Triptych with Guardsmen of the Amsterdam Kloveniersdoelen (Headquarters of the Arquebusiers’ Civic Guard)

The support of the centre panel consists of five horizontally grained oak planks (26.2/27.8, 26/27.6, 27.9/26, 19.4/16.2 and 21.1/21 cm) approx. 1.5 cm thick. On the back there are two vertical grooves for what were probably the original battens holding the panel together. Dendrochronology has shown that the three planks at the top are from the same tree and the two planks at the bottom are from a different tree, and that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1506. The panel could have been ready for use by 1517, but a date in or after 1531 is more likely. The support of the left wing consists of three vertically grained oak planks (25/25.6, 25.7/26.6, 25.7/25.8 cm) thinned down to approx. 0.7 cm. Dendrochronology has shown that the planks I and III are from the same tree, and that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1500. The panel could have been ready for use by 1511, but a date in or after 1525 is more likely. The support of the right wing consists of four vertically grained oak planks (26.9/21.1, 20/25.3, 7/6 and 22.7/23.8 cm) thinned down to approx. 0.7 cm. Dendrochronology has shown that the planks I and IV are from the same tree, and that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1516. The panel could have been ready for use by 1527, but a date in or after 1541 is more likely.

The white ground is visible in damaged and abraded areas. A yellow 'imprimatura' was applied on top of the ground. Underdrawing is visible in some places in the faces and hands. Infrared reflectography revealed the underdrawing in more detail. There are considerable differences between the underdrawings of the two wings and that of the centre panel. That on the two wings was executed in a dry medium and is sketchy (fig. b), and shows that many changes were made. The one in the centre panel was applied in a wet medium and has much more detail, with fine hatchings for the shadows (fig. c). There seem to be very few changes in the design. The main parts of the composition were reserved. Little strips of ground and imprimatura are visible between different areas, indicating that the layers were painted next to each other. There are some exceptions to this, as in the third figure from the right in the lower tier of the centre panel, where the hand is clearly painted over the shoulder. All the faces were executed in minute detail, but the hands and clothing are slightly less detailed.

Fair. The paint layers are abraded in some areas and show many retouched losses. The most disturbing retouchings are in the faces. The varnish is discoloured.

Commissioned by or for the sitters for the Kloveniersdoelen (the headquarters of the arquebusiers’ civic guard); first mentioned in the Kloveniersdoelen, ‘in the small chamber for the gentlemen’, 1653 (‘Idem noch een oud stuk met 2 deuren van ao. 1529.’);¹¹Schaep/Van der Molen 2013, pp. 126-27 transferred to the ‘hall outside the chamber of the burgomasters and aldermen’ in the town hall (Prinsenhof) by 1841 (‘Een Schutterstuk met twee Zijstukken, het midden met zeventien, en aan de zijden, ieder met zeven Boogschutters, geteekend 1532.’);²²De Vries 1841, p. 5, no. 3. on loan to the museum from the City of Amsterdam since 1885

ObjectNumber: SK-C-402

Credit line: On loan from the City of Amsterdam

The centre panel of this intriguing triptych is the oldest surviving group portrait of an Amsterdam civic guard, and may well have been the very first one ever commissioned. The Kloveniersdoelen, or arquebusiers’ guild, was established in 1522 as the youngest of the three guard guilds in Amsterdam.⁵⁵The new Kloveniers Guild was in fact the reformed Old St George’s Guild, or crossbowmens’ guild; see Tümpel 1988, pp. 57-58. Its headquarters were on either side of the Doelenstraat – today’s Nieuwe Doelenstraat – and included a larger building that provided access to the shooting ranges, as well as to the former wall tower Swijgh Utrecht, overlooking the River Amstel.⁶⁶Middelkoop 2013a, pp. 17-24. It is likely that a demand for group portraits to adorn the walls emerged among the squads’ members by the end of the decade. The example of the Kloveniers was to be followed by the other two guilds, and eventually led to the birth of the typically Dutch genre of the militia or civic guard portrait, which would flourish until the 1650s.

With no group portraits known to have been painted by his father Jacob Cornelisz, alias Jacob War, known to art historians as ‘Van Oostsanen’, the style and layout of this earliest signed and dated work by Dirck Jacobsz might more easily be compared to works by Jan van Scorel. As presumed fellow-pupil in Jacob Cornelisz’s workshop, Van Scorel had just portrayed the members of both the Utrecht and Haarlem Brotherhoods of Jerusalem Pilgrims.⁷⁷Illustrated in ENP XII, 1975, nos. 345-46, 349, pls. 184-85. Like Scorel, Dirck Jacobsz depicted the men lined up in three-quarter portraits, their gaze towards the beholder. However, he presented 17 members of the squad in a more compact way by introducing two superimposed tiers, separated by a balustrade, with 8 men in the upper tier and 9 in the lower one.⁸⁸The idea put forward in the 1934 Rijksmuseum collection catalogue that initially a group of eight men was portrayed, after which more panels were added at the bottom to include nine more men, was convincingly rejected in Hoogewerff III, 1939, p. 536. The composition scheme in two tiers was probably inspired by the spatial limitations of the militia halls, which initially only had wall space available for group portraits on the short ends of the room: either on the chimney piece or next to it.⁹⁹Middelkoop 2013a, pp. 20-21, 26. Two of the men in the lower zone are placed slightly higher up than the others, overlapping the balustrade and giving the scene some three-dimensionality. The painter also enlivened the composition by varying the hand gestures.¹⁰¹⁰For the function and meaning of such gestures see Bruyn 1987, pp. 151-52. The hands resting on the balustrades, in particular, add a sense of depth to the scene. The scheme of grouping the guardsmen in two tiers was to be used for most of the 16th-century civic guard portraits, only to be replaced by a more interactive composition in the 1580s.

Although none of the sitters’ identities are known, it is logical to assume that they all belonged to the same squad. The two arquebuses in the painting, and the insignia with small claws and rifles on some of the men’s coats, clearly indicate that these guardsmen belong to the Kloveniersdoelen or arquebusiers’ guild. The man directly beneath the date 1529 is probably the captain of the squad, as several of the others seem to be pointing towards him. The date was first read as 1532,¹¹¹¹De Vries 1841, p. 5, no. 3; De Vries 1843, p. 5, no. 3; Scheltema 1864, p. 1, no. 3; Scheltema 1879, p. 45, no. 117 until Bredius rightly interpreted it as 1529,¹²¹²Coll. cat. 1886, p. 24, no. 167c. which was followed by the deciphering of the monogram and mark in 1887.¹³¹³Coll. cat. 1887, p. 85, no. 719. According to Tümpel, the man standing fourth from the left in the lower zone is the lieutenant.¹⁴¹⁴Tümpel 1988, p. 78; Tümpel in Haarlem 1988, pp. 188-89. Tümpel unconvincingly argues that both these officers are depicted twice as large as the others, thereby stressing their importance. In his opinion, the fifth man from the left in the upper tier could be the ‘banjert’, the officer responsible for maintaining order among the younger guardsmen, since he is older than the men next to him. Hoogewerff interpreted the man in the top-right corner holding a quill as a self-portrait of the painter, although nothing is known about Jacobsz’s membership of the civic guard.¹⁵¹⁵Hoogewerff III, 1939, p. 538, V, 1947, pp. 97-98, who dates the painting much later (first reading the date as 1539, but later suggesting c. 1534), using the presumed self-portrait to explain the squad’s commission to the painter. The interpretation as a self-portrait was adopted by Haak, who recognised the implement in the man’s hand as a painter’s brush, and by Raupp.¹⁶¹⁶Haak 1958, p. 33; Raupp 1984, p. 246. The date and monogram are stressed by the illusionistic effect of the painted mosaic stones which form them.

The partly visible insignia at lower right on the centre panel, and the somewhat cramped position of the men near the edges, suggest that this panel was trimmed a little, perhaps on both sides, before the painting was enlarged with side panels. However, the lack of physical evidence on the back and sides seems to contradict this. The wings have always been dated after 1540 by scholars.¹⁷¹⁷Riegl 1931, p. 84, placed them in the 1550s, while G. Knuttel, in a letter to the museum dated 30 January 1948, and De Vries 1934, p. 43, suggested a date around 1540. Haak 1958, p. 34, stated that beards only came into fashion after 1535-40, and suggested that the painting could certainly not have been executed before then, because one of the men on the right wing is bearded. Most recently, Tümpel dated the wings around 1552, citing similarities to civic guard portraits of the third quarter of the 16th century.¹⁸¹⁸Tümpel 1988, p. 83; Tümpel in Haarlem 1988, p. 189. According to Tümpel, the wings are ‘not far removed’ from the 1561 and 1563 portraits, which Dirck Jacobsz also painted for the Kloveniers.¹⁹¹⁹St Petersburg, Hermitage, inv. no. 416, and Amsterdam Museum, inv. no. SA 7342, respectively, both illustrated in coll. cat. Amsterdam 2008, p. 67 and Middelkoop 2013b, pp. 349-50, nos. 32, 36. The dendrochronology indicates that the planks of the centre panel are a few years younger than those of the left panel but older than those of the right panel. Nonetheless, the data still support a date of 1529 for the centre panel. The use of a dry medium (such as charcoal) for the underdrawing of the wings as opposed to the wet medium used for the centre panel clearly indicates different dates of execution. It would be worthwhile discovering how the underdrawing on the Hermitage painting of A Group of Guardsmen of the Amsterdam Kloveniersdoelen of 1532 was applied (fig. a).²⁰²⁰Examination of the 1563 panel in the Amsterdams Historisch Museum reveals that the underdrawing was made with a wet medium. Although the differences in underdrawing do not necessarily imply a particular order in which the paintings were produced, the wings should indeed be dated considerably later than the middle panel. The fact that only 14 squad members are portrayed on the wings would indicate that the 'missing' squad members were already present on the centre panel. Even without knowing the exact number that made up a squad, it seems more likely that a group of guardsmen would have wings added to an existing group portrait of the squad that they belonged to in the years after 1529.

According to Tümpel, Dirck Jacobsz deliberately chose the ‘sacral form’ of the triptych for a secular group portrait in order to stress the links between the men on the wings to their supposed predecessors in the centre. Apart from the hazardous assumption that a painter would make such crucial decisions, this religious connotation seems far-fetched, especially since two other triptych civic guard group portraits were recorded by Gerrit Pietersz Schaep in 1653, both now lost.²¹²¹His listings of the militia and civic guard paintings are published in Scheltema 1885, pp. 121-41 and Van der Molen 2013. Dirck Jacobsz’s 1529 triptych was seen by him in the ‘Kleine Heerekamer’ of the Kloveniersdoelen.²²²²See Provenance. He also mentions a group portrait painted for the Handboogdoelen (longbowmen’s guild) in 1531 and placed on the chimney piece of the ‘Groote Camer’ (large chamber), to which wings were added in 1559.²³²³Schaep/Van der Molen 2013, pp. 114-15, nos. 1, 2 and Middelkoop 2013b, p. 343, no. 3, the wings mentioned as showing the members of ‘Squad L’; see coll. cat. Amsterdam 2008, p. 280 (Van der Voort), note 11. The triptych is known from a watercolour copy in the British Library, Ms. Egerton 983, fol. 21; illustrated in Del Court/Six 1903, pl. 1. There was a second triptych in the ‘Coningskamer’ (king’s chamber) of the Kloveniersdoelen: an ‘old piece with two doors’, also dated 1559.²⁴²⁴Schaep/Van der Molen 2013, pp. 124-25, no. 59 and Middelkoop 2013b, p. 343, no. 2. The example of the Handboogdoelen panel makes it most likely that by adding wings, the older central part could remain where it was: on the chimney piece. Given the art-historical consensus about the later date of the wings of Dirck Jacobsz’s triptych, it is likely that they were painted in or around 1559, the same year in which two other militia group portraits were enlarged with wings.²⁵²⁵Middelkoop 2013a, p. 34. The two Kloveniers triptych portraits most probably hung on chimney pieces in the old building across the street when the wings were added, only being moved to their 1653 locations after the old building was largely demolished in the 1630s.²⁶²⁶Middelkoop 2013a, pp. 69, 93.

Having matured artistically since 1529, Jacobsz provided most of the guardsmen on the side panels with more convincing individual spaces. In order to so he lowered the barrier separating the tiers relative to the centre panel. More requisites have appeared. On the right wing a man is holding a jug. Another squad member is writing, possibly indicating his role as secretary. On the left wing two men have a berkemeier glass and a silver tazza,²⁷²⁷The ornament in the middle of the tazza is a cross-shaped form, with possibly a claw and an arquebus at two of the four ends. A similar but not identical tazza with the Kloveniers’ mark of a claw in the middle, is held by a guardsman in a painting of 1557 (Amsterdams Museum; illustrated in Haarlem 1988, p. 241). Yet another one is depicted in Dirck Jacobsz’s 1561 group portrait. while another is displaying a sheet of music with the words ‘pour amor’ or ‘pour avoir’.²⁸²⁸My thanks to Louis Peter Grijp of the Meertens Instituut and Eric Jas of Utrecht University for their attempts to identify the music. The herring and knife held by the man at lower right may allude to the fish trade, as suggested by Tümpel, who also states that the captain of this squad is the man in the middle of the lower zone of the right wing, because of his gesture of command.²⁹²⁹Tümpel in Haarlem 1988, p. 189, no. 12, who also states that the glass and jug could hint at the men’s professions. He thinks that the tazza might have been a prize won in a shooting contest. Unfortunately, the silver mark on the knife cannot be recognised. Most of his allusions, however, merely demonstrate that the triptych leaves ample room for speculation.

N. Middelkoop, 2010
Revised by the author, 2016 (download previous version below)

Schaep 1653 [ed. Scheltema 1885], p. 139, no. 39; De Vries 1841, p. 5, no. 3 (as dated 1532); De Vries 1843, p. 5, no. 3 (as dated 1532); Scheltema 1864, p. 1, no. 3 (as dated 1532); Scheltema 1879, p. 45, no. 117 (as dated 1532); Six 1895, pp. 93-94; Six 1903, pp. 81-82; Riegl 1931, pp. 40-50, 84; De Vries 1934, pp. 41, 43; Friedländer XIII, 1936, pp. 133, 177, no. 408; Hoogewerff III, 1939, pp. 536-39, V, 1947, pp. 79, 97-98; Haak 1958, pp. 32-34; ENP XIII, 1975, pp. 70-73, 106, no. 408; Tümpel in Haarlem 1988, pp. 188-89, no. 12, p. 391, nos. 17, 23; Tümpel 1988, pp. 77-79; coll. cat. Amsterdam 2008, p. 219, no. SA 7341; Middelkoop 2013a, pp. 17-20, 34, 93; Schaep/Van der Molen 2013, pp. 126-27, no. 88; Middelkoop 2013b, p. 343, no. 1, p. 348, no. 27

1887, p. 85, no. 719; 1903, p. 140, no. 1288; 1934, p. 145, no. 1288; 1960, p. 153, no. 1288; 1976, p. 302, no. C 402

N. Middelkoop, 2010, 'Dirck Jacobsz., Triptych with Guardsmen of the Amsterdam Kloveniersdoelen (Headquarters of the Arquebusiers’ Civic Guard), 1529', in J.P. Filedt Kok and M. Ubl (eds.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8834