The support consists of three vertically grained oak planks and is bevelled on all sides. The ground layer is beige in colour. The paint layers were applied very smoothly, with only very limited visible brushmarking in the face, and a little impasto in the collar. The fur of the tabbaard was thinly painted in order to allow the grain of the wooden support to show through.

Fair. There are two small cracks visible on the front at upper right. Of the extensive retouchings, only those in the background have discoloured.

…; acquired by the museum by April 1804;¹¹First mentioned in the museum in the inventory of April 1804 drawn up by J.G. Waldorp, no. 19; see Moes/Van Biema 1909, pp. 68, 162. on loan to the Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, since 1978

Object number: SK-A-258

After having studied law and literature at Leiden University and being awarded a doctorate in Roman law in Orléans in 1598, Jacob Cats became a lawyer in The Hague (c. 1599-1603) and in Middelburg (1603-11). It was also in Middelburg that he first lived with his bride, Elisabeth van Valckenburgh (c. 1576-1631), whom he married in Amsterdam in 1605, and where he joined the Reformed Church, for which he also served as an elder. During the Twelve Years’ Truce, Cats gave up his practice and amassed a small fortune with land speculation and reclamation projects. He later served as Second Pensionary of Middelburg (1621-23) and Pensionary of Dordrecht (1623-36). Charles I of England knighted him in 1627. In 1629, he moved back to The Hague, where he became Grand Pensionary of Holland and West Friesland (1636-51). By all accounts, Cats was a mediocre statesman. His claim to fame, however, is as a popular poet and moralist. He died at his country estate, Sorghvliet, outside The Hague in 1660.³³For Cats’s biography see NNBW VI, 1924, cols. 279-85.

In addition to the present painting from 1634, Van Mierevelt portrayed Cats on one other occasion in 1639 (SK-C-180). Both works have similar dimensions and compositions, showing Cats at half-length and in three-quarter profile. The only substantial difference is in the sitter’s clothing. Of the two portraits, the present one is more official in nature as Cats is shown wearing a tabbaard, a garment closely associated with magistrates,⁴⁴De Winkel 1995, p. 151. and thus recalling his position as Pensionary of Dordrecht. The present painting was also engraved by Willem Jacobsz Delff in 1635 and 1636.⁵⁵Hollstein V, 1951, p. 154, nos. 18, 19. The 1641 inventory of Van Mierevelt’s estate includes an outstanding debt from Cats from the year 1638 for the amount of 167 guilders and 10 stuivers.⁶⁶See Bredius 1908, p. 8. This debt, one presumes, was for this portrait.

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. 185.

1809, p. 47, no. 199; 1843, p. 40, no. 205 (‘the panel was in three pieces, the oak showing through’); 1853, p. 18, no. 178 (fl. 600); 1858, p. 90, no. 197; 1880, pp. 207-08, no. 223; 1887, p. 111, no. 926; 1903, p. 175, no. 1584; 1934, p. 187, no. 1584; 1976, p. 384, no. A 258; 1992, p. 68, no. A 258; 2007, no. 185

J. Bikker, 2007, 'Michiel Jansz. van Mierevelt, Portrait of Jacob Cats (1577-1660), 1634', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20027066