Lot Essay
This unpublished portrait has only recently come to light. Flincks signature and the date 164. (last figure illegible) are clearly visible centre right and are to be considered as original. B. Renckens who knew only a photograph of the picture, considered it as perhaps the work of A. Camararius (annotation on the card in the Stichting Iconographisch Bureau, when the picture was wrongly thought to be in the collection of Louis Vollon, Brussels, 1921)
Professor Werner Sumowski has accepted the present attribution on the basis of a transparency and will publish it in the forthcoming volume of his Gemälde der Rembrandt Schüler - Band VI, Nachträge.
Recorded by J.E. Elias, De Vroedschap van Amsterdam 1578-1795, 1903, I, pp. 916 and 1273 and II, p. 149, the sitter was born in Lübeck, the son of Dietrich Kerckrinck and Catharina van Hövel. He came to Amsterdam and set up a company, Dirck van Offenberck's Wed. en Godert Kerckrinck, later called Godert Kerckrinck en Comp.ie to trade with Italy. In 1603 Godert married Cornelia Hessels and bought the house on the Keizersgracht 'In Surich', opposite the Westermarkt. After Godert's death the business was carried on by his son Dirck and later his grandson, also called Dirck. The latter's portrait by Bol is now in the Kunsthalle, Hamburg (see Katalog der alten Meister der Hamburger Kunsthalle, 1966, p. 33, inv.no. 229, with ill.) A pen and ink drawing after the present portrait, in a feigned sculpted niche inscribed with the name of the sitter was offered at the sale at R.W.P. de Vries Amsterdam, February 1909. An almost identical drawing with the portrait of Godert's son Dirck was offered in the same sale and is now in the Albertina. This would suggest that Flinck perhaps painted Dirck's portrait at the same time. The style of the present portrait is consistent with that of portraits by Flinck at the end of the 1640's, compare for instance the Portrait of a Man, said to be Johan Wttenbogaert in the Rijksmuseum (W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt Schüler, II, 1983, p. 1131, fig. 699)
See colour illustration
Professor Werner Sumowski has accepted the present attribution on the basis of a transparency and will publish it in the forthcoming volume of his Gemälde der Rembrandt Schüler - Band VI, Nachträge.
Recorded by J.E. Elias, De Vroedschap van Amsterdam 1578-1795, 1903, I, pp. 916 and 1273 and II, p. 149, the sitter was born in Lübeck, the son of Dietrich Kerckrinck and Catharina van Hövel. He came to Amsterdam and set up a company, Dirck van Offenberck's Wed. en Godert Kerckrinck, later called Godert Kerckrinck en Comp.ie to trade with Italy. In 1603 Godert married Cornelia Hessels and bought the house on the Keizersgracht 'In Surich', opposite the Westermarkt. After Godert's death the business was carried on by his son Dirck and later his grandson, also called Dirck. The latter's portrait by Bol is now in the Kunsthalle, Hamburg (see Katalog der alten Meister der Hamburger Kunsthalle, 1966, p. 33, inv.no. 229, with ill.) A pen and ink drawing after the present portrait, in a feigned sculpted niche inscribed with the name of the sitter was offered at the sale at R.W.P. de Vries Amsterdam, February 1909. An almost identical drawing with the portrait of Godert's son Dirck was offered in the same sale and is now in the Albertina. This would suggest that Flinck perhaps painted Dirck's portrait at the same time. The style of the present portrait is consistent with that of portraits by Flinck at the end of the 1640's, compare for instance the Portrait of a Man, said to be Johan Wttenbogaert in the Rijksmuseum (W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt Schüler, II, 1983, p. 1131, fig. 699)
See colour illustration