The portrait is on canvas with an average weave density that is slightly finer than that of the pendant (SK-A-3742). It has been lined, probably using glue. The ground is white. The sitter’s face was painted fairly smoothly, wet in wet, with the hairs of the beard and moustache being indicated with a fine brush. The clothing is depicted in great detail, but the draperies and the tablecloth were more coarsely executed, with highlights laid on with broad brushstrokes. Small areas of paint loss in the helmet and gloves expose the red of the tablecloth, so they were not reserved.

Fair. There is quite a lot of overpainting and retouching in both the figure and the background. The varnish has yellowed, and was applied unevenly.

? Commissioned by or for Laurens Reael (1583-1637); ? his daughter Susanna Reael (1637-62), Amsterdam; ? her second husband Hiob de Wildt (1637-1704), Amsterdam; by descent to Maria S.T. de Wildt (1766-1851), with pendant SK-A-3742/no. 428; transferred for safekeeping to the Charter Room in Leiden Town Hall, 13 April 1838;¹¹Note RMA. removed at the request of Frans de Wildt (1805-69), Amsterdam, 4 May 1839, with pendant SK-A-3742/no. 428;²²Note RMA.…; by descent to Frans de Wildt (1805-69), Amsterdam, with pendant SK-A-3742/no. 428;³³Kramm III, 1859, p. 871. his daughter, Johanna E. Backer, née de Wildt (1831-1908), with pendant SK-A-3742/no. 428;⁴⁴Meijer 1888, p. 226. her daughter, Jonkvrouw Anna M. Blaauw, née Backer (1860-1941) ’s-Graveland, with pendant SK-A-3742/no. 428;⁵⁵Six 1911, p. 130; Amsterdam 1925, p. 25. her husband, Abraham J. Blaauw (1861-1945) ’s-Graveland, with pendant SK-A-3742/no. 428;…; collection P. van Leeuwen-Boomkamp, Hilversum/Naarden, with pendant SK-A-3742/no. 428; SNK, with pendant SK-A-3742/no. 428; from which on loan to the museum, with pendant SK-A-3742/no. 428, 1948; purchased by the museum, with pendant SK-A-3742/no. 428, July 1949⁶⁶Provenance reconstructed by Jansen in Amsterdam 1993, p. 598.

Object number: SK-A-3741

Laurens Reael was a director of the Dutch East India Company. He sailed for the East Indies in 1611 as commander of a company fleet. Four years later he was appointed governor of the Moluccas, and from 1616 to 1619 he was governor-general of the entire East Indies. While in that post he criticized the way his countrymen were curtailing the rights of the Moluccans. On his return to Holland in January 1620 he was awarded a gold chain by the States-General. He went on to hold various official positions, including vice-admiral of a Dutch fleet and Dutch ambassador to the English court, and was knighted by the King of England in 1625. He died in 1637.

The splendidly attired Reael is seen full-length in an aristocratic pose in keeping with his former position as governor-general. He is holding his military baton in his right hand, and on his chest is the chain presented to him by the States-General. Lying on the table on the right are gauntlets and a helmet with a plume of ostrich feathers.

This painting was exhibited several times in the mid-19th century as a work by Jan van Ravesteyn.⁷⁷Amsterdam 1845, p. 9, no. 116; Amsterdam 1858, p. 58, no. 1778. It was then attributed to Thomas de Keyser, because it was thought that it was De Keyser’s portrait of Reael that had been praised by Joost van den Vondel.⁸⁸Kramm III, 1859, p. 871; coll. cat. Amsterdam 1876, pp. 31-32, no. 502, p. 109. In 1888 Meijer identified it as a painting mentioned in the notes of Arnoldus Buchelius as being by Van der Voort.⁹⁹Meijer 1888, pp. 226-67. The Utrecht jurist Buchelius wrote that he had seen a ‘full-length’ portrait of Reael in Van der Voort’s studio in St Anthonisbreestraat, and it is very likely that he was referring to the present painting. Life-size, full-length portraits were still relatively rare in the northern Netherlands around 1620, and Cornelis van der Voort, who probably began painting this genre in the second half of the 1610s, largely contributed to its popularity.¹⁰¹⁰Dudok van Heel 2002, pp. 46-50; Buchelius 1583-1639 (1928), p. 48. See Jansen in Amsterdam 1993, p. 599, for the ties between Van der Voort and the Reael family.

This means that the portrait dates from the year in which Reael returned from the East Indies. What is remarkable is the presence of the helmet and the iron gauntlets on the table, which according to Dudok van Heel are attributes of the nobility, to which Reael was only raised five years later.¹¹¹¹Dudok van Heel in Amsterdam 2002a, p. 154. However, since they were painted on top of the red paint of the tablecloth, it is possible that they were added later.

The Rijksmuseum also has the companion piece to this portrait, in which Reael’s wife Suzanna Moor is shown against a similar background (see SK-A-3742). The differences in style and quality show that the two works are not by the same artist. Van der Voort quite simply could not have painted Moor, because he died five years before she and Reael married in August 1629.¹²¹²Wolleswinkel (1987, col. 399, note 7) wrongly cast doubt on the autograph nature of Reael’s portrait. Her portrait must have been painted after 1629 as the pendant to the one of her husband.

Gerdien Wuestman, 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. 321.

Buchelius 1583-1639 (1928), p. 48; Meijer 1888, pp. 226-27; Ekkart 1988a, pp. 7-10; Jansen in Amsterdam 1993, pp. 598-99, no. 271, with earlier literature; Dudok van Heel 2002, pp. 48-49; Dudok van Heel in Amsterdam 2002a, p. 154

1960, p. 332, no. 2591 A 1; 1976, p. 588, no. A 3741; 2007, no. 321

G. Wuestman, 2007, 'Cornelis van der Voort, Portrait of Laurens Reael (1583-1637), c. 1620', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200109949