Werner van den Valckert

Portrait of a Man with Ring and Touchstone, probably Bartholomeus Jansz van Assendelft (1585-1658)

1617

Inscriptions

  • signature and date, bottom centre:W.v. Valckert / fe. 1617
  • label, on the reverse:[...] de Van Wely peint après sa mort. La bibliographie de Van Mander [...] que Jan van Wely était un [...] a été assassiné le 1 Mai 1616 à la Haye au Binnenhof.([...] van Wely, painted after his death. Van Mander’s bibliography [...] that Jan van Wely was a [...] was assassinated on 1 May 1616 at the Binnenhof in The Hague.)

Technical notes

The support is a vertically grained oak panel bevelled on all sides. A thin, pinkish ground or imprimatura, or both, is followed by smooth paint layers. Some impasto was used for the highlights, particularly in the ruff.

Scientific examination and reports

  • technical report: I. Verslype, RMA, 31 januari 2005

Condition

Good.

Conservation

  • L. Kuiper, 1981: complete restoration

Provenance

? Commissioned by Bartholomeus Jansz van Assendelft (1585-1658), Leiden; ? his son, Jan van Assendelft (1620-68), Leiden; ? his son, Barthout Jansz van Assendelft (1659-1722), Leiden; ? or his son, Adriaan van Assendelft (1626-97), Leiden; ? his son, Jan Adriaansz van Assendelft (1659-1728), Leiden; ? his son, Adriaan van Assendelft (1691-1752), Leiden; ? his son, Barthout Adriaansz van Assendelft (1733-84), Leiden; ? the daughter of his half-sister, Maria Anna Pompe van Slingelandt (1746-1805), the wife of Hugo de Wildt, Leiden; ? by descent to Frans de Wildt (1805-69), Leiden; ? Agnes W. de Wildt (1835-1905), Leiden; her daughter, Jonkvrouw Isabella F. Mollerus (1863-1920), Leiden, wife of Baron Dirk van Asbeck; his sale, Amsterdam (F. Muller), 30 November 1920, no. 1015, to Antoon van Welie (1866-1956), The Hague; from his estate, fl. 7,500, to the museum, 19571Provenance reconstructed in Ekkart 1999, pp. 20-25.

ObjectNumber: SK-A-3920

The artist

Biography

Werner van den Valckert (? The Hague c. 1580/85 - ? Amsterdam in or after 1627)

Werner Jacobsz van den Valckert was born around 1580/85, possibly in or near The Hague. He joined the Guild of St Luke there as a master-painter in approximately 1600/05, but did not produce his earliest known painting, Venus the Seductress, until around 1612.2Haarlem, private collection; illustrated in Van Thiel 1983d, p. 138, fig. 14. In 1605 he married Jannetje Cornelis van Montfoort in The Hague. He is last recorded in that city in 1612. He probably moved to Amsterdam in 1613, where a daughter of his was baptized on 10 August 1614. Like so many painters of the day, he lived in St Anthonisbreestraat, where he rented a house from the governors of the Leper-House, who were also one of his patrons.3See SK-C-417 and SK-C-419. He is last documented as living in Amsterdam in 1627, and he must have died that year or soon afterwards, possibly elsewhere.

Van den Valckert produced both history paintings and portraits, some of them of groups. Houbraken says that he studied with Hendrick Goltzius, but there is no firm evidence for this. As a history painter, in any event, he took his inspiration from the work of Haarlem artists. His youthful work was also heavily influenced by prints of the Carracci school. It used to be assumed that he travelled to Italy and Denmark, but there are no concrete indications that he did. Van den Valckert was also a graphic artist, and was among the earliest Dutch etchers, although he soon abandoned that medium. Almost all his dated etchings were made around 1612.

Everhard Korthals Altes, 2007

References
Houbraken I, 1718, pp. 215-16; Boon in Thieme/Becker XXXIV, 1940, pp. 53-54; Van Thiel 1983d, p. 129

Entry

This signed painting dated 1617 is one of Werner van den Valckert’s earliest portraits. There are some 15 portraits that can be securely attributed to him, all of them from the period 1616-25, when he was living in Amsterdam.4Van Thiel 1983d, pp. 153-66. Here, with a delicate touch, he painted a lively portrait of a man looking out of a window at the viewer while holding a gold ring in his right hand and a touchstone in his left. Typical of the artist are the flesh tones, which gleam and are built up with a wealth of hues. The suggestion of depth is enhanced by the impasto of the cartwheel ruff, and above all by the stone window embrasure out of which the man is leaning.

The sitter’s identity was convincingly established recently.5Ekkart in Amsterdam 1993, pp. 594-95, no. 267; Ekkart 1999, pp. 20-25. It was originally thought that this was a posthumous portrait of the Amsterdam jeweller Jan van Wely, who had been murdered in 1616, but in fact the sitter is very probably the Leiden goldsmith Bartholomeus Jansz van Assendelft (1585-1658).6The painting was auctioned in 1920 as a portrait of Jan van Wely, and a label on the back also mentions him. It seems that the man’s true identity had been forgotten. The painting’s provenance and the existence of an old copy with virtually the same provenance were the most important arguments for correcting the identification.7Ekkart in Amsterdam 1993, pp. 594-95, no. 267; Ekkart 1999, pp. 20-25. In 1617, the year the portrait was painted, Van Assendelft took up his first official position in the guild of goldsmiths and silversmiths, and for many years he was assay-master and later dean. There are only a few known works by him. The ring in this portrait is an allusion to his profession, and the touchstone to his function as assayer.

There is also an explanation as to why Van Assendelft, who lived in Leiden, had his portrait painted by an Amsterdam artist. Van Assendelft was a close friend of his teacher, Frans Bastiaensz van Mieris, even after the latter settled in Amsterdam around 1616. Van Mieris must have introduced the two men. It can be deduced that Van Mieris probably knew Van den Valckert well from the fact that he acted as a witness at the baptism of Werner’s son Cornelis on 11 July 1617.8Ekkart 1999, pp. 20-25.

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. 281.

Literature

Van Thiel 1983d, pp. 155, 156, 180, no. 11; Ekkart in Amsterdam 1993, pp. 594-95, no. 267; Ekkart 1999, pp. 20-25

Collection catalogues

1960, p. 311, no. 2357 A 1; 1976, p. 553, no. A 3920; 2007, no. 281

Citation

E. Korthals Altes, 2007, 'Werner van den Valckert, Portrait of a Man with Ring and Touchstone, probably Bartholomeus Jansz van Assendelft (1585-1658), 1617', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5627

(accessed 9 May 2025 20:12:15).

Footnotes

  • 1Provenance reconstructed in Ekkart 1999, pp. 20-25.
  • 2Haarlem, private collection; illustrated in Van Thiel 1983d, p. 138, fig. 14.
  • 3See SK-C-417 and SK-C-419.
  • 4Van Thiel 1983d, pp. 153-66.
  • 5Ekkart in Amsterdam 1993, pp. 594-95, no. 267; Ekkart 1999, pp. 20-25.
  • 6The painting was auctioned in 1920 as a portrait of Jan van Wely, and a label on the back also mentions him. It seems that the man’s true identity had been forgotten.
  • 7Ekkart in Amsterdam 1993, pp. 594-95, no. 267; Ekkart 1999, pp. 20-25.
  • 8Ekkart 1999, pp. 20-25.