A groep of Guardsmen

Dirck Jacobsz, 1529

In the earliest known Dutch militia portrait, no fewer than seventeen men gaze at us with pride, including, at the upper right, the painter himself holding a paintbrush. The man fourth from the right in the bottom row is probably the captain. The militias were responsible for urban order, public safety and the defence of the city. This group portrait is a textbook example of bourgeois self-awareness and confidence, and typically Dutch.

  • Artwork typepainting
  • Object numberSK-C-402-2
  • Dimensionsheight 119.3 cm x width 174.4 cm
  • Physical characteristicsolieverf op paneel

Identification

  • Title(s)

    • A Group of Guardsmen, 1529
    • A groep of Guardsmen

  • Object type

  • Object number

    SK-C-402-2

  • Description

    Middenstuk uit 1529 met zeventien personen. Twee schutters houden in hun hand de loop van hun geweer, boven een man met een pen. In het rechter stuk ook een schrijvende man met een pen naast de man met een tinnen kan.

  • Inscriptions / marks

    • signature and date: ‘ÃNO // DNI 1529’
    • monogram: ‘DI’

Creation

  • Creation

    painter: Dirck Jacobsz

  • Dating

    1529

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Material and technique

  • Physical description

    olieverf op paneel

  • Dimensions

    height 119.3 cm x width 174.4 cm

This work is about

  • Subject

  • Place

Acquisition and rights

  • Credit line

    On loan from the City of Amsterdam

  • Copyright

    Public domain

  • Provenance

    Commissioned by or for the sitters for the Kloveniersdoelen (the headquarters of the arquebusiers’ civic guard); first mentioned in the Kloveniersdoelen, ‘in the small chamber for the gentlemen’, 1653 (‘Idem noch een oud stuk met 2 deuren van ao. 1529.’);{Schaep/Van der Molen 2013, pp. 126-27} transferred to the ‘hall outside the chamber of the burgomasters and aldermen’ in the town hall (Prinsenhof) by 1841 (‘Een Schutterstuk met twee Zijstukken, het midden met zeventien, en aan de zijden, ieder met zeven Boogschutters, geteekend 1532.’);{De Vries 1841, p. 5, no. 3.} on loan to the museum from the City of Amsterdam since 1885

Documentation

  • A. Jensen Adams, Public Faces and Private Identities in Seventeenth-Century Holland, Portraiture and the Production of Community, New York 2009, p. 212, 225, fig. 66

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