Paulus Lesire(Dordrecht 1612 – 1654/56
probably The Hague)

How To CiteBakker, Piet. "Paulus Lesire." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. NewYork, 2017.
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Paulus Lesire was born in Dordrecht in 1612. His parents were the glassmaker and house painter Augustijn
Lesire from The Hague and Anneke Claesdr, the daughter of a Dordrecht glassmaker. The couple lived in
the Steegoversloot “naast de Paternoster” (next to the Paternoster [a house]). Paulus’s father was still living
there when he married his second wife, Claartje Bartholomeusdr van Eissel, in 1631, and it is from thishouse that he was taken to be buried in 1648. Augustijn joined the Dordrecht Guild of Saint Luke in 1611,
becoming its dean in 1639. In 1631 he registered his two sons as members of the guild: Claes as aglassmaker, who also became a candlemaker and a captain in the militia, and Paulus as a painter.
Paulus Lesire’s master is not known, but is presumed to have been Jacob Gerritsz Cuyp (1594–1652). In
September 1634 Lesire married Lowize le Claar in The Hague. The couple moved to Dordrecht, where
Lesire produced history paintings in the style of “de Leidse Rembrandt” (Rembrandt of Leiden) andportraits commissioned by the local elite. Around 1639 he painted the third company of theKloveniersschutterij, or harquebusiers.[1] When John Berry, an English student at Leiden University, visitedthe Dordrecht harquebusiers shooting range ten years later, he noted in his travel journal that the picture
had remained unfinished. Only the heads had been painted because, according to Berry, “the States
refused to allow the cost, which had it been perfect, it would have required.”[2] In the same year, Lesire
designed the title print for Johan van Beverwijcks’s Van de wytnementhyt der vrouwelicken geslachts ,which was published in Dordrecht. This book also contained a portrait of the famous artist and woman ofletters Anna Maria van Schurman (1607–78) after an etching by Lesire.
Soon thereafter Lesire moved to The Hague, where he probably lived until his death without, incidentally,
ever becoming a member of the local Guild of Saint Luke. In 1644 he painted a large picture of The Hague
militia portraying the moment a year earlier when they had gathered on the beach at Scheveningen to lendluster to Queen Henrietta Maria’s departure for England.[3] At an auction, organized by the Hague Guild ofSaint Luke in 1647, the art dealer Cornelis van Heynsbergen bought a work by Gerard Houckgeest on
behalf of Lesire from a large group of paintings belonging to Jan van Goyen and Johan Schuyff. A year later
Lesire promised to paint the portrait of Sara van Nuffelen, widow of Reinier van Persijn (d. 1639), justice of© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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the Court of Holland, and also of her son and his family, to repay an outstanding debt he owed her.
Interestingly, in this document the widow refers to him several times as “mijn neeff” (my cousin), a kinshipthat may have gained him entry into the Hague elite.[4]Lesire had probably been a widower for some time by 1648. In that year he seems to have lived with thecloth maker Heijmraet Claessen and his wife, Maria de Hoogh, a close relative of the Hague painters Dirckand Gerrit de Hoogh. Lesire partially repaid a debt of 850 guilders to the couple for “huyshuir en verteerdecosten” (board and lodging) with a single painting that was valued at 700 guilders. The cloth maker may
have been the business partner of the Arnhem cloth merchant and treasurer Willem Craeyvanger(1615/16–after 1666), a relationship that would explain why Craeyvanger chose to have his portrait
specifically painted by Lesire during a visit to The Hague in 1651 (PaL-100). When, in 2009, the hitherto
unknown likenesses of Craeyvanger, his wife Christine van de Wart, and their eight children unexpectedly
came on the market, it was initially thought that the portrait of Christine (CN-110e), painted in ca. 1655–56,
was also by Lesire. It has since been attributed, however, to a then still young Caspar Netscher (ca.
1639–84), who, with his teacher Gerard ter Borch (1617–81), was also responsible for the likenesses of theeight children (GB-111a, GB-111b, GB-111c, and GB-111d and CN-110a, CN-110b, CN-110c, andCN-110d).[5]It is not known precisely when Lesire died. Among the paintings that the Hague wine merchant Joris de
Caullery (ca. 1606–after 1661) divided among his children in 1654 was Rembrandt’s famous portrait of De
Caullery as an officer of the Hague militia from 1632 and “zyn comparants conterfeijtsel gedaen bij PouwelsLesire” (portraits of his attenders done by Paulus Lesire).[6] Lesire’s last known painting is a 1654 portrait ofa man in armor, which led Loughman to wonder whether the sitter might have been De Caullery because, inthe 1654 deed, the sitter was said to be a naval officer.[7] Although Loughman believed that the date on theportrait could also be read as 1656, which would rule out identifying the sitter as De Caullery, Van
Suchtelen has confirmed that the date is actually 1650.[8]- Piet BakkerEndnotes
1. The whereabouts of this unfinished painting of a militia guild is unknown. See John Loughman,“De stad en haar kunstconsumptie: openbare en privéverzamelingen in Dordrecht, 1620–1719,”
in P. Marijnissen et al., De Zichtbaere Werelt: schilderkunst uit de Gouden Eeuw in Hollands
oudste stad (Exh. cat. Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum) (Zwolle, 1992), 38–39.
2. C. D. van Strien and H. H. Meier, “John Berry: A Leiden Student as a Tourist in the Low
Countries, 1649–1650,” Lias 18 (1991): 207.
3. Departure of Queen Henrietta Maria of England from Scheveningen in 1643 (Attended by theHague Militia Commanded by Pieter van Coevenhoven), oil on canvas, 95.5 x 128.5 cm, signed
and dated 1644, Sotheby’s, Amsterdam, 17 November 1993, lot 60.
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Paulus Lesire
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4. The family relationship could not be confirmed, and therefore it is not known how they wererelated.
5. See the biographies of Gerard ter Borch and Caspar Netscher in this catalogue.
6. Abraham Bredius, “De portretten van Joris de Caullery,” Oud-Holland 11 (1893): 127–28.
7. Portrait of a Man in Armor , oil on panel, 100 x 83 cm, signed and dated 1654 or 1656, Muséedes Beaux-Arts, Metz. See also John Loughman in P. Marijnissen et al.,De Zichtbaere Werelt:
schilderkunst uit de Gouden Eeuw in Hollands oudste stad (Exh. cat. Dordrecht, DordrechtsMuseum) (Zwolle, 1992), 213; W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler in vier Bänden,
6 vols. (Landau, 1983), 3:1161 (ill.).
8. Ariane van Suchtelen notes that Lesire’s Portrait of a Man in Armor was “previouslyconsidered his last painting, because it supposedly bears the date 1654 or 1656. Closer
inspection (under a microscope) has shown, however, that the date should be read as 1650 (withthanks to Raphaël Mariani, Metz).” See PaL-100/CN-110e, note 6.
8.

Literature
Bredius, Abraham and Veth, G. H. “Poulus Lesire.” Oud-Holland 5 (1887): 45–51.
Veth, G. H. “Aanteekeningen omtrent eenige Dordrechtse schilders.” Oud-Holland 8 (1890):
28.
Van Dalen, J. L. De Groote Kerk (Onze Lieve Vrouwenkerk) te Dordrecht. Dordrecht, 1927,132.
Van Strien, C. D. and Meier, H. H. “John Berry: A Leiden Student as a Tourist in the LowCountries, 1649–1650.” In Lias 18 (1991): 207.
Sumowski, Werner. Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler in vier Bänden. 6 vols. Landau, 1983,
3:1711–43.
Loughman, John. In P. Marijnissen et al., De Zichtbaere Werelt: schilderkunst uit deGouden Eeuw in Hollands oudste stad. Exh. cat. Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum. Zwolle,
1992, 213–19.

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