Portrait of Pieter Ranst Valckenier(1661–1704)
Michiel van Musscher(Rotterdam 1645 – 1705 Amsterdam)

1687
oil on canvas
56.5 x 50.6 cm
signed and dated in dark paint, lower left
corner: “M. v. Musscher. Pinxit. A.° 1687. ”
MM-102.a© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Pieter Ranst Valckenier (1661–1704)
Page 2 of 8

How to cite
Van Tuinen, Ilona. “Pair of Portraits: Pieter Ranst Valckenier (1661–1704) and Eva Suzanna Pellicorne(1670–1732), 1687” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd ed. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.
NewYork,

2017–20.

https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/portrait-of-pieter-ranst-valckenier-1661-1704/(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 narrativeoccurs.

Michiel van Musscher painted with great finesse these elegant three-quarter-

Comparative Figures

length pendant portraits of a young upper-class couple in a garden. Seatedon the heraldic right, the man is dressed in a fashionable, exotic, goldenbrown silk Japonse rok, which falls open at his torso, revealing a red
brocaded undergarment.[1] His jabot and cuffs are adorned with fine floral
lace, and on his head he wears a dark brown, curly wig. With his right arm heleans on a mossy wall, while the slender fingers of his right hand hold a small
book with a black leather and gold binding. His pose, directed slightly to theright, is mirrored by that of his wife, who has turned slightly toward the left.
She is wearing an elegant, purple silk gown trimmed with lace identical toFig 1. Detail of MM-102.a showing
the delicate shadow of the sitter’s
proper right cuff on the lacethat of her husband. Around her left shoulder and draped over her lap is anorange-brown silk scarf, similar in tone to her husband’s garment. When
seen together, the two paintings provide a continuous view of a country
estate in a lush setting before a distant, mountainous landscape.
With his characteristic attention to detail, Van Musscher took great care in
rendering the textures of the various fabrics. He attained the shimmering
effect of silk in the man’s Japonse rok and the woman’s dress by boldly
applying the highlights with broad brushstrokes, often playfully following theFig 2. Detail of MM-102.b

direction of the folds. The much more delicate lace, on the other hand, waspainted with thin, barely visible strokes. Using a grayish tone as the base forthe lace and adding pure white for the highlights, Van Musscher exquisitely
depicted the subtle contrasts between light and shadow, a quality seen in the© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Pieter Ranst Valckenier (1661–1704)
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shadow cast by the proper right sleeve of the man’s blouse onto its lace
edging (fig 1). He created a similar effect in the contrast between the shaded
reverse of the lace around the woman’s proper right sleeve and thehighlighted front of the lace at her neckline (fig 2).
Old handwritten inscriptions on the reverses of the canvases identify thesitters as 26-year-old Pieter Ranst Valckenier (1661–1704) and his 17-yearold wife, Eva Suzanna Pellicorne (1670–1732) ((fig 3) and (fig 4)).
Valckenier and Pellicorne were married in 1686, which suggests that they
commissioned these paintings, dated 1687, as marriage portraits. Pieter’sfather was the influential Gillis Valckenier (1623–80), who had been thedirector of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and remained active in themunicipal government of Amsterdam until his death.[4] Pieter, too, held
several important positions in the Amsterdam municipal government until heeventually became director of the VOC in 1693.[5] The fact that Pieter isFig 3. Reverse of MM-102.a
revealing the inscription identifying
the sitter. The original inscription
on the old linen was reproduced in
Mylar-encapsulated images andattached to the tops of the reverse,
while the contents of theinscription was copied onto therelined canvas.

wearing a Japanese gown reflects his family’s high position in this trading
company as much as his upper-class fashion status. Eva Suzanna Pellicorne
was the daughter of the wealthy Casper Pellicorne and Clara Valckenier,Gillis Valckenier’s sister, making Pieter and Eva Suzanna first cousins aswell as spouses.[6]It is likely that the outdoor mansion in the idealized, hilly landscape in thebackground of the pendant portraits is Gynwens in Baambrugge, just southof Amsterdam. Pieter inherited this manor from his father in 1680, and Eva
Suzanna continued to live there after her husband’s death in 1704. A few
years before her death in 1727, she sold this property to Joan van der Voort(1667–1727), the husband of her cousin Anna Jacoba Valckenier(1676–1743).[7] Unfortunately, this mansion no longer survives, and an
etching of a country house named Gynwens that appears in Abraham
Rademaker’s Holland’s Arcadia, 1730, depicts a different property (fig 5).[8]The Valckenier family, however, owned other mansions in the same vicinity

Fig 4. Reverse of MM-102.b
revealing the inscription identifying
the sitter. The original inscription
on the old linen was reproduced in
Mylar-encapsulated images andattached to the tops of the reverse,
while the contents of theinscription was copied onto therelined canvas.

near Amsterdam, and one of them, Valck en Heining, in Loenersloot, still
exists (fig 6). The similarity in the appearance of this country house and thestructure in the background of the pendant paintings supports the hypothesisthat Van Musscher depicted Gynwens in these works. It seems probable that
Pieter’s second cousin Cornelis (1640–1700), who built Valck en Heining in
1677,[9] based his design on Gynwens.
When Van Musscher painted these portraits in 1687, he was one of the mostpopular and frequently commissioned portraitists of the Amsterdam elite.
Among his many distinguished clients were members of the Van Loon,

Fig 5. Abraham Rademaker,“Gynwens apartenant a Mr.
Christian Wencel / Gynwens,
toebehorende den Heer ChristiaanWencel,” etching, 168 x 192 mm,© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Pieter Ranst Valckenier (1661–1704)
Page 4 of 8Blaeu, and Witsen families, and even Czar Peter the Great of Russia, whocommissioned a portrait during his visit to the Netherlands in 1697–98.[10]Van Musscher’s portraits of Pieter Ranst Valckenier and Eva Suzanna

in Abraham Rademaker,
Holland’s Arcadia (Amsterdam,1730), University of Leiden,
Special Collections

Pellicorne are comparable to other pendant portraits he painted ofdistinguished couples between 1680 and 1700, such as his 1681 portraits ofFrançois le Gillon and Christina Backer (fig 7), or his 1696 portraits of
Nicolaes Kalkoen and Agatha van Loon.[11]In all of these paintings, the elegant couples, just like Pieter and EvaSuzanna, are dressed in lush silks, reveal slender, elongated fingers, andstand in an idealized, pastoral landscape, often with a mansion or landscapeextending across the pendants. This courtly style of portraiture wasextremely popular among the Dutch upper class in the late seventeenthFig 6. Valck en Heining mansion,
Loenersloot (outside Amsterdam),built in 1677 by Cornelis
Valckenier (1640–1700), second
cousin of Pieter Ranst Valckenier

century and was indebted to the late portraits of the Flemish artist Anthonyvan Dyck (1599–1641) and the Dutch artists he inspired, such as Jan Mijtens(ca. 1614–70), Caspar Netscher (ca. 1639–84), and Nicolaes Maes
(1634–93).[12] Clearly this style, in which Van Musscher excelled, was highly
sought after in the elite circles of Amsterdam.

- Ilona van Tuinen
Fig 7. Michiel van Musscher,Portrait of François leGillon (left) and Portrait ofChristina Backer (right), 1681, oilon canvas, 56 x 50 cm,Amsterdam Museum, Amsterdam,
SB 2547 and SB 2548, photoAmsterdam Museum, RenéGerritsen© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Pieter Ranst Valckenier (1661–1704)
Page 5 of 8Endnotes

1. For the Japonse rok, see Marieke de Winkel, “Rollenspel,” in Kopstukken: Amsterdammers
geportretteerd 1600–1800, ed. Norbert Middelkoop (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, AmsterdamMuseum) (Bussum, 2002), 96–97. This exotic and relatively costly kimono was often worn as
an informal housecoat. Because of its elegant appeal and the different possibilities of wearing
it, many men in the late seventeenth century chose to wear this garment in portraits.
2. See Technical Summaries for MM-102.a and MM-102.b. In 2006 Timothy Watson discovered
the inscriptions on the reverses of the original canvas supports. He created Mylarencapsulated images of these inscriptions, which he attached to the top center of the reverseof the frame. Nancy Krieg copied the contents of the inscriptions onto the new, relined
canvas. It is not possible to date the handwritten inscriptions.
3. Pieter Ranst Valckenier and Eva Suzanna Pellicorne married on 18 April 1686; Johan E.
Elias, De Vroedschap van Amsterdam 1578–1795, 2 vols. (Haarlem, 1903–5; reprinted inAmsterdam, 1963), 1:478–79. Robert E. Gerhardt, “The Art of Michiel van Musscher,”in Michiel van Musscher (1645–1705): The Wealth of the Golden Age (Exh. cat. Amsterdam,
Museum van Loon) (Zwolle, 2012), 48, was the first to make the plausible suggestion thatthese are wedding portraits.
4. Johan E. Elias, De Vroedschap van Amsterdam 1578–1795, 2 vols. (Haarlem, 1903–5;
reprint, Amsterdam, 1963), 1: 478. Gillis Valckenier was made director of the VOC in 1657.
He held the position of burgomaster in the Amsterdam municipal government from 1665 until
1679, the year before his death.
5. Johan E. Elias, De Vroedschap van Amsterdam 1578–1795, 2 vols. (Haarlem, 1903–5;reprinted in Amsterdam, 1963), 1:479. See also Jan Wagenaar, Amsterdam in Zyne Opkomst(Amsterdam, 1768), 7: 226, where it lists Pieter Ranst Valckenier as “Schepen” of themunicipal government in 1695 and as secretary in 1679.
6. Johan E. Elias, De Vroedschap van Amsterdam 1578–1795, 2 vols. (Haarlem, 1903–5;
reprinted in Amsterdam, 1963), 1:478–79.
7. “Het buiten Gijnwens te Baambrugge,” Edward Munnig Schmidt, Jaarboekje van het
Oudheidkundig Genootschap Nifterlake (2012): 86. Thanks to Mr. Munnig Schmidt forsending me his article, e-mail communication, November 2013. In preparation of his
forthcoming monograph on Michiel van Musscher, Robert E. Gerhardt was told by a memberof the Valckenier family that the house in the paintings must be Gynwens. Thanks to Mr.
Gerhardt for sharing this information, e-mail communication, November 2013.
8. The relatively small house in the print does not resemble the mansion in the background of
the portraits, for it has only four columns of windows instead of five, and a large dormer in the© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Pieter Ranst Valckenier (1661–1704)
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roof instead of five small ones, among other things. This was also noted by Edward Munnig
Schmidt, “Het buiten Gijnwens te Baambrugge,” Jaarboekje van het Oudheidkundig
Genootschap Nifterlake (2012): 86. More problematic is that the caption of the etching
mentions a Mr. Christian Wencel as the owner of the house. Considering that the etching waspublished in 1730, only three years after Eva Suzanna had sold the house to Joan van der
Voort, it appears that the etching cannot depict the same Gynwens as the one owned by theValckenier family.
9. Edward Munnig Schmidt, “Het buiten Gijnwens te Baambrugge,” Jaarboekje van het
Oudheidkundig Genootschap Nifterlake (2012): 86–89. Valck en Heining (accessed 25October 2013); Cornelis Valckenier purchased the land on 2 June 1677.
10. Robert E. Gerhardt, “Michiel van Musscher: The Best Amsterdam Painter of Small Portraits,”
in Michiel van Musscher (1645–1705): The Wealth of the Golden Age (Exh. cat. Amsterdam,Museum van Loon) (Zwolle, 2012), 17–18. The heyday of Musscher’s popularity was 1680
to 1700. See the Allegorical Portrait of Tsar Peter the Great, oil on canvas, 49 x 41 cm,
signed and dated 1698, Stichting Historische Verzamelingen van het huis Oranje-Nasau, TheHague, on loan to the Hermitage in Amsterdam.
11. Portraits of Nicolaas Kalkoen and Agatha van Loon, signed and dated 1696, oil on canvas, 56
x 50 cm, Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, Rijswijk.
12. On the influence of Anthony van Dyck’s portraiture on Dutch painting, see Emilie S.
Gordenker, Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641) and the Representation of Dress in SeventeenthCentury Portraiture (Turnhout, 2001), 74–75. For a discussion of the development ofNetscher’s courtly style, see Marjorie E. Wieseman, Caspar Netscher and Late SeventeenthCentury Dutch Painting (Doornspijk, 2002), 90–101. For an example of Netscher’s elegant,courtly portrait style in The Leiden Collection, see Caspar Netscher’s Portrait of Susanna
Doublet Huygens, executed in 1669 (CN-102).

Provenance
Frédéric de Rosenberg, Vienna (his sale, Miethke, Vienna, 9 April 1883, nos. 339, 340).
(Sale, Galerie Fischer, Lucerne, 9–14 November 2005, no. 1023 (with pendant); [SalomonLilian, B. V., Amsterdam]).
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2005.

Exhibition History© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Pieter Ranst Valckenier (1661–1704)
Page 7 of 8Amsterdam, Museum van Loon, “Michiel van Musscher (1645–1705): The Wealth of theGolden Age,” 9 March–10 June 2012 [lent by the present owner].

References
Moes, Ernst Wilhelm. Iconographia Batava: Beredeneerde lijst van geschiderde en gebeeldhouwde portretten van Noord-Nederlanders in vorige eeuwen. 2 vols. Amsterdam,1897–1905, 2:502, no. 8225; Addendum, 324, 388, no. 5832a.
Gerhardt, Robert E. “The Art of Michiel van Musscher.” In Michiel van Musscher (1645–1705):
The Wealth of the Golden Age. Edited by Robert E. Gerhardt, Tonko Grever, and Francis
Griep-Quint, 48–51. Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Museum van Loon. Zwolle, 2012.
Munnig Schmidt, Edward. “Het buiten Gijnwens te Baambrugge.” Jaarboekje van het
Oudheidkundig Genootschap Nifterlake (2012): 86–89.

Technical Summary
The support, a single piece of fine, plain-weave fabric with all four tacking margins present, hasbeen lined with a gauze interleaf. There is cusping but no paper tape along all four sides. An
inscription identifying the male sitter was discovered along the support reverse during the lining
procedure and has been transcribed onto the lining reverse. There are two paper labels but nowax seals, import stamps or stencils along the lining or stretcher.
A dark-colored, thinly and evenly applied ground extends onto the tacking margins. The oil painthas been applied smoothly with no use of impasto but with extremely fine detail in the lacework,
brocade and book spine.
Although the flesh tones of the hands are slightly warmer than those in the female companion
portrait, the position of the fingers of both the left and right hands are remarkably similar in eachportrait. The fingers of both hands in the female portrait have been shifted slightly during the paintstage, perhaps in an attempt to more closely match the male companion piece.[1]Two sets of overlapping irises visible in the X-radiograph indicate that the positions of the sitter’seyes and eyebrows were shifted during the paint stage.[2] In the final composition, the lower
portions of both irises appear almost perfectly round and only the uppermost curve of the irises
are obscured by the upper lids. This slight adjustment may have been made so the portrait moreclosely relates to the female companion piece.
No underdrawing or compositional changes are readily apparent in infrared images captured at© 2020 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Portrait of Pieter Ranst Valckenier (1661–1704)
Page 8 of 8780–1000 nanometers.
The painting is signed and dated in dark paint along the lower left corner.
The painting was cleaned, lined, and restored in 2006 and remains in a good state ofpreservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. See X-radiograph image of MM-102.b in The Leiden Collection archive files.
2. See X-radiograph image of MM-102.a in The Leiden Collection archive files.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection