17th C Old Master Painting By Reinier De La Haye (c.1640-after 1695) Portrait Of A Gentleman

Reinier De La Haye (The Hague c.1640 – after 1695)

Portrait of a Gentleman

Oil on canvas, 40.4 x 34.4 cm (15.9 x 13.5 inch); presented in a modern ebonised frame with gilt slip of Dutch early 18th-century model

Indistinctly signed ‘R Haaye 1692’ (on the parapet on the right)

Provenance
Collection Jean-Joseph Chapuis (1765-1864); private collection, France, acquired there in 1975 by SØR Rusche Collection, until 2020

Literature
~ B. Lymant, Niederländische Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, vol. 1: Porträt, Liesborn 1985, pp. 14-17, repr.
~ H.-J. Raupp (ed.), Niederländische Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts der SØR Rusche-Sammlung, vol. I, Portraits, Münster/Hamburg/London 1995, pp. 86-87, no. 30, repr.
~ W. Pijbes, M. Aarts, M. J. Bok (et al.), At Home in the Golden Age, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Kunsthal), Zwolle 2008, p. 59, repr.

Exhibited
~ Liesborn, Museum Abtei Liesborn, temporary loan
~ At Home in the Golden Age, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Kunsthal), 9th Febuary – 18th May 2008, no. 42

***

Reinier de La Haye was born in The Hague around 1640 as the son of Hendrik de La Haye and Adriana Smulders. He was trained by the leading portrait painter Adriaen Hanneman, and in 1662 he was as member of the Guild of St Luke, suggesting he was working as an independent master by then. He moved to Utrecht around 1669, where he became a member of the guild in that year, and from 1672 to 1674 he worked in Antwerp.

De La Haye painted a small number of still-lifes, elegant genre scenes and equally elegant portraits of members of the upper echalons of society. Unlike his teacher Hanneman, who painted life size portraits, De La Haye generally produced small portraits, meticulously painted, which were increasingly favoured towards the end of the seventeenth century. Surviving portraits by De La Haye are comparatively rare and show his great talent at depicting rich silks and fabrics.

Paintings by De La Haye are preserved in many leading museums all over the world, including the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, the Museum der Stadt Gotha and the Staatliches Museum in Schwerin.