Samuel van Hoogstraten

Inventory, 1749, in the hall;

Catalogue of Portraits, 1920, no. 20;

A. Bolton, ‘Mersham le Hatch’, Country Life, 26 March 1921, photographed in the dining room, p. 371;

A. Tipping, English Homes, Late Georgian, 1760-1820, London 1926, in situ, p. 131; 

C. Hussey, English Country Houses, Mid Georgian 1760-1800, London 1984, in situ, p. 102;

H. Knatchbull-Hugessen, Kentish Family, London 1960, p. 56, reproduced opposite p. 17;

E. Waterhouse, The Dictionary of 16th and 17th Century British Portraiture, Woodbridge 1988, p. 131;

W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, Landau/Pfalz 1983, vol. II, p. 1299, cat. no. 865, reproduced p. 1348;

M. Roscam Abbing, 'Jan van Hoogstraten: Leerling van Rembrandt,' in Kroniek van het Rembrandthuis, 41, no. 1, 1989, cat. no. 31;

C. Brusati, Artifice & Illusion. The art and writing of Samuel van Hoogstraten, Chicago & London 1995, pp. 97-98, 350, cat. no. 21, reproduced p. 101, fig. 63.

This is Hoogstraten's most significant portrait painted in England. Indeed Sir Norton would appear to one of the artist's most important patrons. He not only commissioned this commanding full length but also a three-quarter length of his son Thomas (later 3rd Bt.)¹ as well as "a large picture of a Painter Hoogstraten & his wife" and "One large Perspective Piece" both recorded in the inventory of Mersham Le Hatch taken in 1749. The latter was presumably a trompe l'œil like that commissioned by Thomas Povey which is now at Dyrham Park (National Trust).²

The sitter was the eldest son of Thomas Knatchbull of Maidstone (see lot 104) and his wife Eleanor, daughter of John Astley. Educated at Eton and St. John's College, Cambridge, he entered the Middle Temple in 1624. In 1636 he succeeded to the estates of his uncle, Sir Norton Knatchbull (see lot 105). In 1639 he was elected M.P. for New Romney and made a baronet in 1641. Though originally an opponent of Charles I, he was fined by the House of Commons for neglecting his services to the house, and by his delay in taking the Covenant he showed his distaste for militant Presbyterianism. He was a noted scholar with a substantial library and his Animadversiones in libros novi testamenti, published in 1659, was much admired and reprinted both in England and on the Continent. Evelyn, who visited Sir Thomas Scott of Scott’s Hall in 1663, mention Sir Norton as ‘a worthy person and learned critic, especially in Greek and Latin’. In 1660 Sir Norton was re-elected with his son to New Romney on condition that they both became freemen of the borough. He was elected again in 1661 and continued to be active in the Cavalier Parliament. He served on thirty-three committees, including the committee set up to amend habeas corpus. In 1673 he served on the committee to prevent abuses at elections. From 1660-80 he was commissioner for assessment in Kent, took responsibility for Denge and Walland marshes in Kent in 1660, and he was commissioner for recusants in 1675. By his first wife, Dorothy, daughter of Thomas Westrow, Grocer of London, whom he married in 1630, he had three sons and ten daughters. In 1662 he married Dorothy, daughter of his neighbour Sir Robert Honywood of Charing in Kent, and widow of Sir Edward Steward.

Samuel van Hoogstraten was a pupil of Rembrandt, and worked in England between 1662 and 1667. This is a rare example of his English period portraiture.

¹ https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/119894

² https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/a-view-through-a-house-99855