Portrait of Arent Franckensz van der Meer (?-1503), Lord of Papendrecht, nicknamed ‘malicious Aertje’

The arched support and the frame are made of a single piece of vertically grained oak. At the top of the reverse there is an old and possibly original hanging eye. Dendrochronology has shown that the plank is made from the same tree as the panel used for the pendant (SK-A-4716), and that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1538. The panel could have been ready for use by 1549, but a date in or after 1563 is more likely. The panel was covered with a light-coloured ground, which was applied to the whole surface including the frame. The schematic underdrawing, which is visible to the naked eye as well as with infrared reflectography, was made with a dry material, probably with the aid of a cartoon (fig. a). It consists of contour lines for the fingers and the shape of the head, with schematic indications for the nose, mouth and eyes. The painted face is slightly larger than planned in the underdrawing. The portrait was reserved, apart from the pink and the coat of arms. The paint layers are thin and rather transparent.

Fair. There is abrasion in the flesh tones, and above all in the hair.

This frame and the one surrounding the painting’s pendant SK-A-4716 are identical. The integral frames have simple profiles all around, consisting of a narrow tenia, followed by a cove and a bead at the sight edge (fig. b). The tenia and the scotia are painted black; the bead is gilded. The original wooden hanging device, nailed onto the back of the painting at the top, is still in place.

….; sale, Baszenger Collection (Geneva) et al. [section 'The property of a gentleman'], London (Sotheby’s), 23 May 1979, no. 106, as Netherlandish School, 16th century, with SK-A-4716, £ 1,600 (fl. 7,780), to the museum

ObjectNumber: SK-A-4715

The individuals portrayed here and in the companion piece (SK-A-4716) are Arent Franckensz van der Meer and his wife Jacomina Claesdr van Ruyven. Arent van der Meer is shown bust-length looking to the right, with a bailiff’s staff in his right hand and a pink in his left.¹¹Tetteroo 2000. The pink may be an allusion to the conjugal bond between the couple. Van der Meer’s wife is looking three-quarters to the left and has a white headdress with a wimple, which was worn by old women and widows, and is holding a rosary in her right hand. Arent van der Meer was Lord of Papendrecht, Dike-Reeve and Bailiff of Delfland and Sheriff of Delft, and gained the nickname ‘quaet Aertje’ (malicious Aertje) for his unpleasant nature. When his wife died in 1509 she was buried in Delft’s Oude Kerk at the spot where her husband had been given his last resting place six years earlier. The identification of the couple is based on an inscription on the backs of two 18th-century copies showing the same couple.²²Delft, Stedelijk Museum Het Prinsenhof, inv. nos. C 343 and C 344 (on loan from ICN); illustrated in coll. cat. RBK 1992, p. 921, nos. 1618-19.

When these two portraits were bought in 1979, Wouter Kloek attributed them to the Master of Alkmaar based on stylistic and compositional similarities to the portraits of Jan van Egmond and Magdalena van Waerdenburg in New York.³³The Metropolitan Museum of Art; illustrated in ENP X, 1973, no. 59, pls. 38-39. Note by Kloek in museum files. Dendrochronology has shown that the panels were painted in the second half of the 16th century, about 1550-60, possibly after lost prototypes which may have been by the Master of Alkmaar. The compositions and types of head do relate the paintings to the master, who according to Friedländer often gave his male figures ‘a mean and rascally nature’.⁴⁴ENP X, 1973, p. 27. However, his refined execution and distinctive chiaroscuro effects are lacking here.

In addition to the 18th-century copies in Delft there are some other copies. In Emmerich there were copies of both portraits, but they were lost in 1944.⁵⁵Emmerich, Rheinmuseum, lost in 1944, photo’s in RKD, The Hague. In Utrecht a copy of the portrait of Jacomina Claesdr van Ruyven is combined with a portrait of Adriaen Sandelin Pieters (c. 1450-1515).⁶⁶Museum Catharijneconvent; coll. cat. Utrecht 2002, p. 129 (ill.). A copy of the portrait of Arent van der Meer was sold in London in 1983, its present whereabouts is unknown.⁷⁷Sale, London (Sotheby’s), 20 January 1983, no. 98, 37.5 x 25.5 cm; photo RKD.
ML/DM

Kloek 1984, p. 88

1992, p. 96, nos. A 4715, A 4716 (as Master of Alkmaar)

M. Leeflang, 2010, 'anonymous, Portrait of Arent Franckensz van der Meer (?-1503), Lord of Papendrecht, nicknamed ‘malicious Aertje’, Noord-Nederland, c. 1550 - c. 1560', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20028299