The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has discovered the true identity of a couple portrayed by the Dutch painter Frans Hals in 1637 as the mayor of the Dutch capital, Jan van de Poll, and his wife, Duifje van Gerwen.
Previously it was believed that the portrait was of a Dutch brewer and his wife, but researchers at the art gallery have discovered the true identity of the protagonists of the two paintings, which are the property of the Rijksmuseum, Efe news agency reported on Monday, citing an official statement from the museum.
“This is the only pair of wedding portraits of an Amsterdam couple painted by Frans Hals,” the museum explained. “Jan and Duifje traveled to Haarlem around 1637 to pose for the painting,” it said.
Who were Jan and Duifje?
Jan van de Poll (1597-1678) was mayor of Amsterdam seven times. In 1650 he reached the highest rank - colonel - in the citizens' militia and appears in this role in two portraits, one painted by the German artist Johann Spilberg in 1650 and the other by the Dutch artist Bartholomeus van der Helst in 1653, both paintings belonging to the collection of the Amsterdam Museum.
Duifje van Gerwen (1618-1658) was the youngest daughter of a wealthy wine merchant in Warmoesstraat, one of Amsterdam's oldest streets, and she married the mayor in 1637. The double portrait in question was created by Hals shortly after the wedding.
The Rijksmuseum believes that Hals was recommended for these two portraits by Duifje's uncle, Willem Warmond, who appears as a captain in a group portrait of the Haarlem militia that the Dutch artist painted ten years earlier.
“Hals began ‘The Meager Company’, his only group portrait of an Amsterdam militia, in 1633. Several members of the militia did not want to travel to Haarlem to be portrayed by Hals, and it was the 'Amsterdam painter Pieter Codde' who finished the work in 1637.
But Jan and Duifje were willing to go to Haarlem and apparently took advantage of this vacancy in Hals' schedule,” explained the Rijksmuseum, based on its research.
These two portraits entered the collection of the Dutch museum in 1885 and the then director, Frederik Obreen, identified the subjects of the painting as Nicolaes Hasselaer (1593-1635), a Dutch brewer from the Golden Age, and his wife, Sara Wolfphaerts van Diemen (1594-1667).
However, since 2007, the identity of the portraits has been questioned.
Wills reveal the truth
A curator at the Rijksmuseum, Jonathan Bikker, has now managed to establish that this identification is incorrect, based on the wills of Van Diemen's grandchildren and great-grandchildren, which reveal that it is impossible for the portraits to have been part of the family inheritance.
The curator has also compared Hals' portrait of the mayor with those done by other artists, although there are no other known paintings of his wife Duifje.
The Rijksmuseum recalled that Jan and Duifje are direct descendants of Jonkheer Jan Stanislaus Robert van de Poll, who donated the paintings to the gallery in 1885.
The museum in the Dutch capital is showing this pair of portraits until June 9, as part of a major exhibition on Frans Hals, although these paintings will travel to Berlin this summer for an exhibition on the Dutch painter and his contemporaries at the Gemäldegalerie.
