The support consists of three oak panels with a vertical grain and is bevelled on all sides. The ground layer, visible in the contour lines of the sitter, is probably buff, and was applied with broad brushstrokes. The figure was painted before the brown background was applied loosely along the contours. The painting was economically and swiftly executed with visible brushstrokes, particularly in the background and in the trompe l’oeil framing.

Fair. Paintlayers have become more transparent, while the varnish has yellowed and is desiccated and crazed.

? Commissioned by or for the sitters Philippe le Mire (1596-?) and his wife Antoinette Walleran (1598-?), Middelburg; ? by descent through the families Walleran, Sandra, Boudaen, Van Citters, Verheije van Citters, to Jonkheer Jacob de Witte van Citters (1817-76), The Hague; by whom bequeathed to the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague (inv. nos. 3235, 3236), 1876; transferred to the museum, as anonymous, 1885

Object number: SK-A-907

Credit line: Jonkheer J. de Witte van Citters Bequest, The Hague

These 1618 companion pieces showing Philippe le Mire (SK-A-906) and his wife Antoinette Walleran (shown here) are in oval frames with trompe l’oeil painted decoration. The inscription on Le Mire’s portrait states that he is 22 years old, meaning that he was born in 1596. He was the son of Louis le Mire.³³Note IB. The inscription on Antoinette Walleran’s portrait, which is also dated 1618, records that she was 20 years old at the time, so she was born in 1598. The couple married in Middelburg on 18 February 1618, so it can be assumed that the portraits were made on the occasion of their wedding.

Hofstede de Groot rightly attributed these companion pieces to Jacob Lambrechtsz on the evidence of a comparison with three portraits, two of which are signed with that name.⁴⁴Hofstede de Groot 1901, pp. 134-35. After the discovery of the signature ‘jacob l. loncke’ on the third portrait, all the works could be assigned to the artist with that surname.⁵⁵Coll. cat. 1903, p. 164, no. 1481.

The simple compositions of these two swiftly executed portraits are almost identical to those of the other three works, which are also similar in size. A fourth portrait, of Jan Cornelisz Stavenisse, closely matches them, and can probably be added to Loncke’s oeuvre.⁶⁶Private collection. Wrongly included in coll. cat. RBK 1992, p. 345, no. 3055. This portrait was tentatively attributed to the Zeeland painter Cornelis Willemsz Eversdijck in Van der Ploeg/Zonnevylle-Heyning 1999, p. 133.

Yvette Bruijnen, 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. 170.

Hofstede de Groot 1901, pp. 134-35; Staring 1947

1886, p. 98, nos. 448L, 448M (as Anonymous); 1887, p. 74, nos. 600, 601 (as Dutch School); 1903, p. 164, nos. 1480, 1481; 1960, p. 180, nos. 1480, 1481; 1976, p. 352, nos. A 906, A 907; 2007, no. 170

Y. Bruijnen, 2007, 'Jacob Lambrechtsz. Loncke, Portrait of Antoinette Walleran (1598-?), 1618', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20028209