REMBRANDT VAN RIJN, 1606–1669
1674 Portrait of Jacob Trip

Neil MacLaren, revised and expanded by Christopher Brown, 1991

Extracted from:
Neil MacLaren; revised and expanded by Christopher Brown, The Dutch School 1600–1900 (London: National Gallery Publications Limited, 1991).

Plate 291

Signed on the right, a little above the level of the sitter’s left hand: Rembr (interrupted by the present edge of the canvas). The signature is fully visible only in ultra‐violet light but is apparently genuine.

Oil on canvas, 130.5 × 97 (51⅜ × 38¼).

Cleaned in 1956.

The truncated signature at the right edge and the lack of cusping indicate that the canvas has certainly been cut down on the right, possibly by about 5 cm. The partial cusping at the top and bottom, visible in the X‐radiograph, suggests that these edges have also been trimmed, but not by so much. Allowing for turnovers, the original width of the canvas could well have corresponded with the standard 1½ ell (1.05 m.) measurement.

PENTIMENTI: There are two principal pentimenti. His right hand has been moved to a lower position: the earlier, slightly higher hand can be seen clearly on the picture surface and the X‐radiograph suggests that it may have been holding his stick at this stage. Secondly, the deep, high‐backed winged chair in which Trip now sits was not part of the original design. The X‐radiograph shows a quite different arrangement: Trip originally sat forward on a much simpler round‐backed chair and was silhouetted against a light background.

The canvas is prepared with a double ground comprising a coarse‐textured lower layer of orange‐red earth pigment, covered by an upper layer of dull khaki. Both layers are heterogeneous, with silica particles and small quantities of red lake pigment in addition to the main ochreous component in the lower, and a mixture of coarse lead white, chalk, yellow ochre, umber and charcoal in the upper ground. It seems likely that the grounds of this portrait and its companion (No. 1675) were applied in Rembrandt’s studio rather than that the canvases were obtained ready grounded.¹

Discussion

Jacob Jacobsz. Trip, merchant of Dordrecht, was born in 1575 in Zaltbommel (Gelderland). He settled when young in Dordrecht; in 1603 he married Margaretha de Geer (see No. 1675 below). His brother, Elias, was associated in business with their brother‐in‐law, Louis de Geer, one of the greatest iron‐masters and armament manufacturers of the time, and after 1626 Jacob also took a part in their transactions. He was buried in Dordrecht, 8 May 1661. Two of his sons, Louis and Hendrick, also dealt in armaments; the palatial Trippenhuis in Amsterdam was built for them in 1660–2.²

The sitters in this and the companion picture (No. 1675) were identified by Hofstede de Groot.³ The same man and woman are depicted at various ages in a series of likenesses by different painters; their identity is established by a pair of portraits by Jacob Gerritsz. Cuyp which came from the de Geer family.

Besides the present picture at least seven portraits of Jacob Trip are known: two by Jacob Gerritsz. Cuyp (dated 1649 [Fig. 82] and 1651),⁴ one by Aelbert Cuyp (dated [page 1.351]1652)⁵ and four by or after Nicolaes Maes (one datable 1659 or 1660).⁶ Of Margaretha de Geer there are three portraits by J. G. Cuyp, two by Maes and two by (or attributed to) Rembrandt (see Nos. 1675 and 5282 below). De Groot has suggested in explanation of the unusual number of portraits that they were destined for the sitters’ children; Jacob and Margaretha had twelve or more, of whom at least five were still alive in 1660–1.⁷ Judging by the style, a date of c. 1661 seems most likely for Rembrandt’s portrait of Jacob Trip. It is unclear whether or not it was begun before Trip’s death in May 1661 (see below).

Trip and his wife spent their lives in Dordrecht but it seems more likely that Rembrandt painted them when they were visiting Amsterdam, where their sons Louis and Hendrick were then living, than that he went to Dordrecht. Rembrandt had had an earlier contact with the Trip family, having painted in 1639 Alotte Adriaensdr., the widow of Jacob’s brother Elias,⁸ and her daughter, Maria Trip.⁹

Dudok van Heel¹⁰ has argued that it is likely that Nos. 1674 and 1675 were commissioned by the sitters’ son, Hendrick Trip, in order to hang in the Trippenhuis. Miss van Eeghen¹¹ has concurred and added the supposition that the portrait of Jacob Trip may have been painted from a prototype rather than from the life. The likely prototype would have been the portrait of 1649 by J. G. Cuyp.

COPY: A half‐length copy (omitting the stick) was in the J. H. A. Duynstee collection, Delft, 1909.¹²

PROVENANCE: This picture and the companion portrait of Margaretha de Geer (No. 1675 below) are said to have belonged to the Lee family in the eighteenth century.¹³ In any case, by 1837 they were in the collection of Sir William Fowle Middleton‐Fowle, 2nd Bart., who inherited Lee family property,¹⁴ and were lent by him in that year to the BI and again in 1858. They passed by inheritance to his nephew, Sir George Nathaniel Broke‐Middleton, Bart., and thence in 1887 to his great‐niece, Lady de Saumarez, from whom they were purchased in 1899 (with the aid of gifts from J. P. Heseltine and Alfred C. de Rothschild).

EXHIBITIONS: BI 1837 , No. 73;¹⁵ BI 1858 , No. 100;¹⁶ London 1976, No. 94; London 1988‐9, No. 16.

REFERENCES:

General: Smith Supplement No. 6; Moes No. 8068; Bode and HdG , vol. 7, No. 512; HdG No. 393; Bauch No. 429; Bredius, Rembrandt, No. 314.

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