Artwork
The Superintendents of the Collegium Medicum in Amsterdam, 1683
The Superintendents of the Collegium Medicum in Amsterdam, 1683 is an unspecified painting by the Baroque artist Jacob Adriaensz Backer. It is held in the collection of the Rijksmuseum.
About this work
Overview
The setting includes a wall adorned with modest classical motifs.
The work is a seventeenth‑century group portrait depicting the members of Amsterdam’s Collegium Medicum, the municipal body responsible for supervising the quality of medicines. Rendered in oil on canvas, the composition shows seven figures in dark robes gathered around a table strewn with documents, while a single individual stands apart holding a ledger. The setting includes a wall adorned with modest classical motifs.
Subject & Meaning
The seated men represent the physicians Egbertus Veen, Bonaventura van Dortmont and Joan Verwout, together with the apothecaries Johannes de Vriest, his son, and Jacobus Danckertsz de Ry, while the standing figure is the guild clerk Sieuwert van Duynen. The inclusion of Apollo and a goddess on the background wall alludes to the classical ideals of healing and learned authority that underpinned the board’s function.
Technique & Style
Executed in the Dutch Baroque idiom, the painting employs a restrained palette of blacks and earth tones, emphasizing the sober attire of the officials. Light falls gently across the table, highlighting the papers and books that suggest the administrative nature of their work. The figures are rendered with careful attention to individual facial features, a hallmark of Dutch group portraiture of the period.
History & Provenance
Created in 1683, the portrait was most likely commissioned and financed by the members of the Collegium Medicum themselves, a customary practice for civic bodies wishing to document their status. The work has remained in the public domain, currently held by the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, where it forms part of the museum’s collection of Dutch civic group portraits.
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Artist & collection
Artist
Jacob Adriaensz Backer (1608 – 27 August 1651) was a Dutch Golden Age painter. He produced about 140 paintings in twenty years, including portraits, religious subjects, and mythological paintings. In his style, he was…
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