North Netherlandish School, circa 1520

Kirkeland Jamieson, England, 1830;
With Frank T. Sabin, London, 1928;
With D. Katz, Dieren, 1939;
Acquired by the father of the present owner by 1963;
Thence by inheritance.

Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie, Meisterwerke aus Baden-Württembergischem Privatbesitz, 1958-59, no. 126;
Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Sammlung Heinz Kisters: altdeutsche und altniederländische Gemälde, 25 June - 15 September 1963, no. 82.

K. Arndt, in Kunstchronik, 1958, p. 354;
Y. Hackenbroch, Enseignes. Renaissance Hat Jewels, Florence 1996, pp. 237-39, reproduced fig. 234.

The original is slightly less pink in the flesh and red tones than it appears in the catalogue illustration. The support consists of two vertical panels, joined and cradled to the reverse. The paint surface appears to be in good condition under a dirty old yellowed varnish, although slightly abraded in the darks of his robes. Scattered minor old discoloured retouchings are visible to the naked eye in these areas, along the panel join and the sitter's left cheek. This work is confirmed under UV light which also reveals some more substantial work in the face and scattered minor retouchings in the left hand, along the outline of the sitter's shoulders and in the blue background. Offered in a carved gilt wood frame with some losses, see catalogue illustration.
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The emblem of the sunflower in bloom on the hat of the present sitter has unfortunately not helped to identify him but, as Yvonne Hackenbroch hypothesised in her 1996 publication (see Literature), it may well have a religious significance and perhaps denotes the sitter's turning to God. A remarkably similar hat, perched nonchalantly at an angle, is worn by Jan van Wassanaer in a portrait by Jan Mostaert, in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, datable to circa 1520.¹ If the wearing of this style of hat was, as is supposed, a fleeting fashion, it would seem appropriate to apply a similar date of execution to the present work.

The curious gesture made by the sitter with his right hand is echoed in a painting by Mostaert in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.² This painting was itself, for a long time, attributed to Mostaert by scholars including Edward Plietzsch and Max. J. Friedländer (copies of whose certificates accompany this lot, dated 1957 and 1958 respectively), though Friedländer did not publish it. Gustav Glück, who also concurred with the attribution to Mostaert, dated the present portrait to circa 1510 on the basis of a comparison with the artist's Portrait of Joost van Bronckhorst (who wears another comparable hat), in the Petit Palais, Paris, which he dated to that year.³ More recently, the portrait has been considered to be by an artist working in Mostaert's ambit and heavily influenced by his work.

1. Inv. no. 2481b; see M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting..., vol. X, Leyden/Brussels 1973, pp. 71-72, cat. no. 29, reproduced plate 19. The portrait can be dated to after 1516 on account of Wassenaer wearing the Order of the Golden Fleece, which he received in 1516. That Wassenaer was dead by 1523 provides a neat terminus ante quem for its execution.
2. See Friedländer 1973, p. 72, cat. no. 32, reproduced plate 21.
3. See Friedländer 1973, p. 71, cat. no. 76, reproduced plate 18.