75

Egbert van Heemskerck (ca. 1634-1704)
The surgeon-barber Jacob Fransz. Hercules and his family. Signed and dated HKerck 1669. Canvas, 70 × 59 cm.

Amsterdam, Amsterdams Historisch Museum, cat.nr. 170, inv.nr.2121. Purchased in 1948 from the Governors of the Oranje Appel (Orange) Orphanage, Amsterdam, who probably received it from the heirs of Willem van Aelst Willemsz. after his death in 1774. The Oranje Appel was the meeting place of the Amsterdam Collegiants, a dissident sect founded in 1618, to which Jacob Fransz. Hercules and his family also belonged.

The museum preserves a detailed note by Willem van Aelst Willemsz. which was formerly attached to the back of the painting, and which identifies the figures: 'Portrayal of the family of my mother Geertruid Hercules. The person letting blood is Jacob Fransz. Hercules my grandfather, † 1707. The person being bled is his brother Thomas Hercules, † 1695. Holding the basin is Jacob Fransz.'s son Thomas Jacobsz. Hercules, my mother's brother...' and so forth. The man reading the newspaper is identified as 'the notorious Jan Knol,' a reformed criminal who became a pietist preacher, which got him into as much trouble as his former line of trade.

Hercules Fransz. was a musiclover and art collector, whose inventory included works by Rembrandt.

In the catalogue of the Amsterdam Historical Museum, the painting is said to be the only known depiction of the shop of a middle-class professional. The artist must have been a friend of the family. His usual work shows peasants and soldiers in taverns, though he also painted scenes of sorcery and temptations of St. Anthony. A certain thematic connection with this work can be sensed in his depictions of Quaker meetings in England, and one of a prisoner repenting. Not too long after painting the Hercules family, the artist left for England, where he became a. favourite of the Earl of Rochester, who shared van Heemskerck's interests in spiritualism and dissipation. As George Vertue put it in his Notebooks, 'He was a man of Humour, and for that Valu'd by the late Earl of Rochester.'

Wurzbach, vol. 1, pp.658-659. White 1982, under Heemskerck.