description

Adriaen Hanneman (1603 - 1671)

Oil on canvas: 32 x 26 in. (81.3 x 66 cm.)
Signed and dated upper left: ‘Ano, 1656, / Adr: Hanneman. F’

Provenance

Mrs. E. Gunn;
her sale, Christie’s London, 26 April 1912, lot 127; bt. by Shepherd
Knoedler & Co., London, by 1912;
Sotheby’s New York, 2 June 1989, lot 19;
Private collection, Greenwich, CT, USA.

Literature

C.H. Collins Baker, Lely and the Stuart Portrait Painters: A Study of English Portraiture before and after Van Dyck, London 1912, vol. I, p. 88 (illus.).
O. ter Kuile, Adriaen Hanneman 1604 – 1671: een haags portretschilder, p. 92, cat. no. 42 (illus. fig. 54).

Detail Description

This characterful portrait of an unknown officer in Dutch armour was painted in 1656, the same year as Hanneman’s renowned self-portrait, now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. In near-pristine state of preservation, it is a rare example of the artist’s signed work of the period, and is painted with the confidence and assured brush-work for which Hanneman was much sought after. The sitter’s resplendent curls and gathered collar reveal a man of fashion, as well as action. His armour, carefully rendered with strong highlights across the breast-plate and to the visor of his helmet (just visible in his left hand), are typical of Hanneman’s Van Dyckian style.