Gerrit Zegelaar

The actual painting is less red and softer in tone than the catalogue illustration suggests. Both inner and outer panels are flat and stable and bevelled on all sides. The paint layer is in excellent condition. A small spot of retouching is visible on the balustrade centre left, and along the lower edge. Otherwise, no damages or retouchings are visible to the naked eye. The paint surface is covered with a slightly dirty layer of varnish, and there's some surface dirt. Inspection under Ultra-Violet light, furthermore, reveals minimal retouching along the upper edge and in the lower right corner, and reveals that the varnish layer has been unevenly cleaned. Offered in a gilt wood frame with a decorative foliage pattern and a plaster moulded fillet, with a chunck missing in the lower left corner. (MW)
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At present,  the painter Gerrit Zegelaar, who was born in Loenen aan de Vecht, is little known, but in his lifetime his work was included in two of the most prestigious art collections in Amsterdam, those of Jan Gildemeester and Gerrit Braamcamp.¹ By 1743 he had acquired a considerable  reputation, judging from a poem accompanying a self-portrait in which he was praised as the "Apelles from Loenen".²

Gerrit Zegelaar was preoccupied with his own likeness, as is demonstrated by the several self-portraits that have come down to us. A striking example is found in a set of wall paintings for a house in Haarlem, in which the artist (with his brush) and his wife represent Winter in a series of the Four Seasons.³ A self-portrait more akin to the present work was sold, Amsterdam, Christie's, 17 November 1994, lot 39. In the latter, the artist is portrayed at a younger age, but he uses the same compositional scheme of a painter placed in front of a window.

As with the other self-portrait, this work is a true trompe-l'oeil painting in its multi-layered representation of space and highly realistic rendition of different materials. Adding to the illusionistic quality of the work is the unique feature that the figure is painted on a seperate panel which is replaceable. The relief below the window shows putti working in a painter's studio, from stretching a canvas and preparing pigments to the very act of painting itself. The stone facade with the relief refer to the pictorial tradition of the Leiden school of fine painting, in particular the illusionistic 'niche-paintings' invented by Gerard Dou. However, the typically ribbled hardstone ledge is a motif frequently used by Zegelaar: see, for example, the signed pair of a kitchen maid and a hunter, sold in these Rooms, 12 November 1996, lot 79, and the signed portrait of a vegetable seller, formely with Kunsthandel P. de Boer, Amsterdam.⁴

A preliminary study for this composition is in the Prentenkabinet, Universiteit Leiden (inv. no. PK049, see fig. 1).

1. See E. Munnig Schmidt, 'Gerrit Zegelaar. Een 18de eeuwse kunstschilder uit Loenen a/d Vecht', in Jaarboekje van het Oudheidkundig genootschap Niftarlake, 2002, p. 68.
2, Munning Schmidt, op. cit., p. 72. We also learn that he was deaf.
3. idem, p. 73, reproduced fig. 12.
4. idem, p. 69, reproduced fig. 7.