Portrait of a Gentleman Dated 169? ; Signed Arnold Boonen (1629-1729)

Oil on canvas in a fine gilt antique frame

It is not surprising that Arnold Boonen was one of the most sought-after portraitists of his generation. He was a prolific painter and well-regarded portraitist born in Dordrecht and active in Amsterdam from 1696 onward. The skill of the artist is immediately noticeable. The perfectly crafted face and the well observed hands are exemplary and the drapery painting, particularly the white lace cravat, is high quality and very refined. The painting ranks as one of the top examples of the artist’s work.

This portrait is signed A. Boonen and dated 169?. Boonen repeated this pose which was a common studio practice of the time. The format of a sitter with an arm by his side and the other on a stone plinth, and with a landscape in the background, was a pattern that Boonen used for his portrait of Johann Adolf von Plettenberg (c. 1656-1697) dated 1696, his portrait of Pieter Everwijn (1665-1723) dated 1695, his portrait of Nicolaas Calkoen (1666-1738), and at least four other male portraits.

Arnold Boonen was a painter and scholar. He studied under Arnoldus Verbuys when he was just 13 years of age and he was later a pupil of Godefridus Schalcken between 1683 to 1689. He had developed into a skilled portrait painter, and on a journey he made to Germany in 1694, he had a great success with his portraits and painted many patricians. He also stayed at the court in Darmstadt for four months, after which he returned to Dordrecht, to settle for Amsterdam in 1696, where he married Anna Maria Matthaeus in 1703 and soon became the most valued portrait painter. In 1710 he painted the Duke of Marlborough, in 1717 Russian Zsar Peter the Great, and in 1723 Prince Willem IV of Orange-Nassau. His portraits, which are accurate and uniform, were often engraved by his contemporaries and are also found in large numbers in private collections. He also painted genre scenes and so excelled with the strongly lit scenes that his master Schalcken was notorious for, that it was said that he could have attained an equal degree of excellence to that of his master had he exclusively pursued the same line of art, but the tempting profits of portraiture were too seductive and he devoted so large a portion of time to that branch that he had little left for the study of other subjects.

Boonen's work can be found in the collection of a large number of museums, including the Rijksmuseum, the Dordrecht Museum and the Frans Hals Museum. The artist’s work has achieved up to $117,795 at auction.

Provenance: Charles Burrow Esquire as per label on verso, then Private UK collection

Measurements: Height 63cm, Width 54cm framed (Height 24.75”, Width 21.25” framed)

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