Portrait of the Regents of the Nieuwe Zijds Huiszittenhuis in Amsterdam

Support The plain-weave canvas has been wax-resin lined. All tacking edges have been preserved. Slight cusping is apparent on the right and left. Imprints of an earlier stretcher are visible on all sides; they appear to correspond to the stretcher in photographs of the reverse before the 1952 lining.
Preparatory layers The double ground extends up to the tacking edges. The first, bright red layer contains large umber-coloured and small black and brown pigment particles. The second, cool grey ground consists of carbon black, large white and some orange pigment particles.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the tacking edges. The figures were held in reserve in the background. The faces and hands were applied in what appear to be one or two layers, efficiently leaving the ground locally exposed, with subsequent dark red glazes to indicate the deepest shadows. A cross-section shows that the hand of the man standing on the left, consisting of finely ground red, white and black pigment particles, was placed in one thin layer on top of the ground. The clothing of the figures was executed wet in wet. The paint layers are rather smooth with brushmarking visible in the white and light-coloured areas. The open brushwork in the background on the left partially allows the ground to show through. The black clothing of the man on the right was applied in one solid layer, also directly on the ground, as a cross-section of that area reveals. The background paint was used to make slight adjustments to the contours of the figures. Numerous changes are noticeable in the positions of hands, gloves and collars.
Ige Verslype, 2023

Fair. An extensive canvas insert is apparent in the lower left corner. The right leg of the seated man on the left was completely reconstructed over this section. There are discoloured retouchings throughout and the varnish has yellowed.

? Commissioned by or for the sitters of the Nieuwe Zijds Huiszittenhuis, Prinsengracht, Amsterdam; first recorded in the conference room, Nieuwe Zijds Huiszittenhuis, 1665 (‘[…] stichters afbeeldinghe, zeer heerlijck door den vermaarden konst-rijken Jakob Bakker gheschildert’);¹¹T. van Domselaer, Beschryvinge van Amsterdam, haar eerste oorspronk uyt den Huyze der Heeren van Aemstel en Aemstellant; met een verhaal van haar leven en dappere krijgsdaden, Amsterdam 1665, p. 128. transferred to the Workhouse, Roetersstraat, Amsterdam, 1 June 1873;²²W.F.H. Oldewelt, Amsterdamsche archiefvondsten, Amsterdam 1942, p. 18. on loan from the City of Amsterdam to the museum since 1885; on loan to the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 1978-83

ObjectNumber: SK-C-442

Credit line: On loan from the City of Amsterdam

Since the fourteenth century, overseers of the poor had been providing support for officially registered paupers who did not live in a charitable foundation. That assistance had traditionally been supplied by the clergy, but the city authorities took over responsibility for it in the early seventeenth century. In 1614 they built the Nieuwe Zijds Huiszittenhuis (Outdoor Poor Relief Board) on Prinsengracht, north of Leliegracht, which at first consisted of just a bakery and a peat store. However, the Nieuwe Kerk continued its traditional task of giving essentials to the poor. When the church burned down on 11 January 1645 it was decided to raise a replacement headquarters on Prinsengracht. Distribution was moved there as well, and the first issue of food and fuel was made on 20 December 1649. Jacob Backer very probably received the commission for this portrait of the regents to mark the opening of the new, enlarged building,⁶⁶For the history of the Nieuwe Zijds Huiszittenhuis see J. Wagenaar, Amsterdam in zyne opkomst, aanwas, geschiedenissen, voorregten, koophandel, gebouwen, kerkenstaat, schoolen, schutterye, gilden en regeeringe, VIII, Amsterdam 1765, pp. 289-300; C. Breen, ‘De Huiszittenhuizen te Amsterdam’, Bouwkundig Weekblad 36 (1916), pp. 365-67, esp. pp. 366-67. which means that the canvas would date from around 1650. It is mentioned by the city chroniclers Tobias van Domselaer and Caspar Commelin,⁷⁷T. van Domselaer, Beschryvinge van Amsterdam, haar eerste oorspronk uyt den Huyze der Heeren van Aemstel en Aemstellant; met een verhaal van haar leven en dappere krijgsdaden, Amsterdam 1665, p. 128; C. Commelin, Vervolg van de beschryving der stadt Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1693, p. 540. but it was Wagenaar in 1765 who gave the precise location of where the picture had probably been hanging for over a century: ‘placed against the east wall is a large regent piece that was painted by Jacob Backer in the year 1651’.⁸⁸J. Wagenaar, Amsterdam in zyne opkomst, aanwas, geschiedenissen, voorregten, koophandel, gebouwen, kerkenstaat, schoolen, schutterye, gilden en regeeringe, VIII, Amsterdam 1765: ‘(...) tegen den oostelyken wand, is een groot regentenstuk geplaatst, welk, in ’t jaar 1651, door Jacob Bakker geschilderd is’. Wagenaar also relates that there were two compartments with inscriptions on the same wall that included the names of the overseers portrayed: ‘[…] Lucas Pietersz Conyn, Johan Steur, Rombout Kemp, Claes van Lith, Cornelis Metsue and Isaac Commelyn’.⁹⁹J. Wagenaar, Amsterdam in zyne opkomst, aanwas, geschiedenissen, voorregten, koophandel, gebouwen, kerkenstaat, schoolen, schutterye, gilden en regeeringe, VIII, Amsterdam 1765, p. 291.

The standing man not wearing a hat is the housemaster, who is representing the staff of the Nieuwe Zijds Huiszittenhuis along with the matron, shown on the right. The person seated on the far left can be identified as Isaac Commelin (1598-1676, regent 1647-52) from the document with his name on it that he is holding.¹⁰¹⁰On Isaac Commelin see P.C. Molhuysen, P.J. Blok and F.K.H. Kosssman (eds.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, VI, Leiden 1924, col. 325; J.E. Elias, De vroedschap van Amsterdam 1578-1795, I, Haarlem 1903, p. 570. There are other portraits of him in the Amsterdam Museum and in Frankfurt, Städel Museum; see V. Manuth, ‘Twee portretten van de Amsterdamse boekhandelaar-historicus Isaac Commelin door Gerbrand van den Eeckhout en Pieter van Anraedt’, Maandblad Amstelodamum 89 (2002), no. 6, pp. 3-11 (ill.). The overseer second from right has been recognized as the successful and prominent cloth merchant Rombout Kemp (1597-1653, regent 1635-52), who also appears as the pointing sergeant on the right in The Night Watch (1642).¹¹¹¹SK-C-5. On Kemp see E. Haverkamp-Begemann, Rembrandt: The Nightwatch, Princeton 1982, pp. 29, 78; S.A.C. Dudok van Heel, ‘Frans Banninck Cocq’s Troop in Rembrandt’s Night Watch: The Identification of the Guardsmen’, The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 57 (2009), pp. 42-87, esp. pp. 54-55. The seated figure seen in profile might be Lucas Pietersz Conijn (1597-1657, regent 1630-52). He had his portrait painted by Govert Flinck in a civic guard piece of 1645,¹²¹²SK-C-371. See that entry for his biography. where he is shown at full-length on the left, and his age and physiognomy in that work correspond closely with those in Backer’s canvas. The standing man in the centre behind the table could be Cornelis Metsue (1607-1661, regent 1644-61), an assumption based on the evidence of his likeness in a smaller 1657 regent piece by Ferdinand Bol that hung in the same room in the Nieuwe Zijds Huiszittenhuis,¹³¹³SK-C-436, with the same housemaster as in Backer’s painting. where he may be depicted second from the right.¹⁴¹⁴This figure is identified as Rombout Kemp in K. Bauch, Jacob Adriaensz Backer, ein Rembrandtschüler aus Friesland, Berlin 1926, p. 108, and B. Bakker, E. Fleurbaay and A.W. Gerlagh (eds.), De verzameling Van Eeghen: Amsterdamse tekeningen 1600-1950, Zwolle 1988, no. 12. Reference is made to the traditional identification with Cornelis Metsue in I.Q. van Regteren Altena et al., Teekeningen van oude meesters, behoorende tot de verzameling van Mr. Chr. P. van Eeghen, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Fodor) 1935, p. 12, no. 6. No other portraits are known of Claes van Lith (1614-1670, regent 1640-51) or Johan Steur (1613-after 1671, regent 1630-51), so it is impossible to identify them in this painting. They could be the men third from the right and on the far right.

The creation of the present work can be reconstructed quite accurately from two composition sketches (fig. a, fig. b) and five individual figure studies.¹⁵¹⁵The latter are illustrated in W. Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, I, New York 1979, p. 143, no. 64x, p. 145, no. 65x, p. 147, no. 66x, p. 35, no. 10, p. 37, no. 11. Backer’s canvas is one of the first Amsterdam group portraits with a plain, light background,¹⁶¹⁶Blankert in A. Blankert and R. Ruurs, Amsterdams Historisch Museum: Schilderijen daterend van voor 1800, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1975/79, p. 21. but the two outline drawings show that this was not the artist’s initial intention.¹⁷¹⁷W. Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, I, New York 1979, pp. 30-33, nos. 9, 8. One is in Munich and shows an early stage in the construction of the painting (fig. a). It is the sole preparatory sheet to be done with the brush. The other six are in black and white chalk on (blue and a sole greenish) coloured paper – a striking technique that Backer used more often for his single figure studies. The Munich drawing can be regarded as a first, rough general sketch from which Backer deviated at several points in the final version. He adjusted the hand gestures, such as that of Conijn (seated second from left, shown from the side), and there are also considerable differences in the positioning of the figures. The second sketch, which is in the Rijksmuseum (fig. b), has a more spacious design and a higher composition, which has raised the suspicion that the picture has been cut down.¹⁸¹⁸K. Bauch, Jacob Adriaensz Backer, ein Rembrandtschüler aus Friesland, Berlin 1926, p. 49. However, there is neither ground nor paint on the tacking edges, so the size has not been altered.¹⁹¹⁹See Technical notes. The addition of the chimneybreast to the Rijksmuseum sheet shows that Backer was taking account of the place where the work was to be hung in the room, which was standard practice for group portraits made for a specific location. That chimneybreast is missing in the final picture, but Backer may have overpainted it with the dark strip on the right, which might be a curtain. There is a horizontal fold in the drawing above the regents’ heads, and although it could of course have been added at a later date it is also possible that Backer did so himself in order to indicate the top of the canvas.

After making the composition sketches he turned to the individual figures, searching for an attractive way of grouping them around the table and giving them the correct poses and desired hand gestures.²⁰²⁰On this see G. Korevaar, ‘De regenten van het Nieuwe Zijds Huiszittenhuis door Jacob Adriaensz Backer’, Maandblad Amstelodamum 95 (2008), pp. 31-45, esp. pp. 41-42. For another interpretation of two figure studies in Vienna and New York, see P. van den Brink, ‘Uitmuntend schilder in het groot: De schilder en tekenaar Jacob Adriaensz. Backer’, in P. van den Brink and J. van der Veen, Jacob Backer (1608/9-1651), exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis)/Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 2008-09, pp. 26-84, esp. pp. 72-74. The many pentimenti show that Backer made adjustments to the portrait relative to the preparatory drawings right up until the last minute. He gradually reduced the narrative elements as his preparations progressed. There are no attributes on the table apart from a few writing implements, and there is no view through to another room that would explain the function or activities of the overseers, as there is in Bartholomeus van der Helst’s Regents and Regentesses of the Spinning House of 1650.²¹²¹Amsterdam Museum; illustrated in N. Middelkoop (ed.), Kopstukken: Amsterdammers geportretteerd 1600-1800, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum) 2002-03, p. 183, fig. 109.

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2023

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

K. Bauch, Jacob Adriaensz Backer, ein Rembrandtschüler aus Friesland, Berlin 1926, pp. 49-50, 100, no. 233; W. Martin, De schilderkunst in de tweede helft van de 17e eeuw, Amsterdam 1950, p. 21, no. 16; Blankert in A. Blankert and R. Ruurs, Amsterdams Historisch Museum: Schilderijen daterend van voor 1800, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1975/79, pp. 21-22; P. Schatborn, Figuurstudies: Nederlandse tekeningen uit de 17de eeuw, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1981, pp. 90-91; W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, I, Landau/Pfalz 1983, p. 203, no. 76, with earlier literature; P. van den Brink, ‘Uitmuntend schilder in het groot: De schilder en tekenaar Jacob Adriaensz. Backer’, in P. van den Brink and J. van der Veen, Jacob Backer (1608/9-1651), exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis)/Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum) 2008-09, pp. 26-84, esp. pp. 72-74; G. Korevaar, ‘De regenten van het Nieuwe Zijds Huiszittenhuis door Jacob Adriaensz Backer’, Maandblad Amstelodamum 95 (2008), pp. 31-45

1886, p. 2, no. 5c; 1903, p. 36, no. 399; 1934, p. 34, no. 399; 1960, pp. 26-27, no. 399; 1976, p. 93, no. C 442

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2023, 'Jacob Adriaensz. Backer, Portrait of the Regents of the Nieuwe Zijds Huiszittenhuis in Amsterdam, c. 1650', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5861