Jan Sluijters (1881-1957), `Portugeesche Bedelaar`, oil on canvas, 117x82 cmPainted on April 5th of 1933., Exhibited:-Amsterdam, Kunstzaal van Lier, `Hollandsche Schilders op Reis`.Literature:-A. Plasschaert and A.E. van den Tol, `J. Raphäel bij van der Pelt - Van Daalhoff bij Kleykamp - Jan Sluyters bij van Lier`, in De Groene Amsterdammer, 8 July 1933.-NRC, 20 October 1933, ill. p. 2: `... Buitendien zeer goed ziet, dat Sluyters in een uitnemend figuurstuk, uitbeelding van een Portugeeschen bedelaar, werk van verleden zomer en dus mede een der nieuwste - het was in Juli jl. op de tentoonstelling "Hollandsche schilders op reis" in de Kunstzaal Van Lier te Amsterdam [...]`.-Jacqueline de Raad, Digital catalogue raisonné, ‘Oeuvrecatalogus van de schilder Jan Sluijters’, RKD Studies 1998. Provenance:-With Kunstzaal Van Lier, Amsterdam/Blaricum, 1933.-Kunstzaal Esher Surrey, The Hague, October 1933.-With Kunsthandel M.L. de Boer, Amsterdam, inv. no. 12870., signed and dated `Jan Sluijters 33` (upper left); signed and titled `Jan Sluijters Portugeesche Bedelaar` (on the stretcher), There exists an interesting photograph of Jan Sluijters posing in his Amsterdam studio. We see Sluijters as an already well-established painter, confidently seated on a couch covered in colourful exotic carpets, wearing his painter’s work coat. There is a striking, huge painting on a painter’s easel next to him, representing an old man with distinguished facial features, but in ragged clothes. The painting is known as ‘The Portugeesche Bedelaar’. Although Jan Sluijters very much disliked travelling, he undertook several study trips. In the spring of 1933 he went with his wife, Greet, to Portugal to join his friend and colleague Ernst Leyden and his wife Karin who were renting a house for a couple of months. There has been much speculation about how “The Portugese Beggar” was created. Some have even suggested that the two artists would have painted the large canvas together, as for a while Ernst Leyden used to work in the same loose style as Sluijters. However, there are two interesting publications of 1934 with notes and drawings by Karin Leyden, who was an accomplished artist herself. She writes in detail about her stay in Portugal and illustrates her story with drawings. One of the drawings shows Jan Sluijters and Ernst Leyden viewed from behind, painting, with each artist standing before his own easel. On the left side of the drawing is the model for our beggar, clearly the same as the one that we find in oil on the canvas on sale: same position, same physical features. With the help of Karin Leyden’s drawing we are able to date the start of the painting: April 5, 1933. Sluijters must have finished the painting quite quickly, for once home in the Netherlands, it can already be admired in July 1933 at Kunsthandel van Lier, Amsterdam, as part of the exhibition “Hollandsche Schilders op Reis”. Later, in autumn of that same year, the painting can be seen in Kunstzaal Esher Surrey, The Hague. The reviews are very favourable and especially the “Portugese Beggar” receives much praise by the art critics, calling the work ‘‘Powerful and expressive” and applauding Sluijters’ use of colour. All this is more than correct: with the “Portugese Beggar”, Sluijters shows us once again his supremacy in rendering a human being to canvas. In a simple and subdued colour scheme, in accordance with the unpretentiousness of the beggar, Sluijters has depicted an impressive figure. We see not just a simple beggar with pleading open hand and the obligatory attributes like a cane and ragged clothes, we also see a human being with noble features and a history to tell. It is instantly clear why Sluijters became one of the most asked-for portrait painters of the last century. Sources:-Jacqueline de Raad a.o., ‘Jan Sluijters: 1881-1957’, Laren 2011.-Karin Leyden, ‘Portugeesch Paradijs’, 1934.-Karin Leyden, ‘Uit een brief van Karin Leyden’, In: Op de Hoogte, geïllustreerd maandblad, August 1933, pp. 241-243.