A portrait of a man by Michiel van Musscher

The portrait of a man held at Aulteribe, signed and dated 1692, is characteristic of the style of the painter Michiel van Musscher, who is today better known for his genre paintings, but who was a great portraitist of^17th-century Holland – a genre that constitutes one of the major sources of the immense renown of Dutch painting during the Golden Age. Never before had an era produced so many portraits of individuals from all social classes, characterised by such powerful realism, great diversity and, above all, exceptional quality.

Ever since the northern provinces seceded (1579) and established themselves as an independent republic, numerous artists have migrated to the predominantly Protestant United Provinces from the ‘Spanish’ and Catholic Southern Netherlands. Amsterdam then became the hub of international trade, and this prosperity benefited the artists, as an art market that had already been highly developed in the previous century grew exponentially, thanks to private collectors keen to adorn their homes, display their wealth and have their portraits painted.

Michiel van Musscher was one of the painters working in Amsterdam whom a wealthy clientele commissioned to paint their portraits. The stylistic conventions are typical of the genre in the late^17th century, particularly in the treatment of the background: a garden at twilight adorned with almost ghostly statues features in many of his portraits. This compositional device is, moreover, reminiscent of that already used by one of his masters, the portraitist Abraham van den Tempel (1622–1672), as demonstrated by the portrait of a woman held at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. Other painters of the preceding generation, such as Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680), also employed this type of composition in portraiture (Portrait of a Man Holding a Hat, held at the Louvre).

What sets this portrait apart is its simplicity: there are no signs of material opulence, such as rich fabrics, nor even any reference to the world of literature or the arts. The man in Aulteribe’s portrait is simply wrapped in a purple cloak and points with his left hand—which bears two rings on the little finger— a curious garden in the background, adorned with classical as well as Egyptian statues, its palaces and water features, as if he were pointing to a mental rather than a material world. He is likely a scholar, no doubt well-versed in the study of Greco-Roman antiquity and Egypt. The overall composition is much simpler than in the portrait held at the Strasbourg Museum of Fine Arts or the portrait of the woman playing the lute held at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. It bears a closer resemblance to the Portrait of Maria Schaep, held at the Rijks , in which she poses with great simplicity in a garden.

Michiel van Musscher was born in Rotterdam and was initially trained by his grandfather, Jacob van Musscher. His training was subsequently eclectic: he studied under the history painter Martin Zaagmolen, then, from 1661, Abraham van den Tempel, before taking lessons in 1667 from the famous painter Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667), and subsequently from Adriaen van Ostade (1610–1685) in Haarlem in 1667. His biographer, Houbraken, reports that he moved to Amsterdam to work for Jonas Witsen, a wealthy art collector, who introduced him to his friends as a portrait painter.

He quickly became very popular with this clientele and attracted patrons from his own Mennonite community (he painted prominent former Mennonites such as Tobias van de Wijngaert and Galenus Abrahams). He painted portraits of various members of influential Amsterdam families and eventually attracted princely patrons, including the Frisian stadtholder Hendrik Casimir II (1605–1696). Among his most prestigious commissions were portraits of the Russian Tsar Peter the Great (1672–1725) and members of his entourage during their visit to the Dutch Republic in 1697.

Michiel van Musscher also benefited from an opening up of the portrait market in Amsterdam around 1670, when Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680) ceased painting and Bartholomeus van der Helst (1613–1670) died. His main rival, Nicolaes Maes (1634–1693), returned to Amsterdam in 1673. 

Thomas Da Costa Kauffmann, Flemish and Dutch Art, 1520–1914, Paris, Citadelles & Mazenod, 2002.

Robert E. Gerhardt, ‘The Van Musscher Family of Artists’,Oud Holland 120, nos. 1–2 (2007), pp. 107–29.

Arnold Houbraken,*Degroote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen* (Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague, 1753; reprint, Amsterdam, 1980), vol. 3, p. 210.