Juriaen POOL II
Amsterdam, baptised 17 January 1666–Amsterdam, 6 October 1745
Dutch painter and engraver
Juriaen Pool II was the son of Jurriaan Pool I (c. 1618–69), who came from Schweinitz in Saxony-Anhalt (Germany) and worked in Amsterdam as a medallist and silversmith. Both the younger Juriaen’s parents died when he was only three, and he entered the Amsterdam orphanage, where he was eventually able to train to become a portrait painter. He first worked in Amsterdam, then moved to The Hague in 1709. He married Rachel Ruysch (1664–1750), one of the most famous Dutch flower painters, and they were both in the service of the Elector Palatine Johann Wilhelm von der Pfalz (1658–1716) in Düsseldorf from 1703 to 1713 [1].1 From 1716 they lived in Amsterdam.
LITERATURE
Thieme & Becker, xxvii, 1933, p. 256; Koldeweij 2012; Van der Molen 2017; Ecartico, no. 6082: http://www.vondel.humanities.uva.nl/ecartico/persons/6082 (March 27, 2017); RKDartists&, no. 64238: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/64238 (March 27, 2017).
1
and Rachel Ruysch Juriaen Pool (II)
Self portrait of Juriaen Pool II (1666-1745) with Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750) and their son Jan Willem Pool, 1708-1716
Düsseldorf, Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf
Circle of Juriaen Pool II
DPG501 –Head of a Woman
1690–95; canvas, 47.9 x 40.6 cm
PROVENANCE
At Dulwich College by 1890.
REFERENCES
Sparkes & Carver 1890, p. 37, no. 71; Richter & Sparkes 1892, p. 139, no. 71; Richter & Sparkes 1905, p. 141, no. 71; Cook 1914, p. 274, no. 501 (artist unknown); Cook 1926, p. 254; Cat. 1953, pp. 46, 61 (unknown); Murray 1980a, p. 303 (unknown); Beresford 1998, p. 296 (Dutch School); Jonker & Bergvelt 2016, p. 157 (circle of Juriaen Pool); RKD, no. 281751: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/281751 (March 27, 2017).
TECHNICAL NOTES
Plain-weave linen canvas. Thick reddish ground preparation. Glue-paste lined. Fine all-over craquelure (predominantly grid-pattern) with some slight blistering and tenting with vulnerable areas of incipient flaking. The weave of the original canvas is quite noticeable on the picture surface. There is some damage with very disfiguring darkened retouching obscuring the mouth, nostrils and proper right side of the woman’s neck. Blister losses in the hair, shoulder, and background have been retouched without being filled. Much of the background has been repainted and appears darkened. The varnish is very discoloured and yellow. Previous recorded treatment: 1988, examined, Courtauld Institute of Art by S. Collins.
RELATED WORKS
1) Juriaen Pool II, Portrait of Maria Post [1643–1720], Mother of Rachel Ruysch [1664–1750], signed Pool, c. 1710–15, canvas, 80 x 63 cm. BvB, Rotterdam, 1672 [2].2
2) Juriaen Pool II, James Hamilton (1659–1729), Lord Pencaitland, Judge, canvas, 78.9 x 63.9 cm. Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh PG 1838 [3].3
The authorship of this portrait is uncertain. Rudi Ekkart suggested its resemblance to the style of Juriaen Pool II in an oral communication to Richard Beresford in 1997, and provisionally dated it to the first half of the 1690s, which seems reasonable on the basis of the costume. The reason for the attribution is probably its similarity to the portrait Pool made of his mother-in-law some ten to twenty years later (Related works, no. 1) [2]. However the only picture by Juriaen Pool in the UK seems to be of much higher quality (Related works, no. 2) [3].
How and why the picture came to be in Dulwich is unknown. It was presumably bequeathed to the College before 1890, but no documentation has been found.
DPG501
circle of Juriaen Pool (II)
Head of a woman, 1690-1695
Dulwich (Southwark), Dulwich Picture Gallery, inv./cat.nr. DPG501
2
Juriaen Pool (II)
Portrait of Maria Post (1643-1720), mother of the painter Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750), first half 1710s
Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, inv./cat.nr. 1672; 57
3
Juriaen Pool (II)
Portrait of James Hamilton, Lord Pencaitland, 1659 - 1729, Judge, after 1680
Edinburgh (city, Scotland), Scottish National Portrait Gallery, inv./cat.nr. PG 1838
Notes
1 There is a portrait of the two of them (painted by them) with their son Jan Willem in the Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf: see RKD, no. 228715: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/228715 (March 27, 2017).
2 RKD, no. 12793: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/12793 (March 27, 2017); according to the BvB website it is a portrait of Rachel Ruysch and can be dated to 1710–20. See https://www.boijmans.nl/en/collection/artworks/2583/portrait-of-the-painter-rachel-ruysch (Jan. 23, 2021); Ekkart 1995, pp. 168–9, no. 57. According to Tom van der Molen (email to Ellinoor Bergvelt, 3 April 2017 (DPG501 file), for which many thanks; it is more plausible that this is Maria Post, given the age of the woman depicted; also Berardi 1998, pp. 29–30.
3 RKD, no. 283682: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/283682 (April 10, 2017); https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/james-hamilton-16591729-lord-pencaitland-judge-214488 (July 9, 2020).