The support consists of three vertically grained oak planks and is bevelled on all sides. The light-coloured ground layer is plainly visible at the unpainted top and bottom edges. There is much visible brushmarking, although less than in the pendant.

Good.

? Commissioned by or for the sitters; ? their daughter, Brechje Hooft (1640-1721), Amsterdam;¹¹Van Kretschmar 1981, p. 111. ? her eldest son, Jan van de Poll (1668-1745), Amsterdam; ? his son Harmen Hendrik van de Poll (1697-1772), Amsterdam; ? his wife Margaretha Trip (1699-1778); her son Jan van de Poll (1721-1801), Amsterdam;²²RANH, ARS, IS, inv. no. 168, no. 302 (14 April 1884). his grandson Jan van de Poll (1777-1858), Amsterdam, 1802 (stored with other family portraits in his aunt’s house, Herengracht 479 in Amsterdam); his son Jan Stanislaus Robert van de Poll (1805-88), Arnhem (stored with 25 other family portraits in his sister-in-law’s house, Herengracht 450 in Amsterdam); by whom donated to the museum together with 34 other family portraits, November 1885³³RANH, ARS, IS, inv. 164, no. 299 (30 December 1884); RANH, ARS, Kop, inv. 289, pp. 62-68, no. 154 (19 November 1885).

Object number: SK-A-1251

Credit line: Gift of Jonkheer J.S.R. van de Poll, Arnhem

Born and raised in Amsterdam, Henrick Hooft was a son of Hendrick Haek (who later changed his name to Hendrick Willemsz Hooft) and Haesgen Houtloock.⁵⁵For the sitters’ biographies see Elias II, 1905, p. 494; Dudok van Heel 1981, pp. 97-98. He studied in Leiden and married Aegje Hasselaer, the daughter of the Amsterdam merchant Dirck Hasselaer and Breghje Overrijn van Schoterbosch, on 5 February 1640 in Amsterdam. Hooft was Commissioner of Matrimonial Affairs in his native city between 1645 and 1654. He served as civic magistrate in 1656-57 and 1659-60, and as burgomaster in 1662, 1664, 1672, 1677 and 1678. Through his second marriage, to Maria van Walenburg (?-1679), Hooft became Lord of Oud-Carspel, Koedijk, Schoten and Schoterbosch in 1667.

There can be little doubt that these portraits of Henrick Hooft (see SK-A-1250) and his first wife Aegje Hasselaer (shown here) were commissioned on the occasion of the couple’s wedding in 1640. The sitters are shown half-length and in three-quarter profile. Painted toward the end of Van Mierevelt’s life, this portrait pair is astonishingly vivacious in comparison to the artist’s earlier output. The sitters’ dress creates this sense to a degree, especially Hooft’s unbuttoned doublet and the slit in the sleeve revealing a piece of lace (jabot) and his shirt. Certain passages, such as the sitters’ hair and faces, and Hooft’s shirtsleeve, are also quite painterly. While Aegje Hasselaer has been set before an indistinct, dark background, Hooft is silhouetted against a light background producing the kind of vibrant effect that Adriaen Hanneman and Cornelis Janssens van Ceulen would later often exploit.

Although they bear the 1640 dates of the prototypes, the copies of Van Mierevelt’s portraits made by Nicolaes Maes are obviously much later.⁶⁶Both are on panel and measure 44 x 31.5 cm; the Netherlands, private collection; Van Kretschmar 1981, pp. 110-11, 117, figs. 20, 21. Aegje Hasselaer is shown in a gown dating from around 1675, which indicates that not only were these copies made after her death in 1664, but even after Henrick Hooft had remarried. The latter is shown wearing pseudo-antique dress.

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. 190.

Korevaar in Amsterdam 2002, pp. 126-27, no. 27a-b

1887, p. 111, nos. 933, 934; 1903, p. 175, nos. 1591, 1592; 1934, p. 188, nos. 1591, 1592; 1960, p. 206, nos. 1591, 1592; 1976, pp. 384-85, nos. A 1250, A 1251; 2007, no. 190

J. Bikker, 2007, 'Michiel Jansz. van Mierevelt, Portrait of Aegje Hasselaer (1617-64), 1640', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20028343