Portrait of a Goldsmith, Probably Bartholomeus Jansz van Assendelft, Werner van den Valckert, 1617 – (Werner Jacobsz Van Den Valckert) ◄ Previous Next ►

Artist: Werner Jacobsz Van Den Valckert

Date: 1617

Size: 66 x 50 cm

Technique: Oil On Panel

This signed painting dated 1617 is one of Werner van den Valckert’s earliest portraits. There are some 15 portraits that can be securely attributed to him, all of them from the period 1616-25, when he was living in Amsterdam.4 Here, with a delicate touch, he painted a lively portrait of a man looking out of a window at the viewer while holding a gold ring in his right hand and a touchstone in his left. Typical of the artist are the flesh tones, which gleam and are built up with a wealth of hues. The suggestion of depth is enhanced by the impasto of the cartwheel ruff, and above all by the stone window embrasure out of which the man is leaning. The sitter’s identity was convincingly established recently.5 It was originally thought that this was a posthumous portrait of the Amsterdam jeweller Jan van Wely, who had been murdered in 1616, but in fact the sitter is very probably the Leiden goldsmith Bartholomeus Jansz van Assendelft (1585-1658).6 The painting’s provenance and the existence of an old copy with virtually the same provenance were the most important arguments for correcting the identification.7 In 1617, the year the portrait was painted, Van Assendelft took up his first official position in the guild of goldsmiths and silversmiths, and for many years he was assay-master and later dean. There are only a few known works by him. The ring in this portrait is an allusion to his profession, and the touchstone to his function as assayer. There is also an explanation as to why Van Assendelft, who lived in Leiden, had his portrait painted by an Amsterdam artist. Van Assendelft was a close friend of his teacher, Frans Bastiaensz van Mieris, even after the latter settled in Amsterdam around 1616. Van Mieris must have introduced the two men. It can be deduced that Van Mieris probably knew Van den Valckert well from the fact that he acted as a witness at the baptism of Werner’s son Cornelis on 11 July 1617.8 Everhard Korthals Altes, 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. 281.