Jan Anthonisz. van Ravesteyn?Culemborg c. 1572 – The Hague 1657

Portrait of an Officer
signed in monogram with the initials JR conjoined followed by f. and dated Anº 1630 in the upper left
(offered as a set with Portrait of a Noblewoman)

oil on panel

26½ x 22½ inches (67.3 x 57.1 cm.)

PROVENANCE: Chez Varnick, Paris; Count Léon Mniszech; Collection of Count Léon Mniszech sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, April 9-11, 1902, lots 168 (female) and 169 (male); Durand-Ruel Galleries, New York; Holy Trinity Church; Private Collection, New York until the present time

LITERATURE: H. Gerson, “Jan Anthonisz. van Ravesteyn” in Dr. Ulrich Thieme & Dr. Felix Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, vol. XXVIII, Veb E.A. Seemann Verlag, Leipzig, 1907-50, p. 53
E. Benezit, “Jan Anthonisz. van Ravesteyn” in Dictionnaire Critique et Documentaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, vol. 8, Librairie Gründ, 1976, p. 626

Jan Anthonisz. van Ravesteyn was one of the most successful portrait painters in Holland during the first half of the seventeenth century. Although traditionally described as a pupil of Michiel van Mierevelt, the claim is unsubstantiated, and Mierevelt’s influence is only discernible after 1610. Ravesteyn is documented as being in Delft in 1579 and it is possible that he studied under another Delft master at this point. By 1598 he joined the Guild of Saint Luke in The Hague, and served as its dean in 1617. His earliest known work dates from 1599 of the future Remonstrant leader Hugo de Groot at the Age of Sixteen (F. Lugt Collection, Fondation Custodia, Paris). Only a few paintings are known from the following decade, with the majority of the surviving works dating from 1610 – 1640. Among his most important works are a series of twenty-five portraits of high-ranking military officers (Mauritshuis, The Hague) probably commissioned by Prince Maurits in 1611 and a portrait of Prince Frederick Hendrick (Dutch Royal Collection) of 1612. Ravesteyn’s patrons tended to be dignitaries and prominent citizens from The Hague as well as other cities, often painted in pendants with their wives. He also executed several militia company group portraits, most notably The Council Receiving Officers of the Civic Guard, 1618 (Oude Stadhuis, The Hague on loan from the Gemeentemuseum). After 1641 the artist seems to have produced almost nothing, yet in 1656 he was invited to become a founding member of The Hague’s newly formed artists’ society Pictura. ¹

Pendant portraits of married couples were extremely popular in the Netherlands of the seventeenth century. Our couple are portrayed as traditional companion pieces, with the man on the viewer’s left and the woman on the viewer’s right. They are seen in half-length, both turned slightly towards one another, while looking directly at the viewer.² Clothes and accessories were of enormous importance, indicative of social rank and fortune. Lace was often more expensive than fabric and even jewelry, and the emphasis in both portraits is telltale. It is in this area where Ravesteyn distinguishes himself from Mierevelt and excels in the rendering of textures of costume as well as skin tones and hair executed with meticulous attention to detail. The effect is further enhanced by his employment of flat dark backgrounds that serve to illuminate the sitter’s contours and facial features.

¹Biographical information taken from R.E.O. Ekkart: “The Portraits of “The Vrijdags van Vollenhoven Family” by Jan Anthonisz. van Ravesteyn” in Hoogsteder-Naumann Mercury, xii, 1991, pp. 3-14; Rudolf E.O. Ekkart, “Jan (Anthonisz.) van Ravesteyn” in Jane Turner, ed., From Rembrandt to Vermeer, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 2000, pp. 265-266; and Walter Liedtke, “Jan van Ravesteyn” in Dutch Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum, vol. I, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2007, pp. 543-54.
² Peter C. Sutton, “Frans Hals”, exhibition catalogue Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Prized Possessions, European Paintings from Private Collections of Friends of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, July 17-August 16, 1992, p. 167.

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