Olifiers Family Antique Portraits for Interest:
The touring portrait-painter Rienk Jelgerhuis (1729-1806)
They went to Amsterdam in 1735, where the father worked as a jeweller.
It was probably already there that Rienk’s
predilection for drawing and engraving
started. After his father’s death in 1745, the family returned to
Leeuwarden.
Rienk married in 1754 and tried to earn a living out of drawing and
painting,
a.o. by teaching, as the advertisements in the Leeuwarder Courant (for
example
the one of December 9, 1769) show. Besides portraits, he also painted
mantelpieces, wallpaper and “dessus-de porte”, a.o. for the council
chamber at
the Frisian capital. He also started a factory for colouring cotton and
linen
yarns, but this business was unsuccessful.
A treatise about the improvement of barrels, furnaces
and ovens “for heating-up
or cooking of liquids” was more successful and even awarded with gold
by the
Batavian Society at Rotterdam in 1774. Jelgerhuis corrected a
publication of
Caspar Philip Jacobszn. about perspective. According to a professor from
Franeker, he even was the first painter who discovered that objects
cann’t be
painted well, unless they are placed at the same distance from the
spectator as
their own size.
He also applied himself to the art of engraving, but
noth with very good
results, as may be concluded from the (on 22 sheets) executed work
“Precise
picture of the Corpse-Station of Her Severe Highness Maria Louisa van
Hessen-
Kassel, dowager of Johan Willem Friso, accomplished at Leeuwarden on
the 13th of
the weed-month 1765”.
Rienk Jelgerhuis left Leeuwarden, with his wife and 3
children, in 1772 and
lived at Amsterdam (1772), Rotterdam (where he was admitted to the
Remonstrant
Fraternity on the 16th of July 1777), Delft and Kampen and finally died
at
Amsterdam in 1806.
As a skilful but still second-rate portraitist he had
to travel a lot to acquire
enough assignments. This was especially the case during the summers
when he
usually was away from home for several months. He worked fast and often
made 2
portraites on one day. His clientele mainly consisted of the upper
middle-class
from the provincial towns: lawyers, merchants, manufacturers and
preachers.
Almost all of this models are portrayed at full-lenght, often seated at
a table
in an usually very sketchy reproduced interior. Some of the models are
pictured
standing up, or sitting on a garden-seat in a landscape.
In the interiors of the men’s portraits, the table
usually is covered with a
blue tablecloth, whereas the women in their long dresses are often
seated at an
uncovered table. On the family portraits there are sometimes about
eight persons
gathered around a table with a coffee- of teaset on it, whereas the
stove with
the kettle was placed on the ground near the lady of the house. On the
portraits
with only one figure on it, the table often holds attributes which are
related
to the profession or hobby of the model. Books or a desk with stationery
frequently occur. Rarely are a fish-bowl, binoculars or a bust of
William the
Silent. As a pet, we sometimes see a dog.
The models are always looking at the spectator. The
men are wearing wigs and
dressed in a tail coat with vest and tie, knee-breeches, black or white
stockings and shoes with a buckle. The women, often with one foot on a
stove,
are dressed in a gown with a scarf wrapped around the neckline (which
was very
popular in Holland at the time). The sleeves are falling up to or just
under the
elbow, whereas the forearms often are set up in mitaines. The head is
covered
with a large or small lace bonnet, according to the class to which the
woman
belonged. On the later portraits, the women are also portrayed wearing
a hat.
Because of the stereotyped lay-out of Jelgerhuis’ portraits, his
pastels do not
show a high grade of variation and all look alike. Also the more or
less fixed
colour scheme adds to a certain uniformity.
Rienk Jelgerhuis was a systematical man, who
completed nearly all his portraits
with a signature, by pencil, with the date behind it, usually in the
right
bottom. Day and month were included as per illustration nr. 1. He also
had the
habit to number his portraits in the other bottom. The lowest number I
ever
found was 262, on a portrait from 1778, and the highest one 7721 on a
portrait
from 1805. According to his own statement he made 7763 portraits. We
therefore
may conclude that he had some kind of a register that probably
mentioned, behind
each number, the name of the portrayed. These notes might help identify
the
portrayed people.
The largest part of this respectable number of works
has not been located.
Uptill now the residence of about 100 portraits is known, the majority
in
private property, mostly of relatives of the portrayed people. As far
as I have
been able to gather, the following Dutch musea and archives do possess
one or
more portraits:
Zaandlandse Oudh. Kamer Zaandijk 8
Lakenhal Leiden 5
His.Mus. Rotterdam 4
Gemeente Mus. Den Haag 3
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam 3
Groninger Museum 2
Cult. Centrum de Vaart Hilversum 2
Openluchtmuseum Arnhem 2
Iconografisch Bureau Den Haag 2
Dienst Verspreide Rijkscollectie 2
Gemeentearchief Brielle 2
Gelderse Kastelen Stichting 2
His. Museum Amsterdam 1
Zeeuws Museum Middelburg 1
Commanderie St. Jan Nijmegen 1
Gemeentearchief Rotterdam 1
Olifiers Family 3
Although the portraits do have a certain monotony and the quality can
not be
compared to that of the portraits of the great portraitists, they do
have
someting charming because of the simplicity and naiveté. On the
other hand,
according to a contemporary, Jelgerhuis was able to paint objects, like
a violin
or an other musical instrument, in such a way that when they were cut
out and
hung on the wall, they looked completely real. When he saw a nail in a
white
wall of an inn where he was staying, he often drawed a key around it
and had fun
when people tried to take it from the wall.
He also was well-read. He loved to read philosophical
works and quoted writers
as Priestley, Rousseau and Voltaire.
From a letter of his hand dated 1784 and addressed to
the Lecturer of the
University of Leiden at that time, mister J. le Francq van Berkhey, we
may
conclude that he has been a follower of the patriots but resigned his
membership
as one of the first upon the arrival of the Prussians in 1787. The
opening words
of this letter are as follows:
Mister J. le Francq van Berkhey,
These days I’m involved in the occupation of this
city (Amsterdam) and I don’t
have anything to do. I also was unable to travel around this summer
like I
usually do. The revolution of State Affairs made me think of you many
times. I
found your portrait and decided to engrave it in copper myself. I
thought I
might congratulate the good Sir on the triumph of the House of Orange
and
accompany these congratulations by the present of the copper plate and
some
prints.
In this letter he also mentions that his son is
becoming a rather good print-
maker and etcher. This son is called Johannes Jelgerhuis Rzn., who will
get in
touch later on with the theater because of this scenery-designs and
becomes a
celebrated actor himself in 1830. There is more known about the son
then about
the father.
-----------------------------------------------
Portrait Information : October 1999
A letter was posted to the Iconographich Bureau at
The Hague
Requesting information on Paintings from Rienk Jelgerhuis.
The conservator, and we quote, "was very pleased and surprised by the
colour-
copies of the pastel-portraits" because he recognized the hand of the
touring
portrait-painter Rienk Jelgerhuis (1729-1806).
Considering clothing and hair-dress, he could tell that the portraits
are made
during the last quarter of the 18th century.
So we now a s s u m e, and so does the conservator, that the eldest man
is
Pieter Olifiers (our number V-2), the younger one Petrus Antonius/Pieter
Antony (VI-3) and the lady Joanna Margaretha Olifiers-Olifiers (Pieter
Antony's
wife).
The bureau sent us a copy of an article on Rienk
Jelgerhuis with details on his
life and work. It seems that he travelled around the country to
portrait the
well-to-do middle-class people. He often added a table to his portraits
with one
or more objects on it that were symbolic for the hobby or profession of
his models
(medicine-boxes/doctors?!).
We furthermore learned that Jelgerhuis always signed
his portraits,
on the right bottom, by pencil, adding day-month and year. In the left
corner
he usually mentioned a number (he painted nearly 8000 portraits, a
hundred of
which are known and located, about 40 of them in Dutch musea).
The conservator tells us that the signature is indeed very hard to see,
even with
a special lamp.
Rienk Jelgerhuis used to date his portraits as
follows:
suppose he made one on august 15, 1785 his date would read as follows:
| 15 |
|---|
| 17 ----- 85 |
| 8 |
The Dates have been found on all 3 Paintings Below.
3 Olifiers Family Portraits By Rienk Jelgerhuis.
Note of Interest: According to my Late Father Christanus Olifiers 1916 - 2007
These Paintings Were Given to my Grand Father Johannes Simon Petrus Olifiers
By some one at a Local Priory after he had made many requests over years to obtain them.
When the Priest Retired In Holland, he was presented with them.
" minus the origional oak frames "
Petrus Antonius/Pieter Antony (VI-3)
Joanna Margaretha Olifiers-Olifiers (Pieter Antony's wife).
Pieter Olifiers (our number V-2)