Portrait of a Boy with a Kolf Club, Wybrand de Geest, 1631 – (Wybrand Simonsz. De Geest) ◄ Previous Next ►

Artist: Wybrand Simonsz. De Geest

Date: 1631

Size: 115 x 85 cm

Technique: Oil On Panel

This full-length portrait shows a boy in a doublet and skirt with a striking zigzag pattern. He is holding a kolf club in his right hand and is showing the viewer a ball with his left hand. It is clear from these sporting attributes, which give the otherwise sober painting a sense of playfulness, that this is a boy.3 The fact that he is wearing a skirt means that he is not yet seven years old.4 The painting was sold in 1900 as a work by Dirck Dircksz van Santvoort, but was attributed to De Geest in the museum catalogue of 1903. The sober and rather static depiction of the sitter, and the style, in which visible brushstrokes play an important part, make the attribution plausible. The painting had a pendant in the form of another full-length portrait of a child with a kolf club who must be a brother of the one in the Rijksmuseum.5 The two are companion pieces in every respect. Both children are wearing the same kind of clothes with a similar zigzag pattern, and both are holding a kolf club and ball. They are also standing on a black-and-white tiled floor against a neutral background, with the light falling from the left. The Rijksmuseum portrait shows the boy turned to the left, while the other one is turned to the right. In addition, both portraits are on panel, have virtually the same dimensions, and are dated 1631. Another indication that they originally hung side by side is a copy, probably from the 19th century, depicting both children, now in a landscape setting.6 That copy must have been made when the two portraits were still together. The two originals were also copied in a small format.7 Other pendants are known depicting two brothers wearing the same clothes and with the same attributes.8 This portrait is in the tradition of realistic children’s portraits of the period, in which the attribute of the kolf club frequently features.9 The Rijksmuseum painting is a representative example of early children’s portraiture by De Geest, who in the mid-1640s added the pastoral child’s portrait to his repertoire.10 Although it has been assumed until now that the oak box frame originally belonged with this painting,11 and undoubtedly dates from the period when the painting was made there is oblique tapering at bottom left on the back of the support. This, together with some unaligned holes and notches left by nails, makes it doubtful that this is the original frame.12 Yvette Bruijnen, 2007 See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 80.