Gabriel Metsu, Woman reading a letter, oil on panel 52,5 x 40,2 cm National Gallery of Ireland Dublin, inv.no. ngi 4537

Although Heerman Witmont’s place of birth is unknown, his surname suggests that his family originally came from the east Frisian town of Witmond, present day Wittmund in Germany. Heerman himself may have been born there but several older dictionaries mention The Hague as place of birth. He posted banns in Delft on 8 May 1627 for his marriage on 30 May 1627 with Jacomijntje Gillisdr. van der Vos from Oosteynde.
He is recorded as father of Gillis (born 24 February 1630, died December 1630), Wessel (1632), Maria (1640), Gillis II, who became a potter (1642) and Abraham (1648) in records of the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft. Heerman’s  brother Olivier also lived in Delft, and married Maria Adriaens de Lange on 2 February 1642. He owned a  flourishing brandy distillery and lived in a house called Het Laersje near the Hague gate. A posthumous inventory of his estate includes two small paintings, a ‘still water’ and a ‘storm’ by his brother Heerman.  Three of Olivier Witmont’s sons  — Jacob,  Abraham and Willem — joined the Dutch East India Company  and  sailed to the Indies, where their uncle Leendert de Lange was in charge of VOC procurements. Heerman joined the guild of St Luke on 27 June 1644. He spent his whole life in Delft, specialising in pen paintings and drawings. He is not known to have worked in oils. An archive document describes him as an ‘art draughtsman’ (const teijckenaer). Heerman appears to have been reasonably successful. The Amsterdam  physician Jan Sysmus, who kept a register of artists between about 1669 and 1678, wrote that Heerman made ‘fine’ pen  drawings of ‘large ships’. A few large panels, doubtlessly made on commission, have survived. Witmont’s work is listed in numerous inventories from Delft. Harpert Tromp for instance, the brother of the naval hero Cornelis Tromp, had a drawing by him in his children’s nursery.  Witmont was also commissioned to illuminate several official letters to the Russian emperor in watercolours, and he may have designed tapestries as well. We know from a notarial document that Bartholomeus van der Gucht, the  son and assistant of the distinguished tapestry weaver Maximiliaan van der Gucht, agreed to sell him a ‘small house’ in the Rijselstraat ‘in return for drawings by [Witmont] to the value of 3oo guilders, without further cash payment. The house was later sold to Bartholomeus’s father. In 1676 Witmont received another modest commission from the Delft authorities, this time to design crests to serve as examples for a ‘figurative map’ of the city, which was published in1678. The prices his work fetched in the 17th century fluctuated considerably. The paintings mentioned above, which belonged to Olivier Witmont,  were sold for no more  than 5 guilders and 15 stuyvers.’ Isaack Elsevier, however, had a ‘drawing’ by Witmont that was valued at 30 guilders in 1650. Witmont’s work was also known in  Amsterdam. In 1653  Willem van de Velde the Elder was asked whether it would be possible to wash ‘certain drawings’ by the Delft master. Van de Velde replied in the negative. In his own day Witmont’s forename was spelt variously as Heerman, Heereman, Herman  and even Hendrick.  On one occasion he himself signed as Heere. On to February 1684 Heerman Witmont  was taken from his home  in the Zusterslaan to his last resting place in the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft.

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