Jan Mytens

By descent from the sitters at Huis te Bennebroek, North Holland;
H.W. Baron van Pallandt van Neerijnen, Neerijnen Castle, Gelderland;
Anonymous sale ('The Property of a Gentleman'), London, Sotheby's, 12 July 1972, lot 18, for £11,500 to Hallsborough;
With Hallsborough Gallery, London;
Acquired from the above by the late owner.

F.G.L.O. van Kretschmar, "Vreemde Eenden in de Bijt. Aantekeningen fij Enkele Portretten op Kasteel Neerijnen", in Jaarboek van het Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie, 26, 1972, p. 39, reproduced;
E.J. Wolleswinkel, "De Portret Collectie Pauw van Wieldrecht op Broekhuizen tevLeersum", in Jaarboek van het Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie, 1994, p. 114;
A.N. Bauer, Jan Mijtens (1613/14- 1670), Berlin 2002, pp. 253-4, 414, cat. no. A 130, reproduced.

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has a fairly recent restoration, and apparently firm lining (although it was not possible to see behind the backboard) perhaps from the seventies when it last changed hands. The texture is well preserved, with a fine even craquelure. There are occasional traces of past brittleness along the stretcher bar lines: sporadic small retouchings up the left side in the sky and in the dark foliage below from time to time, with a few similar small retouchings down the right stretcher bar and from time to time along the line of the upper bar. Retouching along the base is almost entirely along the extreme outer edge with some in the corners, and two vertical lines of retouching at the centre running up to the hem of the dress. The upper left corner also has a certain amount of small retouchings with another narrow vertical line coming down a little way from the left of the top edge. There are a few other quite minor retouchings in the sky, one curving retouching in the centre left foliage and a little horizontal damage in the lower right corner below the signature. In the figures there are some scattered fairly minor retouched knocks mainly near the lower centre in the drapery of the wife : one or two brief tears by the right edge of the skirt, a three cornered tear in the lower folds (about two by two inches), a little knock in the trailing folds behind her, one or two in the upper folds and one across her sleeve. Her husband has one old tear running down from the lower corner of his jacket into the left knee. The little girl on the right has a small retouching by her ear, one in the fold of her sleeve, and a brief horizontal retouching near the hem of her skirt, while her sister on the left has one or two small retouchings in her skirt, one narrow tear up the centre of her bodice, and a little scrape on her outstretched hand. Any retouching has been discreetly done and well integrated. Essentially the painting is in remarkably beautiful condition, with unusually few small incidental damages for a large canvas. The fine preservation of the surface is the result not only of fine technique but also of an early stable background. The luminosity of the flesh painting and drapery, enhanced over time, has remained in almost entirely unworn pure condition. The blue of the small girl's dress is glazed over the light under modelling of the folds. Various pentimenti can be seen with the increased natural transparency of the paint, for instance the swirl of drapery just visible across the husband's stomach and the change in the outer line of the girl's skirt on the left. The copper resinate of the foliage has darkened of course, but there is much fine detail in the landscape including the thistle in the shadows on the right Some of the blue glazing in the upper left sky may be slightly thin, as may possibly be the hair of the two central figures, but these are marginal imperfections in a painting that has remained exceptionally intact essentially. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

By tradition this painting originally hung as an overmantel in Huis te Beenebroek, south of Haarlem, but the identity of its sitters, however, was not discovered until after it was sold in 1972. They are Adriaan Pauw III of Bennebroek (1622-97), together with his wife and cousin Cornelia Clara Pauw (1626-1692). To either side of them stand their daughters Clara Cornelia (1646-1668) and Anna Christina (1649-1719). The two putti carrying a garland represent two other daughters, Anna Cornelia (1645-1646) and Anna Christina (1648-1649) who had died in infancy. Another daughter, Adriana Cornelia was later born in 1655, only to die young, as did their only son Dirk (dates unknown). Of Adriaan's surviving daughters, Clara Cornelia died unmarried at 22, and his sole heiress Anna Christina was betrothed in 1671 to Nicolaes Sohier de Vermandois (1645-90), Heer van Warmenhuizen. This painting was no doubt commissioned from Mytens in 1652 to commemorate Adriaan Pauw's appointment as Councillor to the Dutch Court in October of 1652, the same year as he officially succeeded to the title of Heer van Bennebroek. Thereafter Adriaan lived mostly in his town house on the Herengracht in The Hague, his political career marked only by its lack of distinction.

This painting typifies the elegant group portraiture that made Mytens's reputation and career in The Hague in the middle of the century. It is in these works that his sense of colour, composition and elegance was shown off to its best. Although such works may be considered as heirs to the tradition established by Van Dyck, they owe as much to the international style of portraiture then being practised by artists such as Lely and Hanneman. Nearly all are set in landscapes, and many of them, such as the present work, include arcadian elements, a genre in which Mytens occasionally tried his hand.¹  The costume Adriaan Pauw wears reflects this, but the Order that he wears, possibly the French Order of St. Michel, has not been identified with certainty. The Pauw family were important patrons of Mytens at this date, and he also painted, for example, Adriaan's uncle and stepfather Reinier Pauw,² his brother Gerard and his family,³ his sister-in-law Anna Maria de Fassin and his nephew Adriaan.⁴  All were no doubt loyal supporters of the Orange-Nassau family, from whose court in The Hague Mytens drew most of his foremost patrons.

 

1. See, for example, his Granida and Daifilo, in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (A.N. Bauer, op. cit., 2002, no. A152, reproduced).
2. Now lost. See Bauer, ibid., p. 347, no. E4.
3. Dutch private collection, reproduced in Bauer, ibid., p. 254, no. A131.
4. Ibid., p. 335, no. D75.