Portrait of a Man, probably Augustijn Wtenbogaert (1577-1655), Govert Flinck, c. 1643 – (Govert Teunisz Flinck) ◄ Previous Next ►

Artist: Govert Teunisz Flinck

Date: 1643

Size: 74 x 60 cm

Technique: Oil On Panel

Although it is not known how this half-length portrait was acquired, it was probably already present in the collection before the forerunner of the Rijksmuseum moved from The Hague to Amsterdam in 1808. It appears to be included in an April 1804 inventory of the holdings of the Nationale Konst-Gallery in Huis ten Bosch as a work by Rembrandt, an attribution that was maintained in the museum’s collection catalogues from 1809 until 1846, when Albertus Brondgeest demoted it to a school piece. It was later listed as anonymous, then as a painting by Bartholomeus van der Helst, and finally as a signed Van der Helst before Abraham Bredius correctly came up with the name of Govert Flinck in the museum’s 1887 catalogue.13 Bredius was not necessarily a better connoisseur than his predecessors, however. A workshop replica of the portrait bears Flinck’s signature, and although it was only published in 1965, one suspects that Bredius may have had knowledge of it.14 The rather stiffly painted replica is dated 1643, which probably reflects the date of the original. Flinck produced some of his most Rembrandtesque works in the first half of the 1640s, only to abandon Rembrandt’s style almost completely around 1645. Although less accomplished, the sitter’s face and right hand approximate the loose modelling and broad application of paint in Rembrandt’s likenesses of the elderly. The colouring of the face and hand also reminds one of his portraits, but the exaggerated ruddiness of the flesh tones is characteristic of Flinck. He also employs Rembrandt’s trick of applying white highlights to the lower edges of the eyelids in order to give the sitter’s old eyes a watery appearance. Another Rembrandtesque technique is apparent in the treatment of the left ear, where the undermodelling has been left exposed. In contrast to the face and hand, the fluidly rendered cloak resembles Jacob Backer’s style. Not only the painting’s attribution, but the identification of the sitter has proved problematic. Until 1876 he was listed in the museum’s collection catalogues as Pieter Wtenbogaert (1582-1660), his occupation usually being given as ‘receiver’. This was then changed to Joannes Wtenbogaert (1608-1680) because Joannes, not Pieter Wtenbogaert, had held the post of official Receiver of Taxes for the Amsterdam region.15 While a question mark was placed beside this identification in later catalogues, it was finally rejected in 1978 by Dudok van Heel, who pointed out that the man depicted by Flinck is much older than 34 or 35, Joannes Wtenbogaert’s age in 1643.16 It is, however, consistent with that of Joannes’s father Augustijn, who turned 66 in that year. A documented likeness of him exists in the form of Ferdinand Bol’s 1649 Portrait of the Regents of the Lepers’ Asylum,17 in which Augustijn is the second sitter from the right, and the resemblance to the man in Flinck’s painting is striking.18 Born in Utrecht in 1577, Augustijn Wtenbogaert married into a prominent Amsterdam family in 1601.19 His first wife, Maria Reael (1580-1617), was the daughter of Jan Pietersz Reael, burgomaster of Amsterdam in 1604 and 1612, and receiver-general for the Amsterdam region.20 Augustijn lived in his house on Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal, called ‘De zilveren Reael’ (The Silver Real), until his father-in-law’s death in 1621. In the same year he married Geertruid Geldsack (1578-1634). The couple lived on Kloveniersburgwal (no. 27) in a place named ‘de Salamander’ in 1631. When Flinck painted the present portrait in 1643 Augustijn Wtenbogaert was a widower. Beginning in 1618, he held the post of paymaster of the five companies of regular troops maintained by Amsterdam. He became a governor of the Lepers’ Asylum in 1628. Augustijn Wtenbogaert was a distant cousin and good friend of the Remonstrant preacher Johannes Wtenbogaert (1557-1644). Through his first wife he was also related to the Remonstrant theologian Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609). Augustijn Wtenbogaert was one of the 247 Amsterdam notables to sign a 1628 petition to the burgomasters and city council of Amsterdam seeking legal toleration for worship by members of the Remonstrant movement. Although the resemblance of the sitter in the present painting to the figure of Augustijn Wtenbogaert in Bol’s 1649 Portrait of the Regents of the Lepers’ Asylum cannot be denied, the possibility that the man depicted by Flinck was in fact Pieter Wtenbogaert should not be dismissed. The earliest certain mention of the work occurs in a list made on 30 July and 2 August 1808 of paintings that were sent from The Hague to Amsterdam when the collection of what would later become the Rijksmuseum changed venues. Flinck’s picture is described as ‘The portrait of the councillor Uittenbogaert’.21 In the 1809 collection catalogue this was changed to ‘receiver-general’, but the city of Utrecht was added to the title, as well as the first name Pieter.22 Pieter Wtenbogaert (1582-1660) was indeed a councillor in Utrecht and it is poss../..