© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Young Boy with a Hat
Page 2 of 8

Portrait of a Young Boy with a Hat

ca. 1655–56

Michael Sweerts(Brussels 1618 – 1664 Goa)

oil on canvas
39 x 27 cm
MS-101

How To Cite
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. "Portrait of a Young Boy with a Hat." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited byArthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017.
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© 2017 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
gaze and slightly turned shoulders suggest his attention is directed
elsewhere, but Sweerts depicted the details of his dress and features withsuch softness and tactility that he seems strikingly present before theviewer. He wears a slightly 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 and nose, casting rich shadows along the left side of hisface and jagged patterns descending along his arm and torso. Although heappears to be from a lower social class, Sweerts has rendered him withgentle grace.

Fig 1. Michael Sweerts, Boy witha Hat, 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

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 headstudies, which appear so exacting in their representation that they could
be mistaken for formal portraits, were instead highly individualized
depictions of anonymous figures. Removed from a specific time or place,tronies gave artists the opportunity to focus on the physical andpsychological character of an individual.[2] Tronies of young men
particularly interested Sweerts after he returned to Brussels in the early to
mid-1650s, and Portrait of a Young Boy with a Hat is one of at least fivesimilar images that he executed in that decade.[3] While Sweerts also
depicted young and old women with a similar degree of sensitivity, hisrepresentation of young men was exceptional in the seventeenth century,
both in number and discerning manner of execution.[4] These works, asevidenced in the Leiden Collection painting, demonstrated Sweerts’s

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

ability to create a pictorial experience both immediate and timeless.
This approach is similarly evident in Sweerts’s Boy with a Hat in Hartford(fig 1).[5] The figure wears a similar broad-brimmed hat, though pushed
farther down on his head, and a white collared shirt beneath a tatteredjacket. As he gazes over his right shoulder, his body recedes sharply backinto space. Sweerts repeated this compositional device—the turned headand angled shoulders—in his images of young men from the latter half ofthe 1650s, including Portrait of a Youth in San Francisco, from ca.
1659–61.[6] The somewhat awkward frontal emphasis and tightly cropped

Fig 3. Johannes Vermeer, Girlwith a Pearl Earring, ca. 1665–66,© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Young Boy with a Hat
Page 4 of 8composition of the Leiden Collection painting distinguishes it fromSweerts’s other male tronies and suggests that it may have been among

oil on canvas, 46.5 x 40 cm,
Mauritshuis, The Hague, inv. 670

the first of this series of tronies that he painted in the mid-1650s.
Sweerts’s tronies may have had a didactic function. In Brussels, Sweerts
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 traditionof earlier seventeenth-century drawing books, these etchings represented
a range 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),shares a number of stylistic and compositional similarities withPortrait of aYoung Boy with a Hat . The half-length figure is positioned against anempty 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 to modify a range of character types in age, gender, and dress tosuit his needs in print or paint. Much as with the etchings, Portrait of aYoung Boy with a Hat could have served as a model for Sweerts’s
students in the academy.[9]Sweerts’s sensitive representation of an individual set against anundefined, 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, similarly conveys a timeless,classicizing beauty.[10] Although the two artists likely never met, the abilityof Sweerts and Vermeer to evoke the spirit of an individual and render himor her, regardless of class, with an unusual sense of dignity reflects ashared artistic sensibility.
-Lara Yeager-Crasselt© 2017 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: Nederlandse Portretten; Bijdragen over de portretkunst in de
Nederlanden uit de zestiende, zeventiende en achtiende eeuw (The Hague, 1989),
8:185–202; and most recently, Dagmar Hirschfelder, Tronie und Porträt in derniederländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 2008); and Franziska Gottwald, Das
Tronie: Muster-Studie-Meisterwerk; Die Genese einer Gattung der Malerei vom 15.
Jahrhundert bis zu Rembrandt (Berlin, 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 thegenesis of 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 , trans. Diane Webb
(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, FineArts 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 theseimages to Sweerts’s brief Dutch period, under the belief that the artist had arrived inAmsterdam in the late 1650s. More recent documentation has informed us that Sweerts wasin 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, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. See Jansenand Sutton, Michael Sweerts, no. 23. Dagmar Hirschfelder discusses Sweerts’s tronies in
the context of her greater study as an exceptional case 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, andA
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)
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Young Boy with a Hat
Page 6 of 8(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 , trans. Diane Webb
(Doornspijk, 1996), no. 98; and Guido Jansen and Peter C. Sutton, eds.,Michael Sweerts(1618–1664) (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum; San Francisco, Fine Arts Museums ofSan 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 SanFrancisco, 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 andPeter C. Sutton, eds., Michael Sweerts (1618–1664) (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum;
San Francisco, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Hartford, Wadsworth AtheneumMuseum of Art) (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 and Flemish drawing books, see Jaap Bolten, Method and Practice: Dutch andFlemish Drawing Books, 1600–1750 (Landau Pfalz, 1985). Such etchings may have also
been intended as collector’s items, as they were never bound into a book but remained as
single sheets. For the tradition of this type of series, see, for instance, Jan Lievens’sDiverse
Tronikens, small etchings of various head studies, which were probably published while theartist was in Antwerp 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 Art Museum; Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis) (New Haven, 2008),
nos. 62–66. For the use 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, for Sweerts, 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 ofSan Francisco; Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art) (Zwolle, 2001), 151. In herrecent study of the genesis of the tronie, Franziska Gottwald traces its origins to themedieval workshop, examining its use as a type of model and ultimately its development into
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Young Boy with a Hat
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an autonomous genre in the seventeenth century. Sweerts, however, is not discussed in thecontext of Gottwald’s study. See Franziska Gottwald, Das Tronie: Muster-StudieMeisterwerk; Die Genese einer Gattung der Malerei vom 15. Jahrhundert bis zu
Rembrandt (Berlin, 2011).
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
Kultzen, Rolf. Michael Sweerts: Brussels 1618–Goa 1664 . Doornspijk, 1996, 66, 70, n. 64,71, n. 67, 119–20, no. 100.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara R. “Ritratto di fanciullo con cappello.” In Vermeer: Il secolo d’oro© 2017 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Portrait of a Young Boy with a Hat
Page 8 of 8dell’arte olandese. Edited by Walter Liedtke, Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., and Sandrina Bandera.
Exh. cat. Rome, Scuderie del Quirinale. Rome, 2012, 196–97, no. 43.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara R. Michael Sweerts (1618–1664): Shaping the Artist and theAcademy in Rome and Brussels. Pictura Nova: Studies in 16th- and 17th-Century Flemish
Painting and Drawing 21. Turnhout, 2016, 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.

Technical Summary Endnotes© 2017 The Leiden Collection