Portrait of the Regents of the Nieuwezijds Institute for the Outdoor Relief of the Poor, Amsterdam, c. 1650, Jacob Adriaensz Backer, c. 1650 – (Jacob Adriaensz Backer) ◄ Previous Next ►

Artist: Jacob Adriaensz Backer

Date: 1650

Size: 273 x 314 cm

Technique: Oil On Canvas

Since the fourteenth century, overseers of the poor had been providing support for officially registered paupers who did not live in a charitable foundation. That assistance had traditionally been supplied by the clergy, but the city authorities took over responsibility for it in the early seventeenth century. In 1614 they built the Nieuwe Zijds Huiszittenhuis (Outdoor Poor Relief Board) on Prinsengracht, north of Leliegracht, which at first consisted of just a bakery and a peat store. However, the Nieuwe Kerk continued its traditional task of giving essentials to the poor. When the church burned down on 11 January 1645 it was decided to raise a replacement headquarters on Prinsengracht. Distribution was moved there as well, and the first issue of food and fuel was made on 20 December 1649. Jacob Backer very probably received the commission for this portrait of the regents to mark the opening of the new, enlarged building,6 which means that the canvas would date from around 1650. It is mentioned by the city chroniclers Tobias van Domselaer and Caspar Commelin,7 but it was Wagenaar in 1765 who gave the precise location of where the picture had probably been hanging for over a century: ‘placed against the east wall is a large regent piece that was painted by Jacob Backer in the year 1651’.8 Wagenaar also relates that there were two compartments with inscriptions on the same wall that included the names of the overseers portrayed: ‘[…] Lucas Pietersz Conyn, Johan Steur, Rombout Kemp, Claes van Lith, Cornelis Metsue and Isaac Commelyn’.9 The standing man not wearing a hat is the housemaster, who is representing the staff of the Nieuwe Zijds Huiszittenhuis along with the matron, shown on the right. The person seated on the far left can be identified as Isaac Commelin (1598-1676, regent 1647-52) from the document with his name on it that he is holding.10 The overseer second from right has been recognized as the successful and prominent cloth merchant Rombout Kemp (1597-1653, regent 1635-52), who also appears as the pointing sergeant on the right in The Night Watch (1642).11 The seated figure seen in profile might be Lucas Pietersz Conijn (1597-1657, regent 1630-52). He had his portrait painted by Govert Flinck in a civic guard piece of 1645,12 where he is shown at full-length on the left, and his age and physiognomy in that work correspond closely with those in Backer’s canvas. The standing man in the centre behind the table could be Cornelis Metsue (1607-1661, regent 1644-61), an assumption based on the evidence of his likeness in a smaller 1657 regent piece by Ferdinand Bol that hung in the same room in the Nieuwe Zijds Huiszittenhuis,13 where he may be depicted second from the right.14 No other portraits are known of Claes van Lith (1614-1670, regent 1640-51) or Johan Steur (1613-after 1671, regent 1630-51), so it is impossible to identify them in this painting. They could be the men third from the right and on the far right. The creation of the present work can be reconstructed quite accurately from two composition sketches (fig. a, fig. b) and five individual figure studies.15 Backer’s canvas is one of the first Amsterdam group portraits with a plain, light background,16 but the two outline drawings show that this was not the artist’s initial intention.17 One is in Munich and shows an early stage in the construction of the painting (fig. a). It is the sole preparatory sheet to be done with the brush. The other six are in black and white chalk on (blue and a sole greenish) coloured paper – a striking technique that Backer used more often for his single figure studies. The Munich drawing can be regarded as a first, rough general sketch from which Backer deviated at several points in the final version. He adjusted the hand gestures, such as that of Conijn (seated second from left, shown from the side), and there are also considerable differences in the positioning of the figures. The second sketch, which is in the Rijksmuseum (fig. b), has a more spacious design and a higher composition, which has raised the suspicion that the picture has been cut down.18 However, there is neither ground nor paint on the tacking edges, so the size has not been altered.19 The addition of the chimneybreast to the Rijksmuseum sheet shows that Backer was taking account of the place where the work was to be hung in the room, which was standard practice for group portraits made for a specific location. That chimneybreast is missing in the final picture, but Backer may have overpainted it with the dark strip on the right, which might be a curtain. There is a horizontal fold in the drawing above the regents’ heads, and although it could of course have been added at a later date it is also possible that Backer did so himself in order to indicate the top of the canvas. After making the composition sketches he turned to the individual figures, searching for an attractive way of grouping them around the table and giving them the correct p../..