‘Who this Portrait Depicts is (yet) Unknown’:

John Greenwood and his Portrait of a Captain Sailing to Suriname

Abstract

In 1984, the Stichting Cultuurgeschiedenis van de Nederlanders Overzee (CNO) purchased a portrait of a then unknown captain, painted in 1760 by the artist John Greenwood (Boston 1729-1792 Margate). Since 1994, the portrait has been in the collection of the Rijksmuseum. Until now, the identity of the sitter has remained unknown. The study of Greenwood’s notebook, preserved in the collection of The New York Historical, has made it possible to identify the person in the portrait as Dirk Simonsz (1727-1768), the captain of the ship on which John Greenwood travelled from Suriname to Amsterdam in 1758. This identification is further substantiated by research in the Simonsz family archive in Zaandam and other sources.