Portrait of Margaretha van Raephorst (1625-1690)

Support The support consists of a coarse, plain-weave central canvas and three original, added strips of canvas at the top and bottom and on the right (approx. 96.5 x 6.5, 96.5 x 3.5 and 134.5 x 6 cm), and has been wax-resin lined. All tacking edges have been preserved. Cusping is visible on all sides, as well as around the perimeter of the central canvas (where there are deep cusps), indicating that the latter had been grounded and stretched before the strips were attached. Linear crack patterns parallel to the left and right edges of the support may correspond to the bars of the original strainer.
Preparatory layers The single, light, warm grey ground extends up to the bottom tacking edge and partially over the ones at the top and on the left and right. It consists of coarse white pigment particles with an addition of earth pigments and fine and medium black pigment particles, and appears identical on all pieces of canvas. The ground is almost identical to the one found on the pendant (SK-A-284), though slightly lighter.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the tacking edges. The first lay-in, made up of brilliant red and pink to red, brown and grey earth colours, is visible in thin areas of the composition. The painting was built up from the back to the front and from dark to light, leaving the sky and figures in reserve, which is most evident with infrared photography. Under the flesh tones, a glowing pale salmon colour is visible at the transitions, in addition to a medium red for the corners of the eyes and lids, and a dark red for the nostrils and lips. The skin and facial features were blended wet in wet with soft transitions. The dress was constructed from a mid-tone red with bright red highlights and then glazed with a deep red and adjusted with black contours. A curl on the sitter’s forehead was painted out and the fingers of her left hand were first placed slightly lower. Dark grey and red strokes are evident under the right sleeve of the boy, possibly indicating that his costume was altered. The contour of his head was modified as can be seen in the dark halo around his hair.
Gwen Tauber, 2023

Good. The varnish has yellowed significantly. The woman’s ochre-coloured shawl has become quite transparent.

For both the present painting (SK-A-285) and its pendant (SK-A-284)
? Probate inventory, Cornelis Tromp, Amsterdam, 14 April 1692, Huis Trompenburgh, ’s-Graveland, near Hilversum (‘Verdere grote portretten. Een van sijn Excellency graeff Tromp en een van desselfs gemalin samen 300.-’);¹¹W. Martin, ‘Een en ander uit den inventaris der nalatenschap van Cornelis Tromp’, Oud Holland 19 (1901), pp. 65-76, esp. p. 74. ? his niece, Sara Tromp (1655-1711), Delft;²²The portraits are not mentioned in the 1692 inventory of her father, Harpert Maertensz Tromp (1627-1691), which suggests that she inherited them directly from her uncle; SD, inv. no. 18.02 845, ‘Collectie Tromp’, no. 106, Akte van scheiding en deling van de nalatenschap van Harpert Maartensz. Tromp, gepasseerd voor notaris W. van Ruyven te Delft, 1692. ? her son, Gaspar van Kinschot (1676-1759), Delft; ? probate inventory, his widow, Catharina Cornelia van Kinschot (1675-1762), Delft, 1 April 1763 (‘Twee groote Pourtraiten sijnde den Admirael Cornelis Tromp en sijn vrouw Margaretha van Raaphorst met vergulde gesnede lijsten’);³³C.P.L. van Kinschot, ‘Genealogie van het geslacht Van Kinschot’, Genealogische en heraldische bladen 10 (1915), pp. 1-250, esp. p. 34. ? collection of her son, Johan Anthony van Kinschot (1708-1766), Delft and Heemstede, c. 1766 (‘Den heer admiral Corn. Tromp met zijne huisvrouwe door Meytens 1668 f80,-’);⁴⁴Catalogus van de schilderijen, behoorende tot den boedel van wijlen den heere Mr Johan Anthony van Kinschot, sijnde deese catalogus gevolgt naar die door den heere Van Kinschot selfs geformeerd, Delft c. 1766-67. ? will of his sister, Cornelia van Kinschot (1717-1788), Amsterdam (‘Cornelis Tromp en zijn huijsvrouw in ’t kleijn door Meijtens 1668 zeer fraaij. (De Roo)’ or ‘Den Admiraal Cornelis Tromp en zijn huijsvrouw Margaretha van Raephorst in groote anticque vergulde lijsten. (De Roo)’);⁵⁵C.P.L. van Kinschot, ‘Genealogie van het geslacht Van Kinschot’, Genealogische en heraldische bladen 10 (1915), pp. 1-250, esp. pp. 186-87. The will states that the portraits were not to be sold. ? her nephew, Gaspar de Roo (1731-1788), Delft;…; from the dealer P.C. Huybrechts, The Hague, with two other paintings, fl. 2,400, to the museum, 11 May 1803⁶⁶E.W. Moes and E. van Biema, De Nationale Konst-Gallery en het Koninklijk Museum, Amsterdam 1909, pp. 62, 208. The two other works are the portraits of Cornelis Tromp’s father Maerten Harpertsz Tromp and his third wife Cornelia Teding van Berkhout. The former painting, by Michiel van Mierevelt, was not transferred with the collection from The Hague to Amsterdam in 1808; its present whereabouts are unknown. For the latter picture, now regarded as a copy after the same artist, see SK-A-260.

ObjectNumber: SK-A-285

Margaretha van Raephorst’s wedding to Cornelis Tromp in 1667 was undoubtedly the reason for commissioning this portrait and its pendant (SK-A-284; also fig. a) of a year later. Margaretha was the daughter of Matthijs Willemsz van Raephorst, a member of the Amsterdam city council between 1628 and 1638, and Aefge Witsen. Her first marriage to Jean van Hellemont strengthened the ties between the patrician families even further; her mother-in-law was the sister of the Amsterdam burgomaster Andries Bicker. Margaretha’s distinguished connections combined with her vast wealth made her an attractive catch for Tromp after her husband’s death.¹⁰¹⁰For Margaretha van Raephorst’s biography see especially R.B. Prud’homme van Reine, Schittering en schandaal: Biografie van Maerten en Cornelis Tromp, Amsterdam 2001, p. 271.

Cornelis Tromp was the son of Maerten Harpertsz Tromp. He was destined to follow in the heroic footsteps of his father, but although his deeds in naval battles were certainly valiant he was also stubborn, arrogant and often out for his own honour and gain, which led him to be removed from his command in 1666. The tide turned in 1672 and he eventually became lieutenant-admiral-general, but never fought in that capacity.¹¹¹¹For Tromp’s biography see especially R.B. Prud’homme van Reine, Schittering en schandaal: Biografie van Maerten en Cornelis Tromp, Amsterdam 2001.

Tromp had his likeness painted very many times by the finest portraitists, among them Jacob Willemsz Delff II, Caspar Netscher, Nicolaes Maes and Peter Lely. Jan Mijtens not only immortalized him in the present 1668 canvas, but had done so earlier, in 1661.¹²¹²Present whereabouts unknown; A.N. Bauer, Jan Mijtens (1613/14-1670): Leben und Werk, Petersberg 2006, pp. 165-66, no. A 9, p. 361 (ill.). There is also a smaller version of the Rijksmuseum painting, dated the same year; see ibid., pp. 174-75, no. A 22, p. 367 (ill.). The artist’s ‘courtly style’ inspired by the work of Anthony van Dyck was very popular in Hague circles around the Orange-Nassau family, to which Tromp and his wife also belonged. Their pendants are from Mijtens’s final, very productive period. Two-thirds of his oeuvre dates from the last ten years of his life, and perhaps because of that huge output he made extensive use of standard compositions and poses.¹³¹³A.N. Bauer, Jan Mijtens (1613/14-1670): Leben und Werk, Petersberg 2006, p. 29. That is very evident in the portrait of Margaretha. Tromp’s is more in line with the conventional programme for fleet commanders and generals.¹⁴¹⁴See, for example, Mijtens’s 1661 Portrait of Johan van Beaumont and the 1667 Portrait of Michiel de Ruyter by Ferdinand Bol in the Rijksmuseum (SK-A-746 and SK-A-44 respectively). Mijtens employed the same design as in the aforementioned 1661 likeness of him.

Like her husband Margaretha van Raephorst is elegantly dressed and in a stately pose. One striking element in her painting is the Black boy fastening her bracelet. Similar figures occur more often in Mijtens’s oeuvre,¹⁵¹⁵Such as his Portrait of Maria of Orange-Nassau, Duchess of Simmern, and Hendrick van Zuijlenstein, c. 1665, The Hague, Mauritshuis; illustrated in A.N. Bauer, Jan Mijtens (1613/14-1670): Leben und Werk, Petersberg 2006, p. 432. as well as in that of other Hague artists.¹⁶¹⁶Adriaen Hanneman, for instance, in his Portrait of Mary Stuart II, The Hague, Mauritshuis; illustrated in O. ter Kuile, Adriaen Hanneman (1604-1671): Een Haags portretschilder, diss. Utrecht University 1976, fig. 37. There was a tradition of including Black servants in international courtly portraiture.¹⁷¹⁷Van der Molen in E. Schreuder and E. Kolfin (eds.), Black is Beautiful: Rubens to Dumas, exh. cat. Amsterdam (De Nieuwe Kerk) 2008, p. 263. The boy beside Margaretha was very probably included primarily to add contrast to the scene. In a poem in his 1678 treatise on painting Samuel van Hoogstraten supplies examples of how to make pictures more attractive through ‘variety’: ‘the eye sometimes enjoys adding a Moor to a maiden’,¹⁸¹⁸S. van Hoogstraten, Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst: Anders de zichtbaere werelt: Verdeelt in negen leerwinkels, Rotterdam 1678, p. 141: ‘zoo vind het oog ook een vernoegen somtijts een Moor by maegdekens te voegen’; M. Otte, ‘“Somtijts een Moor”: De neger als bijfiguur op de Nederlandse portretten in de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw’, Kunstlicht 8 (1987), no. 3, pp. 6-10. which is undoubtedly an allusion to the contrast between a coloured and a white skin. That distinction is found mainly in the play of hands around Margaretha’s right arm. The palest complexion possible was a mark of beauty for seventeenth-century women.

From an iconographic point of view Black servants would have been intended basically as exotic status symbols. Although De Lairesse stated that it was fitting to depict them with admirals or naval commanders, it cannot be assumed that the same was true for their wives.¹⁹¹⁹G. de Lairesse, Groot schilderboek, waar in de schilderkonst in al haar deelen grondig werd onderweezen, ook door redeneeringen en printverbeeldingen verklaard: Met voorbeelden uyt de beste konst-stukken der oude en nieuwe puyk-schilderen, bevestigd, II, Amsterdam 1712, p. 34. The one here admittedly does have individualized features, but he is still shown in a traditional way. The pearl earring, for example, is a stock adornment of Black servants in portraits, and once again there is that contrast in colour. In 1680 the Tromps had their likenesses painted by David van der Plas, and there too Margaretha has a Black boy by her side.²⁰²⁰Museum Rotterdam; illustrated in R.B. Prud’homme van Reine, Schittering en schandaal: Biografie van Maerten en Cornelis Tromp, Amsterdam 2001.

Tom van der Molen, 2023

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

For both the present painting (SK-A-285) and its pendant (SK-A-284)
O. ter Kuile, Adriaen Hanneman (1604-1671): Een Haags portretschilder, diss., Utrecht University 1976, pp. 23, 113-14; M. Otte, ‘“Somtijts een Moor”: De neger als bijfiguur op de Nederlandse portretten in de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw’, Kunstlicht 8 (1987), no. 3, pp. 6-10, esp. p. 9; A.N. Bauer, Jan Mijtens (1613/14-1670): Leben und Werk, Petersberg 2006, pp. 38, 70, 227-30, 400, nos. A 105, A 106, with earlier literature; Van der Molen in E. Schreuder and E. Kolfin (eds.), Black is Beautiful: Rubens to Dumas, exh. cat. Amsterdam (De Nieuwe Kerk) 2008, p. 263

For both the present painting (SK-A-285) and its pendant (SK-A-284)
1809, p. 50, no. 216; 1843, p. 43, no. 221 (‘in good condition’); 1853, p. 20, nos. 193 (fl. 800), 194 (fl. 800); 1858, p. 97, nos. 216, 217; 1880, pp. 225-27, nos. 249, 250; 1887, p. 119, nos. 1001, 1002; 1903, p. 189, nos. 1699, 1700; 1934, p. 203, no. 1699; 1976, p. 407, nos. A 284, A 285

Tom van der Molen, 2023, 'Jan Mijtens, Portrait of Margaretha van Raephorst (1625-1690), 1668', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.4552