Dirck Jacobsz, the son of Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen was one of the first artists to specialize in portraiture. In 1529 he also painted the first portrait of a civic guard association, which was to became a Dutch speciality. He was later eclipsed by Anthonis Mor of Utrecht, court painter to the Spanish Netherlands.
The middle part from 1529 contains seventeen portraits, while the later added side pieces represent seven people each. All figures are depicted half-length or bust, with a black beret and mostly with gesticulating hands.
The picture shows the middle part of a larger painting. This middle part from 1529 contains seventeen portraits, while the later added side pieces represent seven people each. All figures are depicted half-length or bust, with a black beret and mostly with gesticulating hands. The individuality of each figure is conveyed through the use of naturalistic detail and difference in pose. Their gestures and gazes are not aimed toward one another, but directed elsewhere, toward the viewer, standing beyond the frame of the image.
Dirck Jacobsz, the son of Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen was one of the first artists to specialize in portraiture. In 1529 he also painted the first portrait of a civic guard association, which was to became a Dutch speciality. He was later eclipsed by Anthonis Mor of Utrecht, court painter to the Spanish Netherlands.
This group portrait is one of the earliest examples of this genre in the Netherlands. The likenesses of 17 marksmen are arranged mechanically in three rows. Their membership in the corporation - a kind of volunteer militia - is indicated by the red and blue capes. The corporation’s badge, an eagle’s talon, appears on the cape of one of the front-row figures.
The escutcheon hanging from the branch tells us that this is Pompeius Occo: a man from East Friesland who had become an Amsterdam banker and merchant with international connections, a humanist and a prominent citizen, and also King Christian II of Denmark’s diplomatic representative in the Netherlands. Jacobsz portrayed the banker as a self-assured individual. His attributes - a skull and a carnation - are references to Occo’s religion, in which this earthly existence is merely transient but there is hope of eternal life. This picture of Occo is the first Renaissance portrait by an Amsterdam painter.
