Portrait of a Gentleman from the Van Beijeren van Schagen Family (Johan van Beijeren van Schagen)?
1610 - 1615. Oil on canvas.Not on display
Like the Portrait of a Lady of the Van Beijeren van Schagen Family (P2976), this portrait is a representative example of Mierevelt`s work in this genre. The support is also constructed in the same way, and is typical of this artist`s portraits.
In the Baron van Aerssen Beijeren collection the picture is listed as a portrait of Willem van Beijeren van Schagen (1517-1548) and as pendant to the Portrait of a Lady of the van Beijeren van Schagen Family. This identification, which also appears in the Museo del Prado catalogue of 1996, was based on the coat of arms of the Van Beijeren family that appears in the upper left part of the picture. However, analysis of the micro-samples taken from the coat of arms reveals an intermediate yellowish brown layer between the original black background and the red of the emblem. This would suggest it was painted in at a later date.
Hernández Díaz (1934) claims it is dated 1620, although this inscription is not visible today. Nevertheless, the sitter`s wide white, unstarched ruff with large flutes is in keeping with the fashion in vogue around 1600-10. It appears in at least two other Mierevelt portraits, Paulus van Bersteyn, dated 1612 (Lisse, Kasteel Keukenhof) and Portrait of a Man, from around 1615 (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. C12). Furthermore, the recording of the name michhiel with two h`s and the formation of the letters d and b in the inscription on the back also fit with this date. All of this, together with the apparent age of the model, would suggest that this is a portrait of Johan van Beijeren van Schagen (1544-1618), son of Willem van Beijeren van Schagen and Elisabeth van Bronkhorst. His son, Albrecht van Beijeren van Schagen, married Theodora van Duvenvoorde, who may well be the model in the previous portrait (Posada Kubissa, T.: Pintura holandesa en el Museo Nacional del Prado. Catálogo razonado, 2009, p. 306).
