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This paper is concerned with Jan Mijtens’ Willem van den Kerckhoven and his Family(1652 and 1655, The Hague, Historisch Museum) which shows 15 children(five of them, deceased) around their parents in a pastoral landscape. Unlike many of 17th century Dutch portraits, this picture contains numerous motifs obviously charged with symbolical meaning, which provide clues to interpretation, It is also known that the family van den Kerckhoven belonged to the gently of The Hague, a fact that allows a better understanding of the portrait. However, a systematic interpretation of the picture is still required. The scholars have until now confined their analysis to the conventional symbolic motifs on the painting, and that merely on the basis of emblem literature of the time. Hence this study includes as its object of analysis other visual elements such as composition, posture and gesture of the figures, and other motifs which have been neglected so far. And it also consult the Bible and Ripa that had more general authority than emblem literature, as well as Cats’ Houwelick, a book for family life which enjoyed a great popularity at that time.
Jan Mijtens’ Willem van den Kerckhoven and his Family gives expression to ideas on family held in 17th century Nederland. It would convey by means of its various motifs and visual devices the following thoughts. First of all, the notions of parents and children could be expressed, such as fertility of the married couple(the tree behind the family and the grape vine, the bunch of grapes, pearl strings, the sea shell), their chastity(the bunch of grapes held by a son), fidelity(the dog springing on the lap of Mrs. van den Kerckhoven), and love(the peach, flowers such as myrtle, puppies and roses). It would also represent the concept of sexual hierarchy within the family, i.e. that between husband and wife(the husband sitting slightly higher than the wife, his more active gesture in contrast to the modest and elegant pose of the wife, their heraldic position of left and right, the professional virtue of the head of the family expressed by means of a peach with leaves), as well as that between sons and daughters(the posture of the eldest son, two daughters picking roses and making a garland). The aspects concerning the upbringing of children which played so an important role in 17th century family life would find their expression as well(the pastoral landscape setting, the tree growing upright in the middle, fruits such as the peach and the grape, the horse held by a servant). And finally, the family’s consciousness on their social status would also be deliberately conveyed by several features(the courts of arms of the couple’s families, the scale of the picture and the represented family members, their costume, their modest and well-mannered facial expressions and poses, the black servant and horse, the idealized pastoral landscape).