Portrait of a Boy holding a Glove, 1634
Oil on panel, octagonal, 47 x 33 cm.
Signed and dated AETATIS [..] / VSpronck / AN0 1634 (below the centre)
Art-historical texts and documentation by Rudi Ekkart and Claire van den Donk
For an extended period, the Haarlem artist Johannes Verspronck occupied a rather marginal position in the historiography of Dutch painting. While his portrait Girl in Blue had acclaimed considerable national and international praise, the painter himself and his other work remained largely overlooked. There was barely any scholarly interest, and the literature was limited to short passages in general reference books and art-historical lexicons. That all changed in 1979, when the Frans Halsmuseum in Haarlem – his native city – organised an exhibition devoted entirely to the artist. No fewer than 41 works were brought together. Coinciding with the exposition, a monograph of the artist was published, which included a descriptive catalogue of his then-known oeuvre, amounting to approximately one hundred works.
As is often the case with such inaugural publications on a barely studied artist, the book catalysed numerous proposals for additional paintings to be included in the artist’s oeuvre – some with limited affinity, others clearly authentic. Within a year of the publication, various additional works emerged for the catalogue. Several long-lost works, of which the whereabouts had long been unknown, also resurfaced.
One particularly surprising and noteworthy new work emerged as early as 1980: a previously unknown portrait of a boy discovered in the collection of a private owner, who had acquired the painting only months earlier from an antique shop in Ludlow. The portrait remained in the family for the subsequent 45 years and has only recently re-entered the art market.
The painting is clearly signed and dated 1634. Unfortunately, the inscription indicating the sitter’s age is no longer legible. A significant detail is that 1634 marks the earliest year from which works by Johannes Verspronck are known. At that time, the artist was already in his thirties. He had joined the painters’ Guild of Saint Luke of Haarlem only two years earlier, in 1632, together with his younger brother Jochem Verspronck. This relatively late registration should not be interpreted as the beginning of his artistic career but rather as the time in which he began to work independently. Given that his father, Cornelis Engelsz. (1574/75- 1650), was also a painter and had been a member of the guild since 1593, it is highly likely that Johannes initially worked in his father’s studio. One can assume that his father served as his first teacher and that Verspronck did not feel pressed to emerge as an independent painter until later. It is also possible that the young artist later trained with Frans Hals for a time.
Prior to the discovery of the present portrait, four other paintings by Verspronck dated 1634 were known. All but one are smaller in size than the majority of his later paintings. The exception is the Portrait of a 15-Year Old Boy in the Palais des Beaux Arts in Lille, which measures 74 x 50 cm. – slightly larger than his other works from that year.2 The works by Verspronck were always executed on a rectangular canvas or panel. It is therefore highly likely that the present portrait of a boy was originally rectangular in format and was later trimmed into an octagonal shape, possibly in the nineteenth or early twentieth century. The visible bevelling on the reverse of the panel reveals that the height and the width of the work have remained unaltered and that only the four corners were removed to create the current shape.
As in the portrait of a 15-year-old boy painted in the same year and now kept in the museum in Lille, the present likeness – depicting a sitter who appears to be a few years younger – demonstrates the remarkable talent Verspronck had for the portrayal of children. This talent becomes even more evident in the Portrait of a Girl Dressed in Blue that was painted seven years later, in 1641, a work which has brought Verspronck international renown.3 In his later career, the artist continued to produce children’s portraits of exceptional quality. Notable among these is the dummy board of a sleeping child in a children’s chair from 1654.4With such works, Johannes Verspronck can be counted among a select group of contemporary artists including the slightly older Jacob Gerritsz. Cuyp (1594-1652) and the somewhat younger Dirck Dircksz. Santvoort (1609-1680), who can be regarded as the best Dutch painters of children’s portraits during the second quarter of the seventeenth century.
The 1634 portrait of a boy depicts the sitter, despite his young age, in a pose Verspronck and his older fellow townsman Frans Hals traditionally reserved for the portrayal of adult men. The boy’s body is shown slightly turned away, half-turned with his right hand resting on his hip and the elbow projecting forward. In his left hand he holds a pair of gloves before his waist. While adult men were usually depicted in black attire during this period, this boy is dressed in a brown doublet with modest rosettes of silk ribbon around the waist, called ‘papillekes’ in old Dutch. Around his neck he wears a plain, loosely-pleated falling ruff of linen, one of the popular types of neck wear which gradually replaced the older, more rigid stiffened millstone ruff in the fashion of the time.
‘I was very proud to add this beautiful portrait to our collection. One of Verspronck’s five earliest works, and already so accomplished. The boy looks self-assured, almost headstrong eigengereid, as we would say in Dutch already showing a strong character at such a young age. All dressed up and ready to be painted, holding his glove with such self-assurance. You can’t help but wonder what his life became. Verspronck is best known for his Girl in Blue, but this painting shows that his gift for capturing children was present from the very start. Early signed works by him almost never appear on the market. That makes this portrait a real treasure.’ - Jaco Pieper, owner Argento Gallery
