  Jacobus C. Kapteyn is regarded as one of the coryfees of the University of
Groningen. Part of his legacy is two paintings of him by Dutch painter Jan
Pieter Veth. One, showing him at his desk, decorates the Kapteyn Room in the
Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, and the other one, displaying him in academic
attire, is in the University's gallery of professors in the central Academy
Building. The first was offered to the Kapteyns on the occasion of his 40-th
anniversary as professor in 1918 and the second to the University after his
retirement in 1921.
  It has been suggested that there must have been a third portrait that now is
lost. Former director Adriaan Blaauw has proposed that the one in the Academy
Building actually was first offered in 1918, but at Mrs. Kapteyn's request
replaced by the one now in the Kapteyn Room. The first version was then later
adapted to the requirements of the gallery of professors by Veth himself by
overpainting it with academic attire. A preliminary trial version by Veth, in
the possession of Kapteyn's greatgrandson, shows what it would have looked like
before the adaption.
  The following reports on new evidence: the biography of Jan Veth that
historian Johan Huizinga, friend of Veth, wrote, and letters Veth wrote to his
wife while he was working on these paintings. This provides strong support of
Blaauw's sequence of events with a few modifications. No third painting has
ever been produced.
