© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Conradus Vietor
Page 2 of 9

Portrait of Conradus Vietor

1644

Frans Hals
(Antwerp 1582/83 – 1666 Haarlem)

oil on canvas
82.6 x 66 cm
signed in monogram and dated in dark paint,
upper right: “FH / M CONRADVS VIETOR /ÆTATIS 56 / Ao 1644”
FH-101
Currently on view at: The National Museum ofChina, Beijing

How To Cite
Liedtke, Walter A. "Portrait of Conradus Vietor." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017.
https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/.
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© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Conradus Vietor
Page 3 of 9Conradus Vietor, a Lutheran preacher from Aachen, was born there in

Comparative Figures

1588 and died in Haarlem in 1657. He served the Lutheran community in
Haarlem for forty years, having joined the small Lutheran community thereon 1 May 1617. The humanist name Vietor, or Vitor, is a Latinized form of
the German and Dutch names for a cooper (barrel maker), so it is likelythat Vietor was born Konrad Fassbinder or Küfer. Frans Hals’s portrait,
dated 1644, is inscribed with Vietor’s name and age, fifty-six. The portrait
was engraved by Jonas Suyderhoef (ca. 1613–86) shortly after the sitter’s
death in 1657 (fig 1).[1]Vietor arrived in Haarlem at a significant moment in the political andreligious ferment of the early seventeenth century. Until just prior to hisarrival, the city council had forbidden Lutheran worship, a decree it had
instituted in 1596. Although the immigration of Lutherans from Antwerp
and Germany was generally regarded as advantageous for the economic
well-being of the Dutch Republic, conflicts between Calvinists andFig 1. Jonas Suyderhoef,
engraving after Frans Hals,Conradus Vietor, 1657, National
Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.,
Rosenwald Collection,
1943.3.8066

Lutherans (which had been a serious problem in Antwerp before 1585)
were viewed as potential threats to its stability.[2] Other officially Reformed
cities and towns of the Northern Netherlands similarly discouraged
Lutherans and other Protestant sects from worshiping in theircommunities. In 1615, however, the Haarlem city council reconsidered thisban and allowed the Lutherans to open a “public” church.
Evidently, however, Vietor was not one to calm the waters of Protestantdissent. Within months of becoming the Lutheran preacher in Haarlem(where the previous one had been shared with Lutherans in Leiden andThe Hague), Vietor entered into a contentious power struggle within hissmall congregation. In March 1618 the church council, the GeneralConsistory in Amsterdam, renewed his contract only under outsidepressure. By December of that year he embroiled himself in anotherheated issue, the right of a man to hit his wife (as had a member of hiscongregation), which Vietor defended on the basis of Scripture. His
position flew in the face of Dutch custom, and Vietor found himself introuble with the church council as well as with some of his parishioners. In
1619 he was sent to Leiden as a second preacher for six months, acooling-off period after which the question of his return to Haarlem was tobe resolved. In the end, Vietor’s stature as a properly appointed
representative of the Lutheran Church trumped the marks against him.
Forty-nine women of Haarlem’s Lutheran community, in fact, wrote a© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Conradus Vietor
Page 4 of 9petition in support of Vietor to the General Consistory in Amsterdam, dated
April 16 [1620].[3]
Numerous accounts testify to Vietor’s combativeness at later dates. He
frequently tested the patience of his Dutch Reformed counterparts and thecity council of Haarlem. For example, during the suppression ofRemonstrants (followers of the Protestant theologian Jacobus Arminius[1560–1609]) from 1618 onward, Vietor placed himself in the vanguard ofLutheran preachers soliciting Remonstrant converts, going so far as todistribute Arminian tracts in 1624.[4] He also opposed the Anabaptist
argument against infant baptism in publications of 1628 and later on.
Although now remembered mainly for his provocative opinions, Vietor
must have been seen by the Lutheran community in the Netherlands as anindefatigable defender of its faith during a difficult time in its history.
Hals’s portrait of Vietor is characteristic of his work during the mid-1640s
in its restrained palette and quiet composition, and in the sitter’s soberexpression. The painter had a remarkable gift for characterization, andpresumably the mixture of thoughtfulness, sincerity, and perhaps someanxiety that might be discerned in Vietor’s features faithfully reflects hispersonality. The pose and expression found here are by no means
conventional for portraits of preachers, as is clear from comparisons withthe many more standardized portraits of religious figures by other Dutch
artists, and Hals’s own portrait, dated 1639, of the Reformed preacher
Hendrick Swalmius (Detroit Institute of Arts).[5]The strong modeling of the face, despite the use of broad strokes andloose touches to suggest highlights, shadows, hair, ruddy flesh and so on,
is entirely consistent with Hals’s autograph works of about the same time.
The virtuoso treatment of the hands cradling a Bible seems to suggest
both resolve and slight nervousness. Hals managed to evoke the different
surface qualities of flesh, paper, leather and cloth with exceptionaleconomy. The highlights and shadows in the ruff re-create its delicacy andvolume; the collar’s recession is effectively conveyed at a proper viewing
distance. As usual, the background plane is neutral but enlivened by thesitter’s shadow and shifting textures. The notice at the lower left on
Suyderhoef’s print, “F. Hals pinxit” (“painted by F. Hals”), seems
unnecessary when one appreciates the sheer quality of the painting, but,in fact, much of what Hals achieved was impossible for Suyderhoef to© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Conradus VietorPage 5 of 9

reproduce in his engraving.[6]The portrait is thought to have been acquired by John Stuart (1713–92),
3rd Earl of Bute, and to have descended in his family until its sale in 1994.
Bute was one of the great British collectors of the eighteenth century,
whose Netherlandish pictures included many landscapes and genre
scenes but very few Dutch portraits.[7]-Walter A. Liedtke© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Conradus Vietor
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Endnotes
1. Seymour Slive, Frans Hals, 3 vols. (London, 1970–74), 3:78, wrongly asserts that theinscription on Suyderhoef’s print gives biographical information about the sitter. Instead, it isa generic text suitable for a preacher and praises his spirituality.
2. See Jonathan Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall, 1477–1806(Oxford, 1995), 374–76.
3. As explained in detail in Jo Spaans, “Negenenveertig Haarlemse Mirjams: Over het aandeel
van vrouwen in de moeilijkheden rondom de Lutherse predikant Conrad Vietor,”Nederlands
Archief voor Keerkgeschiedenis 67 (1987): 1–14.
4. Jonathan Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall, 1477–1806 (Oxford,1995), 395. This was undoubtedly meant to reveal parallels in the views of Luther andArminius.
5. Seymour Slive, Frans Hals, 3 vols. (London, 1970–74), 3: no. 126; 2: pl. 204, engraved
seven or eight years later by Suyderhoef.
6. Claus Grimm, in various publications (see References) has described this portrait as aworkshop product, without much explanation. As in dozens of other cases, this designation
is widely regarded as unconvincing.
7. See Francis Russell, John, 3rd Earl of Bute: Patron and Collector (London, 2004).

Provenance
Presumably acquired by John Stuart (1713–92), 3rd Earl of Bute, for Luton Park,Bedfordshire; by descent to John Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute (1847–1900) until at least
1934.
Lord Robert Crichton-Stuart, by 1949.
(Sale, Christie’s, New York, 18 May 1994, no. 85).
(Sale, Christie’s, London, 2 December 2008, no. 19 [Johnny van Haeften, London]).
From whom acquired by the present owner.

Exhibition History© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Conradus Vietor
Page 7 of 9London, Bethnal Green Branch Museum, “The Collection of Paintings Lent for Exhibition bythe Marquis of Bute, K. T.,” 1883, no. 94; Glasgow, 1884, no. 69; Manchester, 1885, 27, no.
180.
Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, on loan with the permanent collection, August
2009–January 2012.
Istanbul, Sabancı Üniversitesi Sakıp Sabancı Müzesi, “Where Darkness Meets Light . . .
Rembrandt and His Contemporaries—The Golden Age of Dutch Art,” 21 February–10 June2012 [lent by the present owner].
Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, on loan with the permanent collection, June
2012–March 2015 [lent by the present owner].
Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The
Leiden Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [lent by the present owner].

References
Von Bode, Wilhelm. Stüdien für Geschichte der holländischen Malerei . Braunschweig,
1883, no. 135.
Richter, J. P. Catalogue of Paintings Lent for Exhibition by the Marquess of Bute .
Manchester, 1885, 27, no. 180.
Moes, E. W. Iconographia Batava: Beredeneerde lijst van geschiderde en gebeeld-houwde
portretten van Noord-Nederlanders in vorige eeuwen. 2 vols. Amsterdam, 1897–1905,
2:530, no. 8491.
Moes, E. W. Frans Hals, sa vie et son oeuvre . Translated by J. de Boschere. Brussels,1909, 68–69, no. 81.
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. 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, 3:70, no. 236.

Translated from Beschreibendes und kritisches

Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten höllandischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts .
10 vols. Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28.
Von Bode, Wilhelm and Binder, M. J. Frans Hals: His Life and Work . 2 vols. Berlin, 1914,
2:60, 79, no. 203a, fig. 129a.
Valentiner, W. R. Frans Hals, des Meisters Gemalde in 322 Abbildungen. Stuttgart, 1923,214, 319.
Molhuysen, P. C. and Kossmann, Fr. K. H. Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek.
10 vols. Leiden, 1933, 9:1210.
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of Conradus Vietor
Page 8 of 9Grimm, Claus. Frans Hals: Entwicklung, Werkanalyse, Gesamtkatalog. Berlin, 1972, 215,no. 152.
Slive, Seymour. Frans Hals. 3 vols. New York, 1970–74, 2: fig. 248; 3:77–78, no. 152.
Grimm, Claus and Montagni, E. C. L’opera completa di Frans Hals. Milan, 1974, 104–5, no.
165b. Translated by S. Darses to Tout l’oeuvre peint de Frans Hals. Paris, 1976, no. 165b.
Grimm, Claus. Frans Hals: The Complete Work . New York, 1990, 46, 267 n. 27. Translated
by Jürgen Riehle from Frans Hals: Das Gesamtwerk. Stuttgart and Zürich, 1989, 46, 268,
n. 26.
Russell, Francis. John, 3rd Earl of Bute: Patron and Collector. London, 2004, 193.

VersionsEngraved
1. Jonas Suyderhoef (1613–86) after Frans Hals, Portrait of Conradus Vietor, 1657, engraving(in reverse), inscribed F. Hals pinxit. I. Suyderhoef sculpt (Hollstein, XXVIII, no.
127), Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, P.8957-R.

Versions Notes

Technical Summary
The support, a single piece of fine-weight, plain-weave fabric with tacking margins removed, hasbeen lined. Cusping along all four edges indicates the original dimensions have been retained. A
hand-lettered inscription is located along the lining reverse, and three labels, a stencil, and chalkinscriptions are located along the stretcher. There are no wax seals or import stamps along thelining or stretcher.
A warm orange-brown-colored ground, possibly a double ground, has been applied. Undermagnification, large white particles are visible along the ground layer surface and through thesurface of thinly painted passages.[1]The portrait was painted directly. The figure’s face and hair appear to have been painted or left
in reserve before the hat was painted. The flesh tones appear to be painted directly with some© 2017 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Portrait of Conradus Vietor
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wet-into-wet paint. Areas of shadow and contours of forms are sometimes painted extremely
thinly, intentionally allowing the colored ground to continue to show at the surface. The
background gray tones are extremely thin. Thicker passages of light-colored paint, whichsurround and help anchor the figure in space, were painted after the figure. The costume and hat
are painted rather thinly.
No underdrawing or compositional changes are readily apparent in infrared images, in the Xradiograph, or as pentimenti.
The painting has not undergone conservation since its acquisition in 2008 and remains in a goodstate of preservation.[2]Technical Summary Endnotes

1. A phenomenon previously noted in Carol Christensen and Michael Palmer, “Deciphering
artist’s intent in a late portrait by Frans Hals,” AIC Paintings Specialty Group postprits, 1994:
12–17, and in Anne van Grevenstein, et al. “Aspects of the restoration and technicalexamination of the Haarlem civic guard group portraits by Frans Hals,” ICOM Committee forConservation, 9th Triennial Meeting, Dresden, 26–31 August 1990: 90–94.
2. Entry based on an examination report prepared by Yvonne Szafran, head of paintings
conservation, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2011.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection