Jan Lievens, 'Self Portrait', early 1650s

Self Portrait

Jan Lievens

Not on display

About the work

Overview

There is a swagger, even an arrogance, in the bearing of this man who meets our eye so directly and seems so at ease with himself. This is a self portrait, and going by what his contemporaries said about the artist – Jan Lievens – we shouldn’t be surprised at his self-confident air. An English ambassador, Sir Robert Kerr, wrote a letter describing him: ‘he thinks there is none to be compared with him in all Germany, Holland, nor the rest of the 17 Provinces [of the Low Countries].’

Lievens' dress is that of a man of wealth and fashion, and the landscape behind suggests the formal grounds of a country estate. The aristocracy were among his most important customers: he was demonstrating that he could paint them in a suitable style. But the confidence of his pose suggests that he may have considered himself their social equal too.

In-depth

There is a swagger, even an arrogance, in the bearing of this man who meets our eye so directly and seems so at ease with himself. This is an undated self portrait, and going by what his contemporaries said about the artist – Jan Lievens – we shouldn’t be surprised at his self-confident air. In the 1650s, when he was painting a portrait of Sir Robert Kerr, the English ambassador, Kerr wrote a letter describing him: ‘he thinks there is none to be compared with him in all Germany, Holland, nor the rest of the 17 Provinces [of the Low Countries].’

Lievens‘ confidence isn’t just apparent in his bearing. His dress is that of a man of wealth and fashion. The padded silk gown (known as a japonse rock) was expensive and probably imported from Japan. The gown and billowing shirt, sleeves tied back with wide black ribbons, first came into fashion in the early to mid-1650s, which was also the time that gentlemen started to wear their hair long and loose, as Lievens does here. That date also fits with the style adopted by Lievens for the landscape in the background.

This portrait in particular reflects how Lievens’ style, once close to that of Rembrandt, had changed after he was exposed to other influences. From 1635 to 1643 he worked with Flemish artists in Antwerp. And before that, in the early 1630s, he was in London, painting at the court of Charles I, where he met Anthony van Dyck. In fact we know that this is a self portrait in part because the face and features closely resemble a painting Van Dyck made of him in London about 1632 (now lost, but known through an engraving after it).

His chosen dress is interesting in this context. In the seventeenth century self portraits were a way for artists to demonstrate their skills to potential clients, but they were also a way of claiming higher social and artistic status. Rembrandt tended to do this by posing in antique-style clothes, aligning himself with the great Italian painters of a century and more earlier. But Lievens’ experience working with the dashing Van Dyck at the English court made him far more interested in emulating the aristocracy’s latest fashions, and also providing them with a more impressive setting than, for example, the shadowy brown background favoured by Rembrandt. The landscape behind Lievens – which unusually appears to be a moonlit rather than a day-time scene – includes a long avenue suggesting the formal grounds of a country estate. The aristocracy were, after all, among his most important customers, and he needed to be able to paint them in a suitable style. But the confidence of his pose suggests that he may have considered himself their social equal too.

Key facts

Details

Full title: Self Portrait
Artist: Jan Lievens
Artist dates: 1607 - 1674
Date made: early 1650s
Medium and support: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 96.2 × 77 cm
Inscription summary: Signed
Acquisition credit: Presented by Charles Fairfax Murray, 1912
Inventory number: NG2864
Location: Not on display
Collection: Main Collection
Previous owners: Charles Fairfax Murray
Frame: 17th-century Dutch Frame

Provenance

A self portrait of Lievens was in the inventory of Susanna van Sonnervelt, widow of Simon Middelgeest, The Hague, 1696; a Portrait of Jan Lievens was in the Salomon Arensklauw [and Cornelis Troost’s] sale, Amsterdam, 16 March 1750 (lot 102). The National Gallery picture has been identified with a Portrait of a Man by Lievens in the Baron de Banckheim sale, Paris, 12 April 1747 (lot 103), but there seems to be no particular reason for connecting them. No. 2864 belonged to Aert Schouman (1710–92), The Hague, and was presented by him, 25 April 1792, to The Hague painters’ confraternity, Pictura, of which Schouman had been dean. It was in the possession of Gooden, London, in 1896, and afterwards in the collection of Charles Fairfax Murray, London, by whom it was presented in 1912.

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.

Exhibition history

2008

Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered

National Gallery of Art (Washington DC)

26 October 2008 - 11 January 2009

Milwaukee Art Museum

7 February 2009 - 26 April 2009

Museum Het Rembrandthuis

17 May 2009 - 9 August 2009
2020

Rembrandt’s Orient. West Meets East in Dutch Art of the Seventeenth-Century

Kunstmuseum Basel

31 October 2020 - 14 February 2021

Museum Barberini

13 March 2021 - 18 July 2021

Bibliography

1877

F.D.O. Obreen, Archief voor nederlandsche Kunstgeschiedenis, 7 vols, Rotterdam 1877
1901

A. Bredius, 'Extract uit de notulen der confrerie van pictura te 's-Gravenhage, gehouden door Pieter Terwesten', Oud Holland, XIX, 1901, pp. 169-92
1932

H. Schneider, Jan Lievens: Sein Leben und seine Werke, Haarlem 1932
1960

Maclaren, Neil, National Gallery Catalogues: The Dutch School, 2 vols, London 1960
1963

H. van Hall, Portretten van Nederlandse beeldende kunstenaars, Amsterdam 1963
1988

S. Alpers, Rembrandt's Enterprise: The Studio and the Market, London 1988
1990

H.P. Chapman, Rembrandt's Self-Portraits: A Study in Seventeenth-Century Identity, Princeton 1990
1990

J.W. Salomonson, 'A Self-Portrait by Michiel van Mierevelt: The History, Subject and Context of a Forgotten Painting', Simiolus, XX/4, 1990, pp. 240-86
1991

Maclaren, Neil, revised by Christopher Brown, National Gallery Catalogues: The Dutch School, 1600-1900, 2nd edn (revised and expanded), 2 vols, London 1991
1994

R. White and J. Kirby, 'Rembrandt and his Circle: Seventeenth-Century Dutch Paint Media Re-Examined', National Gallery Technical Bulletin, XV, 1994, pp. 64-78
1994

X. Brooke, Face to Face: Three Centuries of Artists' Self-Portraiture (exh. cat. Walker Art Gallery, 28 October 1994 - 8 January 1995), Liverpool 1994
1998

J. Garff, 'Mr. Lievens, I Presume": On Some Hitherto Unnamed Portraits by Rembrandt', Statens Museum for Kunst journal, II, 1998, pp. 66-85
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.

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Jan Lievens, 'Self Portrait', early 1650s

About the work

Overview

In-depth

Key facts

Details

Provenance

Additional information

Source

Exhibition history

Bibliography

About this record

Images

More works by Jan Lievens