The support consists of three vertically grained oak planks and is bevelled on the top, left and right sides. The ground layer is thin and transparent, and is covered with paint overall, apart from the passage between the sitter’s right hand and the edge of the table. The paint layers were applied smoothly, with some impasto for details such as the edges of the sash and the gold chain. The white ruff was built up with a light underpaint. There is a small pentimento in the table.

Good. The varnish is discoloured.

? Commissioned by or for the sitter; ? his eldest daughter, Angelica Swartenhondt (1607-78), Amsterdam; ? Her cousin, Maria Rey (c. 1631-1703), Amsterdam; ? her eldest son, Hendrick Meulenaer (1650-1704), Amsterdam; ? his daughter, Maria Meulenaer (1678-1743), Amsterdam; ? her husband, Pieter Schout Muilman (1672-1757), Amsterdam; ? his son, Dionis Muilman (1702-72), Amsterdam; ? his younger brother, Nicolaas Muilman (1709-90), Amsterdam; ? his eldest son, Henric Muilman (1743-1812), Amsterdam; ? his son, Willem Ferdinand Mogge Muilman (1778-1849), Amsterdam; ? his wife, Magdalena Antonia Muilman (1788-1853), Amsterdam; ? her daughter, Anna Maria van de Poll-Mogge Muilman (1811-78), Amsterdam; her stepson, Jacobus Salomon Hendrik van de Poll (1837-80), Amsterdam; by whom bequeathed to the museum, 1880; on loan to the Amsterdams Historisch Museum, 4 December 1972 to 10 March 1998¹¹Provenance reconstructed in Frederiks 1888, p. 79; with extra information supplied by Cornelis van der Bas, 2003.

Object number: SK-A-705

Credit line: Jonkheer J.S.H. van de Poll Bequest, Amsterdam

This 1627 portrait of a naval officer with a gold chain has been attributed to Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy, which is very likely, given the stylistic similarities with other portraits of his from that period. Jochem Hendricksz Swartenhont (1566-1627) was probably painted in the last year of his life, although it is also possible that this is a posthumous likeness. Swartenhont was a very wellknown figure around Amsterdam, owned a house called ‘In den Swarten Hondt’ (At the Black Dog) in Zeedijk, and was Lieutenant-Admiral of the Dutch fleet that defeated the Spanish off Gibraltar in 1622.⁴⁴Frederiks 1887, p. 271; Frederiks 1888, p. 66; Elias I, 1903, p. 254; Kolleman 1967, p. 61. By way of thanks he was presented with a gold chain with the portrait of Prince Maurits, which he is wearing here. Swartenhont also ran an inn, the ‘Prince van Orangien’, where the guests of prominent Amsterdam citizens lodged.

Swartenhont was the husband of Elisabeth Bas, who is best-known from a famous portrait of her (SK-A-714) that was bequeathed to the Rijksmuseum at the end of the 19th century, together with this one of her husband. That portrait is currently attributed to Ferdinand Bol, but for a long time it was regarded as a Rembrandt. It is almost the same size as Swartenhont’s portrait. The two works can be traced back to the original patrons with a reasonable degree of certainty. In a will made by Elisabeth Bason 1 November 1648 mention is made of ‘two portraits of her, the testatrix, and of her husband’, which may have been the works by Pickenoy and Bol.⁵⁵Frederiks 1888, p. 77: ‘(...) twee conterfeytsels van haer testratrice en van haren man’. With thanks to Cornelis van der Bas.

Everhard Korthals Altes, 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. 235.

Six 1886, p. 87 (as Werner van den Valckert); Frederiks 1887, pp. 265-78 (as possibly by Werner van den Valckert); Kolleman 1967, pp. 57-62; Kolleman 1971, pp. 114-16; Van Thiel in Berlin etc. 1991, p. 326

1880, pp. 487-88, no. 244a (as Paulus Moreelse); 1887, p. 172, no. 1468 (as Werner van den Valckert); 1903, p. 95, no. 900; 1934, p. 94, no. 900; 1976, pp. 218-19, no. A 705; 2007, no. 235

E. Korthals Altes, 2007, 'Nicolaes Eliasz. Pickenoy, Portrait of Jochem Hendricksz Swartenhont (1566-1627), 1627', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20027179