Gerard ter Borch Zwolle 1617 - 1681 Deventer

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Description

Gerard Ter Borch
a portrait of andries de graeff (1611-1678), burgomaster of Amsterdam, standing three-quarter length, wearing a black suit and white collar, beside a desk with a book
dated and inscribed with the name and age of the sitter upper left: Andries de Graeff/out lxiii Jaer/m.d.c.lxx.iiii
oil on canvas

Provenance

Private collection, England, circa 1870 (according to the catalogue of the Münster exhibition);
Thence by descent until purchased privately;
Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 11 April 1990, lot 41;
With David Koetser Gallery, Zürich, 1990-1;
Private collection.

Exhibited

Münster, Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Gerard ter Borch, Zwolle 1617-Deventer 1681, 1974, pp. 186-7, cat. no. 56a, reproduced (as datatble to 1674);
Amsterdam, Amsterdams Historisch Museum, Kopstukken. Amsterdammers geportretteerd 1600-1800, 10 October 2002-26 January 2003, pp. 134 and 136, cat. no. 33, reproduced.

Catalogue Note

The Amsterdam-born Andries de Graeff was a wealthy and influential man, who married his niece Elisabeth Bicker (1623-1656), daughter of Cornelis Bicker, burgomaster of Amsterdam, in 1646. The couple, who had three children, lived several years in The Hague, but, after the death of his wife in 1656, De Graeff returned to his native town of Amsterdam, where he became burgomaster several times between 1657 and 1671. He lived at the Herengracht no. 446.

Andries de Graeff was a son of Jacob Dircksz. de Graeff and Aeltge Boelens and the uncle of the V.O.C. minister, Pieter de Graeff (1638-1707) and trustee of the Burgerweeshuis, Jacob de Graeff (1642-1690).

De Graeff sat to several leading artists of his day. An undated portrait by Govaert Flinck, a close friend, shows him as a slightly younger man (see J.W. von Moltke, Govaert Flinck, Amsterdam 1965, p. 107, cat. no. 205, reproduced, present whereabouts unknown). A portrait of him by Jan Lievens is recorded (see H. Schneider, Jan Lievens. Sein Leben und seine Werke, Amsterdam 1973, p. 146, cat. no. 239, present whereabouts unknown), and Artus Quellinus sculpted a bust-length portrait in 1661 in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. no. R.B.K. 18305). Gerard ter Borch also painted De Graeff's son Cornelis (1623-1678) in 1674 (Koninklijk Schilderijenkabinet Het Mauritshuis, The Hague, inv. no. 883).

The present painting, first published in the catalogue of the Münster exhibition (see Exhibited below), was not known to S.J. Gudlaugsson when he issued his monograph on Ter Borch in 1959.