With great bravura, this fashionably clad member of one of the Haarlem civic guards stands with one arm akimbo, staring out at the viewer. His proud character, reinforced by the panache of his brilliant pink, silver-lace-trimmed satin costume and jauntily placed hat with its brightly colored feathers, conveys the outward confidence prized by the Dutch during the formative years of the republic.
This remarkable life-sized, half-length portrait depicts Andries Stilte, a wealthy burgher in Haarlem whose identity is confirmed by the family coat of arms in the upper left. Verspronck portrayed Stilte in his role as standard bearer, or ensign, of Haarlem’s Kloveniers (or Saint Hadrian) militia company, which had been formed in 1519. Civic guard companies in the Netherlands had played an important military role in the early phases of the Dutch Revolt, but by the mid-seventeenth century their martial significance had waned as the fight against Spanish forces shifted, toward the end of the revolt, to the southern part of the United Provinces. Indeed, by 1640, when Verspronck painted this work, the Haarlem civic guards had become more like social clubs, serving only the occasional ceremonial or symbolic function.
Officers of the Haarlem militia companies were chosen from wealthy regent families and their positions held great social status. Andries Stilte proudly bears the blue sash and standard of his company (the blue company) that was part of the Kloveniers. He wears a sword hanging from his bandolier, which, like the rest of the ensign’s wardrobe, was traditionally determined by the individual’s family background, taste, and wealth. His bright pink outfit is exceptional in its elegance and refinement, and was probably worn only to a banquet or other ceremonial gathering. The idea that an ensign’s outfit should be colorful goes back to the prestigious but also dangerous historical function of a standard bearer within the civic guard. Along with the captain and the lieutenant, the ensign traditionally stood at the front of the infantry, where he held aloft the company’s standard. His brightly colored clothing was meant to bring attention to his person, making the commanders less of a target. Because the position involved a high risk of being shot, standard bearers were required to be bachelors.
Although Stilte was probably elected ensign in 1639, he served in this position only until 1640, when he became engaged to his first wife, Eva Reyniers, and therefore had to resign as ensign. After his marriage, Stilte would no longer be allowed to wear his elegant and brightly colored finery, so he must have commissioned this portrait to commemorate his status, and his wardrobe, before he assumed another position in the company that required a more sedate attire. Although life-sized portraits of individual standard bearers are rare in Dutch art, the pose—a standing figure holding the flag over one shoulder with the other arm akimbo—is one traditionally found in group portraits of militia companies.
In commissioning this portrait Stilte probably chose Verspronck over his more famous contemporary Frans Hals (Dutch, c. 1582/1583 - 1666) for two essential reasons. Verspronck already had portrayed Andries’ brother Mattheus in 1636, and Stilte would have known that Verspronck was able to create an accurate and engaging likeness of his sitters. He also would have appreciated the artist’s mastery at rendering fabrics with his smooth and modulated manner of painting. Stilte had clearly spared no expense when ordering his wardrobe, and he must have been determined to have it shown to best effect. He would have wanted the artist to show off the sheen of his satin jacket as well as the various types of expensive lace that helped give his outfit such glitz: the Flemish bobbin lace tied with a lime-green bow around his neck and the silver lace edging on his split-sleeve jacket. No less significant were the gold trim on his blue sash and the brightly colored ostrich-feather plumes decorating his beaver-skin hat. Indeed, if one is to judge from PentimentiAn alteration made by the artist to an area that was already painted. in the painting, the hat and feathers were even larger in reality than they now appear.
This depiction of Stilte is exceptional because during Verspronck’s long and successful artistic career he generally painted half-length portraits of middle-class burghers in relatively subdued attire. Stilte’s animated pose, whereby he looks out at the viewer over his shoulder, however, does relate to a small-scale, full-length portrait of an unknown gentleman standing in an architectural setting that Verspronck painted in 1639 (private collection). The character of this latter work seems to have appealed to Stilte, for he commissioned Verspronck to make a small-scale variant of his half-length portrait in the same format as that painting [fig. 1]
[fig. 1] Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck, Portrait of Andries Stilte, c. 1641, oil on canvas, Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio . In this variant Stilte wears an elegant but far more subdued outfit, appropriate for a wealthy Dutch burgher.
Verspronck’s painting has been trimmed slightly at the left: the end of the flagstaff is slightly cut at the edge of the painting. The artist’s signature, which was originally to the left of the date, 1640, in the lower left corner of the painting, is no longer evident.
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.
April 24, 2014
