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REMBRANDT HARMENSZ. VAN RIJN (LEIDEN 1606-1669 AMSTERDAM)
Portrait of Jan Willemsz. van der Pluym (c.1565-1644), bust-length; an­d Portrait of Jaapgen Carels (1565-1640), bust-length
the first signed and dated 'Rembrandt / f. 1635' (centre right), indistinctly signed 'Remb[...]' (lower right), and inscribed 'Æ 69' (centre left); the second signed, dated and inscribed 'Æ 70 / Rembrandt / f. 1635' (centre left)
oil on panel, oval
the first 8 1/2 x 6 5/8 in. (20.8 x 16.7 cm.); the second 7 3/4 x 6 1/4 in. (19.9 x 16.7 cm.)
(2)a pair
Provenance
Presumably by descent from the sitters to their daughter,
Catharina van der Pluym (1606-1670), Amsterdam and Leiden, listed in her posthumous inventory of 1671, inv. nos. 28(a) and 28(b), as ‘twee ovael kontrefeijtsels van een man ende vrouw, tien gulden ƒ 10’ (‘two oval portraits of a man and a woman, ten guilders ƒ 10’), and by inheritance to her brother, to whose home on the Kloveniersburgwal her household effects were transferred,
Willem Jansz. van der Pluym (1596-1675), Amsterdam, and by inheritance to his great-grandson,
Marten ten Hove (1683-1759), Amsterdam; (†) sale with Jean François Tourton (1688-1751), Hendrick de Winter, Amsterdam, 8 April 1760 (=1st day), lots 8 and 9, as ‘Een Mans Pourtret met een kraag om zyn hals, zynde een Borststuk, zeer kragtig geschildert, in een Ovaal, door Rembrandt, Ao. 1635. hoog 8 duim, breet 61/2 duim’ (‘A man’s portrait with a collar around his neck, like a Borststuk, very powerfully painted, in an oval, by Rembrandt, Ao. 1635. 8 inches high, 61/2 inches wide’) and ‘Een Vrouwe Pourtret, door dito, zynde een weerga, deze beide Pourtretten verbeelden dezelve te zyn als No. 1. 2.’ (‘A portrait of a lady, by ditto, being a pair, both these portraits depicting the same as No. 1. 2.’ [being the portraits of the sitters in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and American University Museum, Washington, D.C]), where acquired for 51 florins by the following,
with Pieter Yver (1712-1787), Amsterdam.
Arnould Leers, Lord of Amyden and Alderman of Rotterdam (1698-1766); his sale (†), Blinkvliet, Winter and Kok, Amsterdam, 19-22 May 1767, lot 79 (=1st day), as ‘Twee Pourtraitjes, zynde Man en Vrouw, door Rembrant, in’t oval; hoog 9, breet 7 duimen’ (65 florins).
(Possibly) Gerrit Braamcamp (1699-1771), Amsterdam; his sale (†), Philippe van der Schley, Amsterdam, 31 July 1771, lot 174, as a pair, 'Rembrandt, Een Mans en Vrouwen Pourtrait ter halver Lyf' ('A man and woman's portrait at half length'), where acquired for 325 florins by the following,
with Jan Yver (1747-1814), Amsterdam, possibly for the following,
Count Vincent Potocki (c.1740-1825), Warsaw; his sale, 1781 (dates unknown), lots 96 and 97, as a pair, ‘Portraits du Père & de la Mère de Rembrandt. Tableaux ovales peins sur bois: haut 7 pouces 4 lignes, large 6 pouces 3 lignes chaque’, where unsold and reoffered on the premises of his hotel on rue Caumartin, no. 22, Paris, 8 February 1820 (=1st day), lot 817, as a pair, ‘Un Homme et une Femme vus à mi-corps: l’un, tête nue, son vêtement noir est surmonté d’une large fraise; l’autre est coiffée en bonnet et porte une grande fraise en batiste; dans les fonds, à ces deux Tableaux, qu’on attribue aussi à Rembrandt: Rembrandt, 1635. H. 7 p. 2 l. L. 6 p. B. forme ovale’, where acquired for 48.5 francs by,
Jean-Baptiste Roslin, Baron d'Ivry (1775-1839), Château d'Hénonville, near Beauvais.
James Murray, 1st Baron Glenlyon (1782-1837); Christie’s, London, 18 June 1824, lot 76, as ‘Rembrandt – very spirited and finely coloured’, sold for 13 gns. to Rutley, through whom acquired by an ancestor of the present owners.
Literature
Posthumous inventory of the estate of Catharina van der Pluym, 1671, preserved in the Gemeentearchief Amsterdam, 2410, fol. 100-111, film no. 2551, inv. nos. 28(a) and 28(b), as ‘twee ovael kontrefeijtsels van een man ende vrouw, tien gulden ƒ 10’.
P. Terwesten, Catalogus of Naamlijst van Schilderijen, met derzelver pryzen. Zedert den 22. Augusti 1752. tot den 21. November 1768. Zo in Holland, als Braband en andere Plaatzen in het openbaar Verkogt. Dienende tot een vervolg of Derde Deel op de Twee Deelen der uitgegeeve Cataloquen door wylen de Heer Gerard Hoet The Hague, 1770, p. 601, no. 72, listing the 1767 sale of Arnould Leers.
C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné of the works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, VI, London, 1916, pp. 371-2 and 408, as pendant nos. 793e, ‘A Man with a ruff’, and 889g, ‘Portrait of a woman’.
A. Bredius, ‘Karel van der Pluym: Neef en leerling van Rembrandt’, Oud Holland, XLVIII, 1931, p. 262, Appendix B, under the transcription of Catharina van der Pluym’s 1671 inventory.
W. Liedtke, Dutch Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, I, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2007, p. 7, under note 7.
H. J. Beckmann, De verkoop van de schilderijenverzameling van Arnout Leers, heer van Ameide, schepen van de stad Rotterdam en directeur van de Levantsche handel, op 19 mei 1767 in herberg de Keizerskroon in de Kalverstraat in Amsterdam, PhD thesis, Utrecht, Utrecht University, 2008, p. 155, no. 101, listing the Leers sale and C. Hofstede de Groot reference.