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Lot Essay
We are grateful to Dr. Rudi Ekkart for confirming both the attribution and the identification of the sitter on the basis of photographs. He points out that Van Bleijswijk was a pharmacist from Delft who was a member of a family of Delft Regents and a younger son of a Burgomaster of the city. In 1645 he married Haesken van Crombrugghe who died five years later. In 1651 he embarked on a second marriage to Catharina van Well (1628-1722), both of whom sat to the Gorinchem painter Gerard van Kuijl (1604-1673) for the portraits now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv.A3861-2; formerly attributed to Gysbert van der Kuyl).
Maes depicts van Bleijswijk in the artist's preferred half-length format, hand on hip, soberly dressed in black, against a neutral background, in a manner that conforms fully to his portrait style of circa 1670. This is one of Maes's largest single figure portraits from the period lending the sitter a particularly authoritative air - an effect that is further enhanced by a slightly lowered view point and the man's dominance of the picture space.
Maes depicts van Bleijswijk in the artist's preferred half-length format, hand on hip, soberly dressed in black, against a neutral background, in a manner that conforms fully to his portrait style of circa 1670. This is one of Maes's largest single figure portraits from the period lending the sitter a particularly authoritative air - an effect that is further enhanced by a slightly lowered view point and the man's dominance of the picture space.