Portrait of a Man, probably a Member of the Wallis Family

Support The panel consists of three vertically grained oak planks (16.6, 30.5 and 18.6 cm), approx. 0.5 cm thick. The reverse is bevelled on all sides. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1638. The panel could have been ready for use by 1649, but a date in or after 1655 is more likely.
Preparatory layers The double ground extends up to the edges of the support, running over them in a few places. The first, solid, translucent off-white layer primarily fills the grain of the wood and is followed by a thin, off-white layer consisting of white pigment with an addition of black and fine earth pigment particles.
Underdrawing Infrared reflectography and infrared photography revealed loose, cursory lines of underdrawing in a dry medium, indicating the contour of the face and the positions of the hair, eyes, nose and mouth. The hand was delineated in a wet medium, possibly a thin dark paint.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the edges of the support, running over them in a few places. The background was applied in two layers. The sitter was left in reserve in the initial, light brown layer. The man was first indicated with a slightly translucent brown. This undermodelling was left exposed in several areas, for example around the contour, and shows through in the thin shadow areas of the nose and right eye. Lines were scratched in the wet paint to mark some of the underlying forms and occasionally redefine their contours. Most of those incisions were covered at a later stage. The second layer of the background, consisting of a thin, translucent dark brown glaze, was applied around the contours of the sitter. Intensely dark brushstrokes in the clothing and hat increase the suggestion of depth. The thumbnail was given more detail and definition with three short scratches in the wet paint. Infrared reflectography showed that the collar initially extended somewhat further down and that the contour of the sitter’s left shoulder was painted further to the right, which is also clearly visible to the naked eye.
Michel van de Laar, 2024

A. Krekeler et al., ‘Consistent Choices: A Technical Study of Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck’s Portraits in the Rijksmuseum’, The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 62 (2014), pp. 2-23

Good. Due to the shrinking and expansion of the planks numerous miniscule paint losses have occurred along the grain of the wood.

A dark brown fruitwood scotia frame¹¹De Bruyn Kops in P.J.J. van Thiel and C.J. de Bruyn Kops, Prijst de lijst: De Hollandse schilderijlijst in de zeventiende eeuw, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1984, p. 155; De Bruyn Kops in P.J.J. van Thiel and C.J. de Bruyn Kops, Framing in the Golden Age: Picture and Frame in 17th-Century Holland, Zwolle 1995, p. 200 (incorrectly dated 1655).

…; by descent to Jonkvrouw Anna Hubertina van Reenen, née Van Reenen (1892-1974), Nijmegen and Laren; her daughter, Jonkvrouw Dorothea Storm de Grave, née Van Reenen (1916-2006), Huis ter Heide, 1974; purchased from her estate by the museum, with SK-A-4998, SK-A-4999 and SK-A-5000, 3 March 2008

ObjectNumber: SK-A-4997

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the BankGiro Lottery

It is impossible to make out for certain who the man is in this portrait of 1653, but since the work belongs with a group of paintings that Johannes Verspronck made of the same family, he is very probably a close relative of either Eduard Wallis or Maria van Strijp, who both sat for the artist a year earlier.⁴⁴SK-A-4999 and SK-A-5000 respectively. The fourth work in the group of paintings is the portrait of Maria van Strijp’s mother, Adriana Croes (SK-A-4998). On the acquisition of this group of paintings, see T. Dibbits, ‘Portretten van Adriana Croes, Eduard Wallis, Maria van Strijp en Dirck, Jacobus of Johannes Wallis’, Bulletin van de Vereniging Rembrandt 18 (2008), no. 2, pp. 22-25. He appears to be of the same generation as them, and since Maria van Strijp had only sisters it is reasonable to assume that it is one of her husband’s brothers.⁵⁵R.E.O. Ekkart, Johannes Cornelisz. Verspronck: Leven en werken van een Haarlems portretschilder uit de 17de eeuw, Haarlem 1979, p. 119. The cleft in the present sitter’s chin is also to be seen in the likeness of Eduard Wallis and could be a genetic trait. Eduard had three older brothers, Dirck (1612-?), Johannes (1617-1665) and Jacobus (1619-1675). Like him, the latter two married women from the Van Strijp family.⁶⁶Nothing is known about their eldest brother beyond the year of his birth. T. Dibbits, ‘Portretten van Adriana Croes, Eduard Wallis, Maria van Strijp en Dirck, Jacobus of Johannes Wallis’, Bulletin van de Vereniging Rembrandt 18 (2008), no. 2, pp. 22-25, esp. p. 25, believes that Dirck, who may have remained unmarried, is the most likely candidate to be the present sitter, because there is no companion piece to this picture in the family collection. P. Biesboer, Collections of Paintings in Haarlem 1572-1745: Documents for the History of Collecting: Netherlandish Inventories I, Los Angeles 2001, p. 323, note 6, states that the portrait is of Johannes, but without giving his reasons. However, the lack of any documented portraits of these brothers or other clues makes any identification guesswork.⁷⁷Johannes Wallis is depicted in Frans Hals’s 1664 group portrait of the governors of the Haarlem Old Men’s Almshouse, but it is not known which face belongs to which name. Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum; illustrated in P. Biesboer et al., Painting in Haarlem 1500-1850: The Collection of the Frans Hals Museum, coll. cat. Haarlem 2006, p. 489; R.E.O. Ekkart, Johannes Cornelisz. Verspronck: Leven en werken van een Haarlems portretschilder uit de 17de eeuw, Haarlem 1979, p. 119.

The sitter is shown half-length, and although only one hand is visible he is probably holding his hat with both of them.⁸⁸The pose is comparable to that of the Haarlem doctor Jacobus Akersloot in Verspronck’s 1655 portrait in the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem; illustrated in P. Biesboer et al., Painting in Haarlem 1500-1850: The Collection of the Frans Hals Museum, coll. cat. Haarlem 2006, p. 628. Like the 1652 portraits of Eduard Wallis and Maria van Strijp, this one is on panel, though a little smaller, and has remained in its original fruitwood frame.⁹⁹See Original framing. It is not known when this painting came into the possession of the descendants of the Wallis-Van Strijp family, but it could very well be one of the unspecified portraits listed in Maria van Strijp’s probate inventory of 1707.¹⁰¹⁰See P. Biesboer, Collections of Paintings in Haarlem 1572-1745: Documents for the History of Collecting: Netherlandish Inventories I, Los Angeles 2001, p. 326, no. 72: ‘Two portraits of the family’; ibid., no. 77: ‘Two portraits belonging to the family’.

Gerdien Wuestman, 2024

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

R.E.O. Ekkart, Johannes Cornelisz. Verspronck: Leven en werken van een Haarlems portretschilder uit de 17de eeuw, Haarlem 1979, pp. 54, 119, no. 93; T. Dibbits, ‘Portretten van Adriana Croes, Eduard Wallis, Maria van Strijp en Dirck, Jacobus of Johannes Wallis’, Bulletin van de Vereniging Rembrandt 18 (2008), no. 2, pp. 22-25; R.E.O. Ekkart, Johannes Verspronck and the Girl in Blue, Amsterdam 2009, pp. 50-51

Gerdien Wuestman, 2024, 'Johannes Verspronck, Portrait of a Man, probably a Member of the Wallis Family, 1653', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.455605