JAN VAN NOORDT

Amsterdam 1620-1676

Portrait of Lucas van Noordt with a view of a Diemen beyond (?)

Oil on canvas, 83.2 by 67 cm

PROVENANCE:

Private Collection, Spain.

LITERATURE:

D. de Witt, Jan Van Noordt, Painter of History and Portraits in Amsterdam, Queens University Press 2007

Dr David de Witt has recently examined the painting since it’s cleaning, and has confirmed that it is by Jan van Noordt, and has included the portrait in his monograph on the artist. It must be the companion to the Portrait of a Lady, standing before a house surrounded by a moat, which was sold Phillips, 5 December 1989, lot. 24 (fig.1).  The balustrade in front of what is probably the Amstel continues in both works, and they share the same dimensions and a characteristic herringbone canvas. Dr de Wit believes that they may be of a Jan’s younger brother, Lucas van Noordt, who was a Reformed Church minister, and his wife, from Amsterdam and this is most likely the topography of the setting. He has suggested that the spire in the background of our portrait is possibly that of Lucas van Noordt’s church at Diemen, outside Amsterdam, seen from the other side to that of the view in Rembrandt’s drawing.

Jan Van Noordt worked in Amsterdam from 1645 to 1676. He studied with Backer and painted genre pictures and history paintings in the 1650s, turning to portraiture towards the end of the decade, sometimes producing large family pictures like the one in Dunkerk Museum. Another signed and dated portrait is one of the silk merchant Wynamts, which bears the date 1663. Like his contemporary Nicolaes Maes, it has been suggested that at one time he was a pupil of Rembrandt. The style of this and the companion portrait is close to that of a signed Portrait of a Lady, of similar proportions, in a painted arch, which was on the art market in the 1950s (with Nystad in The Hague), and Dr de Wit believes our painting dates from about 1660.

fig. 1