Jan Antonisz van Ravesteyn (workshop of)

Portrait of Nicolaas Schmelzing (1561-1629)

in or after 1611

Technical notes

The support is a moderately fine, plain-weave canvas, which has been lined. Cusping is present only on the left side. The ground layer has an ochre colour. With the exception of the broadly painted ear and sash, the paint layers were smoothly applied.

Scientific examination and reports

  • technical report: I. Verslype, RMA, 3 september 2004

Condition

Fair. The sitter’s hand and the tablecloth are abraded. The latter element is also discoloured. Discoloured retouchings are present in the armour, feathers and background. The varnish is moderately discoloured.

Conservation

  • W.A. Hopman, 1874: varnish regenerated
  • W.A. Hopman, 1889: canvas lined

Provenance

...; ? inventory, Frisian Stadholder’s Court, Leeuwarden, 16 August 1633, furniture room (‘Monsieur Smetlzinck’);1Drossaers/Lunsingh Scheurleer II, 1974, p. 35, no. 92....; first recorded in the museum in 1809, as Van Mierevelt2Coll. cat. 1809, p. 45, no. 191.

ObjectNumber: SK-A-259

The artist

Biography

Jan Anthonisz van Ravesteyn (? Culemborg c. 1572 - The Hague 1657)

Although there are no archival records to support such a supposition, it is believed that Jan Anthonisz van Ravesteyn was the son of a glass-painter, Anthonis van Ravesteyn, who is documented in Culemborg in 1593 and in The Hague in 1602. Van Ravesteyn’s date of birth is also uncertain, but it was probably around 1572. His name appears in two notarized documents from October 1597 in Delft, which has led to the belief that he was apprenticed to Van Mierevelt. However, Van Ravesteyn’s earliest known work, Portrait of Hugo de Groot at the Age of 16 of 1599,3Paris, Fondation Custodia; illustrated in The Hague 1998, p. 230, fig. 1. differs from Van Mierevelt’s early oeuvre, which, it has to be admitted does not include paintings from before 1600. In 1598 Van Ravesteyn joined the painters’ guild in The Hague, where he remained the rest of his life, marrying Anna Arentsdr van Barendrecht from Dordrecht in 1604. The wedding took place at the town hall, not in the Reformed Church, and from other, later documents it is known that the artist was a Catholic. A Van Ravesteyn was dean of the painters’ guild in The Hague in 1617, but whether this was Jan van Ravesteyn or his brother Anthonie, who was also a painter, is not known. In 1631, 1634 and 1637 he was nominated as warden of the guild, but not elected. He may perhaps have served in some capacity before 1631, but as the records of the guild’s administrators are spotty before that year, this cannot be ascertained.

Van Ravesteyn was the foremost portraitist in The Hague in the first half of the 17th century. His clientele consisted primarily of highly placed government officials and the patrician circles of The Hague and Dordrecht, the latter probably because of his wife’s ties to that town. In addition to portraits of individual burghers, Van Ravesteyn painted five civic guard pieces, some of which were quite innovative. Although there are hundreds of extant portraits by Van Ravesteyn and his workshop dating to after 1611, the number before that date is extremely small, in spite of the fact that his work was already being praised by Van Mander in 1604. His breakthrough – at least as far as commissions are concerned – seems to have come with the ambitious series of officers’ portraits begun probably for Prince Maurits in 1611.4This series, which was added to up until 1624, is now in the Mauritshuis. Illustrated in coll. cat. The Hague 2004a, p. 195, no. 45, pp. 303-07, nos. 139-44, 414-20. As his last signed and dated works are from 1641, Van Ravesteyn seems to have laid down his paintbrushes in that year. He was, however, one of the first artists invited to join the newly established Confrerie Pictura in 1656. The guild books list the names of his numerous pupils, the only outstanding one being Adriaen Hanneman (c. 1604-71), who would later become his son-in-law.

Jonathan Bikker, 2007

References
Van Mander 1604, fol. 300r; Van Gool I, 1750, pp. 15-22; Terwesten 1770, p. 9; Obreen III, 1880-81, pp. 261, 283, 285, IV, 1881-82, pp. I, 4-7, 10, 30, 59, V, 1882-83, pp. 68, 70, 72; Bredius/Moes 1892; Ekkart in The Hague 1998, pp. 230-37

Entry

The identification of the sitter in this portrait as Nicolaas Schmelzing is confirmed by the inscription on his portrait in the Leeuwarden Series (SK-A-550). Schmelzing was a scion of a noble family from Passau in Germany. His military career lasted for a period of 36 years. He is first documented in the service of the States army in 1593 as the commander of 100 German horse. From around 1610, he was colonel of one of the 11 regiments of the cavalry and belonged, therefore, to the elite of the States army. Held in high esteem by the courts of Maurits, Ernst Casimir and Frederik Hendrik, Schmelzing became lieu tenant-governor of Overijssel in 1616, and president of the war council in 1625. As commander of Deventer, he struck a major blow against the Spanish at Ommen in 1622, and was killed during the Siege of ’s-Hertogenbosch in 1629.5For Schmelzing’s biography see Van Gruting 1995, pp. 65-67; Zandvliet in Amsterdam 2000a, p. 242, no. 89.

The present painting is a somewhat smaller replica of the 1611 Portrait of Nicolaas Schmelzing painted by Van Ravesteyn as part of a series of officers’ portraits that was probably commissioned by Prince Maurits.6Canvas, 115 x 97 cm; Delft, Legermuseum, on loan from the Mauritshuis, The Hague; illustrated in coll. cat. The Hague 2004a, p. 305, no. 419. On the series of officers’ portraits see Spruit 1997; Zandvliet in Amsterdam 2000a, p. 239, note 1; Sluiter in coll. cat. The Hague 2004a, pp. 194-99. The copyist omitted the glove on the table in the original portrait, and added a curtain in the upper left corner. The less accomplished execution of the Rijksmuseum’s portrait is especially apparent in the crudely painted ear. Two bust-length replicas of Schmelzing’s portrait are also known, one dated 1618 in the Royal Palace in Amsterdam,7Photo RKD. and another in Enschede.8Coll. cat. Enschede 1974-76, p. 92, no. 157, fig. 136. The knee-length portrait of Schmelzing recorded in the 1633 inventory of the Frisian Court in Leeuwarden may, perhaps, have been the present painting, as many of the works that entered the museum early on were appropriated from Nassau family palaces.

Jonathan Bikker, 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. 257.

Collection catalogues

1809, p. 45, no. 191 (as Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt); 1843, p. 39, no. 197 (as Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt; ‘in good condition’); 1853, p. 18, no. 180 (as Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt; fl. 250); 1858, p. 90, no. 198 (as Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt); 1880, p. 210, no. 226 (as Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt); 1887, p. 139, no. 1166 (as Van Ravesteyn); 1903, p. 220, no. 1976 (as Van Ravesteyn); 1934, p. 235, no. 1976 (as Van Ravesteyn); 1976, p. 464, no. A 259 (as Van Ravesteyn); 2007, no. 257

Citation

J. Bikker, 2007, 'workshop of Jan Antonisz. van Ravesteyn, Portrait of Nicolaas Schmelzing (1561-1629), in or after 1611', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5207

(accessed 21 August 2025 01:44:05).

Footnotes

  • 1Drossaers/Lunsingh Scheurleer II, 1974, p. 35, no. 92.
  • 2Coll. cat. 1809, p. 45, no. 191.
  • 3Paris, Fondation Custodia; illustrated in The Hague 1998, p. 230, fig. 1.
  • 4This series, which was added to up until 1624, is now in the Mauritshuis. Illustrated in coll. cat. The Hague 2004a, p. 195, no. 45, pp. 303-07, nos. 139-44, 414-20.
  • 5For Schmelzing’s biography see Van Gruting 1995, pp. 65-67; Zandvliet in Amsterdam 2000a, p. 242, no. 89.
  • 6Canvas, 115 x 97 cm; Delft, Legermuseum, on loan from the Mauritshuis, The Hague; illustrated in coll. cat. The Hague 2004a, p. 305, no. 419. On the series of officers’ portraits see Spruit 1997; Zandvliet in Amsterdam 2000a, p. 239, note 1; Sluiter in coll. cat. The Hague 2004a, pp. 194-99.
  • 7Photo RKD.
  • 8Coll. cat. Enschede 1974-76, p. 92, no. 157, fig. 136.