MuseoMag: MuseoMag 2022_02

MuseoMag 2022_02

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Title:: MuseoMag

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Title:: MuseoMag 2022_02

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Title:: Reunited after 150 years: Adriaen and Maria van Leyden, husband and wife, find each other again at the MNHA

9 02 ‘ 2022 museomag FINE ARTS tion to the man’s portrait, an accompanying woman’s portrait was kept in Zypendaal Castle, the effigy of a wife portrayed by the same painter at the same time. That portrait, too, was provided with a family crest and documented with provenance data that made identification possible. The documentation of Zypendaal Castle mentioned for both paintings: „This work is a copy of an older painting“. Commissioning painted copies after original portraits was a well-known phenomenon in distinguished, child- rich families. The portraits of father and mother usually passed to the eldest son, along with the other family portraits that (just like our family photos now) never formed part of an art collection and were therefore rarely, if ever, sold or disposed of as art. If there were other children who liked to have a portrait of father and mother (or grandpa and grandma) in the house, they would have a copy painted. As time went by and not all descendants knew who the depicted family members were, it became more important to add names or coats of arms. The latter also had a func- tion in families with noble aspirations, who wanted to emphasize the importance of their family history with a so-called ‘Ahnengalerie’ (Portrait gallery of ancestors) and use it as an argument for the said aspirations. A PERSONAL FRIEND OF CHARLES V THE EMPEROR Further research in the Central Bureau for Genealogy in The Hague, on the basis of the family coats of arms and data from the Zypendaal documentation, confirmed that the portrayed man and woman are Mr. Adriaen Dircksz van Leyden (c. 1510/20-1562), baron of the Holy Roman Empire and his wife, Maria Gerritsdr van Leyden, née van Loo (1524/25-1562). Adriaen van Leyden belonged to one of the most prosperous and ambitious families in the Northern Netherlands. The Van Leydens bought castles and estates that suited the status they were after, and they accumulated important political offices in municipal governments. Adriaen, for instance, was secretary and pensionary of the wealthy merchant city of Delft. He had friends in high circles, up to the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Charles V, with whom he was apparently a personal friend. Shortly after Charles V became lord of Detail from portrait of Maria van Leyden, c. 1560.

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