Portrait of Sir Peter Courten (1599-1624)

The canvas support has been lined. Cusping and original tacking edges are visible along all edges. The ground layer, which can be seen through pinpoint losses, appears to consist of two layers, a lower red layer covered by a thin grey layer. Some underdrawing can be seen in the floor. The paint was applied smoothly, with visible brushstrokes in the tile floor. There are pentimenti in the sitter’s ear and in the rosettes of his shoes.

Fair. The paint layer was flattened during the lining process. There are pinpoint losses throughout, as well as retouchings and overpainting along the top and bottom edges.

A box frame, painted black with gilding (original finish covered)

...; documented at Kasteel Popkensburg in an 18th-century manuscript;¹¹RAU, PA 26, Des Tombe archive, inv. no. 18, ‘Genealogieën, genealogische en heraldische aantekeningen betreffende de familie van Citters en aanverwante families, (17e-19e eeuw): Boudaen (Courten), Walleran Sandra, Fourmenois, Buteux, Hoeufft’, no. 12: ‘hangende voor de schoorsteen’: ‘Voor soon (i.e. a son from a previous marriage) van hr. William Courte bij Joff.Crommelm’. ? by descent through the families Boudaen Courten, Van Citters, Verheije van Citters, to Jonkheer Jacob de Witte van Citters (1817-76), The Hague; by whom bequeathed to the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague (inv. no. 3242), 1876;²²RAU, PA 26, Des Tombe archive, inv. no. 1038, ‘Testament van Jacob de Witte van Citters’, 16 June 1875. transferred to the museum, without attribution, as Portrait of William Courten, 1885

ObjectNumber: SK-A-913

Credit line: Jonkheer J. de Witte van Citters Bequest, The Hague

This and the following eight works are from the large group of family portraits in the De Witte van Citters Bequest. Most of the paintings from that collection have an inscription on the back with biographical information about the sitter, one or more coats of arms, and a number. In a few cases there is an old label on the back with biographical information written by Johan Boudaen Courten (1635-1716) (SK-A-2068 and SK-A-910, for example). Most of the portraits in the bequest hung in Kasteel Popkensburg in Zeeland, which had been in the family since 1653.⁵⁵See the entry on SK-A-911. A large group, including the present painting, entered the Rijksmuseum by way of the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst after the death in 1876 of the testator, Jonkheer Jacob de Witte van Citters. Another group was given on loan to his sister, Carolina Hester de Witte van Citters, and only entered the museum after the death of her husband, the well-known collector Arnoldus Andries des Tombe.⁶⁶On whom see Buvelot 2004.

Sir Peter Courten is shown full-length, wearing a doublet braided with passements, and a whisk made solely of needlepoint lace. His breeches and doublet are slashed. The fashionable costume and expensive accessories proclaim the sitter’s wealth, as does the Turkish carpet on the table.⁷⁷On the carpet see Ydema in Rotterdam-Leeuwarden 1990, p. 144; Ydema 1991, pp. 31, 138, no. 120; Hartkamp-Jonxis 1997, p. 404.

The young man’s identity has recently been the subject of discussion. According to an 18th- or 19th-century inscription on the back of the original canvas,⁸⁸Now concealed by the lining canvas; photo of the back of the original canvas, RMA. he is William Courten.⁹⁹The information in the museum catalogues of 1920 (pp. 267-68, no. 1539a) and 1976 (p. 376, no. A 913) that Willem Courten was born in 1581 and died in 1630 is incorrect. Those are the dates of his uncle Pieter Courten; see the entry on SK-A-2074. Willem Courten was born in 1607 and christened William in London on 29 November that year, and died between 1662 and 1666. He was the son of the rich silk and cloth merchant Sir William Courten (1572-1636) and his second wife, Hester Tryon. The younger William was barely nine or ten years old in 1617, whereas the sitter looks older and taller than a boy of that age.

Wolleswinkel suggested that the young man might be William’s half-brother, Peter Courten (1599-1624), the son of Sir William’s first marriage to a woman of the Crommelin family.¹⁰¹⁰Note IB. Her Christian name is given as both Margareta and Hester. Dudok van Heel (2002, p. 62, note 13) made the same suggestion. Although the sitter’s features make him look a little younger, the 17 or 18-year-old Peter is a more plausible candidate than his half-brother, who was eight years his junior. This identification has been strengthened by the discovery of an 18th-century document in the family archives stating that the sitter is the son of Sir William Courten’s marriage to a Miss Crommelin.¹¹¹¹See Provenance. Johannes, the couple’s other son, is not a possible candidate, since he died before 1610.

Dudok van Heel put forward the theory that this portrait is by an English artist from the circle of the English portraitist Robert Peake (1551-1626), but apart from similarities in the composition and dress, there is little stylistic affinity.¹²¹²Dudok van Heel 2002, p. 62, note 13; cf. Peake’s 1613 Portrait of Prince Charles as Duke of York; London 1995, pp. 188-89, no. 128 (ill.). Although full-length portraits were not very common in Dutch art around 1617,¹³¹³See Dudok van Heel 2002 on this type of portrait. it is not that fanciful to look for the painter in the province of Zeeland. Thanks to a recent discovery by Ekkart, it is known that full-length portraits were already being made there in the 16th century.¹⁴¹⁴See Ekkart 2005a for such portraits by Daniël van den Queborn. The young Courten had relatives living in Middelburg, and was himself buried there in 1624,¹⁵¹⁵Perhaps, like his cousin Pieter Boudaen Courten, he moved from London to Middelburg to help his uncle Pieter Courten in the family business; see the entries on SK-A-2068 and SK-A-2074. so it is perfectly conceivable that his portrait was painted in Middelburg. The attribution to Salomon Mesdach has been retained in view of the stylistic similarities to the portraits of Peter’s relatives.¹⁶¹⁶See the entry on SK-A-2068 for the attribution.

Gerdien Wuestman, 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. 173.

Dudok van Heel 2002, p. 62, note 13 (as circle of Robert Peake); Wuestman 2005, pp. 43, 60, note 23

1887, p. 74, no. 604 (as Dutch School, Portrait of Willem Courten); 1903, p. 20, no. 207 (as Dutch School, possibly an early work by Mesdach, Portrait of Willem Courten); 1960, p. 202, no. 1546 A 1 (as Mesdach, Portrait of Willem Courten); 1976, p. 376, no. A 913 (as Mesdach, Portrait of Willem Courten, on panel); 1992, p. 67, no. A 913 (as Mesdach, Portrait of Willem Courten); 2007, no. 173

G. Wuestman, 2007, 'attributed to Salomon Mesdach, Portrait of Sir Peter Courten (1599-1624), 1617', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.9077