Pair of portraits of Willem Verduyst and Agatha Jansdr. van Vianen

General information
Original location Utrecht (where the sitters were from)
Current location Unknown
Provenance Mentioned by Buchelius
Artist Unknown (possibly Antonie Mor, who had painted other members of the Utrecht confraternity of Jerusalem pilgrims in the 1540's)
Date After 1550 (year of pilgrimage of the couple)
Visual elements
Number of pilgrims 2
Depicted pilgrims
Personal information
Name Willem Verduyst
Social status / profession Member of the Utrecht city council (1563-1564)
Text Willem Verduyst is seer verblijt // int aensien der stede vuytvercoren // daer ons Christus hij sij gebenedijt // heeft door zijn dierbaer bloet bevrijt // die van te vooren waren verloren
Pilgrimages
Year of pilgrimage to Jerusalem 1550 (see remarks)
Death
Year of death 1578/9
Location of grave Utrecht, parish church of Our Lady (Buurkerk)
Personal information
Name Agatha Jansdr. van Vianen
Text Agatha Jansdr is doorgetreden // tHeylige lant ende Verduyst haren man // daer Christus heeft geleden // sund doot ende helle bestreden // soo dat wij sijn verlost daer van
Pilgrimages
Year of pilgrimage to Jerusalem 1550 (see remarks)
Death
Year of death 1611
Location of grave Utrecht, parish church of Our Lady (Buurkerk)
Additional information
General remarks It is unknown, but very likely, that this portrait ever existed. The only notion we have of its existence is a transcription of the texts by Buchelius. He did not mention, however, where he got the texts from. That it is likely that these texts once accompanied a portrait of a member of the Utrecht confraternity of Jerusalem pilgrims, is based on the similarity of the text with the poems inscribed on the Utrecht confraternity portraits by Van Scorel and Mor, and the fact that the Jerusalem pilgrimage is clearly mentioned in it. If this was indeed the case, it is a pity they were lost, because this is the only text on a double portrait which mentions the woman to have visited Jerusalem. Visual evidence could have answered the question whether woman were mostly indeed not portrayed as Jerusalem pilgrims, even if they had undertaken the journey.
Wijburg mentiones that the couple had traveled to Jerusalem in 1550. It is unclear on which this is based.
Willem Verduyst and Agatha van Vianen married in 1548.
Literature
  • Buchelius, Arnoldus, Genealogieën van aanzienlijke Noord- en Zuid-Nederlandse familiën, met afbeeldingen in kleuren en wapens (MS Utrecht, University Library, 1780, 17th century), vol. 1, f. 92v.
  • Wijburg, W.A., 'Antonie Mor van Dashorst, "vermaard schilder van Utrecht," en zijn naaste familie,' De Nederlandsche Leeuw 76 (1959), cols. 230-248, col. 241, note 59
  • Tongerloo, Louise van, 'Grablegung und Totengedenken bei Pilgerbruderschaften in Utrecht, mit einer Neuinterpretation von Scorels und Mors Bildnisreihen von Jerusalemfahrern,' in: Truus van Bueren en Andrea van Leerdam (eds.), Care for the here and the hereafter: memoria, art and ritual in the Middle Ages (Turnhout 2005), pp. 221-247, p. 238
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