Portrait of Sebastiaen Cornelis Nederburgh (1762-1822), small half length, wearing dark blue costume with lace chemise, in a painted oval

The original pastel, signed and dated 1790, was sold in the James de Fremery Sale, San Francisco, 9 March 1931 (A.C.A.W. Van der Feltz, Charles Howard Hodges, 1983, p.217, N0 376, ill). Two other copies are known, The first, dated 1862, by Cornelis de Cocq, is in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam (P.J.J. van Thiel, All the paintings of the Rijksmuseum, 1976, p.718, n0A3786, ill.). The copy by Raden Saleh (1814-1880) was destroyed by fire, and is recorded in the picture by an unknown hand of circa 1931, in a private collection (photograph in the Iconographisch Bureau, The Hague).
The sitter was the son of Herman Nederburgh (1726-1802) and Dina Adriana Nederburgh, neé Spruyt (1739-1788). He married Elisabeth Geertruy Scheltius in 1787. In 1791 he became Governor General of the Dutch East Indies. He returned to the Netherlands in 1799, where he became member of Asiatic Council, Director of Public Funds and a member of the State Council.