Lot 10: Portrait of Adriaen de Kies van Wiessen (1582-1664), three-quarter-length, in a black doublet with a white lace ruff, standing by a table; and Portrait of Justina van Teylingen (1596-1643), wife of Adriaen de Kies van Wissen,

Cornelis van der Voort (?Antwerp 1576-1624 Amsterdam) Portrait of Adriaen de Kies van Wiessen (1582-1664), three-quarter-length, in a black doublet with a white lace ruff, standing by a table; and Portrait of Justina van Teylingen (1596-1643), wife of Adriaen de Kies van Wissen, three-quarter-length, in a black dress with gold brocade, a gold chain around her waist the first inscribed and dated 'AEtatis. Sua. 33. Ano dni. i616.' (upper right) and with coats-of-arms (upper left and right); the second inscribed and dated 'AEtatis. Sua. 20. Ano dni. i616' (upper left) and with coats-of-arms (upper left and right) oil on panel 45¼ x 33 1/8 in. (114.9 x 84.2 cm.) a pair (2)

The Hague, Schilderkundig Genootschap Pulchri Studio, Catalogue de la Collection Goudstikker d'Amsterdam, November 1920, nos. 126-7.

Both pictures:
Arnod Willem, baron van Brienen van de Groote (1783-1854), 182 Herengracht, Amsterdam.
Marquis de la Rochebrune, Paris; Hôtel Drouot, 5-8 May 1873 [=1st day], lots 196 and 197 (Fr 1,120 and 1,100 to Sedelmeyer and Gouchez respectively).
Portrait of Adriaen de Kies van Wiessen:
with Charles Sedelmeyer, Paris
Portrait of Justina van Teylingen, wife of the above:
Prince Paul Galitzin, Paris and St. Petersburg; Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 10 March 1875, lot 59 (Fr 420).
August Janssen, Amsterdam.
Begeer-de Ridder.
Both pictures:
with Jacques Goudstikker, Amsterdam, by 1920.
Looted by the Nazi authorities, July 1940.
Recovered by the Allies, 1945.
in the custody of the Dutch Governement.
Restituted in February 2006 to the heir of Jacques Goudstikker.

Cornelis van der Voort was one of the best portraitists in Amsterdam during the first two decades of the seventeenth century. He painted prominent members of the aristocracy and wealthy merchant classes and helped to establish a portrait type that has come to characterize the genre during the first half of the seventeenth century. Van der Voort's portraits are formal images of sitters self-consciously posed and overtly displaying the details of their dress that indicate status.

Following established portrait conventions, Adriaen de Kies van Wissen and Justina van Teylingen face one another while looking out at the viewer, the wife to the right of her husband. These portraits, dated 1616, were most likely painted to commemorate their marriage in Amsterdam in January 1613 and the coats of arms of both families are prominently displayed. Justina wears an elaborately brocaded dress of the type popular in the early seventeenth century and her hands held at her sides display her jewellery. Both wear fashionable stiff white ruffs and van der Voort uses the contrast between the stark white and the dark background to frame the sitters' faces. In these portraits it is details such as jewellery and the book upon which Adriaen rests his hand that speak to the sitter's individuality, much more so than facial expression or the kind of movement within the picture plane that Rembrandt introduced in the mid 1630s. Like early photographic portraits, these sitters appear to be very still, aware of being watched, rendered, and recorded for posterity.

Van der Voort was born in Antwerp but spent his career in Amsterdam and lived there until his death in 1624. He may have studied with Cornelis Ketel (1548-1616) and among his students were David Bailly and Pieter Luyx. There is some indication that he came from a family of painters as the Utrecht lawyer, Arnold Buchelius, recorded a visit in 1620 to the Amsterdam studio of Cornelis and Abraham van der Voort. This document helped establish van der Voort's identity in 1888; many of his works before that time had been given to artists such as Thomas de Keyser and Nicolaes Eliasz., also known as Pickenoy.

The present pair of portraits can boast a distinguished provenance: we can trace them back to Baron Arnold Willem van Brienen (fig.1), a wealthy Dutch businessman and politician whose collection included 64 paintings by the 17th-century masters. His home at Herengracht 182 in Amsterdam included a special gallery that was open to the public. From there they passed into the collection of the Marquis de la Rochebrune in France, where they were sold in his sale on 5-8 May 1873 at Hotel Drouot in Paris, at which point the pair went to separate purchasers. The Portrait of Justina van Teylingen later entered the collection of Prince Paul Galitzin, a member of one of the largest and most noble houses of Russia. Since the extinction of the Korecki family some time in the 17th century, the Galitzin (or Golitsyn) family has claimed dynastic seniority in the House of Gediminas, monarchs of medieval Lithuania who reigned from the 13th to 16th century. Prince Pauls collection was sold at Hotel Drouot on 19 March 1879.