G. Donck, 'Portrait of Jan van Hensbeeck, his Wife and a Child', probably 1630s
About the work
Overview
Donck, whose signature is below the stump in the foreground, left almost no trace in the historical records. We don‘t even know his first name, only that he signed several small genre and portrait paintings between 1627 and 1640 and that he may have worked in Amsterdam.
The sitters here were named in 1891 but the evidence for this identification is lost. If it is van Hensbeeck and Koeck we know little about them, except that van Hensbeeck bought two houses in Utrecht in 1648. There’s a deathbed portrait of Koeck Claesdr, dated 1679, by Christiaan Jansz. Dusart.
All three sitters wear expensive fabrics and the husband appears to be gesturing proprietorially to his estates. The basket of grapes may be a biblical reference to the women’s fertility: ’Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine...' (Psalm 128: 3). The cathedral in the far distance maybe the Dom of Utrecht before the nave collapsed in 1674.
Key facts
Details
- Full title
- A Family Group (Jan van Hensbeeck and his Wife, Maria Koeck, and a Child ?)
- Artist
- G. Donck
- Artist dates
- active 1627 - 1640
- Date made
- probably 1630s
- Medium and support
- oil on wood
- Dimensions
- 76 × 106.2 cm
- Inscription summary
- Signed
- Acquisition credit
- Bought, 1890
- Inventory number
- NG1305
- Location
- Not on display
- Collection
- Main Collection
Provenance
Additional information
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Neil MacLaren, revised and expanded by Christopher Brown, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Dutch School: 1600–1900’, London 1991; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
Bibliography
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1891National Gallery, Abridged Catalogue of the Pictures in the National Gallery: With Short Biographical Notices of the Painters: Foreign Schools, London 1891
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1960Maclaren, Neil, National Gallery Catalogues: The Dutch School, 2 vols, London 1960
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1974E. de Jongh, 'Grape Symbolism in Paintings of the 16th and 17th Centuries', Simiolus, VII, 1974, pp. 166-91
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1982D.R. Smith, 'Rembrandt's Early Double Portraits and the Dutch Conversation Piece', Art Bulletin, LXIV/2, 1982, pp. 259-88
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1986E. de Jongh, Portretten van echt en trouw. Huwelijk en gezin in de Nederlandse kunst van de zeventiende eeuw (exh. cat. Frans Hals Museum, 15 February - 13 April 1986), Haarlem 1986
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1987J.B. Bedaux, 'Fruit and Fertility: Fruit Symbolism in Netherlandish Portraiture of the 16th and 17th Centuries', Simiolus, XVII, 1987, pp. 150-68
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1991Maclaren, Neil, revised by Christopher Brown, National Gallery Catalogues: The Dutch School, 1600-1900, 2nd edn (revised and expanded), 2 vols, London 1991
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2001
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
About this record
If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.