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 1616. The panel could have been ready for use by 1627, but a date in or after 1633 is more likely. The ground layer has a beige colour. Some brushmarking is visible in the figure’s face and hair, but the paint layers were mostly smoothly applied. A very large pentimento reveals that the figure’s collar and clothing were altered significantly.

Fair. There are three old cracks in the panel and the paint layers are somewhat worn.

A gilded oak frame with carved books, putti, festoons, Jacob Cats’s coat of arms and portrait busts of Homer (top left), Virgil (top right), Ovid (bottom left) and Horace (bottom right), c. 1652¹¹Van Thiel in Amsterdam 1984b, pp. 160-63, no. 32; Van Thiel in Van Thiel/De Bruyn Kops 1995, pp. 206-09, no. 32.

? Commissioned by or for the sitter; ? his youngest daughter, Elisabeth (1618-73), with Huis Sorghvliet, 1660; ? sold with Huis Sorghvliet to Hans Willem Bentinck (1649-1709), Earl of Portland, 16 January 1675; ? his son, Willem Bentinck (1704-74), with Huis Sorghvliet, 1709; ? his grandson, Willem Gustaaf Frederik Bentinck-Rhoon (1762-1835), with Huis Sorghvliet, 1774; ? transferred to his new residence, Varel Castle, between Oldenburg and Hannover, 1819;…; owned by the warden of the Sociëteit Doctrina et Amicitia, Amsterdam;²²Van der Hoop Lijst, p. 8, no. 105; see note 3 below. from whom, fl. 260, to Adriaan van der Hoop (1778-1854), Amsterdam, 21 March 1834;³³Van der Hoop Lijst, p. 8, no. 105: ‘Idem [Portret] van Vader Cats door Mierevelt. gekocht van Geits, Kastelyn van Doctrina, die het heeft van iemand, die het schildery uit Hannover had medegebracht, alwaar Lord Portland hetzelve had overgebracht; naa dat hy dat portret op de verkoping van Zorgvliet had aangekocht hebbende ik daar voor betaald 260, 21 Maart 1834’. by whom bequeathed to the City of Amsterdam with the rest of his collection, 1854;⁴⁴Van der Hoop Taxatie 1854, p. 4, no. 105 ‘Portret van J Cats en ryk gesneden lyst f 80-’. on loan from the City of Amsterdam to the museum since 30 June 1885⁵⁵For the reconstruction of the entire provenance see Van Thiel in Amsterdam 1984b, p. 160; Van Thiel in Van Thiel/De Bruyn Kops 1995, p. 206; Pollmer 2004, p. 162, no. 109.

Object number: SK-C-180

Credit line: On loan from the City of Amsterdam (A. van der Hoop Bequest)

For Jacob Cats’s biography see the entry on Van Mierevelt’s 1634 Portrait of Jacob Cats (SK-A-258). The only substantial difference between the present portrait and that one, which also shows him bust-length and in lost profile against a dark background, is his clothing. The round collar and tabbaard worn by Cats in the 1634 portrait are visible in the present painting as a pentimento. It seems, then, that Van Mierevelt updated a replica of Cats’s portrait that he had in stock. It was probably around 1652, when Cats furnished his country estate of Sorghvliet, that the painting was mounted in the wonderful carved gilt frame that surrounds it to this day.⁷⁷Van Thiel in Amsterdam 1984b, pp. 160-63, no. 32; Van Thiel in Van Thiel/De Bruyn Kops 1995, pp. 206-09, no. 32.

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. 187.

1880, p. 102, no. 93; 1887, p. 112, no. 935; 1903, p. 175, no. 1585; 1934, p. 187, no. 1585; 1960, p. 205, no. 1585; 1976, p. 384, no. C 180; 2007, no. 187

J. Bikker, 2007, 'Michiel Jansz. van Mierevelt, Portrait of Jacob Cats (1577-1660), 1639', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20029042