(1594 Dordrecht 1651/2)

Portrait of Jan Jacobsz. Sam (1598-1669) at the age of 47. 1645.

Oil on panel.

Signed and dated centre right: Aetatis 47. JG (ligiert). Cuyp fecit 1645.

74.5 × 59 cm.

Provenance:
- probably collection Jan Sam, 1692 (together with the portrait of Catharina Wulfraet).
- probably collection Beudt, Arnheim, 1950/51 (together with the portrait of Catharina Wulfraet).
- Lempertz auction, Cologne, 17.11.1988, Lot 27.
- Private collection.
- Christie's auction, Amsterdam, 17.5.2004, Lot 17.
- European private collection.

Literature:
- A. Chong: Werkverzeichnis in Ausst. Kat. S. Paarlberg (et al): Jacob Gerritsz. Cuyp (1594–1652), Dordrecht 2002, p. 178, No. 67.
- R. Ekkart: Dutch and Flemish Portraits 1600-1800, Szépmüvészeti Múzeum Budapest, Leiden 2011, p. 40, fig. 8c, note 9.

Jan Jacobsz. Sam was the head of an important Dordrecht family. He married Catharina Wulfraet before 1631 and the portrait offered here was made as a pendant to the portrait of his wife. A pair of portraits by Jan Jacobsz. Sam at the age of 47 and Catharina Wulfraet at the age of 42, painted by Jacob Gerritsz. Cuyp, is listed in the estate of Jan Sam, a descendant of the couple, in 1692 and Rudi Ekkart assumes that this is the portrait offered here (see literature). The pair of portraits was inherited over several generations and is documented in the 1950s in the collection of the Beudt family in Arnheim, which was related to the Sam family. Thereafter the trace of the portrait of Catharina Wulfraet is lost, as only the portrait of a gentleman was offered in Cologne in 1988.