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Jacob Gerritsz. Cuyp (1594-1651)
Michiel Pompe van Slingelandt (1643-1685) at the age of six. Signed and dated JCuyp fecit A° 1649, inscribed AEtatis 6/1649. Panel, 106.5 × 78 cm.

The Netherlands Office for Fine Arts, inv.nr.NK 1695 (on loan to Dordrechts Museum). Purchased by the state from the collection of Jonkvrouwe Anna Maria Backer, widow of Abraham Jacob Blaauw, whose father F. de Wildt was a direct descendant of the sitter.

The identity of the sitter was established only in 1982, by A. Kuiper-Ruempel and E. Wolleswinkel. Needless to say, young Michiel comes from a wealthy family. His father Matthijs Pompe was a burgher who became the first Baron of Slingelandt and Capelle, lord of Dordtsmonde, Carnisse, Waelsdorp etc. etc., as well as occupying high offices in the city government of Dordrecht. In 1644, he commissioned a typically burgher family group portrait from Hendrick Martensz. Sorgh in which the family sits in the parlour of their town house, with a view of Dordrecht on the wall behind them. Five years later, it was obviously his position in the gentry that Matthijs wished to bring out in this portrait of his son. To my eye he and his painter succeeded perfectly in this aim, but carping specialists in falconry have pointed out that the bird on the boy's hand is a kestrel, a type of falcon which has never been used in their royal sport.

Jacob Gerritsz. Cuyp was the leading Dordrecht painter of the day. His own position in Dordrecht society, as deacon and elder of the Walloon Church, was not inconsiderable. His son Aelbert was actually to serve on the high court of South Holland from 1679 to 1682 – not quite as influential an office as those occupied by the young sitter from 1672 on, but one which brought him closer to the social world of his father's patrons than one might have imagined.

Kuiper-Ruempel and Wolleswinkel 1982.