JOHANNES CORNELISZ. VERSPRONCK (HAARLEM 1600-1662)

Following in the tradition of the swagger portrait, Verspronck here places his sitter in a twisting pose reminiscent of Frans Hals’ 1645 Portrait of Willem Coymans (Washington, National Gallery of Art), sharing elements of respectable Dutch attire, such as the wide-brimmed black hat and flat lace collar. Yet Verspronck rarely tried to emulate Hals' loose brushwork, favouring a far smoother, more illusionistic application of paint than the artist, his main rival for portrait commissions in Haarlem. Verspronck first studied with his father, the painter Cornelis Engelsz. (1575-1650), and may also have spent time in Hals' studio before entering the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke in 1632. His work from the 1630s clearly showed Hals’ influence in his sitter’s poses, which displayed a jauntiness that countered the sombre hues of contemporary fashion. As was usual in Dutch dress of this period, the overall intended impression here was one of luxury, with the foreshortening of the figure’s arms frequently used by the artist to conform to a desired silhouette rather than anatomical correctness. Rudi Ekkart dated the present work to circa 1643-45 (op. cit.), during Verspronck’s most prolific period, with the design similar to his Portrait of a Man of 1645 (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art) and Portrait of a Man dated 1643 (Boston, Museum of Fine Arts).