Self-portrait (?) at the Age of Forty-eight

Pieter Kouwenhorn, 1648

Artwork typedrawing
Object numberRP-T-00-176
Dimensionsheight 224 mm x width 161 mm
Physical characteristicswatercolour, on vellum

Inscriptions

inscribed: on a banderole in the drawn frame below the portrait, in black ink, Ætatis 48; below that on the left, in black ink PKHorn (first three initials interlaced); at lower right, in black ink, Anno 1648.
stamped on verso: lower left, with the mark of the museum (L. 2165)

Provenance

…; unknown

Object number: RP-T-00-176

The artist

Biography

Pieter Kouwenhorn (Haarlem, 1599 – Leiden, 1654)

The glass painter Pieter Kouwenhorn is now known to posterity mainly as the teacher not only of the Leiden Fine painter Gerard Dou (1613-1675) but of Constantijn Huygens II (1628-1697) and Christiaen Huygens (1629-1695), to whom he gave drawing lessons. This is recorded in the account of their childhood written by their father, Constantijn Huygens I (1596-1687), who was secretary to Stadholder Frederik Hendrik (1584-1647).¹In his account of the year 1645 Constantijn Huygens wrote: Inde Teecken Conste voorderden sij te Leiden mede seer, onder eenen Mr Pieter Couwenhoorn (‘At Leiden they (Constantijn and Christiaen) made progress in drawing, profiting particularly from the tutelage of a Mr Pieter Couwenhoorn’); A. Eyffinger (ed.), Huygens herdacht, exh. cat. The Hague (Koninklijke Bibliotheek) 1987, p. 141. Kouwenhorn was a citizen of Leiden from 1619, the same year he was first registered as a master of the city’s glass painters guild. He remained active there until his death; on 21 May 1654 he was buried in the city’s Hooglandse Kerk.²M.L. Wurfbain and R.E.O. Ekkart, Geschildert tot Leyden anno 1626, exh. cat. Leiden (Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal) 1976-77. Among his surviving designs for glass are those made in 1627-28 for the stained-glass windows in the aldermen's chamber of Leiden Town Hall are preserved in city archives, the Erfgoed Leiden en Omstreken.³Ibid., nos. T 12, T 13 and T 14.

Marijn Schapelhouman, 1998

References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, II (1719), p. 2; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, 3 vols., Vienna/Leipzig 1906-11, I (1906), p. 348; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, VIII (1913), p. 11 (as Couwenhorn, Pieter); E. Pelinck, ‘Pieter Couwenhorn, glasschrijver te Leiden’, Oud- Holland 68 (1953), no. 1, pp. 51-56; M.L. Wurfbain and R.E.O. Ekkart, Geschildert tot Leyden anno 1626, exh. cat. Leiden (Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal) 1976-77, pp. 112-13; J. van Tatenhove, 'Een tekening van Pieter Kouwenhorn (1599?-1656)', Oud Holland 98 (1984), p. 56; M. Schapelhouman and P. Schatborn, Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: Artists Born between 1580 and 1600, 2 vols., coll. cat. Amsterdam 1998, nos. 220-21; Z. van Ruyven-Zeman, 'Pieter Kouwenhorn, 'uytnemend teykenaar ende gelase-sgrijver' en het carton van het universiteitsglas in de Pieterskerk te Leiden', Oud Holland 117 (2004), p. 162-80; M. Hoogduin-Berkhout, ''Op de geluckige regeeringe van Leiden'. Geschilderde voorstellingen in het Leidse stadhuis 1575-1700', De Zeventiende Eeuw 22 (2006), pp. 59-105 (esp. p. 72); Z. van Ruyven-Zeman, Stained Glass in the Netherlands before 1795, 2 vols., Amsterdam 2011 (Corpus Vitrearum The Netherlands, vol. 4), I, p. 282, II, pp. 472-73, 564, 575-81; RKD artists https://rkd.nl/artists/18830

Entry

In the collection of Erfgoed Leiden en Omstreken, Leiden, there is a bust-length pen-and-ink drawing in an oval, which is signed and dated Aetatis 36 PKHornfecit Anno 1635. (inv. no. PV–PV53750). On a separate piece of paper, in an old hand, are the words Mr Pieter KouwenHorn heeft dit na hemselve getekent (‘Pieter Kouwenhorn drew this from his own likeness’).⁴E. Pelinck, ‘Pieter Couwenhorn, glasschrijver te Leiden’, Oud- Holland 68 (1953), no. 1, p. 53, n. 7, fig. 7; Geschildert tot Leyden anno 1626, exh. cat. Leiden (Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal) 1976-77, p. 112; A. Eyffinger (ed.), Huygens herdacht, exh. cat. The Hague (Koninklijke Bibliotheek) 1987, p. 142.

The drawing in the Rijksmuseum is dated 1648, and the sitter's age is given as forty-eight. On the basis of this information and the striking resemblance between the two men it can be concluded that the Amsterdam portrait is also of Kouwenhorn and that he was born in 1599. The type of portrait in an oval cartouche is known mainly from prints and black chalk drawings, some of which are on vellum. A coloured portrait like that of Kouwenhorn is a rarity. The main motif in the background is a large tree.

Marijn Schapelhouman, 1998

Literature

M. Schapelhouman, Het beste bewaard. Een Amsterdamse verzameling en het ontstaan van de Vereniging Rembrandt, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksprentenkabinet) 1983, no. x ; M. Schapelhouman and P. Schatborn, Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: Artists Born between 1580 and 1600, 2 vols., coll. cat. Amsterdam 1998, no. 221

Citation

M. Schapelhouman, 1998, 'Pieter Kouwenhorn, Self-portrait (?) at the Age of Forty-eight, 1648', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200141584

(accessed 3 augustus 2026 18:03:33 UTC+0).

Footnotes

¹In his account of the year 1645 Constantijn Huygens wrote: Inde Teecken Conste voorderden sij te Leiden mede seer, onder eenen Mr Pieter Couwenhoorn (‘At Leiden they (Constantijn and Christiaen) made progress in drawing, profiting particularly from the tutelage of a Mr Pieter Couwenhoorn’); A. Eyffinger (ed.), Huygens herdacht, exh. cat. The Hague (Koninklijke Bibliotheek) 1987, p. 141.
²M.L. Wurfbain and R.E.O. Ekkart, Geschildert tot Leyden anno 1626, exh. cat. Leiden (Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal) 1976-77.
³Ibid., nos. T 12, T 13 and T 14.
⁴E. Pelinck, ‘Pieter Couwenhorn, glasschrijver te Leiden’, Oud- Holland 68 (1953), no. 1, p. 53, n. 7, fig. 7; Geschildert tot Leyden anno 1626, exh. cat. Leiden (Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal) 1976-77, p. 112; A. Eyffinger (ed.), Huygens herdacht, exh. cat. The Hague (Koninklijke Bibliotheek) 1987, p. 142.