Sculpted in relief.

…; from the dealer D.A. Hoogendijk, Amsterdam, fl. 1,300, to the museum, 1 January 1953

Object number: BK-1953-15

Inscribed with the date 1667 along its edge, this portrait medallion likely originates from the workshop of Bartholomeus Eggers (1637-1692). During his early years as an apprentice to Artus Quellinus I (1609-1668), Eggers was involved in the sculptural decoration of the former Amsterdam town hall (the present-day Royal Palace at Dam Square), then under construction. While the pupil never managed to equal the astoundingly high level of his teacher, he was strongly influenced by his work. This is abundantly evident in the countless stylistic and compositional similarities to Quellinus’s series of regental busts – primarily portraits of the city’s burgomasters – executed between the years 1650 and 1661.¹¹For this series, see F. Scholten, ‘Quellinus’s Burgomasters: A Portrait Gallery of Amsterdam Republicanism’, Simiolus 32 (2006), pp. 87-125. One distinctive stylistic trait by which one can readily identify Eggers’s authorship – also occurring on the present relief – is the undercutting of the upper eyelids, resulting in a thin line of shadow that falls on the eyes. Despite this attempt to enliven the portrait, it remains fairly static and characterless. In this respect, Eggers’s marble autograph bust of the Amsterdam burgomaster Johannes Munter from 1673 is more successful (see the entry on BK-KOG-1457 with more information about Eggers and the tradition of the Amsterdam burgomaster busts).

The identity of the man portrayed on the present medallion has not yet been determined. The unembellished, severe portrayal adheres to the tradition of burgomaster busts established by Quellinus, to which other pupils and sculptors working in the master’s wake also contributed. In most cases, the favoured format for these portraits was a full-size bust carved in the round. Nevertheless, precedents for the medallion format also exist. In 1660, Quellinus portrayed the countenances of burgomaster Cornelis de Graaff and his wife, Catharine Hooft, in the format of pendant medallion busts in marble (BK-KOG-1458-A and -B). The same applies to the wall monument from circa 1661, commemorating the renowned burgomaster of Leiden, Pieter Adriaensz van der Werff (Hooglandsekerk, Leiden), sculpted by Eggers’s competitor Rombout Verhulst (1624-1698) and adorned with a marble medallion bearing the regent’s image.²²F. Scholten, ‘Quellinus’s Burgomasters: A Portrait Gallery of Amsterdam Republicanism’, Simiolus 32 (2006), pp. 87-125, esp. fig. 2.

Presuming that the man depicted in the present portrait medallion is about fifty years of age and was a (former) burgomaster of Amsterdam, there are two candidates for the identification.³³The other Amsterdam burgomasters around the age of fifty in the year 1667 have not been taken into consideration, as the person portrayed on the medallion in no way resembles their documented portraits. The first is Cornelis de Vlaming van Oudtshoorn (1613-1688), forty-five years of age in the year 1667 (the date inscribed on the relief) and a man who served ten separate terms as burgomaster of Amsterdam between the years 1656 and 1680. Unfortunately, no portrait of De Vlaming van Oudtshoorn exists from which to verify any similarity the countenance on the medallion. Certain is that this Amsterdam burgomaster knew Bartholomeus Eggers, however, as he was the sculptor of the tomb monument for his wife Nicolaä Hooft, commissioned approximately one year after her death in 1676 (dismantled, formerly in the Dutch Reformed church in Oudshoorn).⁴⁴F. Scholten, ‘Prudentia en Minerva, enige onbekende werken van de beeldhouwer Bartholomeus Eggers’, Antiek 26 (1991), pp. 185-92, esp. p. 192.

The second candidate is Simon van Hoorn (1618-1667), who was fifty years old in 1667. Between 1659 and 1667, Van Hoorn served four terms as burgomaster. His appearance is known only through Bartholomeus van der Helst’s portrait of four aldermen of the Kloveniersdoelen painted in 1655.⁵⁵Amsterdam Museum, inv. no. SA 2101, see N. Middelkoop, J.B. Bedaux et al., Kopstukken: Amsterdammers geportretteerd 1600-1800, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum) 2002-03, no. 76. No documentation exists regarding which of the four men is Van Hoorn. On the basis of their ages, however, one may deduce he is the relatively young, red-haired man far right.⁶⁶N. Middelkoop, J.B. Bedaux et al., Kopstukken: Amsterdammers geportretteerd 1600-1800, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum) 2002-03, p. 210. Like the man on the marble portrait, which dates from twelve years later, Van Hoorn has a prominent nose. This agreement, however, is too superficial to provide a definite identification of the present bust.

Bieke van der Mark, 2025

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 322, with earlier literature; F. Scholten, ‘Quellinus’s Burgomasters: A Portrait Gallery of Amsterdam Republicanism’, Simiolus 32 (2006), pp. 87-125, esp. no. 18

B. van der Mark, 2025, 'attributed to Bartholomeus Eggers, Portrait of an Unknown Man, Probably an Amsterdam Burgomaster, Amsterdam, 1667', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20017600