Generally considered to be Troost’s masterpiece, this portrait represents the renowned eighteenth-century art collector Jeronimus Tonneman and his son. Although Tonneman is primarily famous for his collection of paintings by Dutch masters of the seventeenth century, he was also an avid patron of contemporary artists, including Troost. Tonneman is represented here as a man of culture. On the table lies Karel van Mander’s Schilder-Boeck, one of the most significant treatises on the art of painting published in the Low Countries during the seventeenth century. The stucco relief of Time Revealing Truth and Banishing Slander is included here for a moral purpose, as is the roundel over the mantelpiece depicting Mercury Killing Argus, a story linked by Van Mander to the pursuit of wealth and empty fame. Ironically, young Jeronimus was to stab his mistress and flee Holland in 1637.
March 2016
Cornelis Troost en zijn tijd, Museum Boymans - Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 1948
Drie Eeuwen Portret in Nederland, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1952
European Masters of the eighteenth century, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1954-1955
Centenary Exhibition, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, October - December 1964
Dutch Masterpieces from the eighteenth century, Institute of Arts, Minneapolis; Museum of Art, Toledo; Museum of Art, Philidelphia, 1971-1972
Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Ireland, National Gallery, London, 1985
Master European Paintings from the National Gallery of Ireland, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 6 June - 9 August 1992; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, 19 September - 6 December 1992; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 13 January - 28 March 1993; IBM Gallery, New York, 27 April - 26 June 1993