DIRECT CIRCLE OF DIRCK DIRCKSZ VAN SANTVOORT
Portrait of a Lady
oil on an octagonal panel
32 ¼ x 23 inches (83.2 x 59.5 cm.)
A young woman is viewed in a palatial interior underneath a partly raised curtain standing on a checkerboard floor. Her left hand rests on a table covered with an aqua colored rug while her right hand, on which her wedding ring is prominently displayed, holds a pair of gloves.[1] The curtain is intended to recall the dynastic tradition of the curtained structures under which royals sat on ceremonial occasions, and similarly the table harks back to royal portraiture that displayed tables laden with objects bearing dynastic associations.[2] Her gloves are further indicative of her wealth and status. In all likelihood this work was commissioned to commemorate her marriage.
Her costume dates the painting to the 1630s, and contemporary accounts confirm that at least in the first half of the seventeenth century sitters attached great importance to a truthful representation of their clothes and accessories as they were exorbitantly expensive.[3] Our sitter wears a black silk costume embroidered with a floral motif. A tight row of gold buttons runs down the center of her vlieger and stomacher. Her millstone ruff is densely pleated, and her deep cuffs are lined with bobbin lace covering her red tipped sleeves. Her hair falls over the diadem cap which is stylized in an identical curve.
[1] The index finger of the right hand is where wedding rings were worn by women in The Netherlands since becoming fashionable in the 1620s. See Frithjof van Thienen, The Great Age of Holland 1600-1660, George G. Harrap and Company Ltd., London, 1951, p. 22.
[2] Lorne Campbell, Renaissance Portraits, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1990, p. 109; Leticia Ruiz Gómez, “Court Portraits in the Spanish Monarchy (1530-1660)” in The Spanish Portrait from El Greco to Picasso, Museo National del Prado, 2004, p. 166.
[3] M. de Winkel, ‘”The Artist as Courtier, The ‘Portrayal’ of Clothing in the Golden Age”, in R. Ekkart and Q. Buvelot, eds., Dutch Portraits, The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals,exhibition catalog, The Hague, Mauritshuis, London, National Gallery 2007/2008, pp. 65-69.