Portrait of Joan Pietersz Reael (1625-59)

The support is a fine-weave canvas that has been lined, and has its original tacking edges. It was enlarged by approx. 0.9-1 cm on the left, right and top, and reduced by approx. 1.3 cm at the bottom. The canvas was primed with an ochre-coloured ground layer. The paint was applied very smoothly, with impasted highlights. Broad brushstrokes were used for the blue background.

Fair. The paint layers were flattened during the lining process. There are small paint losses throughout. Discoloured retouchings and overpainting are present, particularly along the edges. The condition of the background is severely obscured by the thick, discoloured varnish layer.

? Commissioned by Joan Pietersz Reael (1625-59);...; ? his nephew Pieter Reael (1650-1701), Huys te Nigtevegt or De Nessenrak, De Nes, also known as Reaelen-eiland (Island of the Reael family), near Vreeland, Utrecht; ? his daughter Sara Reael (168?-1758) with Huys te Nigtevegt, Reaelen-eiland;¹¹Broerstra 1989, reconstruction of the residential history of the house. ? her sister Wendela E. Reael (1688-1768) with Huys te Nigtevegt, Reaeleneiland;²²Broerstra 1989, pp. 24-26. ? her son-in-law David ten Hove (1724-87) with Huys te Nigtevegt, Reaelen-eiland;³³Broerstra 1989, p. 26. ? his daughter Wendela E. ten Hove (1750-1814) with Huys te Nigtevegt, Reaelen-eiland;⁴⁴Broerstra 1989, p. 26. ? her daughter Cornelia A. Munter, Countess of Bosé, Dessau; ? sold with Huys te Nigtevegt, Reaelen-eiland, to Abraham Dubois, 1821;⁵⁵Broerstra 1989, p. 26. ? sold with Huys te Nigtevegt, Reaelen-eiland, to Dirk Hoogbruijn, ’s-Graveland, 1829;⁶⁶Broerstra 1989, p. 28. ? sold with Reaelen-eiland to Jan van Andel, Burgomaster of Vreeland, 1830;⁷⁷Broerstra 1989, p. 28....; sold with Realen-eiland to his son Gerrit Gijsbertus van den Andel, 1857;⁸⁸Broerstra 1989, p. 34. found by C.G. ’t Hooft on De Nes on 15 July 1900;⁹⁹Annotation Jonkheer J.H. Backer. from C.G. ’t Hooft, fl. 1,500, to the museum, November 1900

ObjectNumber: SK-A-1928

According to the old inscription on the back of the strainer, this is a portrait of Joan Pietersz Reael. He was a son of Weyntge Oetgens (1583-1664) and Pieter Reael (1569-1643), a cousin of the famous jurist and diplomat Laurens Reael. He lived in Amsterdam, where he held various official positions. In 1655, for instance, he was captain and regent of the St Joris almshouse, of which he became commandant in 1658.¹¹¹¹Elias I, 1903, p. 261. He died unmarried. Joan Pietersz Reael is shown standing, three-quarter length. His left hand rests on a pillar, and he holds a pair of gloves in his right hand. This is a typical work from Janssens van Ceulen’s Dutch period. The most striking feature is the blue background executed with coarse brushstrokes, but the very smooth touch elsewhere in the painting, the sitter’s elegant pose and the low vantage point are also characteristic of the artist.¹²¹²See the portraits of Jaspar Schade van Westrum (1654) in Enschede, Rijksmuseum Twenthe; coll. cat. Enschede 1974-76, p. 234, and Jan Alphert Aemilius (1658) in Cape Town, Michaelis collection; illustrated in coll. cat. Cape Town 1997, p. 117. The painting is very reminiscent of the work of Anthony van Dyck, whose influence is apparent right up to the end of Janssens van Ceulen’s career.

The portrait of Joan Pietersz Reael was acquired from C.G. ’t Hooft in November 1900. According to Jonkheer J.H. Backer (1881-1924), the son of the Burgomaster of Vreeland, ’t Hooft had found the canvas on 15 July that year on De Nes Island near Vreeland (province of Utrecht).¹³¹³Annotation in a copy of E.W. Moes’s Iconographia Batava; written communication, R.E.O. Ekkart, 2004. The island had been bought in 1633 by Henricus Reael (1621-56), the brother of Joan Pietersz, and was also known as Realen Island. Henricus’s son Pieter (1650-1701) built Huys te Nigtevegt there in 1687.¹⁴¹⁴See Broerstra 1989 for the history of the island and its country house. The house was torn down in 1830, with only a few outbuildings being left standing, and this canvas may have hung in one of them until its discovery in 1900.

Gerdien Wuestman, 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. 155.

1903, p. 142, no. 1296; 1934, p. 147, no. 1296; 1976, p. 308, no. A 1928; 2007, no. 155

G. Wuestman, 2007, 'Cornelis (I) Jonson van Ceulen, Portrait of Joan Pietersz Reael (1625-59), 1648', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8851