© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Dirck van Beresteyn
Page 2 of 9

Portrait of Dirck van Beresteyn

ca. 1652

Gerrit Dou(Leiden 1613 – 1675 Leiden)

oil on silver-copper alloy, oval
10.2 x 8.2 cm
signed in blue paint at upper right: “G Dou” (GDin ligature)
GD-111
Currently on view at: The National Museum ofChina, Beijing

How To Cite
Surh, Dominique. "Portrait of Dirck van Beresteyn." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017.
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© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Dirck van Beresteyn
Page 3 of 9This small, enamel-like portrait, which portrays Dirck van Beresteyn

Comparative Figures(1627–53) shortly before his untimely death at the age of twenty-six, is oneof the few instances in which the identity of one of Gerrit Dou’s sitters isknown.[1] His name and life dates are inscribed on the reverse of thepainting (fig 1).[2] Dirck was the fourth of five children from a well-to-dofamily in Delft, whose father and grandfather had both held prominent civic
positions as burgomasters of Delft.[3] In the fall of 1647, at the age oftwenty, Dirck moved to Leiden to study law at Leiden University. After thecompletion of his studies, he was appointed to the prestigious position ofCounsel to the Hof van Holland. In November 1652 Dirck married hisyoung cousin, Magdalena van Adrichem (1639–84) and settled in Delft on
the west side of the Oude Delft.[4] In 1653 Dirck made a series of visits toFig 1. Reverse of GD-111

the notary to establish and revise his will, which suggests that he had
fallen ill or was otherwise concerned about his mortality.[5] He made hislast notarial visit in September 1653 to ensure that his unborn child would
be placed in the custody of his wife, mother and brother Zacharias.[6] Aweek later he died, leaving behind his young bride Magdalena, who would
give birth to a boy some six months later. Sadly, the child would only live
for a matter of hours.[7]Dou has depicted Dirck as a composed yet dashing young man dressed in
the latest fashion. He wears a small ornamental band around his neck,edged with fine lace and closed with tasseled band-strings. His black
doublet, faced with buttons down its front, allows his billowing shirt to show
through at the cuffs and along the slits of his sleeves.[8] A velvet-lined

Fig 2. Gerrit Dou, Portrait of a
Man (‘Johan Wittert van der Aa’),
1646, oil on panel, 28 x 24 cm,Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv.
no. SK-A-686

black cloak with additional buttons along its arms is slung around hisshoulders. With beaming eyes, Dirck’s bright countenance is accentuatedby his long, wavy hair cascading over his shoulders. His golden hair andblack-and-white attire are set off by a vibrant blue-green backdrop thatappears to be a curtain.[9]Dou must have executed this portrait sometime between 1647, when Dirck
first moved to Leiden, and 1653, the year of his death. Ronni Baersuggests a date close to 1647 and relates the painting stylistically to Dou’s
1646 signed and dated Portrait of a Man in the Rijksmuseum (fig2).[10] However, Dirck’s fashionable attire would seem to indicate a slightly

Fig 3. Caspar Netscher,Presentation of a Medallion
Portrait, ca. 1658–60, oil oncanvas, 62 x 67.5 cm,Szépmüveszéti Muzeum,
Budapest, no. 250

later date for this portrait. In particular, the style of the sleeves of hisdoublet, which allow for much of his blousy shirt to show through, isconsistent with men’s fashion of the early 1650s.[11]© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Dirck van Beresteyn
Page 4 of 9

Portrait of Dirck van Beresteyn is the smallest known work by Dou. The
miniature scale implies a sentimental connection between the subject andthe viewer, a scale the viewer experiences in the intimacy of one’s hands.
Baer suggests that the portrait might have been commissioned on theoccasion of Dirck’s extended absence from the family home in Delft uponhis matriculation at Leiden University in 1647.[12] The possibility of aslightly later dating, based on his dress, leads to another, perhaps morecompelling, possibility. Because of its unusually small format, it isconceivable that the portrait was commissioned by Dirck as a gift for hiswife, either for their betrothal or as a token of his love around the time of
their marriage in 1652. Such small portrait gifts presented at a marriage
proposal were not uncommon. This tradition is recorded in a painting byCaspar Netscher (ca. 1639–84), Presentation of a Medallion Portrait (fig3), ca. 1658–60, in the Szépmüveszéti Muzeum, Budapest, which portrays
a young suitor offering a small portrait medallion to his beloved.[13]In addition to its diminutive size, the present portrait is also the only known
work by the artist painted on a metal support, which laboratory testing has
indicated to be an unusual alloy of silver and copper.[14] Its uncommon
metallurgical content has raised the possibility that the plate was adopted
from a prior use and reappointed here as the smooth, stable support of apainting. One compelling proposition, which accounts for both the size andoval shape of the plate yet warrants further consideration and study, is that
it was originally fashioned as a hand-mirror or component of alocket.[15] Aside from its distinctive historical and technical qualities, thisdiminutive painting is of great significance to the present collector, as it
was the first Dutch painting he acquired, and served as the springboard for
assembling this remarkable collection of paintings by Gerrit Dou and hiscontemporaries.

-Dominique Surh

© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Dirck van Beresteyn
Page 5 of 9Endnotes
1. Ronni Baer notes that none of Dou’s sitters have been definitively identified, although earlysources indicate that he painted portraits of Spiering and his family, Jurgen Ovens, theBurgomaster Tulp, Abraham de Pape, and Johan Wittert van der Aa and his wife. See Ronni
Baer, “Dou and the Delft Connection: The Portrait of Dirk van Beresteyn,” inFace Book:
Studies on Dutch and Flemish Portraiture of the 16th–18th Centuries (Leiden, 2012), 279.
2. Executed in a script that is difficult to date, the inscription was probably added by adescendant in order to preserve information passed down by oral tradition. The inscriptionidentifies the sitter and records his birth and death dates: “G. Dou. fecit. / Dirck Van /Berestein Corn.z / Geboren / 1627 / Overleden 1653.” Also on the verso of the painting, but
written in a rectangular box, is: “VAN BERESTEYN / van Stolkweg 8 / DEN HAAG,”
presumably the name and address of the owner at that time. The inscription must predate
the appearance of the painting in a Paris sale in 1866, where the sitter’s identity was notedin the auction catalogue. See Herman de Kat van Oost- en West-Barendrecht’s sale in Paris,Lamme and Petit, 2 May 1866, no. 24. The earliest record of the inscription dates from 1941,
when the painting was reproduced in the published genealogy of the Beresteyn family. SeeE. A. van Beresteyn, Genealogie van het Geslacht van Beresteyn , 3 vols. (The Hague,1941), 1:262–64; 2:72–74, fig. 51, no. 145. This distant relative of the sitter had acquired thepainting at an auction in Amsterdam in 1919.
3. Dirck van Beresteyn’s father, Cornelis Paulusz. Van Beresteyn (1586–1638), was Lord ofMiddelharnis and held many public offices, including a place on the Council of Forty in 1625,alderman 1626–28, and burgomaster of Delft in 1632, 1635, and 1636. See E. A. vanBeresteyn, Genealogie van het Geslacht van Beresteyn , 3 vols. (The Hague, 1941),
1:262–64; 2:72–74, fig. 51, no. 145.
4. On the idea that Young Mother in the Mauritshuis might have been commissioned tocelebrate the wedding of Dirck van Beresteyn to Magdalena van Adrichem, see Ben Broos,Meesterwerken in het Mauritshuis (The Hague, 1987), 117; and Ronni Baer, “The YoungMother,” in Gerrit Dou 1613–1675: Master Painter in the Age of Rembrandt , ed. Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr. (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art; London, Dulwich Picture
Gallery; The Hague, Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis) (New Haven and London,2000–1), 106–7, no. 21. This theory, however, has proven incorrect. For a description of theVan Beresteyn’s proper coat of arms, see Ronni Baer, “Dou and the Delft Connection: The
Portrait of Dirk van Beresteyn,” in Face Book: Studies on Dutch and Flemish Portraiture ofthe 16th–18th Centuries (Leiden, 2012), 284, n. 6.
5. For the notarial references in the Delft archives that foretell Dirck’s concern for his mortality,
see E. A. van Beresteyn, Genealogie van het Geslacht van Beresteyn , 3 vols. (The Hague,1941), 1:263.
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Dirck van Beresteyn
Page 6 of 9

6. Dirck’s last visit to the notary occurred on 16 September 1653, a week before he passed
away on 23 September. He was buried in the Oude Kerk in Delft on 29 September. See E. A.
van Beresteyn, Genealogie van het Geslacht van Beresteyn , 3 vols. (The Hague, 1941),
1:263.
7. Dirck’s son would only live for five hours. See E. A. van Beresteyn, Genealogie van het
Geslacht van Beresteyn. 3 vols. (The Hague, 1941), 1: 263.
8. Marieke de Winkel, Fashion and Fancy: Dress and Meaning in Rembrandt’s Paintings(Amsterdam, 2006), 102.
9. For a discussion of Dou’s use of the blue pigment smalt, see the unpublished report by John
Twilley “Scientific Examination of the Portrait of Dirck van Beresteyn by Gerrit Dou(GD-111),” dated 23 February 2012, curatorial files, the Leiden Collection, New York. See
also Dominique Surh, Ilona van Tuinen and John Twilley, “Insights from Technical Analysis
on a Group of Paintings by Gerrit Dou in The Leiden Collection,”Journal of Historians ofNetherlandish Art 6, no. 1 (Winter 2014): n. 12.
10. Ronni Baer, “Dou and the Delft Connection: The Portrait of Dirk van Beresteyn,” inFace
Book: Studies on Dutch and Flemish Portraiture of the 16th–18th Centuries (Leiden, 2012),
279.
11. I am grateful to Marieke de Winkel, who suggested that the portrait was executed between
1650 and 1653 based on the features of the sitter’s costume (personal communication,September 2013, correspondence kept on file, The Leiden Collection, New York).
12. Ronni Baer, “Dou and the Delft Connection: The Portrait of Dirk van Beresteyn,” inFace
Book: Studies on Dutch and Flemish Portraiture of the 16th–18th Centuries (Leiden, 2012),
281–83.
13. Peter Sutton, ed., Masters of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Genre Painting (Exh. cat.
Philadelphia Museum of Art; London, Royal Academy of Arts; Berlin, Gemaldegalerie,
Staatliche Museen Preussicher Kulturbesitz) (Philadelphia, 1984), 275–76, no. 85; Marjorie
E. Wieseman, Caspar Netscher and Late Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting (Ghent,2002), 54–55, 172–73, no. 8; and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Caspar Netscher,Presentation ofa Medallion Portrait,” in Rembrandt and the Golden Age of Dutch Painting , ed. Ildikó Ember(Exh. cat. Szépművészeti Muzeum, Budapest) (Budapest, 2014), 464–65. I would like tothank Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. for sharing this essay and suggesting the interpretation
presented here.
14. Metallographic study and quantitative analysis show that the alloy consists of 80% silver and19% copper with minor trace elements making up the balance, thus resulting in aconsiderable increase in hardness and stiffness relative to silver in purer form. See theunpublished report by John Twilley, “Scientific Examination of the Portrait of Dirck vanBeresteyn by Gerrit Dou (GD-111), Addendum,” dated 13 April 2014, curatorial files, the© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Dirck van Beresteyn
Page 7 of 9Leiden Collection, New York.
15. John Twilley suggests that the size, shape, and material of the support could account for its
adaptation from some prior use, perhaps in decorative art. Inquiry into the history of silver
standards

intheperiodcontinues(personalcommunication,September2013,

correspondence kept on file, the Leiden Collection, New York).

Provenance
Herman de Kat van Oost- en West-Barendrecht, Dordrecht, by 1854 (his sale, Paris, Lammeand Petit, 2 May 1866, no. 24, for 170 francs).
M*** Collection (sale, Paris, Hotel Drouot, 1 February 1875, no. 22).
Mrs. U. M. Kneppelhout-van Braam Egert de Langen and Count Bottaro Costa (sale,Amsterdam, Frederik Műller, 16 December 1919, no. 19).
Dr. E. A. van Beresteyn, The Hague; by descent to his wife Mrs. Van Beresteyn Vierhouten,by 1952 (sale, Christie’s, London, 17 April 2002, no. 43, [Johnny van Haeften, London,2002; Derek Johns Ltd., London]).
From whom acquired by the present owner.

Exhibition History
The Hague, Gemeentemuseum, “Oude Kunst uit Haagse Bezit,” 12 December 1936–31
January 1937, no. 63 [lent by E. A. van Beresteyn].
Amsterdam, The Rijksmuseum, “Drie Eeuwen Portret in Nederland 1500–1800,” 29 June–5
October 1952, no. 31 [lent by Mrs. E. A. van Beresteyn].
Oxford, Ashmolean Museum of Art, on loan with the permanent collection, December
2009–January 2011 [lent by the present owner].
Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, “Dutch Treat,” 11 October 2011–6 January 2012[lent by the present owner].
Leiden, Museum De Lakenhal, “Gerrit Dou: The Leiden Collection from New York,” 9March–31 August 2014 [lent by the present owner].
Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art, “Small Treasures: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, andTheir Contemporaries,” 12 October 2014–4 January 2015, no. 10 [lent by the presentowner].
© 2017 The Leiden CollectionPortrait of Dirck van Beresteyn
Page 8 of 9Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The
Leiden Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [lent by the present owner].

References
Martin, Wilhelm. Het Leven en de Werken van Gerrit Dou. Leiden, 1901, 204, no. 139.
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelius. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent
Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith . 8 vols.
London, 1907–27, 1:440, no. 293. Translated from Beschreibendes und kritischesVerzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts .
10 vols. Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28, 1:432, no. 293.
Staring,Adolph.

“Nederlandscheportretminiaturen.”HaagschePost,no.

789(Kerstnummer), 25 December 1928, 12.
Oude Kunst uit Haags Bezit . Exh. cat. The Hague, Gemeentemuseum. The Hague,1936–37, 25, no. 63.
Van Beresteyn, Eltjo Aldegondus. Genealogie van het Geslacht van Beresteyn. 3 vols. The
Hague, 1941, 1:262–64; 2:72–74, fig. 51, no. 145.
Staring, Adolph. Kunsthistorische Verkenningen. The Hague, 1948, pl. 39.
Drie Eeuwen Portret in Nederland . Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum. Amsterdam, 1952,
15, no. 31.
Baer, Ronni. “Dou and the Delft Connection: The Portrait of Dirk van Beresteyn.” InFace
Book: Studies on Dutch and Flemish Portraiture of the 16th–18th Centuries . Leiden, 2012,
279–84.
Weller, Dennis P. “Portrait of Dirck van Beresteyn.” In Small Treasures: Rembrandt,Vermeer, Hals, and Their Contemporaries . Exh. cat. Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art;
Birmingham Museum of Art. Raleigh, 2014, 77–79, no. 10.
Surh, Dominique, Van Tuinen, Ilona and Twilley, John. “Insights from Technical Analysis on
a Group of Paintings by Gerrit Dou in the Leiden Collection.” Journal of Historians ofNetherlandish Art 6, no. 1 (Winter 2014): 1, 3–6, 13, figs. 8a–b, 32, 33, 34a–b.

Technical Summary
The support for the painting is an oval metal plate. Unlike the typical copper plates used forpainting, this plate is a silver/copper alloy.[1] The reason for this unusual support is unknown, but
Dou may have repurposed some other object.[2]© 2017 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Portrait of Dirck van Beresteyn
Page 9 of 9A thin, light-colored ground is visible in the edges of a loss. Dou applied the paint smoothly using
delicate modeling to create intricate details in the sitter’s likeness and attire. Infrared
photography indicates a slight compositional change in the sitter’s hair, which was originallylonger.[3]The panel remains in plane, but the reverse exhibits two layers of corrosion: a lower, light brown
one covering the entire surface; and an upper, mottled, dark brown one. There is an inscription
on the reverse of the panel which identifies the sitter as well as the years of his birth and death.
Two layers of corrosion are present under this inscription, indicating a fair amount of time passed
between the creation of the panel and the application of the inscription.
The painting is in good condition, and it was last treated in 2002. At that time, two large areas ofpaint loss were inpainted. A circular loss, 2 cm in diameter, is located above the sitter’s proper
left hand, and a 2.6 cm long, vertical, rectangular loss is located in the blue background in themiddle of the left edge. Pinpoint losses are also located throughout the composition, but are mostnoticeable in the sitter’s face. These look dark and appear to be related to the problem ofmetal–fatty acid soap formation.[4]Technical Summary Endnotes

1. John Twilley, scientific examination report, 23 February 2012, and addendum, 13 April
2014.
2. John Twilley, scientific examination report, 23 February 2012, and addendum, 13 April
2014.
3. Infrared photographs were taken at 780, 850, and 1000 nm.
4. John Twilley, scientific examination report, 23 February 2012.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection