Andries Stilte as a Standard Bearer

1640

Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck

Painter, Dutch, 1606/1609 - 1662

Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck

Shown from the hips up, a man with pale skin and shoulder-length brown hair, wearing a long-sleeved, rose-pink satin jacket and pants, props a flagpole with a voluminous blue flag against one shoulder in this vertical portrait painting. He stands with his body facing our left in profile with his left hand on his hip, elbow jutting out at us. He turns his face to look directly at us with dark eyes. He has a straight nose, rosy cheeks, and a mustache and narrow goatee below his lips, which are slightly parted. He wears a wide-brimmed black hat generously adorned with pale blue, turquoise, pale yellow, and orange plumes. The fabric of his pink clothing reflects the light in wide patches of white, creating the impression of a satin sheen. Wide, pale gray lace lines the front opening of the jacket, the shoulders, the arms, and the sides of the trousers. His white lace collar is tied with a pale celery-green bow and a bow of the same color ties the lace cuff of the wrist we can see. A baby-blue sash wraps around his waist and is tied in a large rosette at the back. Both hands are covered with ivory-white gloves. His left wrist rests against his hip so the underside of those fingers dangle down, while the other hand supports the flag pole, which is wrapped in blue fabric. A sword hangs from his front hip. The topaz-blue fabric of the flag, or standard, drapes down from the flag pole, which extends off the top right corner of the canvas. A coat of arms, about the size of a person’s palm, hangs from a nail with a string in the upper left corner on the taupe-colored wall behind the man. The coat of arms is made up of three fleur-de-lis lined up in a diagonal band and the remaining two corners are filled with stylized lions, long tongues curling out. The artist dated the work “1640” in the lower left corner.

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With great bravura, this fashionably clad member of the Haarlem civic guard stands with one arm akimbo, staring out at the viewer. His proud bearing, accented by the panache of his shimmering pink satin costume and plumed hat, attests to the great sense of confidence felt by the Dutch at the height of their "golden age."

Andries Stilte, whose family coat of arms decorates the upper corner of this painting, is presented as a standard bearer, or ensign, of the Kloveniers, one of Haarlem’s militia companies. During the Dutch revolt against Spanish rule in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, militia companies served as a civic guard. By 1640, when Verspronck made this portrait, civic guard companies had lost most of their military function. Officers were chosen from Haarlem’s wealthy burghers, who vied for these prestigious appointments. The blue standard and sash serve to identify Stilte’s company and rank, but the rest of his outfit displays his personal taste, his family’s wealth, and his status as a bachelor (Haarlem’s militia regulations stipulated that only unmarried men could serve as ensigns). Stilte commissioned Verspronck to paint him wearing his sumptuous pink costume right before he resigned his rank to marry. As a married militia officer, Stilte would have worn an elegant black outfit.

Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck was one of the foremost portraitists in Haarlem during the mid-seventeenth century. Little is known about his artistic background, although he probably studied first with his artist-father, Cornelis Engelsz (c. 1575–1650). Verspronck may also have trained with Frans Hals (c. 1582/1583–1666). While many seventeenth-century Dutch artists, including Hals, portrayed Dutch militia companies, a life-size portrait of an individual ensign—such as Verspronck's striking likeness of Stilte—is exceedingly rare.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 46

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Patrons' Permanent Fund

  • Dimensions

    overall: 104 x 78.5 cm (40 15/16 x 30 7/8 in.)
    framed: 137.2 x 111.8 x 8.9 cm (54 x 44 x 3 1/2 in.)

  • Accession Number

    1998.13.1

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century: Andries Stilte as a Standard Bearer, 1640

This horizontal painting shows a group of eight light-skinned musicians and onlookers gathered closely around a rectangular, carpet-covered table. The front edge of the table runs parallel to the bottom edge of the painting, and seems close to us. Shown from about the waist up, the men and women’s vivid lapis-blue, coral-red, buttercup-yellow, lilac-purple, and moss-green garments fall in crisp folds. Bright reflections on the fabric suggest a satin-like material. Two women wear feathers in their hair and one man’s hat is plumed. One man, wearing crimson red and black, sits with his back to us to our left on the near side of the table. He holds the neck of a bass viol, about the size of a cello, with his left hand, and points to pages of an open music book with the bow in his right hand. The other people cluster on the far side of the table. A man to the left plays a violin; a woman at the center plays a guitar-sized bandora, and a woman to our right plays a lute. The musicians, along with a man who leans over the table from between the two women, look down at the music books. A young man behind the woman at the center holds up a glass of pale liquid with his right hand as he touches his left forefinger to his smiling lips. A man and woman stand close together in the background to our right, in the top right corner of the canvas.

Scholarly Series:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Jacques Goudstikker, Amsterdam), before 1917. Dr. Walter von Pannwitz [1856-1920], Berlin, by 1917;[1] by inheritance to his wife, Catalina von Pannwitz [1876-1959, née Roth], Heemstede; by descent in the Pannwitz family; (Otto Nauman, Ltd., New York); purchased 1988 by Mr. and Mrs. Michal Hornstein, Montreal; (sale, Sotheby's, New York, 30 January 1998, no. 69); purchased through (Bob P. Haboldt & Co., New York) by NGA.
[1] The Pannwitz family lent the painting to the Mauritshuis, The Hague, from 1917 to 1923. Walter von Pannwitz was a Munich lawyer who, with his second wife Catalina Roth, relocated to Berlin in 1910. He acquired an extensive collection of paintings and applied arts in the first two decades of the twentieth century.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1917

  • Loan to display with permanent collection, Mauritshuis, The Hague, 1917-1923.

2000

  • Face to Face in the Mauritshuis, Koninklijk Kabinet van Schilderijen Mauritshuis, The Hague, 2000, no cat.

  • Art for the Nation: Collecting for a New Century, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2000-2001, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

2007

  • Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals, The National Gallery, London; Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague, 2007-2008, no. 64, repro.

Bibliography

1920

  • Martin, Wilhelm. Kurzgefasster Katalog der Gemälde- und Skulpturensammlung, Königliche Gemälde Galerie Mauritshuis. The Hague, 1920: 84, no. 753.

1921

  • Martin, Wilhelm. Alt-holländische Bilder: Sammeln, Bestimmen, Konservieren. Berlin, 1921: 172-173.

1926

  • Friedländer, Max J. Die Kunstsammlung von Pannwitz. 2 vols. Munich, 1926: 1:11-12, no. 54, pl. 43.

1976

  • Yapou, Yonna. "Portraiture and Genre in a Painting Restored to Jan Verspronck." Israel Museum News 11 (1976): 41-46, fig. 7.

1979

  • Ekkart, Rudolf E. O. Johannes Cornelisz. Verspronck: leven en werken van een Haarlems portretschilder uit de 17de eeuw. Exh. cat. Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem, 1979: 40, 78, no. 19, repro. 150.

1990

  • Sutton, Peter C. "Recent Patterns of Public and Private Collecting of Dutch Art." In Great Dutch Paintings from America. Edited by Ben P. J. Broos. Exh. cat. Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Zwolle, 1990: 118, fig. 23.

1995

  • Otto Naumann Ltd. Inaugural exhibition of old master paintings. Exh. cat. Otto Naumann Ltd., New York, 1995: 140, color repro.

2000

  • National Gallery of Art. Art for the Nation: Collecting for a New Century. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2000: 34-35, color repro.

  • Weller, Dennis P. Like Father, Like Son? Portraits by Frans Hals and Jan Hals. Exh. cat. North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, 2000: fig. 6, color repro.

2004

  • Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 212-213, no. 170, color repro.

2007

  • Ekkart, Rudolf E.O., and Quentin Buvelot. Dutch portraits: the age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals. Translated by Beverly Jackson. Exh. cat. National Gallery, London; Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague. London, 2007: 220-221, no. 64, repro.

2008

  • Buvelot, Quentin. "El retrato holandés." Numen 2 (2008): 14, 25, repro.

2009

  • Ekkart, Rudolf E.O.. Johannes Verspronck and the Girl in Blue. Amsterdam, 2009: 20, 22, 58, color fig. 14.

2012

  • Tummers, Anna. The Eye of the Connoisseur: Authenticating Paintings by Rembrandt and His Contemporaries. Amsterdam, 2012: 244, 245, color fig. 154.

2014

  • Wheelock, Arthur K, Jr. "The Evolution of the Dutch Painting Collection." National Gallery of Art Bulletin no. 50 (Spring 2014): 2-19, repro.

Inscriptions

lower left: :1640:

Wikidata ID

Q20177165

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