© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Young Boy with a Hat
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Portrait of a Young Boy with a Hat
Michael Sweerts(Brussels 1618 – 1664 Goa)ca. 1655–56
oil on canvas
39 x 27 cm
MS-101

How to cite
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Portrait of a Young Boy with a Hat” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nded. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/a-portrait-ofa-young-boy-with-a-hat/ (archived May 2020).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive ismanaged by a permanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative
occurs.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Young Boy with a Hat
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Rendered with red and brown earth tones and a light that catches his

Comparative Figures

glistening blue eyes and parted lips, Michael Sweerts’s Portrait of a Young
Boy with a Hat evokes the tenderness of boyhood. The figure’s averted gazeand slightly turned shoulders suggest his attention is directed elsewhere, butSweerts depicted the details of his dress and features with such softness andtactility that he seems strikingly present before the viewer. He wears aslightly tattered, broad-brimmed hat pushed back on his head to expose
waves of reddish brown hair accented by his ocher-red jacket. It, too, seems
worn, as the light reveals small tears in the seams on his right shoulder.
Sweerts manipulated the light to play across the boy’s forehead, cheeks andnose, casting rich shadows along the left side of his face and jagged patterns
descending along his arm and torso. Although he appears to be from a lower
social class, Sweerts has rendered him with gentle grace.
The lifelike quality of this image suggests that it was done directly from life,or naer het leven, in the Netherlandish tradition of the tronie.[1] These headFig 1. Michael Sweerts, Boy with aHat, ca. 1655–56, oil on canvas,
36.9 x 29.2 cm, Wadsworth
Atheneum Museum of Art,
Hartford, Conn., The Ella Gallup
Sumner and Mary Catlin SumnerCollection Fund, 1940.198

studies, which appear so exacting in their representation that they could bemistaken for formal portraits, were instead highly individualized depictions ofanonymous figures. Removed from a specific time or place, tronies gave
artists the opportunity to focus on the physical and psychological character of
an individual.[2] Tronies of young men particularly interested Sweerts after hereturned to Brussels in the early to mid-1650s, and Portrait of a Young Boy
with a Hat is one of at least five similar images that he executed in that
decade.[3] While Sweerts also depicted young and old women with a similar
degree of sensitivity, his representation of young men was exceptional in theseventeenth[4]execution.

century,bothinnumberanddiscerning

mannerofThese works, as evidenced in the Leiden Collection painting,demonstrated Sweerts’s ability to create a pictorial experience both
immediate and timeless.

Fig 2. Youth with a Fur-Trimmed
Cap, 1656, etching, 9 x 8.2 cm,from the series Diversae facies inusum iuvenum et aliorum,
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no.
RP-P-1888-A-13822

This approach is similarly evident in Sweerts’s Boy with a Hat in Hartford (fig1).[5] The figure wears a similar broad-brimmed hat, though pushed farther
down on his head, and a white collared shirt beneath a tattered jacket. As hegazes over his right shoulder, his body recedes sharply back into space.
Sweerts repeated this compositional device—the turned head and angledshoulders—in his images of young men from the latter half of the 1650s,including Portrait of a Youth in San Francisco, from ca. 1659–61.[6] The
somewhat awkward frontal emphasis and tightly cropped composition of theLeiden Collection painting distinguishes it from Sweerts’s other male tronies
and suggests that it may have been among the first of this series of tronies

Fig 3. Johannes Vermeer, Girl with© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Young Boy with a Hat
Page 4 of 8that he painted in the mid-1650s.
Sweerts’s tronies may have had a didactic function. In Brussels, Sweertsa Pearl Earring, ca. 1665–66, oilon canvas, 46.5 x 40 cm,
Mauritshuis, The Hague, inv. 670

established a drawing academy for young artists and tapestry designers tolearn how to draw a model from life.[7] This academic exercise may havebeen complemented by Sweerts’s own Diversae facies, a print series ofvarious head studies that he published in 1656.[8] Following in the tradition ofearlier seventeenth-century drawing books, these etchings represented arange of character types for students to copy as part of their training. One
such etching from this series, Youth with a Fur-Trimmed Cap (fig 2), sharesa number of stylistic and compositional similarities with Portrait of a Young
Boy with a Hat. The half-length figure is positioned against an empty
background with his head and shoulders turned to the left. Sweerts rendered
the figure with a similar use of chiaroscuro, even creating distinct patterns of
shadows on his jacket. Although noticeably older than the boy in the Leiden
Collection painting, this etching demonstrates how Sweerts was able tomodify a range of character types in age, gender, and dress to suit his needs
in print or paint. Much as with the etchings, Portrait of a Young Boy with aHat could have served as a model for Sweerts’s students in the academy.[9]Sweerts’s sensitive representation of an individual set against an undefined,
dark background shares stylistic similarities with Johannes Vermeer’s(1632–75) Girl with a Pearl Earring (fig 3). The latter work, painted a decade
after

Sweerts’s

image,[10]classicizing beauty.

similarly

conveysatimeless,

Although the two artists likely never met, the ability ofSweerts and Vermeer to evoke the spirit of an individual and render him orher, regardless of class, with an unusual sense of dignity reflects a sharedartistic sensibility.

- Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 2017

© 2020 The Leiden CollectionPortrait of a Young Boy with a Hat
Page 5 of 8Endnotes

1. See Lyckle de Vries, “Tronies and Other Single Figured Netherlandish Paintings,” Leids
Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 8 (1989): 185–202; and most recently, Dagmar Hirschfelder, Tronie
und Porträt in der niederländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 2008); andFranziska Gottwald, Das Tronie: Muster-Studie-Meisterwerk (Berlin and Munich, 2011).
2. Tronies were deeply admired and collected by contemporaries throughout the Netherlands,
and rendered by artists such as Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), Rembrandt van Rijn
(1606–69), Jan Lievens (1607–74), and Pieter de Grebber (ca. 1600–52/53). For the genesisof the tronie as a genre and its different manifestations in the Netherlands, see note 1 above.
3. See Rolf Kultzen, Michael Sweerts: Brussels 1618–Goa 1664 (Doornspijk, 1996), 64–71, nos.
45, 94–96, 98; and Guido Jansen and Peter C. Sutton, eds., Michael Sweerts (1618–1664)(Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum; San Francisco, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco;
Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art) (Zwolle, 2001), nos. 24–25, 28. Sweerts’s
tronies are not signed or dated. Kultzen dated these images to Sweerts’s brief Dutch period,
under the belief that the artist had arrived in Amsterdam in the late 1650s. More recent
documentation has informed us that Sweerts was in Brussels until 1659, and in all likelihood
executed this series of tronies before he departed his native city. While the figures in these
tronies typically wear peasant dress, Sweerts also depicted a young man in exotic costume,
Young Man with a Turban and Flowers, ca. 1658–61, oil on canvas, 76.4 x 61.8 cm, MuseoThyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. See Jansen and Sutton, Michael Sweerts, no. 23. Dagmar
Hirschfelder discusses Sweerts’s tronies in the context of her greater study as an exceptionalcase in the development of the Dutch tronie; see Dagmar Hirschfelder, Tronie und Porträt in
der niederländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 2008), 150–52, nos. 510–11,514–15.
4. For Sweerts’s depictions of female figures, see, for example, Head of an Old Woman, ca.
1655–61, oil on panel, 49.2 x 38.1 cm, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, and A Young
Maidservant, ca. 1660, oil on canvas, 61 x 53.5 cm, Fondation Aetas Aurea, Vaduz,Liechtenstein. The work of the Bruges artist Jacob van Oost the Elder (1603–71) bears
striking similarities to Sweerts’s handling of the figure and composition, and he, too, depicted
a number of images of children. See, for example, Young Woman, ca. 1665, oil on canvas
mounted on panel, 41.3 x 31.7 cm, private collection; Guido Jansen and Peter C. Sutton,eds., Michael Sweerts (1618–1664) (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum; San Francisco,Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art)
(Zwolle, 2001), 151, fig. XXV-2; and Portrait of a Boy, ca. 1650, oil on canvas, 80 x 63 cm,National Gallery, London.
5. See Rolf Kultzen, Michael Sweerts: Brussels 1618–Goa 1664 (Doornspijk, 1996), no. 98; and© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Young Boy with a Hat
Page 6 of 8Guido Jansen and Peter C. Sutton, eds., Michael Sweerts (1618–1664) (Exh. cat.
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum; San Francisco, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Hartford,
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art) (Zwolle, 2001), no. 24.
6. Portrait of a Youth, ca. 1659–61, oil on canvas, 39.4 x 34.8 cm, Fine Arts Museum San
Francisco, Roscoe and Margaret Oakes Collection. This boy seems to come from a different
social class. Here Sweerts has replaced the peasant costume with a more fashionable white,broad-collared shirt and finely buttoned jacket. See Rolf Kultzen, Michael Sweerts: Brussels
1618–Goa 1664, trans. Diane Webb (Doornspijk, 1996), no. 96; and Guido Jansen and Peter
C. Sutton, eds., Michael Sweerts (1618–1664) (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum; SanFrancisco, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum ofArt) (Zwolle, 2001), no. 25.
7. See Jonathan Bikker, “Sweerts’ Life and Career—A Documentary View,” in Michael Sweerts(1618–1664), ed. Guido Jansen and Peter C. Sutton (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum;
San Francisco, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum
Museum of Art) (Zwolle, 2001), 25–36.
8. For these etchings, see Ger Luijten, “‘For the Young and Others’: The Prints of Michael
Sweerts,” in Michael Sweerts (1618–1664), ed. Guido Jansen and Peter C. Sutton (Exh. cat.
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum; San Francisco, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Hartford,Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art) (Zwolle, 2001), 167–78, nos. P9–P21. For Dutch andFlemish drawing books, see Jaap Bolten, Method and Practice: Dutch and Flemish Drawing
Books, 1600–1750 (Landau, 1985). Such etchings may have also been intended ascollector’s items, as they were never bound into a book but remained as single sheets. Forthe tradition of this type of series, see, for instance, Jan Lievens’s Diverse Tronikens, small
etchings of various head studies, which were probably published while the artist was inAntwerp in 1635–44. See Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., ed., Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master
Rediscovered (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art; Milwaukee, Milwaukee ArtMuseum; Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis) (New Haven, 2008), nos. 62–66. For theuse of tronies as studies for emotion and character, see also Dagmar Hirschfelder, Tronie
und Porträt in der niederländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 2008), 328–34, forSweerts, 332.
9. This point is also raised in Guido Jansen and Peter C. Sutton, eds., Michael Sweerts(1618–1664) (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum; San Francisco, Fine Arts Museums of San
Francisco; Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art) (Zwolle, 2001), 151. In her recent
study of the genesis of the tronie, Franziska Gottwald traces its origins to the medieval
workshop, examining its use as a type of model and ultimately its development into anautonomous genre in the seventeenth century. Sweerts, however, is not discussed in thecontextof

Gottwald’s

study.

SeeFranziska

Gottwald,

Das

Tronie:Muster-Studie-Meisterwerk (Berlin, 2011).
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Young Boy with a Hat
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10. For a discussion of the artistic relationship between Sweerts and Vermeer, see Rolf Kultzen,
Michael Sweerts: Brussels 1618–Goa 1664, trans. Diane Webb (Doornspijk, 1996), 65–66;
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., Johannes Vermeer (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery ofArt; The Hague, Mauritshuis) (New Haven, 1995), 168; Walter Liedtke, A View of Delft:
Vermeer and His Contemporaries (Zwolle, 2001), 241–42; and Dagmar Hirschfelder, Tronieund Porträt in der niederländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 2008), 198.

ProvenanceFranz Theodor Bettendorf (1763–1809), Aachen and Brussels.
Clemens B. Lagemann, Aachen, as by Pieter de Grebber.
Private collection, Paderborn.
Frau Anne Gold, Aachen.
[Bob Haboldt, Paris, 1995].
Private collection, France (private sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 2009).
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2009.

Exhibition History
Rome, Scuderie del Quirinale, “Vermeer: Il secolo d’oro dell’arte olandese,” 26 September
2012–20 January 2013, no. 43 [lent by the present owner].

References
Habolt, Bob. Singular Vision: Haboldt & Co.’s Old Master Paintings and Drawings since1983. Amsterdam, 2012, 384.
Kultzen, Rolf. Michael Sweerts: Brussels 1618–Goa 1664. Doornspijk, 1996, 66, 70, n. 64,71, n. 67, 119–20, no. 100.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Ritratto di fanciullo con cappello.” In Vermeer. Il secolo d’oro
dell’arte olandese. Edited by Walter Liedtke, Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., and Sandrina Bandera,
196–97, no. 43. Exh. cat. Rome, Scuderie Del Quirinale. Rome, 2012.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. Michael Sweerts (1618-1664): Shaping the Artist and the Academy in© 2020 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Portrait of a Young Boy with a Hat
Page 8 of 8Rome and Brussels (Pictura Nova XXI). Turnhout, 2015, 41, 99, 102, 104; pl. 40.

Technical Summary
The support, a single piece of medium-weight, plain, closed-weave fabric with all four tacking
margins removed, has been Beva-lined with a fine fabric interleaf. There is no obvious cusping,and paper tape extends onto the stretcher along the upper and lower edges only. Thin woodshims have been attached along the left and right edges with brads. There are two labels, but nowax seals, import stamps or stencils along the lining or stretcher.
A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied. The paint has been applied with loose
fluid brushstrokes in thin, smooth, glazes with no use of impasto. Raised dabs of white highlights
have been applied to the figure’s pupils, lower eyelids, proper right eyebrow, side of nose, andjacket seam along the proper right shoulder.
No underdrawing or compositional changes are readily apparent in infrared images captured at
780–1000 nanometers or as pentimenti. There is no X-radiograph of the painting.
The painting is unsigned and undated.
The painting was cleaned and restored in 1994 and remains in a good state of preservation.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection