Support The coarse, plain-weave canvas has been wax-resin lined. All tacking edges have been preserved, though the one at the top has been partially trimmed. The original tacking holes were reused in the current stretching. Shallow cusping is present on the left and right. Judging by the crack pattern parallel to the edges, the bars of the original strainer were approx. 5 cm wide.
Preparatory layers The single, light tan-coloured ground extends up to the edges of the canvas. It consists of mainly white pigment with large charcoal black particles, a few small orange pigment particles and some angular transparent particles. The ground is very similar to the one found on Spilberg’s Portrait of Harmen van de Poll (SK-A-1262).
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends almost up to the tacking edges. The composition was built up from the back to the front and from dark to light, using reserves. The facial features were underpainted in black and warm brown, as can be seen in the deepest shadows on the forehead and around the eyes, nose and moustache. A loose, dry, white scumble preparing the highlight is faintly visible beneath the paint of the sitter’s left knee. The sword was added last. The brushwork is evident and considerable impasto was used for the highlights. The part of the feather hanging below the rim of the hat, now blue, was originally red.
Gwen Tauber [publication date 2026]

Fair. An old, repaired tear can be seen in the sitter’s left hand. A regular, predominantly vertical craquelure is present throughout. The edges of the painted surface were flattened during lining, leaving an indentation, approx. 1 cm wide, on all sides.

…; collection Margaretha Trip (1699-1778), widow of Harmen Hendrik van de Poll (1697-1772), Amsterdam, 1772-78;¹¹According to the inscription on a reproductive engraving by Jacob Houbraken, the painting belonged to the widow of the sitter’s great-grandson Harmen Hendrik van de Poll; illustrated in S. van Haaren, Een regentengeslacht in beeld: Geschiedenis en collectie van de familie Van de Poll, exh. cat. Woerden (Stadsmuseum) 1997-98, p. 30. her son, Jan van de Poll (1721-1801), Amsterdam;²²NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 168, no. 302 (14 April 1888). his grandson, Jan van de Poll (1777-1858), Amsterdam, 1802 (stored with other family portraits in his aunt’s house, 479 Herengracht, Amsterdam); his son, Jan Stanislaus Robert van de Poll (1805-1888), Arnhem (stored with 25 other family portraits in his sister-in-law’s house, 450 Herengracht, Amsterdam); by whom donated to the museum, with 34 other family portraits, November 1885;³³NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 164, no. 299 (30 December 1884); NHA, ARS, Kop., inv. 289, pp. 62-68, no. 154 (19 November 1885). transferred to the Weigh House, Amsterdam, December 1947;⁴⁴Note RMA. on loan to the Amsterdam Museum since 1975

Object number: SK-A-1258

Credit line: Gift of Jonkheer J.S.R. van de Poll, Arnhem

This three-quarter length portrait of the Amsterdam regent Jan van de Poll is based on his likeness in Johannes Spilberg’s Civic Guard Banquet with Colonel Jan van de Poll and Captain Gijsbert van de Poll of 1650, in which he is shown seated at the table on the far right.⁷⁷Amsterdam Museum; illustrated in N. Middelkoop, G. Reichwein and J. van Gent, De oude meesters van de stad Amsterdam: Schilderijen tot 1800, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum) 2008, p. 246. For his biography see J.E. Elias, De vroedschap van Amsterdam 1578-1795, I, Haarlem 1903, p. 445, no. 152. It was probably painted in the eighteenth century,⁸⁸N. Middelkoop, G. Reichwein and J. van Gent, De oude meesters van de stad Amsterdam: Schilderijen tot 1800, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum) 2008, p. 246. when the original hung in the Handboogdoelen (the headquarters of the archers’ civic guard) in Amsterdam. The copyist made minor adjustments by replacing the glass in Van de Poll’s hand with a document. The execution matches that of the portrait of his son Harmen van de Poll,⁹⁹See SK-A-1262. which was also painted after Spilberg’s Civic Guard Banquet. Both works are probably by the same artist, and were gifted to the museum in 1885 by Jan Stanislaus Robert van de Poll, a direct descendant of the present sitter, along with 34 other family portraits.

Jacobus Houbraken made a print after this painting with only Jan van de Poll’s bust in an oval.¹⁰¹⁰Illustrated in S. van Haaren, Een regentengeslacht in beeld: Geschiedenis en collectie van de familie Van de Poll, exh. cat. Woerden (Stadsmuseum) 1997-98, p. 30. As stated in the inscription, this was done after the death of Harmen Hendrik van de Poll, a great-grandson of the sitter, in 1772, when his widow, Margaretha Trip, must have owned the Rijksmuseum picture.¹¹¹¹The inscription reads: ‘Jan van de Poll, Burgemeester en Raad der Stad Amsterdam. J. Houbraken, fecit na ’t Schildery, als Kolonel van de Burgery, bij Mevr.w de Wed.e van den Heer Burgem.r H.n H.k Van de Poll’ (Jan van de Poll, burgomaster and councillor of the City of Amsterdam. Made by J. Houbraken after the painting as colonel of the civic guard that is with the widow of the Lord Burgomaster Harman Hendrik van de Poll). Exactly the same portrait is found in another anonymous eighteenth-century copy of a similar size.¹²¹²Private collection; photo RKD.

Gerbrand Korevaar [publication date 2026]

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Blankert in A. Blankert and R. Ruurs, Amsterdams Historisch Museum: Schilderijen daterend van voor 1800, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1975/79, pp. 293-94, no. 411

1887, p. 160, no. 1354; 1903, p. 249, no. 2220; 1934, p. 266, no. 2220; 1976, p. 518, no. A 1258

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2026, 'copy after Johannes (II) Spilberg, Portrait of Jan van de Poll (1597-1678), 1700 - 1800', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200108732