Selbstbildnis

The career of Jacques de Gheyn II (1565–1629)

exemplifies the flexibility required to succeed as an

urban artist in the Netherlands around 1600. Karel

van Mander (1548–1606) recounts that after a youth

spent training with his father, Jacques de Gheyn I

(1537–1581), in Antwerp, he was in Haarlem between

1585 and 1590 to train as a printmaker with Hendrick

Goltzius (1558–1617). By 1590, he had begun an

independent career as a printmaker and publisher

in Amsterdam, taking on several apprentices. In

1595, he relocated to the university town of Leiden

and in 1603 settled in The Hague, where he spent

most of his final twenty-six years.

In each locale, De Gheyn cultivated patronage

from different pockets of the city, ranging from the

stadtholder’s court in The Hague to the university

and intellectual circles in Leiden. He also gradually

shifted his emphasis from printmaking to painting,

a deceleration of commercial activity perhaps

enabled by his marriage to a woman of means from

The Hague in 1595. De Gheyn’s savvy adaptations

to the interests of different patrons included

subject matter that ranged from nature studies

(a group of which were acquired by Rudolf II

[r. 1576–1612] in Prague) to figure studies [60, 61]

to works evincing a particular fascination with

witches and black magic [77].

The present portrait was executed when De Gheyn

was around thirty-five years of age, during the

period when he lived in Leiden but was apparently

in the process of establishing himself in The Hague,

applying for membership in the city’s Guild of

Saint Luke in late 1599. Thinking like an engraver,

De Gheyn created shape and volume purely

through line rather than tonal washes, leaving

almost no part of the sheet untouched. De Gheyn

presents himself within a convex circle suggestive

of a mirror or metal drum. The use of swelled and

tapered lines to define the circle, hair, beard, and

shoulder was a technique learned in Goltzius’s

studio; to this De Gheyn added somewhat irregular

dotting and flicking to produce shadow and volume

on the face. The artist emphasized his piercing stare

via the shading of the eyelids with dark lines and

the dark contours along the right side of the face

and the nose.

De Gheyn is dressed in finery, with a brocaded,

slashed doublet and an ample linen ruff (pijpkraag);

the portrait presents a likeness of a prosperous

yet intensely focused guild master. A 1610 printed

portrait of De Gheyn in Hendrik Hondius I’s

(1573–1650) Theatrum Honoris shows him holding

a portrait miniature and surrounded by a copperplate,

a burin, reed pens, an inkwell, and a canvas

(fig. 1). In contrast, the Albertina sheet is focused

on the man’s upright character, conveyed by his

solid build, vibrant curls, and intense stare. The

unembellished background of the Albertina sheet,

as well as its small size and shape, evokes portrait

miniatures. Van Regteren Altena considered it a

potential wedding present.1 De Gheyn signed his

marriage contract with Eva Stalpaert van der Wiele

on March 31, 1595.2 A date in the mid-1590s would

indeed accord with the fashion worn by the artist;

moreover, old sources support this idea: in the catalogue

for the sale of the Muilman collection (1773),

the drawing is assigned the date “1695” (an error

that certainly refers to 1595).3

Given its small size, the present sheet may

indeed have been made for private purposes, and

there certainly was enough reason to impress his

bride. Eva Stalpaert van der Wiele, “a rich girl from

The Hague,” as Reznicek laconically put it,4 was of

aristocratic origin, with familial ties to many influential

families throughout the country.5 One may,

however, ask whether the self-confident and somewhat

fierce gaze was truly apt to win the heart of

a bride. De Gheyn’s expression and the half-length

format, a mainstay of noble portraiture, could just

as well have been a personal monument, celebrating

his acceptance into the guild or his entrance into

the nation’s landowning elite. After all, though

educated at a Latin school,6 he was the son of a

migrant artisan, originally trained as a glas-schrijver

like his father.7

 

1. Van Regteren Altena 1936, 9; Van Regteren Altena 1983, 2:105.

2. Van Regteren Altena 1983, 1:38.

3. “Old Jacques de Gheyn” most certainly refers to Jacques II,

distinguishing him from his son Jacques III (1596–1641). That

the drawing described as number 987 must indeed be identical

with the present sheet is also made clear by the dimensions as

given in the Muilman sale, 4½ duim, which approximate those

of the present sheet, with one duim being the equivalent of 2.57

cm, thus converting to 11.56 cm; Van Regteren Altena 1983, 2:105.

4. Meij 1986, 13.

5. Her family owned land in the region of Noordwijk;

Van Regteren Altena 1983, 1:42, 44.

6. Van Regteren Altena 1983, 1:45.

7. Van Regteren Altena 1983, 1:3.

 

Emily J. Peters, Laura M. Ritter (Hg.), AK Tales of the City. Drawing in the Netherlands from Bosch to Bruegel, Cleveland Museum of Art 9.10.2022 - 8.1.2023, New Haven 2022, Kat. Nr. 65