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Lot Essay
This engaging portrait of a young boy playing golf, which Judith van Gent (op. cit.) dates to circa 1658-59, was executed towards the end of the decade in which Bartholomeus van der Helst established his reputation as the leading portrait painter in Amsterdam, and in which he superseded Rembrandt as the portraitist of choice amongst the city’s regent and merchant elite. He owed his popularity to the prevailing taste for elegance and refinement of technique and this portrait serves as a fine example of why Van der Helst had risen to this position of pre-eminence. This period can be seen to represent a highpoint in the artist’s career and from these years come some of his most celebrated works: The Regents of Kloviersdoelen (Amsterdam Historisches Museum) and the Self Portrait (Ohio, Toledo Museum of Art), both painted in 1655, and the two double portraits, Abraham del Court and his Wife (Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam) and Jochem van Aras and his Wife (Wallace Collection, London), from 1654.
The present work shows a young boy in an open coastal landscape and is a comparatively rare representation of the game of kolf, an early form of golf. The sitter, dressed in a blue gown with white leading-strains at the shoulders and a large plumed hat was traditionally identified as a young girl, however, customary children’s dress in 17th-century Holland dictated that boys below the age of six wore gowns, before they were ‘breached’ between the ages of six and eight. The sitter holds a gold-tasseled kolf stick in his hands and looks up towards the viewer as he prepares to hit the ball before him. The game of kolf was popular across the Low Countries from the 14th century onwards and was depicted numerous times in the 17th century, featuring regularly in winter landscapes by artists like Hendrick Avercamp. It appears to have been a popular childhood activity, and several portraits dating to the 1610s and 1620s show formally dressed children holding kolf clubs. A particularly charming example of its popularity among children is Pieter de Hooch’s 1658 The Golf Players (National Trust, Polesdan Lacey, Surrey) where a young girl is shown standing in a doorway, a kolf stick in her hand, as her brother waits to continue playing outside.
The present work shows a young boy in an open coastal landscape and is a comparatively rare representation of the game of kolf, an early form of golf. The sitter, dressed in a blue gown with white leading-strains at the shoulders and a large plumed hat was traditionally identified as a young girl, however, customary children’s dress in 17th-century Holland dictated that boys below the age of six wore gowns, before they were ‘breached’ between the ages of six and eight. The sitter holds a gold-tasseled kolf stick in his hands and looks up towards the viewer as he prepares to hit the ball before him. The game of kolf was popular across the Low Countries from the 14th century onwards and was depicted numerous times in the 17th century, featuring regularly in winter landscapes by artists like Hendrick Avercamp. It appears to have been a popular childhood activity, and several portraits dating to the 1610s and 1620s show formally dressed children holding kolf clubs. A particularly charming example of its popularity among children is Pieter de Hooch’s 1658 The Golf Players (National Trust, Polesdan Lacey, Surrey) where a young girl is shown standing in a doorway, a kolf stick in her hand, as her brother waits to continue playing outside.