© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Pharmacist Dr. Ysbrand Ysbrandsz. (1634/35–1705) in an Interior
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Pharmacist Dr. Ysbrand Ysbrandsz.
(1634/35–1705) in an Interiorca. 1667

Cornelis de Man(Delft 1621 – 1706 Delft)

58.2 x 49.7 cm

oil on canvas
inscribed with sitter’s family name on painting
with coat-of-arms, upper center: “Circumfpecte.
YSBRANS.” inscribed on book, center left:“ALL’ILLUSTRISSIMO SIGNOR CONTENICOLO PONZONI”
CdM-100
Currently on view at: The National Museum ofChina, Beijing

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Pharmacist Dr. Ysbrand Ysbrandsz. (1634/35–1705) in an Interior
Page 3 of 7Dr. Ysbrand Ysbrandsz, a pharmacist from a prominent Rotterdam family,

Comparative Figures

is seen gazing wistfully to his left, having momentarily interrupted hiswriting to gather his thoughts.[1] His personal motto, Circumspecte, visibleon the coat-of-arms hanging on the wall, means “with caution” or “withmeticulous care,” a highly appropriate sentiment for a pharmacist. His
father had a successful career in the Dutch East India Company, evenserving as its governor of the Coromandel Coast, the southeastern coastof the Indian subcontinent.[2] Ysbrandsz trained for his profession at themedical school of the University of Leiden. Following his studies hereturned to Rotterdam, where he married Maria Blaeu in 1664.

Fig 1. Cornelis de Man, Three
Pharmacists, 1670s, oil oncanvas, 90 × 112 cm, NationalMuseum, Warsaw, inv. no. M.ob.
22Ysbrandsz must have been well respected by his peers, because
between 1667 (when he was 32 years old) and 1704 they regularly chose
him to serve as headman of Rotterdam’s Apothecary Guild. Ysbrandsz
may have commissioned Cornelis de Man to paint this portrait to celebrate
his first election as headman in 1667. Apart from his professional
leadership, Ysbrandsz was also active in municipal politics; from 1673 on
he served on Rotterdam’s City Council, and in 1703 he was electedburgomaster.[3]Ysbrandsz’s decision to have Cornelis de Man paint his likeness may wellhave been influenced by professional connections: De Man’s grandfather,
uncle, and a cousin were pharmacists as well. Sometime in the 1670s, De
Man included his uncle and cousin in a group portrait known as Three
Pharmacists, which contains laboratory equipment and a view of anFig 2. Thomas de Keyser,Constantijn Huygens and HisClerk, 1627, oil on panel, 92.4 cm
x 69.3 cm, National Gallery,London, inv. no. NG21

apothecary (fig 1). The Ysbrandsz and De Man families certainly would
have known each other professionally, given that Cornelis’s family lived
and worked in Delft, only fifteen kilometers from Rotterdam.[4]Cornelis de Man, who became a member of the Guild of Saint Luke ofDelft in 1642, travelled to France and Italy before settling back in Delftaround 1653. He often merged portrait and genre traditions to depict
professionals at work. This type of portraiture was first popularized in theDutch Republic in the 1620s by Thomas de Keyser (1596–1667), as in his
1627 portrait Constantijn Huygens and His Clerk (fig 2).
Like De Keyser, Cornelis de Man had the ability to depict his sitters so thatthey seem thoughtfully and emotionally engaged in their work. De Man’sFig 3. Johannes Vermeer, The
Astronomer, ca. 1668, oil oncanvas, 51 cm × 45 cm, Muséedu Louvre, Paris, inv. no. R.F.
1983-28

paintings have a remarkable clarity of style that not only comes from his© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Pharmacist Dr. Ysbrand Ysbrandsz. (1634/35–1705) in an Interior
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mastery of perspective, but also from his ability to clearly define the shapeand character of individual objects, in part through color.
In this striking portrait, De Man alludes to the range of Ysbrandsz’s
scholarly interests through the objects in the still life on the table. Agleaming skull rests amidst various books and papers, a pictorial elementthat warns the viewer that life, which is finite, should be lived to its fullest.
Ysbrandsz’s professional and public life confirm that he took this advice
seriously. The violin indicates that music and the liberal arts were
important components of his cultural life, but also shows that he knew how
to relax and entertain. The text on the musical score next to the violin reads“All’Illustrissimo Signor Conte Nicolo Ponzoni,” identifying it as Tarquinio

Fig 4. Johannes Vermeer, TheGeographer, ca. 1668–69, oil oncanvas, 52 cm × 45.5 cm,
Städelsches Kunstinstitut,Frankfurt, inv. no. 1149

Merula’s Opus XVII. This score contains twenty-five songs for violin andviola that Merula dedicated to Niccolo Ponzoni, Count of Cremona, in1651. Cremona had by that time already become famous for the violins
produced by several generations of the Amati family, and for those by
Nicolo Amati (1596–1684) in particular.[5] It is intriguing to think that De
Man’s painting could depict one of Nicolo’s celebrated violins.
The celestial globe on the table serves a dual purpose. In addition toreaffirming Ysbrandsz’s wide-ranging scholarly interests, the globe also
pays homage to his wife, Maria Blaeu. Maria’s paternal grandfather,
Willem Jansz. Blaeu (1571–1638), and uncle, Joan Blaeu (1596–1673),
were internationally famous cartographers, whose globes and maps wereprized for their accuracy and beauty.[5] Willem Blaeu had produced his firstof a series of celestial globes in 1597 and, based on its size and character,this Blaeu globe was made between 1602 and 1606.[6] The globe as an
attribute of learning also connects De Man’s painting to Johannes Vermeer’s slightly later paintings The Astronomer, 1668 (fig 3) and TheGeographer, 1669 (fig 4). As with his Delft colleague, De Man’s depictionof his sitter’s quiet reflection is profoundly evocative.
-Henriette Rahusen© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Pharmacist Dr. Ysbrand Ysbrandsz. (1634/35–1705) in an Interior
Page 5 of 7Endnotes
1. This entry is based on the catalogue entry “Cornelis De Man: The Pharmacist Dr. YsbrandYsbrandsz.,” in Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., with Daniëlle H. A. C. Lokin,Human Connections inthe Age of Vermeer (Exh. cat. Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art; Sendai, Miyagi Museum ofArt; Tokyo, Bunkamura Museum of Art) (London, 2011), 93–95, no. 25.
2. The robe worn by Ysbrandsz was known in the Dutch Republic as a Japonse rok(“Japanese robe”). These loose-fitting and padded robes were modeled on the precious silk
kimonos (keyserrocken, “imperial gowns,” or schenckagierocken, “gift gowns”) that theTokugawa Shogun gave to high-ranking officials of the Dutch East India Company during
their annual visits to Edo, Japan. The Japonse rok was worn indoors by men and womenalike to ward off the cold. See Charlotte van Rappard-Boon, Imitation and Inspiration:
Japanese Influence on Dutch Art from 1650 to the Present , ed. N. Dekking (Amsterdam,1991).
3. For the biography of Ysbrandsz (also Ysbrans), see Philip C. Molhuysen and P. J. Blok,eds., Nieuw Nederlands biografisch woordenboek, 10 vols. (Leiden, 1911), 1:1596, no.
2303; 10:74–78. See also the three articles on De Man by Clotilde Brière-Misme inOud
Holland 52 (1935): 1–26, 97–120, and 281–82.
4. See M. E. Lambrechtsen, “Cornelis de Man (1621–1706), een selectie uit het oeuvre vaneen veelzijdige Delftse schilder” (master’s thesis, University of Amsterdam, 2005). For thepharmacists in the De Man family, see the article on the residence of Cornelis’s cousin, also
named Cornelis de Man, at Koornmarkt 93 in Delft.
5. A photograph of the front and back of a violin made ca. 1650 by Nicolo Amati that shows
distinct similarities to the one in this painting appears in an article about Florian Leonhard, aleading international dealer in string instruments: Helen Wybrew-Bond, “Plenty of StringsAttached,” Centurion, 10 August 2011.
6. For the biographies of Willem and Joan Blaeu, see Philip C. Molhuysen and P. J. Blok, eds.,
Nieuw Nederlands Biografisch Woordenboek, 10 vols. (Leiden, 1911), 10:74–78. Willem
Blaeu’s son Jacob married Maria Soetens in Rotterdam on 20 October 1643; their daughter
Maria Blaeu was baptized on 20 September 1644. See Digitale Stamboom,
Gemeentearchief Rotterdam.
7. Rob van Gent, “De nieuwe sterren van 1572, 1600 en 1604 op de hemelglobes van Willem
Jansz. Blaeu,” Caert-Thresoor 12, no. 2 (1993): 40–46.

Provenance© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Pharmacist Dr. Ysbrand Ysbrandsz. (1634/35–1705) in an Interior
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Probably private collection, Boston, Lincolnshire.1[1](Sale, Sotheby’s, London, 17 May 1961, no. 99, as by Michiel van Musscher [for £320 toDaan Cevat]).
Jan Richard van Reekum, Laren, the Netherlands, by 1965.
Private collection (sale, Sotheby’s, Amsterdam, 14 November 2006, no. 121 [Johnny vanHaeften Ltd., London, 2006]).
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2006.

Provenance Notes

1. This provenance is based on a label adhered to the reverse of the painting: “G. Sinclair,
Carver and Gilder, Boston. N. B. Old Glass & Picture Frames [illegible] Equal To New.
Ladies’ Needlework Mounted & Framed in the [illegible] style.” This label is very likely
associated with the framing business of Charles George Sinclair, active in Boston,
Lincolnshire, during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The business probably closed
in the 1890s.

Exhibition History
Kansas City, The Nelson-Atkins Museum, 15 December 2008–31 December 2009, on loan
with the permanent collection [lent by the present owner].
Kyoto, Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, “Communication: Visualizing the Human Connectionin the Age of Vermeer,” 25 June–16 October 2011; Miyagi, The Miyagi Museum of Art, 27
October–12 December 2011; Tokyo, Bunkamura Museum of Art, 23 December 2011–14
March 2012 [lent by the present owner].
Ithaca, Cornell University, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, “An Eye For Detail: Dutch
Painting from the Leiden Collection,” 20 September 2014–21 June 2015 [lent by the presentowner].
Toronto, Aga Khan Museum, “A Thirst for Riches: Carpets from the East in Paintings fromthe West,” 4 June–15 October 2015 [lent by the present owner].
Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The
Leiden Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [lent by the present owner].
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Pharmacist Dr. Ysbrand Ysbrandsz. (1634/35–1705) in an Interior
Page 7 of 7References
De Bruyn Kops, Henriette. “The Pharmacist Dr. Ysbrand Ysbrandz.” InHuman Connectionsin the Age of Vermeer. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Daniëlle H. A. C. Lokin, 93–95,
no. 25. Exh. cat. Kyoto, Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art; Miyagi, The Miyagi Museum of Art;
Tokyo, Bunkamura Museum of Art. London, 2011.

Technical Summary
The support, a medium-weight, plain-weave fabric with tacking margins removed, has been
lined. There is pronounced cusping along the lower edge, slight cusping along the upper and leftedges but none along the right edge, and a small triangular canvas insert along the lower half ofthe right edge.[1] There are no wax collection seals, stencils, paper labels or import stamps along
the lining canvas or stretcher reverse.
A light ground has been thinly and evenly applied followed by glazes and paint applied smoothly,
wet-into-wet, with no visible brushwork or use of impasto, although the dark paint of the patternon the oriental carpet is slightly raised.
No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images at 780–1000 nanometers, but acrispness to the contours of the figure’s facial features, hair and hands suggests further
investigation with longer wavelengths of infrared may be useful.
The painting is unsigned and undated, but is inscribed with the sitter’s family name on thepainting with a coat-of-arms in the upper center; a second inscription appears on the book at thecenter left.
The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition. It is in goodcondition and in a good state of preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. 3 cm H x 2 cm W

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