DUTCH SCHOOL, 1638
Portrait of Jacobus at 6 ½ Years Old
inscribed and dated in the upper left Anno 1638 8/19 Aetatis Sua 6 ½ Jaar, and inscribed Jacobus on the reverse according to the letter from Walter Bernt
oil on panel
49.2 x 29.1 inches (125 x 74 cm.)
PROVENANCE
Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s Mak van Waay, Amsterdam, June 2, 1986, lot 39, (as attributed to Wijbrand de Geest)
Private Collection
LITERATURE
Certificate of Authenticity by Walter Bernt, dated Munich, June 14, 1962 as by Wybrand de Geest on the reverse of the panel
Saskia Kuus, “Girls in Skirts, Boys in Breeches” in Pride and Joy, Children’s Portraits in the Netherlands 1500 – 1700, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, and Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, 2000, p. 81, illustration no. 44 (as Anonymous, lent by a private collection)
At the age of 6 ½ years old Jacobus, shown full length and probably life-size, stands on a checkerboard floor of black and white marble tiles against a dark background. Fashionably attired he wears a brown doublet fastened by gold buttons with sleeves and brown britches adorned with more gold buttons that end below the knees. A cloak covers one shoulder with a wide sash tied around his waist. His spectacular falling collar of linen and scalloped lace is tied by two lace edged cords. His cuffs are of batiste linen trimmed with scalloped lace. A rarely seen element in such portraits is that the lace of the cuffs appears somewhat wilted. Perhaps it is the painter’s commentary on the heat of the season. His stockings are brown silk tied with brown satin garters fastened with rosettes and gold tassels. His round-toed heeled shoes with long tongues are tied with brown satin bows. Their fawn coloring worn with a dark costume subtly denotes rank and privilege.[1] Jacobus’ left hand clutches a pair of similarly colored gloves. They further serve to underscore the sitter’s wealth and status. Particularly during the first decades of the seventeenth century gloves had aristocratic associations. Like the light-colored shoes, the message was that manual labor was not in Jacobus’ future.
His right hand displays a large, brimmed hat decorated with a ribbon ending in a cluster of gold and silver bunches of grapes. By doffing his hat Jacobus welcomes the viewer into the room. This was a common courtesy in the seventeenth century and intended as a show of respect for and obedience to authority. In this context it is also meant as a display of proper breeding.[2]
Even the setting attests to the family’s wealth. Suggested by contemporary documents, marble floors were not typically found even in the wealthiest Dutch households of the seventeenth century, and then usually only in the entrance hall or the voorhuis (the front room primarily used for receiving guests).[3] Thus every passage of this painting is consequential to the totality of the image’s message. Presented for posterity, it is assuredly a portrayal of wealth and status, but even more the embodiment of the love all families hold for their child.
The image of this painting was illustrated, along with that of his 4 ½ year old brother, in the 2000 landmark catalog of the exhibition Pride and Joy, Children’s Portraits in The Netherlands 1500 – 1700 held at the Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem and Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp. His brother’s full-length portrait is by the same hand, painted 17 days prior to Jacobus. They are dressed almost identically but positioned to face one another. They are shown as examples of young boys wearing britches, as the typical age of transition from skirts to britches was around 7.[4]
[1] “A Little History of Mary / Marlowe Elizabethan & Jacobean Shoes” on American Duchess at blog.americanduchess.com, September 28, 2021.
[2] Wayne Frantis, Paragons of Virtue, Woman and Domesticity in Seventeenth Century Dutch Art, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995, p. 158.
[3] Walter Liedtke, Vermeer and the Delft School, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2001, p. 140.
[4] Saskia Kuus, op.cit., p. 81.