In this half-length portrait, one of a pair, Jacob Willemsz Delff the Younger portrayed Salomon van Schoonhoven (1617-1653), and in the pendant, his wife Volckera van Berestyen (1624-1653).  The son of an Amsterdam merchant, Salomon was baptised in the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam on 7 December 1617. He went on to become Lord Lieutenant and Chief Dike Reeve of Putten, in Gelderland.  In 1642, he married Volckera van Beresteyn, who came from a prominent Delft family.  Volckera’s grandfather was the enormously wealthy Delft burgomaster Paulus Cornelisz van Beresteyn (1548-1625). 

More often than not pendant portraits of this type were commissioned to commemorate a couple’s wedding, but here the date of 1646 inscribed on the panels indicates that they were painted four years later.  Husband and wife are both presented in reserved, but costly and fashionable costumes of the mid-1640s.  Sporting a neat moustache and shoulder-length hair, Salomon wears a black doublet, richly embellished with a scrolling motif in gold thread, and a flat white collar trimmed with wide bobbin lace.  The seam of the sleeve is open down the front, revealing a white undershirt.  Volckera is dressed in a gown of black material decorated with a small geometric pattern and strips of gold braid down the front.  Both her flat white shoulder collar and fine linen kerchief are trimmed with wide bands of bobbin lace, as are her cuffs.  As was the fashion of the day, her hair is worn loose on either side of her face, falling to the shoulders, and she is richly adorned with jewellery and strings of pearls. 

Following the established conventions for marriage portraiture, the pendants were designed to hang side by side, with the man on the left and the woman on the right, so that the couple turn slightly inwards to face each other.  From the point of view of the sitters, the husband thus assumes his traditional place of precedence, according to the laws of heraldry, on the dexter (right-hand) side, while his bride takes up her place on the sinister (left-hand) side.  This arrangement underscores the contrast between the active man and the passive woman and reflects seventeenth-century Dutch views of marriage as a partnership based on mutual affection but directed by the man. 

It was natural that the couple should have turned to a local artist, especially one who belonged to the venerable tradition of Delft portraitists.  Jacob Willemsz Delff the Younger came from a renowned family of Delft artists.  The son of the engraver Willem Delff (1580-1638), he followed in the footsteps of his two illustrious grandfathers, both portrait painters.  His paternal grandfather, Jacob Willemsz Delff the Elder (c. 1550-1601), a native of Gouda, settled in Delft in 1582 and became the town’s leading portraitist in the last quarter of the sixteenth century.  In 1592, he received a commission from Volckera’s grandfather Paulus Cornelisz van Beresteyn to paint his portrait, now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam[i].  On his maternal side, Delff’s grandfather was the celebrated portraitist Michiel van Mierevelt (1566-1641). From his appointment in 1607 as court painter to the stadholder Prince Maurits, Mierevelt enjoyed a stellar career.  Not only was he the favourite portraitist in court circles in The Hague, but he also enjoyed great success with the prominent citizens of Delft, foreign diplomats, senior army and naval officers, and government officials.  He ran a busy workshop with many assistants, and it was here that the young Jacob Delff received his training.  Mierevelt’s own two sons, Peter (1596-1623) and Jan (1604-1633), also trained as painters, but both predeceased their father, leaving Jacob Delff to take over the family business when the old man died in 1641.  Shortly before his death, Mierevelt painted himself seated at his easel, on which stands a portrait of his heir and successor, the young Jacob Delff[ii]. 

Jacob Delff duly took over the family business, completing the portraits left unfinished by his grandfather and taking on new commissions.  Unlike Mierevelt, he had few clients outside his hometown, but he was kept busy for the rest of his career capturing the likenesses of the local elite.  Among his most important commissions was the civic guard portrait of the Officers of the White Banner, painted in 1648[iii].  In 1654, he was commissioned by the Delft vroedschap (town council) to restore his grandfather Jacob Delff the Elder’s civic guard painting which had been damaged by the explosion of the town’s gunpowder magazine that year. 

BIOGRAPHY

Jacob Willemsz Delff the Younger was born in Delft in 1619 into a family of artists.  His father was the engraver Willem Jacobsz Delff (1580-1638), and his grandfathers on both sides of his family were portrait painters.  His paternal grandfather was Jacob Willemsz Delff the Elder (c. 1550-1601), while his maternal grandfather was Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt (1566-1641).  His uncles Cornelis Jacobsz Delff (c. 1571-1643) and Rochus Jacobsz Delff (c. 1576-1617) were also painters.  The younger Jacob Willemsz Delff was trained by Michiel van Mierevelt, who ran a busy workshop, which included his sons Pieter (1596-1623) and Jan (1604-1633).  However, both sons predeceased their father and when Mierevelt died in 1641, Jacob Delff took on the workshop and ran the family enterprise.  In 1641, Delff joined the local painters’ guild, and on 22 January 1642, he married Anna van Hoogenhouck.  The couple had at least five children: the two eldest daughters died in infancy, but three other daughters, Geertruyt, Margriet & Anna, appear in a group portrait painted by their father around 1660[iv].  In addition to being an artist, Delff was a member of the Council of Forty and the Harbourmaster of Delft.  He died on 12 June 1661 and was buried in the Oude Kerk in Delft five days later.