Support The single, vertically grained, oval oak plank with a slightly irregular edge is approx. 1.2 cm thick. The reverse is somewhat unevenly bevelled on all sides and has horizontal saw marks. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1592. The plank could have been ready for use by 1603, but a date in or after 1609 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The single, greenish-white ground extends up to the edges of the support. It consists of white pigment with a small addition of earth pigments.
Underdrawing An underdrawing is very faintly visible to the naked eye (but not with infrared photography), for example under the translucent skin of the sitter’s left hand.
Paint layers The rich and fluid paint extends up to the edges of the support. It was applied from the back to the front, using reserves which were carefully followed. A warm brown wash and yellow-ochre colours were used for the undermodelling and can be perceived in the gloves, through the translucent red glaze of the tablecloth, as well as in scattered paint losses, most importantly at the intersection of the hat, sleeve and base of the column. The face was fully modelled, wet in wet, with restricted glazing in the shadows and without apparent undermodelling; the ground shimmers through in some areas, especially just below the lips. The red and green shot-silk effect of the tablecloth, now faded, was created with a mint green scumble over the highlights of the red glaze; it was applied only after the clothes had been executed as it overlies the cloak in a few spots. Fine hatching with the scumbled hairs of a coarse flat brush is present in the highlights of the tablecloth. A slight halo around the head and shoulders is the result of final contour corrections with light background paint.
Gwen Tauber, 2010

Fair. There are a few small losses between the undermodelling and the upper layers, indicating poor adhesion. There are numerous scratches in the paint layer. The tablecloth was originally much greener – a hint of the original colour can be found at the edge of the support, beneath the frame – but parts have turned brown tinged with a whitish haze.

? Commissioned by or for Johan Wittert van der Aa (1604-1670), Leiden; ? his will, Leiden, 9 December 1669 (‘To his son Adriaen, Johan Wittert van der Aa, his, the testator’s likeness painted by Mr Dou, and the portraits of his deceased wife, parents and parents-in-law’);¹¹E.B.F.F. Wittert van Hoogland, Geschiedenis van het geslacht Wittert (Wittert van Hoogland en Emiclaer, Wittert van Valkenburg, Wittert van Bloemendael, Wittert van der Aa) met de daaruit in vrouwelijke lijn gesproten familiën, III, The Hague 1914, p. 1547. ? his son, Adriaen Wittert van der Aa (1641-1698), Leiden;²²E.B.F.F. Wittert van Hoogland, Geschiedenis van het geslacht Wittert (Wittert van Hoogland en Emiclaer, Wittert van Valkenburg, Wittert van Bloemendael, Wittert van der Aa) met de daaruit in vrouwelijke lijn gesproten familiën, III, The Hague 1914, p. 1547. ? his son, Adriaen Wittert van der Aa (1672-1713), Leiden and Slot Cronenburgh, near Loenen; ? probate inventory, his widow, Anna Maria van Moens (1678-1726), Slot Cronenburgh, 19 July 1727, in the corridor behind the chapel (‘1 oudt portret van de heer Johan Witterdt’);³³See T.H. Lunsingh Scheurleer, C.W. Fock and A.J. van Dissel (eds.), Het Rapenburg: Geschiedenis van een Leidse gracht, IIIb, Leiden 1988, p. 494. ? her brother, Gerbrand, Count of Moens (1680-1759), Amsterdam; his daughter, Maria Magdalenavan Sluypwijk, Countess of Moens (1710/11-1802); her sale, Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 20 April 1803 sqq., no. 21 (‘Dou. (G) No. 21. hoog 11, breed 9½ duim [8.3 x 24.4 cm] Paneel, Ovaal. Dit Kunstjuweel verbeeld in een aloude Deftige Binnenkamer, een Heer in Oud Hollandsche Kleeding, zittende aan een Tafel met een Fluweel Kleed gedekt, waarop hy met zyn linker hand rust, in zyn rechter houd hy zyn Handschoenen, en op de Tafel legd zyn Hoed en verder Bywerk; […]’), fl. 1,600, to Johannes Arnoldus Spaan (1742-1828);⁴⁴Copy RKD.…; sale, Hendrik Muilman (1743-1812, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 12 April 1813 sqq., no. 28 (‘Dou. (G). hoog 11, breed 9 duimen [28.3 x 23.1 cm] Paneel, Ovaal. No. 38. Een Heer, in oud Hollandsche Kleeding, zit in eene deftige Kamer, voor eene bedekte Tafel met een groen Fluweel Kleed, waarop zijn Hoed ligt en zijn regterarm rust, in de linkerhand houdt hij zijn handschoen. […]’), bought in at fl. 580 (last bidder Jeronimo de Vries);⁵⁵Copy RKD.his son, Willem Ferdinand Mogge Muilman (1778-1849), Amsterdam;⁶⁶J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, I, London 1829, p. 29, no. 86. his daughter, Anna Maria van de Poll-Mogge Muilman (1811-1878), Amsterdam; her stepson, Jacobus Salomon Hendrik van de Poll (1837-1880), Amsterdam; by whom bequeathed to the museum, with 49 other paintings, 2 July 1880⁷⁷NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 162, no. 367 (21 June 1880); NHA, ARM, Kop., inv. 39, p. 288, nos. 36 (26 June 1880), 37 (29 June 1880); NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 162, no. 370 (30 June 1880); NHA, ARM, Kop., inv. 39, p. 289, nos. 39 (3 July 1880), 41 (9 July 1880); NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 162, no. 371 (15 July 1880); NHA, ARM, Kop., inv. 39, p. 291, no. 50 (10 August 1880). Provenance reconstructed in C. van der Bas, ‘Stage-verslag Rijksmuseum’, 2003 (unpub. typescript in Rijksmuseum archives).

Object number: SK-A-686

Credit line: Jonkheer J.S.H. van de Poll Bequest, Amsterdam

Gerrit Dou painted very few portraits, apart from a series of his own likeness. This Portrait of a Man, probably Johan Wittert van der Aa is the only dated one. The last, barely legible digit is very probably a ‘6’, making it a work of 1646 and hence one of Dou’s last in this genre. Like the double portrait he made with Nicolaes Berchem,¹¹¹¹SK-A-90. this picture is from the estate of Maria Magdalena van Sluypwijk, some of whose paintings came from the Wittert van de Aa family. Those ties and the possible age of the sitter have led to the suggestion that he is Johan Wittert van der Aa (1604-1670), who was 42 years old at the time.¹²¹²It is stated in the museum’s painting catalogue of 1934 (B.W.F. van Riemsdijk, F. Schmidt-Degener and D.C. Röell, Catalogus der schilderijen, pastels, miniaturen, aquarellen tentoongesteld in het Rijksmuseum te Amsterdam), p. 83, no. 792, that the identification was made by Baron E.B.F.F. Wittert van Hoogland, a descendant of the presumed sitter. See also T.H. Lunsingh Scheurleer, C.W. Fock and A.J. van Dissel (eds.), Het Rapenburg: Geschiedenis van een Leidse gracht, IIIb, Leiden 1988, p. 462. It is known from his will of 9 December 1669 that he had indeed been depicted by Dou, for he left his son Adriaen Wittert van der Aa the ‘testator’s likeness painted by Mr Dou’.¹³¹³See Provenance. The probate inventory of Anna Maria van Moens, Adriaen’s widow, lists ‘1 old portrait of Mr Johan Wittert’, but unfortunately without naming the artist, so it is not certain that this a reference to the present one by Dou.¹⁴¹⁴See Provenance. Although the identification cannot be confirmed beyond all reasonable doubt, Johan Wittert van der Aa is the most likely candidate. The painting was auctioned on its own in 1803, but since Johan was married to Ida Popta in 1628 there may once have been a companion piece of her.¹⁵¹⁵R. Baer, The Paintings of Gerrit Dou (1613-1675), diss., New York University 1990, II, p. 45.3, assumes that there was indeed a pendant, but that is based on an incorrect reading of Van der Aa’s will. Baer mentioned an unpublished alternative proposal by Bert van Dissel that the sitter is the 52-year-old Willem de Bye (1594-1656), an unmarried uncle of Dou’s patron Johan de Bye.¹⁶¹⁶R. Baer, The Paintings of Gerrit Dou (1613-1675), diss., New York University 1990, II, p. 45.3. However, the model’s youthful hairline and reddish locks do not suggest such an advanced age.

Dou’s reputation as an artist who worked slowly, as stated by Von Sandrart,¹⁷¹⁷J. von Sandrart, Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675: Leben der berühmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister, ed. A.R. Peltzer, Munich 1925 (ed. princ. Nuremberg 1675), p. 196. led Martin to call the man’s rather unanimated expression ‘a face looking drowsy from sitting still for a long time’.¹⁸¹⁸W. Martin, Het leven en de werken van Gerrit Dou beschouwd in verband met het schildersleven van zijn tijd, diss., Leiden University 1901, p. 49. Its rendering is indeed very painstaking, but the handling of the brush is far looser in other passages, such as the left background and the area by the sitter’s right hand and the glove. That same variation in treatment within one and the same picture can be seen in other paintings by Dou in the Rijksmuseum.¹⁹¹⁹Such as SK-C-127 and SK-C-128. The execution, and the halo effect around the head caused by filling in the overly large reserve, are also found in a slightly earlier portrait of a woman with a very similar composition that now belongs to the Aurora Art Fund.²⁰²⁰Illustrated in A.K. Wheelock Jr (ed.), Gerrit Dou 1613-1675: Master Painter in the Age of Rembrandt, exh. cat. Washington (National Gallery of Art)/London (Dulwich Picture Gallery)/The Hague (Mauritshuis) 2000-01, p. 88. Dou placed both figures off-centre and showed them at three-quarter length (the knees are just visible), but the pose is more successful in the Rijksmuseum picture.

Lying on the table are a hat and a clothes-brush. The column with the relief of dancing putti also features in several of Dou’s genre scenes,²¹²¹R. Baer, The Paintings of Gerrit Dou (1613-1675), diss., New York University 1990, II, pp. 50.1-50.5, no. 50, pp. 62.1-62.7, no. 62, pp. 76.1-76.4, no. 76, pp. 109.1-109.3, no. 109. but as far as we know it is not based on a real sculpture.²²²²The putti and the auricular ornaments on the bottom of the column display general characteristics of Dutch sculpture; oral communication, Frits Scholten, RMA. The column was a popular symbol of fortitude, constancy and virtue,²³²³G. de Tervarent, Attributs et symboles dans l’art profane 1450-1600: Dictionnaire d’un langage perdu, I, Geneva 1958, pp. 106-07. On this iconography see R.W. Hunnewell, Gerrit Dou’s Self Portraits and Depictions of the Artist, diss., Boston University Graduate School 1983, p. 181. B. Broos, Meesterwerken in het Mauritshuis, The Hague 1987, p. 116, believes that the forms are purely decorative. and was often included in portraits for that purpose alone. Dou also used the banister in the background of several of his early works, such as his self-portrait of 1647.²⁴²⁴Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, I, Landau/Pfalz 1983, p. 571, no. 274. A niche in the background of the painting in the collection of the Aurora Art Fund suggests an interior, and that is also most likely the case with the banister in the Rijksmuseum picture.

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2026

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, I, London 1829, p. 29, no. 86; W. Martin, Het leven en de werken van Gerrit Dou beschouwd in verband met het schildersleven van zijn tijd, diss., Leiden University 1901, pp. 49, 204, no. 146; C. Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, I, Esslingen/Paris 1907, p. 437, no. 322; R. Baer, The Paintings of Gerrit Dou (1613-1675), diss., New York University 1990, II, pp. 45.1-45.3, no. 4

1880, p. 377, no. 76a (as Portrait of a Man); 1887, p. 36, no. 280 (as Portrait of a Man); 1903, p. 84, no. 792 (as Portrait of a Man); 1934, p. 83, no. 792; 1960, p. 85, no. 792; 1976, p. 197, no. A 686

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2026, 'Gerrit Dou, Portrait of a Man, probably Johan Wittert van der Aa (1604-1670), c. 1646', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20027804