Some stains

…; collection A. Mouriau (L. 1853); his sale, Paris (Vignères), 11 March 1858 sqq., no. 311 (‘Corneille de Visscher. Portrait d’homme avec les deux mains. Il est assis, vu de trois quarts, tourné vers la droite, il regarde le spectateur; le manteau qui le couvre laisse à découvert un riche habit de velours à gros boutons. On lit sur une colonne à droite: C. de Visscher ft. Cet admirable portrait est à la pierre noire sur vélin. En hauteur 0,297 sur 0, 227’), frs. 72, to the dealer Vignères, Paris;¹¹Copy RKD. …; collection Jacob de Vos Jbzn (1803-82), Amsterdam (L. 1450); his sale, Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 22 May 1883, no. 590 (‘Corneille Visscher. Portrait d’un Ministre Protestant. Portrait à mi-corps, dirigé vers la droite, assis. Le pasteur est coiffé d’une calotte et est vêtu d’une toge ouverte sur la poitrine, laissant voir un pourpoint avec des rangées de petits boutons. - Signé. A la pierre noire, sur peau de vélin. - Hauteur 30, largeur 22.5 cent.’), fl. 260, to the dealer R.W.P. de Vries for the Vereniging Rembrandt;²²Copy RKD. from whom on loan to the museum, 1883; from whom acquired by the museum (L. 2228), 1888

Object number: RP-T-1888-A-1535

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

Although Visscher himself also made autograph copies, it is very likely that the present drawing is a copy made by an anonymous artist.³³Oral communication John Hawley, 30 August 2016. Compared to what must surely be the original prototype, preserved in the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (inv. no. 46103),⁴⁴J. Spicer et al., Dutch and Flemish Drawings from the National Gallery of Canada, exh. cat. Ottawa (National Gallery of Canada)/Cambridge (MA) (Arthur M. Sackler Museum/Harvard University/Fredericton (New Brunswick) (Beaverbrook Art Gallery) 2003-04, no. 39. the Amsterdam sheet shows some weaknesses. The area around the sitter’s right hand, for example, was misunderstood. In the original drawing, the hand is resting on the man’s upper body, with his fingers tucked under his arm, whereas in the present drawing the copyist completely failed to indicate the man’s armpit and the gap between his chest and his left arm. Moreover, the presumably false signature on the column behind the sitter in the present sheet is in exactly the same spot as on the original drawing, with the letter C similarly touching the man’s cloak – evidence that it was copied and not inserted freehand.

The Ottawa version has long been paired with a Portrait of a Woman that surfaced on the New York art market in 2010.⁵⁵Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s (New York), 27 January 2010, no. 69, as Cornelis Visscher, $15,000. These two works appeared together as pendant portraits of a husband and wife (‘Portraits d’un notable hollandais et de son épouse’) in the sale of the collection of François de Robiano (1778-1836) in 1926.⁶⁶Sale, François de Robiano (1778-1836, Brussels) et al., Amsterdam (A.W.M. Mensing), 15 June 1926, no. 469, together with one other drawing, fl. 1,700 for both, to the dealer Colnagi, London; copy RMA. Subsequently, the two drawings were sold together on several other occasions in the twentieth century before being separated. They were probably together as early as 1775.⁷⁷Presumably, the two drawings can be identified in the sale, Frans van de Velde (?-1774, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (C. Ploos van Amstel et al.), 16 January 1775 sqq., Album L, nos. 667 (‘Een zittend Vrouwe Portret, een weinig op zyde te zien, prachtig gekleed, houdende de handen over elkander, en tot de Kniën toe verbeeldt, zynde uitvoerig op pergament geteekend. H. 12¼ B. 9 ¼ (311 mm x 235 mm)’), and 668 (‘Een zittende mans portret, houdende zyne regter hand op zyne borst, en in de linker, een handschoen; mede tot de kniën verbeeldt, en op dezelfde wyze behandeld als de voorgaande. H. 12¼ B. 9 ¼ (311 mm x 235 mm)’). Yet it is by no means certain that the portraits were made as pendants.

The Ottawa male portrait and the ex-Robiano female portrait were thought by Broos to be copies after the Rijksmuseum drawing and a Portrait of a Woman in the Amsterdam Museum (inv. no. TA 18048).⁸⁸B.P.J. Broos and M. Schapelhouman, Nederlandse tekenaars geboren tussen 1600 en 1660, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1993 (Oude tekeningen in het bezit van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, waaronder de collectie Fodor, vol. 4), no. 162. Even if it now seems that the Ottawa drawing is the superior version of the male portrait, I agree that the Amsterdam Museum version of the female portrait is better than the ex-Robiano version.

As further rightly concluded by Broos, the soberly dressed man in both of the male portraits seems to be a clergyman, recognizable by the customary skullcap (calotte) on his head.⁹⁹Ibid., p. 207. According to Mary E.A. Smith, the man might be identified as the Amsterdam minister Herman Langelius (1614-1666), based on a physiognomic comparison with the latter’s portrait by Frans Hals (1581/85-1666) in the Musée de Picardie, Amiens (inv. no. M.P.Lav.1894-95).¹⁰¹⁰Ibid., pp. 206-07; S. Slive, Frans Hals, 3 vols., London 1970, no. 81. It is unlikely, however, that Langelius, who was a strict Protestant, would have commissioned the Catholic Visscher to draw his portrait. Moreover, that the sitter was a Catholic priest is suggested by the crack in the column (a vanitas symbol) and by his gesture (holding his right hand over his heart).¹¹¹¹P. Dirkse, Begijnen, pastoors en predikanten. Religie en kunst in de Gouden Eeuw, Leiden 2001, pp. 181, 183. According to Dirkse, the tassels under the sitter’s collar cannot be found in the ecclesiastical garments worn by Protestant clergy around the 1650s, whereas they do feature from time to time in portraits of Catholic priests.¹²¹²Ibid., p. 179.

Marleen Ram, 2019

Getekende Nederlandsche portretten, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet) 1905, no. 56 or 58 (as Cornelis Visscher); Rembrandt und seine Zeitgenossen: Handzeichnungen aus dem Besitz des Rijksmuseums Amsterdam und der kgl. Museen Brüssel: Graphik aus dem Besitz des Museums, exh. cat. Dortmund (Schloss Cappenberg) 1949, no. 79 (as Cornelis Visscher); L.C.J. Frerichs, with I.Q. van Regteren Altena, Selected Drawings from the Printroom, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1965, no. 70 (as Cornelis Visscher); B.P.J. Broos and M. Schapelhouman, Nederlandse tekenaars geboren tussen 1600 en 1660, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1993 (Oude tekeningen in het bezit van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, waaronder de collectie Fodor, vol. 4), p. 206, under no. 162 (as Cornelis Visscher); J. Spicer et al., Dutch and Flemish Drawings from the National Gallery of Canada, exh. cat. Ottawa (National Gallery of Canada)/Cambridge (MA) (Arthur M. Sackler Museum/Harvard University/Fredericton (New Brunswick) (Beaverbrook Art Gallery) 2003-04, p. 101, under no. 39 (as Cornelis Visscher)

B. van Sighem, 2000/M. Ram, 2019, 'anonymous, Portrait of a Seated Man, Possibly a Priest, c. 1650 - c. 1700', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200145490