Johannes Mijtens

Henri Saladin;
Jean Lullin, Geneva;
By whom sold, London, Christie's, 21 June 1968, lot 107, for 2.000 Guineas, to Leger (as a self portrait of the artist and his family);
With Leger Galleries, London, by 1968. 

A.N. Bauer, Jan Mijtens (1613/14-1670). Leben und Werk, Petersberg 2006, pp. 237-8, cat. no. A 115, reproduced p. 405.

The actual painting is a lot less red and softer in tone than the catalogue illustration suggests. The canvas is relined. No damages are apparent. The paint is somewhat thin in the brownish tones in the trees and rocks lower and upper centre, and in the foreground, and as a consequence, shows some small retouchings in these areas. Otherwise, the paint layer is in excellent condition. The paint surface is under a clean and lucid layer of varnish. Inspection under Ultra-Violet light confirms the abovementioned retouchings and reveals additional small scattered retouchings, e.g. in the sky upper right, in the foliage lower right, in the dresses of the girls in the background, in the black draperies of the seated figures. Offered in a gilt wood frame with moulded inner borders, in good condition. (MW)
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Of the many family portraits Mijtens produced, there are only a few that show the sitters in contemporary fashion, such as this painting, for most of his sitters are represented in fantasy or rustic dress. The rather austere attire must have been a deliberate decision from the patrons and may indicate the family's stern religious background, possibly Mennonite.¹ The father likely belonged to the middle class of government officials.

The traditional identification of the sitters as a self portrait of the artist with his family can be rejected since Jan Mijtens married in February 1642, a year after the creation of this painting, and had his first child in November of the same year.²  The portrait, however, does celebrate the love and marriage of the couple, as the rose and gesture of the wife clearly show. Less conventional is the depiction of the wet-nurse, holding the boy, and exposing her left breast. The wet-nurse obtained an exceptional position in 17th-Century Dutch family life as she often became a full member of the family during her one year stay in the household. Upon leaving the family, sometimes commemorated portraits were made of the wet-nurse, such as the well-known portrait of Catharina Hooft and her nurse by Frans Hals, in the Staatliche Museen, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.³ In line with her social position is the nurse's eye-catching appearance, next to the couple and sporting a colourful outfit. The latter may indicate that the wet-nurse came from more rural parts of Holland, possibly North Waterland as women from this region had a reputation for having particularly suitable milk for breast-feeding.
The two young women distanced from the sitters in the foreground, can be regarded as the daughter and her maid. The daughter, to the left, wears the latest fashion of the 1640s, her maid is clad in more modest, provincial clothing.

We are grateful to Dr. Marieke de Winkel for her help in cataloguing this lot.

1. See Bauer under Literature, p. 238.
2. Bauer, op. cit., p. 22.
3. Q. Buvelot (ed.), Dutch Portraits. The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals, exhibition catalogue, The Hague/London 2007, cat. no. 14, p. 104, reproduced p. 105.