Object data
oil on canvas
support: height 82.5 cm × width 69.5 cm
outer size: depth 11.5 cm (support incl. frame)
Anthonie Palamedesz
Portrait of a Young Woman
1654
Inscriptions
- signature and date, lower left: Aº. 1654 / A. [.]alamedes [.]i[.]xi[.]
- inscription, lower left: A[.]T: 17
Technical notes
The support is a plain-weave canvas that has been lined, and has tacking edges on all sides. The ground is ochre-coloured. The paint layers were applied thinly with visible brushstrokes.
Scientific examination and reports
- technical report: W. de Ridder, RMA, 20 February 2003
Condition
Fair. The painted surface is considerably abraded, especially in the hands and face, and there are losses throughout. Retouchings, particularly in the hands, the background, the collar and the neck, are discoloured, as is the varnish.
Provenance
...; from Miss Eugenie N.C. Hasselman (1855-1937), Egmond aan den Hoef, fl. 1,000, to the museum, as a gift from the Fotocommissie, 1930
Object number: SK-A-3114
Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Stichting tot Bevordering van de Belangen van het Rijksmuseum
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Anthonie Palamedesz (Delft 1601 - Amsterdam 1673)
Anthonie Palamedesz was born in Delft in 1601 as a son of a gem-cutter. His teacher is unknown, but it has been suggested that he studied with Michiel van Mierevelt. In 1621, Palamedesz entered the Guild of St Luke, of which he was warden in 1635 and several times between 1653 and 1673. He was probably in Amsterdam around 1626, as he copied one or more of the sitters from a civic guard piece by Claes Pietersz Lastman (d. 1625) in that year.1 In 1630, he married Anna Joosten van Hoorendijk in Delft. In 1658, seven years after the death of his first wife, he married Aagje Woedewart. Palamedesz died in 1673 during a visit to Amsterdam. Among his pupils were his brother, the battle painter Palamedes Palamedesz I (1607-38), his son Palamedes Palamedesz (1633-1705) and Ludolf de Jongh (1616-79).
The bulk of Palamedesz’s oeuvre consists of genre scenes and portraits. There are few works that carry a date prior to 1632, but his earliest genre scenes, elegant companies in the open air in a style derived from Esaias van de Velde, can be dated to the mid-1620s. From the early 1630s onwards he painted numerous so-called merry companies in the manner of Dirck Hals and Pieter Codde. A document from 1636 reveals that he painted figures in a picture by Johannes van Vught, and it appears that he also did the same for Dirck van Delen, Bartholomeus van Bassen, and possibly for Anthonie de Lorme as well. Palamedesz’s military guardrooms were produced in the late 1640s and the 1650s. He continued painting genre scenes until the end of his life, but the majority of his dated works from 1650 onwards are portraits.
Gerdien Wuestman, 2007
References
Van Bleyswijck 1667, II, pp. 847-48; Houbraken I, 1718, p. 304, II, 1719, p. 33; Havard II, 1880, pp. 1-70; Bredius 1890, pp. 308-13; Haverkorn van Rijsewijk 1891a, p. 46; Sutton in Turner 1996, pp. 831-32; Rüger in New York-London 2001, pp. 318-20
Entry
As usual with Palamedesz’s individual portraits, the subject of this painting stands out against an undefined, greyish background. The as yet unidentified 17-year-old woman is depicted three-quarter length and holds a fan in her right hand. Although her dress is relatively sober, the strings of pearls around her neck and in her hair, and the dense design of the lace of her collar and cuffs, indicate wealth.2 Whether this portrait had a pendant is uncertain.
Palamedesz produced some of his best portraits in the mid-1650s.3 The present portrait lacks the elegance of some of the artist’s other works from this period, and it makes a rather flat impression, but account must be taken of the fact that its appearance is severely marred by a discoloured varnish layer.
Gerdien Wuestman, 2007
See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements
This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 230.
Collection catalogues
1934, p. 219, no. 1837b; 1976, p. 435, no. A 3114; 2007, no. 231
Citation
G. Wuestman, 2007, 'Anthonie Palamedesz., Portrait of a Young Woman, 1654', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.4929
(accessed 24 November 2024 00:17:11).