Cornelis Engelsz (attributed to)

Portrait of Willem Fransz van Schoterbosch (c. 1510-?)

Northern Netherlands, c. 1620

Inscriptions

  • inscription, centre left:ÆTATIS 40
  • inscription, on the reverse, in black paint:3 / Willem Overyn van Schoterbosch, geb 15[..](3, Willem Overyn van Schoterbosch, b 15[..])
  • coat of arms, upper left: a red chevron and three red fleurs-de-lis on a silver ground

Technical notes

The same as Portrait of Frans van Schoterbosch, except for the presence of red glazing, and the dendrochronology.


Scientific examination and reports

  • technical report: M. van de Laar, RMA, 25 mei 2005

Condition

Fair. There are three small vertical cracks in the panel and a vertical inset (approx. 10 x 5 cm) visible at lower left. The retouchings here have discoloured.


Original framing

Integral frames painted black and with gilded sight edge


Provenance

? Commissioned by Johan Gerritsz van Schoterbosch (c. 1564-1654); ? his granddaughter, Aegje Hasselaer (1617-64), Amsterdam; ? her son, Gerrit Hooft (1649-1717), Amsterdam; ? his son, Hendrik Hooft (1676-1752), Amsterdam and The Hague; ? his daughter, Suzanna Isabella Hooft (1716-1803), The Hague; ? her son, Hendrik Hoeufft, Lord of Velsen and Santpoort (1747-1823), The Hague and Amsterdam; by descent to Jonkheer Ernest Louis Willy Marc Hoeufft, Lord of Velsen and Santpoort (1903-65), Meeuwen; by whom bequeathed to the museum, 19651Provenance reconstructed in Ekkart 1985, p. 110, note 7.

ObjectNumber: SK-A-4773

Credit line: Jonkheer E.L.W.M. Hoeufft van Velsen Bequest, Meeuwen


Context

The sitters in this series of six small portraits are identified by the inscriptions in black paint on the reverse of the panels. All except one of the portraits are replicas of 16th- and, in one case, early 17th-century prototypes that are no longer extant. The oldest replicated prototypes showed Pieter Salina (SK-A-4772) and Frans van Schoterbosch (c. 1484-?) (SK-A-4771), respectively the father-in-law and father of Willem Fransz van Schoterbosch (c. 1520-?), who is shown here. His son, Gerrit Willemsz van Schoterbosch (c. 1538-1611) is the sitter in the fourth portrait (SK-A-4774), and his grandsons, Floris (c. 1562-1618) (SK-A-4775) and Johan Gerritsz van Schoterbosch (c. 1564-1654) (SK-A-4776) are portrayed in the remaining two.

As Ekkart has demonstrated, the inscription on the reverse of Floris’s portrait records Johan’s name and vice versa; the year 1620 is inscribed on the front of Johan’s portrait and therefore cannot show Floris who died in 1618.2As if to perpetuate the confusion that Ekkart dissipates, the captions under the illustrations of these two portraits in his article are reversed! See the captions in Ekkart 1985, p. 108, figs. 7, 8. Moreover, the 1620 portrait is a version of one painted by Engelsz in 1619,3Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum; illustrated in Ekkart 1985, p. 104, fig. 2. and the same sitter is shown in a similar pose as one of the three captains in Cornelis Engelsz’s 1618 Banquet of Officers of the Haarlem Arquebusiers Civic Guard.4Illustrated in Ekkart 1985, p. 104, fig. 1. Van Valkenburg had identified him as Captain Cornelis Gerritsz Quakel, but the unmistakable resemblance to the portrait in the present series led Ekkart to recognize him as Johan Gerritsz van Schoterbosch, one of the company’s other captains.

In addition to showing the same sitter as in Engelsz’s 1618 civic guard piece, the Portrait of Johan Gerritsz van Schoterbosch and the rest of the portraits in the present series can be attributed to Engelsz based on the soft modelling of the figures and their striking pink cheeks. All six paintings were probably executed in 1620, the date on Johan Gerritsz van Schoterbosch’s portrait, and, given the fact that a direct line of descent can be drawn from his daughters to the last private owner of the paintings, Ernest Louis Willy Marc Hoeufft (1903-65), Johan probably commissioned them.5See Provenance.

Jonathan Bikker, 2007

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, nos. 70-75.


The artist

Biography

Cornelis Engelsz (Gouda c. 1574/75 - Haarlem 1650)

According to Van Mander, Cornelis Engelsz came from Gouda. Engelsz gave his age as approximately 32 in a document of 1606, and in one of 1635 he is recorded as being 60 years old, which indicates that he was born around 1574/75. Van Mander also informs us that Engelsz’s teacher was Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem, while the anonymous author of Van Mander’s own biography in the second edition of the Schilder-boeck also lists him under that artist’s pupils.6Van Mander 1618, fol. 207v, fol. Siii. Engelsz joined the Haarlem Guild of St Luke in 1593 and served as its warden in 1616. From 1594 to 1621 he is recorded as a member of the Haarlem civic guard. The town council appointed him fire pump master in 1626, and in 1629 commissioned him and Frans Hals to restore paintings in the Prinsenhof. Engelsz married Maritge Jansdr around 1595. Two of the couple’s children, Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck (c. 1601/03-62) and Jochem Cornelisz Verspronck (c. 1612/13-53), became painters. Both probably received their first training from their father. His recorded pupils were Michiel Willemsz in 1606, Hendrick Lourissen van Groll in 1622 and Symon Symonsz La Feber in 1637. Engelsz died a well-to-do man in November 1650.

His small extant oeuvre includes only three signed and dated portraits, a civic guard piece of 1612,7Strasbourg, Musée des Beaux-Arts; illustrated in Ekkart 1979, p. 22, fig. 5. another of 1618,8Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum; illustrated in Levy-van Halm 1988, p. 114, fig. 82. and a Portrait of Johan van Schoterbosch of 1619.9Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum; illustrated in Ekkart 1985, p. 104, fig. 2. The latter work enabled a series of six portraits in the Rijksmuseum to be attributed to Engelsz (the portrait shown here, and SK-A-4771, SK-A-4772, SK-A-4774, SK-A-4775, SK-A-4776). A third, probably earlier, civic guard portrait now attributed to Engelsz was rediscovered in 1991.10Illustrated in dealer cat. Naumann 1995, p. 63, no. 11. Stylistically, these works are related to Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem’s oeuvre, while the compositions of the civic guard portraits are also indebted to Frans Pietersz de Grebber and Frans Hals. In addition to portraits, there are two monogrammed still lifes with biblical scenes in the background in the tradition of Pieter Aertsen.11Still Life with the Supper at Emmaus, 1612, Norwich Castle Museum; illustrated in Norwich 1955, no. 16; Still Life with Christ in the House of Mary and Martha, Uppark, Sussex; illustrated in Ekkart 1979, p. 25, fig. 8. These works are stylistically related to the still lifes by Engelsz’s contemporaries, Cornelis Jacobsz Delff and Floris van Schooten. Finally, a genre piece showing an old man with an alms box and three children has been attributed to him.12Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum; illustrated in Ekkart 1979, p. 26, fig. 9.

Jonathan Bikker, 2007

References
Van Mander 1604, fol. 293v; Van Mander 1618, fol. Siii; Ampzing 1628, p. 370; Houbraken I, 1718, p. 252, II, 1719, p. 122; Van der Willigen 1870, p. 306; Von Wurzbach II, 1910, p. 782; Lilienfeld in Thieme/Becker X, 1914, p. 548; Ekkart 1979, pp. 13, 15, 21-26; Miedema 1980, II, pp. 420, 455, 932, 1033, 1056; Ekkart in Saur XXXIV, 2002, pp. 72-73; Van Thiel-Stroman 2006, pp. 146-48


Entry

The son of Frans van Schoterbosch, Willem Fransz van Schoterbosch was married to Maria Salina, a daughter of Pieter Salina. The lost prototype for this portrait would have been executed around 1560.13Ekkart 1985, p. 105. The sitter’s age is recorded on the replica as 40.14Ekkart 1985, p. 105, read this as ‘49’.

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. 72.


Literature

Wilson in Sarasota 1980, unpag., no. 1 (as Anonymous, Six Male Portraits from the Overrijn van Schoterbosch Family, c. 1604); Ekkart 1985


Collection catalogues

1992, p. 100, no. A 4773 (as Northern Netherlands School, mid-16th century, possibly a copy by Cornelis Engelsz after an unknown original); 2007, no. 72


Citation

J. Bikker, 2007, 'attributed to Cornelis Engelsz., Portrait of Willem Fransz van Schoterbosch (c. 1510-?), c. 1620', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.4853

(accessed 5 May 2025 10:32:00).

Footnotes

  • 1Provenance reconstructed in Ekkart 1985, p. 110, note 7.
  • 2As if to perpetuate the confusion that Ekkart dissipates, the captions under the illustrations of these two portraits in his article are reversed! See the captions in Ekkart 1985, p. 108, figs. 7, 8.
  • 3Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum; illustrated in Ekkart 1985, p. 104, fig. 2.
  • 4Illustrated in Ekkart 1985, p. 104, fig. 1.
  • 5See Provenance.
  • 6Van Mander 1618, fol. 207v, fol. Siii.
  • 7Strasbourg, Musée des Beaux-Arts; illustrated in Ekkart 1979, p. 22, fig. 5.
  • 8Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum; illustrated in Levy-van Halm 1988, p. 114, fig. 82.
  • 9Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum; illustrated in Ekkart 1985, p. 104, fig. 2.
  • 10Illustrated in dealer cat. Naumann 1995, p. 63, no. 11.
  • 11Still Life with the Supper at Emmaus, 1612, Norwich Castle Museum; illustrated in Norwich 1955, no. 16; Still Life with Christ in the House of Mary and Martha, Uppark, Sussex; illustrated in Ekkart 1979, p. 25, fig. 8.
  • 12Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum; illustrated in Ekkart 1979, p. 26, fig. 9.
  • 13Ekkart 1985, p. 105.
  • 14Ekkart 1985, p. 105, read this as ‘49’.