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Portrait of a Man Reading a Book
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Portrait of a Man Reading a Book
Pieter Cornelisz van Slingelandt(Leiden 1640 – 1691 Leiden)

1668
oil on copper
16.2 x 12.6 cm
signed and dated in dark paint along page edges ofbook: “PSlingeland / 1668”
PvS-100

How to cite
Rahusen, Henriette. “Portrait of a Man Reading a Book” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed. Edited byArthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Lara Yeager-Crasselt. New York, 2020–23. https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/(archived December 2023).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed by apermanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

This small portrait on copper depicts a seated man wearing a slate-blue robe who

Comparative Figures

looks alertly at the viewer. He is about to turn the page in the book that he holds in hisleft hand. The book and the long nails of his elegant right hand establish him as a manof learning and leisure, but Pieter van Slingelandt’s painting is devoid of attributes
that might identify him or indicate his vocation. The table supporting his right elbow
is covered with a red oriental carpet providing a colorful anchor for thecomposition.[1] Van Slingelandt has used a uniform light to isolate the unknown sitter
against a background so dark, one can scarcely discern the edge of the man’s blackskull cap. Wispy brown curls further frame the man’s face, in which quizzical eyescompete for attention with the prominent nose.
The man’s robe 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 the Tokugawa
Shogun gave to high-ranking officials of the Dutch East India Company during theirFig 1. Pieter Cornelisz van
Slingelandt, Portrait of a Gentleman ina Japanse Rok, oil on panel, 31.4 x
24.3 cm, Private Collection, photo ©
Christie’s Images; out of copyrightannual visits to Edo, Japan. The Japonse rok was worn indoors by men and women© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Man Reading a Book
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alike to ward off the cold.[2] This slate-blue robe with its turned-over collar is very
similar to the one worn by the standing man in another portrait by Van Slingelandt (fig 1), even if the latter robe seems much silkier and bulkier. It is unclear whether thebrown trim of the collar is a strip of fur or the edge of a woolen padding that has been
turned over.
One of Gerrit Dou’s (1613–75) most talented students, Pieter van Slingelandt was soadept at emulating his master’s meticulous techniques and compositional elementsthat his best work has often been attributed to Dou.[3] The smooth modeling of thesitter’s face and hands echoes the latter’s finest brushwork, but this figure does notmatch the energetic physicality of Dou’s portraits. The diminutive size of Van
Slingelandt’s half-length, seated portrait would have been rather unusual in the firsthalf of the seventeenth century, when life-size portraits were the norm, but fits fullywithin the trend toward the smaller likenesses painted after the middle of the century

Fig 2. Gerrit Dou, Portrait of a YoungWoman, ca. 1655, oil on panel, 14.5 x
11.7 cm, National Gallery, London,Wynn Ellis Bequest, 1876, inv.
NG968, © National Gallery, London /Art Resource, NY

by masters such as Gerard ter Borch (1617–81) and Caspar Netscher (ca. 1639–84).
[4]

Gerrit Dou also produced several small portraits, including the delicate oval

Portrait of a Young Woman, ca. 1655 (National Gallery, London) (fig 2), and Portraitof Dirck van Beresteyn in the Leiden Collection (GD-111). Dou’s student Frans vanMieris the Elder (1635–81) also painted meticulous works in small format, a numberof which are in the Leiden Collection, as, for example, Portrait of a Fifty-Two-YearOld Man (FM-104).[5] The keen interest that Leiden patrons had in commissioning
their likenesses from masters such as Dou, Van Mieris, and Van Slingelandt is evident
in the large number of their portraits in the Leiden Collection. The refined techniqueof these fijnschilders made them eminently equipped to do their sitters justice onsmall panel or copper supports.
Small, precious portraits like this one by Van Slingelandt were time-consuming.
Portrait of a Man Reading a Book dates from the phase in the artist’s career when hewas known to spend prodigious amounts of time finishing his works, resulting, in thisinstance, in a finely rendered, charming portrait that retains an engaging, lifelike
character.[6]- Henriette Rahusen, 2017

© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Man Reading a Book
Page 4 of 6Endnotes
1. Van Slingelandt used the same carpet to similarly anchor his drawn Portrait of Jan Poelaert, 1674.
According to RKD (Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie/Netherlands Institute for ArtHistory) database, this portrait was with the art dealer Mireille Mosler in New York in 2014.
2. Charlotte van Rappard-Boon, Imitation and Inspiration: Japanese Influence on Dutch Art from 1650 to
the Present, ed. Nanne Dekking (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum; Tokyo, Suntory Museum of Art)
(Amsterdam, 1991), 91–93, 96.
3. Peter Hecht, De Hollandse Fijnschilders van Gerard Dou tot Adriaen van der Werff (Exh. cat.
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Amsterdam, 1989), 218–28.
4. Rudolf E. O. Ekkart and Quentin Buvelot, Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals, trans.
Beverly Jackson (Exh. cat. London, National Gallery; The Hague, Mauritshuis) (London, 2007), 59. At
43 x 34 cm, Ter Borch’s pendant portraits of Jan van Romondt and his wife, Maria Ziewertsdr. van Out(private collection), are beautiful examples of the painterly finesse that smaller-than-life portraits
required, as is his even smaller portrait (20 x 16 cm) of his colleague Jan van Goyen (1596–1656)(Fürstliche Sammlungen Liechtenstein, Vaduz).
5. See also Van Mieris’s Self-Portrait, 1661, and the likeness of his wife, Cunera van der Cock, 1662, twoovals that measure a mere 11 x 8 cm each (private collection, New York). These two works are
reproduced in Eric Jan Sluijter, Marlies Enklaar, and Paul Nieuwenhuizen, eds. Leidse Fijnschilders: vanGerrit Dou tot Frans van Mieris de Jonge, 1630–1760 (Exh. cat. Leiden, Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal)(Zwolle, 1988), 132–33, nos. 124 and 125.
6. Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols.
(Amsterdam, 1718–21; revised edition published in The Hague, 1753; reprinted in Amsterdam, 1980),
3: 162.

Provenance(Possibly sale, Jean Baptiste Pierre Lebrun, Paris, May 1803, no. 30).[1]Private collection, France or Belgium, possibly Dr. Richter.
Confiscated by Nazi forces in France in 1940; selected by Adolph Hitler for the Führermuseum on 21
July 1940; transferred by Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler on behalf of Adolph Hitler to Hans Posse by29 July 1940; recorded in the possession of the Special Commission Linz (Sonderauftrag Linz) in
Dresden, Linz no. 2132; collected by the Allies and recorded at the Munich Central Collecting Point, 15
October 1945, Mu. no. 9514.[2]© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Man Reading a Book
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Prime Minister of Austria, Salzburg, 18 January 1952, on the condition that the painting would berestituted to its prior owner; transferred to the Museum of Fine Arts, Vienna (KunsthistorischesMuseum); held at the Mauerbach Depot until 1980, Mauerbach no. 408 (announced in the Amtsblatt zur
Wiener Zeitung on 2 September 1969, no. 428).
Austrian Federal Monuments Office (Bundesdenkmalamt), ca. 1980–92 (announced in the Amtsblatt zur
Wiener Zeitung on 1 February 1986, no. 408).
Restituted to the descendants of the prior owner in 1992.
(Sale, Sotheby’s, London, 8 July 2004, no. 268 [Johnny Van Haeften Ltd., London]).
From whom acquired by the present owner.

Provenance Notes

1. The Lebrun sale of 1803 lists the following entry, which corresponds closely with the present painting inboth size and description: “Lot 30. Pierre Van Slingelandt. Un Homme vu à mi-corps la tête de face,tenant un livre & appuyé sur le coin d’une table; il est vêtu d’une robe-de chamber & a la tête couverted’une calotte. Tableau fin & d’une couleur brillante. Peinture sur cuivre, Haut. 5 p. 9 lig., larg. 4 p. 6lig.” (Lot 30. Pierre Van Slingelandt. Man seen from the waist up, facing frontally, holding a book andleaning on the corner of a table; he is wearing a dressing gown and his head is covered with a skullcap. A
highly finished and brilliantly colored painting. Painted on copper, 5.9 pounces high, 4.6 pounces wide).
2. Recorded by Hitler’s personal secretary, Heinrich Himmler showed Hitler this specific painting on 21
July 1940. Hitler approved of the painting and sent it, along with others, to Hans Posse. Posse was thedirector of the Dresden Gemäldegalerie and Hitler had placed him in charge of looted artworks, to form
the foundation of his planned Führermuseum. When Posse wrote back to Hitler on 29 July 1940, he
stated that this painting would be a good addition to the miniatures section of the Führermuseum anddescribed it as “eine recht hubsche Arbeit” (a rather pretty work). See Birgit Schwarz, Hitlers Museum,in References.

Exhibition History
Philadelphia, Arthur Ross Gallery, University of Pennsylvania, “An Inner World: Seventeenth-Century
Dutch Genre Painting,” 17 April–25 July 2021, no. 7 [lent by the present owner].

References
Schwarz, Birgit. Hitlers Museum: Die Fotoalben Gemäldegalerie Linz; Dokumente zum “Führermuseum.”
Vienna, 2004, 107, 225, no. 3/19.
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Portrait of a Man Reading a Book
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Moqtaderi, Heather and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, eds. An Inner World: Seventeenth-Century Dutch GenrePainting. Exh. cat. Philadelphia, Arthur Ross Gallery, University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, 2021, 6,no. 7.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Introduction: Pulling Back the Curtain.” In An Inner World: Seventeenth-Century
Dutch Genre Painting. Edited by Heather Moqtaderi and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 25, no. 7. Exh. cat.
Philadelphia, Arthur Ross Gallery, University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, 2021.

Technical Summary
The support, a rectangular copper sheet, has been inset flush into the routed surface of a four-memberedwooden stretcher slightly larger than the copper in both directions. The copper edges are not visible and thepanel thickness cannot be measured directly.
The reverse of the copper panel has been firmly adhered to the wood stretcher members, so only the middle
rectangle of copper remains visible along the reverse.[1] The panel is in plane and has a smooth surface along
the front, however the oxidized reverse has slight pitting and variations in texture, which suggests the copper
may have been hammered prior to being rolled. There are two inscriptions along the exposed reverse, but nowax seals, stencils, chalk, labels or makers marks are located along the panel reverse.
A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied followed by paint thinly and extremely smoothly
applied with no use of impasto, although areas of low brushmarking outline the outer contours of thecompositional forms.
The painting is signed and dated in dark paint along the page edges of the book the figure holds, oriented
towards the viewer.
No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers. Compositionalchanges revealed in the images and as a pentimento appear along the back cover of the open book: the lengthof the spine appears to have been extended by about one third beyond the figure’s proper left hand toward
the right panel edge, and the position of the figure’s hand (i.e., thumb) may have been shifted.
The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition and remains in a good state ofpreservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. 11.3 cm H x 7.6 cm W

© 2024 The Leiden Collection