The support consists of three vertically grained oak panels and is bevelled on all sides. Visible at the open joins, the ground layer is white. There is little impasto, but quite prominent brushmarking in the figure’s face.

Fair. The joins are open at four points at the top and bottom of the panel. The background has been extensively retouched and a line, which does not correspond to the costume, has been painted in on the figure’s right sleeve. It is possible that the figure’s hair and beard have been overpainted. The varnish is discoloured and matte.

…; sale, Dr Hendrik Jan Broers (1815-76), Utrecht (J.L. Beijers), 8 March 1873 sqq., no. 3109, as Mierevelt, Portrait of Joost de Moor, fl. 100, to Engelberts, for the museum¹¹RANH, ARM, Kop, inv. 39, pp. 124-25 (17 March 1873); RANH, ARM, IS, inv. 31, no. 97 (16 March 1873).

Object number: SK-A-577

This painting was purchased at auction by the museum in 1873 as a portrait of the vice-admiral of Zeeland, Joost de Moor (1548-1618). While the incorrect attribution to Van Mierevelt in the 1873 sale has long been dropped, the identification of the sitter has been maintained in the museum’s collection catalogues. However, comparison with a secure portrait of Joost de Moor from 1610 in the Zeeuws Museum, Middelburg, rules out the possibility that he is the sitter in the present bust-length portrait.²²The 1610 painting is inscribed with Joost de Moor’s correct age in that year and carries the family’s coat of arms; photo IB, no. 12739. The ruff worn by the sitter suggests that the Rijksmuseum painting was executed around 1615-20. Another, weaker, version of the present portrait exists.³³Panel, 62.5 x 49 cm; present whereabouts unknown; photo IB, no. 63299.

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. 415.

1876, p. 257, no. 516 (as Portrait of Joost de Moor); 1880, p. 380, no. 439 (as Portrait of Joost de Moor); 1887, p. 70, no. 562 (as Portrait of Joost de Moor); 1903, p. 19, no. 189 (as Portrait of Joost de Moor); 1976, p. 654, no. A 577 (as c. 1600); 2007, no. 415

J. Bikker, 2007, 'anonymous, Portrait of a Man, c. 1615 - c. 1620', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20025871