The support consists of three vertically grained oak planks and is bevelled on all sides. The ground layer is light in colour and transparent. The paint layers were smoothly applied, with some brushmarking visible in the face and impasto highlights.

Fair. The joins are visible. There are some discoloured retouchings in the background and along the joins. The varnish is very discoloured and streaky.

A stripped oak box frame, now partially gilded

? Commissioned by or for the sitter; ? his daughter, Agatha van Westerwolt (1634-1722), Woudrichem; ? her granddaughter, Anna Maria Emilia van Schagen (1694-1790), ’s-Hertogenbosch; her estate inventory, 4 October 1790, ’s-Hertogenbosch (‘den zeeofficier Winteroy’);¹¹See Wolleswinkel 2002, col. 297. her son, Antoni Martini (1728-1800); by descent to Paulus Hubert Andries Martini Buys (1835-1915), Loenersloot; from whom, fl. 800, to the museum, May 1913

Object number: SK-A-2665

The inscription at upper right identifying the sitter was probably added sometime after 1790, as the estate inventory of Anna Maria Emilia van Schagen from that year incorrectly records the portrait as showing ‘the naval officer Winteroy’.²²See Provenance. However, that the sitter is indeed Admiral Adam van Westerwolt is supported by the painting’s likely provenance as well as the recorded age of 56 in 1636. Van Westerwolt was born in Leiden on 10 March 1580.³³See Wolleswinkel 2002, col. 315, no. 14. His career with the Dutch East India Company (VOC) began in 1615, when he became director of trade in the Moluccas. Throughout his career he was active in the East Indies, commanding numerous squadrons. In 1636, he was made councillor extraordinary of the VOC, which appointment may have prompted the commission for the present portrait. In the same year Van Westerwolt returned to the East Indies aboard the Nieuw-Amsterdam as the commander of a new squadron. In the following years he blockaded Goa and defeated the Portuguese, captured Batticaloa and concluded a treaty with the King of Sri Lanka, Rajasingha II. In 1638, Van Westerwolt became director of trade in Persia, where he died in Isfahan the following year.

Acquired by the museum as an anonymous work, Van Westerwolt’s three-quarter length portrait was first attributed to Van Mierevelt in the supplement to the museum’s 1914 collection catalogue.⁴⁴Coll. cat. 1914, p. 521, no. 1595a. A few years before the painting was acquired by the museum, Moes catalogued it as an anonymous work; Moes II, 1905, p. 592, no. 9014. In the 1976 Rijksmuseum collection catalogue the painting was demoted to ‘Studio of or copy after Michiel Jansz van Miereveld’.⁵⁵Coll. cat. 1976, p. 385, no. A 2665. The painting should, however, be totally disassociated with Van Mierevelt and his workshop. Not only does it lack Van Mierevelt’s sophisticated handling, the skewed perspective of the table, astrolabe and book seem to rule out the possibility that a Van Mierevelt prototype has been followed here.

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. 442.

1914, p. 521, no. 1595a (as Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt); 1934, p. 188, no. 1585a (as attributed to Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt); 1976, p. 385, no. A 2665 (as studio of or copy after Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt); 2007, no. 442

J. Bikker, 2007, 'anonymous, Portrait of Adam van Westerwolt (1580-1639), 1636', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20027606