabouts unknown; see Judson/Ekkart 1999, pp. 235-36, no. 297. A commission from the British ambassador in The Hague, Sir Dudley Carleton, for Lord Arundel came as early as 16206Aeneas Fleeing from the Sack of Troy, present whereabouts unknown; see Judson/Ekkart 1999, p. 106, no. 89. and eventually led to the invitation from Charles I to work on Banqueting House in Whitehall in 1628.7King Charles I of England and his Wife Queen Henrietta Maria as Apollo and Diana, Hampton Court Palace; illustrated in Judson/Ekkart 1999, pl. 45. Honthorst returned to the United Provinces the same year, but continued to work for the English court in the years to come. In 1630 he became court painter to the exiled King and Queen of Bohemia, Frederick V and Elizabeth, in The Hague. Honthorst also painted numerous portraits of the Stadholder and his wife, Amalia van Solms, and took part in the decoration of, among others, the palaces Honselaarsdijk, Huis ter Nieuburch (1636-39) and Huis ten Bosch (1649-50). In order to accommodate his work in The Hague, he set up a second workshop there in 1637 and joined the guild, serving as dean in 1640. Also in 1637, he became the principal artist to decorate the Banqueting Hall in Kronborg Castle for King Christian IV of Denmark. Honthorst was, perhaps, the most internationally successful Dutch artist of his time. Despite, or possibly as a result of this success, his late style was criticized as ‘stiff ’ and ‘slick’ (‘stijve gladdicheyt’) and he was esteemed a ‘much less great master than themselves’ (‘beaucoup moins grand maistre qu’eux’) by his fellow artists working on the Oranjezaal.8Van Hoogstraeten 1678, p. 234; Braun 1966, p. 57, doc. 87, 1649 letter from Constantijn Huygens to Amalia van Solms. He died on 27 April 1656 and was buried in the Catharijnekerk in Utrecht.

Jonathan Bikker, 2007

References
Mancini c. 1620, fol. 86 (Judson/Ekkart 1999, p. 47); Von Sandrart 1675 (1925), pp. 22, 102, 172-74; Houbraken I, 1718, pp. 149-50; Braun 1966, pp. 7-59, 340-88 (documents); Bok in Utrecht-Braunschweig 1986, pp. 276-79; Bok in San Francisco etc. 1997, pp. 382-83; Judson/Ekkart 1999, pp. XXXIII-XXXIV, 1-24

Entry

The armoured sitter wearing a lace collar in this portrait has been traditionally identified as Prince Willem II of Orange. Comparison with secure portraits of the prince (SK-A-871, for example), however, makes clear that the likeness is not his. As Moes and Van Biema argued, this painting might have belonged to a series that also included the Portrait of Amalia van Solms (SK-A-573) and the Portrait of Louise Christina of Solms-Braunfels by Honthorst’s studio in the Rijksmuseum (SK-A-574).9Moes/Van Biema 1909, p. 196. Those portraits have similar dimensions, are painted on panel, and show the sitters at bust-length in painted ovals. As Honthorst and his assistants often showed their sitters, especially their noble ones, at bust-length and in painted ovals, and the format of the three Rijksmuseum portraits under discussion here (approximately 74 x 60 cm) seems to have been a standard one for Honthorst’s portraits, these factors are not enough to argue that the paintings belonged to a series. More telling is the fact that the present portrait, the Portrait of Amalia van Solms and the Portrait of Louise Christina of Solms-Braunfels all have painted white numbers on the reverse (‘12’, ‘17’, and ‘18’ respectively), and entered the collection very early on. Moes and Van Biema, however, confused matters by claiming elsewhere in their book that the present painting came, together with entirely different works, from the Admiralty on the Maas in Rotterdam as a Portrait of Willem II.10Moes/Van Biema 1909, p. 160; the Portrait of Willem II from the Rotterdam Admiralty was most likely the 1651 painting by Honthorst’s studio (SK-A-177).

Moes and Van Biema further reasoned that, if the present painting belonged to a series with the portraits of Amalia van Solms and Louise Christina of Solms-Braunfels, the sitter was likely the latter’s husband, Johan Wolfert van Brederode (1599-1655). However, an engraving by Cornelis Visscher and Pieter Soutman after a now lost portrait by Honthorst showing Van Brederode11Hollstein XL, 1992, p. 135, no. 128. demonstrates that he too cannot be the sitter in the present painting.

Jonathan Bikker, 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. 137.

Literature

Moes/Van Biema 1909, pp. 28, 160, 196, 202 (as Portrait of Joan Wolfert van Brederode and as coming from the Admiralty of the Maas, Rotterdam); Judson/Ekkart 1999, p. 316, no. 482, with earlier literature

Collection catalogues

1801, ? p. 50, no. 112 (as Portrait of Willem II); 1809, ? p. 36, no. 147 (as Portrait of Willem II); 1843, ? p. 31, no. 143 (as Portrait of Willem II; ‘in good condition’); 1853, ? p. 14, no. 132 (as Portrait of Willem II; fl. 50); 1858, p. 68, no. 145 (as Portrait of Willem II); 1880, pp. 152-53, no. 156 (as Portrait of Willem II); 1887, p. 80, no. 672 (as Portrait of Willem II); 1903, p. 133, no. 1234 (as Portrait of Willem II?); 1934, p. 134, no. 1234 (as Portrait of Willem II?); 1976, p. 285, no. A 176; 2007, no. 137

Citation

J. Bikker, 2007, 'Gerard van Honthorst, Portrait of an Officer, 1644', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8758

(accessed 22 May 2025 09:59:57).

Footnotes

  • 1De Bruyn Kops 1984, p. 55, fig. D 6; De Bruyn Kops in Amsterdam 1984b, p. 107, note 7; De Bruyn Kops 1995, p. 75, fig. D 6; De Bruyn Kops in Van Thiel/De Bruyn Kops 1995, p. 153, note 7.
  • 2See the entry on SK-A-574
  • 3Oslo, National Gallery, Printroom; illustrated in Judson/Ekkart 1999, pl. 395.
  • 4Illustrated in Judson/Ekkart 1999, pl. 16.
  • 5Amalia van Solms and her Sister Louise Christina of Solms-Braunfels as Diana and a Hunting Nymph, present whereabouts unknown; see Judson/Ekkart 1999, pp. 235-36, no. 297.
  • 6Aeneas Fleeing from the Sack of Troy, present whereabouts unknown; see Judson/Ekkart 1999, p. 106, no. 89.
  • 7King Charles I of England and his Wife Queen Henrietta Maria as Apollo and Diana, Hampton Court Palace; illustrated in Judson/Ekkart 1999, pl. 45.
  • 8Van Hoogstraeten 1678, p. 234; Braun 1966, p. 57, doc. 87, 1649 letter from Constantijn Huygens to Amalia van Solms.
  • 9Moes/Van Biema 1909, p. 196.
  • 10Moes/Van Biema 1909, p. 160; the Portrait of Willem II from the Rotterdam Admiralty was most likely the 1651 painting by Honthorst’s studio (SK-A-177).
  • 11Hollstein XL, 1992, p. 135, no. 128.