the rijksmuseum bulletin 250 the rijks copticthe textiles rijksmuseummuseum in the bulletinrijksmuseum bulletin Changes to a Civic Guard Portrait The Technical Investigation of Cornelis Ketel’s Militia Company of Captain Dirck Jacobsz Rosecrans and Lieutenant Pauw • erika smeenk-metz, barbara schoonhoven and arie wallert • verything changes, nothing is as Detail of fig. 1 yet again he pulled it off. It would E it was. Viewers standing in front appear, however, that these seemingly of a sixteenth- or seventeenth-century bizarre experiments were more than painting should not be fooled into an eccentric flight of fancy: it is likely thinking that they are seeing just what that Ketel suffered from some form their counterparts would have seen of rheumatic complaint, making it four centuries ago. Many pigments increasingly difficult for him to hold a discolour over time, affected by light brush. Be that as it may, the reputation and climate. The idea that almost every of dauntless experimenter continued to old painting has undergone a certain cling to Ketel. The restoration of one of metamorphosis over the centuries may Ketel’s best-known works – traditionally be unsettling, but it is inescapable. This known as The Militia Company of is simply what happens. Things start Captain Dirck Jacobsz Rosecrans and to get really exciting, though, when we Lieutenant Pauw – painted in 1588, apply that notion to the work of an artist and the associated analytical research, who was renowned in his own time for provided an opportunity to investigate his unorthodox method and artistic whether this reputation is deserved buccaneering. What will we find? (fig. 1).2 Cornelis Ketel (1548-1616) was one Ketel’s painting has been in the such innovator. His contemporary Karel Rijksmuseum since 1885 and belongs van Mander, who wrote a glowing pages 252-53 to the genre of the civic guard portrait, biography of Ketel in 1604, recounts Fig. 1 a group portrait of the members of how around 1600 the artist came up cornelis ketel, a militia company. Around 1580 the with the idea of abandoning his brush The Militia Company medieval civic guard guilds, which and starting to paint with his fingers. of Captain Dirck had a predominantly ceremonial role, Jacobsz Rosecrans Many regarded it as a caprice, said started to transform into citizens’ and Lieutenant Pauw, Van Mander, ‘a ridiculous, abhorrent 1588. militias which could provide military 3 craving akin to that experienced by Oil on canvas, support to the city government. Most some pregnant women, who hanker 208 x 410 cm. of the members of these militias were after strange, raw or uncooked things Amsterdam, well-to-do burghers. The civic guard to eat.’1 But Ketel succeeded in his Rijksmuseum, portrait as a genre is peculiarly Dutch. design, and certainly did not produce inv. no. sk-c-378; on The earliest, painted by Dirck Jacobsz, loan from the City any ‘misshapen offspring’. Not long dates from 1529, the latest from the of Amsterdam. afterwards, he tried to paint with his Photograph taken second half of the seventeenth century. toes. His contemporaries thought that after the 2005-07 Ketel’s civic guard portrait depicts this was, if possible, even crazier, but restoration. thirteen officers of the crossbowmen’s 251 the rijksmuseum bulletin 252 changes to a civic guard portrait 253 the rijksmuseum bulletin guild, also known as St George’s earliest civic guard portraits to have Militia (fig. 2). The most important been painted on this support. The figure in the group is the man with decision to use canvas was probably the captain’s staff, Dirck Jacobsz prompted by the huge dimensions of Rosecrans. He wears a sash in red the painting: a work this size on panel and white, probably the colours of the would have been extraordinarily heavy regiment. His lieutenant, Pauw, is and difficult to handle. The original pictured further to the right. He, too, canvas is finely woven in a linen weave.6 wears a red and white sash.4 Between The painting currently measures them, carrying a red-and-white striped 207.5 x 410 cm, but these are not the standard, is the ensign. This is probably original dimensions. the first group portrait in which the The painting has undergone guardsmen are pictured life size, full previous restorations, at which time length and standing. This makes it the pieces were probably cut off. It was model for several later civic guard relined in 1880 by the restorer portraits, among them Rembrandt’s W.A. Hopman. The dimensions of Night Watch. the painting are recorded for the first Research and conservation in any time in a letter Hopman wrote in 1879: event made it clear that Ketel some- height 206 and width 407 cm. These times used materials in an entirely measurements correspond more or unorthodox manner, and that the work less exactly with the present size. now appears different in a number of However, the picture was originally respects from the way it looked when larger.7 An 1878 inventory in the it was first painted. Amsterdam City Archives reveals that the painting had already been lined Support before Hopman’s intervention in 1880.8 The Militia Company of Captain Dirck It appears that a complete figure Fig. 2 Schematic drawing Jacobsz Rosecrans and Lieutenant has been cut off on the left; a foot, with the officers Pauw was painted on a single piece of a lower leg and a hand can be seen, numbered. These linen canvas, which is quite unusual while the rest of the figure is missing. numbers are referred for such a large work.5 It is one of the The cropping of the shield on the to in the text. 4 12 2 5 7 8 9 11 3 6 10 1 13 254 changes to a civic guard portrait right, only half of which is now visible, and the Chamber of the Mayor and would also not seem to be original Aldermen in the Prinsenhof (the then – particularly since on it there is a town hall). On the occasion of the depiction of a print by Hendrik removal of the paintings from the Goltzius that had been published only Town Hall in Dam Square – which two years before. The print depicts King Louis Bonaparte commandeered Marcus Curtius, the fourth in a set of as his palace – to the Prinsenhof, the Roman heroes, all of whom sacrificed director of the national art gallery their lives to save their country. This is (Nationale Kunstgalerij), C.S. Roos, a significant iconographic reference to drew up a list of the works that were to the heroism of the militiamen in the be moved. It emerges from this list, on painting.9 which the dimensions of the paintings On the extreme left of the painting, were recorded, that at that time Ketel’s the ‘1’ of the date has disappeared, group portrait was still the original possibly along with part of the traces size.18 This means that it must have of the signature. In 1864 the city been reduced between 1808 and 1841. archivist Pieter Scheltema reported What might the picture originally that the picture was ‘signed Anno 1588, have looked like? It is possible that the C. Ketel’.10 This could suggest that it painting was originally the same size as was cut down again after 1864. It seems Pieter Isaacsz’s 1599 work, The Militia unlikely that this happened when Company of Captain Gillis Jansz Hopman relined it. All the indications Valckenier and Lieutenant Pieter are that Hopman tried to retain the Jacobsz Bas. We know from the size, with all the irregularities that inventory compiled by Schaep in 1653 existed, as much as he possibly could.11 that this painting, made eleven years Scheltema’s comment could suggest later by Ketel’s pupil, hung opposite that the edges were trimmed again his master’s civic guard portrait in the during an earlier lining that took headquarters of St George’s Civic place between his observation of Guard. Pieter Izaacsz’s painting the signature in 1864 and Hopman’s measures 218 x 526 cm and is still the treatment in 1880.12 This seems original width, as can be deduced from improbable, however, because a the presence of the original stretched description of the painting in 1841 edges with cords. refers to ‘thirteen Militiamen, full Ketel’s civic guard portrait is length’.13 organized around a fairly simple If one or more figures have indeed central perspective. If we take the been cut off, as is suggested several perspectival vanishing point of the times in the literature, it must have painting in its present condition (in been done before 1841.14 Regrettably other words with a considerable part none of the three sources dating from of the original paint surface folded before then (Karel van Mander in around the stretcher), it appears that 1604, Gerrit Pietersz Schaep in 1653 about a hundred centimetres are and Jan van Dyk in 1758) mentions missing from the right-hand side. This the number of figures portrayed.15 space would accommodate at least The painting has been moved more three more people. That would bring than once. It may have been taken the total width of the painting to more down from its place in 1620, during the than five metres. It can be deduced renovation of the guards’ headquarters.16 from the 1808 list that the original In 1672 it was moved, with a great width of the canvas must have been at many other paintings, to Amsterdam least 537.9 cm.19 The work would thus Town Hall.17 After 1808 it hung on the have been slightly, but not much, wider landing between the town clerk’s office than Pieter Isaacsz’s painting.