Constantijn Huygens and his Clerk

portrait

Thomas de Keyser lived and worked in Amsterdam and from the diary of the sitter, Constantijn Huygens, we know that Huygens was in Amsterdam between 22 February and 27 April 1627, the year on this portrait. It may well be 'my portrait painted shortly before my wedding' (which took place on 6 April 1627) about which Huygens wrote some Latin verses: he was then thirty-one. Two years earlier Huygens, who had previously been at the Dutch embassies in Venice and London, was appointed secretary to the Stadholder Prince Frederick Hendrick of Orange.

Loading map…

About the Artist

Thomas de Keyser

1596 – 1667

Son and pupil of Hendrick de Keyser (1565-1621), the outstanding Dutch sculptor, Thomas de Keyser was municipal architect to the City of Amsterdam from 1662 until his death (he added the cupola to van Campen's Town Hall), but he is better known as a portrait painter. He was indeed, Amsterdam's leading portraitist before being overtaken in popularity by Rembrandt in the 1630s. His life-size portraits look stiff compared with Rembrandt's and he is more attractive and original on a small scale. Constantin Huygens and His Clerk (National Gallery, London, 1627) is an excellent example of one of his small portraits of full-length figures in an interior, forerunners of the conversation pieces. His small equestrian portraits were also a new type ( Pieter Schout, Rijksmuseum, 1660).

View all works →