Support The single, vertically grained oak plank with an arched top has been thinned to approx. 0.5 cm and cradled. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1648. The panel could have been ready for use by 1657, but a date in or after 1667 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The double ground extends up to the edges of the support. The first, translucent white layer consists of chalk and is followed by a pinkish-beige one.
Underdrawing Infrared reflectography revealed a few short, thin, dark lines in what appears to be a dry medium. They are most clearly visible in the face where they delineate the nose, mouth and chin. Subsequent broader, dark lines in a liquid medium can be glimpsed through translucent light areas such as the sleeves and the glove on the sitter’s right hand.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the edges of the support. The composition was built up from the back to the front and from dark to light, reserving the figure and hair. The figure was constructed over dark contour lines and translucent washes of grey and ochre-brown which also serve as shadows, for example, at the underside of the sitter’s right shirtsleeve. A dark, olive-green glaze was used for the shadows in the sleeves. The shadows of the face were undermodelled with a dark, warm, transparent brown paint. The flesh tones were subsequently softly blended wet in wet. Final details exhibit precise brushwork built up with small strokes. Infrared reflectography revealed that the pupil and iris of the sitter’s right eye were higher at first and those of the left eye further to the left. A pentimento is present in his left sleeve, where a salmon colour is evident beneath the silver and black cuff, the silver-threaded undercoat and the silver shoulder belt. Numerous adjustments were made to the contours in the final stage, including narrowing the sitter’s right arm, making the fingertips of the glove shorter and more pointed, and widening his left glove. A small area in the bottom left corner, to the right of the table, below the flap of the coat, was evidently painted over as well. The coat of arms at the lower right was presumably added later, as it was applied on top of the background.
Gwen Tauber [publication date 2026]

G. Korevaar and G. Tauber, ‘Gerard ter Borch Repeats: On Autograph Portrait Copies in the Work of Ter Borch (1617-1681)’, The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 62 (2014), pp. 348-81, esp. p. 352, note 7, pp. 368-76

Fair. The grain of the wood has become (faintly) visible in the background due to the increased transparency of the paint. The paint layer is slightly abraded, particularly in the black of the pants. The red of the tablecloth has faded.

Commissioned by the sitter’s brother, Pieter de Graeff (1638-1707), Amsterdam, 22 July 1673;¹¹See Entry. ? his probate inventory, Amsterdam, 9 March 1709, in the Grand Salon of the house on 573 Herengracht, no. 118 (‘een poirtraict van de Hr Jacob de Graaff door Ter Burch f 80,-’);²²S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, ‘In presentie van de Heer Gerard ter Borch’, in A.M. Logan (ed.), Essays in Northern European Art Presented to Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann on his Sixtieth Birthday, Doornspijk 1983, pp. 66-71, esp. p. 67, note 9. ? his probate inventory, Amsterdam, 2 October 1710 (‘Een dito [pourtraict] van den heer Jacob de Graeff door Ten Burgh 80,-’);³³GPI, N-470.…; collection Duc de la Trémoille, Paris;⁴⁴S.J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert Ter Borch, II, The Hague 1960, p. 227.…; collection Comtesse Duchâtel, Paris, 1874;⁵⁵Catalogue supplémentaire des ouvrages de peinture: Exposés au profit de la colonisation de l'Algérie pas les Alsaciens-Lorrains, exh. cat. Paris (Palais du Corps Législatif) 1874, p. 57, no. 1028, as ‘Jean de Witt’.…; ? collection Gustave Louis Chaix d’Est-Ange I (1800-1876), Paris, or collection Gustave Chaix d’Est-Ange II (1832-1887), Paris;⁶⁶S.J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert Ter Borch, II, The Hague 1960, p. 227.…; the dealer F. Kleinberger, Paris;⁷⁷S.J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert Ter Borch, II, The Hague 1960, p. 227.…; collection August de Ridder (1837-1911), Villa Schönberg, Kronberg im Taunus, 1910;⁸⁸W. von Bode, Die Gemäldegalerie des weiland Herrn A. de Ridder in seiner Villa zu Schönberg bei Cronberg im Taunus, Berlin 1910, p. 39. his sale, sold on the premises (Galerie Georges Petit, Paris), 2 June 1924, no. 78, as Portrait of Andries de Graeff (1611-1678), fr. 85,000;⁹⁹Copy RMA.…; sale Jean Sauphar (1890-1928, Hunedoara [Romania]), Lair-Dubreuil, Mannheim, et al., Paris (Hôtel Drouot), 17 (18) June 1930 sqq., no. 15, as presumably Portrait of Andries de Graeff (1611-1678), fr. 138,000, to the dealer John Levy;¹⁰¹⁰Copy RMA. John Levy Galleries, New York, 1934;¹¹¹¹K. Grant Sterne, ‘Some Old Masters in New York Galleries’, Parnassus 3 (1931), no. 2, pp. 6-11, esp. p. 11; S.J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert Ter Borch, II, The Hague 1960, p. 227.…; consigned by an unknown collector to the dealer Paul Cassirer & Co., Amsterdam, December 1938;¹²¹²Note RMA. from whom, fl. 30,000, to H. Posse, for Adolf Hitler’s Führermuseum, Linz (inv. no. 1341), 7 September 1940;¹³¹³B. Schwarz, Hitlers Museum: Die Fotoalben Gemäldegalerie Linz: Dokumente zum ‘Führermuseum’, Vienna 2004, p. 107, no. III/23. war recuperation, SNK, 1945 (inv. no. NK 2351);¹⁴¹⁴Provenance from 1874 to 1945 reconstructed by R.E.O. Ekkart et al., Herkomst Gezocht: De geschiedenis van ruim 4700 kunstwerken die na WO II uit Duitsland terugkwamen en sindsdien de NK-collectie vormen/Origins Unknown: The History of over 4700 Works of Art that Returned from Germany to The Netherlands after World War II and Have since then Incorporated the NK Collection The Hague 2006 (CD-ROM); the Munich Central Collecting Point number 1537/2 is recorded in black ink on the reverse of the panel. on loan from the SNK to the museum, 1948 (inv. no. SK-C-1376); transferred to the museum, 1960

Object number: SK-A-3963

After carrying out his commissions for the Pancras family in 1670,²²²²Apart from the portraits of Aletta Pancras and her husband in the Rijksmuseum (SK-A-2418 and SK-A-2417), he painted three more of her parents and her brother; for these see S.J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert Ter Borch, II, The Hague 1960, pp. 217-18, nos. 242, 243, pp. 215-16, no. 239 (with erroneous identification). Gerard ter Borch painted a second group of portraits for Amsterdam patrons. In addition to this likeness of Jacob de Graeff,²³²³There is biographical information about the sitter on the reverse which is now hidden by the cradling. See Inscriptions; quoted from S.J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert Ter Borch, II, The Hague 1960, p. 228. he immortalized his uncle Andries de Graeff (1611-1678) and the latter’s son Cornelis (1623-1678), as well as the present sitter’s brother Pieter (1638-1707).²⁴²⁴Private collection; The Hague, Mauritshuis; and Douwes Fine Art, 2010-18. Illustrated in N. Middelkoop (ed.), Kopstukken: Amsterdammers geportretteerd 1600-1800, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum) 2002-03, p. 134, no. 33, p. 135, no. 34, and S.J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert Ter Borch, I, The Hague 1959, p. 387, no. 263.

Jacob de Graeff, Lord of Purmerland and Ilpendam, was a son of Cornelis de Graeff and Catharina Hooft. His father was a close associate of the Grand Pensionary of Holland Johan de Witt and was one of the most powerful Amsterdam regents of the mid-seventeenth century. In 1666 Jacob married Maria van der Does, who died a few months later. He was a commissioner and regent of the Civic Orphanage in 1667. He became a captain in the civic guard in 1671 and an alderman of Amsterdam in 1672, but the stadholder had him removed from that post in September of that year because of his ties to Johan de Witt.²⁵²⁵De Witt was married to Wendela Bicker, a sister of Jacoba Bicker, the wife of Jacob de Graeff’s brother Pieter. De Graeff was a very prosperous man. In 1673 he sold the Manor of Soestdijk and all its lands to the newly installed Stadholder Willem III, and in 1674 his wealth was assessed at 260,000 guilders.²⁶²⁶See J.E. Elias, De vroedschap van Amsterdam 1578-1795, I, Haarlem 1903, p. 423. He held no public office when he posed for his portrait in 1673, but was still a member of the circle of Amsterdam regents. In the hope of regaining a place in the city government he attempted to curry favour with Willem III. To demonstrate his patriotism and support for the House of Orange he became a volunteer captain in the Regiment of Horse Guards in 1673/74, but this selfless contribution to the Franco-Dutch War (1672-78) did not bring the reward he expected, for he never returned to his post before his death in 1690.²⁷²⁷R. Fruin, ‘Jacob de Graeff’, in I.A. Nijhoff (ed.), Bijdragen voor vaderlandsche geschiedenis en oudheidkunde, II, Arnhem 1885, pp. 351-53.

On 22 July 1673, Pieter de Graeff recorded the commission for the likeness of Jacob in his almanac of the Amsterdam chamber of the Dutch East India Company (VOC): ‘Awarded to Gerard ter Borch for the account of my brother to have his portrait painted, and to pay as much for it as uncle Andries de Graeff paid for the likeness of his son Cornelis de Graeff’.²⁸²⁸S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, ‘In presentie van de Heer Gerard ter Borch’, in A.M. Logan (ed.), Essays in Northern European Art Presented to Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann on his Sixtieth Birthday, Doornspijk 1983, pp. 66-71, esp. p. 67. On the same day he wrote that he had bought ‘two small wooden panels with oval tops’ for 1 guilder.²⁹²⁹S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, ‘In presentie van de Heer Gerard ter Borch’, in A.M. Logan (ed.), Essays in Northern European Art Presented to Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann on his Sixtieth Birthday, Doornspijk 1983, pp. 66-71, esp. p. 67. As there is a second autograph version of Jacob’s portrait in the Saint Louis Art Museum,³⁰³⁰S.J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert Ter Borch, II, The Hague 1960, p. 228, no. 265 II. the panels were bought specifically for this purpose. It is possible that one of them was intended for Pieter and the other for Jacob himself.³¹³¹Middelkoop in N. Middelkoop (ed.), Kopstukken: Amsterdammers geportretteerd 1600-1800, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum) 2002-03, p. 136. On 29 July 1673 Jacob wrote from Amsterdam to Pieter in The Hague: ‘As to my likeness, it is very good and the head is almost finished, which has always been the weightiest article in our family, so the rest will follow’.³²³²R. Fruin, ‘Jacob de Graeff’, in I.A. Nijhoff (ed.), Bijdragen voor vaderlandsche geschiedenis en oudheidkunde, II, Arnhem 1885, p. 354; S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, ‘In presentie van de Heer Gerard ter Borch’, in A.M. Logan (ed.), Essays in Northern European Art Presented to Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann on his Sixtieth Birthday, Doornspijk 1983, pp. 66-71, esp. p. 67. This would have been a reference to the portrait by Ter Borch, the commission for which he had been awarded a week earlier.

The sword at De Graeff’s side and his overcoat, a type known as a ‘justaucorps’, and the richly worked belt across his chest refer to the military position he occupied in this period as a volunteer in the army of the new stadholder, and which may have been the reason for ordering the portrait.³³³³For the same attributes and pose see Ferdinand Bol’s Portrait of Engel de Ruyter, which was painted in 1669, the year in which the sitter was appointed captain in ordinary. The Hague, Mauritshuis; illustrated in Q. Buvelot (ed.), Albert Eckhout: Een Hollandse kunstenaar in Brazilië, exh. cat. The Hague (Mauritshuis) 2004, p. 273. The fact that he is wearing gauntlets may be a specific allusion to his post with the cavalry.³⁴³⁴R. Fruin, ‘Jacob de Graeff’, in I.A. Nijhoff (ed.), Bijdragen voor vaderlandsche geschiedenis en oudheidkunde, II, Arnhem 1885, p. 353. It is suggested in H.R. Hoetink et al., Gerard Ter Borch: Zwolle 1617-Deventer 1681, exh. cat. The Hague (Mauritshuis)/Münster (Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte) 1974, p. 190, that the portrait was painted in August 1674, after De Graeff’s return from the Battle of Seneffe (Hainault), but that hypothesis can be dismissed because of the notes about the commission written in Pieter de Graeff’s almanac in July 1673. A sword, however, was also a fashionable attribute, and Jacob de Graeff spared neither trouble nor expense to present himself as an aristocrat here, with the associated restrained but nevertheless unmistakable display of wealth. Both the artist and the sitter would have had Ter Borch’s portrait of Cornelis de Graeff in mind, which is specifically mentioned in the commission.³⁵³⁵The Hague, Mauritshuis; illustrated in N. Middelkoop (ed.), Kopstukken: Amsterdammers geportretteerd 1600-1800, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum) 2002-03, p. 135, no. 34.

McNeil Kettering has pointed out the similarities in the composition, place of the coat of arms³⁶³⁶Which, however, was probably added later. See Technical notes. and the background between this portrait and the ones by Caspar Netscher of Pieter de Graeff and his wife Jacoba Bicker of 1663.³⁷³⁷SK-A-3977 and SK-A-3978. According to her, Ter Borch depicted Jacob primarily as a scion of the powerful De Graeff dynasty.³⁸³⁸A. McNeil Kettering, ‘Gerard ter Borch’s Portraits for the Deventer Elite’, Simiolus 27 (1999), pp. 46-69, esp. pp. 68-69. On these portraits see also M. Wieseman, Caspar Netscher and Late Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting, Doornspijk 2002, p. 179, nos. 20, 21. The format with the arched top is indeed unusual for Ter Borch and indicates that it was meant to match the shapes of the Netscher paintings, which are the same size. They are all listed as hanging together in the inventory of Pieter de Graeff’s house at 573 Herengracht that was drawn up in March 1709. In the Grand Salon there was ‘a portrait of Mr Jacob de Graeff by Ter Borch, 80 guilders’,³⁹³⁹See Provenance. alongside ‘Two ditto of Mr Pieter de Graeff and Lady Jacoba Bicker made by Netscher, 160 guilders’ and ‘One ditto of Lord Pensionary De Witt’.⁴⁰⁴⁰S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, ‘In presentie van de Heer Gerard ter Borch’, in A.M. Logan (ed.), Essays in Northern European Art Presented to Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann on his Sixtieth Birthday, Doornspijk 1983, pp. 66-71, esp. p. 67, note 9. Netscher’s portrait of Johan de Witt is probably the painting now in a private collection; see M. Wieseman, Caspar Netscher and Late Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting, Doornspijk 2002, pp. 327-29, no. 98 (ill.). It has been assumed on the basis of the identical dimensions that the mention of the painting by Ter Borch referred to the version now in the Saint Louis Art Museum.⁴¹⁴¹S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, ‘In presentie van de Heer Gerard ter Borch’, in A.M. Logan (ed.), Essays in Northern European Art Presented to Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann on his Sixtieth Birthday, Doornspijk 1983, pp. 66-71, esp. p. 67, note 9. However, that observation was based on a misunderstanding, as the Rijksmuseum picture has always been published with incorrect, smaller measurements in the past.⁴²⁴²The incorrect size of 45.5 x 34.5 cm goes back to the listing in the De Ridder sale of 1924 (see Provenance). That was followed in subsequent catalogues; see, for example, P.J.J. van Thiel et al., All the Paintings of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam: A Completely Illustrated Catalogue, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1976, pp. 131-32. The true dimensions of 51.6 x 35.6 cm are almost the same as those of the Netscher portraits and the one by Ter Borch in Saint Louis.

The Saint Louis version is in pristine condition whereas the Rijksmuseum one is abraded and by comparison makes a subdued impression because the organic reds have dramatically faded as the result of long exposure to strong sunlight. The latter is a clue that this was the painting that hung in the Grand Salon opposite the large south-facing windows of Pieter de Graeff’s canal mansion. Other evidence supports this. An old photograph of the reverse of the Rijksmuseum panel dating from before it was thinned and cradled shows a handwritten text with the sitter’s biographical details in dark ink. Other pictures with similar additions are known to have originated in Pieter de Graeff’s collection. The panel of the Saint Louis version is untouched and reveals no trace of such an inscription. Moreover, that work still retains its original carved gilt frame, which is different in motif and form from those of the other rounded arched-top portraits of Pieter de Graeff and Jacoba Bicker by Netscher that are listed in the 1709 inventory of Pieter’s house, which effectively rules out that this picture was on view there. Hence, Jacob himself must have owned the painting now in Saint Louis.⁴³⁴³G. Korevaar and G. Tauber, ‘Gerard ter Borch Repeats: On Autograph Portrait Copies in the Work of Ter Borch (1617-1681)’, The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 62 (2014), pp. 348-81, esp. pp. 365-76.

Extensive technical investigation on both versions has furthermore yielded evidence that Ter Borch first started working on the Rijksmuseum portrait and finished it simultaneously with the one in Saint Louis.⁴⁴⁴⁴See G. Korevaar and G. Tauber, ‘Gerard ter Borch Repeats: On Autograph Portrait Copies in the Work of Ter Borch (1617-1681)’, The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 62 (2014), pp. 348-81.

Gerbrand Korevaar [publication date 2026]

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

F. Hannema, Gerard Terborch, Amsterdam 1943, pp. 100, 141; E. Plietzsch, Gerard ter Borch, Vienna 1944, pp. 18, 54, no. 94; S.J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert Ter Borch, I, The Hague 1959, pp. 157-58; ibid., II, 1960, pp. 227-28, no. 265; H.R. Hoetink et al., Gerard Ter Borch: Zwolle 1617-Deventer 1681, exh. cat. The Hague (Mauritshuis)/Münster (Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte) 1974, pp. 190-91, no. 58; G. Korevaar and G. Tauber, ‘Gerard ter Borch Repeats: On Autograph Portrait Copies in the Work of Ter Borch (1617-1681)’, The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 62 (2014), pp. 348-81

1949, p. 8, no. 573; 1960, p. 49, no. 573 A4; 1976, pp. 131-32, no. A 3963

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2026, 'Gerard ter (II) Borch, Portrait of Jacob de Graeff (1642-1690), 1673', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20026695